Two days later, Su Ziheng's workshop had already built the kiln and tried to burn a kiln, confirming that there was no problem. He began to debug according to the cement formula excerpted from the encyclopedia, and naturally the first debugging was low-standard cement.

Cement is not a very complicated thing, the limestone raw materials and a small amount of clay raw materials, correction raw materials after crushing, according to a certain proportion of matching, grinding and blending into the appropriate composition, uniform quality of raw material, put into the kiln calcined mature material, and then take out and gypsum, mixed materials together to grind into powdered cement.

Because of its simplicity, the first kiln test firing was successful. It's just that Su Ziheng is not very satisfied with the cement effect made, which can reach the standard of low-standard cement, and there is still a distance from what he needs in his mind.

Rao is so, this batch of cement also made Zhong Xinde and Mao Boyi and others overjoyed, they had never seen such a magical thing. According to Su Ziheng's instructions, after mixing these cements and sand with water, they easily built together various stones with different rules.

After a day of drying, the stones seem to grow together, and no matter how vigorously they push, it is difficult to shake the slightest. It is stronger than a building made of bricks, and even less so than a building made of earth.

Immediately, Zhong Xinde immediately sent someone to inform Zhong Qinghan, and expressed his admiration for Su Ziheng.

Su Ziheng's expression was very indifferent, asking Mao Boyi, Zhong Xinde and others not to be happy too early, and they still needed to continue to debug the formula and try to test a better formula.

And let them do each test, the amount of raw material mixture of the formula must be recorded in accordance with the unified weights and measures standard, and finally compare the cement effect.

At this moment, Su Ziheng didn't plan to participate in the later experiments, and let Mao Boyi and others do it, he only needed to check the results, and at the same time solve some of the problems they encountered in the experiment.

……

……

"Master, that Zhang Xiaoshan is here again."

Su Ziheng straightened up from the desk, stretched, twisted his wrists and neck, and ordered, "Xiaojun, you bring him to the study." ”

In a blink of an eye, it was the end of July, and more than half a month had passed since the outbreak of the locust plague. Su Ziheng estimated that the consequences of the locust plague had been revealed, and he did not know the situation of those herdsmen in Great Xia, but the herdsmen in Mengyuan must have a very difficult life.

Without fodder and no food, how can they continue to live?

After Zhang Xiaoshan entered the study, he bowed to Su Ziheng, with a flattering smile on his face, "Little Zhang Xiaoshan has seen Su Gongzi. ”

Su Ziheng waved his hand and said indifferently: "Have you had any results from what you talked about two days ago?" ”

Zhang Xiaoshan nodded violently and said: "Thanks to Gongzi's blessing, Meng Yuan's side has already been contacted, and they agreed to exchange three hundred horses, cattle and sheep, and they are all half-sized livestock." ”

Su Ziheng shook his head and said helplessly: "Even if I want to exchange for adult livestock, they shouldn't change it for me." On the contrary, if the cubs have no forage in their hands, they are prone to starvation, so it is better to exchange for some food. ”

"It's just ......" Zhang Xiaoshan hesitated for a moment and continued: "Childe, the herdsmen over there in Mengyuan have put forward a condition, hoping to exchange one hundred adult horses, cattle and sheep for one hundred each, and Gongzi you in exchange for a sufficient amount of forage, I don't know if you agree?" ”

Su Ziheng was surprised: "Change the forage? They were wishful thinking, so that if the food and forage were enough, it would also be convenient for them to migrate to the Mobei grassland. It's just that they don't know that the goal of grain is already big enough, and if they add forage, they can transport it away? ”

Su Ziheng is not reluctant to give up those forages, you must know that in his base space, a large area of pasture grass is planted; In addition, he also hired many homeless people to be responsible for mowing the grass, and at this moment, the warehouse in Sujiazhuang was already full of green fodder in several warehouses.

Zhang Xiaoshan smiled and said: "This son doesn't have to worry, they said that they would exchange it in several batches, as long as the son agrees, and you don't need to send it too far, just send it to a small village." ”

Su Ziheng pondered for a moment, nodded and agreed: "Okay, just follow what they say." Have you decided when to make your first trade? ”

Zhang Xiaoshan nodded quickly and said happily: "If the son is not busy, he can trade today." ”

Su Ziheng said: "Okay, I'll arrange a few carriages to escort the grain to your village in a while." ”

……

……

He took out a piece of dry beef jerky from the pocket of his horse, put it in his mouth and chewed it, listening to one of his kneeling subordinates in front of him report the news: "Great Chief, the leader of the Balhu has found out where the fat sheep is located. He asked me to ask when you are going to do it? ”

He swallowed the jerky in his mouth, took off the sheepskin bag in the pocket of his war horse, took a few sips of mare's milk wine, stretched out his sleeve to wipe the wine stains on the corner of his mouth, and said in a deep voice: "Let him take the brothers to keep an eye on him, and wait for them to make a deal." Now we are too anxious to get anything, and our desert wolves never go out in vain. ”

"After this vote is finished, with this secret passage that can drive straight into Liangzhou, our desert wolf can also go back justifiably. As long as you make great contributions this time, it is not impossible for the brothers to be knighted by virtue of their military merits. ”

Hearing these words, the strong men scattered around the woods suddenly showed fascination on their faces.

Their desert wolf is said to be a team of horse thieves on the edge of the Moxi grassland, but in fact, they are the secret sons of the Junggar tribe, one of the four major tribes in Moxi, and they are responsible for helping the Junggar tribe deal with some things that are not open.

The leader of the desert wolves, Pori Tichi, was originally a commander in the army of the Dzungar tribe, and he fought very bravely. Later, his small tribe offended the leader of another tribe, and the two tribes went to war, and later the tribe of Pori Techi was unfortunately defeated, and his parents and family were killed.

When he heard the news, he ran back from the battlefield with his guards and slaughtered all the tribe that had killed his parents. As a result, he himself became a deserter, wanted by the Dzungar tribes, and finally became a horse thief, wandering around the desert steppe.

From then on, the more than 300 soldiers who defected with him called themselves desert wolves, and they made a living by robbing, and their lives were quite chic and free.

Later, one day, one of the commanders of the Dzungar tribal army, he was approached by his superiors in the army. After some secret talks, the desert wolf of the Pori Techi became a dark chess piece of Dzungaria.