The first convoy of grain finally returned on the third day of May.

A total of 318 large and small ships were dispersed on the way to the eight lighthouse ports, and it was inevitable that there would be large and small accidents between the round-trips. There are also fishing grounds off the coast of Shandong, and it is planned to fish nearby to supplement food rations.

In all, only 207 ships remained of the ships that finally returned to Minnesota Prefecture.

Zhu Yuan is more concerned about people.

On this round trip, the grain fleet only lost a total of 37 people, which would be a big deal after a few hundred years, but at the moment, it can almost be said to be a miracle.

You must know that when they returned, the grain transportation team was far more than the more than 13,000 people when they left Mingzhou, but a full 21,000 people.

Worried about the turmoil in Shandong, and confirming that Mingzhou could be fed, Lao Zhu personally ordered that some of the displaced people be relocated to eastern Zhejiang, and the Yinghai Division was responsible for resettlement.

This group of people is basically the first time to go to sea, and they have experienced famine and war before, and their physical fitness is generally very weak.

However, with the meticulous preparation of the Navy Governor's Office and the Battalion and Sea Division in all aspects and details, the grain transportation fleet can be regarded as an excellent completion of this relocation and transshipment task.

In addition to the population, the food convoy also brought back a batch of supplies.

Mainly 10 ships of firewood, 7 ships of coal, 3 ships of iron ore, 3 ships of crystal and 16,000 catties of hemp.

It seems like a lot, but compared to a total of 207 ships, it is actually not much.

Among them, firewood is something Zhu Yuan didn't expect, but it is really useful here.

As for 7 ships of coal, it is estimated that there can be more than 300,000 catties, which sounds a lot at first glance, but not to say 'ton', even if it is replaced by a 100-kilogram 'quintal', it is actually only more than 3,000 quintals.

The main reason is that there is not enough time to prepare this time.

Kang Maocai also dispatched 20,000 displaced people to Yizhou to dig coal and iron deposits, and when the next batch of grain convoys returned, they should be able to bring back more.

At the same time as the first batch of grain convoys returned smoothly, a larger-scale sea fishing operation was also started in Mingzhou.

Under the joint guidance of the Naval Governor's Office, more than 3,700 large-scale official and private fishing vessels have gone to sea one after another to follow the large yellow croaker to fish. Well, to be precise, most of it is fishing, and there is also a not-so-small part, sea fishing.

Nets are still insufficient.

After confirming through experiments that the sea fishing method was effective and not inefficient, Yao Feng led a team of craftsmen to start making hooks day and night.

It's not the delicate and small hook that came later.

In this era, the big yellow croaker, still the same sentence, the length of two or three feet is very common, therefore, the hook is also very large, the width is more than an inch, and it is very convenient to build. Moreover, no matter how large the hook is, the consumption of iron is far less than the consumption of hemp by fishing nets, and even if it is a high-quality refined steel, there will be no shortage of materials.

In addition to the big yellow croaker hook, after confirming that there were many sharks off the coast of Mingzhou in this era, Zhu Yuan also specially ordered to create a batch of shark fishing hooks and organized a special shark fishing team.

Not to mention anything else, a shark more than a foot long, that is, six or seven hundred catties of fish meat.

It's all rations.

As for protecting animals......

In this era, human beings did not have any ability to exterminate a living being, flying in the sky, running underground, swimming in the sea, all kinds of floods, and the brain would only be protected.

Referring to the relevant data of the previous southward sea fishing, Yinghai Division predicts that until the end of the large yellow croaker flood in mid-June, the total harvest of the official and private fleets is expected to be at least 300,000 quintals, and it is not impossible to reach 500,000 quintals if there is less wind and waves in the next month and a half.

Among them, the official and private fish catches are roughly half.

Zhu Yuan still intends to let go of the acquisition, and according to the consistent price of each quintal announced before. According to the minimum estimate of 300,000 quintals of fish, half of which comes from the private sector, and the fishermen sell two-thirds of it, and Yinghai Si will spend 100,000 taels of silver.

Not much.

It still depends on the situation, the third batch of grain fleets to increase 100,000 quintals of fish is definitely no problem, if the harvest is good, such as reaching a total of 500,000 quintals, the official will take 400,000 quintals, in addition to 100,000 quintals for personal use, an additional 300,000 quintals can be sent to the north.

Meat definitely contains more calories than rice grains.

When the time comes, 300,000 quintals of dried salted fish can be worth 300,000 stone of grain.

What is this concept?

According to the daily supply standard of 2 liters of rice grain for the Ming army, there were 300,000 quintals of fish and meat, which was enough for 500,000 troops to eat for a month.

No matter what the era, war, fighting is a logistics.

How it was, Zhu Yuan doesn't remember it too clearly. However, this time, Zhu Yuan also believed that it was he who successfully opened up the sea grain route, which made Lao Zhu make changes to the deployment of the north, no longer advancing step by step as in the original time and space, but planning to completely destroy the foundation of the Yuan Court in one go when the grain and grass are guaranteed enough.

The outcome is unknown.

Either way, however, history must have changed a lot compared to what it used to be.

The time came to the sixth day of the fifth month.

In addition to the ongoing large-scale sea fishing and the return of the first batch of grain fleets, how to resettle the newly arrived 21,000 displaced people is also a big problem.

It's already the rainy season, at least, so people have a place to stay.

Actually, there are.

These people basically live on ships at the moment, and even if they are not used to it, at least they can shelter from the wind and rain. However, the returning grain ship should be maintained as soon as possible, and it is impossible for people to always occupy it, and these people are not used to life on board after all, even with strict management, from the beginning of the return voyage to the present, there are still some accidents such as fires.

In this case, Zhu Yuan planned to advance the previous city-building plan.

West of Dinghai City, south bank of Yongjiang River.

Because of Zhu Yuan's decision, the northern foot of Chen Mountain has quickly entered the state of construction in recent days, and when Zhu Yuan arrived, there was a hot scene here.

After statistics, the specific number of displaced people who arrived in Mingzhou was 21,926, divided into 5,113 households, so Yinghai Division set aside 1,022 acres of land here, each household divided two pieces of land, and built houses according to the unified placement of three main houses plus east kitchen and west toilet.

Of course, for the time being, only mud thatched houses can be built.

The cost of masonry is too high, and even if Yinghai Division can supply it, it will not have so much time.

In addition, the hilly terrain here, if the high place is leveled, the mud material is enough, which is much simpler and easier than opening the mountain, and the camp will purchase and supply wood, thatch, felt cloth, and so on for the construction of the roof.

At the same time, rations are provided.

Back to this era, after a long time, Zhu Yuan always found that his side as a businessman was difficult to play in the field of personnel.

In the past, it was necessary to fight wits and courage with employees for wages, to arrange overtime and fight with employees, and to fight wits and courage with employees for promotion scheduling, in this era, there is no need!

As long as you take care of the food, you can do anything!

Just take care of the rice!

More than 20,000 people were arranged to build their own homes, and the largest amount that Yinghai Si needed to provide was only rations. So much so that Zhu Yuan occasionally thought in private, should he charge more and get a mortgage agreement for each household, after all, land, materials, etc., can't be given in vain, right?

In the end, forget it.

Accumulate virtue.

After all, as long as they settle down and settle down, these people will all be employees of Mingzhou Marine Development Group under Yinghai Division in the future, and they are also employees of this era.

Just like the present moment.

Zhu Yuan came over early this morning, and wanted to take a closer look, but he didn't walk long, and all kinds of drags along the way came to kneel and thank him, so he couldn't continue.

If you go through this way, your blood bar will probably be on your knees in the morning.

Xue Shu came here earlier, followed Zhu Yuan to the edge of the demarcated gathering area, and suddenly smiled and said: "The people are still clear-eyed, Hanlin, you said before that you didn't care, but you actually cared, right?" ”

Zhu Yuan looked at the somewhat gloomy sky, expecting no rain, and still shook his head when he heard the words: "I don't care." ”

Xue Shu: "......"

Zhu Yuan raised his hands again, glanced at Xue Shu next to him, and said, "Actually, I advise you not to care too much, so that you can do more things." ”

Xue Shu paused and blurted out: "The saint is not benevolent, and he uses the people as dogs." ”

Zhu Yuan smiled and said, "You have a high level of understanding, but this sentence is not suitable for saying this, unless you want to harm me." ”

The 'saint' in the phrase "Tao Te Ching" often refers to the one on the dragon chair.

Xue Shu looked at Zhu Yuan and got into the sedan chair next to him after speaking, he was accustomed to this from the initial disgust, and he leaned over, and when the people lifted the sedan chair, he followed step by step, took the initiative to reach over and open the sedan curtain, and looked at the young man in the sedan chair: "Hanlin, I have become more and more curious recently, where did you come from?" ”

Zhu Yuan just held the waist of the sack girl who followed up, temporarily let go when he saw this, and said with a smile: "Do you want to hear, 'I'm from where I come from', or 'I won't tell you', or, 'Don't ask what you shouldn't ask'?" ”

Xue Shu: "......"

Aren't these three the same?

Seeing his appearance, Zhu Yuan motioned behind him: "Go and do something, if you do a good job this year, you will be able to rise directly from the seventh grade of the lower county magistrate to the sixth grade." ”

Xue Shu said: "Xiaguan...... Actually, I don't care about that. ”

Zhu Yuan raised his finger and shook it: "You have to care, since you have the world in mind, you should think about climbing higher, so that you can benefit more people." ”

Xue Shu paused, before, he really didn't expect this. He is not a stubborn person like Liu Lian, he was enlightened by Zhu Yuan, and he gave his hand as he walked: "The lower official remembers, Hanlin, the lower official will not send it." ”

Zhu Yuan then lowered the curtain.

He took his own small sack and buried his head in it.

It's early summer, and although Lin Xiaoyu still has a wide robe and hides his inner figure tightly, his clothes are also much thinner.

】

Comfortable.

Feeling the actions of his own little official, Lin Xiaoyu carefully put his arm on the man's shoulder, itched, and smiled.

The sound is crisp.

Lin Xiaoyu knew that his petty officials liked to hear him laugh.

Return to the north bank of the Yongjiang River.

Zhu Yuan looked at the latest hydraulic saw table, and then turned to the forging area, where a large number of fish hooks were still being made.

Yao Feng greeted him and said that the workshop had just made a new set of network equipment.

The kind that uses bearings.

The key reason why bearings came to be called 'industrial joints' was that they minimized friction and greatly reduced the force required for the operation of various types of machinery.

Sea fishing, the most important link of netting, the largest net at the moment, often requires one or twenty people to operate together, which is actually a waste, therefore, Zhu Yuan specially instructed Yao Feng to be responsible for the research and development of better related equipment.

Whether it's from the net, or something else.

So I went back to look at it.

Sure enough, the same large pair of nets suitable for 500 seagoing vessels, if two similar netting equipment can be installed on each ship, the manpower requirements for the netting can be reduced to less than 10 people.

Typical productivity gains.

Instructed Yao Feng to arrange the production of more finished products as soon as possible, and there is not much time for this year's summer flood, so he will focus on testing and perfecting the level, and do the best possible. Then, next year, mass adoption begins.

Chatting and chatting, Zhu Yuan also had an idea.

Is it possible to make a completely new kind of ship out of bearings?

Steamers, as the name suggests, ships with wheels.

At first glance, it sounds quite high-end, but in fact, there were steamships in ancient China very early, just because they were not so convenient to operate, and they were not as popular as sailboats.

Zhu Yuan believes that if the key operating part of the ship, the paddle wheel, can be replaced with more labor-saving and wear-resistant bearings, it will be more efficient than the traditional ship that uses a similar vehicle copper shaft or a rotary shaft as a rotating shaft.

Since it was the order of the envoy of the camp, Yao Feng found some shipbuilders on the spot, and after some discussion, it was decided that they planned to build a small boat of 200 materials to give it a try.

At present, there is no shortage of manpower and materials, and it is not a big deal to make these small attempts.

The small boat that determined 200 materials was also set by Zhu Yuan.

It's not that there is no craftsman who proposes to build a 500-material steamship directly, Zhu Yuan feels that it is not necessary, and there is no steam engine at the moment, and the steamship is too big, but it is not practical.

Two hundred, if it can be successful, can actually be popularized as a naval patrol ship.

After all, compared to traditional oars, it is conceivable that ships with bearings will be easier to operate, faster, and not limited by the wind.

Ideal as a patrol vessel.

Moreover, Zhu Yuan took it a step further and accumulated some experience in the construction of mechanical ships in advance, which can be regarded as preparing for the future.

Steam engine ship.

Zhu Yuan has been sorting out the knowledge in his memory during this time, because Lao Zhu instructed him not to promote the textbooks he compiled for the time being, which made Zhu Yuan let go and do whatever he wanted, and it was not limited to the knowledge of which grade.

Even the Pinyin Dictionary made a copy.

Zhu Yuan plans to persuade Lao Zhu to promote pinyin to make the literacy threshold lower.

That's an afterword.

In short, as a result of sorting out his memories, Zhu Yuan felt more and more that the steam engine, it seems, was not so difficult to make.

Of course, large-scale industrial manufacturing has a long way to go.

However, if you want to make a model of a steam engine, after all, the principle is very simple, and with the countless human and material resources that can be used, it is not difficult to do this.