Xia Nan and Lin Weiye were going to Changhua County, where the Shilu Iron Mine was located, and in view of the terrible land transportation conditions in this time and space, they chose to take the waterway. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

A group of more than 20 people set off on a "Lingao Tuofeng" produced in Diaolou Village, according to experience, the bilge is equipped with a lot of salt and iron farm tools for good relations with the local Li people, anyway, the salt has its own own, and after it can make iron, it is also very convenient to leave some leftovers and make some farm tools.

If it were anything else, Xia Nan would never have stepped on this kind of boat again, and the experience of going to Guangzhou by boat for the first time made him unbearable, but he couldn't help but come to the number one thing like finding iron ore -- without iron, there would be no guns, and all the king's attempts to hegemony would be in vain.

The voyage was directed by Lin Weiye, who had never been to Changhua, but there was China's largest open-pit iron mine, which was no stranger to anyone who studied metallurgy. Lin Weiye remembers that Changhua County and Lingao County are separated by a Danzhou County, and they just walk along the coastline. As for how to judge how to reach Changhua County, the largest river in Changhua County - and the second largest river in Qiongzhou Island - Changhua River passes through Changhua County into the sea, from this estuary directly ashore to Changhua.

Sea travel on this plane is boring, and all you can see along the coastline is the long stretch of coast and trees, no high-rise buildings, no beaches, and no bikinis.

Lin Weiye didn't care, in the old time and space, he often traveled on business, and most of the inland iron mines were large and small, and these mines and companies were located in very remote locations, and he had long been accustomed to the monotonous journey. In the summer, Nan traveled in the old time and space was first class, and there were beautiful flight attendants who were eye-catching, who had ever thought that he would sit on such a small sampan to float on the sea, and sighed for a long time, the only thing he was fortunate about was that he passed through the trip to Guangzhou, and now he doesn't seem to be seasick much, and he rarely vomits, to paraphrase a movie line: spit and spit and get used to it.

Five or six days later, an obvious natural harbor appeared on the coastline, and the soil in the harbor was black, and Lin Weiye patted the ship's side: "It seems that this is the mouth of the Changhua River." "Immediately direct the ship to dock.

The groggy summer Nan was refreshed when he heard this, and he couldn't wait to land after the ship docked.

The north bank of the Changhua River is a plain, the vegetation on the riverside is less, mostly piled sand, there are sand dunes in many places, and the extension to the land becomes a continuous hill, the vegetation is good, and the hills 200 to 400 meters high are covered by forests. The south bank of the Changhua River is also a plain, with faint paddy fields and a city - it should be the county seat of Changhua in the Ming Dynasty.

In the summer, Nanyao looked at Changhua County, thinking about how to open a mine under the nose of the government, while Lin Weiye squatted down and picked up a handful of sand on the shore - the sand here is as white as snow - and sighed: "Good thing! ”

Xia Nan was speechless, the ultimate purpose of this trip was iron ore, what kind of sand do you have to play? He reminded, "Lao Lin, stop playing, no matter how white the sand is, it is sand, remember that we are here to find iron ore." ”

Lin Weiye raised his head dissatisfied: "Who played, what do you know, this is high-quality glass quartz sand, with few impurities and uniform particle size, which is rare in the country." ”

Glass? Xia Nan seemed to smell a business opportunity, he squatted down, also picked up a handful of sand, and accompanied a smiling face: "Hehe, we don't understand technology, don't be angry." What kind of glass sand is this, what can it be used for, and can it be used to make glass? ”

"That's natural, not only can make glass, but also can be used as refractory materials and for sand casting, if our smelting technology can reach a certain level, it can be used to smelt ferrosilicon, as an inoculant, to get ductile iron - this is a better thing than gray iron and malleable cast iron, the steel industry calls 'iron instead of steel' refers to this."

Although Xia Nan doesn't understand this bunch of professional terms, "replacing steel with iron" sounds very bullish, but unfortunately, Lin Weiye also said, "The smelting technology can reach a certain level." "That means it can't be reached at the moment. He was tireless in learning and asked, "Is this sand casting a magic horse thing again?" ”

"To put it simply, before Europe drilled with solid iron pillars, sand casting guns were more advanced casting methods, better than traditional clay mold casting guns, and many of the high-quality cast iron guns used by the British army were cast in sand molds."

When it comes to weapons, Xia Nan came to the spirit, and any method or technology to improve the quality of weapons is the focus of his attention, which means mastering more advanced military technology: "What methods do the current Ming armies and European maritime powers use to cast cannons?" ”

"Europe is now all clay mold cast cannons, not to mention the Ming army, at this stage it is still mainly based on purchase and imitation, and the artillery cast by itself is miserable, clumsy and heavy, with a small caliber, short range, and extremely poor accuracy."

"I didn't expect this sand to be quite useful, why don't we send someone here to dig it when we go back?" By the way, does Lingao have such sand? ”

Lin Weiye shook his head, "Lingao doesn't have such high-quality quartz sand, which is unique to Changhua. After our factory stabilizes production, we do have to come here to ship quartz sand back regularly. He remembered one thing and added, "By the way, glass quartz sand can not only make ordinary glass, add rare earths, but also make optical glass, which is a big killer for making telescopes!" ”

Telescope! This was a powerful weapon for marching wars, especially in the face of the ancients who had primitive and backward communication and reconnaissance technology. In the summer, Nan's eyes began to glow: "Changhua is a good place, there are iron mines, and quartz sand, and this place must be occupied in the future!" ”

"Now you can get some quartz sand back, whether it is to make sand molds or study glass, it will come in handy."

After finishing the research on quartz sand, the group began to march to Changhua County. Since I didn't know the road, I first had to find a guide from the county seat.

The county seat was not far from the port, and they soon came to the gate of Changhua County. The city is not large, and the scale of Lingao is about the same, and it looks like the city wall is three meters high, and the whole body is covered with bricks. Daming's urban defense construction is still in place in terms of hardware, even in a remote state capital like Qiongzhou. The software side was not very good: the gates were open, and there was no guard at the gate except for two people who were probably sitting in the form of officials or sentinels.

A few copper plates for the gatekeepers, a group of people smoothly entered the city, and the city was even more scarce than Lingao.

There are only more than 600 households in Changhua County, half of which are military households. Excluding military households, there are not even 200 households in the county seat, and the so-called county seat is just a large village for this group of farmers who farm the land with the title of soldier.

Although Xia Nan already knew what Hainan's urban business was like from Lingao, he was still not interested in seeing such a depressed county.