In the middle of winter, there is goose feather snow in the sky, this Qinghe City is cold, although the sky is still bright, but there are no passers-by on this street, even if there are occasional passers-by, it is just a hurry.

In front of the Imperial Office, several soldiers were still standing in front of the government with guns, and in addition to thick cotton jackets, they were also wearing overcoats, and their fur hats could also withstand the cold.

Inside the office, inside and outside the door are two completely different worlds, the sky outside the door is cold, but the door is warm like spring.

"Because this winter is earlier than usual, most of the people in this city are struggling to survive the winter without charcoal. Even in the barracks, charcoal for heating is scarce......"

The two heating braziers were burning with charcoal, looking at the copper brazier thoughtfully, Zhu Mingzhong did not interrupt Qu Dajun's report, and the charcoal salary he said in his mouth referred to "charcoal" and "fuelwood".

The winter of the 17th century was far colder than Zhu Mingzhong imagined, the lunar calendar was only in October, and it was already cold, and there was a thick layer of ice on the canal, and even the Yellow River was covered with layers of ice, which suddenly plunged the once busy wharf into depression. It was really the "Xiaoice Age" in history, and the weather would be so cold.

Fortunately, the factory, which originally relied on water power, also has windmills, which are more than 20 meters high, which can use the wind power in winter to provide the factory with the power it needs to produce. It didn't have much impact on the factory's production. It's just that the relative construction costs have increased somewhat. There is no way around it. After all, there is no steam engine now, although Zhu Mingzhong is no stranger to the structure of the steam engine, but limited by the processing conditions have been the level of technical manufacturing, it is obviously not realistic to manufacture a steam engine now, in this case, wind and water power are the most realistic sources of power for the factory.

However, if the problem of power is not solved, then there will certainly be no way to build a factory in the north in the future. Every place has a lot of motivation in winter. Even in the Qinghe River, the windmills that stand on the banks of the Yellow River sometimes stop production because of the lack of wind.

However, at the moment, Zhu Mingzhong did not have time to think about the issue of the steam engine, because the winter of this era was very cold, so for the government. Every winter, it is necessary to consider the issue of heating fuel for residents.

Especially now, Qinghe County, which used to be only a few tens of thousands of people, has suddenly poured in nearly 100,000 soldiers and civilians. Naturally, the matter of fighting with the people will inevitably be staged in Qinghe.

Charcoal for heating is needed not only by the common people, but also by officials in the official halls, and by officers and soldiers in the barracks. In contrast, the common people are naturally vulnerable. As a result, the lack of charcoal for heating and even cooking after the winter has directly caused dissatisfaction among the people.

"Why not coal?"

Facing the report of his subordinates, Zhu Mingzhong asked with some puzzlement, logically speaking, it should be normal to use coal so close to Xuzhou.

"Hui Jingluo, this gas is inferior, if you use coal to heat the house, I am afraid that there will be an accident?"

"Well, I see, it's easy to do."

nodded silently, if it weren't for Qu Dajun mentioning this matter, I'm afraid Zhu Mingzhong wouldn't have remembered such a trivial matter at all. Coal cannot be used directly in the house for heating. That can lead to gas poisoning, which is at least common sense, although charcoal can too. But it's safer anyway.

It's very easy to solve this problem. Pick up the pencil directly - when he went to the Liguo Iron Mine a month ago, some of the iron ore there contained graphite, so before leaving, Zhu Mingzhong specially instructed the first mine to send graphite to Qinghe - he founded a primitive pencil workshop in Qinghe.

In the workshop, the craftsman first grinds graphite into powder, then adds a certain proportion of clay and mixes it, and then uses a special mold to squeeze the mixture out and squeeze it into long strips like noodles, which are dried to obtain graphite strips. Then the graphite strip is embedded in the thin slat, and the box is glued with cowhide to become a pencil, and according to the different ratios of graphite and clay, the softness and hardness of the pencil and the depth of color can be adjusted accordingly.

Although there was still some resistance to pencils among the officials in the bureau, Zhu Mingzhong had been trying to promote pencils in the army and in the factories, and unlike the resistance in the bureau, the army almost immediately accepted the pencil because of its ease of use, and the factories also found it more suitable for drawing than charcoal.

Zhu Mingzhong, who picked up a pencil, drew directly on the paper a honeycomb coal heating stove that was common more than 300 years later, and the pencil was more suitable for drawing than charcoal, and of course, he was more accustomed to using pencils.

Soon a honeycomb coal heating stove was drawn, and after marking the dimensions and the structure of the furnace and other knots on the side, a simple coal-fired heating stove was made. After thinking for a moment, thinking that there were no honeycomb briquettes in this era, he drew a simple manpower honeycomb briquette machine. Then he said to Qu Dajun.

"After a while, you will order someone to send this heating stove to the workshop, first register the patent, and then hand it over to the factory for manufacturing, this thing is simple to manufacture, and it is not a problem to make hundreds of them a day, and when the time comes, you can use this kind of stove for heating in this camp first, and then the government office, as for the charcoal salary of the government office in the army, it can be directly sent to the market for sale......

Looking at the heating stove with a flue, although he didn't know its effect yet, Qu Dajun could guess that the flue should be emitting soot, so he mentioned another problem.

"After a while, if all coal is used for heating, this coal consumption will naturally surge, arsenals and iron factories will need coal, and the river will be cut off, and I am afraid that coal transportation will also be affected."

"It's easy to do, use horse-drawn sleighs to transport coal, and in winter, horse-drawn sleds can transport a lot more than horse-drawn carriages......

If it is said that the insight that is more than three and a half centuries ahead of the times, for Zhu Mingzhong, the greatest advantage is that he is well-informed, and many seemingly unsolvable problems can be easily solved.

When mentioning the carriage, Zhu Mingzhong naturally thought of the four-wheeled carriage again, in fact, as early as Jiangyin, the Zhongyi Army already had a four-wheeled carriage, but it was the front carriage of the gun carriage, and there was no four-wheeled carriage for transporting goods. Compared with the two-wheeled Chinese carriage, the four-wheeled carriage has a greater capacity.

Carriages need to be improved, the same roads here. It also needs to be renovated, and the most important feature of the Manchu Qing is that he oppressed the people to the fullest and collected heavy taxes, but he would never have invested even a penny in many public constructions unless he had to.

"Weng Shan, it's time for winter leisure, well, I'm going to levy the labor of the Jiangbei provinces as planned, and the overall official road, I don't know what Weng Shan thinks?"

For Zhu Mingzhong, who knew very well that transportation and logistics were combat effectiveness, he had originally planned to rebuild the official road, not to mention that this conscription itself was a responsibility of the people. It is a matter of course to use the people to repair the official road.

Moreover, if the official road in Jiangbei can be renovated, it will not only be conducive to the march of troops and logistical transportation. It can also promote the circulation of goods and stimulate the development of the commercial economy.

"The official road under the rule of the Qing Dynasty has long been in disrepair, and now the official road must be repaired to facilitate the transportation of goods, but the various prefectures need to levy and issue labor, and they need to be planned to properly complete this matter, and this matter also needs to be put up by the government office first, and then handed over to the prefectures and counties to handle, and the lower officials will order people to come up with a plan first, and then it will be agreed by everyone."

As a staff member of the government office, Qu Dajun reported on some other things, and when he was about to withdraw, he looked at Jingluo and seemed to be in a good mood, so he took a deep breath and said.

"Jingluo, this, Xiaguan was in Chongxian Pavilion the day before yesterday, and occasionally heard that not all the sages who want to defect to my Jiangbei are willing to wait in Chongxian Pavilion, as far as Xiaguan knows, there are indeed some sages who have arrived in Qinghe, but most of them live in friends' homes."

"Well, what Weng Shan said is very true, the Chongxian Pavilion is not a place to gather sages, if Fang is really a great sage in the world, how can he be in the Chongxian Pavilion?"

Zhu Mingzhong, who knew that the so-called great sages were more or less a little high, and he didn't expect any great sages to be recruited in that place, saw that Qu Dajun was worried, so he said directly.

"Most of the people gathered in this Chongxian Pavilion are all scholars who intend to vote for me in Jiangbei, and the great sages of the world naturally disdain this, and this official naturally knows it."

When the Chongxian Pavilion was set up, Zhu Mingzhong already knew from Song Qianmin that most of the people who would come to the Chongxian Pavilion at that time, most of them were probably scholars who were not famous, or even depressed, and there were some virtuous people among these people, and the real scholars who were slightly famous would probably not surrender their identities to the Chongxian Pavilion, and the Chongxian Pavilion was just a horse bone, just showing the attitude of Jiangbei's meritocracy.

"Besides, Weng Shan, didn't I say it a long time ago? Jiangbei employs people in multiple measures at the same time, and does not avoid relatives in the internal move. ”

Looking at Qu Dajun with a smile, Zhu Mingzhong said.

"If an old friend came to you, would you recommend him to me, wouldn't you?"

"Jingluo, Xiaguan, I heard that ......"

After hesitating for a moment, Qu Dajun spoke.

"I heard that Wang Qitian's mansion has come to the palace in the past few days, and there are a few talents with high prestige in the Shilin, if you are slightly interested, why don't you go to Wang Qitian's mansion first?"

"Wang Qitian?"

Zhu Mingzhong naturally knew who Wang Qitian was, he was the secretary of the household department, and a well-known local relic. As a strategic envoy of Jianghuai, he has also visited some remnants during this time, and of course he has selectively invited some of them to the government as officials. And Wang Qitian is one of them.

"This Wang Qitian, when the guests came, they didn't say a word. What is this person's name? Is it very prestigious among Shilin? ”

"His name is Gu Yanwu, although he was a student in the previous dynasty and did not raise his reputation, he was recommended by Yang Yongyan, the commander of Kunshan County, and was the secretary of the military department of the Hongguang Dynasty!"