After the shipbuilding plan of the Lost Fortune Green Bull was approved, he couldn't sleep with excitement, and took a group of brothers overnight to select twenty NPCs with higher intelligence from their various tribes to join the Zhoushui Academy from their original household registration, and gave each player 1000 copper coins/1 NPC as compensation. Then he came to the west shore of Zhoushui Lake to build a small dock and began to study boat-building technology.

The simplest means of water transportation in the Stone Age was a raft, that is, more than a dozen neat pieces of wood were tied together with grass and rattan, and they could float on the water without falling apart.

There was an evolutionary version of the Bronze Age, the canoe, in which a large log was hollowed out in the middle, as long as it did not tilt and sink. This kind of canoe is light and strong, and it is not easy to fall apart like a raft. But to cut down such a giant tree, it takes not a lot of time, so it takes more time to build a canoe than a raft, and the effect is not too good, the volume of the canoe is limited by the volume of the log, not much stronger than the load of the raft. It's better to build a canoe than a raft.

In the Bronze Age, it was a more evolved version of the wooden plank, which was made of a combination of multiple planks in the shape of flowing water, and was larger in size, which was the prototype of the boat.

They first built a model of a canoe, used the canoe to determine the shape of the hull, and then designed and built a plank boat according to this shape. The appearance of the boat is very important, which is directly related to the degree of its driving in the water, stability, and load capacity, which are the three basic requirements. This requires constant experimentation.

That night, he spent 21,000 copper coins just by hiring twenty NPC craftsmen, building docks, and buying raw materials, and the rest of the money was used to research a canoe with good properties. It's almost gone.

After the last long-distance trade was very profitable, the players of the Zhoushui Alliance are preparing for the second long-distance trade. After five days of preparation, the chambers of commerce have stockpiled a large amount of trade supplies.

The army guarding the trade caravans was also better equipped, with a large number of weapons and equipment replaced, and even equipped with about 100 bronze cavalry.

This is a real cavalry that can be used in battle, equipped with war horses, a full set of horse harness, bronze cavalry armor, and bronze cavalry spears.

The craftsmanship of saddles, horse shoes, and horse hooves is relatively simple, and the difficulty of technical research is not high, and the players in the city have invested tens of thousands of copper coins to successfully research it. There are already several player workshops that are able to produce harness, sell them on a large scale, and many players are starting to buy and use these things.

Like this one is equipped with a bronze weapon. Bronze cavalry trained to sprint can easily knock a light infantry into the air. kills the caster with minimal damage to the caster.

Just because the number of war horses is too small. It is not possible to equip the Bronze Cavalry on a large scale.

On January 27, the second large-scale trade of Zhoushuicheng began. Qin Xiaobai, Sheep, Nameless, and Chengwang, the four speakers and vice speakers of the Zhoushui Alliance, were directly responsible for presiding over this large-scale deployment of trade grounds.

Qin Xiaobai said: "I took a look at the total amount of goods this time, and it was as much as three times more than the last time. Just one Jicheng is afraid that it will not be able to digest so many goods, even if it can. It will also be because there are too many goods. And let our goods become very cheap. All I recommend dividing into three caravans and going to the Walled City in different directions to trade. Make sure you get the most out of it. What do you see? ”

Sheep agree, the higher the profit, the better.

Nameless did not disagree, and one caravan was divided into three caravans. And it's not difficult.

Cheng Wang was in charge of the safety of the caravan, he thought about it for a while, and said: "If we divide into three caravans, our trade objects will be carried out in the west, south, and east directions at the same time.

To the west is the national capital Jicheng, to the south is Bohai City, and to the east is Liaoxi City. With the Zhoushui Walled City as the center, other large and small cities within a radius of three or four hundred miles around it are included. In each direction, a trading caravan of five hundred merchants, five or six hundred wagons transporting carriages, and an army of at least six or seven thousand men to escort the caravan. The total army needs more than 20,000 soldiers, and the number of troops we have collected at present may not be enough. If it is a caravan, then fifteen thousand soldiers escort should be enough. ”

Qin Xiaobai said: "It's okay, if you don't have enough soldiers, you can collect them from various player tribes." It is enough for each tribe to send one soldier to participate to ensure the safety of the three caravans. ”

When he heard this, he had no objection.

The whole trade operation was divided into three huge trading caravans, which went to the southwest and east. Each caravan is led by a president of a large chamber of commerce and a legion leader, who are responsible for trade and security.

They sold all kinds of goods of their own production in various places, and then bought mainly horses, grain, and slaves, these three things. Horses come first, and as players move more long distances, so does the need for horses. The second is food, which is still a persistent hoarding of this strategic material. Finally, there are slaves, Zhou Shuicheng still has a great demand for slaves, but this is not produced by production, but by prisoners of war, and there are not many walled cities with a large number of slaves.

Hundreds of player merchants, numerous transport wagons, and a large escort army left the Zhoushui Walled City in an orderly manner, heading for trade in three different directions. The rolling wheels look spectacular in the morning sun.

After the tens of thousands of players in the Zhoushui Walled City watched the three huge caravans leave, they dispersed and went about their own business. It takes five or six days for the caravan to go back and forth, and this is the time when the players continue to work.

After Qin Xiaobai finished sending the caravan, he returned to the city.

These days, he began to focus on three large projects. One is Zhoushui Academy, one is the wheel and rail laying in the Eagle Hand Mining Area, and the other is the Zhoushui Lake Dock shipbuilding.

Zhoushui University is a monopoly project in terms of technology, while the wheel and rail in the Yingshou mining area and the shipbuilding in Zhoushui Lake are large projects with a monopoly on 6 routes and waterway transportation, respectively.

All three projects have just been launched, and he still needs to invest a lot of time to think about and refine the overall strategic layout.

As the saying goes, "Get rich." In fact, if you want to fight a war, you must first build roads, so that you can quickly transport troops, food, and armaments to the front line. Transportation is not only about making money, but also about winning or losing a war.

This is also the reason why Qin Xiaobai is very concerned about these projects.

To Qin Xiaobai's surprise, at this time, the chief of the Great Chief convened a meeting of ministers in the Executive Yuan, asking to start construction, "build a new city on the site of the Zhoushui Walled City", "build a road to Jicheng", and complete these two tasks as soon as possible.

Build a city. This is a very old task in Zhoushui Walled City, and this task exists on the government's task list from the day it enters the game. It is one of the largest, most complex, and most expensive tasks.

This task and another task, "Build a road to Jichengdi", are the two parallel tasks of Zhoushui Walled City. Because of the lack of stone. In addition, some time ago, he fought against Shanjung, and he has not been able to start construction.

Now after a nearly month's rest, as the Zhoushui Walled City became more and more prosperous economically, the government's financial accounts began to improve, and the Great Chief began to urge the ministers to hurry up and complete these two tasks.

The NPC ministers had no choice but to comply. Started to build the city. Situ came to Qin Xiaobai. With a wry smile, he told Qin Xiaobai about the two tasks of the big chief. Ask him if he has any suggestions.

Qin Xiaobai smiled and asked, "Are there enough stones, financial resources, food, and manpower?" ”

Situ smiled bitterly: "It's still a little worse." Even if it wasn't enough, the Great Chief asked to start construction, raising supplies as he went. It can't be delayed any longer. In addition, the Great Chief was ready to recruit some of the newly relocated noble tribes to participate in the construction of roads and cities, and speed up the construction progress. Xiaobai, what do you think of this method? ”

Qin Xiaobai said: "Is it free labor, or is it money?" If you pay to hire people, it's easy, and everyone is more motivated. If you don't have money, it's hard. Who doesn't have three or five acres of land? They have all gone to build roads and cities, who will plow the land? As I said in the foregoing, if we had to force free labor, it would certainly cause a lot of dissatisfaction. It's not a trivial matter when it comes to the popularity of the Great Chief. ”

Situ sighed very embarrassed: "This is the difficult part, now the financial money is only about two million copper coins, and it has to be used to buy stones. If you pay for hard labor, I am afraid that the two million copper coins on the books will soon be empty, and you will not be able to do anything in the future. Moreover, these are two large tasks, and one task is probably enough to consume two million Earth Copper Coins.

Therefore, the great chief meant to levy the labor of various tribes for free, and the old man also had this idea, but he was afraid that this move would arouse public resentment, so he did not dare to issue this decree lightly. I came here on purpose, and you said that if you really want to recruit free labor, how much resentment will it arouse? ”

When Qin Xiaobai heard that Situ Zhen planned not to pay for the requisition of labor, he immediately waved his hand and said very seriously: "It's better not to do this thing, otherwise there will be a mess and it will be difficult to clean up the situation." Situ, you should think of another way, give some money if you can, so as not to shake the people's hearts. ”

Situ hurriedly said: "Build a city, this is also good for all the nobles, once the war starts, the new city is extremely strong, no one can break it, and the property in the city can be preserved."

This time it was Qin Xiaobai's turn to smile bitterly, "Of course, the newly built city is difficult to break, but my family business is outside the city." Most of the other 99% of the new aristocrats' family businesses are about 10~50 miles outside the city. How strong is the new city, which can protect the camp outside the city? Building a city is not really good for us. The new aristocracy was also not highly motivated for this task. Otherwise, we don't need to say it from the Great Chief, we'll do it ourselves.

I think that with this money, it is better to build more weapons and equipment and form an army. Whoever wants to attack, they will fight first, so that they have no chance to attack our Zhoushui Walled City! This is my solution, as for the great chieftain must build the city, the money and labor required can only be found by Lord Situ himself. ”

Situ said in a pleading tone: "Xiaobai, you must help with this favor, the big chief has issued a death order and must start construction within three days, the old man really has no choice but to ask for countermeasures everywhere!"

As long as he helps the old man this time, no matter what he does in the future, the old man will definitely be rewarded. ”

Qin Xiaobai's heart moved, pondered for a while, and said: "Oh, I don't want to spend too much money, and I want to repair a new city, this is impossible at all, but when it comes to building roads, this can be considered." Building roads can speed up the journey to other walled cities, making carriages and horses more convenient and faster to gallop, and the benefits to us are obviously much higher than building a city. I think it would be better to think about building roads first, as long as the benefits of building roads are explained to everyone, and I think everyone will still be willing to provide this kind of labor at a low price.

Lord Situ only needs to take care of the two meals of the road builders. ”

Situ's eyes lit up, and he saved a lot of labor expenses and reduced them to the cost of two meals, and the cost of building roads was greatly reduced. "Is that okay?"

Qin Xiaobai smiled: "Of course." I sent people to build momentum in the city to promote the benefits of road construction, so that the new nobles took the initiative to ask Situ Mansion to start building roads. Then Lord Situ will come forward again, and about 100,000 road repair workers can be recruited, and Situ Mansion will take care of two meals, which is basically enough. It will take at least a month to build the road, and when the road is repaired and there is more money in the finances, the construction of the city can begin. ”

Situ was delighted, but after he calculated a grain account, he immediately said bitterly: "100,000 workers, 200,000 catties of grain a day, food consumption is too great!" This, Xiaobai, can you lose it without food? ”

Qin Xiaobai's eyes widened suddenly, and he even wanted to save food expenses? There are no doors! Everyone comes to work for free, so you have to take care of the food. Where is there anything that doesn't even give food? "In this way, let's recruit 50,000 workers, and only consume 100,000 catties of grain every day. The pace of road construction is slower, but the cost of food has been cut in half. ”

Situ still feels that the food is consumed too much, and the daily income of the grain in the warehouse has not reached 100,000 catties, but the daily consumption has exceeded 100,000 catties, and the grain in stock will be less and less.

However, he was reluctant to reduce the number of workers so as not to delay the construction period.

Qin Xiaobai was completely speechless at Situ, and said, "I'll find some friends who have food, and together I can afford half of the 5 catties of grain, and the other 50,000 must be financed." However, I have a small request, the navigation rights of Zhoushui Lake and the entire Zhoushui River belong to me, and no one else has the right to sail in it. ”

Situ was very excited, Zhoushui Lake and Zhoushui River were basically useless except for irrigation, and Xiaobai was really generous to exchange their shipping rights for a huge amount of grain. "The deal, the old man will go back immediately to get the official seal, and immediately write the contract, Zhoushui Lake and Zhoushui River belong to you!"