"Alright! The official is very grateful for his perseverance. When Lu Xiangsheng heard the number of 20,000 sets of iron armor, he was overjoyed and a little regretful, with 20,000 sets of iron armor, it would definitely be able to increase the combat effectiveness of the troops several times. It's a pity that you can't get a craftsman and can't make these iron armors yourself.

Lu Xiangsheng then stayed in Handan for a day, and then went south to Henan, although the thieves left Henan, there were still many messes to clean up.

Zhao Yan's second battalion was stationed in Handan, and Zhao Yan began to direct the construction of blast furnaces, soil coking, and steel frying.

The commercial bank is constantly transporting grain to Handan, and the 700,000 stone sweet potatoes are mainly transported to Handan and Yingzhou, and 300,000 stone rice and wheat are also planned to be transferred.

However, most of the grain to Yingzhou had to be transported after the Yellow River was opened, while the grain to Handan was transported by other waterways.

In this era, the water network was very dense, and there were water transportation routes everywhere (the map characters were too small to know the names of the rivers), and there were still many rivers to reach from Shandong to Handan.

The blast furnace ironmaking method is developed and improved from the ancient shaft furnace ironmaking. Although many new iron-making methods have been researched and developed by countries around the world, the iron produced by this method still accounts for more than 95% of the world's total iron output due to the good technical and economic indicators of blast furnace ironmaking, simple process, large production volume, high labor productivity and low energy consumption.

The blast furnace is a kind of ironmaking method that can be continuously smelted and the process is simple, so the requirements for the procurement of raw materials are relatively high, and it must be continuous.

The mining of lime, coke, and iron ore was all staffed.

After nearly a month of refinement, Zhao Yan finally began to build the blast furnace. After six days of construction, a small blast furnace of 130 cubic meters was built.

This is an experimental blast furnace, and iron smelting began under the command of Zhao Yan on the same day.

The experiment was a success, and after a day and night of smelting, 150 tons of pig iron were successfully smelted. The utilization coefficient is only 1 ton/(m*).

At the same time, the consumption of coke is also relatively large, and 600 kg of coke is consumed per ton of pig iron.

In terms of technology, it is still relatively backward, the production efficiency per cubic meter is not high, and the coke consumption is also very high, but the pig iron production speed of the blast furnace is still stunning.

This kind of production speed is absolutely fast in this era. Zhao Yan determined the technology of the blast furnace, and then handed over this aspect to the following people, and continued to build a larger blast furnace with higher production efficiency.

After having a large amount of pig iron, Zhao Yan began to implement the steel frying method.

First of all, it is necessary to build a stirring furnace similar to an open-hearth hearth, and to train pig iron to mature iron, which is not difficult, and this furnace has already been built.

After mixing, pig iron is successfully turned into wrought iron. Then, under forging, steel was quickly produced.

After determining these technologies, there will be nothing to do with Zhao Yan next.

Zhao Yan transferred Zhou Tieming from Shandong to be in charge of steel production, while the Ordnance Bureau managed technology and procurement separately.

After the technology is determined, what Zhou Tieming has to do is to expand the scale, and continue to rebuild the technology to improve production efficiency.

Because Handan will be an important steel base, safety is also paramount. Jiang Cheng hurried from Yingzhou and designed a fortress with eighteen corners.

If the fortress is to be large, there will naturally be more protruding corners.

Handan needs a lot of labor, and it takes people to build forts, smelt steel, open mines, and transport steel.

Pulling up 50,000 second-line troops is even more important.

Handan has a population of 130,000, which is far from enough, and it is estimated that it needs to reach 500,000 to be enough. Therefore, the commercial houses have begun to recruit displaced people in various parts of Henan.

These tasks are all done by the following personnel, and there is nothing to do with Zhao Yan. So in early April, Zhao Yan finally left for Shandong.

……

At this moment, Zhao Yan was already the chief soldier of Denglai, and Zhu Dadian, the governor of Shandong, was also promoted to the first level and became the left waiter of the military department, but he was transferred to the governor of Lu, Feng, Huai, and Yang.

Yan Jizu became the new governor of Shandong, and when Zhao Yan returned to Shandong, Zhu Dadian had already left Shandong and went to Jianghuai to take office.

After Zhao Yan learned the news, he immediately asked someone to write a letter to Zhu Dadian. Zhu Dadian's four mansions are one of the areas with the highest concentration of Zhao Yan's future business actions, and it is naturally better to have someone to take care of it.

As soon as he returned to Shandong, Zhao Quan began to report to him in detail on the development of the business bank in the past few months.

"In the first three months, the quarterly income of the commercial bank reached 1.8 million taels, of which 1.3 million taels were recorded in the glass mirror, 300,000 taels in the salt industry, and the remaining 200,000 taels were in the glassware industry. The current financial balance is 430,000 taels. Zhao Quan read one by one.

In terms of expenditure, it was mainly invested in Handan, and 800,000 taels of silver were invested in Handan alone to ensure unhindered high-speed development.

"How's the cotton going to prepare?" Zhao Yan asked.

"The textile mill here in Shandong has already started. More than 200 water-powered spinning machines (mule machines) and more than 500 water-powered looms have been built in Songjiang Prefecture, and construction will start in about half a month. Zhao Quan estimated.

"How's the secrecy going?" Zhao Yan continued to ask.

"More than 1,000 people have been transferred to guard, and the craftsmen in the hydraulic machinery are all under surveillance, so generally nothing goes wrong." Zhao Quan said, "After all, those craftsmen don't know the profits, and now no one comes to dig the corner." ”

"This is not enough, it is better to cast a fortress in Songjiang Mansion, and cotton cloth is produced in the fortress." Zhao Yan thought for a while and said.

"The old slave will let people do it as soon as they come." Zhao Quan wrote it down, the phenomenon of folk forts building forts and self-defense is very common in the Ming Dynasty, and the government generally does not care, and it is generally not difficult to build a fort in Songjiang Mansion.

This is mainly because they are all Han Chinese, so there is no vigilance surname. If it was the Dutch, the Spaniards, or the Portuguese, the government reacted more strongly.

After the Dutch built a fort in Penghu, they were immediately expelled by the Fujian government.

"At present, we have produced iron in Handan, and the cost is much lower. When it comes to steel products, we can also get involved. For things like farm tools, iron pots, and steel needles, send a few people to the market to inspect them, and if they are profitable, they will be distributed in various commercial banks, but the overseas market must be profitable. Zhao Yan said that the smelting process in Handan has exceeded the technology of this era, and the cost has a great advantage, and it will inevitably be able to generate income, which is the income of heavy industry.

Zhao Quan hurriedly wrote it down, and then said to Zhao Yan: "Childe, I bought two more fortune boats last month, and we have four fortune boats at present, all of which are placed in the port. ”

"I'll check it out tomorrow." Zhao Yan suddenly came to the spirit, but whether it was private salt, the textile industry, or glass mirrors, the income was not as fast as sea trade.

However, maritime trade is also inseparable from the production of commodities, and there is naturally nothing to sell without commodities.

Due to the long-term export blockade of the Ming Dynasty, coupled with the low level of industry, the demand for foreign imports is very large, resulting in the soaring profits of sea trade, becoming the most profitable area of sea trade in Southeast Asia.

Moreover, there is a large amount of copper ore, as well as rich saltpeter ore and sulfur, which Zhao Yan currently lacks.

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