After waiting for another two days, Huang Dagen and Dong Hu set off for Chongqing Mansion. On the one hand, due to the great physical exertion of the previous pathfinder, Rao is Dong Hu has strong physical strength and also needs to rest for two days before he can set off, and the other two people accompanying him are still unable to go far; On the other hand, it is also to be well prepared. Since the journey was more than 200 miles and the newly discovered trail was difficult to travel, in addition to bringing self-defense weapons and climbing ropes, the most I brought was food. Ouyang Xuan thought about it again and again, and asked Lu Dezhi to select a few high-quality wild mink skins in the cottage and let Huang Dagen bring them. The Southern Song Dynasty government was corrupt from top to bottom, and it had long been "bad money eliminated good money", and the experience of this period of time made him understand that if he did not adapt to the rules here, it would be even more difficult to survive and develop. In fact, Ouyang Xuan hated corrupt officials very much, but bribing Pan was a last resort. In order to achieve great things and save more people from the upcoming Mongol massacre, he is willing to accept the criticism of his own reputation.

Another pre-departure preparation was an accident. It turned out that when Yang Xiucai wrote the letter of retribution and asked Yu Zhu to sign it, he refused. According to Ouyang Xuan's instructions, Yang Xiucai attributed the first credit for this great victory over the mountain bandits and luring the Meng army and the mountain bandits to fight, after all, the team of this official army is still Yu Zhu, and Ouyang Xuan is just a deputy to support the team. Yu Zhu on the hospital bed listened to Yang Xiucai finish reading the letter, and was so angry that he was almost speechless, scolding Yang Xiucai for writing indiscriminately, and not listening to Yang Xiucai explain that this was what Ouyang Xuan meant. It wasn't until Ouyang Xuan heard the news that he was still angry, and scolded Yang Xiucai for being a traitor. After Ouyang Xuan's repeated explanations, Yu Zhu said indignantly: "Brother Xuan, this is not for you!" Yu was seriously ill and went to bed, and he was fortunate to have his life thanks to the care of his brothers, so what kind of shame did he have? Brother Xuan, you should take your brothers to fight bloody battles in life and death, and if you refuse, you may chill your brothers. Regarding Yu Zhu's heartfelt words, Ouyang Xuan was silent for a long time, and then asked Yang Xiucai to rewrite the letter according to Yu Zhu's words. From the depths of Ouyang Xuan's heart, he didn't want to seize power and take credit, he was originally just an ordinary person who wanted to lie down. But he knows that if this troubled era follows the original historical process, the catastrophe suffered by the land of China will be so miserable! In order to resist the great cause of Mongolia, he needed to gain power to change the course of history, so that the common people of the Southern Song Dynasty would no longer be slaughtered.

Preventing the bandits of Wanjiaping from attacking is the top priority of Liuliba at present, Huang Dagen and Dong Hu went out on business, and Ouyang Xuan asked Cao Ergou to temporarily take charge of the guard. In addition to strengthening the vigilance and reconnaissance of the cottage, Cao Ergou is also responsible for teaching the team. At present, the 200 militiamen of the teaching team are stepping up their military training, and their work is busy and trivial. Fortunately, Shi Zhongshu, the deputy captain of the teaching team, is very effective and has shared a lot of things for Cao Ergou.

Ouyang Xuan was also very busy. He had to go to various industrial and mining camps every day to coordinate and discuss problems in the construction process in a timely manner. During this period, the enthusiasm of the people was high, and the construction projects were carried out rapidly, with the construction of two new blacksmith shops, a steel-making earthen furnace, a carpentry workshop, a pottery workshop and a charcoal kiln about to be completed, and the construction of a coal mine, a pottery kiln, a coke kiln and a lime kiln was also progressing smoothly. The fastest progress is in the mining of iron ore, fire and sulfur ore, because Ouyang Xuan has prioritized the mining of these three types of ore, and has prioritized the allocation of relevant resources. Because of the use of newly developed gunpowder for blasting, the mining efficiency of the ore is more than ten times higher than that of manual excavation. During the inspection of the industrial and mining camps, Ouyang Xuan also frequently put forward safety requirements for Chen Hu and Li Zhonggong, requiring that while expanding the scale of production, we must not ignore the safety and quality of production because of the rush period.

While inspecting the iron ore caves, he learned from the guards in charge of the labor camp that the prisoners in the labor camp were also working hard, so he asked a few people to inquire about the situation. From the mouth of the prisoner through labor, he learned that the mountain bandits in Wanjiaping were like a hierarchical slave society, and all the property belonged to the leader Xiong Ben. Except for the leader of the mountain bandits and Xiong Ben's personal army, which can eat and drink spicy food, the rest of the mountain bandits also have to work, and most of the mountain bandits can only mix and eat all day long. As for the people who are too weak to fight among the mountain bandits, their lives are even more miserable, they cannot eat enough on weekdays, and they have to be beaten and scolded at any time. These prisoners worked in the mines, and in addition to their high labor intensity and lack of freedom, their diet was similar to that of when they were bandits, and they were occasionally able to eat meat. And I heard that the prison sentence can be reduced if the workload is excessive, so of course I am full of enthusiasm.

Among the various construction sites and mines, Ouyang Xuan visited the most places with newly built steelmaking blast furnaces and blacksmith shops. In fact, in the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a similar modern earth-based steel-making blast furnace in the south of the Yangtze River, and the construction of this simple earth-made blast furnace only needed refractory bricks, and only pig iron and charcoal were needed to smelt steel, and its construction and operation were not very difficult. Of course, this kind of earth-based steelmaking technology is still a high-precision technology in this era, and there are not many places to master it, and Ouyang Xuan has also spent a lot of time and energy on it. Of course, he spends more time in the blacksmith than in the steelmaking furnace. After the blacksmith raided to create a batch of spears and folding shields, Ouyang Xuan requested that in addition to casting grenade shells, the next focus was to prepare for casting iron cannons.

In fact, Ouyang Xuan also knew that under the current metallurgical level, casting the copper cannon first was the best choice, because the copper had a low melting point and good ductility, which was convenient for casting and not easy to explode, but the lack of copper made him have to cast the iron cannon. Due to the fact that the territory of the two Song Dynasty was much smaller than that of the Han and Tang Dynasties, the copper resources in the territory were lacking, and the copper mined was not even enough for the official copper coinage. Sichuan is particularly lacking in copper mines, and the nearest large copper mine is far away in Yunnan, which is still the state of Dali. Because of the extreme shortage of copper coins, the imperial court authorized the Sichuan Gorge Four Roads to mint iron coins for circulation, and it was precisely because the bulky iron coins did not adapt to the development of the developed commodity economy that Sichuan gave birth to the world's earliest paper money - Jiaozi. As for the question of whether the iron cannon will be blown up, Ouyang Xuan is not too worried, after all, the militia guerrillas during the Anti-Japanese War also used pine trees as earthen cannons. Of course, he also took countermeasures in advance to prevent artillery explosions. The first is to refine iron into steel and thicken the walls of the pipe at casting; secondly, a few iron hoops are added to the outside of the barrel to increase firmness; The third is to reduce the amount of charge, although this will weaken the range and power, and it will be incapable of bombarding a strong fortress, but it is enough to use it to bombard soft targets such as the human body. Even if the mountain bandits put on iron armor, they can't withstand a single bombardment.

In the past few days, Ouyang Xuan soaked in the blacksmith shop and instructed Li San'er to make two gun molds, one large and one small, and he was ready to wait for the first furnace of molten steel to come out, and then cast the trial breech gun. Ouyang Xuan had hesitated for a long time about casting breech guns or more advanced breech guns. Compared with breech guns, breech guns are easy to load and have a fast rate of fire, but they are relatively difficult to cast, and if the sealing is not solved well, the chamber pressure will be insufficient, and the power will be much smaller than that of breech guns. At present, defending Liuliba is the top priority, Ouyang thought about it again and again, and decided to start with simplicity step by step, and first cast a breech gun with low technical content. Later, when the mountain bandits are defeated and ready to develop outside the mountain, they will cast more advanced breech guns such as the Franc machine.