About 60 miles northeast of Daliang, there is a county town called "Xiaohuang", where the soil is fertile and there is a lot of farmland, which is an important planting place to supply corn to Daliang Market. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

At the same time, there is also a "test field" of the Mo family, and the corresponding "rice workshop" and "grinding workshop".

That large experimental field, including the surrounding vacant land, was rented to the Smelting Bureau at a very low price by the wealthy family "Wushi" in Xiaohuang County, for the simple reason that "Xiaohuang Wushi" was the maiden family of Wuguifei.

Due to the care of Shen Shufei and Zhao Hongrun's mother and son, when she heard that the Smelting Bureau was going to set aside a piece of land for experiments, Wu Guifei wrote to inform her mother's family and asked "Xiao Huang Wushi" to rent a lot of land to the Smelting Bureau at a very low rent.

Of course, afterwards, Zhao Hongrun also reciprocated the favor and let the "Little Huang Wu Clan" join the Su Chamber of Commerce, and now, Wu Guifei's brothers and nephews are all working hard to make money in Sanchuan Ruocheng or Qi County Border City, so that only some old people stay in Xiao Huang, such as Wu Guifei's father, Zhao Hongzhao's maternal grandfather Wu Yuan.

At the end of March, when Zhao Hongrun came to Xiaohuang's experimental field, Wu Yuan was walking in the field with two servants on crutches to inspect the field.

Seeing Wu Yuan from afar, Zhao Hongrun turned over, walked in front of the former and bowed, respectfully and respectfully called "Shigong".

"His Royal Highness King Su." Wu Yuan also returned the salute.

In this regard, Zhao Hongrun could only smile bitterly, after all, he asked Wu Yuan to call him "Hongrun" more than once, but Wu Yuan always said that the ceremony should not be abolished.

After some greetings, Wu Yuan asked with a blank eye: "His Royal Highness King Su, the old grandson, have you ever written a letter?" ”

Wu Yuan's grandson is Zhao Hongrun's sixth brother and Zhao Hongzhao, who now holds the authority of the left minister in the Qi State.

But in this regard, where does Zhao Hongrun know, after all, he and Zhao Hongzhao are not communicating with each other every month, because of the relationship, it is already very remarkable to receive one or two letters from Zhao Hongzhao throughout the year.

Seeing Zhao Hongrun's embarrassed face, Wu Yuan sighed gloomily.

Zhao Hongrun knew that Wu Yuan loved Zhao Hongzhao's grandson very much, more than his own grandson, who made Zhao Hongzhao smart and pleasing when he was a child.

In this regard, Zhao Hongrun can only be appeased with good words.

"His Royal Highness King Su, it is said that the civil strife in the Qi Kingdom has not subsided?" Wu Yuan asked with a wink.

To be honest, Zhao Hongrun really didn't pay much attention to the civil strife in Qi during this time, but looking at the worried look on Wu Yuan's face, he swore and said, "It should be soon." …… Shigong doesn't have to worry too much, in terms of status, the six princes are the son-in-law of Lu Xi, the dignified left minister, in terms of intelligence, the six princes are even above the kid, plus the six royal brothers and the will of Lu Xi, the prince of Qi, the civil strife of the princes is not enough to worry about. …… On the contrary, it is Shigong, you have to take care of your body, you are now the status of the 'Great Ancestor'. ”

As soon as he heard this, the old man immediately smiled, too, for this old man who has always loved his grandson Zhao Hongzhao, what makes him happier than his grandson getting married and having children.

Unfortunately, so far, the old man has not seen that great-great-grandson with his own eyes.

Wu Yuan told Zhao Hongrun that after the civil strife in Qi subsided, he would take a boat to Qi to visit his grandson, granddaughter-in-law and great-great-grandson.

After chatting about personal matters, it was time to talk about business, Zhao Hongrun told Wu Yuan that he had come to inspect the two workshop machinery of "hydraulic rice" and "hydraulic grinding" developed by the Smelting Bureau, and invited Wu Yuan to go with him.

Wu Yuan was gladly invited, after all, he was also quite curious about some of the hydraulic machinery of the Smelting Bureau.

In fact, to be precise, these civil machinery were not developed by the Smelting Bureau, but by the original Song Dynasty craftsmen of Song Mojuzi Xu Weak in the Smelting Bureau - it may have been influenced by Zhao Hongrun, and the Smelting Bureau was particularly concerned about the research and development of war weapons, the improvement of armaments, and the construction of giant building ships. However, the arrival of Song Mojuzi and Xu Qiao's group of people made up for the shortcomings of the Smelting Bureau in this regard.

After all, the way of the Mo family of Lu State, in fact, the first thing to pay attention to is civilian equipment, and armament is only secondary, but because the war weapons made by Lu craftsmen are too powerful, so that they overshadow the limelight of civilian machinery, people mistakenly think that the real strength of Lu lies in armament manufacturing.

In fact, this is the wrong view.

I remember that at the beginning, Zhao Hongrun was invited by the monarch of Lu to go to Lu after the end of the "Four Kingdoms Expedition to Chu", and he noticed at that time that Lu was very popular for the use of water and wind power, and the people of Lu almost all used those machinery to scoop rice and grind in specific workshops, while Wei still used manpower, and the difference between the two was more than a star and a half.

Therefore, after returning to China, Zhao Hongrun handed over the matter of civil machinery to Song Mojuzi Xu Qiao's group of people, and asked them to cooperate with the Ministry of Industry to improve the private production of Wei.

Like waterwheels, canals, and fields for irrigation, water-powered rice, and water-powered grinding, these are all improved and manufactured by Xu Qiao's Mo family disciples.

After coming to the rice workshop, Zhao Hongrun inspected the water-powered rice machine.

In fact, to be honest, these crude benzene machinery, in his opinion, is not very advanced, nothing more than the hydraulic rotation of large gear sets, gear sets and drive the shaft, so that the rods fixed on the shaft rods hammer the stone mortar underneath one by one.

But it is undeniable that this greatly reduces the labor, after all, only those who have tried it can deeply understand how tiring it is to shed the shell of the rice, even if it is two strong young men, it will not last long.

In this workshop, water power replaces manpower, and people only need to stand next to the stone mortar and turn over the corn with their hands from time to time, I don't know how much easier.

The hydraulic grinding machinery is similar, only one person needs to pour the husked grain into the small hole above the stone mill, and the hydraulic power will drive the stone mill to rotate in a circle to grind out fine rice flour or flour.

And when these machines stop, it is very simple, as long as a piece of gear about a foot or so is removed from the shaft rod connected to the waterwheel, and a whole row of machinery in the entire workshop will stop.

"Good!"

Zhao Hongrun did not hesitate to praise Xu Qiao and other Mo disciples who accompanied him.

Although in his opinion, these hydraulic machines are still quite cumbersome, but considering the overall technology of this era, it is undeniable that this hydraulic machinery is already a very remarkable invention, which will greatly speed up the speed of rice and grinding, and reduce labor.

"Write a detailed record and send it to the Ministry of Industry, which will report it to the imperial court."

Zhao Hongrun instructed Xu Wan and the others.

In the following days, Zhao Hongrun and his entourage stayed in Xiao Huang Wu's mansion, because in addition to those hydraulic machinery, he also had to inspect the irrigation and sowing of the experimental field, and if the test results were good, the Ministry of Industry would vigorously promote them to all parts of the country.

At the beginning of April, before the examination, Zhao Hongrun and the Zongwei rushed back to Daliang in a hurry to preside over the main examination.

The date of the official examination is set on the third day of the fourth month, and this date is selected by the Ministry of Rites, which probably means something like "good luck on this day", after all, the Ministry of Rites is the imperial government that is most affected by things that are "superstition-like" to some extent.

On the third day of the fourth lunar month, Wen Qi, a guest of Suwang's Mansion, quietly slipped out of the gate of the mansion before dawn and went to the Confucius Temple.

When Wen Qi came to the door of the Confucius Temple, he saw the friend he had met a few days ago, Jie Zi Yuan.

What surprised Wen Qi was that Jie Ziyu was alone today, and his brother-in-law Wen Shaobo didn't seem to come with him.

Probably guessing the wonder in Wen Qi's heart, Jie Ziyu said with a smile: "I pulled him up to drink in the middle of the night last night and poured him down, if I expected it to be true, he would probably still be asleep in the mansion." …… What about Brother Zhao? ”

Wen Qi then told him about sneaking out of the mansion early, and Jie Ziyu smiled knowingly when he heard it.

Of course, he deliberately skipped the fact that "that master's mansion is the Su Wang's Mansion".

Today's official examination, the procedure is not much different from the preliminary examination in March, which is also named by the officials of the Ministry of Rites, and then the examiners enter according to the examination card.

As for the examination venue, it is divided into two parts, one part is in the "Hui" shaped room adjacent to the Confucius Temple, and the other part is still in the open space.

I don't know if it's luck or not, Wenqi's examination room was arranged in that open space.

"Is King Su really not worried about me cheating?"

After learning the location of his examination room, Wen Qi was speechless in surprise.

After all, he originally thought that Zhao Hongrun, the king of Su, would use the authority of the chief examiner to arrange him in the number room.

But after thinking about it, Wen Qi was relieved, after all, for a cheating master like him, it was easier to cheat in the room than in the open-air examination room, after all, there were still a few walls in the room.

But the open-air examination room is different, and I don't know how many invigilators are staring at it.

"However, this is not difficult for me to ......

With a laugh, Wen Qi found his seat, and then, he was dumbfounded, because he found that the seat he took the exam had not changed, and it was still the same as when he took the first exam last time.

That is to say, his front seat is Huayang Tang Fu, the back seat is Shangshui Jie Zi Yuan, and on the left is He Xinxian of Daliang.

『…… What are you doing?!'

Onsaki was simply angry.

He couldn't tell whether this was the laziness of the Ministry of Etiquette, or whether His Royal Highness King Su didn't pay any attention to his gambling contract, but in fact, the reason why the seats in the examination room had not changed was because Zhao Hongrun felt that it was not necessary.

Because the invigilator patrol who is responsible for patrolling this exam is the crows.

A bunch of candidates want to cheat under the noses of hundreds of green crows? Don't even think about it!

"It seems that the only way to start is from the test in the front left seat and the back left seat......

While casually chatting with Jie Ziyu, Wen Qi looked at the two examinees in front of the left and behind the left.

At the same time, in the Confucius Temple, Du You, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, opened a copy of today's exam questions and took a look, and the expression on his face was extremely strange.

"Is it really appropriate?" His Royal Highness King Su's question ......