Ushijima.

In the thrilling battle more than 20 days ago, in addition to the arrest of the decorating post, seven people were killed and more than 20 wounded on Ushijima.

Chen Shangren, a martyr who died in the war, gave a pension of 30 taels of silver to each of their families, and also held a solemn funeral ceremony; The wounded were concentrated in the walled city for treatment, and the medicinal materials were well prepared, and several seriously injured people finally saved their lives.

Now that more than half a month has passed, the defense battle has gradually been forgotten, and Ushijima has returned to its usual rhythm.

The female workers in the tobacco field were wrapped in cigarettes as always, and the reward and punishment rules set by Chu Fan were refined by Xu Wanyun in the past two days: the two groups with the slowest speed and the highest defective rate were not only halved in terms of food standards, but also two cents were deducted from each team member's salary that day, and the money deducted was used to reward the second and third places who did the best; The point system is also more perfect, and female workers who arrive late and leave early without reason will also be deducted a penny...... There are many more similar details, in short, under Xu Wanyun's management, the efficiency of the tobacco farm continues to improve.

With Xu Wanyun as a good helper, Chen Shangren now doesn't care much about the details of the tobacco farm - the batch of cigarettes that was agreed to be handed over to Kato's house in September has now been fully produced.

The work of the weapons group is also progressing very smoothly, since the actual battle that day, Tang Jiniu and Sun Hedou have made slight adjustments to the flint Lu Mi gun according to the actual combat experience, in Sun Hedou's opinion, the current flint gun can be mass-produced.

The steel group has also tried to produce four different kinds of steel: according to the different hardness, Sun Hedou and Wang Denghai discussed and named them respectively, blade steel, blade steel, nail leaf steel and soft steel that is only a little harder than wrought iron; The ratio of raw and wrought iron of the four steels, the number of forgings, the quenching method, etc., have been recorded in detail, as long as they are followed, the quality of the steel is basically the same.

The primary school is also on the right track. At least during the day, Ushijima no longer sees children playing wildly - a total of 42 boys under the age of fifteen, both boys and girls, have been driven to school.

And the most that the children learn is arithmetic, which is no way, and now among the people who can teach the children on the island, except for Zhang Ziyu and his junior brother named Tong Mingfu, the others are busy on all fours. How can I have time to teach.

And Zhang Ziyu and Tong Mingfu are extremely obsessed with arithmetic, especially after Chu Fan gave them some basic knowledge of algebra and geometry before leaving, the two of them were even more deeply immersed in it and couldn't extricate themselves.

Therefore, these days, the two of them stay in the primary school almost every day, and give the children the knowledge of algebra and geometry that they have learned without reservation - teaching and learning are the eternal truth, and the two can inspire themselves while teaching the children.

When Chu Fan was leaving, he repeatedly told Chen Shangren that he should take some time every day to teach the children to be enlightened-that is, the traditional "Three Character Classic", "Hundred Family Names" and so on.

But Chen Shangren is the head of the entire base after all. No matter how big or small, where is the time to teach? Fortunately, his family was finally taken to the island three days ago, and his eldest son, Chen Zhonggeng, is 27 years old this year, although he is still white, but he has also studied hard all the way, Chen Shangren let him enter the primary school to teach children traditional Mongolian learning.

When his family arrived, Chen Shangren felt more down-to-earth. I'm more motivated.

But it's useless for him to just be motivated, and many issues are not something he can decide.

The biggest problem in Ushijima right now is the lack of iron!

Iron material of this era. It's the equivalent of the arms of the future! The Ming court also did not care about anything else, and kept a very close eye on iron and grain, for fear that someone would smuggle it to the Liaodong Tartars - as soon as the ship went to sea, God knew where it would finally be discharged.

So first of all, raw and cooked iron is difficult to obtain, especially for bulk goods; This has resulted in a situation where supply exceeds demand and prices are extremely high.

Sixth, the relationship between the two families in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Guangzhou is also intertwined, and there are also tens of thousands of catties of raw wrought iron shipments secretly every year, but all of them are eaten at a high price by the Japanese state -- the Japanese country does not produce iron. Therefore, the demand for iron is very large.

Last time, Chu Fan, as a quasi-uncle, worked with Li Guozhu for a long time before he got back more than 2,000 catties of iron - of course, all of them had been turned into various types of steel by Wang Denghai.

Now Chen Shangren has written several letters to Li Guozhu asking for iron materials, but the other party has politely rejected them in various ways - it is no wonder that the six families have been doing business with the Japanese country for so many years. A high-profit commodity like iron will not easily change the court, not to mention the merchants of this era, whose reputation is quite important.

Without iron material, Chen Shangren will be blind. Iron is used everywhere in the construction of this Niudao base, not to mention that with the finalization of the Suifa Lumi gun, Tang Ji Niu and they are about to start mass production - a Lumi gun tube must consume at least ten catties of blade steel, and a pound of blade steel must consume at least two or three catties of raw and cooked iron!

Chen Shangren roughly estimated that by the end of the year, at least 10,000 catties of iron would be needed to ensure the most basic construction of the Niudao base.

How to get these iron materials, Chen Shangren also thought of some methods: one is the six big families - he Chen Shangren's face is not enough, Chu Fan's face should always be enough, 10,000 catties dare not say, no matter how to squeeze out two or three thousand catties, it is still possible.

The second is North Korea. North Korea is an iron producer, although the control of iron materials is not as strict as that of Daming, but it is also difficult to get it, plus Chen Shangren and they are in North Korea is a black eye, there is no ready-made relationship, and it is even more difficult to engage in iron materials.

Before the Battle of Ushishima, he and Chen Laosan went to Busan, and it was easy to find the largest local merchant in Quli, Chen Shangren and the other party After several attempts, they finally reached a price that was enough to make the other party tempted, and the other party finally agreed to give it a try, but he didn't dare to guarantee how much he could get.

This made Chen Shangren feel relieved and couldn't help but feel pain - 1 pound of pig iron 2 money 2 cents, wrought iron 1 money 8 cents, if you buy 10,000 catties of iron, you have to spend nearly 2,000 taels of silver, more than three times more expensive than Daming!

Fortunately, this year's shortage is only 10,000 catties of iron, otherwise the cost of buying iron alone can make Chen Shangren crazy!

In addition to the iron materials, there were many other things that gave Chen Shangren a headache - the artillery of the north and south batteries, Ling Ming asked to find a way to replace them with 12-pound or even larger guns; The bed crossbow craftsman found by the six families is now doing nothing every day because of a letter from Chu Fan that they were waiting for, while Lin Sanwa came to him every day and asked him to hurry up and build the bed crossbow, and his Haicang ship would be completely transformed; Kato's family has already transported tens of thousands of catties of saltpeter and sulfur, and urged them to add black fire * medicine several times......

Everything has to wait for Chu Fan to decide, Chen Shangren is now running to the North Fort every day, standing there looking to the east, waiting for the winged "Dawn" to appear - the news brought by the carrier pigeon, Chu Fan had already set off from Dengzhou ten days ago, why hasn't he arrived yet?

On this day, he had just checked out the warehouse where saltpeter and sulfur were kept, and from a distance he saw the gunners on the North Fort cheering, and the old man's heart moved, had he waited so long for the fleet to finally arrive?

Carrying the corner of his robe, the old man panted and ran onto the fort, and sure enough, several black spots in the field of vision were slowly coming towards Niujima, and the first one was the "Dawn" with wings! (To be continued.) )

PS: The old book "The Last Life of the Fat Man" has been updated with Chapter 369, and those who are chasing more book friends, please go to the post bar to read: http://tieba.baidu.com/p/3591009263?pid=85633944565cid=85635486090#85635486090