Zhao Hongrun originally planned to be lazy in the palace for a while after he was completely free this time, but the house was busy preparing for marriage, and the people close to him also left Daliang one after another for various reasons, which led to Zhao Hongrun's boredom of having nothing to do after being idle.

So, after thinking about it, Zhao Hongrun finally decided to take Qi'er, Wei Jiao and his staff Jie Ziyu to the General Administration of the Smelting Bureau in the city to see if the Smelting Bureau had come up with anything new.

As in the last episode, when I learned that Zhao Hongrun, the king of Su, had come to the General Administration of the Smelting Bureau, the officials in the office gathered around me intentionally or unintentionally to express their loyalty to Zhao Hongrun, the king of Su.

While making Zhao Hongrun smile bitterly, it also made Jie Ziyu thoughtful.

Fortunately, Wang Fu, director of the General Administration of the Metallurgical Manufacturing Bureau, appeared in time to resolve the embarrassment of Zhao Hongrun and his party being surrounded by officials of the Metallurgical Manufacturing Bureau.

"Your Highness."

After a few words of greetings, Wang Fu, director of the General Administration of Metallurgy, asked Zhao Hongrun about his intentions.

After all, according to Wang Fu's understanding, His Royal Highness should have been busy preparing for marriage in the palace recently, how could he have the leisure to come to the Smelting Bureau?

In the face of Wang Fu's inquiry, Zhao Hongrun naturally couldn't say that it was because he was too idle to stay in the house, so he lied and said: "This king came here to inspect this time, Wang Fu, take this king to visit, right?" ”

The reason why it is said to be a "visit" is very simple: the former smelting bureau had a small family business, and Zhao Hongrun stayed in Daliang at that time, so Zhao Hongrun also knew more or less about the general development of the smelting bureau; But gradually, the foundation of the Smelting Bureau is getting bigger and bigger, and even Wang Fu, who is in charge of the overall planning, does not know every project of the Smelting Bureau, let alone Zhao Hongrun.

Wang Fu suddenly realized when he heard this, and immediately ordered someone to prepare a carriage, ready to personally lead Zhao Hongrun and his party to visit.

When the group drove out of the city in the carriage of the Smelting Bureau, Jie Ziyu asked with some puzzlement: "Why did you go out of the city?" ”

At this time, Wang Fu, the director of the Smelting and Manufacturing Bureau, had already learned that Jie Zi Ou was a staff member and confidant of Zhao Hongrun, the king of Su, so he respectfully explained: "Mr. Jie Zi does not know that the General Administration of Metallurgy in the city is now only a decoration, except for the civilian officials to design and improve some weapons drawings in the residence, there are only some warehouses for relevant documents. …… The real premises of our Smelting Bureau, including some workshops, are all outside the city. ”

Hearing this, Jie Ziyu suddenly realized.

Under the escort of more than a dozen guards from the General Administration of the Metallurgical Bureau, the group came to the outskirts southwest of Daliang.

After riding in the carriage for nearly an hour, the carriage slowly stopped, and then the voice of the smelting and manufacturing department guard driving the carriage came: "His Royal Highness King Su, there are still a few adults, here." ”

Out of curiosity, Jie Zilu lifted the curtain of the carriage and looked outward, and after only one glance, his face showed a look of horror.

It turned out that the carriage was parked at this time in front of a city.

At this time, Zhao Hongrun, Qi'er, and Wei Jiao had already gotten out of the carriage and looked up at the city in front of them.

"Wow, tsk......t-tsk"

Looking at the city in front of him, Zhao Hongrun sighed.

I remember that at the beginning, when the Metallurgical Bureau was preparing to move out of Daliang, Wang Fu had reported to Zhao Hongrun, and Zhao Hongrun didn't think too much about it at that time, but he never thought that after having the fast-setting building material of cement, the Metallurgical Bureau would actually build a new small city in the southwest suburbs of Daliang City.

Of course, Zhao Hongrun has no objection to this, after all, as the technical field of the Smelting Bureau becomes more and more developed, some things do need to be well protected to prevent outflow as much as possible. After all, if some of the things of the Smelting Bureau were left outside, in case they were obtained by the spies of Han and Chu, it was very likely that Han and Chu would draw gourds in the same way and create a batch of war weapons to deal with Wei.

"Welcome to my General Administration of Metallurgy!"

Facing away from the direction of the gate of the city, Wang Fu bowed his hand as if offering a treasure, and said solemnly.

At this time, Jie Ziyu had also stepped out of the carriage, and looked up at the city wall in front of him with a wall of more than 20 zhang in amazement, only to see that above the city gate hole, the words "General Administration of Metallurgy" were clearly engraved.

"Hey, hey, it's too ......."

Jie Zilu looked to the left and right, and was shocked to find that the end of the city wall could not be seen on the left and right sides, which shocked his heart: how big is this city!

"This ...... The whole city belongs to the General Administration of Metallurgy? Jie Ziyu asked in surprise.

Hearing this, Wang Fu explained with a smile: "It's just half of the city, and the other half of the city belongs to the military casting." …… If you enter the city from the west gate or the south gate, you can see the words "Soldier Casting Bureau" engraved on the top of the city gate. ”

Jie Ziyu's cheek twitched slightly: Who doesn't know that the Arsenal Bureau is now under the jurisdiction of the Smelting Bureau.

According to Wang Fu's introduction, this place is more than 30 miles in circumference, and in this hilly and plain terrain, it belongs to the site specially allocated by the imperial court to the Smelting Bureau, and it is still more than ten miles away from the west to "Zhongmu County".

It is enough to see that the status of the Smelting Bureau in the imperial court is now.

And just when Wang Fu was roughly introduced, he saw Zongwei Changwei arrogantly raised his head and took a few closer glances at the city wall, and suddenly shouted: "Huh! Good guys......"

What did he see?

He saw the whole row of repeating crossbows on the battlements of the city wall, the distance between the two repeating crossbows was about three zhang apart, and he couldn't put his head at a glance, just in the section of the city wall within Wei Jiao's line of sight, it was conservatively estimated that there were dozens of them.

"Your Highness has ordered me to have the strength to deal with sudden changes." Wang Fu glanced at Su Wang Zhao Hongrun and explained in a low voice.

Everyone nodded, thinking that they understood the truth.

After a while, Wang Fu came to the city, called the guards guarding the city to open the city gate, and then ordered the guards to take out a few horses from the city for Zhao Hongrun and others to travel.

While leading Zhao Hongrun and others into the city, Wang Fu pointed to the dry land outside the city and said: "When there is free time in the future, my smelting bureau plans to dig another moat outside the city and introduce the water of the big river from Bolangsha. ”

Zhao Hongrun nodded, he didn't object, he just asked Wang Fu: "Where did these soldiers come from?" ”

"Most of them are veterans who have retired from the Junshui Army, the Chenggao Army, the Dangshan Army, the Fencheng Army and other armies.

"You have provided the veterans with a position to settle in, and of course those generals are enthusiastic."

Zhao Hongrun smiled slightly.

He still trusted the soldiers of the six battalions of the garrison such as the Junshui Army, the Chenggao Army, the Dangshan Army, and the Fencheng Army, but he still told Wang Fu to check the details of each guard to prevent anyone from impersonating.

The group rode slowly into the city, following the streets of the city and into the depths of the city.

Along the way, Jie Ziyu looked curiously at both sides of the street, only to see that along the way, he saw a lot of brick furnaces more than ten zhang high, a strong, dark-skinned craftsman, ** wearing his upper body in the workshop forging operations, and a civilian official next to him with a pen to record.

"This area is all "low furnace workshops", which are mainly responsible for making fired iron embryos into finished weapons, which are used to test the texture of these iron embryos......" As he spoke, Wang Fu's mouth burst out a series of terms, and he could hear the meson in a fog.

Jie Zilu asked curiously: "Since there is a low furnace workshop, then there is also a blast furnace workshop?" ”

Wang Fu didn't answer, but raised his hand and pointed in one direction.

Jie Ziyu turned his head to look in the direction pointed by Wang Fu, and was shocked to see more than a dozen huge chimneys dozens of feet high standing in the distance.

"That's the blast furnace workshop, which is mainly responsible for calcining ore and firing it into iron embryos." Speaking of this, Wang Fu turned his head to look at Zhao Hongrun, and said: "These blast furnaces were built in the past year, and those hearths a few years ago are now specially used to burn bricks and forge molds......

Zhao Hongrun nodded, after all, he also understood that after bricks replaced the stone bricks, the demand for bricks in Wei has been high, after all, it is much faster to build a city with bricks and cement than to build a city with stone bricks.

While introducing the regional distribution in the General Administration of Metallurgy, Wang Fu took Zhao Hongrun and his party to the residence of the Smelting Bureau in the city.

Because he was warned by Zhao Hongrun back then, Wang Fu did not dare to be extravagant and wasteful in the construction of this mansion, and it was just an ordinary official residence, which made Zhao Hongrun feel very satisfied.

Under the guidance of Wang Fu, Zhao Hongrun and his entourage got off their mounts and walked into the official residence.

During this period, it is inevitable that there are some officials of the Metallurgical Bureau who rarely see Zhao Hongrun, His Royal Highness King Su on weekdays, and they rushed forward to express their loyalty, after all, although these officials are now working here, there are some rumors, but they have already heard of them, for example, His Royal Highness King Su intends to compete for the throne or something.

After appeasing and encouraging these officials, Zhao Hongrun was able to get out and came to Wang Fu's director's room in this mansion.

"Come on, serve tea."

After instructing the servants in the class room to bring tea, Wang Fu called several officials and asked the latter to take all the drawings of the equipment improved by the Metallurgical Bureau in the past year and put them on the desk in front of Zhao Hongrun.

There's a stack of them.

Ordering Qi'er, Wei Jiao, and Jie Ziyu to act cheaply, Zhao Hongrun sat in Wang Fu's director's room, reading these drawings one by one.

These drawings are very miscellaneous and have everything, such as the "wheelbarrow" that is biased towards civilian use, and the craftsmen of the Metallurgical Bureau have made slight improvements on the original wheelbarrow to make this versatile manual cart more stable and easy to use.

For example, "overturned", "plow", "waterwheel", etc., the craftsmen of the Metallurgical Bureau have all improved.

On the military side, the Bureau of Metallurgy has also improved the "repeating crossbow", "sniper crossbow", "catapult" and other weapons of war.

Suddenly, Zhao Hongrun flipped to a drawing, which made his expression slightly stunned.

"Torsion springs? It's not what I painted...... Huh? No, this is ......

took out the drawing and took a closer look, and Zhao Hongrun realized that this drawing was not the one he drew back then.

Because the torsion spring he designed back then, because the smelting bureau couldn't get the "steel wire", not even the "iron wire", so it could only be put in the warehouse to eat ash, but in this drawing, someone used horsehair, animal horns, animal tendons and other elastic materials to design a "torsion spring" component - although it looks very ugly on the outside, but the principle is consistent.

"'That thing' was made?"

Zhao Hongrun asked Wang Fu in surprise.

"Yes, Your Highness." Wang Fu arched his hand and said with a smile: "It has been successfully developed, but because of the outbreak of war last year, there is no time to test it." ”

Hearing this, Zhao Hongrun immediately became interested.

"Quick! Command to go down, and the king himself will test it. ”

"Yes!"