Ye Mengxiong really didn't expect that Xu Jue, a human broker, would be able to bring him a sense of empowerment for the novelty of bicycles and the demand for workers.

As an important minister of the Beiyang Military Government of the Ming Empire, Ye Mengxiong has almost been out of touch with the world for a long time, and his world exists in the map and letters, which is the world across the ocean, but it is not the land on which he stands.

There are indeed too many workers, and there are as many as 60,000 craftsmen from all walks of life in the Gyeonggi area of Beiyang.

Under the huge base, there are less than 600 people who own horses and livestock, and even in the years since the opening of the horse market in Mongolia, there is no shortage of horses in China, especially north of the Yellow River.

Ye Mengxiong also read the "Ming Huidian" that Shen Shixing was rebuilding some time ago, which recorded in detail the trading volume of the horse market, and the annual official market transactions fluctuated between 2,000 and 27,000 horses, and the small and monthly markets of merchants bought more than 20,000 cattle, horses and mules every year.

Not to mention the Sichuan-Tibet line of the ancient tea horse road rebuilt by Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, millions of quintals of tea are sold every year, and there have been horses flowing into the country.

Cattle and horses, especially donkeys and mules, are common in traditional households, and smallholder economies do not have to spend large quantities of forage at all.

But for workers, raising donkeys or even horses can be too stressful.

Only the great craftsmen who have more than three taels of silver per month have that financial resources, but not everyone may have that heart.

Tired enough to be busy at work all day, and have to worry about taking care of a brute?

The workers needed a new means of transportation that could be slightly more expensive, but would cost less and be of good quality and easy to repair.

Writing down these characteristics on paper, Ye Mengxiong almost thought that Chen Mu's bicycle was created for workers.

Bicycles are not something that he, a Beiyang minister, should care about, even if it is the military role mentioned by Chen Mu in his letter, it is only the work of the research institute, in fact, this part has basically been done by the Beiyang researchers.

On the desk of Ye Mengxiong of the Beiyang Yamen, there is a report on the use of the existing iron horse, which is very detailed.

The article clearly tells Ye Mengxiong that in order to complete the large-scale and low-cost production of this tool, he needs to overcome several difficulties in mechanical and material disciplines in the future, and bring the advantages of steam engines, conveyor belts and mechanical processing after overcoming.

At the same time, Ma Fang, a veteran general who is more professional in military affairs and has cultivated in the Beiyang Medical Academy, gave the parameters of the performance of the 'iron horse' that he needed to replace the war horse: the main use is scouting, rapid marching of infantry on flat terrain, and transportation of baggage.

To achieve a weight of less than 60 catties, a load of 220 catties, four hours of marching 80 miles, 15 consecutive days of riding without damage to the parts, 30 days of damaged parts can be carried on the car for timely repair, the car and the car can be connected together when stopped, and the cost is limited to ten taels.

Compared with those junior scholars who came out of the North and South Lecture Hall and did not mix with the military officer position and entered Beiyang, Ma Fang is too professional.

Ye Mengxiong could even be sure that when Ma Fang first saw the cavalry in the garden of the Medical Academy swaying around on an unshaped horseback, his old man had already set a variety of uses for this thing in his heart.

In Ma Fang's vision, the Iron Horse was a chariot controlled by infantry wearing cuirasses and helmets.

The beam of the car should be able to fix a bird gun or two handcuffs with spurs, and the empty place of the frame should have a matching canvas bag to hold trivial items such as water bladders, wine bags, cartridges, palm mines, maps, etc., and the front of the handlebar can be fixed with a cloth and purple flower quilt, and the saddle bag at the rear of the car can be used to meet the needs of the infantry.

Depending on the target, it can be mixed into three into a two-man iron horse with reduced baggage, and two into a single-rider iron horse with rockets, which can not only fearlessly meet the enemy's pursuit, but also dismount to defend in formation.

Even after his old age, General Ma still remembered the outside of the fortress, and bluntly stated his intention in the report: the troops equipped with iron horses could drive 400 miles for 10 days and return to the Great Wall without the need for a baggage team.

The figure of four hundred li was sometimes meaningless, but Ye Mengxiong understood what Ma Fang meant—this was the distance from Datong Town to Guihua City, and it also covered the three hundred li of Bansheng on the border of Ming and Mongolia and the most prosperous pasture settlements of various tribes.

This report can rekindle the enthusiasm in the hearts of the middle-aged and elderly people who grew up in the troubles of the North Captivity.

Ye Mengxiong, who was sitting quietly in the yamen, put down his pipe and closed his eyes and imagined such a scene: several fully formed Ming infantry without any support from heavy troops, straddled the iron horse and traveled eighty miles a day or even faster, smashing all the nests like a strong wind.

During the day they formed iron horses, and even the cavalrymen with sabers could not break through the line they had set up with their spurs; At night, they used rockets to set fire to one felt tent after another, turning everything on their way into flames.

Except for the only city on the steppe, the Naturalized City, they didn't even need to use artillery, and in just a few days and nights, the empire could get the most significant victory against the steppe since becoming an ancestor.

"Heh, hehe."

In the yamen where there was no one around, Ye Mengxiong laughed expressionlessly, and the daydream was over.

It's a beautiful idea, but the current iron horse can only carry one person, and the flag army that is trying to ride does not even dare to wear a cuirass, not to mention that it is not bad to ride eighty miles in four hours, and it will not be bad for fifteen days, and it is already a major breakthrough brought about by the wisdom of the master craftsmen of the military government.

At present, there is only one point that can meet Ma Fang's requirements, and the total weight of the iron horse is now 55 catties, which is considered to meet the standard of Ma Fang's 'less than 60 catties', and the others ...... No way.

Although he was in charge of the Sanyang Military Government, the Beiyang Yamen was really poor in the means of generating income.

Across the vast ocean, the letter of the West can only be reported back through the South Seas, and even if Chen Mu of the East farts, he will not smell it until half a year later, and the Sanyang Military Government will also withhold a part of the income to supply the expenses of the government.

The goods transported to Tianjin Port either entered the Forbidden City or entered the household warehouse, and there were very few money that could really fall into Beiyang's pocket.

Even if he learns from Chen Mu to sell ordnance with his industrial ability, the country is guarding the feet of the Son of Heaven, all of them are at official prices, and they can't make a few dollars, let alone export, and the neighbor on the left is still a little possible in North Korea on the other side of the Bohai Sea.

However, the silly boy of the Li family, the king of Joseon, did not want to be in the military, and he was already poor, and he was even more reluctant to spend money on it, so Ye Mengxiong went up to the pole to talk to them about the 'new arquebus' businessmen, and the businessmen did not want it, but wanted to buy 3,000 bows from him.

Not to mention how angry Ye Mengxiong is: you searched all over the Beiyang and found a bow-making craftsman for Ye someone!

Seriously, Ye Mengxiong felt that his income from the Beiyang Yamen was probably less than the emperor's income.

Even if the income is small, but he still spends a lot!

Beiyang has two four-legged gold-swallowing beasts in the guard system every moment, more than 10,000 war horses in nine horse farms, and the scientific research funds left behind are not much, and they have to be broken into three halves, the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences of Beiyang, as well as the research institute of the Ordnance Bureau.

The steam engine, the flying fish, and the Huode Xingjun who was installed with the Fran machine by Wanli Ye, which cannot be studied, and there are very few that can be left to the iron horse.

But soon Ye Mengxiong picked up the charcoal pen and wrote the paper.

Xu Jue opened a window for him, others will indeed resist this kind of iron horse driven by their own forces, but the workers who rely on their skills to support themselves will not, this is exactly what they need.

"For the time being, it cannot meet military needs, and it can be used for civilian use to support the military."

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