She only wants to do infrastructure construction

Chapter 9 Disappointing Iron Smelting Technology

Thinking that the little lady likes her, Zicui jumped for joy, and happily chased after Li Yewu.

"Ma'am, wait for Zi Cui!"

Li Yewu left the house this time to find an iron shop.

She has seen the iron utensils in the palace. Although the shovels and shovels are all available, they are all white iron, which is not conducive to mining.

The wild food she wanted to pick up this time was not the mushroom game that the old housekeeper thought, but the serious gold and silver mines.

There is no way, Xiao Jiuxi owes too much debt, she can only use the simplest and rudest way to get money.

Based on past experience and the climate and terrain here, Li Yewu deduces several places that may produce gold, and plans to secretly make a big one.

This is faster than suppressing bandits.

However, for mining and metallurgy, it is not enough to rely solely on the broken copper and iron in the mansion.

Li Yewu was thinking of going to the iron shop to find something more convenient to open the mountain.

However, after walking around for a long time, I visited all the ruins in the four major urban areas of Taihe City, east, west, north and south, but I didn't see a single iron shop.

She was very puzzled, could it be that there is not even a blacksmith in this huge city?
After wandering around with Li Yewu for a long time, Zi Cui was sweating profusely before she knew what the little lady was looking for: "Little lady, iron and salt belong to the official business, and ordinary people can't manage it privately."

"?"

"Taihe Mansion has an iron smelting department. People who want iron products have to go to the iron smelting department to register and buy. If you want to buy iron, you have to go to the iron smelting department."

Li Yewu opened his mouth, Taihe Mansion, that is, the administrative office of Taihe City, is right next to Shang Wang's Mansion, Li Yewu didn't expect that what he was looking for was right in front of his house, so he wandered around for so long in vain.

She touched her head embarrassingly, she didn't expect Taihe City to control knives so strictly.

But... this rule seems to be effective for ordinary people. Thinking of the bandits who robbed at the door that day with big knives in their hands, Li Yewu shook his head, presumably these bandits must also be smelting iron privately, otherwise there would be so many weapons.

Li Yewu didn't say any more, and asked Zicui to lead the way to Metallurgical Iron Division.

When it comes to the structure of Taihe City, the city can be divided into four parts with the old palace as the center, but the current palace has been burnt to the point where only the foundations remain.

Originally, Xiao Jiuxi planned to rebuild the imperial palace as his own mansion, but he ran out of money not long after it was built, and now the project has been put on hold.

The east of the city used to be the main city of Taihe, but at this time, except for a market, the other places are all ruins like the old palace.

In the north of the city are mostly gambling houses and brothels, a paradise for green forest heroes from all walks of life.

To the west of the city is a refugee slum, where all refugees enjoying high welfare live.

The south of the city is Xiao Jiuxi's mansion and the Taihe Mansion, the Yamen of Taihe City.

She went straight to the market when she came out of the back door just now, but she didn't pay attention to the main street in the south of the city.

Now when I came back, I found that there were only two gates on the main street, one was Shangwang Mansion and the other was Taihe Mansion.

There is an alley next to Taihe Mansion. Compared with the empty street, this alley is much more lively.

Li Yewu walked in and took a look, and saw that the alleys were full of caves. The storefronts in a row were similar to those of a market. Each storefront had a small plaque: Salt Manufacturing Department, Iron Smelting Department, Tea Manufacturing Department, Taihe Bookstore, etc.

Don't look at the hustle and bustle here, but these belong to the government's property revenue and belong to the court, and have nothing to do with Xiao Jiuxi.

Li Yewu couldn't help raising his eyebrows. Important livelihoods such as salt, iron, tea and books were all firmly in the hands of officials.

It seems that although Xiao Jiuxi is unreliable, his father is indeed very intelligent.

No wonder he can be the only emperor of this continent.

Li Yewu went straight into the Iron Smelting Department. The place is about [-] square meters, filled with all kinds of products just needed for farming, such as shovels, shovels, plows, rakes, etc. There are also knives and weapons, but most of them are rough products, not exquisite. .

Thinking about it, the existence of Iron Smelters is not to please the rich, but to facilitate the daily use of ordinary people. Things are about usability, not scarcity and preciousness, so the common ones are only common ones.

However, Li Yewu weighed it and found that these things were no different from those in the palace. What she was looking for were harder and sharper iron tools.

The shopkeeper couldn't help laughing when he heard the request: "The ironware in our store is produced by the iron officials of Dachu. It is famous in the ten counties and three prefectures of Dachu for being indestructible. It is not the same as private iron at all. If you don't like these If it is not hard enough, there is no other iron in the world."

After hearing what the shopkeeper said, Li Yewu had a strange look on his face.

Da Chu Tie Guan, you mean the official iron smelting factory?She remembered that the Iron Officer was set up in Shanhu State, and the third prince was in charge.

Later, the third and fourth fought, and the third's private soldiers were unstoppable, forcing the fourth to retreat, because he secretly mastered new iron-smelting technology, which improved the performance of iron.

It is estimated that the third child has mastered this technology a long time ago, but he has been secretly hiding it silently.

Li Yewu pursed her lips and said nothing.

However, the national unification of white iron made her face a difficult situation. How could she mine without a weapon at hand?

The shopkeeper looked at the girl who had been silent for a while, and couldn't help being suspicious: "By the way, which company do you belong to? This is the first time you go out to do business? Did your manager tell you the rules of the iron smelter? This is not a private shop. All iron products There are all specifications and regulations, so pick and choose what do you think you are buying clothes? We don’t even bother you.”

"You..." Zi Cui just wanted to say that this person has no eyesight, so it's okay to be rude to the little lady, and even trampled on her master.

Li Yewu grabbed Zicui at the right time: "I'm sorry, we really can't be the masters, and we will come back next time when we go back and report to the master."

After finishing speaking, she took Zi Cui and left.

It's not that you can't quarrel, it's just that it's meaningless to quarrel, and she was going to dig gold mines in a low-key manner, but she didn't want to be confiscated by the state treasury if she dug gold.

Although this trip was in vain, it was not fruitless, at least I learned about the iron smelting technology of this era.

Speaking of iron smelting technology, Huaguo had already made a qualitative leap in iron smelting during the Qin and Han Dynasties.

However, the iron smelting technology of the Great Chu Empire was obviously inferior to that of the Qin and Han Dynasties, and its level was about that of the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

White iron, as the name suggests, the fracture is mostly white. It is a kind of pig iron. Although it is hard, it is also very brittle and very easy to break, especially when rocks are excavated.

This kind of pig iron mainly contains carbon and too little silicon. Adding these two components can greatly improve its toughness.

However, it is obviously not enough time for her to improve the iron smelting technology now, and she will have to pay off the huge debt in a month.

Li Yewu had no choice but to use the last resort - to use explosives.

The reason why explosives were not listed as the preferred tool was because the Great Chu Empire did not have explosives, and if she used them, it might affect the direction of the entire book.

After all, people are still fighting with cold weapons. If the second generation ancestor knows that there are treasures like explosives in the world, and he uses them to fight with others, then the story will not be rewritten?

　I have opened a new book and found many old faces. Everyone is still feeling very excited. Please give me more advice in the future, I love you all! ! !

　　
　
(End of this chapter)