That's right, what Liu Ponu is working on is a steam engine.

The principle of the steam engine is actually not complicated, for anyone who has gone to high school, basically can make it by himself, as for the effect is another matter.

It is nothing more than a boiler that boils water, connecting steam through ducts to the wheels to provide power output.

For most people, the difficulty isn't in how it's made and laid out, it's how it's sealed.

The sealing is not good, and most of the power is directly lost, and later generations rely on rubber pads to solve this problem, but this is the Han Dynasty, there is no rubber at all, and even the whole of Asia can not find a rubber tree.

Liu Ponu has not experienced the specialization of related subjects, so even for simple things like steam engines, he has to explore step by step.

Of course, even if he is not professional, Liu Ponu's advantage is also great.

At least he knew that the theory of the steam engine was true and credible, and it was the general trend of the future.

It's like when thermal weapons first appeared, when everyone was still working flintlock pistols, you were working fixed ammunition, which may make your flintlock pistol technology unable to keep up with the enemy in the short term, but it will not form a qualitative gap.

But once you succeed in researching, it will form a qualitative gap with your opponent.

The flintlock pistol played the tactic of waiting for the shot to be shot in a row, relying on dense firepower, and the accuracy was almost negligible.

But the fixed ammunition is different, not only can improve the firing efficiency, but also have more choices in the combat formation, in addition, the greater benefit is that you don't have to care about the impact of the environment, the biggest problem with the flintlock gun is that it is in a humid environment for a long time, and the gun in the hand is not even a burning stick.

The same is true for the steam engine, the investment of the quyuan plough has improved the existing production technology to a certain extent, even if it takes three or five years to study the steam engine, and it will take ten or twenty years to promote it, this result is completely acceptable for the Han.

Because at the same time of upgrading, Dahan's agricultural output has not decreased because of this, but has increased compared with before.

This is also the reason why Liu Ponu did not start to build a steam engine as soon as he came up, at least he had to solve the problem of food and clothing before he could consider a longer-term goal.

"Is this thing really that useful?" Even Liu Che, who was a little dissatisfied with Liu Ponu's behavior, now has to pay serious attention to it.

Three million young and strong laborers......

Do you know what that means?

To put it in layman's terms, Dahan has never fought such a rich battle, and he has never seen so many young and strong laborers who can be arranged at any time!

If what Liu Ponu said is true, then he has been staying here for ten or twenty years, and Liu Che can accept it.

Not only can he accept it, but he will not tolerate anyone threatening Liu Ponu's throne in any way, not even the slightest.

"Its role will only be greater than you think, once this thing is promoted to a certain range, even if the young people in their twenties to forties in the country are all removed from agricultural production, it will not have any impact on food production!" Liu Ponu said directly without hesitation.

The most laborious part of cultivation lies in the early stage of ploughing and leveling the land, which must be done by young and strong, and the efficiency is not high.

The elderly, women and children can also do sowing and management, but the efficiency is a little slower, but a few people manage 100 acres of land a year, and the problem is still not big.

The only shortfall may be the harvest season, but as long as the weather is beautiful, it won't be too much of a problem.

Of course, there are other ways to solve this problem.

"In addition, it can be used not only for agriculture, but also for the army, if it is allocated to the logistics troops, only one or two people are in charge, and it can be compared to the capacity of at least five or six carriages, and there are many other benefits......," Liu Ponu continued.

Liu Che couldn't help but gasp, this is too terrifying, right?

A carriage has to be equipped with three people, and the horse's capacity is limited, so a car can't carry much goods, plus the consumption of personnel and horses, so transporting ten catties of grain from Chang'an to the border can often only be sent over one catty.

The Han Dynasty fought with the Xiongnu for so many years, and each time it sent troops, it was as little as tens of thousands, and as many as two or three hundred thousand, how could a force of this scale have such a great impact on the Han with a population of tens of millions?

However, these are only superficial figures, and in order to support these hundreds of thousands of troops to fight, millions of civilians often need to be conscripted for logistics and transportation.

"It's not unusual for me to look at this thing, you really have faith in him?" Liu Ponu is a person who has been on the battlefield, and more than once, the incident of escaping death has also happened to him, so Liu Che does not doubt Liu Ponu's judgment on this matter, but it is just ......

"Faith?" Liu Ponu raised his head with a mean smile, looked at Liu Che with a solemn face, and suddenly the thought of death rose in his heart.

Of course, with the lessons of the past, Liu Ponu will certainly not jump sideways repeatedly as before.

But there must still be verbal teasing, otherwise the atmosphere is so dull, and some are not conducive to physical and mental health.

Liu Ponu put on a big grin, patted his chest with confidence, and said: "Of course I have confidence, just like when I was building a waterwheel and a quyuan plow, no, my confidence in him is even stronger than at that time, and I have a hunch, by the way, you know what a hunch is, right?" ”

Liu Che suddenly looked at Liu Ponu with black lines on his head, you are so capable, then why don't you have a premonition that I will slap you into the ground?

Pretend!

This kid must be trying to pretend again!

In the past, I didn't know, so I pretended to let you pretend to that, but now I'm on guard, so can I let you pretend to be it?

"This thing should need a lot of iron, right? Although the iron smelting technology has been improved, the output of iron ore has been limited, and your idea is probably about to fail! Liu Che laughed and splashed cold water.

What's the matter, no matter how awesome it is?

You can't even get together the raw materials for manufacturing, so I ask you how to do it?

"Is this difficult? Wouldn't it be okay to scale up mining? Liu Ponu looked at Liu Che with a confused expression, and his expression seemed to say no, you can't even think of such a simple question?

"Then you need people, you haven't made this treasure yet, where can you find so many people to mine?" Liu Che glared at Liu Ponu fiercely in anger.

Liu Ponu's face was full of surprise, looking at Liu Che, he suddenly felt as if he needed to re-examine this era.

I've already done so many things before, whether it's clear or hinted, it stands to reason that their thinking should have undergone some changes.

But now, looking at the reaction of the bad old man, it seems that it is still the same way of thinking before?

"Who told the peasants that they should squat and work in the fields all day long? The two busiest seasons for farmers are spring ploughing and autumn harvest, and the management in the middle is nothing more than weeding and watering, weeding is a patient job, and it does not have to be young and strong to do it, and the water is now directly sent to the ground, even if it is a child, it can complete this work. ”

"That is to say, the real need to use the young and strong, is only the spring ploughing and autumn harvest of these two months, the rest of the time is basically dispensable, and will not have any impact, the people in the surrounding counties where the iron mine is located are enough to expand the scale of mining, the big deal is to stop production for two months during the busy agricultural season."

Saying that, Liu Ponu did not forget to fall into the well and said with contempt: "What age is this, why do you always want to solidify the class in this old thought?" The times are changing, and if you don't follow up and learn to accept, the times will abandon you sooner or later......"

"The Legend of the Fairy Tree"

"......" Liu Che was speechless, what is this?

That being said, although it is true that the real busy time is only those two months, the farmers are usually not idle and sit at home and talk about the mountains.

"Have you forgotten the arithmetic? If you let the people go to the iron mines, can you pay him a hundred and twenty dollars a year? Liu Che asked angrily.

One hundred and twenty yuan a year, and if a family of four is all adults, then four hundred and eighty yuan needs to be paid.

But no matter how you calculate it, a family of four will need to pay between 240 and 480 yuan a year.

The common people certainly can't come up with so much money, and most people have never seen so much money in their lives.

So what are they doing during the off-season?

Of course, they tried their best to raise materials, men went to get materials, women knitted at home, and when it was time to pay the money, they handed over these materials to offset taxes.

You've arranged all the peasants during the slack period, so what about my court?

Is this a collection or not a collection?

Whose loss is the imperial court?

"This system is obviously very unreasonable, if you want me to say, it would be better to cancel this calculation directly!" Liu Ponu pursed his lips angrily, not at all interested in this kind of poll tax imposed on the people.

"It's nonsense, cancel the calculation, just the income of the imperial court is not enough at all, how to ensure the use of front-line soldiers?" Liu Che snorted coldly and reprimanded unceremoniously.

Is it okay not to collect it?

Of course it works, but not right now.

Because a large amount of capital saved by Emperor Wenjing was squandered by Liu Che, the renovation of the palace renovation and the reconstruction of the reconstruction, compared to when he first took over, the two palaces have not known how much they have expanded, and Liu Che has also built a lot of palaces in other places in addition to the two palaces.

For example, the Jianzhang Palace, which has not yet been fully built, actually exists now, but the scale is not large.

Another example is the Bowang Garden built for the crown prince......

Although it costs a lot to fight a war, how much does it cost to fight a war?

Plus the spoils of war, is there a pension or anything now, in fact, the cost of the war is not too much, if the palace is not repaired, the money saved by Emperor Wenjing is enough to fight the war, and it can't even be spent.

But there is no but, the palace has also been repaired, the war has been fought, the treasury is empty, and it is not collected now?

So what do you expect if there is a war next?

There may be no shortage of food, but what about some military supplies?

In other words, in addition to the weapons, the other stitches and threads on the Han army were obtained through calculation, at most, because of the controlled items, what they handed in were parts, and the imperial court was arranging people to assemble them.

"Is it hard to solve these problems? You don't know that, do you......"