"Father, no, Father, how is it?"

When Hu Jichen returned to the mansion given by Zhu Di, Hu Yuancheng and Hu Hancang greeted him.

Hu Yuancheng's expression was still relatively calm, but at this time, Hu Hancang's face was full of panic and uneasiness, a drop of sweat flowed down from the corner of his forehead, and he didn't care about wiping it, he only cared about asking his old father Hu Jichen.

There are very few people in this world who are not afraid of death, let alone people like Hu Hancang, who have lived in the center of power since he was a child, and now he has come to a foreign country without the slightest sense of security, how can he not be afraid!

And the only thing he subconsciously relied on was his father.

After all, he was able to ascend the throne entirely because his mother was the princess of the Chen Dynasty, and he had half of the royal blood of the Chen Dynasty as the second son, while the eldest brother Hu Yuancheng, as the eldest son, did not, and Hu Jichen chose him precisely because of this.

Unlike Hu Hancang, Hu Yuancheng, who just went to report to the Military Bureau of the Ministry of Industry today, seemed much calmer, and Daming's bearing was obviously beyond his expectations, in fact, if Daming provided for several of them without worrying about food and clothing, it would make him worry, and now, he has very little worry about his future and life.

Well, if Hu Yuancheng knew that without Jiang Xinghuo's interference in the historical line, he could go all the way to the Ministry of Industry and complete the position of a supreme minister in two countries at the same time, presumably Hu Yuancheng would have been full of enthusiasm at this time.

However, with Hu Yuancheng's ingenuity, he also knew that his father's trip would not go very smoothly, after all, the temple of the Ming Dynasty was very deep, and it should not be so easy to find out a specific depth.

Hu Jichen did not answer the questions of his two sons immediately, he first returned to the house, and then found the wooden fish under the shrine in the house. This is the regular configuration of the mansion, because although Buddhism was not prosperous in the early Ming Dynasty, Buddhism was still very marketable in the upper class, especially for aristocratic women.

Hu Jichen struck the wooden fish mallet with his hands full of old age spots and green tendons, making some noise, and then was silent for a long time before he whispered: "This time, the harvest has been unexpected, not only met Yao Guangxiao, the Duke of Rongguo, who is known as the black-clothed prime minister in Daming and one of the six dukes, but also"

At this, he paused again, a look of disbelief on his face.

Seeing this, Hu Hancang's heart became even more nervous, he knew that his scheming father would rarely show such a look: "And what? ”

"Father met the national teacher?"

Hu Yuancheng's voice trembled a little, but he still tried his best to stay calm and asked suspiciously.

"That's right, it's the national teacher who is the reincarnation of the immortal in the rumors of the people of the Ming Dynasty."

Hu Jichen took a light breath and told his two sons exactly what happened in the president's law change affairs yamen.

After listening, Hu Hancang's body shook a few times and almost didn't fall to the ground.

He couldn't believe that this kind of thing was actually true: "Father, are you mistaken, how can there be such a fairy-like character in this world?" ”

"Father, is this true?" Hu Yuancheng was also a little incredulous.

Hu Jichen sighed heavily: "How could my father lie to you, if I hadn't really seen the ability of this national teacher, I would never have said this, I can only say that there are people outside the world, there are heavens outside the sky, those who used to mess around, I don't know where the fault is, isn't it ridiculous?" ”

After speaking, Hu Jichen looked at his two sons in a daze, now they are all lost dogs, and it is absolutely impossible to return to China for restoration, after all, according to the situation of the Jiaozhi Political Envoy and the Chen Dynasty after the restoration of the country, those old forces that secretly resisted them before have made a large-scale comeback.

This kind of thing is like covering a coffin, burying sand shovel by shovel, if it is buried, it will be poured, but if it is let people open the coffin and rise, it will be really a complete waste of all previous efforts, and it is extremely difficult to press people back.

Therefore, they can only find another way out in Daming.

"It's just that according to my father, although this national teacher has amazing abilities, he doesn't necessarily have a deep understanding of power. What's more, it seems that his own power is not strong, and it comes more from the support of the Ming Emperor. ”

"Exactly."

Hu Jichen bowed slightly, and the silver beard on his chin trembled.

But as soon as he changed his words, he immediately said: "But the black-clothed prime minister Yao Guangxiao is by no means good at his generation, and the depth of his people's hearts really makes me shudder, these two cooperate with each other, and then advocate it with the world's first genius Xie Jin's noisy lips and tongue, and Zhuo Jing of the Ministry of Etiquette and Xia Yuanji of the Ministry of Household as its left and right wings, which is really not to be underestimated." ”

"What does Father mean?" Hu Yuancheng had some enlightenment.

But Hu Jichen only shook his head slightly, and then tapped the wooden fish in his hand a few times, leaving a sentence.

"And voila."

——————

Tangshan.

The luxurious villa area in the past has been demolished, and this is the property of Cao Guogong's mansion, and Li Zengzhi naturally wants to do whatever he wants.

"What do you say our second master is trying to do? Such a good villa does not want, bulldoze the opening of the coal mine. ”

"Who knows, this coal mine can make a lot of money, and now every household uses charcoal."

"Oh, what do you know, our second master is reluctant to tear it down, but there is no way."

"It's really fake, our second master is notoriously arrogant, and there is something he can't do? Who got out of this coal mine? ”

"Of course it's true, I went to change shifts with the steward just now, guess who I saw?"

……

The only remaining small plot of villas inside the house.

Li Zengzhi was sitting on the Taishi's chair drinking tea, and his generals stood in two rows respectfully waiting for orders.

Recently, Li Zengzhi has made a lot of money from the grain transported by Caoyun, and the rotten pockets of Huai'an Mansion have been lifted upside down, and all the sesame seeds and rotten grains have been shaken out, but this pocket can't always be empty after all, Li Zengzhi took the opportunity of Song Li's presence and also took the opportunity to get involved.

Salt, as the top specialty commodity of the Ming Dynasty, even if it is fished out of the fingers of the imperial court, it can make ordinary wealthy businessmen and rich people almost burst their stomachs.

The trial temple re-revised the content of the salt law in the "Daming Law", the production and marketing area was unified, and the two Beijing and fifteen political envoys of the Ming Dynasty had to set up a separate salt envoy department, no longer bearing the management responsibility of the salt farm within the jurisdiction, but becoming an administrative and accounting unit, responsible for measuring the annual salt demand of the entire political envoy and the transportation and sales of salt.

As for the salt farm, it is under the unified management of the center, and it stands to reason that it should return to the name of the household department, after all, when the salt envoy system was opened at the beginning of the Hongwu period, the entire system was under the household department, but Zhu Di was fed up with the trouble of no money, and at this time, he packaged all the franchised commodities, including salt, glass, fertilizer, etc., into the name of the royal court.

Of course, the actual situation is not that "the emperor confiscated it all with a word", but that the salt farm was under the management of the inner court, but the salt farm was not responsible for sales (that is, it was not directly connected to the Chinese and French and daily sales), but also responsible for hundreds of thousands of stove households, and the responsibilities and powers were basically equal, and the profit depended on the purchase of the capital transfer envoys under the political envoys.

As for the glass and fertilizer workshops, it was originally the royal family and the household department responsible for the money, according to the joint-stock company system, the royal family redeemed the shares of the household department, and it became the royal family's industry, and such as Jiang Xinghuo, Yuan Hui, Zhang Yuchu and other technology providers and experimenters, have corresponding shares.

However, contrary to the speculation of the outside world, this is not a sign of inconsistency, but Jiang Xinghuo proposed it and used it to promote the introduction of the "Patent Law".

The most important thing in the first industrial revolution was the invention and creation of ordinary workers, and at this time, the role of science in promoting the explosion of science and technology was not so obvious. In fact, with the current science that is not yet systematic, it is indeed difficult to implement the role to the practical level.

And how can we form a culture of courage and willingness to invent and create? Naturally, it is to protect the rights and interests of inventors, that is, the Patent Law.

Jiang Xinghuo doesn't care about the money, what he cares more about is taking himself as an example to promote the benign progress of the whole society.

"You say, what do you mean that this national teacher won't let us go to the coal mine with us?"

Li Zengzhi drank tea for a long time, but he still didn't understand this problem.

The surrounding families will look at each other, how do they know what it means?

Cao Aba said bravely: "Perhaps, are you afraid that we are all people who practice martial arts, and our blood is too strong, and we will collide with the mountain god?" After all, isn't this digging coal mine just digging the roots of the mountain god? ”

"Fuck you!"

Li Zengzhi was annoyed, and threw the teacup directly towards Cao Aba.

Cao Aba shrewdly dodged, and shouted: "Second master, my mother has been looking forward to you coming to the house for a meal for a long time." ”

All the generals laughed together, these people are all born to the family of the Cao Guo Mansion, either the father was born and died on the battlefield with the old King Qiyang, or the mother was a servant and maid who served the Li family, and this Cao Aba's mother was Li Zengzhi's nurse.

In addition to the inseparable personal dependence of these people, there are also some feelings in it, basically they have grown up together, and their status in the house is higher than that of others, so these people dare to make some jokes with the main family, and the main family generally doesn't care, and when it really comes to the time when they need to die, they will not hesitate to sacrifice their lives.

After thinking about it, Li Zengzhi still made a decision: "You guys, go to the periphery of the coal mine and have a look, don't really let the national teacher have something happen to our territory." ”

On the other side, the newly mined Tangshan Coal Mine.

Different from the Tangshan Coal Mine that Jiang Xinghuo saw in later generations, the coal mine he saw at that time was already in a state after mining was exhausted, and in order to protect the environment, it was rebuilt into a pit theme park.

At this time, Tangshan was still intact, and the miners recruited from the surrounding villages were busy working.

Unlike underground mines, coal in Tangshan is mainly stored in the mountains, so more work is done digging mountains, and digging down is not as much as other coal mines.

It is also this kind of special ore vein storage that makes some natural sulfur exist around Tangshan, so there is Tangshan Hot Spring.

"Bang!"

With a not-so-violent sound, a big hole exploded in Tangshan.

As a key project of national teachers, there are also some special resources inclined here, and the participation of gunpowder and professional blasting personnel in mining is one of them.

"Zhixing, do you think this coal mine is easy to mine?"

Ye Zongxing still looked like he used to be swarthy, and after returning from Annan, he became even darker.

He was taken to the front line of Annan by Huang Fu, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, to help blow up the Jiling Pass, and made a contribution, at this time he has been promoted to the director, at his age, and he is a talented person, even if he is a professional and technical bureaucrat, the speed of promotion is really not slow.

"It's not a stretch." Ye Zongxing thought for a while and replied.

"However, I'm afraid this thing won't sell."

He was right.

It has been less than two years since the success of Jingnan, but in the past two years, these industries around Nanjing have basically been infiltrated by all the forces that have suddenly risen due to Jingjing, and the big industry of charcoal industry is no exception, so even Tangshan wants to open a coal mine, and even several marquis have personally inquired about it, but they have all been prevaricated by Li Zengzhi, and the Cao Guogong Mansion has a big face, and no one dares to really do anything to Li Zengzhi.

What's more, Li Jinglong, who has just made the contribution of destroying the country, is still in Annan with tens of thousands of garrisons in accordance with Zhu Di's intentions, supervising and protecting the reconstruction of order in Annan, and many children of the noble family are under Li Jinglong.

But it is normal for all sides to be dissatisfied, because it is obvious that as long as the millions of people in Nanjing have access to coal, charcoal will not be easy to sell.

Charcoal is not easy to sell, and the nobles and officials who bought a large forest farm to make charcoal have lost all their money, and there is also a lack of stable income.

One in and one out, it can be said that it is a loss to grandma's house.

After all, for so many years, charcoal has been burned for the winter, and those who participate in this industry basically think that it is a profitable business that can be passed on to future generations.

The main reason why Tangshan was able to attract so many miners to come to take refuge was because Jiang Xinghuo had made arrangements before, not only with the village that adopted Jingqing's two daughters, but also with other villages.

In addition, the workers here are given padded jackets, the food treatment is also good, and you can eat meat every few days, so there are many villagers who come here to work.

Some people are blushing when they see this, but it can be said that unless Jiang Xinghuo is willing to take the initiative to give up the Tangshan mining area, whoever comes to snatch this piece of fat will be unable to get along with him.

This creates a balance between all parties, who want the mining area to be developed and have their own share, but also worry that the development will be too fast and thorough, and they will not even be able to drink the soup.

These days, some people also came to talk to Li Zengzhi, but they were all pushed away by Li Zengzhi under pressure.

Li Zengzhi actually didn't want to hold this shiny red hot potato in his hand, and wanted to sell it directly to the royal family at a price, just like the glass workshop and fertilizer workshop that had just been acquired by the joint-stock system.

After all, if it is sold to the royal family, no one will dare to grab this property from the royal family.

But to his surprise, in the face of the fat delivered to the door, Zhu Di, who had just increased a lot of income from the interior, took the initiative to refuse, saying that the land in Tangshan was all handed down from the old King Qiyang, and since it was the property of the Cao Guo Mansion, he would never win the love of the people with the respect of the Ninety-Five.

Although Li Zengzhi knew that the emperor was farting, he couldn't say anything, so he could only continue to work on the promising profession of mine manager.

However, mining is still more cautious, and there are many layouts in the mining area.

Li Zengzhi didn't want to cause too much of an accident here, it had nothing to do with money, he could afford to pay for as many people as he died, he was afraid of the impact on a larger scale, and he was afraid of rising to the height of the temple.

However, the new energy, well, coal is not a new energy, but for the current situation, it is a renovation of the old energy, but in any case, the dispute between the new energy and the old energy is always unavoidable.

At this time, there was an exclamation from the pit.

"What's wrong?"

Hearing this voice, Ye Zongxing's face suddenly changed, and he hurriedly ran towards the mountain.

"Boom ......"

As soon as I ran to the center of the mining area, I saw a large piece of rockfall on the mountain suddenly began to shake and roll down, directly breaking through the anti-rockfall net, smashing on the ground, huge smoke and dust rose into the air, and the whole mining area trembled slightly.

Obviously, this is a delayed reaction after the explosion due to the special structure of the mountain.

But fortunately, there were no casualties, but a few miners were buried under the mine, and the rockfall temporarily blocked the entrance to the mine.

But there wasn't just one entrance to the tunnel, so it wasn't long before a few miners crawled out of the shaft on the other side.

The few generals who were sent by Li Zengzhi to check on them had just come to the edge of the mining area, and when they saw the falling rocks, their faces turned suddenly pale, and they couldn't care about much, so they ran over frantically.

When they saw Jiang Xinghuo, they breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

After confirming that the mountain was not falling rocks, Jiang Xinghuo took them to the miners who had just run out.

"Ahem...... a miner coughed twice, his face turned pale, and he opened his eyes with difficulty.

His head was smashed and bleeding, and there was a wound on the top of his head, gushing blood.

"Huikong, give him two stitches."

Huikong, who was following behind as a personal warrior monk to protect Jiang Xinghuo, did not speak, skillfully shaved part of the miner's hair with a knife, took out a small bottle of alcohol, dipped it in a compacted cotton ball to disinfect the wound around the scalp, and then handed a cloth ball containing anesthesia to the miner to bite it tightly, and sew the wound cleanly.

"How?"

The fellow miners looked at him nervously.

"I can't die."

The miner barely managed to squeeze out a smile.

This time, he almost planted himself in this pit, but fortunately he prepared a few tunnels early, so he avoided the danger of being buried alive, but he was still injured.

"Why did you shout before the rockfall appeared? It stands to reason that you should know that shouting loudly in the mine is easy to cause accidents. Ye Zongxing asked at this time.

He just realized this and ran over.

"We followed the crater that the gunpowder had blown open and found this inside."

The miner's hands trembled, and he pulled out a wrapped ball of cloth from the collar of his padded jacket.

They found it in the deepest part of the pit and immediately shouted.

Who knows, when they were about to come out, there was a falling rock outside.

Fortunately, they all retracted back into the mine in time to hide.

Ye Zongxing took the cloth ball and spread it out to take a closer look, it was a very rough stone, full of cracks and black marks, and it seemed to have been buried for a long time.

But he looked at the dense cracks on the surface of the stone, and a thought suddenly popped into his heart.

Ye Zongxing wiped it vigorously, and sure enough.

"Flake graphite!"

"Ah, really?!"

"Oh my God, is it such a high-quality graphite?"

After hearing this, the miners next to them all became excited and walked towards here, wanting to take a closer look.

According to the literature, Ying Shao's "Han Guanyi" records that in the Han Dynasty, "Shang Shulang drafted, and the moon gave a large ink and a small moose", and Ji Ran's "Wanwulu" said that "graphite comes out of three auxiliaries, and the price of the stone is eight hundred", which refers to the ink of the elk, which is the high-quality ink that was respected in the Han Dynasty.

When graphite is used, it is ground into powder in an inkstone with a grinding stone, and then diluted into ink with water, which looks like the original appearance of graphite ore.

In fact, graphite is indeed a very precious resource, but also the average person can not touch, because in ancient China, the ink industry is almost as important as the paper industry, due to the great development of engraving printing technology, and the scale of the imperial examination continues to expand, thousands of scholars in order to take the examination to be an official and read, write articles, they need a large number of ink pen stationery, many areas in the south of the Yangtze River have ink-making handicrafts, but the output of graphite in the south of the Yangtze River is not rich, if in the place close to Nanjing, found is not a coal mine, It's graphite ore, and the value is considerable, after all, it's the size of a mountain!

From a scientific point of view, graphite is the metamorphism of carbonaceous matter of organic origin, most commonly found in marble, schist or gneiss, coal seams can be partially formed by thermal metamorphism, in addition, there is a kind of graphite is the primary mineral of igneous rock, Tang Shan he does not know whether there is igneous rock, but there is indeed this possibility.

Flake graphite, it stands to reason that it looks quite similar to this, because flake graphite is a crystal in the form of scales, which is metamorphosed under high temperature and high pressure, there are large scales and fine scales, this kind of graphite ore is generally not of high grade, but it is one of the best floating ores in nature, after grinding and selecting to obtain high-grade graphite concentrate, this kind of graphite floatability, lubricity, plasticity are superior to other types of graphite, so its value is the largest.

But Jiang Xinghuo looked at this ore and always felt that something was wrong.

"Is it ......?"

Jiang Xinghuo took the ore from Ye Zongxing's hand, clasped it with his hand, and then observed it carefully for a moment, and said, "It's not graphite. ”

"Not graphite?"

Ye Zongxing was a little stunned, and the miners next to him didn't dare to believe it.

After all, this thing looks like graphite.

But since the national teacher said no, then it doesn't matter if it refers to the deer as a horse or what, they don't dare to say "no" no?

But Jiang Xinghuo quickly expressed his judgment, he raised his head and said to everyone: "This ore is not graphite, but called molybdenum, which is a mineral deposit that can be encountered but not sought, and its value is very precious. ”

In fact, the associated ores of coal mines usually have elements such as nickel, chromium, molybdenum, copper, cobalt, etc., and the distribution of associated metal elements is either a block distribution, that is, the associated metal elements are concentrated in certain coal seams and coal blocks; It is also vertically distributed, that is, the associated metal elements are distributed in the thickness range of the formation, and the probability of uniform distribution is not large.

The associated metal elements are migratory, and the whole process is a complex physical and chemical reaction process, and its migration law is also very complex, but in any case, it should be continuous and regular, that is, its migration efficiency is affected by the complex structure and internal void structure of the associated metal elements and coal materials.

The appearance of graphite ore for no reason is a very abnormal thing.

Therefore, Jiang Xinghuo determined that this was not graphite ore, but molybdenite.

In nature, molybdenum is an element mainly in the form of molybdenite, which is also a black soft mineral, and molybdenite is very similar to lead, galena, and graphite from the appearance, and it is difficult to distinguish.

Therefore, it is not surprising that people mistake molybdenite for graphite ore.

But the value of the two, or the value of the present to the current Ming, is completely different.

In fact, in this world, only Jiang Xinghuo knows very well how valuable molybdenum ore is.

Why are Japanese samurai swords of such good quality? In addition to the process and forging technology, molybdenite is a very important factor, Japan not only has gold and silver ore, but also molybdenite, this element can significantly increase the performance of all aspects of the tool.

In the words of the game, that is a necessary enchanted item.

Coincidentally, molybdenum was first discovered from Japanese katana in the same period of the Yongle period, which was the first time that molybdenum was discovered for military purposes.

Although the discovery time of molybdenum is very short, the role played is not small at all.

In Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, the French Snyder company at the end of the nineteenth century took the lead in producing molybdenum-containing armor plates with molybdenum as an alloying element, and they found that the density of molybdenum was only half of that of tungsten, so molybdenum effectively replaced tungsten in many steel alloy applications, and the outbreak of World War I led to a sharp increase in the demand for tungsten, and the supply of ferrotungsten was extremely tight, so molybdenum replaced tungsten in many high-hardness and impact-resistant steels.

Due to its importance, molybdenum was considered a strategic metal by governments around the world, and in the early 20th century, it was mainly used to make high-temperature rocket artillery and rocket artillery, advanced materials for industry, and high-quality components for warships, rockets, and advanced equipment.

In addition to enchanting the quality of weapons and greatly improving the properties of steel, molybdenum also has an important use, that is, to assist in the production of glass.

The presence of molybdenum helps in the manufacture of glass and glass products for everyday use, its high strength at high glass melting temperatures, and its corrosion resistance to molten glass, making it an ideal material for the glass melting process.

In other words, if there were not only coal mines but also associated molybdenum mines in Tangshan, it would be possible to solve both the problem of high-quality steel for flintlock pistols and cannons, as well as the problem of continuing to improve the quality of the glass factory, which had plagued the glass workshop for a long time.

(End of chapter)