Autumn is deepening, Lin Jian left the Yijiang River in mid-September, returned to Jiangning through quarrying, and stayed in the quarrying for several days.

Quarry rock is a hanging wall in the west foot of Cuiluo Mountain in Linjiang County, when the river is dangerous, and swallow rock, Chengling rock and called.

Before the establishment of the dynasty, Gaozu trained the army in the water village of Cuiluo Mountain, and after the establishment of the dynasty, the quarrying army village was the most important station of the Jiangning Navy on the western front, so the quarrying was famous all over the world and the name of Cuiluo was not obvious.

At the beginning of April, Lin Jian renamed Dangtu County as Quarry (now Ma'anshi), and used Luo Yi to become the magistrate of the county, and merged it into the newly placed Yijiang Mansion.

Cuiluo Mountain stands near the river, surrounded by the Niuzhu River on three sides, only more than 40 zhang high, abrupt riverside, particularly steep. The northwest of the mountain is subsided, forming a big depression, and the military village surrounds the lake and the mountain, which is uniquely endowed and is the military important place of the west line of Jiangning.

In addition to its prominent military position, it is mainly because the Putang Iron Works, which was originally subordinate to the Ministry of Industry of Jiangning, is the largest iron-making land in the past of Vietnam.

The history of quarrying iron ore mining and smelting has been three or four hundred years since the previous dynasty. By the middle of the Yue Dynasty, it became the main iron production area of the Jiangning Ministry of Industry.

The Zhejiang-Fujian army invaded Jiangning, and Emperor Yongxing and the ministers of the court panicked, which caused the quarrying of Putang Iron to be devastated. Houses were burned, furnaces were destroyed, water was diverted to flood the mines, and thousands of miners and craftsmen were sent to Jiangzhou.

Although Putang Iron was basically completely destroyed, Lin Jian took a fancy to the iron ore resources here. In addition, there are coal mountains in Lishui to the south and Jiangpu on the north bank, and the actual quarrying is more suitable for development into a steel smelting center than Chongzhou.

During the war in Jiangning, the government-run workshops under the former Ministry of Industry suffered a devastating blow, and there were no resources to recover, and a large number of artisans were either taken away or scattered among the people, and their livelihoods were difficult.

It is the first step to put the quarrying into the Yijiang River, Luo Yicheng to serve as the magistrate of the county, and rectify the people's livelihood.

In early May, Sun Dalu, the chief official of the financial supervision who was born in a craftsman's household, led more than 1,000 craftsmen to build the Putang Iron Yard, Mushan Iron Mine and Fuhuishan Coal Mine. Before Lin Jian entered the summer, he specially allocated 300,000 taels of silver to Sun Da Furnace for the early stage of the construction of iron yards and mines.

In order to facilitate the transportation of coal and iron from Mushan and Fuhui Mountain into Putang, Lin Jian even planned to ask Luo Yicheng to organize people to dig canals after autumn to connect the mines of Mushan and Fuhui Mountain with the Niuzhu River.

Pingjiang silk, Danyang cotton, Weiyang salt, Putang iron and other products are marketed all over the world, forming the early prototype of commodity economy, which is directly related to the convenient and low-cost water transportation conditions in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

In the initial stage of the Putang Iron Yard, the production capacity of 10 million catties of iron should be reached, and the annual coal and iron to be transported in was as much as 40 or 50 million catties, which were transported by mule and horse-drawn carts, and the cost of transportation was unimaginably high.

The Ningxi area is located at the intersection of plains and mountains, and the river network is relatively dense. Only ten miles of canals need to be excavated to connect the mine to the original river network, and the transportation cost can be greatly reduced.

In fact, before that, Lin Jian had ordered to recruit people in Jinshan County between the Huangnishan Coal Yard and the Liuyang River of the Longzangpu Branch, and dig a transportation canal only six miles long, so that Jinshan coal could be directly transported into Jiangning City, and the price of Jiangning coal suddenly dropped by a quarter.

The level of governance is sometimes only separated by a thin layer of paper.

It's just that Song Fu and others have doubts, because the total scale of iron production in Chongzhou and Shanyang in Huaidong has exceeded 12 million catties, is there any need to build another 10 million catties of iron yard in Putang at the moment?

300,000 taels of silver is the initial investment, and next year it will be another 600,000 taels of silver to form a scale of iron production in Putang.

I have inspected the Putang Iron Yard and seen the construction scene in full swing, and it has sunset when the west mountain.

Lin Jian was going to return to Jiangning directly from Putang tomorrow, so he did not return to the quarry city for the night, and asked the cavalry camp to camp on the empty and unused ore yard of the iron yard, and feasted the officials and craftsmen of the iron yard.

The banquet was dispersed, and the night was dark, but after the autumn, Shangrao was about to use soldiers, and it was difficult for Lin to sleep peacefully in the camp tent, reading the letters from all over the country with the lamp in his hand, and Gao Zongting and Song Fu were still accompanying him.

Song Fu was still looking at the information of the Putang Iron Yard, remembered an incident, and asked Lin Lian: "Sun Shangwang handed over a letter, intending to expand the scale of the Zhuxi Iron Yard again, so that the iron output next year will increase to 3 million catties, and it will cost 400,000 taels of silver......

"As long as he can raise money," Lin Lian replied casually, lifted up from the paper, saw Song Fu's eyes with doubts, and asked with a smile, "Song Gong thinks that iron has been produced?" ”

"Qingyu year, the world is still peaceful, Yanjing, Jiangning two industrial departments and the internal government iron government subordinate to the official iron work, the annual iron smelting material is barely 12 million catties; Today, Huaidong alone has more than that. I think that Jiangning Zhudifang was destroyed by the war, but after Huaidong's ban on Jiangnan was opened, the iron price in Jiangnan fell a lot compared with before the war. When the iron yards in Putang, Yizhou Zhuxi and Shanyang produce iron one after another, I am afraid that the price of iron will fall again! ”

Song Fu was worried about oversupply, and now that he has invested so much, he will not be able to make a profit from it in the future, but will be trapped in maintaining it.

Lin Jian smiled and said: "The price of iron has fallen to the current thirty percent, and Chongzhou iron production is also profitable; Putang can take ore nearby, and the cost of iron smelting should be lower than that of Chongzhou......"

Affected by the war, the price of iron in the Jiangnan area has continued to rise over the years, and before the war in Jiangning, the price of crude iron exceeded the price of copper. After Huaidong controlled Jiangning, Huaidong opened the commercial ban on the Jiangnan region, so why didn't the Jiangnan region open the commercial ban and dump Chongzhou iron into it?

In the early years, the iron materials of the Jiangnan provinces were mainly supplied by Putang, Lishui and other places, and the fame of Putang iron was actually not under the Pingjiang silk. In the later period, due to the excessive expansion of soldiers and horses in the Jiangnan area, almost in just five or six years, the number of troops increased to five or six times, and the iron produced by the government-run workshops such as Putang was mainly used for the manufacture of armor, which made the iron materials of the Jiangnan provinces suddenly tense.

The Zhejiang-Fujian army destroyed all the workshops in Jiangning and the surrounding prefectures and counties, in fact, the market in the south of the Yangtze River was given to Huaidong in vain. This year, the iron yards in Chongzhou and Shanyang dumped a total of 4 million catties of iron into Pingjiang, Danyang, Hangzhou, Huzhou, and other places, and the floating profit was as high as 800,000 taels of silver—a figure that others could not have imagined before the war.

With traditional thinking, Lin Jian should completely control the production and sales of iron. As long as the scale of production is controlled and the price of iron is maintained at a certain high level, in this way, the silver that Huaidong earns from the iron matter will even exceed the two Huai salt affairs, and there is no need to worry about raising troops.

Song Fu was actually worried that Huaidong's iron production would continue to increase in great strides, and once the demand was exceeded, the price of iron would fall sharply and fall below the cost of smelting, and the iron yard would not only be useless, but would become a burden on Huaidong.

Lin Jian is not worried about this, the key is how to further reduce the cost of mining and smelting.

Even in the Qingyu period of Jingping in the world, the price of iron was still maintained at a high level of one pound of gross iron for twenty or thirty pounds of rice grain, and one pound of refined iron for one stone of grain.

The extremely high price of iron is greatly related to the backwardness of iron ore mining and smelting technology; In addition, in addition to the corruption in the government-run iron works, the scale of private workshops cannot be expanded due to the restrictions of the World Bank system, which makes it difficult to reduce the cost of smelting.

When the price of salt is high, the people can only respond with coarse food and light rice; The high price of iron also severely restricts the wide application of iron.

When Lin Jian first arrived in Jiangning, Longjiang Shipyard Shipbuilding even used a large number of bamboo and wood to nail ship boards - not that he did not know the benefits of iron nails, nor that he could not produce iron nails, but that iron and copper were equivalent, which limited the application of iron in shipbuilding.

In the later period, the ships built in Huaidong were stronger than those built in Mindong and Jiangning, which was actually the extensive use of iron nails and many iron components. Elements made of fine iron, which replace hardwood inside the hull, provide greater structural strength, lighter weight, faster speed, and more space in the cabin. When Jiangning was still worried about the iron used to build armor, the amount of iron used for shipbuilding in Chongzhou had risen to the first place.

Even if we don't talk about shipbuilding and other industries, just for the livelihood of the people, the amount of iron used in the Jianghuai region is also huge.

Affected by the war, the possession of iron tools among the people of the seven provinces in Jiangnan has also decreased to a very low level.

One is the lack of daily consumption and supplementation; First, war and plunder.

At the time when the use of iron was at its most intense, Dong Yuan and Meng Yishan had forcibly requisitioned iron tools from the people at a large scale far below the market price in Hanghu and other places to make up for the shortage of iron for the production of armor and war weapons. When the luxury family crossed the border, they plundered iron tools as strategic information.

After the war, people's livelihood was restored, and there was a great demand for iron for agricultural tools and daily necessities.

The reduction of taxes in the south of the Yangtze River can improve the purchasing power of farmers, help the promotion of iron tools, and promote production. In turn, the purchasing power of farmers will be further increased, and the demand for iron will be further increased.

After the completion of the four iron yards of Putang, Chongzhou, Shanyang and Yizhou Zhuxi, the iron production capacity is less than 30 million catties.

This number, compared with the world, looks very impressive, but in Lin Bin's eyes, the scale of iron used by a 10,000-ton ironclad ship in later generations is more than 20 million catties, and this production capacity is really nothing.

Today, the area directly controlled by Jiangning has a population of more than 20 million, which can completely digest this iron production capacity.

As far as Huaidong's current smelting cost is concerned, there is really a surplus in output, and it can also be dumped on a large scale in the Haidong region.

The Fuso Islands alone have a population of nearly 10 million, and at the moment Huaidong is only exporting armor to the Saga and Kongo clans, Jeju, Dongju, and Haiyang counties on the Goryeo Peninsula.

Another main reason why Lin Jian started the large-scale construction of the Putang Iron Yard at this time was to further reduce the pressure on Jiangning and the surrounding counties.

Due to the gathering of a large number of officials and gentry in Jiangning City, Jiangning's commodity economy is relatively developed, and there is a prototype of a city in later generations; A considerable number of people made ends meet, either directly as servants or indirectly by the service of these gentry.

The war not only caused serious damage to Jiangning, but also dealt a serious blow to the Jiangning gentry. Since the return of Emperor Yongxing to the east, since the queen mother and below, the officials and gentry of Jiangning have been forced to live frugally, and the urban economy of Jiangning City has suffered a heavy setback.

Although Zhang Yubo implemented many relief methods, after the war, the 150,000 or 60,000 urban households were already an extremely heavy burden for Jiangning.

On the one hand, Lin Jian recruited peasant households from the surrounding counties of Jiangning to resettle in eastern Fujian, and on the other hand, restored the industrial and mining industries near Jiangning in order to absorb more of the surplus population.

The construction of the Putang Iron Yard and the mines and the excavation of the canals directly recruited as many as 5,000 households from Jiangning City, which really relieved Zhang Yubo.

At that time, the central finance mainly relied on agriculture, and high taxes were levied on salt, iron, tea, and other industries, which was actually an additional deprivation of peasant households. Lin Jian wanted to open up a new path, and put the vision of the central fiscal revenue increase on the industrial tax and commerce, the potential of which was far higher than relying on the sky to eat.

The dense river network in the Yangtze River basin provides convenient conditions for large-scale and developed shipping, and the low transportation cost provides necessary conditions for the development of commerce and trade, as well as the concentration and expansion of the production scale of industry, mining, and workshops.

The materials produced can even be imported into Haidong and Nanyang regions by sea at low transportation costs.

In the past few years, the materials imported from Chongzhou to the Haidong region, from the early silk tea to the recent porcelain iron, have been regarded as primary industrial products.

It is precisely through the dumping of these products in the Haidong region that Huaidong can simultaneously replenish a large amount of leather, rice grain, copper and silver, tung oil, mules and horses and other war materials from the Haidong region every year.

And Chongzhou shipping has developed to this day, and there are even sea ships that go to the island to dig guano.

Cultivating manure is already a consensus in the world, but the means of manure accumulation are quite limited.

The pig manure method popularized by Lin Jian in the early days and the flood sedimentation method popularized by Zhu Ai in Huaidong Tuntian were both innovations that were conducive to increasing the income of the fields, but the main method of fertilization in the world at that time was to collect natural fertilizers such as human and livestock excrement.

In Chongzhou, which has a relatively dense population, there are as many as six or seven acres of arable land per capita, and natural fertilizers such as excrement alone are still seriously insufficient. With the development of shipping, the outer islands are home to a large number of seabirds, and the guano and a large amount of humus accumulated over the years are rare fertilizers.

In the early years, Lin Jian specially organized warships to go to the island to collect guano, and in the later years, maritime merchants have specialized in this industry. It seems that manure is not valuable, but the sea ship is huge, and the transportation cost can be reduced to a very low level at a very high load, and the profit is quite considerable.

Of course, with the increasing maturity of shipbuilding technology, the high-quality sea ships built in Huaidong are even cheaper than the sea ships built in the Longjiang Shipyard in Jiangning in the early years. The decrease in shipwrecks and the decrease in the cost of seagoing vessels are the main reasons for the decline in transportation costs.

Over the years, in addition to implementing the new policy of suppressing the gentry and the land annexation, a more important means of governance in Huaidong was to initially form a prototype of a system integrating workshops, industry and mining, and commerce and trade in Chongzhou.

It is precisely the prototype of this system that is the core pillar of Huaidong's financial strength.

Song Fu only passed through Chongzhou and did not stay for a few days, even if there was perfect information for him to refer to, but he finally felt shallow on paper, and he still lacked a deep enough understanding of Lin Bin's concept of governance.

Lin Jian has enough patience, he knows that some of his concepts are too far from the world, even if he is a person with outstanding intelligence, it is difficult to accept it at once, in short, he needs more patience to communicate. Sometimes it has to be forced head-on, as long as the effect is manifested over time, it will be easy for people who couldn't understand it before to accept it.

**************

Lin Jian stayed overnight in the Putang Iron Field, and returned by horse early the next morning.

Farming in Jiangning counties will be restored by the end of September, and the rice fields will gradually turn golden after autumn.

Although when the Zhejiang-Fujian army came in, the people around Jiangning were in a lot of trouble, and the casualties were not small, but the war in Jiangning survived in a short time.

In the absence of a large-scale famine, the government organized the resumption of production when the displaced people returned home, and the actual impact was limited.

Jiangning, Yijiang, Huizhou, Chizhou, Luzhou and other places, Lin Jian did not expect taxes to be paid in these places for two or three years, but as long as production could be resumed, the situation could be stabilized, and his original intention would be achieved.

There is no direct tax revenue, but materials such as salt, iron, tea, and horses are sold in these areas, which is actually a disguised tax.

Walking on horseback, looking at the golden rice fields on both sides of the post road, Lin Lian, Gao Zongting, and Song Fu said: "In another half a month, when this season of rice in the field is harvested, the grain shortage in the south of the Yangtze River will barely survive!" ”

"Except for Luzhou this year, there is no major disaster in other regions, which can be regarded as God's help." Gao Zongting said with a smile.

Quzhou, on the other hand, was a large-scale drought and was a newly taken place, and taxes were reduced and exempted according to regulations, while the Zhejiang-Fujian army was no longer capable of large-scale plundering of the countryside when it fully withdrew from central Zhejiang after the loss of Dongyang County. After Quzhou was exempted from taxes, the area affected this year was very large, but compared with the previous expropriation of luxury families, the people still breathed a sigh of relief.

In the middle of the year, the workers' battalion began to recruit reserve soldiers from Quzhou, and the applicants gathered; In the end, 4,000 people were even transferred to the army on the Yijiang side.

After Jilong Mountain, the head of Jiangning City is faintly in sight, Lin Xuwen, Huang Jinnian, Lin Mengde, Qin Chengzu, Cao Ziang, Lin Mengde, Sun Jingxuan and others have already been out of the city to greet them, and the carriages and horses are almost crowded with the official roads outside the West City.

"They all said don't be so troublesome......" Lin Jian scolded Lin Xuwen with a smile on his face, and they came out of the city to greet them.

"Old Seventeen went to inspect the defense, and it will be more than four months since he left, and then he will rush to Wuyuan to supervise the war, and he won't stay in Jiangning for a few days," Lin Xuwen said with a smile, "Jiangning's side is also a mess, so I can't hurry up and report to you?" ”

Lin Tie dismounted and greeted everyone one by one, and after a little delay in the long pavilion, he prepared to ride into the city by carriage and horse.

Riding a horse from Putang, after walking for a day, his body was also a little tired, Lin Jian rode in a car, asked Lin Xuwen and Lin Meng to get his car to talk, and after walking for a while, he felt that something was wrong and asked the coachman to stop the car.

"What's going on?" Lin Mengde asked.

Lin Jian suddenly got out of the car, and Qin Chengzu, Cao Ziang and others also felt strange.

Lin Lian went around to the side of the car, bent down to look at the axle, and saw that everyone on the left and right had doubts on their faces, and put Sun Jingxuan, who was standing behind: "This roller has been made after all?" ”

"Haha, you can hear the difference just by listening to the sound?" Sun Jingxuan asked with a smile.

"It's a big difference, there is no squeak, I still think about this yesterday when I spent the night in Putang, how can I not hear it?" Lin Jian smiled, "Can the supervisors below make it in batches?" ”

"I tried to make a batch, and one cost 12,000 yuan," Sun Jingxuan said, "and at the moment I can only say that it can barely be used." ”

Listening to Lin Tie and Sun Jingxuan's answers, the others noticed that the axles of the car Lin Tie was riding in were indeed different.

At that time, there was a bearing structure, but a sliding bearing with a large loop and a small ring, even if it was coated with grease, the friction was still very large, and it was necessary to compare it with the common rolling bearings in later generations.

In the most common rolling bearings, simply adding balls in the middle of the plain bearings can greatly reduce friction. But it is a small steel ball that is difficult for all the craftsmen in the world, and with Chongzhou's manufacturing Shuihuai, it is far from meeting the conditions for mass production of steel balls with uniform specifications.

Before Lin Tie left Jiangning, the ordnance supervisor suggested that the balls be changed to a small roller design that was easy to prepare in batches according to the ball structure proposed by Lin Tie - but whether it could be done or not, Lin Tie was not sure before leaving Jiangning, and he didn't expect that when he came back this time, Sun Jingxuan had already used the roller on the four-wheeled carriage.

A cost of 12,000 yuan, is still too expensive, but as long as it can be manufactured in batches, it is a good start, with the maturity of the process, the cost can be greatly reduced.

Lin Jian had earlier manually built a few rollers for trial use in the newly built four-wheeled carriage in Huaidong. Since the rollers greatly reduce friction, the life of the components is increased, and the load capacity of the same mule carriage can be doubled.

Although the structure of the small roller is much rougher, it can be used on heavy carts, bed crossbows, scorpion crossbows and other combat weapons, as long as the performance is improved by one or two percent, it is a gap that is difficult for the enemy to cross.

In addition, when Lin Jian passed through the quarrying, he went to the Mushan Mine to see it.

Miners go into the hole to mine, and the ore mined has to be carried out one by one; Since the mine itself is low, miners have to use both hands and feet to climb out.

Lin Tie is not a tragic person, but a practice of human camel baskets, which is extremely inefficient, unable to achieve the purpose of greatly reducing the cost of ore mining, and seriously limits the output of the mine.

Narrow-gauge minecarts that can be mass-produced and pulled by human or animal power can be easily built.

At present, there are eight mines in the Weishan Mine, and in order to ensure the production of the ore needed by the Putang Iron Field, two or three thousand miners must be invested in mining. If there is a landslide, the loss will be no less than a rout. If you really want to be able to use narrow-gauge minecarts, the number of miners can be reduced by more than half, and the output can be increased a lot.

The concept of the minecart was put forward very early by Lin Tie, but the friction of the old sliding bearings in the world was too great, and the minecart itself was required to be low, and it was almost impossible to use the bearings as wheels, and it was impossible to build a minecart that met the requirements without rollers.

Lin Jian stared at the axle for a while, after all, it was set in the wheel, and he couldn't see it very really, and said to Sun Jingxuan: "There is a sample axle made by trial, send two pieces over and ask me to take a closer look at one or two......

Sun Jingxuan should be fine, Lin Xuwen and the others all smiled and told Lin Lian not to hold back his energy for these details, Lin Lian laughed: "This is not a trivial matter. Rollers can be made, but they won't be needed for the war after the fall. If you send someone to tell Fu Ye that the materials transported south from Huizhou can increase by 20%, how happy will he be? ”

Now Fu Qinghe has personally rushed to Wuyuan to prepare for the war, and the materials needed to prepare for the war are mainly transported from two routes, one is from eastern Zhejiang along the Qianjiang River west, and the other is from Huizhou to the south through Yuling Pass.

The materials from Huizhou to the south were mainly requisitioned from the surrounding prefectures and counties of Jiangning to the territory of Ningguo, and then turned to cross the Yuling Pass by land into western Zhejiang. There are about 300 miles to go by land before and after, and the dependence on chariots and horses is great, and the transportation capacity is limited.

The reason why there is a road of materials, not from Chongzhou, Mingzhou off the coast, but from Yuling Pass to the south, is to consider Yijiang as the main transit station on this road transportation line.

A large number of materials and troops were stationed in Yijiang, which meant that the Zhejiang-Fujian army was always on guard against the possibility of Huaidong soldiers and horses advancing westward from Yijiang to directly attack Jiangzhou, so as to achieve the purpose of dispersing and containing the Zhejiang-Fujian army.

Lin Xuwen and the others just smiled, and hugged Lin Tie into the car and went into the city.