The bitter cold has finally passed, and spring has arrived. The mountain flowers on Fangcheng Mountain are in full bloom, a piece of splendor, and the peach and willow green on both sides of the road are particularly beautiful.

Tao Seventeen rode on a horse, and his spirit was flying. Yang Dalang beside him was also full of joy, looking at the surrounding scenery.

An iron-smelting expert from Xiangzhou investigated in Fangcheng Mountain for a few days and confirmed that Yang Dalang found a rare large mine, and the ore grade was high, and it was very rare to have a good smelting torch. Tao 17 found several large coal mines around Yexian, mined some coal from each, sorted them into categories, and brought them back.

With the end of spring ploughing, Du Zhongxiao was not as busy as a few days ago, and his mind slowly turned to industry and commerce. If you are just satisfied with cultivating the fields to grow food, Du Zhongxiao doesn't have to spend so much effort and slowly trim the farmland. However, in Du Zhongxiao's eyes, it is not enough to just eat enough, but also to let the people under his rule have money in their hands, and things are not so easy.

With more and more cars and boats on the Bianhe River, the slender man is still gradually reducing and moving to Jingxi Road. The three prefectures of Tang, Ru, and Cai will be saturated with the population before the end of the year, and in the next year, Yingtian will be transferred to Dengzhou and Xiangzhou as the center. The geographical and climatic conditions there are even better than those in this area of Tangzhou. The experience of farming here in Tangzhou is very important for the subsequent reclamation.

In a field next to Yingtianwu, Du Zhongxiao and Su Song carefully inspected the seedlings in the field.

Looking at the green shoots emerging from the ground, Su Song said: "This is grass cotton? I heard that Kapok is produced in Minyue and grass cotton in the Western Regions, and the cloth woven is soft and incomparable, and it is better than silk, and the price is better than gold and silver, but I didn't expect it to be like this. However, I grew up on Fujian Road, but I have never seen kapok. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "Scarcity is expensive, where cotton is really grown, cotton cloth is actually not expensive, how can it be compared to silk." I haven't seen what Minyue kapok looks like, I can't tell. These seeds were brought back from the Western Regions by someone when I was on Hedong Road. However, the ground there is too cold to grow, so try again here. I also brought back a few cheesecloth from the Western Regions, but it was actually very coarse. In the Western Regions, this kind of cotton cloth is used as money, and it is used in all countries. ”

If you have the knowledge of the future, you will know the preciousness of cotton. At this time, the place where cotton is produced in the world, one is the southeast Fujian and Yue area, which comes from the sea road, the plant is tall, suitable for tropical climate, grows for many years, similar to woody, called kapok. The other place is the Western Regions, which comes along the land route, and only produces one year after planting, similar to grass, so it is called grass cotton.

Obviously, grass cotton is the cotton that was widely planted in later generations, and when Du Zhongxiao was in the Volcano Army, he specially asked the Western Regions caravan to bring back the seeds. However, the Volcano Army was too far north, and the planting did not go well, and the growth was not good, so it was not promoted. In my impression, the Western Regions should be a place in the far north, and the weather is very cold, but it is not. Most of the countries in the Western Regions are much warmer than those around the Volcano Army, but they are just arid. Especially in summer, the climate in the Western Regions is hot, far from being comparable to the Volcano Army, which is conducive to cotton production.

Du Zhongxiao remembered that the earliest main cotton producing area in history was Jiangsu and Zhejiang, where the climate was similar to that of Xiangdeng and Xiangdeng Prefectures, so it should also be conducive to the growth of cotton. In fact, it is true that the Nanyang and Xiangyang basins are important cotton producing areas in China, and the climate and soil conditions here are very conducive to cotton growth. Tang and Deng prefectures are located in the transition zone of the north-south climate, where both southern and northern crops can be planted, and the south-to-south and south-to-north crops can be planted in this area, so that crops can adapt to different climatic conditions.

Du Zhongxiao opened a piece of land, planted cotton, and now it is beginning to sprout.

The growth cycle of cotton is similar to that of rice, and can be rotated with winter wheat to achieve double cropping in one year. Moreover, cotton is grown in dry land, which is particularly important for those lands where water conservancy facilities are insufficient and rice cannot be grown.

When Du Zhongxiao and Su Song were inspecting the cotton seedlings in the field, a public official hurriedly came over and said, "Official, Tao Seventeen and Yang Dalang have returned from prospecting in Fangcheng Mountain and are waiting in the yamen. ”

Du Zhongxiao said to Su Song: "Let's go, let's take a look." If there is an iron mine in Fangcheng Mountain, we can ask for some money from the imperial court to open mines and smelt in that area. There is no shortage of food in the fields, but there is a lack of money, and everything cannot be done. If the court allocates money, many things will be easier to do. ”

Su Song is not really interested in starting a business, he prefers to study technical problems. Du Zhongxiao has a lot of whimsical ideas, but obviously he has little patience for intensive technology, and only thinks about making money in the industry. I can't make money, and a lot of things are tossed around for a while and thrown aside.

A few days ago, Du Zhongxiao experimented with wet copper smelting, confirmed that it was feasible, and gave a book to the imperial court, requiring it to be implemented in the mine-producing areas. Now that there was no response from the imperial court, Du Zhongxiao threw it aside, and his interest turned to other directions.

Back at the Yamen, Tao Seventeen and more people were already waiting there, saluting Du Zhongxiao and Su Song.

After asking a few people about the general situation of this line, Tao Seventeen said: "Official, Xiangzhou invited a few prospecting experts to check the iron ore found by Yang Dalang, and confirmed that it is a big mine, no less than the largest mine in Xiangzhou. Not only that, but they also investigated the vicinity again, and found several ore seedlings, all of which were conducive to mining, and it was very suitable for Xingye there. ”

After speaking, Tao Qiqi asked Luo Feng to take out a map, which was the iron ore distribution map in the area he had drawn, and pointed it out to Du Zhongxiao.

Du Zhongxiao looked at the map, only to see that several marked mining points are all located in the mountains, and it is the junction of Wuyang, Xiping, Yexian and Fangcheng, sparsely populated, no wonder there has not been anyone smelting iron for many years. There are bad things about this kind of place, it's too desolate, and everything has to be started from scratch. There are also good places, there is no population, and there are no constraints to open mines.

After introducing the distribution of iron ore, Tao Qiqi asked Luo Feng to take out another picture and said, "Official, we have also checked the nearby coal mines these days, and they are all drawn on this map. Thirty or fifty miles away from the iron mine, the coal mine is widely distributed, which is very convenient. There are a wide variety of coal in the coal mines, and there are all kinds of coal. According to the officer's orders, we took some of all kinds and brought them back and put them in the car outside. ”

Du Zhongxiao nodded: "Okay, you let people unload to the nearby brick kiln, remember to mark it clearly, don't mix it." ”

After the spring ploughing was over, Du Zhongxiao ordered people to build a brick kiln nearby to burn bricks and tiles. Not only can brick houses be built faster than earth buildings, but they are also in better condition. Everything is emerging, bricks and tiles are actually a very profitable industry.

To make iron from coal, of course, it is better to burn it into coke. Coke not only removes some of the undesirable components, but is also hard enough to serve as the backbone of the charge. What's more, the coke burns at a higher temperature, which has a crucial impact on the quality of iron smelting. If the temperature is not enough, either it can only be smelted raw iron, or it is a sponge-like block of iron, which is not of high value.

There are more places in the world where there are iron mines, although most of them are small mines, which do not delay iron production, but the cost and high quality are poor. In this era of inconvenient transportation, if the quality of iron is not improved, it is impossible to compete with these small mines. If you want to make iron ore bigger, you must produce steel, and it is good steel with high quality and low price. Otherwise, without the support of a large number of purchases by the imperial court like Xiangzhou, it is not easy to become bigger.

There is not much coal that can be burned into coke, and there must be one in Ruzhou, so it must be tried out in the same way. What kind of coal can be coking, Du Zhongxiao doesn't know, but vaguely remembers, it is not anthracite kind of good coal.