On the ninth day of the lunar month, Zhu Hao and his entourage arrived at the Yongping Iron Ore Factory.

Lu Song personally led people to greet him, and the entire iron ore plant was guarded by guards, obviously the harassment of the iron ore factory by the local government made Lu Song anxious, and he was very excited to see Zhu Hao come with his son Lu Bing.

"Sir, you're here."

Lu Song was followed by Gongsun Yi and Guan Jing, but there was no trace of Sun Ru.

After entering the mine, there was a hot scene everywhere.

Lu Song inquired about Zhu Hao's situation along the way.

Lu Bing said, "Dad, I rode with Zhu Hao all the way, not to mention how tired I was...... Before we came here, we went to Tianjin Sanwei, there is a big shipyard by the sea, and we have already started shipbuilding, and we stayed there for a day before we rushed over."

Lu Song glared at his son, feeling that his son was disrespectful to Zhu Hao.

And he has to hide Zhu Hao's identity from the outside world, it is easy for his son to call Zhu Hao's name like this, it is easy to do bad things, but in front of Zhu Hao, he is not good at teaching his son, lest Zhu Hao still feel anything, he seems to be reminding him that my son is too angry!

"Regarding the situation of the mine, after Lu Bing met me, he made it very clear that the local prefect has sent people to harass me recently?" Zhu Hao asked.

Lu Song sighed, "Don't talk about the recent past, I've been here today...... Many villagers said that this was their feng shui treasure, and even the Taoist officials came to us for trouble, and they wanted to stuff some silver to settle the matter, but they didn't accept it. Instead, he said that he would go back and accuse me of bribing officials. 「

Zhu Hao smiled: "This world is like this, as long as it doesn't affect our mining."

"But sir, in order to protect the mine, we have recruited too many guards, and we can't recruit them from the local area, and the people we recruit will only look for trouble, and they will not work if they are passive and slacking off.

Lu Song said that the biggest problem in opening the mine is the conflict of interests between the strong dragon and the local snake.

When the local government saw the mining of the imperial court, it mentioned the problem of competing with the people for profit, which was reflected in the large-scale mining and the collection of mining taxes during the Wanli period, and Zhu Hao actually just carried out this matter decades in advance.

The situation is basically the same.

Why did Yang Tinghe not agree to open the mine and levy the mining tax?

Just because in the concept of the literati, the imperial court should not interfere in the economic activities of the people, but only be responsible for the things that should be managed, to put it bluntly, the literati style is to seek the welfare of the people.

The original intention was good, but when it came time to implement it, it was to pick up the nose and eyes, and put many so-called natural and man-made disasters into the retribution of fighting for the interests of the people and being punished by heaven, completely ignoring how much benefit this can bring to the imperial court...

To put it bluntly, the literati do not manage their finances, they only advocate the so-called Confucian etiquette, and suppress all the things that are progressive of the times.

Small-scale peasant mentality is serious.

Zhu Hao said: "Go back, let Your Majesty change the new prefect over, there will not be so many problems."

"The new prefect?"

Lu Song was a little surprised.

In the current situation, it seems that the new emperor has no control over the civil official system, who can risk the crime of opening the civil official group to become this prefect?

Do you want Zhu Hao to do it himself?

Zhu Hao actually has a candidate in his heart.

It's Zhang Xuan.

Speaking of which, Zhang Xuan has been the deputy envoy of Shanxi for more than a year, but in fact, Zhang Xuan is very unsatisfactory in Shanxi officialdom, because his great etiquette discussion has been criticized by too many people, plus he has just been promoted to be the deputy envoy of the commission, and he does not know much about the prison, and there are many places to learn, and he is not a leader.

Therefore, Zhang Xuan has written to the capital many times, and finally came to Zhu Hao, asking that he be transferred back to Beijing as soon as possible, or change places to serve on errands.

Zhang Xuan wanted to find an errand that he could take charge of on his own without being restricted by others.

But after all, Zhang Xuan has only been an official for more than a year, and he has not completed the exam for three years, and it is unrealistic to want to be promoted directly.

Now Zhu Hao has planned a path for him, that is, as a foreign official of the fourth grade, he will be directly transferred to Yongping Mansion to become the prefect.

In this way, Zhang Xuan did not have to be controlled by others, but also helped the imperial court to pacify the local opposition forces, and at the same time tested Zhang Zhang's ability to govern.

Although Zhang Xuan has little experience as an official, he is a ...... person is also very experienced, who made him an old Confucian scholar? It's different from others, who are in their twenties and thirties, and he is nearly fifty years old, can it be the same?

.....

........

Zhu Hao can stay in the mine for two days at most.

Now the shipyard is not his "main project", he attaches great importance to the production of iron ore mines, and the steel output represents how much he can do, after all, all his industrialized ideals are based on enough steel production.

Arrived at the mine.

The scene that can be seen is the construction site in full swing.

A large number of machinery is unheard of in this era, and you can see a lot of people who are ramming earth with large-scale rammed earth equipment from afar.

In front of a four-corner shelf, a huge wooden stake is driven by a pulley block at each of the four corners, and five people on each side pull the huge wooden stake into the air, and then let go together, and the stake falls heavily on the ground, and the cycle repeats.

In the mining pit, a large number of people are preparing for the mining of the level.

If there is a blast, it will be shouted in advance to let everyone in the camp find a place with cover, and after the blasting is completed, the whistles will sound everywhere before everyone can come out of the bunker and continue to complete their work.

And at the back of the hill is the smelter.

Large quantities of coal were transported from Xishan and other places to Yongping Province, and even coal bought from nearby coal mines, and in huge warehouse-like houses, steel-making furnaces were erected one by one, and a large number of workers poured crude crude iron into the steel-making furnaces for smelting......

This is much better than the smelting technology of this era, which can also burn molten steel, but the common use is the steel filling method, that is, the mold is used to shape.

However, because steelmaking technology requires extremely high technology, it is difficult to understand the impurities in crude iron in this era, so that the iron products made are actually only a shape, and the accuracy and stiffness are difficult to meet too high requirements.

Zhu Hao walked around and felt the strength of the laborers.

I thought that it might take five years or ten years to figure out these things, but with the help of the forming blacksmith and the mining craftsman, in less than a year, the iron ore factory was established, which became a large-scale workshop integrating mining and smelting, and it was possible to continue to explore new mines and expand the scale of production.

As a "consultant" that night, Zhu Hao called the craftsmen in the workshop in batches and taught them some knowledge that they did not have.

But Zhu Hao is not completely good at smelting steel, and many things need to be slowly explored by these craftsmen.

Zhu Hao is not in a hurry to achieve great results in three or two years, this time can be pushed to a plan of five to ten years, after all, as long as he starts with steelmaking, the future will not be a matter of ten or twenty years, and it will not stop for hundreds or thousands of years.

He is only responsible for the beginning, and the so-called master leads the door to practice in the individual.

The craftsmen he taught will become the originators of the new steel smelting technology of the Ming Dynasty, and their brilliance will be passed on to future generations.

....

.....

The next day, Zhu Hao was still doing some things in the smelting camp to check and fill in the gaps.

That's what he's here for.

Unexpectedly, Luo An hurried to the mine that day and brought the news from Zhu Si from the capital.

「…… Your Majesty has learned that Mr. has arrived in Beizhili, and urges you to return to Beijing as soon as possible, and now there are many things waiting for you in Beijing."

Luo An arrived and urged Zhu Hao to return to Beijing on behalf of the emperor.

Zhu Hao said, "Isn't the matter in the northwest over for the time being?"

Luo An was puzzled: "I haven't returned to Beijing yet, but with the meaning of the person who passed the word on the brocade guard,

Your Majesty has recently had many disputes with the courtiers over the appointment of personnel in the court, and many of the appointments and dismissals within the six ministries have been suspended.

Every year, or even monthly, there are many vacancies in the imperial court.

It has been three months since Zhu Hao left the capital, and although there have been no major changes in the officialdom of the capital, there have been a lot of small changes.

Zhu Si is actually a "miser", after discovering that someone has retreated, he wants to arrange these vacant positions for his people, or those who may be used by him, but the officials will not be accustomed to the emperor's bad habits, how to arrange how to arrange.

This caused serious contradictions between the monarch and the ministers.

In addition, Zhu Si wanted to radically promote the appointment and dismissal of personnel without Zhu Hao's advice, so he would naturally encounter backlash, and in a fit of anger, Zhu Si spoke to the minister in the court again.

Now Zhu Si wants Zhu Hao to go back quickly and see how to gradually control the court in his hands.

Zhu Hao wanted to say that the emperor was still too anxious.

You use people, can't you wait until Yang Tinghe retires before using them? You are in such a hurry to advance, but it makes Yang Tinghe feel a kind of crisis, originally he may have felt that he would retreat and not linger, but now seeing you so messy, can Yang Tinghe still "rest assured" to go?

It's hard to distinguish between priorities and priorities.

But Zhu Hao can also understand.

In fact, his purpose was to deal with Yang Tinghe first for long-term consideration, and Zhu Si's intention was to use personnel appointments to contain Yang Tinghe and drive Yang Tinghe away as soon as possible.

Zhu Hao said: "I may not be able to leave for the capital until tomorrow, but after I leave, I will hurry up, and it is estimated that I will be able to arrive in Beijing in two days and nights."

Luo An hesitated, "From Yongping Mansion to Jingshi, there are nearly four hundred miles of road, and it takes two days...... Will it be a little rushed?"

"It's okay, I'm used to being in a hurry along the way."

Zhu Hao said with a smile, "Recently, I have to study the terrain to see how to build a road paved with steel, which can directly transport coal from Xishan or Shanxi to the capital and even Yongping Mansion!"