In the southern city of Dengzhou, the relatively sparsely populated Wutong neighborhood.

There used to be a manor with the name of Hongwen Chamber of Commerce here, which fell into the hands of the Songjiang Army after being confiscated by Chen Wu. Its area is comparable to Chen Wu's governor's palace, with all kinds of buildings in it, and it is relatively close to a military camp in the south of the city. After the field trip, it was not auctioned off by the Songjiang government like other shop fields, but was transferred to the name of the military department.

The reason is simple, it was used as the site of the Dengzhou Military Academy.

A large number of soldiers of the Dengzhou Garrison Division are busy here, cooperating with the workers to carry out reconstruction.

Some of the untimely buildings and flowers were bulldozed, and two of the four walls were demolished. Some of the nearby residents happily moved out overnight after receiving sufficient compensation. Eventually, almost half of the block became the campus of the Dengzhou Military Academy.

This place will become the cradle of the generals of all branches of the Songjiang Army in the future.

Although the busy renovation is still in progress, compared with the design given by Chen Wu himself, the prototype of this academy can be preliminarily seen. Including a huge school field, a barracks canteen, and a teaching area that can accommodate 500 cadets at the same time. Such a scale, as well as the unprecedented regularization and institutionalization, made every officer who knew about the Dengzhou Military Academy feel Chen Wu's attention and determination.

At this moment, the preliminary selection of instructors is also underway.

Needless to say, the fifteen officers who came from the Tiannan Army were the main force of the instructors of the Dengzhou Military Academy. In addition to these, the Songjiang Army also selected a group of officers of all ranks from its own army. If this is not enough, Yan Dongxing, Gao Yueli and others can also take the same time. As for the syllabus and curriculum of the training, it has also begun to be compiled under the personal guidance of Chen Wu. After coordination, it can basically ensure that when the first batch of trainees enter the school for training, all preparations can be in place.

If nothing else, the first crash course training will be launched after the beginning of spring, which will greatly alleviate the current shortage of qualified officers in the Songjiang Army.

In addition to this important thing, preparations are underway in terms of weapons and armor.

The original Songjiang military armament was provided by the empire, and the Dengzhou Ordnance Division workshop only needed to be responsible for daily maintenance and repair. But now, Chen Wu is in charge of Songjiang alone, and the empire has even stopped paying the army, so how can he be responsible for supplying these. If he wanted to expand the army, Chen Wu had to try to get high-quality iron ore by himself.

At this stage, there are three sources of iron ore for the Songjiang Army. First, it was a transaction with Yanyun County; second, relying on the temptation of high-priced acquisitions and tax reductions to let various chambers of commerce that have trade with Songjiang help with the acquisition; Thirdly, there are several small iron mines in Tiannan County.

As mentioned earlier, high-quality iron ore is controlled by the Empire, and it is no problem to get some in small quantities, but it is difficult for many large chambers of commerce to buy large quantities. As for the third point, the iron ore produced in Tiannan is also not much, and the quality is relatively poor, there are many impurities, and the smelted pig iron is more used to make farm tools and kitchen knives, which can meet the civil needs of the two counties.

If the latter two sources are not sufficient, then only the first can be considered.

After the first transaction, both parties were very satisfied with each other's grain, iron ore, etc. Under Chen Wu's urging and with the secret communication between the Military Intelligence Department and the Song family, Songjiang quickly launched a second batch of transactions with Yanshan County. This time, Songjiang Jun designated the object of the transaction and exchanged 150,000 catties of iron ore in one go.

With the current smelting and forging ability of the Songjiang Army, it should be enough to digest it for a while.

However, after the calculation of the military department, in order to meet the huge gap caused by the expansion of the army, the Songjiang army would have to make at least two or three more transactions of a similar scale before it could initially complete the armament of all the troops. Don't forget, the more than 40,000 soldiers of the Tiannan Army were already nominally under Chen Wu's command. Their armament must also be borne by the Songjiang Army!

Now the war is not open, it is only training wear and tear and daily maintenance, and the consumption is not large. In case the Kingdom of Oman moves north again one day, it will be a huge problem to replenish weapons, armor, arrows, etc.

Although Songjiang County is a famous grain-producing area, there are more than 6 million people in its own county, and it has to bear the consumption of more than 40,000 soldiers of the Southern Army, so it is impossible to export grain without restrictions. Moreover, there is also a big shortage of war horses in the Songjiang Army, which also needs to be exchanged with Yanyun County, and it is impossible for all the grain to be used to trade iron ore.

Taking a step back, even if Songjiang has a steady stream of grain exports, Yanyun County's own purchasing capacity is also capped.

For several reasons, it was decided that the Songjiang Army must try to expand more high-quality iron ore supply channels, and it could not rely entirely on Yanyun County.

Because there were too many things to worry about, Chen Wu didn't pay much attention to this issue originally. I think that with the transaction with Yanyun County, there should be no need to worry about the source of iron ore in a short time. But as the joint report from the Ministry of War and the War Readiness Administration came in, he had to be distracted and pay more attention. After turning his gaze around the map a few times, Chen Wu began to think about the game information before the crossing, so as to help the Songjiang Army break the current situation of iron ore supply being controlled by others.

Songjiang County is blessed with a lot of grain and cotton cloth, but there are gains and losses, and Tiannan County also does not have good iron mines. In the southern part of Oman, Chen Wu knew that there was a place where iron ore was buried, but he had to completely defeat the Omanis before he could mine it, which was not something that the current Songjiang army could do.

As for the further distance, the current situation of the Songjiang Army is also beyond the reach of the whip.

After looking around, Chen Wu, who had nothing to gain, looked at Yuanshan County, which bordered the Songjiang Army, and suddenly remembered something. When the game was almost five years old, Yuanshan County did excavate an iron mine, and it was still very close to the outside of Daqing Pass. Remember correctly, the place is called ...... Shan County?

It is the hometown of the little nobleman named Huang Chen, who applied for the clerk of the criminal investigation file of the Internal Affairs Bureau.

The iron ore grade of this iron ore called Crooked Mountain Iron Mine is relatively high, and the reduction of ore is also relatively good. Because the burial is relatively shallow, it can even be mined in the open pit in some places, and it was once considered a large ore vein comparable to the iron ore in Fenghuang Mountain in Yanyun County. It's just that after more than a year of mining by the players' guild at all costs, this iron mine has fallen into a state of near abandonment.

It's not that there are no iron ore veins in the face, but that the iron ore deep in the earth is much more difficult to mine because of the unique geographical conditions of Crooked Head Mountain. In addition, due to the fact that the impurities of the associated ores are also higher, it is difficult to use the technical level of the feudal era, and the gains of forced mining outweigh the losses.

Because of this, this is a bonanza that appears to be a large vein but is actually only small in size.

The guild that paid a huge price to seize this ore still expects to use it to make a fortune in arms for ten years, and even use it to fight against the super guild. Who would have thought that in just over a year, the open-pit bonanza would be exhausted, and the chairman would vomit blood, and he almost became a laughing stock on the forum for a while. It is precisely for this reason that Chen Wucai did not immediately think of but remembered this iron mine that caused a lot of turmoil.

However, at that time, the Players' Guild suffered a loss, but for Chen Wu, there was no such problem, because no one was competing with him!

This Crooked Mountain Iron Mine located in Shanxian County is only a few dozen miles away from Daqingguan, which is very convenient for the Songjiang Army to control mining and transportation nearby. Even if it can only be mined for more than a year, it will be enough to greatly alleviate the current situation of the Songjiang Army. The saved transaction amount can just be used to exchange war horses with Yanyun County and strengthen the cavalry ability of the Songjiang Army.

After thinking about it carefully, Chen Wu recruited Ma Weize, director of the War Readiness Administration.

Probably in a hurry, Ma Weize looked a little panting, and his forehead was sweating slightly. Seeing him like this, Chen Wu smiled and motioned to his maid Lin Xing to serve him tea.

Ma Weize had obviously heard of the twins sent by the Lin family, and he had faintly heard that the two had been taken into the house and had become the concubines of the governor. With this relationship, Ma Weize naturally didn't dare to hold it up, so he got up from the chair he was sitting on and took the teacup with both hands.

This overly nervous attitude and somewhat stiff movements happened to be seen by Lin Xing. She resisted the amusement, covered her mouth with her sleeve, and stepped back.

Seeing her leave, Ma Weize relaxed and drank tea.

Seeing this, Chen Wu couldn't help but shake his head a little and said, "I called you here because of the report in the morning - I learned such a piece of news in the previous transaction with the eldest prince. ”

After telling the information about the iron ore mine in the name of the eldest prince, he used his pen to roughly circle a circle on the map.

As for where it is, Chen Wu is not a local player of the Novice Village in Yuanshan County, so naturally he can't accurately draw it. However, even if there is only such a place of more than ten miles, it is already a great help, and I don't know how much time it can save for prospectors!

"Dozens of miles north of Daqingguan, there is an iron-rich mine?"

Ma Weize didn't expect that the report to Chen Wu would be called for half a day, and he would get such a perfect reply, and he couldn't help but be overjoyed. Immediately, they were a little puzzled, since they knew why they didn't sue the War Readiness Administration earlier, which made them feel sad about it.

He naturally didn't know that Chen Wu also deliberately recalled after reading the report, and finally found this piece of information from the corner of his memory.

"Don't complain, I didn't know this information for long."

Chen Wu smiled and appeased this subordinate who had followed him since he started in Yicheng, and mentioned by the way: "There are people in the Ministry of Industry who are familiar with iron ore, you can recruit a group of people and go to Shanxian County to investigate in advance." I remember...... Among the talents we recruited last time were from Shanxian County, and there were some local forces that could seek his help. You can also apply to MI if necessary. ”

"Please rest assured, Your Excellency."

What Ma Weize is worried about is nothing more than the difficulty of a clever woman to cook without rice. Now that we know the conclusive news of where the iron ore is, the rest is much easier. After leaving Chen Wu's Governor's Palace, he first visited the Administration Office to confirm Huang Chen's personnel, and then stepped into the Interior Office to find the other party in person.