The four of them hurriedly kowtowed, "Commander Xie makes your lord spare his life." ”

Luo Yangxing said to the deputy commander: "You go and lead people to search the whole city, and you must search for people for me." ”

Luo Yangxing was about to collapse, he had searched for three days and still found nothing, and he had to admit that Zhou Xian and the others had escaped from the capital.

Luo Yangxing had no choice but to come to the Qianqing Palace with apprehension and tell Chongzhen that Zhou Xian was missing.

Chongzhen was also shocked when he heard the news, Chongzhen thought for a while, "Is there no news at all?" ”

Luo Yangxing was cautious, "Back to the emperor, we searched for three days, and there were no clues at all, and my subordinates thought that someone helped them escape." ”

Chongzhen nodded, "There is only this possibility, forget it, let's go, and wait for the matter to be cleared before deciding on this matter." ”

After half a month of turbulence, Zhou Xian finally returned to Xingjing.

When he saw the huge stone tablet with the words Xingjing written on it, Zhou Xian breathed a sigh of relief.

Returning to Xingjing made Zhou Xian feel like he was home, there were his friends here, and he had his responsibilities.

The people of Xingjing let out enthusiastic cheers when they saw Zhou Xian's team returning.

When the managers of Xingjing heard that Zhou Xian was back, they all came to visit Zhou Xian, and everyone sat at the big table in the main hall and listened to Zhou Xian tell what happened in the capital.

When they heard Zhou Xian say that the court officials did not believe that the Zhou army had exterminated 50,000 soldiers and horses of the Qing army, and that Zhou Xian was under house arrest and not allowed to leave the city, everyone was filled with righteous indignation.

"This emperor is really confused, he doesn't think about it, if we don't defeat the Qing army, will they retreat?" Zhou Fugui said hatefully.

Everyone echoed: "That's it, no wonder Da Ming has become like this now, it's all caused by these officials." ”

"My lord, how did you escape from the city?"

"We escaped in a hot air balloon at night, and they must have been so anxious that the whole city would search us when they found us missing." Zhou Xian laughed.

"What is a hot air balloon? How can it be so magical to escape from the capital. ”

"A hot air balloon is a kind of thing that brings people to the sky through hot air, and in the future, our Zhou Jiajun will form a hot air balloon called the Air Force." Zhou Xian explained.

"Can a man go to heaven? I'm really looking forward to seeing it from above. "Everyone was excited to see how the hot air balloon went up to the sky.

Seeing everyone's enthusiasm, Zhou Xian waved his hand, "It's better to choose a day than to hit the day, I'll let you see how the hot air balloon goes to the sky today." ”

There was a cheer from the crowd.

"Good!"

Zhou Xian asked people to move the hot air balloon to the door of Zhou Xian's mansion, and after it was assembled, it began to heat up, and soon the hot air balloon floated up, and the onlookers exclaimed again and again.

"Fly! Fly! ”

Zhou Xian lengthened the rope to about 300 meters, and then went up to the blue of the hot air balloon together, Zhou Xian let go of the rope, and the hot air balloon slowly rose into the air.

When he got to the ground, Zhou Xian said: "You all go and give it a try, you can only go up to four people at a time, and you must be careful not to fall after you go up." ”

Hearing Zhou Xian's words, everyone stepped forward to take a hot air balloon, and in the end, Zhou Fugui, Zhao Laoyan, Xiang Shaoyun, Sun Wu and other four people went up first.

From today onwards, Xingjing has one more leisure project, that is, to go to the hot air balloon to see the entire Xingjing, it takes a penny of silver to go up, although it takes a penny of silver, but there is still an endless stream of people who want to take a hot air balloon, and there are countless people queuing up every day.

The next day, Zhou Xian summoned all the managers to the Great Hall.

Zhou Xian stood on the podium of the Great Hall, "I have called everyone here today for three things, the first thing is to produce a coal stove that can be used to boil water, cook and keep warm, and the production of coal stoves will be manufactured by the machinery factory, and a coal plant will be set up to dig coal and make anthracite. ”

"The second thing is to prepare to have a good first year in our Xingjing, and it will be lively, and all of us will have a seven-day holiday during the New Year."

The following people heard that the New Year's holiday of seven days immediately cheered, everyone is very busy every day and has no time to rest, hearing that the New Year can have a seven-day holiday, everyone is very happy.

"The third thing is that we are going to set up an oil extraction team, consisting of 2,000 workers and a brigade of soldiers, to go to Le'an County, Qingzhou Prefecture, to extract oil after the New Year."

Chen Lufeng asked, "What is oil?" What does it do? ”

"Oil is fierce fire oil, oil can be distilled and purified out of gasoline, diesel, natural gas and other important resources, we must have."

"What's the use of this gasoline, diesel, and natural gas?"

"Gasoline and diesel are the fuels for the internal combustion engine that we will make in the future, and as for the internal combustion engine, we are not in a position to manufacture it now; As for natural gas, it can be used for cooking, boiling water, and can also be used on our hot air balloons, and the effect of liquefiing natural gas to heat hot air balloons will be better, and hot air balloons can fly higher. ”

After hearing Zhou Xian say that oil is so important, everyone also paid attention to it.

"Let's report on the progress of your work."

Zhao Laoyan was the first to say: "Thanks to the steam engine driving the lathe, our production efficiency has been accelerated several times, and we have produced 20,000 semi-automatic rifles, 500 fully automatic machine guns, 200 cannons, and 100,000 grenades. ”

"Very good, your production speed is indeed much faster, through the last battle, I found that we still have shortcomings, so I decided to teach you a few more weapons, and I will go to your arsenal to explain to you later."

Zhao Laoyan was overjoyed when she heard this, and sat down after thanking Zhou Xian.

At this time, Zhao Bugui, the leader of the steam engine, stood up and said: "My lord, our steam engine has been improved, we have equipped the arsenal with twenty steam engines, and we will continue to equip each factory with steam engines in the future, and the marine steam engine has also been manufactured, but the propeller of the marine steam engine has not yet been made, and our steam engine locomotive and carriage have also been produced, and we can try it out when the rails are laid." ”

Zhou Xian heard these good news and said happily: "Okay, good, the employees of your steam engine workshop have worked hard, and it is really remarkable to be able to complete the development of so many steam engines in such a short time; As for the propeller production you mentioned, I will go to your steam engine workshop to guide you later, so that the steel mill can speed up the production of rails, and we will first build a three-mile long railway to Datong Mansion to give it a try. ”

"We welcome adults to come and inspect and guide the work in the steam engine workshop." After saying that, he sat down.

At this time, Zhou Changan stood up, "Our machinery factory has completed the manufacture of agricultural machinery handed over to us by adults, and a total of 100 ploughing machines have been manufactured, and we have already tested them, and one machine is faster than ten cows." ”

Zhou Xian nodded, "You have done a good job, agricultural production is still our key project, so we need you to make more agricultural machinery to help agricultural production." ”

"I'll go to your machine shop and hand over the production drawings of the coal furnace to you."

After Zhou Xian affirmed Zhou Changan's work, he continued.

Zhou Changan agreed and sat down.

At this time, Chen Lufeng stood up, "Our sulfuric acid has been manufactured, and it can be manufactured in large quantities. ”