The jingling bells rang, and two ships heading north from Lingzhou Dongcheng Pier arrived at Yongfeng County Pier one after another.
The two ships had a very deep draft. With the help of the dock workers, they adjusted their directions with great effort and docked on the side of the trestle.
What was carried in the cabin was not any valuable cargo, but red bricks.
The city wall in Yongfeng County, Fengzhou, has been in disrepair for a long time. The continuous rain this year caused a large section to collapse.
After reporting to the shogunate, they agreed to allocate funds for reconstruction. The Xia Prince's Mansion, Cangcao, who had recently taken full power, intervened in the matter and decided to build a city with rammed earth inside and bricks on the outside, just like Huaiyuan New City, but not as big.
In fact, the traditional rammed earth version of city walls is becoming less popular these days... With the needs of the war, the city walls of important cities are increasingly using masonry, such as the new walls that were just repaired in Chengdu. These walls were unveiled in 2018
It was discovered by archeology in 2011. "The city wall was first built in the late Tang Dynasty. The remaining length is about 170 meters and the width is 8.9-12 meters. The entire wall is made of rammed earth and covered with bricks on the outside." It may be that after Wang Jian entered Shu in history,
repaired.
The willingness to spend money on the city wall illustrates the increase in the intensity of the war and the change in the way of war.
Among the fifteen states in Guanbei, Xiazhou has the best city quality. Not only is the ground as solid as iron stone, but even a certain distance underground is protected. When digging tunnels, "shovels cannot penetrate". Helian Bobo spent so much time back then.
The capital is more.
Next is Huaiyuan New City, which is not small in scale and is equivalent to an upper-middle-class state city. The inner layer is rammed earth and the outer layer is covered with bricks. It took several years. The people in Ling and Feng counties should still remember this.
It was unspeakably miserable to be sent here one after another to fetch soil, sift soil, make bricks, bake bricks, build walls, etc.
The construction of the new city wall in Yongfeng County also required corvee labor, but only in this county.
Some of the bricks were fired in kilns built locally, and some were transported by water from other places. The two ships in front of you are the ones in front of you.
"Bricks from the Xiao family." Under the pavilion outside the dock, the recorder Sun Chang reported to the county magistrate Sun Tu in a low voice.
Sun Tu, a member of the Sun clan in Fengzhou and a close relative of Sun Ba, the military governor of Changyi Army (Jingyuan), has been serving as the Yongfeng Commandery for three years.
"Who is the Xiao family? Xiao Mao, the commander of the shogunate's right march?" Sun Tu asked.
Xiao's influence in Shuofang Town is neither big nor small.
Xiao Yuan served as the governor of Longyou for seven or eight years. He recruited a large number of talented people from the capital, especially the Ministry of Water Resources. He dismissed one-third of the people from the doctor level down, all of whom were extremely familiar with water conservancy affairs.
The officials carefully tidied up the Pitang ditch in Longyou, which made King Xia extremely satisfied.
Although he has now been transferred to the palace to consult and join the army, it seems that he has lost his position as commander, but it is a close position. He can make plans and provide advice to the king of Xia. His influence cannot be underestimated. He is the first person in the Xiao family.
Xiao Qu was transferred to be the governor of Jiangzhou. In his early years, he served as the Yongle Order of Hezhong Prefecture. Later, he went to Longyou and served as a minister and state official. Now he is the governor of Jiangzhou. This is also a close promotion. In addition, everyone knows that
His daughter was King Xia's bed partner.
This is the second person of the Xiao family.
In fact, Xiao Mao and Xiao Yun brothers are not very familiar with each other, and they are not in the same team. They started as judges of the construction department of the shogunate, transferred to local positions for two years, and then returned to the shogunate to serve as one of the two major marching commanders. Now they are the commander of the royal palace.
Shi Cao participated in the military and was one of the seven powerful officials. Strictly speaking, he was no worse than the Xiao Yu brothers.
"It's Xiao Mao." Sun Chang replied in a low voice: "Xiao Mao's sister-in-law opened a brickyard in Huile County. The bricks are produced in large quantities and at a low price. They make a fortune every day."
The scholars of the imperial dynasty were not ashamed to do business. They were not like the scholars of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in later generations, who were reluctant to make huge profits, but at the same time looked down on them on the surface, secretive, and let the servants and servants at home come forward to expose them.
White gloves.
At this time, when scholars saw good business, they would even directly go into battle and often write poems to express their pride. Business-related poems have always been an enduring branch of poetry, and some of them are vividly described, which shows the trend.
"Did the palace have any involvement?" Sun Tu asked again, his voice was very low.
"I haven't heard about this, maybe there is some." Sun Chang thought hard for a long time and said: "The King of Xia has always been running a private industry, and this brickyard may also have a share."
Sun Tu nodded. Even saints had inner treasuries. In the Han Dynasty, there were behemoths like the Shaofu. It was very common for Xia kings to have private properties to manage.
What can be seen on the surface is probably Wei's Blacksmith Shop and Zhao Cheng's caravan. The palace does not participate in the daily operations, but it takes a share and shares the profits. In addition, the subordinates of Hongyuan, Woyang, and Yulin Sangong are also Shao
A private tribe, this is also an "industry".
It is entirely possible for the Xiao family to open a brickyard and the Wangfu to take some part in it.
“Why are the bricks produced in this brick factory so cheap?”
"It sounds very big, there are almost twenty doors."
"Twenty gates?" Sun Tu asked doubtfully.
"The country kiln is called 'one kiln', but the kiln in Xiao's Brickyard has twenty kilns, which is called 'round kiln'."
“What’s so special about Lun Kiln?”
"I don't know this." Sun Chang replied: "The Xiao family has already built a second wheel kiln in Huaiyuan County. It recruits workers and apprentices and pays them three hundred yuan a month."
In fact, there is nothing innovative about Lun Kiln in terms of "hard technology". Its "miraculousness" is mainly reflected in the design.
In a traditional small earthen kiln in the countryside, after the bricks are made, they are piled up and stacked. After the door is sealed, the baking begins. After the bricks are made, they are allowed to cool and then taken out one by one.
The wheel kiln is a continuous production brick kiln.
The flue gas generated during the production process can preheat the bricks in front. When a 20-door wheel kiln is in production, 4 doors are roasting, 7 doors are preheating, 5 doors are cooling, and the remaining 4 doors are already producing bricks.
As the flame moves between the kiln doors, continuous production can be achieved, and the efficiency is many times higher than that of a small earthen kiln.
To put it simply, the wheel kiln makes full use of waste heat, waste heat, saves coal and time, and continuously produces bricks, so the cost is naturally greatly reduced.
Utilizing old technical conditions to innovate in design is an effective means to improve productivity.
But in using hydraulic machinery to forge iron armor, it completely suffered a shameful failure.
What kind of water-powered forging hammer is completely insufficient and cannot produce such a large piece of iron. Shao Shude once made this suggestion, but the craftsmen of Duzuoyuan told him that the imperial court had tried to use water hammer to forge iron, but it failed and it took a lot of effort.
Too much, poor quality.
Shao Shude thought for a while. He had read a book from Oxford University in his later life. It seemed that plate armor in Europe was all handmade in the early days. There was no such thing as repeated forging with a hydraulic forging hammer to form large pieces of plate armor.
By the end of the 16th century, Europeans had made a breakthrough in iron-making and steel-making technology, and were able to produce large pieces of steel. This was very critical because it provided conditions for hydraulic mechanical forging. But even so, a pair of
Most of the work on the plate armor is completed later, and the time and cost are still huge.
What really reduced the cost of plate armor was more advanced smelting furnaces. The design of European smelting furnaces at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century was extremely advanced. The output was greatly increased and the cost was reduced rapidly. At the same time, it was also carried out in the steel production process.
After testing, I already had a considerable understanding of the materials, and began to gradually refine the theory and guide the production. Comparing the original European "Red Cannon" and the Ming Dynasty imitation decades later, the Europeans achieved at this time
Technical advantages.
Historically, Korea and Japan used water-powered machinery to forge so-called plate armor. The quality was extremely poor and lacked the most basic protective capabilities. The reason was that they, like the Ming Dynasty, could not produce large pieces of high-quality steel plates. The larger the area, the thinner and brittle it was.
It can only be solved with materials.
In Lingxia today, even a slightly larger iron plate cannot be made. Just hit it with a hammer! More than 700 years in advance, we learned from the Europeans to make plate armor with water-powered forging hammers. Are you sure that you are making the same material? Then
Can you make large high-quality iron plates?
Anyway, in history, the Koreans and Japanese used water-powered forging hammers to imitate European plate armor, but the quality was extremely poor. Shao Shude determined that the metal smelting level of the Tang Dynasty today is not as good as that of Korea and Japan nine hundred years later. They had already evolved from the Ming Dynasty
I learned a lot from Europeans.
"Pile up all the bricks, we will use them later." Sun Tu sighed: "I don't like those small earthen kilns now. Send people to Lingzhou to learn from them. Maybe in the future, people will
I like building brick houses now.”
"As ordered." Sun Chang saluted.
Brick houses? There are brick houses on the pier. It's good, but most people won't build brick houses on a large scale for a while.
More than 20,000 soldiers of the Second Army of Tielin and Wuwei left Lingzhou. There were countless houses for sale. The prices were surprisingly cheap and they could be taken away for just a few cents. Many people were vying to buy them.
However, brick houses will still be built more or less. After all, it is impossible for everyone to live in the city or near the city wall, because it is too far away from the fields.
After the work started in full swing on the pier, some "food sellers" nearby also started to light the stoves.
Sun Tu had already returned to the county in advance, but Sun Chang still had to stay on the dock to record things, record, rewrite, and keep records. Of course he had to stay.
"Why did the store prepare so much cheese and cheese?" Sun Chang had nothing to do, so he chatted with a food seller.
"official"
Although he felt very relieved, Sun Chang was a miscellaneous official, not an official, so he immediately interrupted.
"Your Majesty, you don't know. Nowadays, milk is very cheap, and I'm still very hungry. The laborers on the dock don't want to spend more money, so they often buy and eat it. We also eat biscuits and corn rice, but they are less." The storekeeper lit a fire.
, said while saying.
His stove was billowing with smoke, and the charcoal he used was bought from someone unknown, and it smelled very strong.
Except for those needed for shipbuilding, it is forbidden to cut down large trees in the Helan Mountain area. Many people go into the mountains to collect firewood, but they can only pick up some dead branches, which causes the price of firewood on the market to rise sharply. Over time, many people began to use charcoal as fuel.
The government even uses charcoal on a large scale. Firewood was originally included in the welfare of officials, but it was all changed to charcoal many years ago.
The burned charcoal residue is also collected and spread on the road, which is especially useful in rainy seasons.
"Where did you get your milk?"
"Of course I bought it from the countryside. I went to buy it this morning." The store owner said, "In the Xiaoliugou area in the northwest of the city, every household grows grapes and makes wine. I don't know why, but the cows are suddenly willing to produce milk. There are a lot of them.
After asking around, I heard that the king had learned the skills from the immortals, and then asked the agricultural officials to point it out to the people. A cow can produce more than twenty kilograms of milk, which was less than seven or eight kilograms in the past."
A farmer's land generally consists of farmland, vegetable plots and home gardens. The farmland grows grain, the vegetable plots grow melons and vegetables, and the home garden depends on the situation.
Due to climate and traditional factors, farmers in Lingxia generally plant fruit trees in their gardens, such as dates and grapes, especially grapes.
But in the Central Plains, mulberry trees dominate. For example, in the Bian and Song states under Zhu Quanzhong's rule, one household planted fifty mulberry trees, which was different from Guanbei.
If there are more grapes in Lingxia, winemaking will naturally occur. This is a regional custom and tradition that has been the case since the Northern Dynasties.
"The Immortal's Technique?" Sun Chang was shocked upon hearing this.
"Isn't that right?" the shopkeeper said with some seriousness: "The king is respected by the immortal, so he will definitely become that saint."
"Saint...saint?" Sun Chang was not an ignorant commoner, he was educated. Although people in Lingxia often called him "Shao Sheng", he had never called him that.
The saint is in Chang'an!
But now it seems that maybe King Xia is also a saint? Shao Sheng of Lingzhou, Li Sheng of Changan, each emperor has his own side?
There is endless chaos in the world, but Lingxia is so calm, and the days are getting better and better. Even the warriors who talk the most weird words are full of praise for King Xia, and they move just when they are asked. This is better than even Shence Army can't control it.
The Saint of Chang'an is much stronger.
Sun Chang fell into deep thought for a while.
"Would you like some white cake, sir?" the shop owner asked suddenly.
White pastry, ghee, milk, cheese, sour milk, butter, milk residue, milk skin, butter, and milk wine are the current mainstream methods of processing milk in Lingxia, and they are also common things for ordinary people. In fact, few people drink pure milk.
"Cut a piece for me." Sun Chang ordered: "I don't know what to do with so much milk."
"Someone over there in Xiaoliugou is teaching how to make milk powder." The shopkeeper said while cutting the soufflé skillfully: "It would be a pity not to use up so much milk at once. If it is made into milk powder, it will be exported to the army.
, it will be of great use.”
Sun Chang smiled and said, "You also know how to fight?"
"Martial men also need to eat. Shao Sheng took pity on the common people like us and produced so much milk. It is normal for him to take some of the tax credit and use it as military supplies." The store owner handed the white cake to Sun Chang and said: "It's a pity that there is only Xiaoliugou now.
The cows produce a lot of milk, and agriculturalists only go there. If the whole county is like this, tsk tsk..."
Sun Chang ate the white cake in silence.
A few days ago, the county received an order from Cangcao. After the autumn tax comes in, they will buy more old cattle and slaughter them to make a kind of meat floss. At the same time, they will also try to make as much bacon and bacon as possible and wait for shipment to the country.
Tongguan.
Milk powder, meat floss, and cured meat were shipped to Tongguan in ships, most of which were used to feed the army.
It is indeed troublesome to transport corn and wheat over long distances, but it seems to be much easier to transport milk powder and meat floss, and it makes you even hungrier. Your Majesty is saving military food, and there is going to be another war. I don’t know who is going to be beaten again!