The Jagged Cavalry of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 181 Chapter 181

The years are rushing, time flies, and just looking back in the confusion is another new year.

This year's New Year is undoubtedly a happy year for Zhang Yan. At this time last year, Xuzhou was still under the cloud of Cao Cao. into the sphere of influence.In just one year, things have changed really fast.

During the Chinese New Year, Zhang Yan, as the overlord of one party, began to sacrifice according to local customs, offering sacrifices to heaven, earth, and gods, praying for good weather and a bumper harvest next year.

Although it is said that Zhang Yan is quite disgusted with feudal superstition, but in this backward era, he can only do as the Romans do.Under the auspices of Zhang Zhao, Zhang Yan was busy with the sacrificial activities from morning till night. When the activities were over, Zhang Yan was relieved.

After finishing the sacrificial activities on the first day of the new year, Zhang Yan started to walk around the streets again, sitting in the homes of his subordinates respectively, summarizing this year, looking forward to the coming year, giving gifts to reward those who made achievements this year, and conducting Some encouragement.

In addition, Zhang Yan also gave each serving official a generous year-end bonus. No matter what the performance of this year is, everyone has a share and will never fail. He also encourages everyone to make persistent efforts.

The new year was spent in extreme joy, and Zhang Yan also gave the officials seven days off for this, so that they could have a good year.

Of course, at this time, the more attention should be paid to the rigorous defense, so the army will have to work harder. When others celebrate the New Year, they still have to stick to the frontline posts.

However, Zhang Yan did not let these troops stick to it for nothing. During the seven days of the Chinese New Year, all the troops who stick to the front-line posts will be paid double. Moreover, they will be given time off. At any time after the seven days, If you want to take a break, you can apply in advance, and after getting permission, you can take a seven-day holiday.

During the seven days of the new year, the entire land of the Central Plains was immersed in the flavor of the new year. After seven days, Zhang Yan and officials at all levels began to return to their posts to work, and began to deal with the backlog of official affairs for seven days.

On the eighth day of the first lunar month, Tai Shici once again received Zhang Yan's instruction to lead the army, take a sea ship, bring another batch of goods, and head to western Liaoning in exchange for another [-] war horses.

Half a month later, [-] war horses were transported back to the seaport of Qu County again.This time, Li Cai and Tai Shici came back together. Although the Wuhuan people have no shortage of horses, Zhang Yan doesn't want to get so many cavalry. After all, buying a horse is like buying a cart. But the cost is very high, [-] horses are enough to form [-] cavalry, this number, in the Central Plains area, just sounds daunting enough.

In view of Li Cai's contribution, Zhang Yan deliberately opened up a new administrative department called the Ministry of Commerce, with Li Cai as the director of the Ministry of Commerce, whose position is roughly equivalent to that of a school lieutenant.In addition, Zhang Yan also specially dispatched some of Li Cai's subordinate officials. His administrative office was established in Qu County, and he became a neighbor of Mi Qiang, the county magistrate of Qu County.

Zhang Yan returned to Pengcheng with Tai Shici and five thousand horses.

As soon as he arrived in Pengcheng, Zhang Yan asked Tai Shici and Xu Chu to start selecting soldiers who were proficient in bows and horses, and then formed a cavalry force, which was trained by Tai Shici and Xu Chu respectively.

As of the first day of February in the second year of Xingping, Zhang Yan had a total of 5000 regular troops, including 5000 in Yanzhou, [-] in Qingzhou, [-] in Xuzhou, [-] under Chen Deng, Zhou Tai, and Jiang Qin, and [-] more He was stationed in Peiguo and dispatched by Chen Gui and Xu Ding.

In order to gather the equipment for an army of [-], Zhang Yan ordered the smelters located in Ying County, Pengcheng, Qu County, Ju County, and Tangyi to build weapons and armor day and night.

In order to keep improving and pursue speed, Zhang Yan specially gave the five smelters a death order. By the end of July this year, each of them must produce [-] pairs of weapons and battle armor.

For this reason, Zhang Yan made a special division of labor. The smelter in Ying County was responsible for making armor, the smelter in Pengcheng was in charge of making steel knives, the smelter in Qu County was in charge of making steel guns, and the smelter in Ju County was in charge of making arrows. , while the smelter in Tangyi County is mainly responsible for making agricultural tools and cooking utensils.

In order to complete the task, the five smelters don't like to recruit blacksmiths, but blacksmiths are limited after all. If such forging is done bit by bit, it will be impossible to complete the task by July this year.

For this reason, Zhang Yan thought of a way. He joined blacksmiths to make molds, boiled iron ore into molten iron at high temperature, and then poured molten iron into the mold, and then blacksmiths stood by to beat and forge to form a Assembly line.

However, in order to establish an assembly line, it is necessary to have a transmission force.Zhang Yan asked the carpenter to carve out several large gears according to his wishes, and then used the gears as a mold, and asked the blacksmiths to forge iron gears according to the gourd.

After the gear was successfully forged, Zhang Yan, through repeated experiments, made it into a rollover mainly relying on hydraulic impact and supplemented by manpower, and then drove the chain attached to the gear, pulled the iron sheet connected to the chain, and turned it one by one. A model made of stone, fully pulled up.

In this way, the blacksmith only needs to stand on a line, strike at what time, and as long as he masters the timing, he can quickly forge what he wants.

Zhang Yan's invention, once successfully tested, was immediately extended to all smelters. It used to be that the entire forging process required a blacksmith to strike repeatedly for success. Now a blacksmith only needs to repeat one action to forge successfully. Such a simple movement, even if you are not a blacksmith, you only need to swing a hammer and stand on the production line to learn it a few times, and you can master it proficiently.Its productivity has also been greatly improved.

The five major smelters have set up several production lines successively. According to this method, the productivity of each smelter has been greatly increased several times compared to the previous productivity. The task of forging [-] finished products may be completed ahead of schedule.

In addition to improving the production technology of the smelter, Zhang Yan also applied his advanced knowledge to other fields.

When he was young, Zhang Yan always wanted to be an inventor, so he was very interested in the things around him. For example, when he encountered something, he insisted on asking the bottom line and knowing how it was made.

In order to satisfy his thirst for knowledge, Zhang Yan often consults his grandfather, who is a watchmaker and also likes inventions and creations. Seeing that Zhang Yan has such a strong thirst for knowledge, he takes the trouble to tell Zhang Yan about inventions and creations , as long as it is something he knows, he will explain it to Zhang Yan without reservation.

It is a pity that Zhang Yan did not become an inventor later, because everything he wanted to invent had already been invented.By chance, Zhang Yancai became a mercenary.But in his heart, he always thought about the addiction of an inventor.

Now in ancient times, Zhang Yan possessed so much advanced knowledge that he could enjoy the addiction of invention and creation at this time. As long as conditions permit, he can create anything.

Therefore, paper became Zhang Yan's first goal to improve.

Because, Zhang Yan, who is used to living a modern life, has always been troubled by the lack of toilet paper. He has to scrape his shit with a bamboo blade, which hurts his anus.Fortunately, he is powerful and rich, so every time he wipes his butt, he always uses paper bought with a lot of money.

This kind of paper is specially made for writing. It is very hard, and it is really not very cool to use it to wipe your butt.In the end, Zhang Yan switched to cloth, cut the cloth into small pieces with scissors, and then used it to wipe his butt.

Therefore, in the past year or so, the most costly thing Zhang Yan has used is cloth.

In Zhang Yan's view, it is imminent to improve paper so that he can live a better life.

Although paper has been invented in this era, it has not been widely promoted, and the technology of papermaking is relatively backward, and the paper produced is relatively rough.

For this reason, Zhang Yan used his familiar papermaking technology to improve the papermaking process, and set up a papermaking factory outside Pengcheng, recruited a group of workers, and after repeated experiments, he finally succeeded in making paper.

The paper produced is both beautiful and easy to use, and it is much more durable than the original paper.

In addition, Zhang Yan also specially made a kind of toilet paper. Its hardness is very low, almost to the point of softness. It is the most suitable for wiping buttocks.

For this reason, Zhang Yan ordered the paper mill to produce toilet paper in large quantities, and encouraged the common people to wipe their butts with toilet paper.In this way, he can sell toilet paper as a commodity.

In addition to improving the technology of papermaking, Zhang Yan also stole the wisdom of the ancients and set up another printing factory outside Pengcheng. All go to school in order to improve the overall cultural quality of the people.

In addition, Zhang Yan also specially hired many teachers to go into the barracks to teach those illiterate soldiers how to read and write.

The success of papermaking directly created a new way for Zhang Yan to get rich, and the application of printing technology also saved the unnecessary trouble of manual copying of books.

The combination of the two technologies was quickly promoted by Zhang Yan. After the first batch of toilet paper was produced, Zhang Yan personally endorsed the toilet paper.

At first, people just bought it with the mentality of trying it out, so they didn't take it seriously.

Unexpectedly, on the second day, Pengcheng was empty, and all of them went to the paper factory outside the city to queue up to buy toilet paper.

Because toilet paper is a daily consumable, the price of toilet paper is so low that almost everyone can afford it. Therefore, the backlog of toilet paper produced in the paper mill is full of a large warehouse, and it is sold out within a day. , The paper mill can be said to be making money every day.

Zhang Yan saw a huge business opportunity, so he expanded the scale of the paper mill and continued to produce toilet paper in large quantities to meet the needs of each person.

Printing books also requires a lot of paper. Zhang Yan first promoted the printed books in a small area of ​​Pengcheng.Contrary to the big sales of toilet paper, no one wants to give away printed books for free, because people's cultural level is generally low in this era, and basically they don't read books.

Therefore, Zhang Yan had no choice but to improve his strategy. First, he would give a batch of books to noble families for free, first to see the response, and then make another plan.

As a result, this kind of printed book was very popular among the gentry, and they all rushed to ask where they could buy it.With such books, there is no need to copy by hand, which saves a lot of time and effort.

So, after learning that Zhang Yan sold books there, the students came to buy them one after another.

Zhang Yan deliberately raised the price, taking the high-end and high-end luxury route. As long as it belongs to the gentry, few families are poor. It is easier to buy a book and read it than to copy it.The students of the gentry will still calculate this value.

The hot sale of toilet paper and books has earned Zhang Yan a lot of money. In just one month, Zhang Yan's treasury has been filled a lot.

With such good money, Zhang Yanzhen regrets that he didn't do it before, otherwise, he would already be well-off now.

On the first day of March, a secret letter from Guanzhong broke Zhang Yan's peaceful heart again, and at the same time woke him up from his enthusiasm for invention.

According to the letter, Li Jue and Guo Si fell out. One hijacked the emperor and the other hijacked civil and military officials. They fought each other in Chang'an city and attacked each other every day.

Although there are only a few words, Zhang Yan, who is familiar with history, knows very well that the time he has been waiting for is coming soon. His next move is to take advantage of the time when Li Jue and Guo Si are attacking each other, and lead his army westward. Snatch the current emperor, bring him back to Pengcheng, take the emperor with him, and order the princes!

Note: All inventions and creations in this article are purely fictitious, please do not take them seriously!
(End of this chapter)