On the day of the bidding, some merchants rushed to the barracks early in the morning.

Although 3,000 pieces of military uniforms and leather boots are considered a big deal, they are not uncommon in the late Ming Dynasty, when commerce was developed, especially in the wealthy Jiangnan region.

However, this military business, as long as it is on the line, the war kills and recruits new soldiers continue to go back and forth, and there will definitely be a steady stream of orders in the future. These businessmen are particularly concerned.

When the sky was bright, Su Chengyu asked people to set up tables and chairs at the entrance of the barracks and start public bidding.

The largest number of bidders for military uniforms were five.

Their bids were packed in wooden boxes and lined up in front of Su Chengyu. Soon the results came out, Ganzhou Mansion Zhen won the bid, 3,000 sets of military uniforms, including military caps, and the same number of socks, a total of 2,000 taels of silver.

Su Chengyu immediately read out the results, and then signed a contract with the steward of the Zhen family.

The style of the military uniform has long been known to the merchants, in fact, it is Su Chengyu's copycat of the German military uniform of later generations, the color is changed to army green, and three layers of thick cotton cloth. However, due to the cost, the buckle can only be made of wood. As for the military hat, the main body still adopts the traditional wide-brimmed hat of the Ming army, but the tasseled tufts at the top are canceled, the hard brim is added and changed to dark green.

Thanks to the development of the capitalist economy and the developed overseas trade at the end of the Ming Dynasty, these merchants often received orders from abroad, and they were familiar with customizing all kinds of "fancy clothes", and the price was not so high. However, because Su Chengyu gave the delivery deadline for the first batch of 1,000 sets of military uniforms too short, the price was slightly more expensive, otherwise 1800 taels could be bought.

This was followed by a bid for leather boots, and the winner of the four contenders was Xue Kee Leather Goods.

Three thousand pairs of leather boots totaled 5,500 taels, of course, the main reason for the higher price was that the first 1,000 pairs were too urgent. In addition, the design of tying shoelaces also makes merchants scratch their heads, resulting in higher costs.

The boots refer to the appearance of the 02-style military boots of the people's army in later generations, with a leather-covered cow tendon bottom and double-layer stitching. Of course, due to the limited level of craftsmanship, especially polishing, it is difficult to be completely similar to the zero two style, but the overall style is definitely much more magnificent than the leather boots of the Ming Dynasty.

There were only two bidders for the wooden guns used for training, and in the end, the bid was still won by Zhen from Ganzhou Prefecture. This thing is not expensive, poplar wood is processed into the shape of a bird's gun, and then with an iron thorn made of thick iron, 3,000 pieces only cost 400 taels.

Su Chengyu thought that the entire bidding process would end smoothly like this, but there was an accident when bidding for the officer's saber in the end.

There are two that stand out.

The price quoted by Longnan merchant He Ji is 450 taels for 200 steel-making knives, and the price quoted by Zhen's family in Ganzhou is 1,000 taels for 200 steel-refining knives.

"I have the lowest offer, and this deal should be done by me He Ji!" He Ji shopkeeper said as a matter of course.

The housekeeper of the Zhen family was an old man, and when he stood up, he coughed a few times before he said slowly: "Shopkeeper He's words are wrong. This lord," he looked at Su Chengyu, but he didn't know his identity, he just regarded him as an officer, "He has already said that the one with high quality and low price will win the bid." The price is low, but the quality is lower. ”

"Even if you use better materials, the price is too high." Shopkeeper He immediately-for-tat.

"Is it high?" The steward of the Zhen family is still light and light, "For every ten catties of steel, you can get more than four catties of steel, and you can get less than two catties of one hundred catties." My knives are all made of the essence of steel extracted repeatedly, five taels, not high at all. ”

Su Chengyu couldn't help but smile when he heard this, what "essence of steel"? Isn't it because there are too many times of forging, which causes a large amount of surface iron to oxidize and fall off, which leads to ten catties that can only be refined into two catties. The main reason is that the steelmaking process is too simple.

When he was in the research institute, he often had to deal with various steel materials, and he was still familiar with the knowledge of steelmaking. The so-called steelmaking is actually two points: first, remove sulfur, phosphorus and other impurities in the iron. 2. Mix carbon of different concentrations in iron. If you add more carbon, you will be hard and brittle, and if you add less, you will be soft and malleable low-carbon steel.

However, due to the technical limitations of the ancients, it was not possible to completely liquefy the iron, and at most it could be burned into a half-melted "iron paste", like a piece of red-hot dough. Therefore, they can only burn pig iron with high carbon content and wrought iron with low carbon content into an iron paste, and then beat it repeatedly to mix the two evenly, so as to get the carbon content they want. In addition, the beating process will also bring the iron paste into contact with air, so that the sulfur, phosphorus and other impurities contained in it will be oxidized.

Therefore, the more times of hammering, the greater the chance of impurities being oxidized, and at the same time, the carbon can be more evenly distributed in the whole piece of steel, which is why the ancients admired "hundred refinements". However, the shortcomings such as low output and large oxidation loss are unavoidable, so the name of 100 steelmaking sounds popular, but it is actually just a very backward steelmaking process.

It was not until the 18th century, when humans were able to create a high temperature of 1,600 degrees Celsius and completely liquefy iron, that they were completely solved.

The housekeeper of the Zhen family on the side continued: "Speaking of which, I still have a thousand steel knives here, and I need twelve taels and one handles, so what does the shopkeeper mean, isn't it more expensive?" He smiled and shook his head, "But my Zhen family's thousands of steel knives have always been in short supply, and next year's goods have been ordered, just because they are worth the money." ”

After speaking, he looked at Su Chengyu calmly.

And He Ji's shopkeeper opened his mouth, but he didn't expect to refute it.

What they didn't expect was that at this moment, Su Chengyu only had the sentence in the Zhen family's steward just now, "A thousand steel knives need more than twelve taels and one handles."

A high-carbon steel knife more than a meter long can be sold for twelve taels of silver! Piles of silver instantly appeared in front of Su Chengyu's eyes.

He knew better than anyone else the dependence of the war on the economy, so after arriving in Longnan, he considered a variety of ways to make money, mainly things that the Ming Dynasty could not produce in this era, such as making cement, glass, horse-drawn carriages with shock absorbers, and so on.

It's just that each scheme has some dissatisfactions: the cement production speed is too slow, the glass has too high requirements for color matching experience, and it is not easy to see the benefits in a short period of time.

But today, the words of the Zhen family steward instantly pointed out the direction for him - steelmaking is the best choice! With the materials and processes of this era, a steelmaking furnace can be built soon, whether it is an open-hearth furnace or a converter, and the quality of the steel will definitely kill a few rounds of steelmaking.

The most important thing is that he can keep tapping steel from furnace to furnace, and the output is measured in tons.

Compared with 100 steels, which need to be repeatedly beaten for seven or eight days or even half a month to get a few catties of steel, the production efficiency is not an order of magnitude at all.

At that time, not to mention twelve taels of a knife—and he was confident that he would be able to make better quality steel than any thousand steels—even if a knife only sold for five or six taels, he estimated that it would sell for more than 100,000 taels a month.

Of course, the steel knife market is certainly not in such a large demand. But as long as there is good steel, it is equivalent to getting the cornucopia of this era - steel helmets, armor, artillery, all kinds of machinery, and even farm tools can make a lot of money.

Just as Su Chengyu was planning his steel mill in his heart, he heard the shopkeeper He and the Zhen family steward say at the same time: "Please announce who won the bid." ”