The autumn wind is bleak, the sky is also full of gloomy dark clouds, it seems that it may rain at any time, and the pedestrians on the road have wrapped their clothes tightly and accelerated the pace of walking, but Li Xiu walked leisurely on the streets of Chang'an, did not enter the city for a long time, and occasionally went into the city to take a turn, and it also felt very fresh. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Walk along Suzaku Street to the north, and then turn to a wide street in the East Market, only to see that both sides of the street are full of luxurious mansions, and the magnificent gatehouse can be seen everywhere, Li Xiu followed Ma Ye to the door of one of the most luxurious mansions, and wrote four big characters "Yingguo Mansion", when the guards on both sides of the mansion saw Ma Ye, they did not dare to stop him, and at the same time, the intellectuals in the mansion also immediately greeted them, and then led them to the front hall of the mansion.

"Uncle Ma, this Ying Guogong is luxurious enough!" Li Xiu sat down and looked at the surrounding environment and said with a smile, the door of the Ying Guogong Mansion is the most magnificent on the whole street, and the layout of the mansion is also extremely luxurious, not to mention anything else, the white jade screen in the hall alone is estimated to be priceless.

"Hehe, the samurai family was originally a famous rich businessman, when His Majesty raised the army, he was funded by the samurai, after His Majesty ascended the throne, he naturally rewarded the samurai family, and the samurai's business was also bigger, and building a house was just a drop in the bucket for them." Ma Ye smiled indifferently and said, if it weren't for the strong financial resources of the martial arts family and the deep favor of the martial artists, he would not choose to do business in partnership with the martial artists.

Just when Li Xiu and Ma Ye were chatting, they suddenly heard a rush of footsteps outside, and then a tall figure walked in quickly, and when he saw Ma Ye, he immediately laughed and stepped forward and said: "Brother Ma, I haven't seen you for many days, I really want to mess with my little brother!" ”

"Hehe, didn't I just have a drink with you last month?" Ma Ye also smiled at this time, and the tone of his speech was also very polite, but Li Xiu knew that the more polite Ma Ye spoke to people, the more estranged he was from the other party.

Taking advantage of the opportunity of Ma Ye and Wu Shi Tong to greet each other, Li Xiu was also seriously looking at this Wu Meiniang's father, only to see that the other party was about forty years old, tall and majestic, looking quite imposing, in fact, although the martial arts family was born as a businessman, but Wu Shi Tong has been fighting in the army, once did the team of Eagle Yang Mansion, and later because of his friendship with Li Yuan, and served as a marching armor under Li Yuan to join the army, Li Yuan hesitated before raising the army, and it was the Wu Shi Tong who persuaded him to make up his mind, and later Wu Shi Tong also made many military exploits, Naturally, Li Yuan was deeply respected.

I saw that after a few words of greeting between Wu Shi Tong and Ma Ye, he looked at Li Xiu next to him, although Ma Ye did not tell him in advance that Li Xiu would come to visit, but when the shrewd Wu Shi Tong saw the young Li Xiu, his eyes suddenly lit up, and he took a step forward and said: "Dare to ask Your Excellency, is it Li Xiu Li Gongzi?" ”

"Ying Guogong is polite, it's Li Xiu below!" Li Xiu stepped forward and said with a smile, judging from his appearance, this warrior Tong doesn't seem to be a calculating person, but people can't look good, not to mention that Ma Ye's gaze at people has always been very accurate, in fact, if it weren't for satisfying his curiosity, Li Xiu probably wouldn't have met someone like Wushi Tong at all.

"Hahahaha~, I have long heard that Li Gongzi's talent is world-renowned, and Wu Mou has long wanted to visit, but he was afraid of disturbing Gongzi, but he didn't expect Gongzi to come to the door in person today, Wu Mou really felt full of brilliance!" When Wu Shi Tong heard that the person in front of him was indeed Li Xiu, he couldn't help but say in high spirits, everyone knew that Li Xiu had no intention of fame and fortune, and he refused the solicitation of the King of Qin and the crown prince one after another, but now he came to visit him in person, which made him feel that his face was bright, and he was afraid that others would not dare to believe it.

"Ying Guogong is polite, he is just an idler in the next place, where can he afford such praise from Guogong!" Li Xiu hurriedly said modestly when he heard this, no wonder Ma Ye said that the other party has a wide range of friends, not to mention what the other party's character is, this enthusiastic attitude alone makes it difficult for people to be disgusted.

Then Wu Shi Tong and Li Xiu exchanged a few words, and then invited them to sit down, Li Xiu wanted to ask the other party why he wanted to see him, but Wu Shi Tong didn't seem to be in a hurry to talk about it, but chatted with them with enthusiasm, and asked people to prepare a banquet, for which Li Xiu had to give up this idea for the time being.

After a while, the banquet was ready, and the rain outside finally started, so the samurai set up the venue for the banquet in the back garden corridor of the house, where you could enjoy the rain outside while drinking, and there was a stove next to it, so you didn't feel cold.

"Brother Wu, don't you want to see Li Xiu, now that someone has found it for you, just say it if you have anything to say!" After three rounds of drinking, Ma Ye immediately said directly, he was also very curious about what Wu Shi Tong was looking for Li Xiu to do?

"This ......" I saw that Wu Shi Tong hesitated for a moment when he heard this, and finally spoke, "Actually, I am ashamed to say this, the reason why I want to see Li Gongzi is actually related to Shi Tan!" ”

"Coal? Hasn't Uncle Ma always been in charge of this matter, I'm afraid that Ying Guogong is looking for the wrong person when he looks for me, right? Li Xiu was a little puzzled when he heard this, he thought that the coal that Wu Shi Tong said was that after seeing the huge profits of honeycomb coal, he wanted to master some coal mines, but those coal mines were in the hands of Ma Ye, so he could only talk to Ma Ye.

"No, no~, Li Gongzi misunderstood, what I said is related to coal, in fact, I heard Brother Ma mention that the reason why he was able to make charcoal into honeycomb coal in the first place was all due to Li Gongzi's contributions, and Gongzi seems to know very well about coal, so Wu wants to ask Gongzi for advice, can he use coal for ironmaking?" Seeing that Li Xiu had misunderstood what he meant, Wu Shi Tong hurriedly waved his hand and finally said his purpose.

"Ironmaking!" Li Xiu was even more confused when he heard this, and he couldn't understand why Wu Shitong, an important member of the imperial court, asked him about using coal to make iron?

However, Li Xiu couldn't figure it out, but Ma Ye was very clear, and he smiled at the moment: "Brother Wu, now that the official system of the imperial court has not been decided, most of the positions of the secretary of the various ministries are vacant, you are usually temporarily in charge of the affairs of the Ministry of Industry, does it mean that His Majesty wants to officially appoint you as the secretary of the Ministry of Industry?" ”

Ma Ye's official system has not been decided, in fact, it means that after the founding of the Tang Dynasty, it has always copied the official system of the former Sui, there is no problem with this, but sometimes because Li Yuan did not consider it carefully when rewarding the official position, the functions and powers of the court officials are somewhat confused, and some people have long written about it, wanting to formulate the official system of the Tang Dynasty, but it has been dragged for various reasons, and before that, the official position of the Tang Dynasty was also relatively chaotic, and many important positions were only held by officials, and were not formally appointed, such as Wu Shi Tong managed the Ministry of Industry, But it's not a book of the Ministry of Industry.

"Hehe, don't hide it from Brother Ma, Your Majesty did reveal the meaning of this, but the Ministry of Industry is not easy to manage, there are a few squires below who have long been eyeing the position of Shangshu, and I have no political achievements after mastering the Ministry of Industry, and my prestige is somewhat insufficient, so even if Your Majesty has the intention to let me be a Shangshu, but I am not sure to sit in this position!" In the end, Wu Shi Tong also poured bitter water on Ma Ye, he would not have easily told others these words, but he was familiar with Ma Ye's personality, and he knew that Li Xiu had never interacted with people in the court, so he said it so boldly.

"I see, in the past, charcoal was used for iron smaking, and the price was high, so you want to use cheaper charcoal instead of charcoal, but what I don't understand is that if you want to make iron with charcoal, you can go directly to smelt, do you still need to ask Li Xiu for advice on this kind of thing?" Ma Ye said that in the end, he was also a little puzzled, in his opinion, isn't iron smelting just about burning iron ore, and what kind of fuel is used?

"Uncle Ma, you are wrong, iron smelting is not just what kind of fuel is used, for example, charcoal can be used to make good fine iron, but if it is replaced with charcoal, I am afraid that it can only be used to make brittle and hard iron, which is not useful at all." Li Xiu suddenly interjected at this time, and he finally understood the reason why Wu Shi Tong wanted to see him.

"That's right, Li Gongzi really knows that after the craftsmen of our Ministry of Industry replaced charcoal with charcoal, the iron smelted was brittle and hard, and it couldn't be used no matter how it was made, but I didn't know what the reason was, so I wanted to ask Li Gongzi for help!" Wu Shi Tong said to Li Xiu excitedly at this time, originally he asked Li Xiu for help just in case, even if Li Xiu had no way, he could also use this to get closer to this young handsome man, but hearing what he said just now, it made Wu Xiu Tong's heart suddenly rise with infinite hope.

I saw Li Xiu pondering for a moment at this time, he did know the reason, but even if he said it, he would definitely not understand the warrior Tong, so he finally explained simply: "Ying Guogong, charcoal is different from charcoal, it is produced underground, and there are a lot of impurities in it, when burning, these impurities will enter the molten iron, and it is precisely because of the existence of these impurities that the iron quality has become extremely poor, and if you want to solve this problem, you must remove the impurities in the charcoal!" ”

"I see, I don't know how to remove impurities from the carbon?" Hearing this, Wu Shi Tong couldn't help but ask excitedly and loudly, he finally found the right person, Li Xiu really knew the reason, but he didn't know if he had a solution?

I saw that Li Xiu showed a contemplative expression again at this time, the so-called impurities in the coal actually refer to sulfur, which will make the quality of iron extremely poor, and there is only one way to remove it, that is, to smelt the coal into coke.

To put it bluntly, coking technology is similar to burning charcoal, which is to isolate the air when the fuel is burned halfway, so that the nature of the charcoal has undergone a series of changes, but under the current conditions, I am afraid that the quality of the coke is not very good, and the sulfur content in it will definitely exist, and the steel made with such coke will definitely not be as good as the iron smelted from charcoal in terms of quality. (To be continued.) )