Jeju government office, main hall.

The winter sun shone in obliquely from under the eaves, shining on the ground, revealing a large shadow. The servants on both sides of the chamber were motionless with water and fire sticks, and the shadows cast on their faces, looking blurred, like the Arhats in the temple, eerie and terrifying. A thin man knelt at the foot of the hall, his clothes could not cover the scars all over his body, and he looked at the officials at the top in horror - Long Tu Naoge, who had just taken office, Han Xiaoxuan, the court doctor, and the governor of the Jeju military state.

"The one kneeling in the hall is Bai Sheng from Dongguo in Yuncheng County?"

"It's the villain, please be gracious!" Bai Sheng shouted as if he had been electrocuted, kowtowing repeatedly.

"Then the case of looting property on the embankment of the Wuhua camp on May 8 this year was committed by you?"

"Tell the master, the villain did participate in this case, but he was only an accomplice, the mastermind is Song Jiang, the former commander of Yuncheng County, and the villain has not hurt anyone, I hope the lord will be gracious!"

"Yuncheng County Charge Si Song Jiang? Where is this person now? ”

"Tell the master, this Song Jiang killed his own concubine Yan Poxi and her mother in order to extinguish his mouth, and he has been convicted of manslaughter, and he went to Shamen Island with the red-haired ghost Liu Tangfa of the same party!"

"Okay, there's no basis for talking, someone is coming! Take a confession to let Bai Sheng draw a bet! ”

"Oh, sir!" With a response, a scribe took out the confession that had already been written and brought it to Bai Sheng, Bai Sheng trembled and stretched out his right thumb and index finger to dip it on the ink, and pressed it twice hard at the place where the confession was signed. The written judgment retrieved the confession and presented it to Han Xiaoxuan. Han Xiaoxuan looked at it, took the arrow and threw it down the hall, and shouted: "Quickly send a fast horse to Shamen Island, send the criminals Song Jiang and Liu Tang, and then issue a sea fishing document to arrest the rest of the criminals." As for Bai Sheng-" He casually looked down at the thin man in the hall, and said, "Steal official property, put it on death row, and wait until Song Jiang and the others are brought to justice!" ”

When Bai Sheng heard the verdict against himself, he immediately went limp, and he didn't expect that he would still be beheaded after he confessed to the rest of the people. At this moment, there was a long shout from the hall.

"Exit—"

"Wronged! The villain is wronged! Good grace, sir! A terrible cry came from the hall.

Anyang, Sannohetsu.

It's already November, and like most of the rivers in the north, the cold weather has frozen the Zhanghe. There are no more ferries coming and going, and instead there are all kinds of vehicles and livestock, but this year this small market town next to Minohetsu is very lively, and it is not the day to rush to the polder, and it is also a thick smoke and a flow of people. The reason is very simple, there is more Chen Ji blacksmith shop here, and the folding knives, scissors, Pu knives and other weapons and tools produced are of good quality and cheap, and even the world-famous knives (knives produced near Taiyuan, the local area is proficient in smelting, and has been famous for producing knives and scissors since ancient times) can not catch up.

"Keep it up!" Blacksmith Chen stood on the ground and scolded the guy who was standing on the stove and stirring the molten iron inside: "What kind of work are you doing, the big meat of the cake just now was fed to the dog's stomach!" After scolding twice, he simply jumped on the stove by himself, snatched the tools from the man's hand, and stirred it vigorously.

On the side of the iron stove, several workers are busy putting the prepared coke into a pre-dug and tamped furnace, the blower driven by the water row makes a rhythmic creaking sound, blowing a large amount of air into the furnace body, the flame rushes out from the feeding port from time to time, and the workers' faces are baked bronze by the heat radiating from the furnace. The furnace is connected to a molten pool of iron through a pipe made of square bricks coated with alkali sludge, through which the hot air from the burning of coke leads to the molten pool filled with iron, where it melts. This original design was made by Zhou Ping, and it has two advantages: first, the cold air that enters the furnace body first enters the combustion chamber where the coke is located and then enters the molten pool, which will not reduce the cold air in the molten pool, and can reach a higher temperature with less fuel; Second, the coke is separated from the iron, so that the quality of the steel will not be reduced due to the impurities such as sulfur contained in the coke mixed with the iron.

Under the high temperature, the pig iron in the molten pool soon turns from red to white, becoming a viscous object between liquid and solid, and the first to melt is impurities, which flow out of the slag mouth. Soon after, some granular stuff appeared in the pool, and the workers carefully stirred these particles into a ball, then clamped them out and forged them vigorously into the desired shape, and these were the required ingots.

Inspection Department Yamen.

"Hey!"

With a broken drink, Xue Liangwu raised a sword in his hand, and the more than ten iron nails nailed to the pillars were all cut off, and the broken nails were scattered all over the ground. The crowd gathered around, and saw that the blade of the long sword was as clean as new.

"Good sword!"

"Saburo has good wrist strength!"

"The ancient cadre general Mo Ye is nothing more than that!"

Everyone praised each other, and Xue Liangwu was even more happy, gestured twice in his hand, and asked Zhou Ping, who was standing aside, "Ah Ping, how much silver does this sword cost?" ”

Zhou Ping didn't answer, took Xue Liangwu's long sword, stretched out two fingers to twist the tip of the sword, held the hilt of the sword with one hand, and pushed hard, the long sword bent over, becoming a semi-arc but not broken, Zhou Ping relaxed gently, and the long sword bounced back to its original state. This time there was no one to cheer on, and everyone was stunned.

"San Lang, this is just made, the annealing technique is not very good, this will take you to play first, and after a while, I will let people give you a better fight according to your wrist strength!" Zhou Ping smiled and threw the long sword to Xue Liangwu.

"Good, good!" Overjoyed, Xue Liangwu hurriedly took the long sword and couldn't put it down. Zhou Ping saw Zhishan walking in from the outside, and said with a smile: "How is the workshop under the Zen master running?" ”

"Zhou Tanyue, the new two furnaces can produce 1,200 catties of steel a day!" Zhishan pointed to the thick black pillar of smoke and explained with a red face: "The weapons are all first-class weapons, and merchants from all over the world come to buy them, even Taiyuan who produces iron tools has people coming, which is really rare!" ”

"Twelve hundred pounds?" There was not much surprise on Zhou Ping's face.

"That's a lot!" Zhishan hurriedly explained: "Actually, even if we can't use up so much steel now, the excess steel ingots are piled up at the back of the yard, and the pig iron is not enough, in my opinion, find a few more blacksmiths, and let Master Chen bring a few more apprentices." Waiting for the beginning of spring, there will be more merchants who come to buy knives! ”

"Then just sell them the ingots!" Zhou Ping waved his right hand violently: "Build another iron furnace in the back, connected together, you can save a lot of coke, and the pig iron we smelt ourselves is definitely better than the one we bought, and the wrought iron that is over-fried can be used to smolder into iron, and it will not be wasted." Speaking of this, Zhou Ping sighed and said in a low voice: "It's a pity that due to the laws of the imperial court, we can't make armor, it's a pity!" ”

"Zhou Tanyue, don't be too anxious, the coming day will be long!" With a meaningful persuasion, Zhou Ping nodded. At this time, an archer from outside ran in and said loudly: "Tell the inspector master, someone outside claims to be your old acquaintance and says he wants to see you!" ”

"My old acquaintance?" Zhou Ping was stunned for a moment and asked, "What is this person's name and what does he look like?" ”

"It's an old man in his fifties, dressed as a Confucian student, with a Tokyo accent, and his self-proclaimed surname is Wen Mingcheng!"

"It turned out to be Gong Wen!" Zhou Ping laughed, and smiled at Zhishan: "Zen master, this person was originally a member of the Ministry of Rites, last time I went with him to envoy Han Xianggong to Liao, and I have traveled back and forth between Song and Liao for many years, I am a very knowledgeable person, I don't know why I came here today." Why don't you go out with me to greet you? ”

"Very good!" Zhishan and Zhou Ping came out together, only to see Wen Cheng standing at the door, looking at the blacksmith shop by the river. When he heard the footsteps, he turned his head and said with a smile: "Zhou Baoyi, I don't want to see you for a few months, you have created such a big situation, you are really capable of anything!" ”

"My family Taishan has been in the iron business for generations, I went to Liao this time to make a little reward, these three households have convenient transportation, so I opened a shop here, so that Wen Gong smiled!" Zhou Ping said this, turned sideways and let the Zhishan after his birth introduce to Wen Cheng: "Gong Wen, this is the Zhishan Zen Master I mentioned to him when I was in Youzhou!" ”

"Oh!" Wen Cheng looked at Zhishan up and down, and arched his hand: "It turns out that this is the best monk who bravely went to Liaodong and reached the alliance of Song and Jin, and he didn't want to meet today, sure enough, the phoenix does not nest with the birds, and Zhou Baoyi has made friends with good men!" “

"Gong Wen praised it!" The best harmony returned the salute: "I'm just at the right time, it's nothing!" ”

Zhou Pingyan led Wen Cheng to come to the hall, sat down with the guests, and served tea. Zhou Ping smiled and asked, "Gong Wen, I don't know why I came to the house today?" ”

"What I came to do today is a business!" Wen Cheng said this, took out a letter from his arms, and handed it to Zhou Ping, Zhou Ping took the letter with both hands and looked at it, but it was an official letter, and the payment was from the Yamen of the Jeju Prefect, so he couldn't help but be stunned and asked, "This-?" ”

"Oh, the old man is no longer in the Ministry of Rites!" Wen Cheng said with a smile: "After returning from Liao, Han Xianggong saw that the old man was still diligent, so he promoted the old man to follow him. The old and decrepit children are all married, and they are widowers, so they have nothing to worry about, so they agreed, and now they are working as a copywriter in the prefect's yamen. ”

Hearing this, Zhou Ping couldn't help but be surprised and delighted, and asked, "I see, then Han Xianggong is now out of charge of Jeju?" ”

"That's right, Han Xianggong already knew about the Jeju Prefecture military four months ago!" Wen Cheng stroked the beard under his chin twice and nodded.

Hearing this, Zhou Ping hurriedly stood up, bowed and saluted: "Congratulations to Duke Wen, congratulations to Duke Wen!" "I just looked at it, and it's almost 3,000 collections, hey, the starting point is difficult! All kinds of requests!