The fleet led by Lu Cheng and Lu Xin had set sail, and Lu Ren had been standing on the high platform of the dock watching the fleet gradually move away, but his brows had been locked tightly.

To be honest, Lu Ren's idea of hitting the Pearl Cliff has not been a matter of one or two days for a long time, but due to the lack of his own software and hardware conditions, he has not been able to stretch out his hand for a long time. In the past year, Yizhou's population has increased by 70,000 or 80,000 all of a sudden, and the biggest problem that has been plaguing Luren has been solved, that is, the problem of serious labor shortage.

However, although the problem of labor has been solved, Lu Ren did not want to send personnel out now. Because according to his original plan, it should be a while later, and he will not do this until the current situation in Yizhou is more stable. However, the so-called plan can never catch up with the changes, due to a series of changes before and after, such as Sun Shangxiang's sudden arrival may trigger Sun Quan's increased attention to Yizhou, the shortage of metal resources under the population explosion, etc., so that Lu Ren has to develop Pearl Cliff in advance.

Lu Ren was frowning and thinking, Shirley took Zhen Mi to Lu Ren's side, and seeing Lu Ren's preoccupied look, Shirley asked, "Senior brother, what are you thinking?" ”

"Oh, no, nothing ......"

responded indiscriminately, but Lu Ren remembered what he had just said to Lu Cheng, and smiled bitterly for no reason before shaking his head and saying, "You don't know how wordy I have become now." Just like Ziliang and Zizhen's trip to Zhuya, I don't remember how many times I told Ziliang in detail, until now their fleet has set sail offshore, but I still feel that I should say something more in front of the two of them, and now that I think about it, I realize that I am really verbose. Tell me about it, I'm a big man. But suddenly became such a mother-in-law, isn't it too hypocritical? ”

Shirley and Zhen Mi glanced at each other, and then shook their heads at Lu Ren together. Then Shirley may not be good at this kind of thing, so she poked Zhen Mi with her finger and motioned for Zhen Mi to come and speak to Lu Ren. And Zhen Mi also lowered her head and thought about it, and then said to Lu Ren very seriously: "Sir." You are by no means a mother-in-law. The reason why this is the case is because you are so worried about the future and fate of all of us. ”

“……”

Lu Ren was speechless. Thinking about it carefully, Zhen Mi is right, if she wasn't worried about this and that, it seems that she wouldn't be what she is now. Thinking back to the time when I used to be in Tuntian under Cao Cao, it was called a free and easy.

Shaking his head and smiling again, Lu Ren asked Xue Li and Zhen Mi, "Now that Ziliang and their fleet have set off, it doesn't make sense for me to worry too much. How's that going on with you? ”

Shirley said: "The sample has come out, and now I just want you to go over and have a look." ”

"That's right. Okay, go check it out! ”

A few moments later, Lu Ren and his party came to a foundry located in a valley somewhere. To be clear, this foundry is not Zhen's previous foundry. The room where Lu Ren saw the steam car before was official on the surface, but now this one is another room hidden in the dark and unknown for the time being. If there is any major difference between the two, it is that the one on the surface is generally a civilian factory. The current one has the nature of a military foundry industry, but the scale is not large.

Three turns, two turns. Shirley and Zhen Mi led Lu Ren to a room where the belongings were placed. As soon as he entered the room, Lu Ren immediately saw five large cylinders placed in the center of the room...... That's right, it's a big cylinder. But it's not that this thing doesn't have an official name, it's just that Zhen Mi doesn't know it yet. And when Lu Ren saw these five big cylinders, he just nodded vigorously, and secretly said in his heart: "Breech artillery...... I've finally figured it out! ”

That's right. These five large cylinders are actually the barrels of the ancient breech guns. However, in that kind of ancient artillery, a barrel is actually a complete gun, at most it is just an additional gun mount.

Lu Renqu knocked his fingers the tubes of the five guns in turn, and then rubbed his faintly painful knuckles, and his eyes drifted to Shirley on the side. Shirley understood what Lu Ren meant. Then he explained to Lu Ren: "Please rest assured, Senior Brother, the forging and casting process of the Zhen clan itself is very good, and after I have improved the proportion of the smelted alloy, although these samples cast are not as thick as those in Senior Brother's image, I believe that they can fully withstand the pressure of the chamber when fired." And these are only the initial prototypes, and after the test is completed and the relevant data is obtained, we can make further improvements. ”

Lu Ren nodded, he completely believed in Shirley's ability for this kind of thing. However, Zhen Mi on the side couldn't understand what Lu Ren and Shirley were talking about. She only knew that some time ago, Lu Ren and Shirley entrusted their Zhen clan to send some clan children to rectify these things, but what these things were used for, Zhen Mi didn't know at all.

And for Zhen Mi, there are not a few metal materials used up in these things. Take the samples of these five guns as an example, they are two small and two large, and the weight is 500 catties, 800 catties and 1,200 catties (all Han catties), plus the corresponding loss during casting, the actual metal materials used are really not a joke number.

Such a number, not to mention that in Yizhou, which is now relatively short of metal resources, even if it is put in Zhongshan Zhen, which still has a large iron mine, it is a bit choking. The most important thing is that Yizhou is now short of copper and iron, and Zhen Mi really doesn't understand why Lu Ren uses precious metal resources to cast these things that make her feel as if they are useless.

Although Lu Ren will definitely pay Zhen and Zhen will not have any losses, but the current Zhen Mi has already tied himself to Lu Ren's chariot, and Lu Ren has a relationship of both glory and loss, so Zhen Mi is not willing to see Lu Ren do something bent on his own way.

After thinking about it repeatedly for a while, Zhen Mi finally told Lu Ren about these worries in his heart, mainly mentioning the shortage of metal resources in Yizhou, so he wanted Lu Ren to stop.

Lu Ren looked at Zhen Mi for a while, then suddenly shook his head and smiled: "If you are worried about the shortage of copper and iron, then there is no need to do so. By the way, you still don't know why I was in a hurry to send Ziliang to Zhuya this time. Now I might as well tell you that in fact, there is a large amount of high-quality iron ore on the Pearl Cliff side, so the purpose of sending Ziliang and them over this time is to find and develop the iron ore in Pearl Cliff. ”

Zhen Mi was stunned and looked at Lu Ren with a face full of disbelief. Lu Ren shrugged his shoulders and looked like "believe it or not". But after thinking about it, Lu Ren still added a sentence to Zhen Mi: "Actually, I don't have no one to send, but I insisted on sending Ziliang over, do you know why?" ”

Zhen Mi's heart moved, but she still opened a pair of wonderful eyes and fixed Lu Ren.

Lu Ren smiled "hehe", and said to himself: "It's not a family, it's not a family." When I was down, the Lu clan didn't care about me, but I haven't returned to the Lu clan now? I, the eldest brother, is still like this, and the younger brother will naturally follow suit. ”

Of course, Zhen Mi understood the meaning of Lu Ren's words, and smiled at Lu Ren with gratitude. In fact, the meaning of Lu Ren's words is very clear, although Lu Cheng is full of resentment towards the Zhen clan because he was forced out of the Zhen clan by the old lady of the Zhen family, but after years of getting along, the resentment in Lu Cheng's heart has actually faded a lot, and the Zhen sisters are always taking care of Lu Cheng...... Of course, it's okay to flatter.

After all, people's hearts are flesh and blood, and Lu Cheng himself is not the kind of ruthless character. And what happened at the beginning was completely just the will of the old lady of the Zhen family, and the Zhen sisters actually helped Lu Cheng a lot in secret. Therefore, Lu Cheng at least faced the Zhen sisters, his face was not so ugly, and the relationship with the Zhen clan was gradually improving. In addition, the old lady of the Zhen family has made it clear that she no longer cares about the affairs of the clan and honestly lives in seclusion, so Lu Cheng has no goal of hatred, and even occasionally helps the Zhen clan a little, even if it is only for the sake of the Zhen sisters.

But these are already rare for Zhen Mi. Now that Lu Ren has sent Lu Cheng to Zhuya, isn't it actually tantamount to telling Zhen Mi that this Zhuya iron mine will have a share of the Zhen clan at that time? And the Zhen clan itself is a clan that has played in the copper and iron business, and it knows very well how huge the benefits of engaging in the copper and iron business are. Lu Ren is now willing to give them a mouthful...... Forget it, it's useless to talk too much.

After thinking about these things clearly, Zhen Mi naturally had no worries. As for whether the iron ore mentioned by Lu Ren exists, it is not in Zhen Mi's consideration. Because of this kind of thing, Zhen Mi believes in Lu Ren very much, after all, Lu Ren's decisions in this regard seem to have never been problematic.

Since this is the case, Zhen Mi didn't say anything more, her face was full of smiles, and then she took the initiative to walk to the wall on the side, pointed to the things leaning against the wooden shelf by the wall and said to Lu Ren: "Here are some other samples, sir, you can take a look." ”

Lu Ren raised his eyes, and the people laughed too. What's on the wooden shelves over there? Anyway, the artillery has been made, where can the musket not be done? And Zhen Mi was referring to the samples of the twelve muskets...... To be exact, Lu Ren and Shirley simply skipped the arquebus and directly took the structure of the flintstone gun.

As for the rifle...... It's not that Lu Ren and Shirley don't want to do it, but the existing conditions at hand can't meet the needs of the rifle. You must know that the first condition for a rifle in the modern or modern sense is not the gun itself, but the corresponding bullet manufacturing capacity.

In the words of the father of AK, this thing is that you can't make good guns without good bullets. The current conditions in Yizhou are precisely that bullets cannot be produced...... (To be continued.) )