At dinner, Zhu Daolin, who was in a good mood, told his family the good news of the successful cement production, and touched three glasses with his wife and concubines to celebrate.

Zhu Daolin enthusiastically invited the two to sit down at the dinner table and personally poured wine for the two hard-working right-hand men.

Zhao Xunting raised his hand to refuse Zhu Daolin's invitation to toast, and reported the news he had just received with a worried face: "Three days ago, the Mengjin section of the Yellow River burst its banks, flooding dozens of counties in four prefectures overnight, and millions of refugees are fleeing south. ”

"I heard that thousands of victims in southern and central Henan have rebelled in desperation, the specific news is not clear, and it is certain that millions of victims will go south!"

"My lord, the tens of thousands of displaced people who poured into Jinling last year were all donated by adults and Ziyangguan, most of them were from southern Henan and Huaibei, and before they went back after the Spring Festival, adults also gave them food, seeds and salt, and they will go back to promote the kindness of adults and Ziyangguan, and this time the victims will go south again......"

The imminent huge crisis made Zhao Xunting unbearable to say more, and Feng Shengtai had no choice but to express his opinion: "When we received the news, the Jiangnan gentry and wealthy businessmen must have also known, and I dare to assert that starting tomorrow, the price of grain in Jinling City and even the entire Jiangnan region will rise sharply, and it will not be open for sale, and the price of other materials will soon follow." ”

"If adults still want to buy a large amount of food for relief to the victims, I'm afraid no one will sell it to adults happily, including the Yan family, the largest grain merchant."

Zhu Daolin, who has not yet eaten, no longer has the slightest appetite: "Even if officials in Huaibei and Jiangbei are greedy and bold, there will always be some grain left in their official warehouses, right?" ”

"Don't even think about it! My lord, do you think highly of the ethics of the Ming officials...... The reason why Zai Xia did not hesitate to leave the officialdom and come out to follow the adults is that he is no longer willing to endure the filth and shamelessness of the Ming officialdom! Zhao Xunting was full of grief and indignation, but he was helpless.

Zhu Daolin thought for a moment: "Forget it, eat first!" If you can't eat it, you have to eat it. After eating, we went to the study to find Master Ye, and called the managers of the four major workshops to discuss together, we must come up with a countermeasure tonight, and start preparations tomorrow, we must ensure that the major workshops are not affected, and we must not wait for the arrival of the victims to rush to think of a way. ”

Feng Shengtai suggested: "Can you invite the sailor and the guards along the river?" Keeping all the victims at bay on the North Shore? ”

Zhao Xunting was taken aback: "Don't do this, who can bear the infamy through the ages?" ”

Zhu Daolin nodded slightly: "I don't know how the emperor will deal with this matter today...... Alas, it can really be said that the house leak happened to rain overnight! Let's eat first, I asked someone to inform the major managers, and after eating, we will go to the study to discuss slowly, there will always be a way. ”

Zhao Xunting and Feng Shengtai successively picked up the rice bowl and ate silently, Zhu Daolin didn't drink the wine anymore, hurriedly picked up a bowl of rice, and drank a bowl of wild vegetable soup specially made for him. When I looked up and saw the guard on duty trotting in, I immediately realized that someone had come to the door.

"Report to your lordship, Gonggong Wu sent someone to report urgently, he and Wei Guogong, Lord Zheng of the Ministry of Households, and Lord Feng, the new secretary of the Ministry of War, have crossed the Jinchuan Bridge, please prepare to welcome guests."

The young guards reported loudly as they did during training, and their voices were so loud that the room buzzed, and Xiaoying, Xu Fu and others, who were eating in the back hall, were also shocked, and they ordered the people to prepare quickly. A group of flowery beauties saluted Zhao Xunting and Feng Shengtai, and consciously returned to the back room to avoid suspicion.

Feng Shengtai quickly picked up the last two bites of rice. picked up the napkin in front of him and wiped his mouth, and asked Zhu Daolin very curiously: "Lord Zheng, the head of the household, is our rival in life, and anyone who comes can understand it, but he should not come...... Could it be that the Yellow River burst its banks and the victims went south to put pressure on adults? ”

Zhao Xunting snorted, put down his rice bowl and swallowed the last bite of rice hard: "Zheng Sanjun will never dare to put pressure on adults, he is here to ask for help." It must be that the granaries of the prefectures and counties in Jiangbei have been emptied by the officialdom, and they are worried that the ineffective disaster relief will cause the current emperor to be angry, so he sent a messenger to strictly inspect the granaries in various places and then the head is rolling, otherwise he has always been high-minded, as well as the lofty status of the leader of the Confucian Forest. How is it possible to come uninvited without losing face? ”

"However, the arrival of Feng Yuanbiao, the new secretary of the Ministry of War, was surprising...... This person has a low status in the Donglin party, has a gentle personality, and is quite popular, and he began to be the commander of Jieyang County, Guangdong, and was later promoted to the Ministry of Household to the middle of the matter, the right of the Ministry of Rites to the middle of the matter, Taichang Shaoqing, the Nanjing Taifuqing, the general political envoy, and the right servant of the Ministry of War, until last month, because of the assassination case that shook the south of the Yangtze River and the corruption of the officialdom and benefited from it, and was appointed by the current emperor as the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department. ”

"I've been under him for two years, and I can't see through this person, so adults should be careful about dealing with it."

Zhu Daolin humbly accepted the opinion, and asked the two right-hand men to talk at the door together, so as to make room for the people to clean up and arrange.

After standing on the steps at the door, Zhu Daolin asked Zhao Xunting: "I want to build a large smelter and two cement factories in Longtan, east of Qixia Mountain, what do you think?" ”

Zhao Xunting immediately thought about it, and quickly agreed with Zhu Daolin's opinion: "Longtan is a good place to build a factory, if the smelter can be moved there, it will immediately solve the problem of the current narrow territory and the inability to increase the output of the smelter, and Longtan has sufficient water sources, and there is a small wharf, which can undertake iron ore transported from all over Jiangbei and Huainan upstream." ”

"Longtan is mostly barren mountains and uneven rocky beaches for ten miles along the river, and the mountain forests belong to Shangyuan County, and it doesn't cost much money to buy land, and it's not far from Shangyuan Port, but the initial investment is very huge."

"Is two million taels of silver enough?" Zhu Daolin asked with a smile.

Zhao Xunting immediately laughed: "Where is the need for so much?" 800,000 taels is enough, and with the investment of 800,000 taels of silver, it is easy to build a super-large smelter with an annual output of 20,000 tons of pig iron and 5,000 tons of steel. ”

Zhu Daolin shook his head: "Too little, my goal is to reach an annual output of 100,000 tons of pig iron and 50,000 tons of steel within five years, and to build a smelter that can produce special steel." ”

"Then there are limestone mountains in the southeast of Longtan, and two rivers of all sizes surround the mountains, so it will not be too difficult to build two cement plants with an annual output of 200,000 tons...... As long as the current small wharf in Longtan is expanded into a large wharf, the coal and iron raw materials on both sides of the Yangtze River and the upstream areas can be concentrated. ”

"If this is the case, the investment will be more than 800,000 taels of silver." Zhao Xunting and Feng Shengtai began to settle accounts.

Zhu Daolin waved his hand: "Let this go in advance, and then talk about it when the Hubu Shangshu and the Military Department Shangshu come, as long as they sell the Longtan land to me, I am willing to help them with this, otherwise Lao Tzu will let Mr. Ruan's "Jiangnan Times" uncover the dirty affairs of Jiangbei officialdom, and then let the Dongchang spies send a few newspapers to the emperor's imperial study!" (To be continued......)