At the beginning of September 890 AD, the two major northern princes of Xuanwu Army and Tiance Army turned their attention to the location of Shannan Dongdao at the same time. After the Xuanwu army gathered 50,000 troops from the eastern capital Luoyang in a high-profile manner, led by Ding Hui, and the southern 50,000 troops under the command of Zhang Guihou and Niu Cunjie, when the eastern capital army was still assembled, it had crossed the remaining veins of the Dabie Mountains and entered Suizhou, but the Tiance army formed a group army of 80,000 people in the northern Shangzhou area of Shannan East Road, and Chen Yu led the rapid march towards Shangzhou.

At the same time, when Chen Yu was acting on his side, Yang Tiancheng also quietly returned to the base camp from Hanzhong, and determined the final plan for the attack in Sichuan, and the order of the General Staff was also issued to the Hanzhong Group Army. After receiving the order, Xue Yang and Qian Ning immediately divided their troops into two routes, Qian Ning led an army of 80,000 to the front, along the direction of Xingzhou, in front of the steep and continuous mountains of the Qinling Mountains, while advancing along the ancient road from Hanzhong to Shuzhong, while Yang Yi personally led tens of thousands of workers of the construction company to repair the road all the way to ensure the rapid passage of the logistics troops. On the other side, Xue Yang with the third battalion and Xu Ying's sixth battalion headquarters that rushed to the scene disappeared from everyone's sight.

However, Li Xuanqing and other top officials of the Tiance Mansion who were sitting in Chang'an were a little hesitant after the news about Cheng Wei came back from the Xuanying Weishan South Branch. From the perspective of Cen Tianshi and others in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, they are a little interested in Cheng Wei, but the warlord atmosphere in the other party's bones makes the latter worry that it is not suitable for the system of Tiance Mansion. The military led by Hu Xiaosi and Xu Tianxiang also began to worry that the other party could not integrate with the policies of the Tiance Mansion after the continuous detailed news came. After weighing the pros and cons, Li Xuanqing instructed Hu Xiaosi to abandon his plan to persuade Cheng Wei to surrender.

After there was no new progress in the arrangement of Shannan Province for the time being, Hu Xiaosi hit Li Maozhen with his idea. In the central Sichuan region, Li Maozhen's Xichuan is the essence of the whole Yizhou, the Chengdu Plain, where its governance is located, is known as the country of abundance, has always been the land of fish and rice, and in the early investigation of the resources and minerals in Sichuan, the He family and the Xu family have a lot of business in Sichuan, in recent years, with the peaceful coexistence between Wang Jian and Li Maozhen, the business in Sichuan has also entered the road of rapid development. Affected by Li Xuanqing's reform in Guanzhong, a large number of exports of grain, silk and other raw materials also let the two join hands to eat, after the northern currency reform, the remaining part of the copper coins into Sichuan did not cause an economic crisis like Bianliang and other places, under the support of sufficient materials, Sichuan and other places actually steadily digested all the millions of copper coins, which made Li Xuanqing surprised and began to understand how rich this closed place is.

Hu Xiaosi's thoughts, Li Xuanqing and Xu Tianxiang also understand, and he can not afford to be profitable for this guy's personality, anyway, with his character, he basically can't suffer. After the General Staff always paid attention to the changes in the war situation on both sides, Li Xuanqing put aside the military and political affairs and took Qiaoxi to inspect the shipping company founded by Xu Xingxia in Guanzhong. As the logistics department vigorously transported grain, grass, weapons and other materials to the front line, his Guanzhong shipping company also undertook the transportation task in the Guanzhong area. Xu Xingxia sent Xu Dong, the deputy of the Canal Shipping Company, to take charge of the business of the Guanzhong Shipping Company, and he himself was supposed to rush to Tianjin to see the new-style inland river freighter, but he received a report that Li Xuanqing had arrived.

"Shouldn't the lord worry about the war in Shannan? Why do you suddenly have time here? Xu Xingxia welcomed Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi into his office, and said with a smile: "My lord, I have Biluochun just sent from Dongting Lake here, my lord and my wife wait a minute, I will take it for the two of you to taste." After speaking, he instructed his subordinates to prepare the utensils for making tea.

"Didn't I come to you to inquire about things? The Xu family is a famous family in Shannan Province, who am I not looking for you? Li Xuanqing looked at the room that was almost the same as the office of the boss of a large company in the future, and said with a smile.

"If the lord has anything to ask, Xingxia knows everything and has nothing to say." Xu Xingxia said with a smile: "Although Shannan Road is not a prosperous place, it actually has a lot of essence, I don't know what the lord said?" ”

"Something about schistosomiasis." Qiaoxi asked, "I want to ask Brother Xu how much do you know about the people in the south suffering from schistosomiasis?" ”

"Schistosomes?" Xu Xingxia was stunned for a moment, reacted randomly, and said with a wry smile: "Speaking of the lord, this is basically a common disease of the people in the south, and this disease exists in almost all water network areas. ”

"Then what are your methods for diagnosis and treatment?" Qiaoxi's face darkened, and then he continued to ask.

Xu Xingxia shook his head and said: "There is no good way, the doctor is basically helpless, even if there are ordinary people, they can't afford to hire a doctor, and this disease is actually too fast to be controlled on a large scale." Therefore, many people have no way to heal, and some will ask a wizard to dance the great god and get rid of the plague god. ”

"I have a prescription here, after you take it, you will immediately go to He Wenjin, and configure these medicinal materials into pills or medicinal liquids as quickly as possible, and then set off from the logistics department, partly to supply the army, and partly to treat the people along the way." Li Xuanqing handed Xu Xingxia a prescription for the treatment of schistosomiasis infectious disease by traditional Chinese medicine in a newspaper that he and Qiaoxi had accidentally read, and the actual effect depended on the curative effect.

"I have strictly ordered the group army headquarters not to touch the raw water, nor to have contact with the local sick people, and to use quicklime to kill the source of infection in the camp, but the effect is unknown." Li Xuanqing sighed and said, "Mr. Cen has also taken care of the officials of the Ministry of Civil Affairs who set off to serve in the future, and paid attention to the methods passed on to the people to kill the snails." ”

"The lord's prescription Xingxia has accepted, this matter will be handed over to Xingxia, for the people of his hometown, Xingxia will definitely do his best." Xu Xingxia was interrupted by Li Xuanqing before he could finish speaking, "Speaking of which, the five of you have followed the Tiance Army to this day, it can be regarded as embarrassing for you." ”

"The lord has given us so many opportunities for development, this little thing is nothing." Xu Xingxia knew that Li Xuanqing was talking about the canal trade some time ago, which actually interrupted the development plans of the five companies, but none of them dropped the chain, and they all put down the things in their hands and went all out to complete the tasks assigned by Li Xuanqing.

"The industrial group is already developing plastics, and if it is successful, it will set up a plastic production base, and then you can try to produce plastic products, and then you can completely kill snails and schistosomiasis." Li Xuanqing nodded and continued.

In fact, the best drug for treating schistosomiasis infectious diseases is praziquantel, but Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi only remember one name, and they don't know anything about how to configure it, so they can only resort to traditional Chinese medicine.

So after explaining Xu Xingxia, the two turned around and went directly to the headquarters of the industrial group in Chang'an, where all the research laboratories of the industrial group were gathered, and the military research base of the logistics department in Tiance Mansion was set up in Ningzhou, which included almost all the cutting-edge research.

When they arrived at the group headquarters, Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi plunged into the latest chemical research laboratory and began to inquire about the research progress of plastics.

In charge of the chemical research laboratory is a Taoist priest Hu Xiaosi found from Mount Emei, and the reason why such a funny thing happened is also a helpless move, because no one can understand what chemistry is. Fortunately, this little Taoist priest named Chongxu changed his name to Zhang Chong after returning to the vulgar and became the person in charge of the chemical laboratory, and then used the alchemy knowledge he had learned from his master to research, plus Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi taught the basic principles and experimental methods of chemistry in later generations, and finally gathered a team of more than 20 people, and with the passage of time, the types of research began to change, and gradually more alloy steel laboratories, ordinary raw material laboratories and special laboratories began to be completed one after another. Li Xuanqing finally let go of the thoughts hanging in his heart.

"Lord, there is still no progress in the research of plastics, we have used dry distillation and high temperature and other means for charcoal according to the opinions of the lord, and extracted a lot of other substances, but we have not found the plastic that the lord said." Zhang Chong said with a difficult face.

"So have you ever tested the oil sent by the logistics department?" At this time, Qiaoxi interjected: "If you can, you can try oil." ”

Qiaoxi's words made Zhang Chong very excited, and after saying goodbye to Li Xuanqing, he plunged into the laboratory to prepare for the secondary differentiation of oil.

However, for Li Xuanqing, it is too difficult to extract plastic as a polymer material from oil, and it is basically impossible for a chemical laboratory that is still in its infancy. So after calming down, I started thinking of other ways.

"Qiaoxi, do you remember that in the south of our country, there are also things similar to rubber?" Li Xuanqing vaguely remembered that there seemed to be a substitute for rubber, but he couldn't remember what it was for a while. In fact, in ancient times, there were substitutes for many things in later generations, such as chili peppers, in fact, in ancient times, in addition to peppercorns and peppercorns, there were also spicy horn vines.

"Big brother is talking about rubber grass? It seems that rubber can be extracted from this as well. But we don't remember what this rubber grass looks like. How to go about finding it? Qiaoxi frowned and said a little uncertainly.

"No matter how much, let's go to the Ministry of Civil Affairs and let the Ministry of Civil Affairs immediately issue a proclamation, and mobilize the people in the whole region to find a heavy reward for extracting **, sticky plants, and successfully finding rubber grass." After Li Xuanqing received a positive answer, he no longer bothered, and went to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

So the next day, from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, a very strange proclamation was conveyed one after another, in the name of Tiance Mansion, the whole region consulted the most sticky plants, and the local government issued the people, all those who found it were registered and purchased at the official price and sent to Chang'an as soon as possible, and those who passed the Tiance Mansion were rewarded with gold and issued honorary plaques, tax-free for three years.

This proclamation caused an uproar in various places, because the proclamation did not explain what the role of this plant was, so the officials of the local government were also inexplicable, but the direct orders of General Tiance and the Ministry of Civil Affairs still had to be carried out, because the proclamation clearly informed that it must be a living plant, so for a while, there was an endless stream of fast horses coming and going to Chang'an, and even after the official post could not meet this transmission, they began to turn to the civil transmission power. The emerging postal company began to emerge, but this time it was not the five wealthy merchants who took over, but an ordinary merchant named Wang Dongwei in Chang'an began to set up a company called Shunda Express Transportation Company near Chang'an, and began to undertake the piggyback and delivery of things such as folk letters or gifts, and developed rapidly in this national movement to find plants.

In this nationwide search for rubber grass that lasted for more than a month, Qiaoxi's media company began to publicize this plant and spread Li Xuanqing's reward to the whole people, and published a notice of finding things inscribed by Li Xuanqing himself. This method let everyone know what Li Xuanqing was looking for, so the people began to follow the instructions in the newspaper to search for this legendary plant.

However, Cen Tianshi discovered this unique role of media companies in transmitting news, and began to issue orders to various departments, and all government proclamations issued in the future should be published in full in the "Tiance Monthly" under the media company, and this was officially issued as a regulation.

This move was inadvertently at odds with later generations of government proclamations published in newspapers. Qiaoxi, who got the news, began to guide the media company to carry out reforms, took out the model of the news agency of later generations, specially set up a group of initial reporters, and invited the Civil Affairs Department and the Foreign Affairs Department to make a special press pass as a special card for media companies to cover news.

However, Li Xuanqing had no intention of caring about this, but led people to inspect the suspected rubber grass plants sent to the Ministry of Civil Affairs from all over the country every day. However, as time goes by, the greater Li Xuanqing's disappointment, the rubber grass in his memory is a plant that can be compared to the rubber tree, how can it not be? Although the quality of the glue is not as good as that of the rubber tree, it is impossible not to have it, and it is impossible to miss it if you have carefully inspected each plant yourself.

"Big brother, Master Zhang is here. He also brought plants. I think this one is more like. Just when Li Xuanqing was competing with himself, Qiaoxi hurried over with Zhang Quanfu and a few people dressed as ordinary people.

Li Xuanqing got up when he heard this, hurriedly said hello to Zhang Quanfu and took the plants brought by the other party, but the few people brought by Zhang Quanfu gave Li Xuanqing two kinds of plants, one of which Li Xuanqing was very familiar with.

"This is a fig?" Li Xuanqing was stunned for a moment, and then said in surprise.

Zhang Quanfu said with a smile: "Lord, this is the fig tree, but it is also in line with what the lord said can produce viscous water quality, and I tried it, and it can indeed stick a lot of things." ”

Li Xuanqing didn't have time to listen to what Zhang Quanfu said, so he looked directly at another plant, and saw that the leaves of this plant were narrowly obovate or inverted-lanceolate, about an inch long, very narrow, with a whole margin or wavy teeth, a blunt or acute apex, and the main vein was red. The flowers are half an inch long, less than a foot high, longer than the leaves, sometimes purplish-red, with loose spider-like hairs at the apex; The inflorescence is very fine in diameter. bracts pale green, often purplish-red at the apex, with long, pointed horns; The outer bracts are lanceolate-ovate to lanceolate, with a white membranous margin, equal or slightly wider than the inner bracts. The length of the inner bracts is 1.5-2.5 times that of the outer bracts, the tongue flowers are yellow, the throat of the corolla and the lower part of the tongue are sparsely pubescent, the marginal flower tongue is purple streaked on the back, and the stigma is yellow. Aleus hazel. It's almost as good as I remember.

"Big brother, this is rubber grass, and that fig tree can also extract rubber." Qiaoxi walked over and looked at Li Xuanqing's haggard expression, secretly distressed, and hurriedly explained.