This is the second time Su Hao has heard such advice since he crossed over. The previous time was after a ruffian harassed Lu Xiu'er, and Dai Qi, the scrivener of the workshop, said it to him. At that time, he just thought of a way to build a firewood stove to save money, and earned some pocket money in the name of the workshop, which attracted inexplicable jealousy, so that he had to hurry to pay tribute to various officials, so as to keep peace.

Su Hao has many skills that can be turned into wealth, but he lacks the ability to protect them. This makes him like a child walking in the middle of the city with gold and silver in his arms, and anyone who is greedy can go up and snatch his things, and beat him up again by the way.

Before opening the coal kiln, Su Hao accepted Dai Qi's advice and took out a part of the shares of the coal kiln and gave them to the county magistrate Han Wen and several other officials, in exchange for the peace of the coal kiln. The matter of building the telescope relied on the protection of Zhang Hong, the head of the Jiangxi Metropolitan Division, and the price Su Hao paid was to promise to train a group of scouts who could draw maps for Deng Zilong's department.

Now, Su Hao has developed this magical high manganese steel. In Su Hao's view, this high manganese steel is actually nothing remarkable, but it is just a very ordinary alloy steel in later generations, and one of the things that is stronger than Gu Jin is that he knows what manganese ore is, and he also knows that manganese can improve the performance of steel. But in Hao Yizong's eyes, this high manganese steel represents a large amount of wealth, which will bring endless trouble to himself and Su Hao.

Taking the price of iron as an analogy, Hao Yizong believes that this kind of high-manganese steel can be sold for more than one or two silver per catty, while ordinary pig iron on the market is worth more than 3 cents of silver per catty, and there is a price difference of nearly 30 times between the two. If, according to Su Hao, the manganese ore veins he discovered can support the need to smelt hundreds of thousands of catties of high-manganese steel, then this alone can obtain a profit of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

Such a high profit is enough for all the demons and monsters to stretch out their black hands.

"Uncle Hao is right." Su Hao figured out this verse, he bowed to Hao Yizong, and then asked: "Then, according to Uncle Hao, our white spoon, the method of steelmaking, can only be hidden and never see the end of life?" ”

Hao Yizong twisted his beard and smiled slightly: "No." The rich businessmen and giants in this world can also be safe and sound if they make millions of profits, and there is only one reason, that is, they have backers. If you want this skill to be successful, you must find a big enough backer to protect you, do you have this backer now? ”

Hao Tong interjected: "Uncle, can't this Zhang Dusi be regarded as our white spoon backer?" Let's build a telescope, don't we rely on his shadow? ”

Hao Yizong said: "Let's build a telescope, but the cost of 20,000 taels of silver, the profit is geometric, and it is not clear for a while." In addition, this telescope was purely ordered by the army, and the silver was paid from the Nanjing Military Department, so it was not too coveted. If this method of smelting high fierce steel spreads, it will not be one or two, and Zhang Dusi will not be able to protect us at that time. ”

Su Hao nodded and said, "What my uncle said is reasonable, but the little nephew is too naïve. Regarding the telescope, Zhang Dusi took care of us so much, but he just asked his little nephew. If there are other things, I'm afraid Zhang Dusi won't be too lazy to help. ”

Hao Yizong said: "Speaking of Zhang Dusi, the old man remembered one thing. Zhang Dusi promoted you and promised to buy 200 telescopes, and you haven't thanked him yet. Now, since we have refined this high fierce steel, why don't you give a good steel knife to Zhang Dusi to express your gratitude? ”

"Uncle, this knife was promised to me a long time ago, and I don't want Su Baihu to take it as a gift." When Hao Tong heard this, he hurriedly hugged the knife in his arms, for fear that Hao Yizong would take it away.

Hao Yizong said with a smile: "What did San'er say, how could you get back what your uncle promised you?" I mean, let's smelt another furnace of steel, make a few steel knives, one for your brother named Deng Kui, and one for Su Xian's nephew to give to Zhang Dusi. I think that Zhang Dusi is a martial artist in the army, and he must be very fond of this good weapon. ”

"Well, then it's going to trouble Uncle Hao." Su Hao said. From his heart, he was very disgusted with this kind of behavior of giving gifts to his boss, but he had to bow his head under the eaves. If he doesn't follow the crowd, I'm afraid he will not be able to move an inch in the future.

I still have to find a way to be an official, Su Hao secretly thought in his heart, even if he just wanted his knowledge to benefit the people, he had to find a better background. After the training scout is over, do you want to resign from the military as soon as possible, go to the academy to read a few books, and then go to the entrance examination and jinshi or something? Thinking that it would take several years or even more than ten years to study the Four Books and Five Classics and write eight articles, Su Hao couldn't help but be depressed.

After exchanging with Hao Yizong, Hao Qing and his son about the technology of smelting high manganese steel, Su Hao said goodbye and went home. Hao Tong also declined Hao Yizong's kindness to keep him for dinner, and happily returned to the Kanyu camp with a steel knife. On this night, Hao Tong and Deng Kui took turns to cut down trees in the camp with the steel knife, so that early the next morning, the soldiers found that the trees around the barracks were scarred, and thought they were haunted.

According to military regulations, if there is no reason, Su Hao, a hundred households, must spend the night in his own military camp. But in the late Ming Dynasty, the discipline of the Ming army was lax, and there was no discipline in the interior guards, and no one would investigate such trivial matters. Besides, Su Hao's 100 households were originally temporarily set up for training scouts, and there were Jiangxi Dusi and Nanchang Wei on it, and Xiaogang Qianhu, as a direct boss, naturally would not be looking for trouble and find fault with Su Hao. In this way, Su Hao ran home for the night, and he didn't get involved.

Su Hao stayed at home for one night, listened to Lu Xiuer's report on the profit and expenditure of the coal kiln, and listened to Su Xiaohu's report on going to Nanchang to sell honeycomb coal. The profits of this kind of coal mining and selling business have not yet been so big as to arouse the eyes of high-ranking officials and government officials, so there is no trouble at present. When Lu Xiu'er said that the coal kiln had earned hundreds of taels of silver, her eyes flashed with excitement, which made Su Hao very disdainful in her heart.

Su Xiaohu went to Nanchang to promote honeycomb coal, the mold and coal furnace of this honeycomb coal were put forward by Su Hao, and the furnace craftsman Wu Da designed and developed. Honeycomb coal is easier to use than ordinary coal stoves, and the furnace fire is also more vigorous, so once it was introduced, it was favored by some wealthy families. Because the market in Fengcheng was too small, Su Xiaohu brought a few people to Nanchang and opened several businesses specializing in honeycomb coal and stoves, and the business was very hot.

This young farmer, when he was in the countryside, was wooden, and he only knew how to farm and contribute. Since becoming the second shopkeeper of Su's Commercial Bank, the potential of doing business has been stimulated. When Su Hao heard Su Xiaohu talk about business, he was full of words, and he couldn't help but be impressed.

Early the next morning, Su Hao dressed up and went to the county office to meet Han Wen, he Bi Jing also had the title of master, and he needed to ask the magistrate for instructions from time to time.

Before he walked into the county office, Su Hao felt that the atmosphere was a little wrong. The official guarding the door had a solemn face, as if there was something important. Walking into the gate of the county government, the officials who usually dangled around in the courtyard and chatted were invisible, and they all hid in their own houses, pretending to do official business.

Su Hao didn't understand what was going on for a while, he walked straight to the lobby as usual, and saw two soldiers standing outside the lobby door from a distance, and they were wearing flying fish suits.

The Ming sergeant, in addition to going to the battlefield, usually wears the most is a fat jacket that is long above the knee and narrow sleeves. This kind of fat jacket has two colors inside and outside, which can be flipped over and worn, so it is called the mandarin duck battle jacket. But there is one army whose costume is different from that of other troops, and the clothes they wear have flying fish patterns on them, which look very gorgeous, and this army is known as the Emperor's own army.

The flying fish suit and the embroidered spring knife are the two major symbols of the Jinyi Guard, and the two soldiers standing at the door of the county hall now happen to have these two symbols.

Jin Yiwei's fame is so great that Su Hao has already heard of it without going to the Ming Dynasty. But after such a long time, it was the first time he had seen the real Jinyiwei. According to his impression, it is generally not a good thing for Jinyi Wei to appear in any place, and it is no wonder that the usually smug officials in the county government have suddenly become as well-behaved as sheep.

"Who is coming!"

Just as Su Hao stood still, hesitating to continue walking towards the lobby, one of the two brocade guards spoke in a low voice. There was a threat in his voice, and one hand also helped the hilt of the embroidered spring knife, intentionally or unintentionally.

Su Hao had no choice but to take two steps forward, bowed and said, "Two military masters, the student is the master of the county government, and he is planning to visit the county lord." ”

He didn't say that he was one of the hundred households of Nanchang Wei, mainly because he didn't want to have anything to do with Jinyiwei. Jinyiwei is also nominally a part of the army, but its functions are completely different from those of ordinary armies. It can even be said that the Jinyi Guards have some hostile relationship with the ordinary army, they are under the direct leadership of the emperor, used to supervise the hundred officials, and also supervise the army as a spy organization. Su Hao only said that he was the master of the county government, and believed that such an identity would not arouse the interest of Jinyiwei.

Sure enough, the Jinyi guard soldier didn't pay attention to a county master at all, he waved his hand like a fly, and said to Su Hao: "Our father-in-law Chang is talking to you about the county, and we can't disturb you if you are idle." ”

"Oh, the student is presumptuous." Su Hao's heart froze, but his face was silent. He saluted the two brocade guards and turned back to the workshop.

In the workshop, Dai Qi and six or seven servants were quietly lying at the window, looking at the two brocade guards at the entrance of the lobby, with a worried look on their faces.