Song Youliang was still relatively confident in the work efficiency of Jinyiwei, but when he and Wu Mengming returned to the prefect's yamen again, they found that there were more and more hungry people gathered on the streets and at the gate of the yamen, and there was no way to ride forward. So he and Wu Mengming and others could only dismount and walk and enter the yamen from the side gate. Along the way, I heard someone shouting from time to time in the crowd:

"Hey~! Go ahead! What are you doing standing there stupidly? Go ahead! ”

"Damn, if you don't put food again, let's rush in and grab it!"

"Yes, grab the food! The officials must be drinking wine and fishing for meat inside~"

"yes, anyway, the fuck is starving to death, grab the food!"

"That's it! The head has a big scar off the bowl, and it is better to cut off the head than to starve to death! ”

"I've heard that there is grain from elsewhere in the warehouse, why don't you give it out?"

"These dog officials, where do you care if we live or die~"

"Didn't you say that the government opened a warehouse to release grain? Why hasn't there been any movement for so long? "From time to time, there were people in the crowd who were clamoring, and the mood was already a little out of control.

In the flower hall, Chen Guoying and Wang Zilin were as anxious as ants on a hot pot, and when they saw Song Youliang and Wu Mengming, they hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Two adults, what about food?" ”

Wu Mengming snorted coldly and said, "Governor Chen's good means, but the grain has not been found, so he actually promised to open a warehouse to release grain?" ”

Chen Guoying was already anxious, "Lord Wu is wrong to blame the mansion, the mansion doesn't have a grain in his hand, how can he promise to release grain?" Just when the two left, the victims didn't know where to hear about it An hour later, the prefect's yamen opened a warehouse to release grain, and this is where they gathered~"

"Someone is spreading rumors again?" Song Youliang touched his chin, "It seems that the other party may have sensed the danger and plans to provoke a civil uprising as soon as possible, so that he can fish in troubled waters?" ”

"Are you saying that the culprit will take the opportunity of the government to mobilize people to guard the yamen during the civil rebellion to transport grain out of the city?" Wang Zilin said

"Yes, once the hungry people find that there is no food in the yamen, they will naturally think of going to the grain store" Wu Mengming asked Chen Guoying: "How many servants do you have?" Is it all here? ”

Chen Guoying nodded apprehensively

Jinyiwei's work efficiency is high, and in less than a stick of incense, people from all walks of life have come to the news, Yuan Hechang is the branch of Jinan Xinglong Warehouse, and Jinan Xinglong Warehouse is the branch of Henan Yuzhou Warehouse, the owner of Yuzhou Warehouse is named Chen Zhiliu, who was Fan Yongdou's servant. As for Yuan Hechang's side, the Jinyi Guard, who was in charge of surveillance, found that Yuan Hechang had gathered many ox carts, carriages, and coolies, and it seemed that he had made a big move. The patrol on the beach also captured more than a dozen fishermen, and after surprise interrogation, these fishermen confessed that they were employed by the shopkeeper of Yuan Hechang to help him transport some illicit goods. As for what the bootlegged goods were, they didn't know.

At this moment, the noise outside the yamen has become louder and louder, and the shouts of grabbing grain have come and gone! 100,000 was in a hurry, a servant broke into the flower hall, and the servant uniform on his body was torn, "My lord, it's not good, the hungry people are starting to break through"

"No matter~" Song Youliang slapped his thigh, "Please give an order from Lord Qianhu, you can requisition all the grain of Yuan Hechang, and then chisel open the back door of the yamen, transport the grain from there, and then distribute it from the front door~"

Song Youliang said to Chen Guoying again: "Please send someone to maintain order, and if someone makes trouble when receiving food, tell the officials not to be soft." ”

Wu Meng understood Song Youliang's glance, "Boy, when will it be your turn to give orders?" ”

"Uh~ atonement, the lower official is in a hurry" Song Youliang hurriedly apologized

"Still not doing it? What are you doing in a daze? Wu Mengming shouted

"Yes, yes," Chen Guoying and the brocade guards hurriedly pulled their legs and left

Wu Mengming smiled at Song Youliang at this time and said, "It's quite a general's style~"

Song Youliang could only laugh a few times, "Lord Qianhu is happy to win the official again~"

Wu Mengming saw Wang Zilin, who was standing on the side and didn't know what to do, and beckoned to him, "You~Go out to appease the hungry people and buy some time~"

"Me?" Wang Zilin complained in his heart, why did he let me do such drudgery every time

After less than half a pillar of incense, Song Youliang and Wu Mengming heard the sound of smashing the wall in the backyard, and the two came to the backyard to take a look, only to see the brocade guards commanding a group of people to smash the wall. A group of people were tearing down the backyard gate and opening the hole in the wall. Another group was smashing the wall of a two-story house outside the wall.

"Why are you demolishing people's houses?" Song Youliang asked puzzled

"There is no grain in Yuan and Chang, and all the grain is hidden in this house." A brocade guard replied

"It's dark under the lamp," Wu Mengming said with a smile

"The most dangerous place is the safest," Song Youliang said with a smile

Soon, a large amount of grain was transported out of the houses, not only Song Youliang's wheat flour, but also sweet potatoes from the south and sorghum from the northwest. As for Chen Guoying and Wang Zilin, who were at the front gate, they shredded their official uniforms and issued them to the people as vouchers for receiving food. Seeing that the government really began to release grain for disaster relief, the mood of the hungry people gradually calmed down. During this period, some people wanted to provoke robbery again, or were killed on the spot by Jinyiwei, or were captured by the uniforms of the officials.

The next day, Xu Erduo brought the second batch of grain from Haiyang, and the hungry people all cheered, and Chen Guoying, who had a new gray hair on his head, finally let out a long breath. Later, it was rumored that during this period, there were indeed large ships from the direction of Jinzhou and Lushun sailing to Long Island, and after traveling around the country found nothing, they returned north

After that, Wu Mengming took Liao Qiming, who did not have time to escape, and a group of prisoners returned to Beijing, and within three days, I heard that the Yuzhou warehouse was also seized by Jinyiwei, and I also heard that Shun Teng touched the melon and involved the Fan family in Zhangjiakou, which caused a lot of waves in the government and the opposition because of this incident.

No matter what storms there are in the court, Song Youliang is still continuing his career

"If there is concrete, how nice it would be~" Song Youliang stood at the head of the city, watching the masons build the wall with rice slurry water and paste, and couldn't help muttering to himself

"Childe, what is concrete?" Xu Erduo is Song Youliang's shadow and is inseparable from him

"Concrete is mixed with lime and clay" Song Youliang was in a good mood today, so he had the patience to explain to Xu Erduo what cement is

Xu Erduo listened to it for a long time, and said with a smile: "I understand this time, it's just mixing lime powder and clay together, right?" We have both of these things near Haiyang."

"Really?" Song Youliang's eyes lit up

"How dare I entertain my son"

In addition to being directly processed into stone as building materials, limestone can also be fired into quicklime for disinfection and epidemic prevention and hygiene. Quicklime is filled with water to become mature ash, and can also be coated on the roots of trees to kill insects. Before planting in spring, after sprinkling lime in the field, releasing water, turning the soil, and after soaking the field in lime water for one or two days, the pests or eggs that hide in the soil for the winter can be eliminated. In particular, the continuous drought in Shandong in recent years is very conducive to the reproduction of locusts. With lime, we can better help agricultural production.

The stone resources in today's Rushan City, where Haiyang Thousand Households are located, are very rich. There are also a lot of limestone deposits, and the history of burning lime is also very long, so Song Youliang planned to set up a quarry, and hired many villagers from the villages near the mine to open the mountain to quarry. I had long heard that the salary for the Song family as a hired worker was guaranteed, and because the drought in Shandong was still continuing, as soon as the news came out that Song Youliang was going to set up a quarry, the villagers who saw no hope of farming came to apply.

Because the work in the quarry is relatively hard, the wages of the quarry workers are six buckets of grain per person per month, and they are covered with food and lodging during the work period, and there are pensions for the dead and wounded. Because of the large dust in the quarry, each worker wears a pocket made of ten layers of gauze around his mouth and nose when he goes to work, and Song Youliang calls it a "mask". But because it was dressed in a way that resembled a woman's belly pocket, the workers jokingly called it a mouth pocket. In addition to limestone, granite and marble are also mined in this quarry.

In the beginning, the workers used manual chiseling to chisel large pieces from the mountain. Not to mention the time-consuming and labor-intensive, the output is also very low. So Song Youliang asked the workers to use gunpowder blasting to open the mountain, so that the villagers living near the mine could hear the rumbling sound of the opening cannon every day. Although the work in the quarry was very hard, and the workers were bent over by the heavy stones, the Song family's wages were never in arrears, and the wheat flour was not mixed with sand, so the workers still worked hard and happily. On the basis of the successful opening of the quarry, Song Youliang also opened a clay mine. Now Song Youliang has a clay mine. After more than a month of experiments, the mine successfully used the soil method to manufacture cement, and it can produce 60 catties of soil cement per day.

With cement, the cement-clad city of Hai Duong has become stronger.