New year, new atmosphere, the current Huangmen Pavilion is far from being as embarrassed as last year.

In the past year in Xinye, they strictly followed Shen Chen's practice, recruited displaced people, opened up wasteland, and cast manors, and now have more than 20,000 acres of fields and a total population of about 2,000.

The number of clansmen has increased from 50 in the middle of the year to 120, and they do not need to engage in agricultural activities, but train all day to strengthen their combat effectiveness.

Although the number of these soldiers is not large, Shen Chen's request is to train in the direction of the elite, and he never asks for as many as possible.

Deng Mao and Shen Zhen served as the border regular army of the Han Dynasty in their early years, fighting against the Xianbei people who were in the ascendancy more than ten years ago, and deeply understood how to train the elite in the army.

Therefore, under their training, these 120 people can be regarded as small in scale and quite combative.

A few days ago, there was a Yellow Turban Cottage in the Dabie Mountains that saw the Huangmen Pavilion building a manor and looked quite rich, so it sent more than 1,000 people to attack, but they were defeated.

And the most important thing in this victory is not the courage of the soldiers.

After all, many people are on the battlefield for the first time, and the enemy is still ten times larger, so it is normal for them to be timid in battle.

The important thing is that their weapons and equipment are much stronger than those of the Yellow Turban Bandits.

The weapon is a ring-headed knife made of steel, and the upper body is also wearing small armor, and the equipment is in a crushing posture.

And what about the Yellow Turbans?

The better ones are the ordinary wrought iron ring knives, and there are a lot of gaps, and even many of them have rusted.

The worse ones were simply pig iron, kitchen knives, farm tools, hoes, stones and sticks, and even less armor.

Under such a huge equipment gap, the soldiers of Huangmen Pavilion were invulnerable, and when slashing, they could cut the opponent's weapon in two with a single sword.

The Yellow Turban Army was unable to compete with them at all, and under the leadership of Deng Zhao, Shen Zhen and others, the Yellow Turban Pavilion soldiers rushed to kill in a wave, and the Yellow Turban Army was defeated and fled.

There are two main reasons why the soldiers of Huangmen Pavilion can have such good equipment.

The first is the birth of the blast furnace steelmaking method.

In the Han Dynasty, there was actually a steelmaking technology, called the frying method, which was a relatively advanced steelmaking technology that could decarburize and make steels very evenly.

But the problem with the frying method is that pig iron is used for production, and if the decarbonization work is not done enough, it is likely to produce wrought iron. After decarburization, the temperature inside the furnace is not enough to form molten steel.

In other words, the most important thing is to grasp the degree of decarbonization. Decarburization is not enough, it's just wrought iron. Too much carburization is too much to form molten steel, and the resulting iron will be very brittle.

At that time, charcoal was used for firing, and the steelmaking furnace could not reach the point of smelting molten steel, so in this case, people found another way and invented 100 steel.

100 steelmaking is to heat the wrought iron to a temperature close to whitish, and use a hammer to forge it, remove the inclusions in the steel, and reduce the size of the residual inclusions, so that its composition tends to be uniform, the structure tends to be dense, the grain is refined, and the performance of the steel is improved.

It's just that it sounds good, but it's inefficient. A piece of pig iron is forged into a piece of steel, which requires a thousand beatings.

The origin of the idiom lies in the forging process of the sword embryo.

If a blacksmith makes a mistake, all his efforts can be wasted.

Therefore, even if the steel frying method was invented, the steel production in the Han Dynasty was very low.

It requires extremely skilled blacksmiths to forge steel and it is impossible to mass-produce it.

Shen Chen used the steel filling method to build the blast furnace.

Iron ore is heated into a liquid state, and wrought iron is added to the liquid state, and the two are mixed, which is directly turned into molten steel due to chemical reaction.

In this way, the efficiency of steelmaking has almost improved by leaps and bounds.

Why before the invention of the steel filling method in the Tang Dynasty, China's steel output was outrageously low, and the total steel output in the Western Han Dynasty for more than 200 years was only 17,855 tons.

After the Tang and Song dynasties, the annual output could reach tens of thousands of tons, and even 200,000 tons per year in the Ming and Qing dynasties?

It is that the emergence of the steel filling method is a dimensionality reduction attack.

Although it does not produce 800,000 tons per year using steam power like the British Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, it is still a thousand times more efficient than forging steel.

In addition to steelmaking technology, the second direct reason is that Nanyang is rich in resources.

As a vast plain comparable to the Guanzhong Basin, it is rich in important resources such as coal and iron ore.

Among them, there are more than ten iron-smelting sites of the Han Dynasty excavated near the urban area of Nanyang City in the later generations, and there are countless other places.

There must be minerals near the Shahe River where the Huangmen Pavilion is located, but most of them are buried underground and there are no open-pit minerals.

In the Han Dynasty, mining technology was relatively low, and only open-pit minerals were used, and buried a little deeper either could not be found, or even if there were mines, they did not have the ability to mine them.

Fortunately, Fuyang County, which is not far from Huangmen Pavilion, is a large iron-producing county, which is Tongbai County in later generations, and there is a mountain called Tongbai Mountain, which is called Dafu Mountain in the Han Dynasty.

According to the information excavated in later generations, there is a huge open-pit iron ore vein here.

In fact, not only in the Han Dynasty, there are also many Tongbai Mountain mining areas in later generations, there are a large number of small and medium-sized mining enterprises, and there are huge amounts of gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, iron and other mineral resources under the mountain range, which is a world-class mineral resource.

In the Han Dynasty, due to the limited mining technology, it was impossible to dig out hundreds of tons of gold, thousands of tons of silver, and tens of millions of tons of iron, copper, zinc, lead, alkali and other minerals discovered in the Tongbai Mountain mining area.

But even the exposed natural iron ore has been very much, the later generations in Tongbai County excavated the Han Dynasty iron smelting sites up to 13, not excavated more, iron ore reserves are very amazing.

Coupled with the minerals produced in other parts of Nanyang, which have not been exhausted after thousands of years of mining, you can know how many natural resources are hidden in this place.

Therefore, to a certain extent, the place of Nanyang is really a treasure.

It's just a pity that it is located in the Central Plains war zone, and there is no stable environment for the perennial war, so even when the natural resources are so abundant, they cannot be used by people.

However, at present, although there are such good resources in the Nanyang Basin that no one uses, Huangmen Pavilion also relies on it to gradually develop, and after it grows in the future, it may be able to use it as a base to radiate around.

On December 26, Deng Hong returned to Huangmen Pavilion with his new wife and Shen Chen.

Deng Mao and others led the villagers to greet them.

Now the Huangmen Pavilion is not what it used to be, the farmland on the fertile field is endless, the Qianmo is criss-crossed, and a piece of farms, villages, ponds, and mulberry forests rise from the ground.

In addition to farming, there are also traditional mulberry and hemp farming, animal husbandry, etc., which is like a huge manor economic system.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the major families established their power at the bottom according to this manor system.

Now the Deng family has built a manor like a family, and at the same time, there are people who are officials under Liu Biao, plus the background of the descendants of the Deng family, barely strong, and it can be regarded as a local gentry.

Shen Chen took a boat from Xiangyang, went north along the Baihe River, got off the boat in Xinye, and then went to Huangmen Pavilion in the direction of the Shahe River.

Therefore, the greeting team is at the entrance of the village to the west of the Yellow Gate Pavilion.

Under the leadership of Deng Mao and others, many new homeless people were also summoned to welcome them, and the road was full of Huangmenting people on the road for several kilometers, and the convoy slowly drove from the west.

The reason why it is so grand is that the bride must first see the strength and heritage of the Deng family, otherwise if the husband's family is not strong, I am afraid that Deng Hong will be despised by the bride.

The second is to appease the people at the bottom of the township pavilion.

Most of the newly recruited displaced people are homeless people who ran out of the war in the Central Plains or Guanzhong.

They are afraid of war and hunger, and if Huangmenting does not show some strength, it will be difficult for these people to have a sense of belonging, and it is very likely that they will flee again in the future.

That's why this welcoming ceremony is necessary.

When the Cai family saw that the Deng Hong family had such a huge estate, they would not despise the Deng family.

The low-level ethnic groups will also feel much more relieved to see that the Deng clan actually has high-ranking officials under Jingzhou Mu as their backers.

It's a matter of killing two birds with one stone.

But what makes people strange is that I heard that the Deng family is married to a bride, why is there a child standing next to him?

Could it be a second marriage?

Many of the newcomers to Huangmen Pavilion looked puzzled and discussed in private.

"That is the Deng Langjun who our Huangmen Pavilion Deng clan is engaged in under the account of Liu Yuanjun in Jingzhou? It looks really good-looking. ”

"The bride is like ......."

"Ah Niu, don't talk nonsense. If it weren't for the Deng family, we would have starved to death. ”

"Huh? Why is there a child next to him? ”

"Could it be Deng Langjun's child?"

"No, I heard that Deng Langjun's wife gave birth to a child so quickly."

Everyone wondered.

I don't know why that kid was able to come back with Deng Hong.

However, these outsiders didn't know that Shen Chen's taking charge of the Huangmen Pavilion was deliberately concealed.

First, he asked to keep a low profile, in order to prevent Mu Xiu from being in the forest, he must not be known to outsiders.

Second, it is also to maintain the face of the clan, otherwise those homeless people will have to wonder if their choice is correct when they learn that the controller of this township pavilion is a child.

Therefore, the displaced people from outside only know that Huangmen Pavilion is currently in charge of several elders of the Deng clan such as Deng Mao and Deng Kai, and outside it is respected by Deng Hong, who is engaged in the account of Liu Yuanjun in Jingzhou, and does not know the existence of Shen Chen.

Shen Chen didn't care about these false names, for the upper elites, the appearance of a prodigy was not surprising.

Because prodigies are recorded in many history books, such as Xiang Luganluo, etc., and even in their circle, the number of prodigies is very large.

Kong Rong is one of them.

For the people at the bottom, they have no reading and learning words, no knowledge, and no history, so they naturally don't know the concept of prodigy.

They will only put their own preconceived ideas into their own minds, and instinctively will not believe a child's words.

Just like when he was in Xuzhou, if it weren't for the fact that Cao Cao slaughtered Xiapi, those villagers in Huangmen Pavilion would not believe that Shen Chen's words were a truth.

Therefore, in many cases, there is no need to be too conspicuous among the people at the bottom, Shen Chen indirectly influences Deng Mao and these people, and then let them carry it out.

After the convoy entered the Huangmen Pavilion, Deng Mao and Deng Kai greeted them.

"Big brother and second brother."

"Son-in-law, second uncle."

Cai's very polite practice of the usual salute for slightly bending the knees, that is, what can often be seen in TV dramas, pressing the left hand with the right hand, pressing the left hand on the left hip bone, bending the knees with both legs together, and bowing the head slightly.

On the contrary, after Shen Chen got out of the car, he just shouted: "Eldest Uncle Ancestor, Second Uncle Ancestor." ”

"You guy."

Shen Zhen came over and grabbed Shen Chen's ears and said, "In the past, when I saw the foreign minister's uncle and second uncle, I would salute, but after I went to the academy, I even forgot the etiquette?" ”

"It hurts, it hurts."

Shen Chen bared his teeth, and said in his heart that they were going to be in charge of the clan by themselves, and they were about to become the patriarch, so what's wrong with having less etiquette? And they are all elders and acquaintances, and it seems raw to bend down and salute every day.

But in the eyes of his parents, even if you have the ability, you are just a child, how to teach you how to teach, so he really can't do anything about Shen Zhen.

Deng Hong was still kind-hearted, and said with a smile: "My son-in-law uses some force, yes, I don't think it's okay to pull my ears, I have to spank." ”

Hearing this, Shen Chen rolled his eyes.

The farce was quickly stopped by Deng Mao, and the group began to walk in the direction of Xiangting.

It was only at this time that the surrounding homeless people knew that this child was from the Shen family, and he just went to Xiangyang Academy to study.

Outside the Township Pavilion, if the tens of miles outside the Huangmen Pavilion are just ordinary rural farmland, then when it comes to the place where the 1,000 villagers lived at the beginning, it is already a manor.

Outside, the bricks fired in the cave and the rammed earth are built into a wall, which is about two miles wide from north to south and four miles long from east to west, and a large number of houses, high turrets, watchtowers and other fortifications are built inside.

At present, there are only these in the fortifications, but there are vegetable fields, canals and even a small part of the farmland in life, and there are tunnels hidden underground that can lead to the mountains and forests behind.

This is a standard Han Dynasty manor structure, if it is further upgraded, it is a city.

It's just that the manor has not yet been repaired, for example, all kinds of fortifications have not been built, and the excavation of tunnels has not been done.

This requires special military craftsmen to build, and Huangmen Pavilion does not yet have such professional talents.

Even Shen Chen didn't know what to do with the Han Dynasty's city defense equipment.

He knew the golden juice.

Although it didn't seem to be a glorious thing to say, if there was really a large-scale enemy to attack, Shen Chen could indeed only think of using the burning gold juice to retreat from the enemy.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle, Deng Hong and Shen Chen were welcomed into the manor and officially entered their own territory.

Seven aunts and eight aunts rushed up, surrounded by relatives.

Cai immediately felt the enthusiasm of the countrymen.

Because those relatives caught her was a compliment, who was beautiful, virtuous, virtuous, and virtuous, and a good housekeeper, she was a little embarrassed to say it.

The most powerful thing about rural girls is that mouth, now Deng Hong is in full swing, no one will offend him stupidly, so he naturally praises the bride.

Surrounded by relatives, Deng Hong first had to take the Cai family to the ancestral hall to worship his ancestors.

This is standard etiquette.

Only in this way can it be regarded as officially entering the Deng family.

Soon after the ceremony, there was a banquet, and compared to the banquet of one person and one seat of the family, the countryside was not so particular.

In addition to the core figures of Deng Mao, Deng Kai, Deng Hong, and Cai's family holding their own banquets in their homes, the villagers set up a banquet, first, to celebrate this year's harvest together, and secondly, to bless the newlyweds of Deng Hong and his wife.

The New Year will be in a few days, and in this banquet, the elders of Huangmenting are also celebrating the arrival of the New Year in their own way.