On the twenty-first day of May, King Xian left Xuanyun and set off for Yongxing to inspect the industry and the town army of Zhoukong, out of secrecy, the accompanying honor guard and the accompanying officials were admitted, and King Xian only took Jiao Muhua and 300 forbidden troops from Dongcheng into the city.

As soon as they entered the city, everyone saw the dome of the 400,000 jin steel-making furnace in Xicheng more than ten miles away, and King Xian pointed to the iron furnace and mistakenly thought it was a high-rise building:

"Aiqing, what is the use of the building in front of you that is higher than the head of the city?"

"Back to the king, that is the refining furnace in the west of Xicheng City, which is more than seven or eight zhang high."

"It's so high, I can make a lot of good iron this year. In the first month of this year, the widow heard Aiqing say that last year's iron production had reached 45 million catties, and it was not refined by this divine furnace. ”

As soon as King Xian's words came out, Lu Gao, Jiao Muhua and others were taken aback.

Metallurgical data has always been confidential, only Bailiyan alone reported to Xianwang separately every quarter, and summarized at the end of the year. Therefore, it has always been unclear how much pig iron, steel, copper, tin, and lead can be smelted in Xianguo, which is only the output of pig iron and carbon steel, a total of special steel, tool steel, engineering steel, and knife steel, and the actual production capacity of iron-based materials is nearly 60 million catties.

At first glance, when he heard 45 million catties, Lu Gao, Jiao Muhua and others were stunned.

At this time, Bai Liyan continued:

"Don't hide it from the king, this furnace can smelt 400,000 catties of steel at a time, and produce molten iron once a day, about 250,000 catties, and this furnace can produce about 10,000 catties of steel a year. At present, it is in the early stage of production, and it is not yet proficient, and it can be further improved in the future. In the next few years, the minister will also build four 400,000 jin furnaces one after another, and build a million jin furnace, ten and fifteen years later, Xianguo is only the same as steel, but the annual output of more than 10 billion catties. ”

Hearing this, King Xian was silent, his eyes bloomed with infinite brilliance, yearning for how strong the Xian Kingdom would be in fifteen years. At this time, Lu Gao, who was still shocked, suddenly asked:

"Lord Si Nong, Ben will not hear it wrong, this furnace can produce 10,000 catties of good steel a year!"

"General Lu heard it right, this furnace is at least 100 million catties a year. At present, it is still in the initial refining stage to test the effect of the refining furnace, and the output will gradually increase in the future, and it is expected to increase by 30 to 350,000 catties per day next year. ”

"Hiss......" Lu Gao's heart was stunned, his eyes rolled in shock, and after a while, he said: "At present, the princes of various countries are trying their best to make iron, and the maximum is only one million catties per year, and the princes of the Central Plains together are still less than six million catties of raw wrought iron, but now they are not enough to reach a smelting furnace in our Xian country, if they are only compared to steel in the future, the other princes will not be defeated." ”

"Indeed, whoever has more steel will be better, and whoever has better steel will be able to build more powerful weapons. However, the strength of the country does not depend on the number of individual items, the morale of the army, the ability of the generals, the proper tactics of war, and even the strength of agriculture, commerce, finance, and logistics transportation. ”

When the words fell, King Xian suddenly said:

"Yongxing Hou, with so much iron produced in a year, will the price of iron fall to the point of being unprofitable and hurting the country's capital."

"Back to the king, not yet, at least not in fifty or sixty years. Xianguo needs to be built, and the light machinery, exquisite parts, weapons and equipment, and even the pig iron and steel required for new firearms will be consumed tens of millions of catties every year at present, and they will not be enough in the future.

In addition, the three main warehouses of Yongxing, Xuanyun and Ruitian have successively hoarded more than 20 million catties of steel, more than 5 million catties of pig iron, 12 million catties of copper, 4 million catties of tin, plus the large warehouses of iron reserves, and the total reserves of more than 50 million catties have exceeded 50 million catties for more than ten years.

In addition, the lower the price of steel, the more beneficial it is for the construction of our Xianguo, which can buy a pound of iron before, and now can sell five catties and six catties, which not only greatly reduces the procurement cost, but also is more conducive to the construction of the Xianguo. ”

"Since Yongxing iron production is so amazing, why don't you see the price of iron in the market fall, and still maintain the price ten years ago." Lu Gao was puzzled and asked, and King Xian took over and said:

"Let's answer this question. If the price of iron is too low, and the price of iron in other vassal states is too high, it will cause our people to smuggle the iron they bought out of the country, and now the iron material of Xianguo has been fully liberalized and no longer forbidden, which is tantamount to harming the interests of our country and fattening other princes.

Second, it restricted exports to the princes to cover up the total iron production of the Xianguo country, and at the same time raised the price of iron, so that more money could be earned for the national treasury and domestic construction. Yongxing uses its own iron, and Yongxing Hou needs to pay more by himself, so he also needs to raise the price of high-speed rail to make profits.

Finally, although the storage of iron and copper materials in various places is purchased and stored by the treasury at this price, it is the treasury money, if the money is directly from the treasury, even if it is not too much every year, but it is also a waste of money, so it is inconvenient to maintain the price of iron, which is conducive to hoarding iron and copper materials to accumulate national strength. ”

"What the king said is extremely true, and the minister's maintenance of the iron price remains unchanged is based on what the king said. In addition, the annual income of the people of our Xianguo is more than three times that of the rich people of other countries, and the annual harvest of the richest villages in the capital county is more than three times that of the national average, and the domestic iron material is much lower than that of other princes, so the people of our Xianguo can afford to use iron at this price.

However, if smuggling out of the country at the current price, the cost of transshipment, manpower, and commission will increase the cost of smuggling ironware, so the price of smuggling iron to other vassal states is much higher. ”

Prices are an important means of controlling resources at any time, and when prices cannot be adjusted downward due to external factors rather than internal factors, the only way to change purchasing power is to increase the income of the majority of people. The price of the same product can be worthless in China, but people can't afford it abroad.

On the one hand, the per capita income of Xianguo has increased substantially, and secondly, the complicated bureaucratic system and outdated system of various countries have greatly increased the logistics cost, coupled with the backwardness of transportation capacity, the cost of reaching the sales terminal is often double or even more than the item itself.

If the price of iron in Xianguo becomes one-fifth of what it is now, even if the export is stopped, it will not be able to stop the smuggling of steel to foreign countries, and the profits will be several times or even ten times that of steel, which is enough to make everyone take risks.

A group of people walked to the west wall of Dongcheng City, and it can be seen that the trough boats in the Yongxing River are full of steel structure frames woven with threaded steel bars and inserted into the river in an orderly manner, and the stone piers that have been fenced with stones nearby block the turbulent river water, and the diversion nullahs dug early in the morning on both sides of the river bank have diverted one-third of the flow of the river section, which has greatly reduced the flow rate of the main road in the river.

"Aiqing, what is this doing?"

"Back to the king, Yongxing east and west cities are extremely inconvenient to ferry to and fro, so the minister on both sides of the river to build an iron bridge to connect the two banks, the stone fence and the iron frame in the river is for the construction of the bridge pier preparation, in the future the river will build more than a dozen bridge piers, each section of the bridge pier is connected by an iron bridge, so as to open up the north and south.

At present, it is only Yongxing City, and after the craftsmanship is mastered, this kind of iron bridge will be built in various places in the future, and even more and better other bridges. One is to consume iron, and the other is to improve road and bridge facilities to facilitate land transportation and marching. ”

"Oh...... This is a good thing......" King Xian sighed infinitely, and Lu Gao, Jiao Muhua and others were speechless.

Looking at the refining furnaces of different sizes in Xicheng, countless busy figures shuttled back and forth, as if silently telling the future prosperity, at this moment, everyone was full of thoughts and thoughts, and everyone more and more identified that belief.

After stopping for a long time, King Xian decided to cross the river to Xicheng, and in view of the danger of smelting, Bailiyan only suggested that he walk on the outer city wall of Xicheng and look at it with a telescope.

After the expansion of the west of the city, the inner wall was retained, and the outer city wall was about half a zhang higher than the inner wall, and the inner and outer city walls were all covered with bricks for easy defense.

Previously, in the east of the city, I looked at the 400,000 jin refining furnace in the west of the city and felt small, but when I got closer, the huge refining furnace was like a big bowl upside down on the ground, and the iron pipes around it were thick and thick smoke, and it looked very majestic.

Xianwang arrived at the time of the 400,000 catties of iron furnace iron, the molten iron fell into a pair of huge steel molds along the sprue, through the automatic raceway driven by the steam engine, sent to the rolling workshop, through different processes, processed into different types and specifications of plates, rails, round steel, etc., accompanied by the master of the Gonggong school tirelessly explained the principle of the process, and the Xianwang, Lu Gao, and Jiao Muhua were stunned and stunned.

After spending the whole afternoon in the west of the city, King Xian decided to spend the night in the castle tower when it was dark, and continued to inspect the west of the city the next day, and at noon he left the west city and went to the town army of Zhoukong, which was stationed thirty miles outside the city, to review the training of the new army and the training of new weapons.

In late April, after Zhang Jie's confession, King Xian ordered Lu Gao to discuss with Zhao Xun to move Xue Sheng's 7th Town Army, which was stationed in the west of the capital county, to defend Taoli.

Xue Sheng was once Zhao Xun's middle officer and was Zhao Xun's descendant. But his surname is Xue, if you look into the details of his relationship with the Luhou Xue family, but it is already very light, so he is not a salt lord.

But as long as you are valuable, there is always an opportunity to make a gold sticker for you. Because Xue Sheng's surname is Xue, there are many military achievements in the army, so the relationship with his own family has been closer, and it is not for nothing that he is placed in the seventh town.

It shouldered the important task of defending the capital to deter Beihai and reinforce Xianxi, so it had a staff of 80,000 people, which was the closest to the Eighth Town Army in Yongxing Zhoukong, and it was logical to give priority to the reorganization.

Located on the plains, there are no large towns around, and the scattered villages have very limited land for cultivation, and more importantly, there are local workers camping fields, which is conducive to strengthening the secrecy measures on the periphery.

So Bailiyan transferred 6,000 men from Zhou Kong to Xue Sheng's army, and Xue Sheng's army transferred 20,000 people to Zhou's air force to accept reorganization, and transferred 500 officers at all levels under the age of 35 from the military battalions of Xuanyun and Yongxing to supplement Xue Sheng's army.

The two armies will first reorganize 20,000 people, and after the defense army is defeated, the two armies of Xue Sheng and Zhou Kong will reorganize the other town armies, and weapons and equipment will be distributed to each army in two to three years.