Don’t wait for prosperity to care for the things important to you.

In addition to the scouts of the Privy Council, there were also some suspicious figures who gathered in Longhuatown in the afternoon.

Han Qian didn't worry about this, no matter how bad it was, he could get through it tonight, but the key was that Menxia Province hadn't used the seal on the Ministry of Officials today, and what the situation would be tomorrow was completely beyond Han Qian's guess and control.

Today is the day after the wedding of the three princes, Yang Yuanpu wants to bring the bride into the palace to face the saint, and tomorrow according to the plan, the three princes will take the bride to the Taimiao Temple to worship the ancestors, and Guo Rong should accompany him; However, if it is not possible to send someone to infiltrate the cantonment military mansion today and tomorrow to find out the situation, Zhao Mingting is very likely to ask Guo Rong, who is the military envoy of the Longque Army, to directly lead people into Taowuji the day after tomorrow.

At that time, no matter how arrogant Han Qian and the others were, they would not be able to openly prevent Guo Rong from leading people into the cantonment military mansion.

However, at this time, Han Qian also developed the calmness of doing his best and obeying the destiny of heaven, and after making some back-hand preparations that could be delayed as much as possible, he would not be restless.

Li Zhihe left all the people around him in the cantonment military mansion, it was not safe for him to return to the city at night, if he didn't want to go to Longhuabu to meet Chai Jian, he could only stay in the cantonment military mansion for the night.

Shen Yang, who has always been diligent, naturally realized the tense situation of the rumors, and specially stayed in the city today and did not come to Taowuji.

After evening, in order to avoid people's eyes and ears, and to facilitate Yao Xishui's participation in his affairs, Li Zhihe called Zhou Yuan, a military worker in the cantonment camp, to the villa to talk about the construction of the fortress.

Zhou Yuan has a big opinion of Han Qian.

He joined the army as a worker, and the construction of the walled city, roads, ditches, and houses should be the things he assisted in the affairs presided over by Shen Yang, especially the casting of armor and weapons, which was directly under his control, but after rectifying the chaos in the early stage, Zhou Yuan wanted to officially requisition skilled craftsmen and prepare for the construction of the craftsman camp.

In matters such as building embankments, digging ditches and stacking fields, and isolating the source of the epidemic, Shen Yang also paid more attention to consulting Han Qian's opinion, and called Zhou Yuan, the construction official, somewhat inconsistent with his name, and was put on hold there.

Zhou Yuan was full of opinions, and he couldn't tear his face with Han Qian, but secretly instigated Zhang Qian and Guo Liang to recruit people to the nearby lime kiln, so as not to let the Qiuhushan Courtyard monopolize the supply of lime to the cantonment military government.

Han Qian wanted to take over the construction of the fortress, but Zhou Yuan naturally strongly opposed it, and the result of the final discussion was that the cottage workshop provided the city bricks needed to build the fortifications and outposts; And Zhou Yuan joined the army as a worker, shouldering the responsibility of building the cantonment military mansion, how could he take over the construction of the building, otherwise he would really become a decoration in the Longque Army.

Han Qian actually wanted to contract the burning of bricks.

Jinling has a history of burning coal thousands of years ago - coal is also a thousand years after the industrial system wants to develop by leaps and bounds, there must be a large amount of cheap fuel coal that can be mined and supplied - even in Baohua Mountain there is a record of mining coal for firewood.

It's just that near Jinling City, high-quality coal seams directly exposed to the surface are extremely rare, and even if there are, they have long been mined out in the long history of hundreds or even thousands of years; And those shallow coals, even those coal seams that can be mined only by digging more than ten meters of wells, are also a huge and difficult project for the world.

There is a mountain col about seven or eight miles deep in the mountain behind the Qiuhu Mountain Courtyard, there are traces of coal mining by the ancients hundreds of years ago, but the surface layer of coal and stone that is easy to mine has long been mined, plus hundreds of years of rock weathering, landslide siltation, etc., after preliminary survey, the workshop needs to drill a shaft seven or eight zhang deep to mine the coal seam buried deep underground.

However, for a craftsman with an annual output of 120,000 quintals of lime and an annual consumption of 6 million catties of charcoal, mining shallow coal seems difficult and must be done.

Traditional brick making, every 1,000 bricks burned, need 4,000 catties of charcoal, the consumption of charcoal is more terrifying, which is also the vast majority of houses in the world are reluctant to use green bricks and small tiles, Han Qian will burn bricks to contract, in order to further dilute the cost of mining shallow coal, so that more specific economies of scale.

If you don't know how expensive firewood, rice, oil, and salt are not at home.

Han Qian initially helped his father write "Epidemic Water Sparseness", thinking that it had been considered quite thoroughly, but when it was actually implemented, he still found a large number of problems, one of which was that in order to isolate the source of the epidemic, it was proposed to strictly prohibit the infected and hungry people from drinking raw water, which was simple at first.

Not to mention bloodsucking eggs, a large number of microorganisms, parasites and even germs breed in ditches and streams, and boiling water before drinking is probably the most effective means to prevent infectious diseases and miasma in the world, but the problem is that not to mention the starving, yellow-faced and thin-skinned destitute families, for the civilians in the world, insist on drinking hot water, and burn thousands of catties of firewood every year, which is also a very heavy burden.

Taowu Ji lacks land and few fields, and firewood such as wheat straw is not enough to burn, but fortunately, the labor force is relatively abundant, and people can be organized to go into the mountains to cut firewood.

Han Qian fused the memories of Zhai Xinping in the dream, but found that not all memories were correct, and many times there would be errors due to personal cognitive limitations, for example, in Zhai Xinping's memory, he felt that the mountains and wilderness of the world should be lush with trees, but in fact, the forest coverage around Jinling City was positively low.

Han Qian later analyzed that this was actually the military, political, cultural and even economic center of Jiangnan East and Jiangnan West for six or seven hundred years, and when the population of the city was not less than 100,000, the long-term cutting of firewood and the construction of pavilions and houses had almost cut down the nearby hills and mountains.

After Han Daoxun set up the Xiaqiuhu Mountain Annex, he strictly forbade the tenant farmers to go into the mountains to cut firewood and hunt, by no means to pity the tenant farmers, but he really couldn't bear to find a few wooded hills and be cut down bare.

Of course, the three or four thousand acres of forests in the mountains behind the villa have almost been cut down in the past half a year, and Han Qian will no longer organize people to mine charcoal, and the cost of burning bricks and lime will become higher and higher.

The main reason for mining coal is that the initial investment cost is too high.

The soil is soft, the groundwater layer is shallow, there are heavy rains from time to time in summer and autumn to wash the earth, digging nearly 20 meters of the shaft, all have to use solid wood to frame the well wall, and enter the coal seam to excavate, dig wherever you have to use a wooden frame to support where.

However, wood such as pine, elm, locust and cypress clings to the wet and soft mud wall, and is very easy to rot.

Carbonization treatment can prevent corrosion to a certain extent, but the supporting force of the carbonized wood will be seriously weakened; The cost of soaking wood in cooked tung oil is also high.

In short, it is definitely expensive to deal with this pile of problems, but Han Qian believes that as long as it forms a scale, charcoal is much cheaper than charcoal.

In fact, the historical trajectory has not changed, and in the next one or two hundred years, it is also the general trend to replace charcoal with coal, and even in the world, Xu, Chu and other places with more surface coal seam resources have used charcoal to make iron on a large scale.

It's just that the iron produced in these places is crispy, and it is difficult to make good weapons, and the world does not know why.

After talking about things, Li Zhihe wanted to stay with Zhou Yuan in the military mansion below.

Yao Xishui wanted to avoid people's eyes and ears, and he couldn't go directly to the military mansion to stay overnight, but he disguised himself as a man and sent Li Zhihe and Zhou Yuan out of the villa with Han Qian.

At night, the moon is bright and the stars are sparse, and the mountains near and far are quite clear in front of you.

Of course, no matter how bright the stars and moon are on a clear night, the visibility is also limited, and you can only see a faint figure three or four hundred feet away with a monocular; The more peripheral situation can only be known through other means.

Li Zhihe is long in the army, diligent in reading, these years with his father in the south and north war, is one of the core generals of Li Yuyi's line, and his knowledge is also extremely broad, Han Qian and his Tiannan Haibei discussion style figures, quite compatible.

Before sending Li Zhihe and Zhou Yuan to the military mansion, Han Qian was about to return to the villa with Yao Xishui, and two fast horses galloped, but it was Chai Jian's spies sent back from Longhuabu, kneeling on the ground and saying:

"Guo Rong went out of the city late at night and rushed to Taowuji with Zhao Mingting."

"They're moving so fast!" Han Qian also thought that Guo Rong would accompany the three princes and his bride into the palace today and tomorrow, and he would not rush to Taowuji with Zhao Mingting until the morning after tomorrow at the earliest.

Zhao Mingting's speed is really fast enough, he should have noticed that his father's exit from Xuzhou is extremely critical, and he is eager to find out the truth here.

"Let's go, let's go meet them together!" Li Zhihe said with a calm face.

Although Guo Rong is a member of the Anning Palace, he is also the envoy designated by Emperor Tianyou to supervise the army, and his status in the Dragon Bird Army is second only to Yang Yuanpu, the third prince, and slightly higher than Shen Yang, the long history.

At this time, even if the third prince Yang Yuanpu was present, there was no reason to prevent the prison envoy from entering the camp.

Yao Xishui and Zhao Ting'er went back to the villa first, and Han Qian was just about to rush to Xiyuanmen with Li Zhihe and Zhou Yuan to intercept Guo Rong and Zhao Mingting, when they saw Guo Liang and Zhang Qian coming over drunk.

"Li Yuhou, Zhou joins the army, where are you going?"

Guo Liang didn't know that Li Zhihe came to the Tunying Military Mansion today, and he was quite surprised to see him with Han Qian and Zhou Yuan.

"It is said that Guo Rong, the envoy of the prison army, accompanied the Governor of the Privy Council, Zhao Mingting, is rushing over here, and I will greet Zhou Yuan and Han Qian," Li Zhihe said in a deep voice, "Guo Yuhou and Master Zhang, if there is nothing to do, you can go back to the house to rest earlier." ”

"Ah......" At first hearing that Guo Rong and Zhao Mingting from the Ministry Division rushed to the cantonment military mansion overnight, Guo Liang was first shocked, thinking that Guo Rong, as a military envoy, seemed to have not shown his face in the cantonment military mansion except for a distant glance when he first recruited the hungry people, why did he rush here overnight today?

He thought about it again, Guo Rong went to the cantonment camp as an envoy of the supervising army, maybe it can be said that Zhang Qianzhi was in a low position and did not need to participate in the greeting, but as one of the five major capitals of the Longque Army and one of the captains of the five cantonment camps, shouldn't he go with Li Zhihe to greet him, why did Li Zhihe have no scruples and asked him to avoid it?

Zhang Qian tugged at Guo Liang's sleeve.

Guo Liang is also a smart person, after being reminded by Zhang Qian, he thought about it and understood that there should be something dirty between the third prince and Anning Palace, Li Zhihe was afraid that he and Zhang Qian would show some, or Guo Rong and Zhao Mingting rushed to Xingshi to ask for something wrong, so Li Zhihe simply asked them to avoid it.

Of course, Guo Liang, as Du Yuhou, was said by Li Zhihe to avoid it, and his face was a little unbearable, and his face was cloudy for a while before he left with Zhang Qian.