"Erlang, there are many people who admire Her Royal Highness the Princess, if it weren't for the party and Yang Wenchang, I'm afraid that the emperor would already be thinking about the marriage of Her Royal Highness the Princess. There was a hint of playfulness in Xue Tong's eyes, "I heard that Erlang and Princess Jin have a very strong relationship, I don't know if it's true or not?"

Jiang Feng, who had just picked up the teacup and took a sip of tea, almost snorted out, and his feelings were very serious? Where does this start, if there is some affection between the two of them, and they can barely say it, this feeling is very serious, it is obviously a bit exaggerated.

In fact, Jiang Feng has always maintained correspondence with Li Jin, but since the Huaiyou Army marched into Luzhou, there has been almost a constant war in the past six months, and he has been thinking about how to take the next step in the interval, and he doesn't have much energy to take care of other things.

It can be said that until now, the overall situation has been decided, and he can breathe a sigh of relief, but this follow-up affairs are still quite complicated, especially when it comes to Yanyun affairs, which are extremely tricky and require careful planning and preparation.

"Gong Xue, are you also here to make fun of me?" Jiang Feng smiled slightly, "Princess Jin's appearance of heaven and man, it is reasonable for many admirers, I don't deny that I have a good impression of Princess Jin, but I don't know if Princess Jin likes her." ”

Xue Tong also secretly sighed in his heart that the young man in front of him was no longer Wuxia Ameng, and he was qualified to say this.

"Then ask so-and-so, is Erlang willing to ask His Majesty for a kiss?" Xue Tong asked with a wink.

"Xue Gong, is this what Your Majesty asked you to ask, or does someone else mean?" Jiang Feng asked rhetorically.

Although he has been in this time and space for a few years, he has experienced so many things here, and he doesn't feel as much about the relationship as he did at the beginning, but after all, this is his wife, and it may be a lifetime in the future, he still needs to consider the fit of his feelings and soul, and he doesn't dare to say what kind of love he wants to pursue, but at least the two sides must be in love, right?

Li Jin may indeed have some good feelings for herself, or some affection, but has she reached the situation of marrying a man and a woman here?

I haven't seen her for so long, and I say that time and space are the biggest killers of feelings, not to mention that the relationship between myself and her has not yet reached that level, does she have the will to do so?

Xue Tong was surprised, reminisced, and said with a faint smile: "The male should marry, the female should marry, after all, Princess Jin is a royal person, and she also needs to take care of the overall situation." ”

"Xue Gong's words are wrong, Princess Jin is a nobleman, as Gong said, admirers don't know how many, among them there are countless overbearing, why should the royal family marry blindly and dumbly?" Jiang Feng shook his head, "Of course I admire Princess Jin, but if Princess Jin has no intention, I will not disobey the princess, and I will fully support Her Royal Highness the princess to act according to her own wishes." ”

Xue Tong's face turned cold, the other party was a little abrupt, you said that you have intentions, then you should go and ask for marriage, but what do you say depends on the will of Princess Jin, and will not disobey the will of the princess, how can the marriage of people in this royal family be like ordinary gentry?

Seeing that Xue Tong's face was not safe, Jiang Feng also knew that his words were easy to cause misunderstanding by the other party, but he had to say it thoroughly, and he also hoped that the other party would bring the words to Li Jin, otherwise if he really asked for marriage, Li Jin was unwilling, and the imperial court wanted to forcibly make this marriage successful out of political considerations, which would be against Jiang Feng's original intention.

"Xue Gong, I know that my previous words are a little unpleasant, but I am sincere, if Princess Jin has another person, I will never take away people's love and bad people's marriage, so I ask Xue Gong to go back to Princess Jin on my behalf to convey my intentions. ”

Although Xue Tong reluctantly accepted Jiang Feng's explanation, Jiang Feng didn't know if Xue Tong would be distracted when he brought back the words.

Jiang Feng is not a saint, in this era, in this environment, he is also very dedicated to which woman, but he has to respect a woman who feels good about herself, and he is not willing to do the kind of thing that cooks the crane and burns the piano to ruin the scenery.

Follow-up matters, Jiang Feng did not discuss with Xue Tong in detail, Xue Tong came this time, of course, it was not as simple as giving Jiang Feng the title of Wuning Jiedu Envoy Gappeng Chengjun.

With the sudden expansion of the territory under control, does it mean that you don't have some worship and filial piety to the imperial court? There is no such reason in the world.

It's just that this specific negotiation can only be negotiated between Xue Tonglai and Chen Wei and Du Tuo, who rushed to Xuzhou.

Walking on the city wall, Jiang Feng looked to the north with his hands in his hands.

Legend Yao Feng Peng Zu, Peng's country was established here, Pengcheng was named after this, when Yu ruled the water, cast nine tripods, and the mountains and rivers of Xuzhou were cast on the tripod, "Shangshu Yu Gong" is clearly listed as one of the nine states, the importance of Xuzhou can be imagined.

Since the Han Dynasty, this is where the iron officials are, the Eastern Han Dynasty is to become a famous iron-smelting center, and the end of the Tang Dynasty, Xuzhou's iron-smelting industry is crowned in the Central Plains, and Nanyang, Cangzhou and called the Central Plains Hebei three major iron-smelting towns.

However, Jiang Feng checked the smelting situation of Xuzhou Tieguan, and still used traditional charcoal as raw material for smelting, which was generally small in scale, low in output, and lackluster in quality, but even so, Xuzhou still ranked second among the three major iron-smelting centers in the Central Plains, second only to Nanyang.

What worried Jiang Feng was that the information he obtained from Wuwentang said that a large number of iron-smelting furnaces had also begun to appear in the Khitan territory.

Jiang Feng had some impressions that in his previous life, the iron-smelting industry of the Liao State was quite developed, not much inferior to that of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Wuwentang's intelligence shows that the reason why the Khitan iron-smelting industry has developed so quickly is mainly due to the theft of technology from Cangzhou, and even the forced capture of Cangzhou's iron-smelting craftsmen and craftsmen to Pingzhou and Jizhou by kidnapping and buying, so the iron-smelting industry in Pingzhou and Jizhou is developing rapidly, which can be seen from the armor and weapons used by the Khitan people.

In contrast, the iron-smelting industry in Xuzhou has not developed significantly because of frequent wars and the status quo.

After this battle, all the previous accumulation was basically wiped out.

Shouzhou's grain savings were almost exhausted, even if a large amount of money and silver were borrowed from Nasin and Karim to buy grain, and this entry and exit made a lot of money, but for this war, it was still insufficient, but fortunately, there was a large producer who could support it-Shouzhou kiln.

But even so, after this war is fought, Huaiyou can't play anymore, this is also Chen Wei's ultimatum to Jiang Feng, and if it continues, it will only be bankrupt.

Now that Xuzhou and Sizhou have been taken, it can only be said that they are trying to maintain themselves, but if they want to plot against Yanzhou and Yizhou, which has been included, they will have to invest a lot, at least in order to ensure that the people of these two states will not flee southward on a large scale, they will have to go to Shouzhou, Huzhou, Luzhou, Haozhou, and even Hezhou and Chuzhou to buy grain and transport it north, otherwise the result will be the same as Zhu Mao.

To fight a war is to fight money, as it has been in ancient and modern times.

Although he won the trust of the Persian Hu merchants of Nasin and Karim through the two magic weapons of Huainan granary and Shouzhou kiln, and was able to maintain this war against Wu Yang and Xuzhou, Jiang Feng knew that in the face of the reorganization of the Taining army in Yanzhou and Yizhou, and to maintain the livelihood of Yanzhou and Yizhou in the coming year, it would no longer be enough to rely on Persian Hu merchants alone, and this would be a massive demand for money and grain.

Therefore, in order to solve this problem of money demand, it is necessary to seek other sources.

Jiang Feng knows that Huaiyou's foundation is too weak, not to mention compared with Daliang and Dajin, even compared with Nanyang, Tanyue and even the current Li Wu, he is still a lot inferior, he looks strong now, but in fact, it is just a sentence to describe top-heavy and shallow, and the slightest carelessness will capsize.

One of the biggest problems is the lack of a stable financial base.

The beautiful vision of using Hushou Erzhou as a granary and the real cash cow of Shouzhou kiln won the trust of Persian Hu merchants, coupled with the victory of the Huaiyou Army over Luhao Erzhou, so it got through this difficulty, but the current situation does not allow Huaiyou to stop, and Huaiyou still wants to continue to move forward quickly, so more financial support is needed.

Who can provide this support for Huaiyou's next step?

Persian Hu Shang is unlikely, so who else?

There seems to be no one but Sogdian merchants.

However, although the Sogdian merchants were powerful, they were more cautious, and if they were not attractive enough, it would be difficult for them to provide monetary support for Huaiyou.

Even if they take Xuzhou by themselves, it is not enough for them to open their money bags, unless they immediately recapture Haizhou and hand over Haizhou salt profits to them, but this is only afraid that it will immediately cause strong opposition from Haizhou salt farmers and salt merchants.

The only way to do this is in the iron industry.

Xuzhou has coal and iron, but the iron smelting industry is still the traditional charcoal iron smelting, not only the output is low, the efficiency is poor, and the scale is also limited, coal iron smelting in this era is not a high-tech, but the quality of iron can not be guaranteed, the key means of change is to turn coal into coke, let coke to smelt iron, this is the leap of innovative technology.

Jiang Feng had communicated with Deng Guinian before this, and the focus was to obtain a large amount of coke through the use of fire magic in coking, large-scale coking technology, and then use coke to smelt iron, in order to greatly improve the steel output and quality of Xuzhou, and then use the advantage of steel to improve and upgrade weapons, armor, agricultural tools and other materials, and then form a huge industrial chain to get more funds for Huaiyou.

This plan seems to be feasible, but there are still many specific problems, especially through the creative changes in the fire magic techniques of the Daozang magicians to apply to coking, which has reached the chain of changes of the entire industrial chain, and finally achieved innovation and creation, and achieved the improvement of productivity, which is not easy.