Matsue Castle.

Going down the Yangtze River by boat, Lin Mu arrived here in two days.

As a treaty port of the Chinese Dynasty, thanks to the prosperity of overseas trade, Songjiang Castle gradually became a prosperous city from a small fishing village in the past.

It was only out of precaution against Xiyi that the Hua Dynasty stipulated that foreigners were not allowed to enter Songjiang City, so there were no foreign merchants who crossed the sea in the city.

"Big brother, foreigners live in settlements designated by the imperial court outside the city, and they can only trade goods in foreign goods stores in normal times."

As soon as they arrived in Songjiang City, Lin Mu and Shan Hu followed the route provided by Lin Qing to find Lin Qi, who was bargaining with foreigners in the sixth line of Songjiang.

"What do these foreigners mainly sell?" Lin Mu looked at the foreign goods store, and after receiving the sixth line, Lin Qing arranged for some capable shopkeepers and men to come here to do things, and now some people are receiving foreign merchants.

"Among these foreign merchants, England is the mainstay, but there are also merchants from the United States, France, Japan and other countries, and the English merchants mainly sell cloth, cotton and opium to foreign merchants, and then buy our black tea, raw silk, and porcelain back."

Lin Mu nodded, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Britain's trade in East Asia was still in the triangular trade stage, and the triangle was Britain, India and China.

As the Industrial Revolution progressed in Britain, the steam engine entered the factory, which gave Britain a greater boost in its ability to produce cloth.

In India, both cotton and opium became the colony's main sources of finance.

At the same time, due to the urbanization brought about by the Industrial Revolution, black tea was loved by British citizens as a safe and medicinal drink, and the import volume continued to increase, coupled with raw silk and porcelain, and the trade deficit between Britain and China appeared.

Therefore, in order to balance the trade, the British took cotton materials from India and shipped them back to China to be processed into cloth and sold back to India, and then sold Indian opium to the Chinese Dynasty to offset the deficit caused by imported black tea.

"How are our soaps selling?" When Lin Qing came to Songjiang, he also brought a batch of soap, the purpose of which was to sell it to foreigners.

"Big brother, you're right, foreigners really like our soap, I sold a batch yesterday and earned three thousand taels of silver." Speaking of this, Lin Qi became excited.

The mid-nineteenth century was the time when soaps were all the rage in Europe, and this time his decision went with the flow.

"The sales of goods lie in publicity, and during this time, you spend some money to find a way to sell soap to all foreign merchants in Songjiang."

At present, the business concept of the Chinese Dynasty is still very outdated, and it is basically a sales method of waiting for the rabbit, while the business method of waiting for customers in the contemporary era is taboo.

This time, he came to Songjiang for the first for materials, and the second for teaching Lin Qi some sales skills.

So taking advantage of this topic, Lin Mu gave Lin Qi a lesson for an hour and taught him some publicity and solicitation skills.

The two chatted for a while, Lin Mu remembered the matter and said, "How many warehouses do we have in Songjiang?" ”

"There are three, all outside the city."

"Are there any vacant warehouses for sale here?" Lin Mu is ready to take out all the materials that are going to be pulled back to Jiangning this time and put them in the warehouse, and then transport them back.

In the small talk, Lin Qi already knew about Jin Bing's southward journey, and he also knew Lin Mulai's purpose, so he naturally didn't dare to take Ning Jun's affairs lightly.

"When Songjiang was first opened to trade, many merchants thought that Songjiang would be as prosperous as Guangzhou, and built a lot of warehouses at that time. In the past few days, Lin Qi has also learned a little about Songjiang.

"In that case, you can send someone to buy six warehouses now, and I will use them again this time." Lin Mu said.

Lin Qi answered, called a guy and went out, Lin Mu picked up a place in the foreign goods store and sat down to close his eyes and recuperate, but in fact, his consciousness entered the urban space.

After a scene change, Lin Mu was in the city, and when he came out of Duanwang's Mansion, he determined what he was going to bring back this time.

The most important ones are, of course, steel ingots and steel rods, the finished steel ingots can be processed into cold weapons such as bayonets, and the steel rods can be processed into gun barrels, of course, it is best if you can find hollow steel with the same inner diameter.

Originally, he wanted Lin Feng to make steel step by step, but now the materials are all problems, not to mention the rest.

Secondly, cement, coal, gunpowder and other materials are necessary.

Thinking of this, Lin Mu went directly to the steel mill on the outskirts of S City, which is among the top ten steel mills in the country, producing a wide variety of various types of steel, and is the place where he is most likely to find the target.

Arriving at the steel mill, Lin Mu went directly to the warehouse, where he found all kinds of steel, among which there was naturally such a thing as steel ingots.

Determining the location of the ingots, he searched the storeroom again, and then he found solid steel rods with an outer diameter of 20 mm, which were very suitable for drilling the barrel with a drill bit.

However, he did not rest on his laurels, and continued to search, and in the middle of the warehouse he found a batch of hollow steel pipes with an inner diameter of 17.8mm and a standard of 40Cr, which were fully capable of being used as a material for gun barrels in the 19th century.

Looking at the seamless hollow steel piled up into a hill, Lin Mu felt a sense of relief in his heart, with this, he could save a lot of effort.

Now the situation is urgent, he can only use the ready-made ones, and the right to import them is foreign trade, and when he has a firm foothold, he will establish the Huachao industry step by step.

found what he wanted in the steel factory, Lin Mu found a large amount of cement and coal successively, and found a batch of black powder in the firecracker factory.

After doing this, Lin Mu rolled his eyes and drove to the garrison site of S City.

The place used to be heavily guarded, but now it was empty, and he had come here to look for firearms.

The garrison of S City is very small, and there is almost no heavy equipment, it is basically a garrison.

Entering the station, Lin Mu searched for a while, and soon found the gun hangar, and he turned around and left after looking at all kinds of modern firearms.

It was enough to determine the position, and when he returned to Jiangning, he would take the gun out and practice, of course, only for himself.

He didn't dare to take a large number of modern firearms to Jiangning to use, the gun is a double-edged sword, and it will be troublesome if it falls into the hands of someone who wants to kill him, and besides, it is not a war year, the amount of ammunition in the garrison is limited, and it is estimated that the bullets will be exhausted in a battle, and modern firearms without ammunition replenishment are a pile of scrap copper and rotten iron, which is meaningless, it is better to take it for self-protection.

Leaving the garrison, Lin Mu went to the lead factory again, which was the material for making bullets, and based on the materials he found, he thought that it was not a problem to weave mini rifles in Jiangning.

This breech-loading rapid-fire gun was born in the mid-nineteenth century in the modern era, and it is a rifled gun, which is a grade ahead of the arquebus and the flintlock pistol that are currently equipped on a large scale in the Chinese Dynasty.

And because of the presence of rifles, the effective range of the Mini rifle is 900 meters, and the accuracy is greatly improved compared to the smoothbore gun, which allows the soldiers equipped with the Mini rifle to have an advantage in the cross-fire.

Now that you have a suitable barrel, the most troublesome thing left is rifling, but it is not difficult to find a knife like a hook in S City.

With a hook, it's easy to have a carpenter make a rifling hand lathe.