Zhang Han lives in the iron yard, and he has to wash his nasal passages every morning and take a bath at night. Otherwise, the nostrils will be black for a few days, and those miners will not be able to wash off even the black stains on their hands and feet, unless they soak in the bath every day, they will work hard every day, either quarrying or washing stones, or working in shifts on the stove, who has the leisure and physical strength to do such a thing.

Standing at the door, under the feet is the path paved with green bricks, in front of the scattered houses and clothes that are not put away, opposite is the miner's residential area, the office area here is not as grand and comfortable as the residential area, Zhang Han is like this, he is aggrieved first, and then renovate and expand this side when he has leisure in the future.

"How many are there?"

"There are only more than 600 people, which is too far from the number of people in the East Major."

Three hundred steps away on the left hand side of this office, is an iron furnace that is being built, more than two zhang high, that is, eight meters of the blast furnace in Dongshan is also second to none, the furnace body has been seen to be a wine bottle shape, more than half of the furnace body is underground, the furnace body is like a bottle, its mouth is wide and Xu, the bottom thickness is three zhang and five feet, because it is convenient to add materials, most of the furnace body is in the pit, the bottom of the pit is made of bricks, the upper part is refractory mud, you can see from the top of the furnace that the furnace body is also coated with refractory mud, these muds are salted and modulated, can withstand high temperatures.

Zhang Han was also watching when they built the furnace, he only knew the general situation of many things, and he really felt admiration when he saw these people doing it, no wonder he still had to find an insider to do it after all, take this furnace as an example, even if Zhang Han has seen the graphics and knows every construction point and detail, I am afraid that it is also blind to do it, but many craftsmen who do not know a big word are very familiar with these tasks, and there is almost no difficulty in building the main body of the furnace.

Different from the ordinary blast furnace, it is to dig a pit at the top of the blast furnace, build a small brick house, the main structure is a honeycomb-shaped refractory brick structure, and then dig out a channel, the air outlet of the channel furnace is also built with bricks, and then there is a brick on the brick house to form a channel, close to the top of the furnace, the middle of the channel is built up a chimney, a convex pipe structure is set up, and then the fan is installed behind the chimney, and it is shaken by manpower, so that the heavy smoke and dust can go out from the chimney, and the light hot air can be fanned back to the regenerator, In this way, the temperature in the furnace is sufficient, the heat of ironmaking is greatly increased, and the iron-tapping speed is 30% faster.

The roof of the furnace has also been renovated to strengthen the heat storage, from all kinds of details, the blast furnace designed by Zhang Han has high energy storage, fast iron production, and also saves a lot of charcoal fire costs, in general, the profit of this iron yard is at least fifty percent more than that of ordinary blast furnaces.

This is just the ordinary market price, Zhang Han wants to smuggle the high profit is another calculation, even if he does not smuggle, the profit brought by this iron yard in a year is very considerable.

Now the key is the lack of manpower, this iron field will eventually open up into a large iron field of hundreds of acres, facing several high-quality ore veins, China is not short of copper and iron, but China's copper and iron ore has an obvious defect is that the ore quality is not high, the iron-rich ore veins are few, Dongshan is the same here, so every iron field, labor has to be very much, the physical fitness and skill requirements of miners are not low, so skilled hands are more important than raw hands.

"I'm going to go around and set up a few more points." Cai Jiu couldn't sit still, now there are only more than 600 people, the furnace is almost completed, the living area, the storage area, and the road are all about to be completed, and it will not be more than half a month at most, the ore can already be mined in large quantities, and now there is a serious shortage of manpower, and when the first blast furnace is built, what will he use for the furnace when the time comes? The proprietor built the furnace here so well, how many people in the old iron yard are full of praise, and many people from other mines and furnaces have come to inquire, of course, they are far away from the dart masters, this kind of technical improvement may not be a great invention, but Zhang Han is not generous to the point of sharing it with other mines.

Everything is going well, and if the people are not evenly recruited, it will be a joke!

Cai Jiu put on a coat, put on a hat, and wore standard leather boots worn from Xinpingbao on his feet, this kind of boots are specially made by Zhang Han, ordinary dart masters wear more than one or two silver, the average price of the team head and the shopkeeper level is more than two taels, Cai Jiu's pair is the shopkeeper level, the boots are high to the knee, the high-quality leather is used, the boot soles and boots are very well-made, usually wiped with oil maintenance, such a rainy day is also conducive to walking.

When Cai Jiu put on his boots, Zhang Hancai turned his head and smiled at him: "It's a good idea to go out at this time, it's best to run a few more gambling stalls and taverns and other places, you have done it in the iron field, you know where these guys like to go the most." ”

At this time, Cai Jiu was already standing in the rain, and the rain was dripping down from under the brim of his hat, Cai Jiu turned his head and smiled: "Please rest assured, how many people gather in these places, I know very well in my heart." ”

Zhang Han said: "I just say it in vain, I don't interfere with what you do." ”

He really didn't interfere, Cai Jiu smiled, his face was full of confidence, and he called a dozen guys to follow, and they took the list that had been written a long time ago, and rode away.

Cai Jiu left, and Zhang Han felt a little bored.

At home, there are a lot of official affairs, recently the reports from all over the country are still sent, only a few days later, and people everywhere know that Zhang Han has been busy with the affairs of the iron field recently, and the treasurers everywhere can handle the things that do not bother Zhang Han to make a decision, more importantly, a while ago it was the middle of summer, the wheat was harvested early, the summer tax was paid, and the rhythm of grain collection became slow, and after the opening of the official market this year, the trade in various places also declined, and entered a period of short conditioning and recuperation, and even the expansion of Yusheng became much slower. Only the craftsmen of Xinpingbao are still tirelessly transforming the carriages, creating weapons and firearms, of course, the latter two are hidden from the garrison and Lai Shenjun, but even if Lai Tongxin knows about this, he will definitely pretend not to know, no one will believe that Zhang Han will rebel with a huge net worth of businessmen, in the history of the dynasty, the peasants and the White Lotus sect have rebelled, the miners have rebelled, the border army has mutiny, and the city residents have riots and rebellions against taxes, but the businessmen rebelled, if someone would say this, everyone would smile crookedly, such a thing has never happened, I don't think anyone will think there will be.

Everywhere was developing gently, not much was going on, but it kept going up, like the light rain in front of me, soft, but the land under the rain was already soaked and wet.

He Yusheng's rules and regulations are becoming more and more meticulous and thoughtful, which is also the reason why Zhang Han has fewer and fewer things at hand, and he is cocooned and self-bound.

"Proprietor, there's a letter from Xinpingbao."

Jiang Kui came in the rain, he didn't wear an oil coat or a coat to protect himself from the rain, the gray cloth robe on his body was half wet, and his face was also wet, this is a loyal man, Zhang Han is very relieved to use it.

"You read it to me."

I heard that there is a letter, Zhang Han finally has something to pass the time, such a rainy day, he seems to be looking at the scenery, but in fact, his heart is also very tormented, I don't know how many things are waiting for him, but he is trapped in this mountain and cannot be performed. He turned back to the room, dragged a chair, half-reclined, and rested his feet on the table where Cai Jiu had just read the paperwork.

Of course, this appearance is not very elegant, Zhang Han usually has a lot of self-control, especially in front of his subordinates, he always has to put on a majestic posture, which is useful for improving his image and making his subordinates maintain awe, after all, Zhang Han is too young, sometimes he has to use a majestic aura to cover this up, and he doesn't have to be too nervous in front of a cronie like Jiang Kui.

"This letter belongs to the shopkeeper of Zhou, there is no content...... Jiang Kui is not the first time to do such a thing, the letter is stuffed in his chest, take it out and open it, Jiang Kui first saw Zhou Fengji's letter, the old shopkeeper chattered and wrote a lot, left and right just said that the situation of the Xinpingbao business is normal, nothing has changed, and at the same time urged Zhang Han to finish the matter on Lingqiu's side as soon as possible and go back early.

"The old man must have been working hard lately," Zhang Han looked lazy, and he adjusted his posture very comfortably, and said with a smile: "I want to ask me to go back early so that he can unload his shoulders, and once you reply to me and say that I am early." ”

There is Zhou Fengji in Xinpingbao, Zhang Han did save a lot of worry, but this old shopkeeper was too cautious, after being a family for a while, he was afraid that others would say that he was acting for personal gain, so he hoped that Zhang Han would go back earlier, Zhang Han wanted to let him feel relieved, and he didn't have to worry too much, just ask Jiang Kui to reply for him.

"This letter was written by my wife, saying that my uncle is here......" Jiang Kui looked at it for a while, suddenly laughed sullenly, and then handed the letter to Zhang Han, and said with a smile: "The proprietor can read it himself, I can't read it again." ”

"What the hell are you doing?" Zhang Han looked suspicious and took the letter.

Sure enough, it was written by Chang's own handwriting, after all, it was also from a rich family like the Chang family, Chang also read books when he was a child, and there were female students in the inner house of the Chang family, and he specially invited Mr. to teach some books such as poetry and songs, and women's rules, not to ask for how, just to know some words, not to be blind...... The original intention is like this, but Chang's words are strong and powerful, revealing the strength of her nature, that is, such a woman, in the absence of an adult male at home, has struggled to support for many years, until Zhang Han came up and returned to the back house without asking about foreign affairs.

At the beginning of the letter, he just said some common words, nothing more than asking Zhang Han to pay attention to his diet and daily life, not to get cold, in this era, it is a big thing to adapt to the water and soil, and if he accidentally suffers from the cold, he may lose his life, Zhang Han is also very concerned about these things, after all, people who grew up in an era of developed medicine have no confidence in the medicine of the Ming Dynasty at all...... Zhang Han works hard every day to exercise, not to fight, but to have a good body, and to calmly resist the past when encountering small problems or something, in this era, a plague kills tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, and a small typhoid fever takes his life, there are too many.

Zhang Han smiled and continued to read the letter, with the concern of relatives, although Chang's babbling said one thing again, but when they corresponded with each other, they didn't say this, did they also talk about business with Zhang Han?