"That's not going to work, you're not as tall as a horse's hooves now, and you still want to ride a horse?" An Ning nodded on the forehead of the little broken slave and said angrily.

Bin had an excited look on his face, he didn't expect that he would have a chance to get the pony of his dreams.

"I've got to pick a very handsome pony." Bin said loudly, waved the wooden sword twice excitedly, and found that the space in the car was limited and it was easy to hurt others, so he quickly stopped.

"When you get to the ranch, let you pick it yourself." Zhao Kuo said with a smile.

"I will definitely choose a good horse as a companion for my children to fight on the battlefield in the future." Bin said firmly.

"Does this road lead all the way to the Loop?" Qinghe said with some surprise as he looked through the car window and looked at the road that had been spreading westward to the end of the earth.

"All the way to Helan County in the Hetao, and for the next few months, we spent most of our time on this road." Zhao Kuo said.

"It's so long...... Is this the kind of path we are all in Zhao now? Qinghe couldn't believe it, she usually stayed in the palace, even if she went out, she was in Handan City, and she rarely paid attention to the changes in Zhao Kingdom.

When she went out this time, she suddenly found that she didn't know Zhao Guo a little.

"All counties have been connected to official roads, about half of the counties have also been paved, and the remaining counties are still under construction." Zhao Kuo said proudly.

As long as the cement is sufficient and the workers are sufficient, the road is paved very quickly, and the plain area radiates to the surroundings with Handan as the center, and it doesn't take long to pave it.

However, about half of the country of Zhao is mountainous, or a basin surrounded by mountains, which is very troublesome to build, and can only come little by little, and it is not in a hurry.

"Concubine...... It's hard to believe...... This kind of road must be very expensive to build. Qinghe grabbed the corner of his clothes and asked cautiously.

"The cost is only labor costs, and most of the workers who build the road are captives of the Hu people, and they only need to take care of the food. And we not only use it ourselves, but also sell it to Qiwei and other countries, and the profits we make can already cover most of the costs, and the rest depends on collecting tolls, not only will we not lose money, but some will earn, and the longer the time, the more we will earn. Zhao Kuo explained.

To tell the truth, thanks to the fact that labor is not worth much in these years, if it is valuable, Zhao Guo will definitely lose money by relying on cement to build roads.

The cost of materials for this thing is low, but eighty percent of the cement fired by Zhao Guo is unqualified, and the remaining two percent are also inferior cement, which is completely incomparable with the cement of later generations.

However, these inferior cement are now an artifact, after all, the load of the carriage is only one or two tons normally in these years, and it is impossible to crush the road.

So when Zhao Kuo learned that it could be fired, he immediately ordered to expand the output, not to say that two percent were qualified, even if it was only one percent, I would be mass-produced.

To be honest, Zhao Guo was already very surprised that he was able to burn cement in the blast furnace before, and the high failure rate is inevitable, as long as there is success, after the proficiency is high, I don't believe it has always been like this.

If the wages of workers are several times more expensive, Zhao Kuo will definitely not dare to mass production, he must hide it and continue to improve, when the cost will be reduced and when will it be mass-produced.

However, after the successful improvement of the iron-making blast furnace, the firing technology of cement was also greatly improved. The firing is basically qualified, which makes the output of cement increase several times.

At this time, the cost of cement really comes down.

At the same time, the profits of cement sold to other countries also skyrocketed, not only supporting the wages of all workers, but also a certain surplus, which was used to buy grain to feed the captives who built roads, reducing the pressure on Zhao.

However, now the grain is not very easy to buy, the four kingdoms of Han, Wei, Chu and Qin have all begun to strictly control the outflow of grain, Yan Country is a bitter cold land, and it is not easy for grain to feed itself, and the only one who does not control the outflow of grain is the Qi State.

Of course, it is not that Qi State takes the initiative to sell grain, but the Qi State court has very low control over the below, as long as it costs money, it can always be bought, and Zhao Mu has spent a lot of time in Qi State to buy grain for Zhao State in the past two years.

However, Zhao Kuo knew in his heart that cement would not make money for a few years, and after Han Weiqi and other countries connected major cities in China, they would not continue to lay official roads.

Now Han Wei's demand has been greatly reduced, but Chu has begun to buy cement, which has maintained Zhao's profits.

"You don't have to spend money, you can still make money!" Everyone looked surprised.

Some of them guessed that the cost would not be very high, but they didn't expect that they could still make money.

"Making money is only incidental, even if you can't make money, some roads have to be built, and only by building these roads can I become a whole. But maybe not that much. ”

"In addition to money, manpower is also an issue. If it weren't for these captives, the official road of my Zhao State could only be spread to the county now, and if you want to spread to the county, it would be impossible to spread it to the county without one or two decades. Zhao Kuo said.

Although the population of Zhao is much more than that of prisoners, the speed of road construction is no different from that of turtle crawling just by building roads for two months every year during the slack season, and then removing the time on the road to and from the road.

Looking at Wei Qi and other countries, they have built two or three major official roads so far, just because they can't draw out so many manpower and material resources, and Zhao has 200,000 captives who are constantly building roads, crushing any country in terms of speed.

Therefore, Zhao Kuo was still very good to these captives, and he was treated when he was sick and treated when he was injured. There is an endless supply of salted fish in the harbor, and some will be sent to the captives to improve the food.

How can I say that people have also contributed to Zhao Guo.

Every time there is fish to eat, it is the happiest time for this group of men, who have lived on the grassland all their lives, and rarely have the opportunity to eat fish.

And the people who manage them will also take the opportunity to tell them that as long as they work hard, they will definitely be able to become glorious Zhao people in the future, live a good life, and have fish to eat every day.

If you have outstanding contributions, you will even have the opportunity to be rewarded with a knighthood, marry Bai Fumei, and walk to the pinnacle of life.

It doesn't matter if others believe it or not, they believe it anyway, because there is no way to do it if you don't believe it.

Run away? Then wait to be someone else's merit.

Don't look at the people around you, in fact, none of them are your own people.

Anyone can betray you.

Before, someone succeeded in getting a reward by betraying his brother, became a Zhao person, and owned his own land.

In this case, they didn't dare to trust anyone, so they could only give up and run away, desperately involution, and strive for the very few opportunities to become Zhao people.

"Are there a lot of fish in the sea? It's so much that it can be taken prisoner. Zhao Ji said in surprise.

In the country of Zhao, fish is not a rare thing.

Although Mencius once said, 'I can do what I want when I want the fish and what I want with the bear's paw, and I can't have both, so I will give up the fish and take the bear's paw.' ’

However, the preciousness of fish cannot be compared to that of a bear's paw.

In history, Jin Linggong once sent someone to assassinate Zhao Dun, and the assassin came to Zhao Dun's mansion and found that Zhao Dun was eating "fish and food", and was greatly moved.

As an important minister of the Jin State, he actually ate "fish and food", which was too frugal, so he gave up assassinating Zhao Dun and killed himself.

Zhao Ji himself is a native of Zhao State, and knows that even if fish are not rare, there are not enough to give them to captives, unless Zhao Guo gets an unimaginable number of fish from the sea.