Chen Xu could only smile bitterly, he knew that Qin Shi Huang was anxious, but he didn't expect to be so anxious.

Once this order is issued, I don't know how many people will be ruined.

In addition to those who are dismissed from prison, forced labor will also become a great burden on the peasants, because spring sowing will be immediately after the beginning of spring, and the people who participate in the mining and iron smelting will inevitably delay the farming time, which will inevitably cause the family to be hungry next year, and finally go bankrupt and become homeless, and then they will be arrested and become prisoners or even sold into slavery.

You must know that although there are more than 20 million people in Daqin today, after ten years of civil war, there are nearly three million dead soldiers in the Six Kingdoms plus Qin, all of whom are adult men, that is, many families are orphans and widows today, and there are no adult men as pillars at all, and production and life are extremely miserable.

Nowadays, this kind of peasant households, with minors and women as the main production force, have to bear extremely heavy taxes, grains and labor, and nearly one million people have been mobilized to repair the Chi Road, and there are 700,000 prisoners to repair the mausoleum, and there are one million soldiers to build the Great Wall.

That is to say, today's Great Qin, relying on most of the women and children to feed the entire Great Qin population of more than 20 million, the number of adult men who really participate in farming is about one-third, this is an extremely distorted and perverted social structure, completely abnormal, but it is under this extremely unbalanced agricultural population structure, Qin Shi Huang still stumbled down the Lingnan and Hetao regions, in which the consumption is extremely huge, the people's power is almost used to the extreme, and the excessive consumption of people's power has caused the foundation of the Qin Dynasty's rule to be shaken.

Whether it is the imperial mentality or the reckless military force, this model of the Qin Dynasty is destined to not last long, which is why Chen Xu has been reluctant to take out the globe and present it to the First Emperor.

At present, Daqin must cultivate and accumulate people's strength.

If there is no stable environment in the country, even if it hits Europe, the instability of the rear has always been a taboo for soldiers, and the failure of Li Xin's war against Chu at the beginning, in addition to the young and vigorous enemy, the rebellion of Changping Jun in the rear to cut off the supply of grain and grass is also a great reason.

Later, when Jiang Gong was resisting Japan, he once said: If you want to fight outside, you must first settle inside. Restless inside, how to say that the enemy outside the outside!

It can be seen from this that national stability is the greatest foundation for stable expansion.

And at present, the national gallop is still under construction, there are still hundreds of thousands of people in service, if you want to vigorously promote steel, equip a cavalry team of tens of thousands, and recruit countless people to participate in the excavation and transportation of ore, at least tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of families fall into abject poverty in a year, this situation is what Chen Xu does not want to see.

"Your Majesty, wait!" Countless thoughts flashed through Chen Xu's mind like electricity, and when Jiang Heng was about to issue the holy decree, Chen Xu hurriedly spoke out to stop it.

Jiang Heng, who was holding the jade seal, stopped, and the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty looked at Chen Xu, and Qin Shi Huang was also full of puzzlement.

Li Si, who was standing behind Chen Xu, twitched lightly.

The second time, this is already the second time, Chen Xu actually stopped the emperor's order in public again.

"Your Majesty, in two months, spring sowing will be coming soon after the cold winter, and recruiting a large number of people to serve may delay the agricultural time and lead to a reduction in the grain production next autumn, so the minister thought of a way to solve the ...... of making harnesses and weapons without calling up people and a large number of craftsmen."

"Qinghe Hou Xiu wants to be reckless! How can such a heavy and arduous task be accomplished without recruiting craftsmen? Li Si couldn't help but remind in a low voice.

"Li Xiang rest assured, Xu will not talk nonsense, after I finish speaking, if Your Majesty and your lords think that my strategy will not work, naturally I will act in accordance with Your Majesty's edict, and I will never delay Your Majesty's plan to conquer the Huns!" Chen Xu turned to Li Si and saluted.

"Qinghe Hou, please speak!" Qin Shi Huang didn't have much dissatisfaction with Chen Xu's stopping, but waved his hand and sat down.

"Daqin now has hundreds of copper and iron merchants, each of whom has hundreds or even thousands of slaves and craftsmen, from the excavation of copper and iron ore to smelting and casting are sufficient, and the smelting of iron and steel and the smelting of copper and tin is not much different, but one is firepower, the other is experience, now there is coal, enough to provide fierce fire to refine iron ore, the only thing to do is to change the structure of the smelting furnace, and then arrange craftsmen who are proficient in ironmaking to do some simple guidance, the minister's idea is to use these copper and iron merchants, Encourage them to smelt steel, reward the copper and iron merchants with high output, and the same is true for the construction of weapons and horse harnesses, encourage the merchants to build workshops, convene craftsmen and helpers, and build in strict accordance with the system, the only thing we have to do is to send craftsmen to strictly test, whether it is the steel smelted or the horse harness and weapons that are made, as long as they meet the specifications, and then directly use grain or copper money to buy, the temptation of money and grain plus rewards and incentives, The 10,000 sets of new horseman equipment that Your Majesty needs may be successfully completed before March, and it will not consume too much people's power, Your Majesty will get the equipment you want, the merchants will get benefits, and the people will be able to farm with peace of mind, and you can quickly promote the two things of steel refining and horse harness to the people, which is a way to kill four birds with one stone! ”

After Chen Xu finished speaking, he saluted to Qin Shi Huang and the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military ministers: "This is what I think, I don't know what Your Majesty and your lords think?" ”

The court was very quiet, and after a while, the newly appointed craftsman Shaofu Ling Zaihong stood up and said excitedly: "Your Majesty, this strategy of the Marquis of Qinghe is indeed the best way to solve Your Majesty's plan to conquer the Huns, since ancient times, merchants are born for profit, as long as there are enough interests to tempt, they will inevitably flock to it, and the matter of smelting steel and building utensils will be solved soon!" ”

"Yes, yes, this is a good idea!"

"Qinghe Hou is quick to think, this is indeed the best way!"

"Although it is a good method, it has never been possible to use money and grain to buy weapons from merchants, and it needs to be planned carefully!"

"There is also a reward, Shang Jia was originally a lowly person, and he can be forced to refine and build, so why reward him!"

"That makes sense!"

"Rewards are not indispensable, but how much grain does it take to buy them so that the merchants can actively produce ...... in large quantities."

Many people in the court began to discuss Chen Xu's unbelievable method, and they were all important ministers of the court, so their knowledge was naturally not low, so they discussed some of these principled issues.

"Your Majesty, the minister agrees with the method of the Marquis of Qinghe!" Zuo Xiang Li Si stood up and said.

"The minister seconded the proposal~" Right Prime Minister Feng Quji also stood up.

"The ministers seconded it!" A large number of fans of Li Si and Feng Quji stood up and posted it.

Qin Shi Huang also nodded: "I also think that this policy of the Marquis of Qinghe is indeed the best method, but as you Aiqing said, there are still many details to be carefully discussed, since this matter is proposed by the Marquis of Qinghe, please also talk about how to implement and implement it!" ”

"Good!" Chen Xu pondered for a moment after saluting, "Your Majesty, the minister intends to do so, first print all the specifications of the iron-making furnace, casting furnace, weapons, saddle, horseshoes and other specifications with drawings and designs, and then arrange for people to send them to the nearby counties of Neishi, Hedong, Shangdang, Sanchuan, Nanyang, and Hanzhong, so that the local county guards can gather the powerful merchants in the counties to spread the word. Because at present, almost all the copper and iron merchants in Daqin are in Nanyang County, so the steel smelting is mainly Nanyang merchants, and they can be encouraged to go to the coal and iron producing areas to choose sparsely populated wasteland to prepare for the construction of iron-making workshops, so that the local officials can cooperate closely without obstruction, and every furnace of qualified steel is poured into qualified billets, and the imperial court will purchase them at a price of five dollars per catty, of course, they can also be directly sold to other merchants who make weapons and horse harnesses, and the price can be freely negotiated by the merchants. The production of weapons according to the different standards and the degree of difficulty of building, respectively, to set different purchase prices, this price to make the merchant profitable, such as a saber, with eight catties of iron, to buy steel to forty yuan, but to create a craftsman takes a day, and grinding and installation of the handle scabbard and other processes take two days, which is designed to many links and processes, but we can all ignore it, the court finally used five hundred dollars to buy the saber, the distribution of interests and the purchase of materials in the period are negotiated by different merchants, We only purchase qualified finished products, unqualified don't, saddles, stirrups and horseshoes and other harnesses are the same, according to the degree of difficulty to set the purchase price, we only look at the results and do not ask about the process......" Chen Xu slowly said some of the details that came to mind, it took more than ten minutes, the entire court hall was silent, and everyone listened with a moving face.

"Qinghe Hou, if all the businessmen feel that one of them is lucrative, and they all do the same thing, won't they be unable to complete the task in the end?" A doctor stood up and asked.

"Nope! As the saying goes, a businessman who is proficient in smelting is familiar with mining and smelting, and will never make a saddle, because he does not understand the procurement, processing, and production of leather at all. Chen Xu shook his head and said with a smile.

Well, the doctor was stunned for a moment and shook his head, and said with a slight blush: "What Qinghe Hou said is that it is wise to promote strengths and avoid weaknesses. ”