After accompanying Zhao Zhen to worship Zhao Heng, Li Zhang returned to Huangzhuang again, this year's potatoes have been planted, and last winter, a batch of about 10,000 catties of potatoes was transported to Huiwei Zhai, and then launched a series of dishes made of potatoes, such as classic and ordinary vinegared shredded potatoes, beef roasted potatoes and so on.

As the saying goes, scarcity is expensive, although the dish made of potatoes may not be more delicious than other dishes, but its price is not low, and I don't know which lack of virtue of the guy spread the rumors, saying that potatoes have the effect of nourishing yin and nourishing the kidneys, and the result is sought after by a group of people, as a result, the potato dishes launched by Huiwei Zhai need to be booked every day, and then the potatoes ran out, which made many people sigh and pity.

However, potatoes can only be on fire for one season at most, and when this year's potato harvest is bumper, the price will definitely drop, and even in another two years, when potatoes are planted near the capital, it is estimated that the price of potatoes will be cheap into mud, and then there may be a grain cheap and hurt farmers, but this requires Wang Qinruo to have a headache, of course, the land near the capital can not only grow potatoes, in the short term, crops such as wheat must still be the mainstream.

Last time, Li Zhang took Zhao Zhen to meet Li Shunrong at the risk, and he was worried that Liu E would be suspicious if he knew, but he didn't expect that there had been no movement in the palace, which made Li Zhang finally relax slowly.

In the barracks in front of Huangzhuang......, 300 musketeers lined up in three rows, and 100 people in each row shot forward alternately.

"Stop! Cavalry strikes! With the order of Hu Yan Shouxin next to him, the musketeers who had already walked to the target immediately stopped shooting, and the cavalry with a hundred-man team on each side rode their horses, waving the long knife in their hands, and cut those targets in the blink of an eye, and Li Zhang next to him also nodded again and again.

Originally, in Li Zhang's idea, he wanted to build the musket battalion into a pure firearms team, and at first he and Huyan Shouxin did the same, but later Huyan Shouxin found that if they were all musketeers, although they had a strong advantage in medium and long distances, if the enemy had cavalry, and rushed to the front regardless of casualties, even if the musket was equipped with bayonets, it would definitely not be able to stop the enemy's cavalry.

So in this case, Huyan Shouxin suggested adding a part of the cavalry, so that when the enemy's cavalry rushed to the front, there was also a certain ability to counterattack, after all, the best type of cavalry to deal with cavalry was also cavalry, and when the musket repelled the enemy, if the enemy fled, the cavalry could also take the opportunity to chase and kill, so as to expand the results of the battle.

Li Zhang didn't know much about things on the battlefield, and he also believed in Huyan's trustworthy vision, so he also agreed to his suggestion, so the musketeers changed from the original five hundred to three hundred, and the other two hundred became cavalry, which is also the family heirloom of the Huyan family, in order to enhance the power of the cavalry, Huyan Shouxin put one of his brothers, that is, Huyan Shouyi, who was found by Jinshan because of excessive gambling, although this guy is good at gambling, but his riding skills and martial arts are top-notch, and he is also a fierce general on the battlefield.

After the drill, Hu Yan Shouxin commanded the soldiers to clean up the battlefield, and then came to Li Zhang and said: "Commander, the drill of our musket battalion is quite proficient, but even if the training is good, it is still a showy if you have not been on the battlefield, in fact, I am the same, even if I read more military books and learned martial arts for a long time, as long as I don't go to the battlefield, I am still a new soldier, so I think we should ask the Queen Mother for instructions and pull our musket battalion to the battlefield to give it a try, I heard that the northwest and Hebei have not been peaceful?" ”

Hearing that Hu Yan Shouxin wanted to pull the musket battalion to fight, Li Zhang also showed a contemplative expression, and after a while, he nodded and said: "The musket is made to kill people, so it definitely needs to be tested on the battlefield, but let's not talk about this matter, I will find a chance to go back to the capital and ask the palace to talk about it." ”

Hu Yan Shouxin was waiting for Li Zhang's words, and at the moment, he also smiled and said: "As the commander of the history, as long as you speak, Your Majesty and the Queen Mother will definitely agree, speaking of which, those of us who were born in the sect are also quite pitiful, most of them can only live in the forbidden army, and if you want to go to the battlefield, you have to nod to those rulers in the court." ”

Li Zhang couldn't help but smile bitterly when he heard Hu Yan's words, talking about the Great Song Dynasty's generals is really unlucky, since the failure of Zhao Kuangyin's Northern Expedition, he has never had the idea of recovering the sixteen states of Youyun by force, so he began to suppress the generals on a large scale, and later when Zhao Guangyi was in power, he even faced a situation where there were no generals available, and after the alliance of the Yuanyuan, the generals were suppressed more thoroughly.

For example, in order to prevent Jiangmen from cultivating power in the army, people from Jiangmen can generally only serve in the forbidden army, and the forbidden army can only guard the capital, unless the emperor drives the expedition in person, it is impossible to go to the battlefield at all, of course, there are also people who can break out of the prison of the forbidden army and enter the border army, which is where the generals should go, such as Cao Wei, who is known as the god of war of the Great Song Dynasty, is now stationed in the Gyeongju area, but there are too few people who can really do Cao Wei's kind of level.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the decline of the generals is also related to themselves, for example, although the generals have been suppressed, but the military officials are higher than the civilian officials of the same level, especially in the forbidden army, which is several times stronger than the border army, plus the forbidden army does not have to go to the battlefield, on the one hand, it is safe and there is money to take, and on the other hand, it is desperate to get less money, so that the vast majority of people will choose the former, it can be said that the Great Song Dynasty began to raise some generals as pigs.

After Li Zhang and Hu Yan Shouxin chatted a few words, he left the barracks and came to the musket workshop supervised by Liu Shu outside Huangzhuang, now the scale of the entire musket workshop has been quite large, and the manufacture of muskets is becoming more and more standardized, this is mainly because Li Zhang personally formulated many strict processes, as long as this process is followed, the muskets manufactured generally will not have too many problems.

"Commander, this month's iron material is a few days late, I have urged it many times, but the boss just won't give it, saying that the iron we consume is too big, and there are already opinions on the other side of the case." As soon as Li Zhang came to the musket workshop, Liu Shu came to complain to him.

As the manufacture of muskets became more and more standardized, Li Zhang also began to let the musket workshop stock up on some muskets, on the one hand, to replace them with Huyan and keep their promises, and on the other hand, to prepare for the expansion of the scale of the musket battalion in the future.

"You don't have to worry about the iron material, you can urge the case, I already have a solution to this matter, and I just happened to do it together when I went back to the capital this time!" Li Zhang said confidently at this time, it is not the first time that Liu Shu has said about the shortage of iron, so he has been thinking about this matter for this time, speaking of which, the steel output of the Great Song Dynasty is actually very high, mainly because the best iron materials are needed to make muskets, so the supply will be insufficient.

Hearing Li Zhang say this, Liu Shu finally put his mind at ease, but then he asked with some curiosity: "You want to go back to the capital again, what is the reason for this time?" ”

"Brother Shouxin wants to pull the musket battalion to the battlefield for actual combat, I think it makes sense, so I plan to go back to the capital to report to the palace, in addition, you also pick out some craftsmen to prepare for the army, and also mobilize a batch of spare muskets as replacements, and ammunition also needs to be prepared." Li Zhang spoke again at this time, although the power of the musket is great, it is also easy to be damaged, so there must be craftsmen to accompany the army, in fact, cold weapons are also easy to damage, so craftsmen have always been indispensable in the barracks.

"No problem, Brother Shouxin has already talked to me about this matter two days ago, and our workshop has not stopped during this time, and the stock of muskets and ammunition has always been very sufficient, not to mention one musket battalion, even two or two musket battalions can support it!" Liu Shu also patted his chest and assured when he heard Li Zhang's words.

Hearing Liu Shu's words, Li Zhang also nodded with reassurance, Liu Shu is rude on the outside, but in fact, he is as careful as a hair, and his ability to do things is strong, otherwise it would be impossible to mix from a craftsman to his current position, so Li Zhang is also relieved to leave the matter to him.

At that moment, Li Zhang walked around the workshop, and then returned to his residence, and then took out a copy of his handwritten information from the box at the head of his bed, which he found from the information sorted out in the computer, mainly about the refining of steel, in fact, it is the two technologies of blast furnace ironmaking and pig iron smelting that were very commonly used in later generations.

Speaking of ancient China's iron-making technology is still very developed, in the Han Dynasty, has invented the steel frying method, can smelt high-quality steel, and later improved to the steel filling method, which is also the current Song Dynasty production of high-quality steel, but this steel-making method is too expensive, the output is not very high, plus the Song Dynasty army needs a large amount of high-quality steel, so there will be a shortage of iron in the musket workshop.

Li Zhang took out the two technologies in his hand and looked at them again, and replaced some of the terms of later generations, trying to make the people of the Great Song Dynasty understand these two methods, blast furnace ironmaking mainly produces pig iron, and pig iron cannot be made into weapons, it must be smelted into better quality steel, which requires pig iron to be smelted into steel, or even wrought iron.

In fact, the so-called pig iron, steel, wrought iron, in essence, are the same metal, but the carbon content is different from high to low, of course, in addition to carbon, the smelted iron generally contains a large number of impurities, of which the most harmful is phosphorus, if the phosphorus content is too high, it will make the steel brittle.

This is also the main reason why the quality of steel plummeted in the later Ming and Qing dynasties, because they used coal on a large scale to make iron, and coal contains a lot of phosphorus, if you don't want to remove it, it will naturally reduce the quality greatly. However, the two pieces of information in Li Zhang's hands are enough to solve the above problems.