Ma Zhong's matching sword, of course, is not a sword, but a matching sword that Ma Zhongtuo bought back from Chengdu.

If there is any difference between it and the ordinary matching sword of this era, it is forged from stainless steel made by the secret method of the army.

In fact, it is made of stainless steel made by the steel filling method, which is the same as the material of the seedling knife, and has reached the highest standard of toughness and hardness in this era.

After listening to Ma Zhong's story, Zhang Xi was skeptical, asked Zhang Yi to find the Miao knife in the army, and found another stone, and cut down the good guy with his own hands, Zhen's hands were numb, but a crack also appeared in the stone.

Well, now Zhang Xi knows how much the difference in force value between himself and Ma Zhong is.

Well. From this point of view, it's really not that Ma Zhong's sword is wrong, it's the problem of this stone.

This stone, let's say it's hard, it's really hard, and ordinary farm tools or people like Zhang Xi who don't have a high force value can't destroy it at all.

But if you want to say soft, it is also quite soft, and it will shatter with a little knife and axe, and it will not be able to be made into strange mountains and strange stones, or sculptures.

There are too many such stones in Qiqi County, and it is obviously not possible to rely on such stones to make stone carvings to increase the income of the people.

Zhang Xi was also a little embarrassed for a while, and squatted down to look at the stone for a while, wanting to see what this thing was.

Then, the more Zhang Xi looked, the more he felt that this stone was a little familiar. After thinking about it for a long time, it seemed that he had thought of something, and let people move a piece back.

After returning to the Taishou Mansion in Qiqi County, Zhang Xi ordered someone to find charcoal, put the stone on the charcoal fire and calcined, calcined until the stone cracked and crushed, Zhang Xi finally got confirmation.

This stone is really limestone.

Limestone out of the county?!

After thinking about it carefully, Ma Zhong seemed to say just now that a lot of land in Qiqi County is clay, and the cultivation efficiency is extremely low, so if it is not used to practice cement, is it a bit of a waste? !

Cement is good, a must-have for traversers.

And this thing is not difficult, just calcine the clay, quicklime, and the waste residue left over from ironmaking, and dry it.

Although it can't reach the quality of cement in later generations, in this era, it is simply a building artifact.

牂牁郡. Treasure County!!

If cement can be made, I'm afraid this place won't have a chance to get rich?!

But Zhang Xi turned his head and thought about it, it didn't seem to be right.

Cement is a military product in this era, and it is impossible to hand it over to the families to take care of, after all, there is no good means to destroy cement.

So. The cement method must be confidential, only Liu Bei Group can grasp it, and these families still use coke to make money.

As for the people who can't rely on a cement factory to settle the people, for a large local county, the people's life has to be farming.

However, with this cement, Zhang Xi feels that it should arouse Liu Bei's group's attention to Qiqi County, after all, in the entire Yizhou area, probably only Qiqi County can make cement. In this case, in order to ensure the local stability of the county, it should be possible to provide a certain amount of financial subsidies to the local area, right?!

This is always a good thing for the people, at least there is no need to worry about the loss of population caused by the scarcity of arable land in the county.

Zhang Xi quickly pondered these things in his mind, and then. It was decided to interrupt his own inspection work and go directly back to the county.

I have to talk to Zhuge Liang about it, Zhang Xi always feels that he thinks alone, and it is inevitable that there will be mistakes.

The method of making cement must be confidential, Zhang Xi didn't plan to teach it all to Ma Zhong now, he had to wait for Liu Bei to make a decision, and even if necessary, even if he built a cement factory, he had to send heavy troops to strictly guard it.

This is something that can build a city overnight, and in terms of sturdiness, it is even stronger than many current earthen castles and castles, and it is an important military material.

In addition, there is still the trial of the imperial examination system in Yueshan County in his heart, and now the two important things are piled together, Zhang Xi has no intention of continuing to inspect the place, and before the arrival of November winter, he hurried back to Wei County and found Zhuge Liang, who had not had time to return to Chengdu, and the two of them summed it up.

After listening to Zhang Xi's suggestion, Zhuge Liang thought about it for a while and felt that it was still feasible.

After all, the current Nanzhong, nominally just experienced a rebellion, and when everything was in ruins, many things could be "special and special", and everyone couldn't say anything.

Even Zhuge Liang believes that not only can the imperial examination be promoted in Yueshan County, but there is a serious shortage of management talents in the entire Nanzhong, especially after the mines begin to mine and the plantations begin to operate, this lack of talents will be more obvious.

The Yizhou family, whether it is a family in Nanzhong or Shuzhong, they may not lack management talents, after all, they are more than 100 years of poetry and book heirlooms.

But if the government does not have corresponding grassroots officials to connect with them, many of their things will not be able to be carried out, and once it is delayed, they will really lose the most.

Therefore, Zhuge Liang believes that the temporary trial of the imperial examination system in Nanzhong should not be opposed by a large area of the Yizhou family.

However, the Liu Bei Group in Chengdu can use this temporary imperial examination to accumulate experience and lay the foundation for the subsequent imperial examination as the last assessment of the probation system.

This matter is really important, so important that Zhuge Liang wants to return to Chengdu immediately and discuss with Liu Bei whether to try this set of assessment methods in Nanzhong first to increase local management talents.

But Zhang Xi still kept Zhuge Liang for a few days. That's the first thing, and the second thing.

Zhang Xi dragged Zhuge Liang to his secret experimental workshop again, and used the coal mine brought back from Qiqi County to calcinate the limestone brought back from Qiqi County to obtain quicklime, and then combined with the local clay of Qiqi County, mixed and fired a bunch of powder in a ratio of three to one.

In the end, Zhang Xi mixed the sand and gravel with this pile of powder, and after adding water and stirring, he built a wall in half a day, and asked Zhuge Liang to test the hardness of the wall himself the next day.

Zhuge Liang pushed a few times, and after letting the soldiers hit him with a hammer a few times, he turned around and dispersed everyone, and directly asked Zhang Xi's burning cement recipe to leave.

Zhuge Liang is who, how can he not know the weight of this thing, almost just a blink of his brain, he understands the meaning of Zhang Xi letting him see these powders.

Then Zhuge Liang really couldn't continue to stay in Nanzhong.

This trip to Nanzhong, he found a lot of things, and none of these things are trivial, so he must hurry back to Chengdu and discuss with Liu Bei and others.

The entanglement and interests of the family in the copper mine in Nanzhong is one thing, which is related to whether the Yizhou family may have a group or a disagreement, which has important reference significance for the differentiation and use of Liu Bei's group and the rule of Yizhou.

The registration of plantations and Yiren in Nanzhong is one thing, which is related to the population changes in Nanzhong and the increase in taxes and forced labor in the future, and it also needs to be reported to Liu Bei in a timely manner.

The trial implementation of the imperial examination in Nanzhong is one thing, which is related to the talent selection system of Liu Bei Group in the future, as well as weakening the influence of the family in the people, and providing a way for the children of the poor to rise.

Finally, there's the cement thing. This is a major military event, and it is also what Zhuge Liang is most anxious about now.

There may be a buffer for other things, but one last thing must be done quickly.

In particular, Zhang Xi told Zhuge Liang that this cement can not only be used as a binder to build city fortresses, but also to build roads, and the most important thing is that the speed of drying and solidification is very fast, which can greatly improve the road conditions and environment in Yizhou.

Zhuge Liang immediately thought of those bad mountain roads from Yizhou to Hanzhong, and then from Hanzhong to Liangzhou or Qinchuan.

Yizhou has always been easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it is true that these mountain roads are difficult to walk, which is a good thing, but it is also a bad thing.

From a purely defensive point of view, the mountain roads in Yizhou are difficult to travel, and they are the barrier to protect Yizhou.

But now that Liu Bei's group has occupied Yizhou, what needs to be considered at this time is not whether Yizhou is easy to defend and difficult to attack, but to consider how high the cost of transporting grain was due to such unfortunate road conditions during the Northern Expedition.

Zhuge Liang in history, six Northern Expeditions, four times had to withdraw because the mountain roads were difficult to travel, and the supply of grain and grass was not timely enough.

The rugged mountain road and the difficult road conditions made it seem that the grain transport team traveled thirty or forty miles a day, but the mountain road was long, and this supply line was twice as long as that on flat land.

Moreover, the road conditions are not good, once there is any accident, it will also affect the speed of grain transportation, so from Yizhou to the north of Liangzhou or even Qinchuan, the grain road is the biggest factor restricting Yizhou to send troops.

Now, with this thing called cement, even if you can't build a big road, a passage for transporting grain can still be built, right?!

How much time you have to save to transport food.

This matter must be done before the completion of cultivation and recuperation in Yizhou and Hanzhong, and time is really waiting for no one.

Zhuge Liang really couldn't continue to stay in Wei County, Zhuge Liang, who was expected to return to Chengdu at the end of the year, hurried back to Chengdu in mid-November to discuss with Liu Bei about the "big construction".

And Zhang Xi, who continued to stay in Wei County, became his own governor.

After most of the things are framed, Zhang Xi's affairs are much less, and the rest of the things are just to decide whether you need to make changes and adjustments according to the promotion of things.

Zhang Xi's most important work next is just the daily management of government affairs.

In addition, not long after Zhuge Liang returned to Chengdu, he sent Jiang Wan from Chengdu to Nanzhong.

At first, Zhang Xi thought that Jiang Wan had offended Liu Bei somewhere, so Zhuge Liang had to be sent to the place again. Just like when Jiang Wan was sent by Zhuge Liang to Badong County, where Zhang Xi is located, as a county magistrate.

But this time, Jiang Wan was not assigned, he was specially appointed by Liu Bei as the governor of the Governor of the Prefecture, and he was appointed as Zhang Xi's deputy.

The purpose is to preside over the temporary imperial examination of the six counties in Nanzhong, assist Zhang Xi in managing the selection of grassroots talents in the six counties, and plan the establishment of a cement plant in Qiqi County.

Obviously, this is a proper reuse.

(End of chapter)