With the promulgation of the committee's decision to enter the "Liangyuan" base ahead of schedule, all members of the Ministry of Science and Technology immediately took action and, with the assistance of the Second Squadron of the Pioneer Battalion, began to move again. After many days of hard work, everyone finally transported all kinds of equipment, tools, materials, etc. to the "Cool Garden". Since the construction of the North District (living area) is still ongoing, the travelers and craftsmen of the Ministry of Science and Technology can only temporarily live in the production room that is not needed in the South District (work area) for the time being. Although the conditions are a little worse, everyone is trying to overcome them. Fortunately, this situation will not last long, and the construction of the North District (living area) will be completed in just over two months.

Two days after the Ministry of Science and Technology entered the "Liangyuan", Li Junwu arranged manpower and began to prepare various materials for the construction of iron-making blast furnaces and steel-making open-hearth furnaces. Although Yu Wende's prospecting team had not sent back any exploration results at this time, Li Junwu insisted on making preliminary preparations. First, it takes a lot of time to build a blast furnace or an open hearth. Second, he is still confident in Wende's ability, and believes that this second brother will definitely be able to find iron ore.

Facts have proved that Yu Wende does have two hits and is worthy of the trust of his eldest brother. It took him less than a month to lead the prospecting team to find two iron ore veins with development value. At the same time as sending the relevant news back to "Qingyuan", Yu Wende also put forward a request to "organize manpower as soon as possible and prepare for mining". Moreover, his mining requirements were not only for iron ore, but also for coal mines, another essential raw material for metallurgy.

Since whether it is mining iron ore or coal mines, it requires a large number of young and strong laborers, and the nearly 1,000 Northern Han refugees who have just been subdued have basically been pulled by Zhao Min'an to farm, so in order to provide enough labor for Yu Erye, the members of the committee have been really busy for a while. Considering that recruiting locals is expensive and can be resentful to local officials – the local people are running to mine and affect local agriculture. Therefore, the committee once again turned its attention to the Northern Han refugees who were still stranded in their localities and had not yet returned to their hometowns.

Of course, the displaced people mentioned by the committee are not the part that was driven away some time ago, but the other Northern Han refugees who have nothing to do with the crossing team, and there are still many such displaced people in Nanjing Province, especially in the prefectures and counties near Youzhou. Although last year, Liao Muzong once asked the Liao army to aid Han to release the captive Han people at the request of the Han State. But these displaced people in Youzhou fled by themselves, so as long as they do not hinder local law and order, officials at all levels are too lazy to care about them. In this way, the crossing team is given the opportunity to recruit labor for themselves.

In line with the principle of good talk from fellow villagers, the work of recruiting displaced people this time is still handed over to Gu Anjia to carry out the specific implementation. At the same time, the committee also selected a few people who could speak well and were not very close to Gu An's family from those who had been subdued to serve as assistants to Gu An's family. First, working with several people can improve work efficiency. Second, it is also to prevent Gu An's family from covering the sky among the homeless. In addition to the assistants, the Flying Dragon Pioneer Battalion also transferred a squad from the third squadron down the mountain to escort Gu Anjia and others. After all, there are many people among these homeless people who are not afraid of the sky and the earth, in case they are like the original Xishan homeless people, and they take risks to attack Gu Anjia and others, it will not be fun.

Gu Anjia was naturally overjoyed when he was assigned. In his opinion, this is the affirmation of his ability, and he must perform well to let everyone know that they are not wrong. So, since the beginning of March, he has taken his assistants and guards to visit everywhere, and has traveled to almost all the prefectures and counties near Youzhou. With the incorruptible tongue of himself and his assistant, he moved those Northern Han refugees to join the team, and sent a steady stream of cheap labor to the team. By the end of March, one of the team's iron ore mines and two mines had enough people to work – the other was left untouched for the rest of the day. If it weren't for the fact that expanding too quickly would affect the quality, it might also attract the attention of the government, Qian Yuanshan and Zeng Zhilin even had the intention to take advantage of this opportunity to recruit displaced people and began to prepare for the construction of the second battalion of the Flying Dragon Pioneer Battalion.

Not long after the Ministry of Science and Technology moved into the "Liangyuan", Liu Wendong returned from the beach. After many investigations, he and Xie Tian chose a beach not far from the small fishing village where Xie Tian and Xie Tian used to live, and planned to buy it and develop it into a salt drying field. Xie Tian had already made contact with the owner of the land, and the results of the negotiations between the two sides were good. ,

Because it is only a tidal flat land, the other party's asking price is not high, and the cost of more than 1,000 acres is about the same as the 300 acres of inferior land on the edge of the "Jingyuan" when I bought it. In comparison, the 5,000 acres of land in the south of Liangxiang City cost the team a full 12,000 yuan, which is still the result of Zhong Yuan's help. As far as the economic benefits it may bring to the team in the future, I am afraid that these two pieces of land will be transferred.

With the initial progress, Liu Wendong, a member of the jishu staff, returned to Liangxiang City first and reported to the committee the experience of their trip to the seaside, while Xie Tian continued to stay in the local area and returned to Liangxiang after completing the transfer negotiations with the landlord and completing the transfer procedures. However, although Xie Tianren did not come back, he asked Liu Wendong to bring back a sentence - quickly organize enough manpower so that after buying the land, the work of building a salt factory can begin as soon as possible.

Xie Tian's request is the same as that of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the committee naturally does not favor one over the other. The displaced people recruited by Gu Anjia were reasonably distributed according to the needs of several aspects, and the work of any department was not delayed because of human resources problems.

After Liu Wendong made a report to the committee and had a brief meeting with his beloved wife, he left the "Qingyuan" and went directly to the "Liangyuan" to continue his own work. However, with the Ministry of Science and Technology moving into the "Liangyuan" base, after having enough space, his focus has now begun to shift from glass to gunpowder. Or, to be more accurate, to turn to the research and development of explosives, detonators, propellants, and so on, the various chemicals needed to make modern firearms.

Among these chemicals, the most basic raw materials are sulfuric acid and nitric acid, and Liu Wendong's related research and development work also starts from these two acids. Based on the raw materials and production equipment available in this era, Liu Wendong decided to use the lead chamber method to produce sulfuric acid first, and then to produce nitric acid through sulfuric acid. After the mature nitric acid manufacturing jishu was established, the production of modern explosives, detonating charges, and propellants began.

As a basis for the manufacture of sulfuric acid, pyrite is an essential raw material. But the iron ore found by Yu Wende in Danzhou was not pyrite, and according to him, there was no pyrite in the Beijing area that could meet the demand. According to his memory, the places where more pyrite is produced in China are Yingde in Guangdong, Ma'anshan in Anhui and the silver factory in Gansu.

Among them, Guangdong is too far away to go there to purchase. Although Ma'anshan, Anhui Province is now under the jurisdiction of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and the relationship between the Southern Tang Dynasty and the Liao State is not bad, but for the crossing team, they have never dealt with the merchants of the Southern Tang Dynasty before, and they can't find a suitable way for a while. Only the Gansu side is better, and in order to purchase saltpeter, it has been maintaining trade contacts with the merchants from there, but it is possible to contact them through the people of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade to see if anyone is willing to do this transaction. The problem is that the road from Beijing to Gansu is also quite long, and even if this pyrite can be transported, I am afraid the price will not be cheap.

Fortunately, there are not only these places where pyrite is produced in China, but also in Shanxi, which is relatively close to Beijing. Although the reserves are not as good as those places, they can still meet the needs of the team in the short term. Moreover, more than half of Shanxi now belongs to the Northern Han Dynasty, and it is much more convenient to transport goods from there to Youzhou.

In view of the fact that the Northern Han Dynasty had just ended the war with the Later Zhou Dynasty, and pyrite was not the mainstream mineral product of this era, it may be difficult to buy ore at the right price and in sufficient quantity from other merchants. Therefore, after repeated discussions and studies by the committee and the departments of science and technology, commerce and trade, and security, it was decided to send his own brothers to the Northern Han Dynasty to personally inspect the areas where pyrite may be produced. Once the results of the expedition were obtained, they tried to mine them through local merchants or simply hired their own people.

As for the candidates to go to Beihan this time, it is composed of three parts. One is Yu Wende and his local craftsmen, who belong to the professional jishu personnel. The second is Seinfeld and several of his shopkeepers and associates, who belong to business negotiators. The third is Yang Xin and several personal guards of the Ministry of Security, who belong to the security personnel of the inner circle. In addition, considering the long distance and the current situation in the Northern Han Dynasty is not very stable, Zeng Zhilin and Chang Shengjun will also lead two squads of the first squadron of the Flying Dragon Pioneer Battalion and one squad of the Ranger squad to accompany them to take on the periphery security work. ,

Because Yu Wende and others could only take advantage of the fact that the construction of the iron-making furnace and steel-making furnace had not yet been completed, and the iron ore and coal mines had just begun to be mined, and they had not yet reached the gap of the stable mining period, they could complete this rather difficult task. Therefore, the matter of going to the Northern Han Dynasty must be carried out as soon as possible, so as not to affect the work of the Materials Section. Therefore, on the sixth day of the third month of the lunar calendar, this prospecting team of more than 50 people dressed up as a large caravan, and left the "Qingyuan" and embarked on the journey to the Northern Han Dynasty along the official road in the farewell of the other brothers "be careful all the way" and "take care all the way".

The prospecting team was accompanied by the two youngest traversers, Gao Jun and Zhao Yunxia, and Yang Xiaoyun's sister Yang Xiaolian. It's just that the destination of the three of them is not the Northern Han Dynasty, but the "Jingyuan" outside the city of Liangxiang. They traveled with the prospecting team just to be a companion, so that they didn't have to send a single escort for the three of them.

The reason why these three little guys went to the "Jingyuan" was proposed by Zhang Weixin two days ago, and the main reason why he made this suggestion was to let Gao Jun, who had nothing to do, do what he could, so as not to stay too long and become inert. In Zhang Weixin's view, although Gao Jun, as a high school student, lacks enough knowledge and experience to work outside like other traversers, it does not mean that he cannot contribute to the team at this stage. On the contrary, Gao Jun's advantage is that he is still a student.

Gao Jun was a sophomore in high school before the crossing, and his basic knowledge of elementary mathematics, physics and chemistry was much more solid than that of other adult travelers, and his memory of various formulas, equations, and theorems was much clearer than that of adult travelers, which was his biggest advantage. Taking advantage of this, he can not only supplement the team's record of modern scientific and technological materials, but also join the reserve Liliang training department to teach those children some of the basic knowledge he has mastered, especially the knowledge of mathematics.

Therefore, with Gao Jun's own consent, the committee sent him to the "Jingyuan". On the one hand, let him record and organize all kinds of knowledge materials as much as possible, and on the other hand, let him participate in the training of reserve liliang. As for Zhao Yunxia, she went to be a student of Gao Jun. And that Yang Xiaolian went to join in the fun, according to her own words, there was no Gao and Zhao to play with her, and staying in "Qingyuan" would make her sick. Although Yang Xiaoyun was very unimpressed with this cheap sister's complaints, for the sake of her own ears, she still obtained Zhang Weixin's consent and let her go to the "Jingyuan" with Gao and Zhao.

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