First try the iron of the iron ore of the Chu State, and then find a way to import the iron ore from Xiangping, Liaodong County, Yanguo, Shilu or Tiandu. This is the best quality iron ore in the country known to Xiongjing, and it is known as ginseng iron. If the iron ore in these two places is not good, then the converter can only be abandoned for the time being, and wait until the alkaline furnace lining is found.

It's always easy to give an order, and a few words of a finger here and there on the map will break the prospector's leg. Yan is okay, there are benefits of salt and iron, and the people of Yan are naturally willing to look for it, but Hainan is different. The South China Sea is the sphere of influence of the Yue people, but even the Yue people only went south to Hepu Xuwen, and did not cross the sea to the big state around the sea, and rashly went to the state to find iron ore......

"Your Highness, there are snakes and insects all over the place, and there are a lot of miasma, can these two iron mines be explored slowly?" Ji Yin's face is difficult.

The Chu people are extremely afraid of snakes, especially the two-headed snake, and legend has it that people who see the two-headed snake must die. Xiong Jing naturally understood Ji Yin's concerns, and he said: "Let the Yue people look for it, and find it in ......the future."

Hainan is thousands of miles away, and even if you find iron ore, you have to use a sailboat to transport it back, and the sailing ship, the largest ship in the Chu State, the one that imitates the Wu State, is only forty-five meters. Most of the ships built in normal times are more than 10 meters, and the large-wing battleships are only 27 or 8 meters. Because the ship is small, the original shipbuilding materials can not be used at all, so they can only be re-selected and felled. After the timber is cut, it must be dried, and the first sailing ship will be built in the next year, and then the training time of the captain and sailors will be counted, and it is estimated that it will be the year after or even the year after tomorrow to sail the sea.

"Let's put it down for now." Thinking of the sailing schedule, Xiong Jing had to abandon Hainan. Hainan gave up, and Yan had to give up, after all, Yan's iron ore also had to be transported by sailboats. "Just use the iron ore test of my Chu country, especially the Jiangnan iron mine first."

Xiong Jing changed the order, and Ji Yin, Gong Yin and others all said yes, they believed that the converter iron would definitely be refined.

"Your Highness, what kind of weapon should be used to refine the ink furnace iron?" The converter is temporarily over, although it has not been completed, but the ink furnace can be refined, and Gong Yin Dao just wants to know what kind of magic weapon should be made from the giant iron produced by the ink furnace.

"Your Highness, the secret of the ink furnace is very important." Iron official Kong Su also spoke, "If you are not a craftsman of my Chu country, you must not tell it." ”

"Your Highness, the secret of the ink furnace is only known to the villain, and how to install the furnace is completely unknown to others." Ou Chou hurriedly said, he was very careful, and left all the apprentice assistants aside when loading the furnace before smelting, in case of leakage.

The secret of the ink furnace is mostly in the furnace itself, and then the secret of coke. Xiong Jing thought for a while before he said: "The ink furnace smelting is still outside the mansion, the workshop where the assassin was invisible last time is now ownerless, so it's there." ”

There is nothing wrong with the ink furnace smelting being placed closer to the palace, when Ou Chou and Kong Su nodded, Gong Yin Dao still looked at it, Ju Iron is better than bronze, and he hopes that Ju Tie can refine some divine weapons.

"The output of Ju Iron is too low, and it is not enough to use it as a tool and material, so I won't make any weapons for the time being," Xiong Jing's instructions made Gong Yin Dao a little disappointed, but Xiong Jing's words were not finished, he thought about it and said: "If the output is surplus, then make a cavalry knife." ”

Weapons are closely related to the way the army fights, if the Chu army does not change its tactics, then Jutie should build Ge, halberd, spear, Yan and other weapons; If you use the Alexander spear phalanx or the Swiss phalanx, then you should build a spearhead; If the Roman phalanx is used, then the Roman short sword should be made.

It's just that the tactics that have been used for hundreds of years are not something that can be changed, and Xiong Jing himself doesn't know which tactics are advanced and which are backward -- the advantages and disadvantages of the tactics involve factors such as the environment, terrain, troop sources, and logistics, and he knows very little about cold weapon tactics, so he can only start with the autumn of this month and spend one to two years experimenting with new tactics.

In this way, the military academy needs to be postponed, and the large-scale casting and redressing of huge iron weapons must also be postponed. Among them, only the cavalry is immutable, and whether the cavalry uses a cavalry spear like the Cossacks in the future, the cavalry knife is indispensable.

After discussing the secrecy of the ink furnace steelmaking technology, the independent arrangement of the smelting area, the production and use of the ink furnace steel, and the ...... of these matters, Xiong Jing returned to the East Palace. On the paper, which had already begun to be used on a small scale, he briefly recorded the failure of converter steelmaking and the arrangements after the incident, and finally noted two figures: 33.33 gold and 50 tons.

The former is the accounting cost of ink furnace steel, because of the amortization of appliances and labor, the cost of ink furnace steel per kilogram of Chu Jin is 80 yuan, one ton is 320,000 yuan, one gold is 9,600 yuan, that is, 33.33 gold; 50 tons is the planned output of a year, not because it cannot be producible, but because the price of ink furnace steel is too high. Even if it only produces 50 tons a year, it will cost more than 1,600 gold a year, accounting for 2 percent of the nominal fiscal revenue of the Chu State. If you count the cost of casting and forging, I am afraid that the cost is not less than 4,000 gold. Economy, technology, and military are closely related. No matter how good the technology is, it needs to rely on the domestic economy, and you can't think as much as you want.

'It's not a game! Xiong Jing sighed inexplicably in his heart and ended the day's work log.

*

"The minister respectfully told the king: The minister heard that the Qin State had sent an envoy to our country, and he wanted me to condemn the eldest son Jing to Qin as a hostage." The next day, before the Yan Dynasty began to discuss the matter, Huang Xie poked out the news that the prince of Qin Guosuo had entered Qin as a hostage, and Xiong Yuan was stunned on the spot.

"This matter is very important, please make a decision as soon as possible." Under the angry gaze of Zhao Huang and others, Huang Xie insisted on finishing his words, after all, he was the commander of the Chu State, and it was a big deal for the prince to enter Qin as a hostage, and it would be a dereliction of duty for him not to report it.

"How's that good? How is this good......" Xiong Yuan's face turned a little purple, and he only read 'How is this good'. He really doesn't know 'how to be good'. Entering Qin as a hostage evoked his memories 25 years ago, when he was a hostage in Qin, and it was only under Huang Xie's strategic planning that he was lucky to succeed. For the past 25 years, the state of Chu has always taken Huang Xie as the commander Yin, and also sealed the twelve counties of Huang Xie and Huaibei, which shows how important it is to leave Qin and return to the country in his opinion.

The majesty makes people have to look up at the palace of the King of Qin, the palace officials who have to greet each other with a smile no matter how they slander and ask for bribes, and the midwinter night when he disguised himself as a royal hand and broke the axle on the official road...... These have become Xiong Yuan's nightmares, and every time he dreams about it, he wakes up in the middle of the night. Does his son have to live in Xianyang as humbly as he did back then?

"King, king," the chief servant Jiang saw Xiong Yuan's face purple, and he was immediately frightened, he ignored etiquette to help Xiong Yuan stroke his chest and back, for fear that the king would faint.

Xiong Yuan himself also noticed the discomfort of his body, he gritted his teeth and struggled out of his dizziness, and after a little calm, he said: "The widow will never allow Jing'er to enter Qin as a hostage, never allow!" ”

"The king, the minister also thinks so, the eldest son is the foundation of my Chu country, and he must not enter Qin." Huang Xie under the case unexpectedly agreed. "However, if I don't condemn my eldest son to Qin, Qin will kill me. Please send envoys to the four kingdoms of Han, Wei, Zhao and Yan to join forces again to refuse Qin's invitation. ”