Bidding farewell to Liu Zhuang, Li Zicheng explored the path at the east and west ends of the Red Deer Station, and carefully identified that it was still west of the Red Deer Station, and the road leading to Changning Station was smoother, because it was a thousand-year-old post road, even if the cement was poured directly on the road, it was not necessary.

However, considering the transportation of grain and grass, the most difficult thing is not from Qingshui County, through Changning Station to Maluyi, but after passing through Maluyi, go deep into the valley road deep in Guanshan, if the cement can really succeed, in the future to pour cement avenue, or should be poured deep in Guanshan first.

If you start watering from Malushan, you have to wait for the cement road to dry up before you can transport cement to the front through the cement road, because there is no substitute for the trail in this post road, and it is better to start pouring from Guguan to the west.

This requires transporting cement to the east through the original post road, but only this time, and when cement appears in this world, the roadbed between Guguan and Dazhenyi should have been repaired, and it will not be too difficult to transport grain, grass and cement.

Li Zicheng made up his mind, and then he had to consider other matters related to watering the cement avenue, there should be no shortage of strong men, and the prisoners of war saw that they had repaired the sixty-mile valley road from Guguan to Dazhenyi and Dazhenyi to Anrong Pass, and the next step was to repair the valley road from Anrong Pass to Laoye Ling, as well as the valley road from Laoye Ridge to Maluyi.

Out of the red deer station, basically has crossed the Guanshan, the post road is a smooth road, basically do not need to repair, directly pour cement.

But to build a cement avenue, you also need a lot of gravel and yellow sand, yellow sand is not difficult, in a mountain range like Guanshan, you can definitely find ready-made sand, with gunpowder blast, you can directly mine, the distance of transportation is not too far.

Although there are rocks everywhere, they need to be crushed into stones before they can be mixed with cement and yellow sand to pour out the avenue that meets the traffic standards.

How exactly can you get a lot of stones?

Li Zicheng was helpless for a while, could it be that the children went to the mountains to pick up pieces of broken stones that met the requirements? But this is impossible, pouring the cement avenue requires a lot of stones, and it is impossible to use such a stupid method!

You have to find a different way!

In the materials carried by Li Zicheng, there is no way to break stones, and in the future we can only brainstorm and find capable people from the people, if we can't find an ingenious method from the people, we can only concentrate the strong men, use their strength, and forcibly break the stones, I don't know if the method of burning with fire and pouring water can work.

The last problem is the long-term production of cement, to maintain the cement production plant at the foot of Malu Mountain, it takes a lot of silver, and also needs fixed production workers, but cement is not like glass and perfume, and cannot be transported to Jingshi, Jiangnan and other rich places for sale, and there is no local sales market in Longyou.

Cement can be used to build bridges, roads, and houses, but whether it is Xining or Longyou, it is extremely poor, and the people have no ability to buy at all.

If the cement road from Qingshui County to Guguan is completed, the Malushan Cement Plant will close the production line, which is a pity.

But can the Mandate of Heaven feed a cement factory and a large number of industrial workers? What can you do with them? They could neither expand their territory for the Mandate of Heaven, nor bring silver profits to the Mandate of Heaven.

In this era, the only use of cement is to build roads, does the Mandate of Heaven have the strength to build roads on a large scale within the scope of their control? Whether it is Xining or Longyou, commerce is not developed, especially Longyou, after bandits, soldiers, commercial operations are almost completely stagnant, the people will not travel far, and do not need cement avenues, if it is not for the transportation of grain to Guguan, Li Zicheng will never develop cement for the time being.

Let's take a step forward and watch a part, Li Zicheng can only comfort himself, wait for the construction of the cement road from Qingshui to Guguan is completed, and then according to the Xining army's silver reserves, see if a cement road can be built between Xining and Lanzhou.

Xining is now the center of activity of the Heavenly Mandate Army, and commercial needs have begun to appear, but in Li Zicheng's mind, Lanzhou is the center of the Heavenly Mandate Army in his mind.

This is mainly due to its location, Li Zicheng can no longer remember whether Lanzhou played the role of a transportation hub in the history of later generations, but now, the jurisdiction of the Mandate of Heaven Army, the northwest of Lanzhou leads to Gansu, the west is together with Xining, and the southeast is Qingshui County, the current grain gathering place of the Mandate of Heaven Army, which is really a strategic center.

Moreover, the Mandate of Heaven Army's eastward expedition to Longyou, once it gains a firm foothold in Longyou, the strategic center must move eastward, and then it must be centered on Xining, which is too far away from Guanshan, the forefront of the confrontation with the imperial court.

Judging from the population distribution and the number of farmland, Longyou is also much higher than Xining, and if the Heavenly Mandate Army wants to expand its strength, it will definitely move the center eastward.

But now Xining, whether it is the people or the land, is already the familiar land of the Heavenly Mandate Army, and as the rear of the Heavenly Mandate Army, it provides a steady stream of food and soldiers for the Heavenly Mandate Army.

That is to say, the future Mandate of Heaven Army will still be centered on Lanzhou, but Li Zicheng will never give up in Xining, the regional center, let alone weaken, so he will start preparations now, once the cement road from Qingshui County to Guguan is completed, if conditions permit, a cement road will be built between the two centers of Lanzhou and Xining, so as to strengthen the connection between the two and facilitate the travel of military and political personnel, businessmen, and ordinary people.

However, this is a later story, and it is also the reason why the Malushan cement factory and industrial workers can be retained, and the most important thing now is to calm down the entire territory of Longyou as soon as possible, and concentrate forces as soon as possible to meet the counterattack of the imperial army.

Li Zicheng came to Qingshui County, although he was staying in the barracks, but in the middle hall of the county office, and Qingshui Zhi County Han Shanbo shared a yamen, he did not like to be with Han Shanbo, but centralized office, can save office costs, Qingshui County is only temporarily stationed, once Longyou is stable, he will never stay in Qingshui County for a long time, there is no need to reopen the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion.

The soldiers stationed in the central hall saw Li Zicheng's return, and hurriedly presented the message they had received in the past few days, "Governor, this is the message I received in the last few days. ”

Li Zicheng nodded, took the message and looked at it, and screened out the messages sent by Li Guo and Zhou Bin from the front line, judging from the information, the two of them are progressing smoothly, and the troops stationed in each county are too few, almost undefended, although the two of them have been driving for a long time, they have captured very few soldiers, and they are temporarily with them, and they are not escorted to Qingshui County.

Along with the military information, there were two people's harvest in various counties, mostly money and grain, Li Zicheng made a rough count, adding up the counties, the grain was nearly 10,000 stones, and the silver was more than 20,000 taels, and the silver in these county treasury was originally intended to be delivered to Gongchang Mansion, and now it is not needed.

They will be escorted to Qingshui County by each county as food and salary for the Mandate of Heaven Army.

The two did not blackmail in the counties, as long as they took the county seat, the magistrate led the officials to surrender, and basically left, so the military progress was extremely fast, especially the cavalry of Li Guobu, which had completely occupied the northwest of Gongchang Mansion, plus the western part originally occupied by Zhou Bin's department, and now the entire northern area of Gongchang Mansion has completely surrendered to the Mandate of Heaven Army.

Li Guo had already arrived at the junction of Gongchang Mansion and Lintao Mansion, and in his message to Li Zicheng, he asked if he wanted to enter Lintao Mansion and take the remaining counties of Lintao Mansion together.

, Now the northern part of Gongchang Mansion has been pacified, and in the southern part of Gongchang Mansion, the progress of Zhou Binbu is also extremely smooth, and wherever the Mandate of Heaven army goes, the official mansion is looking at the wind, and the time is ripe to clear Lintao Mansion.

He immediately picked up his pen and sent a message back to Li Guo, ordering him to cross the junction of the two prefectures and go to recover the counties of Lintao Prefecture, but the money and grain of the counties of Lintao Prefecture did not have to be escorted to Qingshui County, but were temporarily stored in Lanzhou.

In his reply to Zhou Bin, Li Zicheng asked him to step up his attack, try to save time in the land where there were not many imperial soldiers, and at the same time let him pay attention to the Minzhou Wei in the west.

Li Zicheng handed over these two messages to He Xiaomi, asked him to pass on the book to Li Guo and Zhou Bin, and read some messages from all over Longyou, and finally the message from Xining.

After Li Zicheng came to Longyou, the carrier pigeons from all over the country who had kept in touch with him did not know Qingshui County, so they had to send the message to Xining, and Xining forwarded it.

Most of the information is to report some trivial things, Li Zicheng after reading it, he threw it into the waste paper pile, and he didn't have much interest in even the fact that the craftsman's workshop had been repaired, but Liang Wencheng's information still made him feel mixed.

This message is very long, and it should not have been sent by carrier pigeons, which could not have carried such a heavy load.

In this message, Liang Wencheng told Li Zicheng the good news: This year's Xining, the grain harvest is not only Xining Prefecture and its subordinate counties, but the entire western Xining District, including Sanchuan Prefecture and Gansu, he is now the civil envoy of the Metropolitan Governor's Office, and all the grain is concentrated in Xining, and it must be backed up by him, so he can get all the information.

However, the silver paid from all over the country is not ideal, the whole of Gansu, there is almost no commerce, only more than 300 taels of silver have been paid, Sanchuan Mansion is only more than 1,000 taels, but Xining Mansion, there are more than 6,000 taels of silver into the account, this more than half a year has passed, even 8,000 taels of tax silver is not enough.

Li Zicheng continued to look down, at the end of the message, Liang Wencheng told him that the first batch of students of Xining Science and Technology College had graduated on time, and he had selected 18 old and generous students according to Li Zicheng's requirements.

But Liang Wencheng is not optimistic about this group of students, they are too young, lack life experience, and almost don't know how to be officials, even if they go to Longyou, they will not be of much use for the time being.