Zhu Hongsan came out of Ma Xiaofang's house and came to the front yard office. Ma Shaoguang had already come early, and when he saw Zhu Hongsan entering the house, he hurriedly poured tea.

Zhu Hongsan took a sip of tea and asked, "Boyu, yesterday you asked you to notify the three foremen of the factory to come today, did you notify them?" ”

Ma Shaoguang said: "The notice has been completed yesterday, and they should arrive in a while." ”

While he was talking, someone outside reported that three foremen were outside asking to see him.

Zhu Hongsan let them in, and after a while, Tie Niu, Liu Dali, and Lao Duantou came in.

Now each of these three people is under the command of tens of thousands of workers' apprentices, and the power in their hands is greater than that of a county magistrate in a lower county. I haven't seen them for more than half a year, and these three people all have the bearing of high-ranking characters.

But the more powerful these three people are, the more they feel that Zhu Hongsan is terrible. They are not like those stinky old men who talk about it, and they can comment on the heroes of the world while sitting in the house.

The three of them saw with their own eyes the production of muskets and cannons. And he knew very well the power of these firearms, which were hundreds and ten times stronger than the weapons of the officers and soldiers.

The three of them came into the house and respectfully saluted Zhu Hongsanshen and said, "The owner is back." ”

Ma Shaoguang said on the side: "Bold, now that the lord has been canonized as the king of Chu by the imperial court, don't you kneel and kowtow?" ”

Zhu Hongsan hated Ma Shaoguang's strength to fight people, and when he saw that the three of them were about to kneel down and kowtow, Zhu Hongsan hurriedly said: "Excuse me, the three of you have followed this king since Wuchang, and you don't need to kowtow when you see this king in the future, just stand and talk." ”

The three of them hurriedly got up and thanked them.

Zhu Hongsan asked them to come today to understand the production situation, and after seeing them get up, he said, "How is the production now?" ”

Tie Niu said first, and he was the leader of the three. Tie Niu said: "Lord Wang, after you left, you ordered us to continue to produce muskets and artillery, and now we have produced 10,000 muskets and 300 cannons. After the musket introduced the method of production line taught by the prince, it can now reach 100 per day. Artillery is still not good, two can be produced per day. ”

Zhu Hongsan heard that the production of 100 muskets per day was okay, but the artillery was a little slow, and asked, "Is there any difficulty?" ”

"There is not enough production at the main steel mills. ”

On the side, Liu Dali said: "Lord Wang, now eighty percent of the pig iron in Guangdong has been accepted by us, and there is really no supply." Most of the pig iron is also produced from ductile iron, which is as hard as steel, and the knives and farm tools made are very marketable. Mr. Ma Er ordered that seventy percent of our pig iron should be produced ductile iron, so the supply of steel for muskets and artillery is a little tight. ”

Zhu Hong is three o'clock, it seems that it is still the bottleneck of raw materials. Zhu Hongsan thought for a while and said: "There is no good way to do the raw materials, so I have to wait." I've already asked people to mine iron ore, but it will take half a year. ”

Zhu Hongsan then asked, "Master Duan, how is the gunpowder factory over there?" ”

The gunpowder factory has the least number of employees, and now it has a total of more than 5,000 people. For safety, Zhu Hongsan's gunpowder factory was built in the mountains far away from the industrial zone, twenty miles away from Zhujiazhuang.

Lao Duantou said: "Now the production of gunpowder factories is normal, which can meet the daily use of muskets and artillery. We also experimented with gunpowder particles that were polished to pick out particles of the same size, so that the power could be three percent greater than before. ”

Zhu Hongsan didn't expect them to come up with a polishing procedure by themselves, and it seems that the ancient working people should not be taken lightly.

Zhu Hongsan nodded and said, "Okay, go back and reward each of the meritorious personnel with one hundred taels of silver." ”

Old Duan nodded and wrote it down.

Next, Zhu Hongsan wants to go to the field to see, after all, industry is not reliable only from them, and it is not as safe as what he has seen with his own eyes.

Hearing that Zhu Hongsan was going to the factory, Ma Shaoguang was full of displeasure. He didn't think that kind of place was where intellectuals should go.

Zhu Hongsan looked at Ma Shaoguang's face full of reluctance, and said in his heart: "The current people, I really don't know what to do. I could be a secretary to the leader at that time, do you know how many gifts I have to give? Now he is still reluctant to let him do this work. ”

Zhu Hongsan didn't care about that, and took Ma Shaoguang and Tie Niu out to the factory area. When I arrived at the door of Zhuangzi, I happened to see Yan Qingshan. Zhu Hongsanyi wanted to take them and let them see if they could produce ships.

After speaking, he said to Yan Qingshan: "Father-in-law, what are you going to do?" ”

Yan Qingshan saw Zhu Hongsan and said, "It's nothing, lead them to Zhuangzi for a walk." ”

Zhu Hongsan said: "Father-in-law, let your ship-making head go with me to see if you can make a sea boat." ”

Yan Qingshan was stunned for a moment and said, "You want to make a sea ship now?" The keel of a large ship cannot be manufactured in a year or two, and it takes half a year to dry. ”

Zhu Hongsan smiled and said, "Let's take a look." ”

Yan Qingshan called a few people and said, "It just so happens that I'll go with you to see what you can do." ”

Zhu Hongsan didn't care about him, and they rushed to the factory area two miles away with Tie Niu.

Iron Bull introduced as he walked. It turns out that there are more than 50,000 workers in the factory area. The steel mill employs the largest number of people, with more than 28,000 people. The manufacturing plant has more than 21,000 people. More than five thousand others were in the gunpowder factory.

On the outskirts of the factory are shantytowns with part-time workers, home to about 30,000 people, plus more than 50,000 of their families. In this way, there will be 70,000 or 80,000 people in the factory area.

Zhu Hongsan instructed the iron bull to be well managed, pay attention to fire prevention and hygiene. Seventy or eighty thousand people gathered together can easily break out of infectious diseases.

Tie Niu said: "Now there is a special security team in the factory area, which is managed by Li Fugui and Li Zhutou of the county seat, and there are people patrolling every day. At the same time, Li Putou also set up a sanitation picket team to inspect the sanitation of the shantytowns every 10 days, and those who did not meet the standards were dismissed from the factory. You must know that the monthly salary of our regular workers is five taels of silver per person, and the monthly salary of short-term workers is three taels per month. It's enough for these people to live for two months, so they are afraid of losing their jobs, so they are very serious about cleaning their homes. ”

Zhu Hongsan looked inside the shantytown, the road was quite narrow, but the hygiene was not bad. At least there is no feces on the trail.

Zhu Hongsan asked, "Where do the regular workers live?" ”

Tie Niu replied: "The regular workers all have houses in the Zhuangzi. Now the houses in Zhuangzi have risen sharply. A small courtyard with three houses costs a hundred taels of silver. It's three times higher than half a year ago. ”

Zhu Hongsan asked: "How about I let Tong Yangjia build a house a few years ago?" Have they all been sent out? ”

Tie Niu nodded and said, "It was sent to the foremen of each workshop, and they were all very grateful to the prince's great kindness." ”

Zhu Hongsan thought in his heart: "It seems that the state-owned enterprises in the future still have some effect, at least it is very useful to gather popularity." As for the rigidity of state-owned enterprises, let's talk about it later. ”

The first thing you see when you enter the factory is a big road along the river, and there are factories on both sides of the road. On the riverside are rows of waterwheels. Now the waterwheel is the main power of Zhu Hongsan's factory.

Zhu Hongsan casually entered a workshop, which was a carpentry workshop that produced wooden handles for muskets. There are more than 100 workers in the whole workshop, and they are busy producing.

The workshop director was a middle-aged man in his thirties, and when he saw Tie Niu coming, he hurriedly stepped forward to ask An to arrive: "Tie Lao is here." ”

Tie Niu nodded and said to Zhu Hongsan: "This is the Lu foreman of the carpentry workshop, he was originally a carpenter in Dongguan County, and his skills are good. ”

Zhu Hongsan said: "You're busy, I'll take a look." ”

The foreman saw that the usually bullish iron boss was cautiously following behind Zhu Hongsan, so he naturally knew that this was a big man. Busy said: "It's okay, what do you want to see?" I'll give you an introduction. ”

Zhu Hongsan saw that the entire workshop was water-conserved, powered by two large waterwheels, and the carpentry was processed quickly. A gun handle can be turned into a rough shape in a few minutes, and then the next process can be finished.

It seems that Iron Bull also introduced the assembly line here. That's good. Zhu Hongsan said: "Tie Niu, it's very good for you to do this. We should keep our eyes open, don't stick to the past, listen to the opinions of craftsmen, and correct mistakes in production in a timely manner. What we want is production efficiency, as long as we can improve production, we can rest assured and boldly do it. ”

Iron Bull nodded repeatedly on the side.

Zhu Hongsan then asked, "What does the woodworking workshop produce?" ”

Tie Niu said: "Now we produce the handles of muskets, and we also produce ammunition boxes in normal times, and when we are not alive, we also take out some goods, and produce furniture, carriages, and so on. Because we have a large number of people and good quality, we are very popular with some local people. Some people from Guangzhou have come to us to order carriage furniture. ”