"You are?"

"Doctor Ning, I remember you, a few months ago in the northern suburbs, my family was sick, and it was you who gave the medicine."

Ning Qi then remembered that there was dysentery in the northern suburbs of Youzhou a few months ago, and after chatting a few words, Ning Qi knew that the shopkeeper had some disabilities on his feet, so he couldn't get to the army, he moved from Suizhou, and his family was placed in the northern suburbs, so he went to Youzhou City to find a job as a shopkeeper to make a living.

Most of the dishes on the table are soup dishes, after all, it is still cold in April in Youzhou, and eating soup and vegetables can warm up the whole body, Ning Yi beckoned a few people to eat, and asked casually:

"How many brothers do you have?"

"I'm two brothers."

"There are three of us."

"There are three of us in our family."

"How many brothers are in the army?"

"Once upon a time, the king of the county once decreed that the only son in the family should not enlist in the army, and if there are many brothers, one person should be left to take care of the family."

Ning Yi nodded, this kind of conscription is also more humane, but this ancient man got married early, and it is not easy for the brothers to leave one to take care of the women and children of that family:

"It must not be easy for these people to live in their homes."

Zou Xiaohu was young, and it didn't take long to come to the palace on an errand, but he felt that Ning Jiao didn't have the sense of distance of those nobles, so he couldn't help but say more:

"Actually, there are no men left in many families in the village..."

As soon as he was about to say this, he was pulled by the older guards on the side, Zou Xiaohu also reacted to something, and quickly shut up, Ning Ji looked at the person next to Zou Xiaohu, but he didn't ask.

After lunch, Ning Qi didn't have the slightest intention of going back to the palace, but asked Zou Xiaohu to take him to the somewhat dilapidated houses and alleys on the edge of the city for a walk, and it was more important to close the doors.

"If there is no male in the family, what will happen to this source of livelihood?"

He knew that there were no women going out to work in this era, and if there were no men, the life of the whole family would be a problem, and someone on the side spoke:

"Some of the younger ones will work in big families, and some will pulp laundry for others, or make some cloth, and they can still be satisfied, and some families will sell their daughters to be concubines for others, in exchange for some silver taels for the family, and for the older ones, the county king will order people to distribute some food."

Ning Qi was silent for a moment and did not speak, a thought lingered in his mind in the afternoon, and he did not return to the palace until the sky was already dark, but went straight to Luo Yueli's courtyard:

"Lord Luo is in the courtyard?"

"Yes, Mr. Ning will come with me."

Youzhou had dysentery before, and it had already spread in this area that Ning was to blame for making medicine to save people, so compared to a few months ago in Yunzhou, the people of Youzhou and the people in the palace respected him a lot.

Luo Yueli was looking at the account book, and got up with a smile when she saw Ning Jiao coming over, although the two were not very familiar, they were not unfamiliar:

"Have you eaten dinner? Let's have a bite to eat. ”

Ning Qi was not polite, the two of them sat down in the house, Luo Yueli was a fox, and naturally saw that Ning Qi had something to say:

"Don't be polite to me, Yan Yunzhou will never be polite to me."

"You're welcome, then?"

Luo Yueli raised her hand and touched the cup with him:

"You can be regarded as the great benefactor of those people in the northern suburbs of Youzhou, you can say whatever you want."

"Okay, I want to ask how many old and young women and children there are in Youzhou City who have no husbands and sons to rely on?"

Luo Yueli didn't expect him to ask this, so he paused and got up, and flipped out a booklet on the table:

"It's all over here, and there are more than 3,000 people in and out of the city, some of whom have their husbands and sons killed in battle, and some of whom have been conscripted."

The policy of conscription is indeed to leave a son to take care of at home, but in the end, there are always people who are recruited in order to make up the number of people, and some people are really difficult at home, and they can still get some money back when they become soldiers.

"Lord Luo, these women and children are living in poverty at home, some of them can still rely on some skills to survive, and some can only rely on the relief food sent by the county king, and it is not a way to do this in the long run, I have an idea to solve their predicament."

Luo Yueli is curious:

"What's the idea?"

"It's wartime, although these women and children can't help when they charge into battle, but they can do something else, I heard the prince say a few days ago, there are too many new soldiers, the cotton clothes in the army are not enough, the army is expanding, and some military supplies can be handed over to the families in the rear.

In this way, we can organize the women and children who have the spare power to make cotton clothes and shoes, and give them the ones who weave cloth, the soles of shoes, and the ones who make cotton clothes.

The palace set a price for every piece of clothing and every pair of shoes, which was bought from them, so that the soldiers in front would not be frozen, and the old and young women and children in the back would not have to close the door and wait for relief. ”

Thinking back to the era of millet and rifles, isn't it just that men are fighting devils in the front, and women are making cotton clothes and straw sandals in the rear?

In fact, in this era, these cotton clothes and cotton shoes are also made by these women in the back, but the women here can't show their heads, and when their men are there, most of them are made by women at home, and men go out to buy.

The whole thing is still stuck in a system of small workshops, and what he wants to do is to turn these small workshops into factories.

Centralization of operations and unified pricing will greatly increase productivity, and because the pricing is transparent and fair, it will also mobilize the enthusiasm of these women.

Luo Yueli's eyes lit up a little after hearing this, indeed, this is indeed a good way, so that half of the rear military needs can be solved:

"Oh, you said why your brain is so powerful, come on, come on, have a drink."

Ning Ji smiled and clinked glasses with him, in fact, he still liked Luo Yueli's temperament, he didn't have the old-fashioned officials of this era, but he was very flexible:

"I'm just thinking about it, and there must still be a lot of problems in implementation."

"Well, one of the most difficult problems is that the army is now full of big bosses, and organizing these women and children is different from organizing those soldiers, and it is easy to have problems."

Ning Yi also understood the meaning of his words, after all, this era is still very feudal, and it always takes courage for a woman to show up.

The two of them were thinking of a way for a while, and Ning Qi suddenly remembered that there was an organization called the Women's Rescue Association during the Anti-Japanese War, and the general president was some capable women.

"We need to avoid suspicion, but the wife who is also a woman and child doesn't need it, is there a more prestigious lady in our city?"

Luo Yueli put down her chopsticks and really remembered one:

"There really is, as far as Li Han's wife, Mrs. Li was born in the door, she can go to the battlefield and go down to the hall, and the generals in the army respect her, if there is Mrs. Li to help in this matter, it will definitely go a lot smoother, and even the generals and soldiers in the army will rest assured."

Neither of them is a procrastinator, after dinner, tea, the two continued to chat about the details, Ning Zhi knew that women in this era are not easy, this is a good thing, he doesn't want to let these women be hurt in the end:

"Let's discuss this matter with Mrs. Li first, and then she will convey it to the wives of some generals, and push it down layer by layer, so that those women and children are also stable in their hearts."

The two discussed until midnight, and the next morning they handed a greeting to Mrs. Li, who was in the army all the year round, but not like an ordinary woman, and after hearing it, she agreed very happily.

"Lord Luo, Mr. Ning, don't worry, this matter will be handled by me, and there will be no loss."

After returning from Mrs. Li, Ning Ji and Luo Yueli's hearts were a lot more relaxed, and Ning Ji spoke at this moment:

"By the way, Lord Luo, a guard who went out with me yesterday is called Zou Xiaohu, he is very clever, can you cut his love and let him follow me?"

Luo Yueli smiled:

"It's still a thing, you look at Lingli and let him follow you."

On the way back to the house, the two chatted about the situation in the city, and Ning Ji hesitated for a moment but spoke:

"I went to the barracks yesterday and saw that there were many wounded soldiers and veterans left behind?"

Two days ago, because he was unhappy with Yan Yunzhou, Ning Qi didn't ask much about the affairs in the army, Luo Yueli didn't treat him as an outsider, and nodded at this moment:

"Now there are only 3,000 strong soldiers in Youzhou City."

Ning Yao's eyes widened, three thousand? That is to say, the remaining 5,000 people are almost all old, weak, sick and disabled? Luo Yueli saw his shock:

"It's always better to defend the city than to attack, we really don't have the rice to cook."

Defending the city is to wait for work, but with Yan Yunzhou's expedition, it is a thousand-mile attack, and there are constant battles along the way, and only strong soldiers and horses can tear a hole in the 300,000 army.

Ning Qi returned to the room where he had been living with Yan Yunzhou at night, and Luo Yueli's words today made him begin to realize the difficulty of this battle.

That's right, in the Battle of Jingyan, Zhu Di, who used soldiers like a god, was almost wiped out several times, and struggled for four years before succeeding.

The more he thought about it, the more he couldn't sit still, so he simply plunged headlong into the room where he used to make medicine, where the benzene he had refined was placed, and he decided to make some TNT tonight to test the power.

There was still some left of sodium hydroxide that he had prepared before, and he found the glacial acetic acid that had crystallized in the past, and mixed it directly to make one of the raw materials for the synthesis of methane, sodium acetate.

Then directly let sodium acetate and sodium hydroxide co-heat to release gas, which is methane.

He collected methane with drainage, and then turned methane into chloromethane, and the principle of the reaction was very simple, that is, the substitution reaction of chlorine atoms, that is, the methane reacted directly with chlorine, so he wanted to prepare chlorine.

Speaking of chlorine, Ning Qi looked at the bag in the corner of the room, and the bag contained nothing else, it was the manganese dioxide that Yan Yunzhou had misunderstood when he made gunpowder and sent him to prison.

He walked over and brought the bag over, but he didn't expect to use the manganese dioxide in the end, he coheated the manganese dioxide with hydrochloric acid, and the gas collected was chlorine.

The substitution reaction of chlorine and methane is relatively simple, and the raw materials are ready, and he can finally prepare the most important substrate in trinitrotoluene, which is toluene.

Ning Yao hardly slept that night, until the middle of the moon, toluene was finally made, and toluene was made, which means that the reaction reached the last step, that is, toluene was heated with nitric acid water bath under the catalysis of concentrated sulfuric acid, and the temperature was controlled at about 55 ° to 60 °.

Finally, it is washed with sodium hydroxide to remove the excess acid in the reactant, and finally dried to obtain trinitrotoluene, which is the king of explosives in modern wars, TNT.

When he made TNT, the sky was already white, and after tossing all night, Ning Zhi only felt that his shoulders were sore and his waist hurt, and he subconsciously wanted to go back to the main house to share with Yan Yunzhou and then ask him to press him, but as soon as he stood up, he suddenly thought that Yan Yunzhou had already set out on the expedition.

Ning Qi was stunned for a moment, and then laughed helplessly, habit is really a terrible thing, I don't know when it started, Yan Yunzhou has infiltrated his life, and he has become accustomed to sharing it with him.

Looking at the pale yellow crystals in front of him, Ning Qi was going to find a clay jar to fill them up and make them into a spherical shape similar to black powder, but he always felt as if he had left some steps behind.

After loading the gunpowder, his eyes were sore, numb and painful, and then he got up and went to the main house, Yan Yunzhou left, there was no one in this house all night, and the charcoal fire in the house was somewhat extinguished, and it looked cold.

He was so tired that he lay on the couch in his clothes, and there seemed to be the smell of medicine on Yan Yunzhou's body.

At this moment, Yan Yunzhou's army had already passed through Pingzhou, and there were three cities to the west of Jinpan Mountain, and the most northwestern was Pingzhou.

At this moment, Pingzhou is already in their hands, and the direction to the southeast is Zhangzhou, and the direction due south is Yuchuan, and the place where Yan Yunzhou garrisoned at this moment is in the southeast of Pingzhou and the northwest of Zhangzhou.

Yan Yunzhou had not taken off his silver armor yet, he was sitting in the big tent, but his generals were a little arguing:

"The king of the county, the prince, it will take time for Lu Liang to gather an army of 300,000, and we should take advantage of this time to break it separately to have a chance of winning."

"I think this is more dangerous, once we plunge into Lu Liang's nest, it is likely to be eaten by him, and it is even more difficult to divide the troops, our troops are not many, wouldn't it be better to divide the troops..."

Yan Yunzhou didn't say a word, Li Yan had little experience in actual combat, and he wouldn't speak easily, until the firehead soldiers came to report that they could have breakfast, and there was no reason to come out of this camp.

After everyone went out, Li Yan spoke:

"Brother Yan, are you waiting for the spies to come back?"

The night march made Yan Yunzhou's face not look very good, he pressed his eyebrows, and nodded on several locations on the map:

"That's right, I have some old troops in these two armies, and I can always get some news, what Li Han said is reasonable, we will break it separately, and it is likely that we will fall into Lu Liang's arms, and when the time comes, we will face the enemy in all directions, we will be invincible with two fists and four hands, it is better to give Lu Liang time and let him gather the soldiers and horses."

This idea is very bold, this is really to use more than 100,000 generals against 300,000 troops, but Li Yan didn't feel that Yan Yunzhou's method was inappropriate:

"This may also be a good thing, although Lu Liang was a general at the time of the first emperor, after all, he has not been on the battlefield for almost ten years.

The generals in these armies are of mixed quality, and there have been quarrels in the past because of military salaries, but it is better to let them get together first, maybe they can sing a play first. ”

Yan Yunzhou smiled, it is indeed the same reason, in addition to the border armies in the north and south over the years, the army of Daliang is far from being as hard as it was when the first emperor was.