Zhi Yier has a good appearance, but if he smiles, he reveals a bit of obscenity in the rivers and lakes.

He is forty years old, in order to be able to show his fairy wind bones, he has a long beard and long nails, but now he looks a little embarrassed.

Not only the clothes were ragged, but even the long beard and nails had changed color, and he looked like a stubborn old goat.

"Mr. Zhi, go wash up first, shall you?" Xu Xiake next to him looked much more thoughtful than him, Xu Xiake also felt strange in his heart, when the two of them boarded the ship and returned to Xiang'an, Zhi Yier's appearance was still very normal, but after a while on the boat, his appearance changed.

"No need, Lord Yu is in a hurry to wait for my news." Zhiyi's face was awe-inspiring.

Then he saw Yu Guozhen hurriedly coming over, and Zhi Yier immediately greeted him and looked at Yu Guozhen deeply: "Zhi has seen Lord Yu Zhai!" ”

When Yu Guozhen saw Zhi Yier's appearance, he couldn't help but be startled, this appearance did not seem to have come back from the barren mountains and mountains, but seemed to have escaped from the fire scene. He looked at Xu Xiake and found that Xu Xiake was still thoughtful, and he vaguely guessed that this guy was acting.

"Mr. Zhi, why be polite, it's been hard along the way." Whether it's acting or not, as long as he brings good news, that's enough.

"It's a bit hard, and the tiger meets two heads along the way!" Zhi Yier opened his eyes and told a lie, Xu Xiake next to him was a little stunned, isn't he afraid of exposing himself.

"Fifty taels." Yu Guozhen gave a slap in the face.

Zhi Yi'er was in high spirits, and immediately left behind all the hardships and dangers he had encountered along the way, and stretched out his hand to take out a few stones: "This is the iron stone that Lord Yu Zhai wants!" ”

Yu Guozhen took the stones, knocked them, and a string in his heart loosened.

He didn't recognize iron ore, but his men were experts, so he ordered: "Summoning Ji Xun...... Ji Yan, you go! ”

Ji Yan ran out quickly, his father was not in the village, and if he wanted to be summoned, he had to go to the kiln first. He only ran a few steps when he heard Yu Guozhen calling him behind him again: "No need, let's go to the kiln!" ”

Li Husan, who was busy transporting sand and gravel on the dock, saw Yu Guozhen passing by in a hurry, and this time Yu Guozhen didn't even look at him, as if something extremely important had happened. Li Husan didn't know Xu Xiake and Zhi Yiyi, so he pulled the guard who supervised their work and asked: "Those two people, the two who are on the left and right of the Yu Zhai Lord, who are they, the appearance of the Yu Zhai Lord, could it be that something urgent happened?" ”

"That's Mr. Xu and Mr. Zhi, they went to the east of the city to look for minerals, looking at this appearance, they should be looking for it." That Jiawei had already received Yu Guozhen's instructions, and he only had to answer what he could answer, so he didn't keep it secret: "Iron ore, if it can be completed, we Xinxiang can smelt iron ourselves." ”

"Smelt your own iron...... Hahahaha. Hearing this, Li Husan laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"I just said that Lord Yu Zhai knows everything, and it turns out that he also has things that he can't understand." Li Husan sneered: "We saw other people's iron-smelting furnaces in Foshan, and there were three or four hundred people in one furnace, and now you have so many people in Hezhai to build iron-smelting furnaces, where, where ......"

Speaking of which, Li Husan couldn't go on talking about it himself.

"Come to think of it, if you build an iron-smelting furnace, you will go to the ironworks and work as coolies!" The guard smiled: "Besides, look at the gantry crane on the dock!" ”

The gantry crane on the wharf has always been a tool that surprised Li Husan and others, and it originally took ten people to lift the goods, and the giminch drove the pulley, and the gantry crane only needed three or four people to complete, and it was safer and faster.

"When we petty officials were in Xiang'an, we were already studying the water wheel, using the water wheel to drive the blower, and then replacing manpower with a winch. The young man said extremely arrogantly: "Li Husan, don't show off your little knowledge in front of our petty officials." ”

Li Husan was stunned.

"Just like the question you asked us petty officials just now, it's really stupid, do you think our petty officials went to Guangzhou Mansion to receive goods? Our new Xiangzhai will not take half a year, and the products will be greatly enriched. All kinds of ironware, cotton, soap, woodware, and more products are available in the future...... We Xinxiang has our own specialty, why bother to grab the silk porcelain business with Zheng Yiguan? ”

After being taught a lesson by this Wei young man, Li Husan was stunned.

The dispute between Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xianglao is, in the final analysis, a dispute over maritime trade routes, but the two of them only think about the existing trade content, silk, porcelain, and some groceries, but they never thought of opening up new trade projects by themselves.

The young man shook his head with a smile, as if he was laughing at Li Husan's stupidity, but this time, even the Haikou who listened to Li Husan the most did not argue angrily.

What can be argued, although they are coolies, but the treatment they deserve, Xinxiang is not less, wearing a thick cloth uniform, and is forced to brush his teeth and take a bath every day...... Although they are not quite accustomed to this kind of life, they have to admit that the cloth and soap produced by Xinxiang themselves are indeed quite good products.

With such a product, Yu Guozhen wants to open up a new content of trade and sell goods to Guangzhou, what kind of miracle is that?

"Okay, keep working, don't be lazy!" The guard flicked his whip and said.

Yu Guozhen, who was on the boat, although his heart was anxious, his face became more and more calm, he didn't pay attention to Zhi Yi Er, but asked Xu Xiake and the family guards who accompanied them to protect the two of them.

Of course, there were some hardships, but they were not as exaggerated as the tigers.

The location where the iron ore was found was far away from Xinxiang, and it was almost to Lianzhou, but the place was very close to the water's edge, and the mine was only two miles away from the nearest wharf where the boat could be used.

"As far as Mr. Zhi can see, what is the iron content of this iron ore, and in addition, is this iron ore easy to mine?" Yu Guozhen asked the direction, and asked again after calculating it in his heart.

"Lord Yu Zhai, in terms of iron content alone, these iron ores, I am afraid that they will have to be screened again, and it is difficult to mine, if you really want to open this mine, it is not possible for one or two hundred people." Zhi Yier is very clear about this: "Even if it is two hundred strong laborers, each can only produce 10,000 catties of ore at most, in the old man's humble opinion, this 10,000 catties of ore, can smelt two or three thousand catties of iron to the limit." ”

Zhi Yier is an expert in this area, and his judgment of the iron ore here is about 30% of the iron content, which is really not a good iron ore. In the thirteenth year of Jiajing, the iron production in Guangdong alone was as high as more than 3,100 tons, and until 130 years later, Russia, which produced the most iron in Europe, had an annual output of only 2,400 tons in 1670!

And at this time, the iron-smelting skills of the Ming Dynasty are also the best in the world, Yu Guozhen and Ji Xun discussed various smelting methods, found that the Ming craftsmen have been able to use crucibles, have learned to connect iron control and fried steel together, and the porcelain potters have also designed a "reverberatory furnace" with a principle similar to that of a reverberatory furnace.

What Yu Guozhen has to do now is to let Ji Xun repeatedly explore and make the most suitable blast furnace and open-hearth, blast furnace iron-smelting, open-hearth steelmaking.

Xinxiangzhai is only two miles away from the kiln, and it will be there in a moment, Yu Guozhen rushed to the kiln at this time, of course the kiln knew that there was something, and after a while, Ji Xun arrived in front of Yu Guozhen.

When he took the iron ore from Zhi Yier, he licked it with his tongue, smacked his lips, and knocked it with a hammer: "Little official, it's really iron ore, this kind of iron ore is available!" ”

"That's fine...... Let's try it first, and I'll give it to you...... Half a year, after half a year, we can come up with a suitable blast furnace. Yu Guozhen breathed a sigh of relief.

"There is no problem in half a year, when we were in Xiang'an, we have already designed the drawings, and now we have built a total of five kinds of blast furnaces, as long as the ore supply is sufficient, even only three months, we can find the most suitable furnace. The same goes for open-hearth stoves, which take two or three months at most. Ji Xun's eyes were shining, he was born as a blacksmith, but he had to spin and weave for a while, and was later pulled out by Yu Guozhenjian, in charge of the kiln project, the only son Ji Yan, has now been promoted to a gang, and entered the teaching team, obviously to prepare for promotion, therefore, Ji Xun is extremely grateful to Yu Guozhen, and he is also extremely active in doing things.

"Safety first, you have to remember this, we are not in a hurry to the point of risking human lives to fill the furnace." Yu Guozhen said.

Zhi Yier next to him blinked his eyes, and lost no time in interjecting: "No human life, no human life, I see that you are full of qi and blood, if there is anything unsatisfactory in the furnace, cut off your nails and hair and put them into the furnace, you can also replace human ......"

Ji Xun looked at him with a smile, and Zhi Yier was calm: "The old man has also seen the feng shui of the furnace in Foshan, Meizhou and other places, so he knows a little bit about it. ”

"So this Mr. Zhi is not afraid to take a look at the feng shui of our furnace?" Methodist.

"That's it, don't tease Mr. Zhi, he is really hard at prospecting, since this iron ore is available, then the next step is to find someone to open the mine. Jiang'an, on the side of the government, you go to find Wang Zhizhou, ask him to make it convenient, and open up another mine, which can be recruited in Lingshan County. ”

"Yes!"

"Mr. Zhi, if Mr. Zhi still wants to make a fortune, then ask Mr. Zhi to give fifty taels of silver as a gift for every mine he finds around Qinzhou, how about it?"

Zhi Yier nodded again and again, he showed people feng shui, at most, he only received one or twenty taels of silver, and it was unstable, it was rare to have such a time a year. Although the prospecting is hard, as long as there are the family members sent by Yu Guozhen, there is actually not much danger.

After Yu Guozhen finished his instructions, he was open-minded, with iron ore, plus the original coal mine, and the quartz mine that had been found on Lianzhou Beach, his smelting and manufacturing industry was no longer waiting for rice to be cooked.

(To be continued)