In the conference room, Fang Nan, Zhou Lei, Zhao Hong, Hu Zhuang and other senior leaders of the People's Army discussed this ongoing war and thought about how to gain more time to develop after the war ended.

"We want to hurt the Ming army. As long as the Ming army loses more troops, we will not be able to gather enough troops to attack us in a short period of time." said Hu Zhuang, Minister of War.

After Hu Zhuang finished speaking, Shen Minghui, Minister of Justice, continued: "It is not enough to consume the Ming army's troops. After demonstrating the strength of our People's Army, we must also act like we can only stay in Guangdong, so that the Ming court will not attack us at all costs."

"We can use war to promote peace and force the Ming court to the negotiating table and say that if we sign a ceasefire agreement, we need time to develop, and the Ming court will definitely need time to expand its troops and train new recruits." Secretary-General Zhou Lei also said.

In the conference room, a group of senior leaders of the People's Army discussed and finally decided on the plan to force the Ming court to the negotiating table through war.

This plan is very simple, which is to attack the Ming army from all directions and launch an attack on Guangxi, Huguang, Fujian and even Jiangxi, to eliminate the vitality of the Ming army as much as possible, and to show the strength of the People's Army to the Ming court.

At this time, the Ming court was unable to mobilize enough troops to resist the People's Army in a short period of time, so it was forced to negotiate with the People's Army. Through negotiations, an agreement was made to determine the People's Army's rule over Guangdong.

Of course, how long this armistice agreement can last depends on the situation of both sides. If the Ming court or the People's Army thinks it is ready, then this armistice agreement can be abolished and a new war begins.

Many times, Fang Nan, Zhou Lei and other senior leaders of the People's Army still have to think about the Ming court. They don't want to see the Ming court rushing to wipe out the People's Army and draw Ming troops from all over the country. Once the Ming troops from all over the country are transferred away, chaos is prone to occur in various places, and the unlucky people are still the people.

At the end of the meeting, Fang Nan also made a decision, ordering He Yan's Third Army to mobilize troops to capture Qiongzhou Prefecture with the Navy after eliminating some of the Ming troops in Guangxi.

Of course, the capture of Qiongzhou Prefecture was not for natural rubber. Natural rubber was native to the American continent. Before the discovery of the American continent in Columbus in 1492, local residents in Central and South America had begun to use it.

It was not until 1876 that the British Wickham collected rubber seeds from the estuary of the Amazon in Brazil and transported them back to the Royal Botanical Garden in the UK to sow seeds, and tried them in Ceylon, Indonesia and Singapore. They were all successful. The Brazilian rubber tree officially settled in the Far East, and the rubber cultivation industry has developed very rapidly since then.

If you want to plant rubber trees in Qiongzhou Prefecture, Fangnan needs to send a fleet to the American continent to bring the rubber tree species back. The time for the round trip must be calculated in years, and there are too many dangers in ocean voyages, so you have to take it slowly in the future.

Although rubber is very important to the steam engine, there is no rubber on the steam engine for a long time. Instead, the thermal expansion and contraction principle of iron sheets is used to ensure the airtightness of the steam engine.

When capturing Qiongzhou Prefecture, Fang Nan actually took a fancy to Shilu Iron Mine, an iron ore that had not been discovered in Qiongzhou Prefecture.

Shilu Iron Mine is definitely the largest iron-rich ore on the land of China. Its iron ore reserves are about 300 million tons, accounting for 71% of the reserves of the iron-rich ore in China. It is a large open-pit mine and is easy to mine.

Shilu Iron Ore has high quality and high grade, with an average grade of 51.2%, up to 69%. Shilu Iron Ore not only has rich iron, cobalt, copper resources, but also a variety of mineral resources such as nickel, sulfur, aluminum, and gold.

Basically, with Shilu Iron Mine, the People's Army's industrial development has a very good foundation, and there are also coal mines available for mining in Qiongzhou Prefecture.

Fang Nan planned to arrange a large number of people to build roads, mine iron ore, and build a large steel plant after the People's Army occupied Qiongzhou Prefecture.

However, mining iron ore and establishing large steel plants is not a matter of overnight. Other steel plants will continue to exist under the rule of the People's Army. Only when the large steel plants in Qiongzhou Prefecture are completed will we consider whether to shut down other steel plants.

It was not difficult for the People's Army to capture Qiongzhou Prefecture. The Ming court had less than 10,000 troops in Qiongzhou Prefecture. The Ming court's navy was almost not stationed in Qiongzhou Prefecture. There were only a few warships, which posed little threat to the People's Army's attack on Qiongzhou Prefecture.

Basically, He Yan's Third Army transferred 10,000 people to attack Qiongzhou Prefecture, and soon he could take down the entire Qiongzhou Prefecture. He had never attacked Qiongzhou Prefecture before. The main reason was that the People's Army was not sufficient in sufficient troops and had to resist hundreds of thousands of Ming troops surrounding Guangdong on three sides.

Now Mei Yousong's army has been severely damaged, and even the commander Mei Yousong has died. Other people's army will also launch a large-scale attack. After the war comes to an end, the People's Army will be able to mobilize troops to capture Qiongzhou Prefecture.

Iron ore and steel mill are all designed to support the industrial development of the People's Army.

Hydraulic machine tools can also help industrial development, but the limitations of hydraulic machine tools are too great. However, the production and sales of hydraulic machine tools greatly increased the Foshan arsenal. Throughout July, three arsenals under the rule of the People's Army produced a total of more than 1,400 tiger-headed guns, and the production of tiger-headed guns in August will increase to a certain extent.

The Central Government of the People's Army has issued an order to abolish the Hutouzhai Arsenal and the Yong'an County Arsenal. The craftsmen of the two arsenals will go to the north, west and east of Guangdong, and establish three maintenance plants for the three armies of the People's Army.

Due to the material of the barrel of the tiger head gun, the barrel has a relatively short life. After firing dozens of times, the barrel will be seriously worn out. At this time, the barrel needs to be repaired.

Maintenance must be put in the arsenal, but the distance between the three arsenals is not close. The layoff of the arsenal and the establishment of a repair factory near the front line has become the best choice.

The hydraulic machine tools owned by the Foshan Arsenal are increasing, and the output of various firearms is also increasing. However, at this time, Tang Bei and Wang Dachui's project teams have begun to study the steam engine.

Compared with steam engines, hydraulic machine tools are undoubtedly simpler. After all, hydraulic equipment has been used in China for a long time, and steam engines are a new thing. Even if Fang Nan gave some principles and structural diagrams of steam engines, the project team could not develop steam engines in a short time.

After studying the principles of the steam engine, more than a dozen researchers in the project team started to make the model of the steam engine. This task naturally had to be handed over to craftsmen such as Wang Dachui.

The first steam engine model is now being manufactured, and the first steam engine model is not iron, but is made of wood that is easier to modify.

The steam engine made of wood cannot be heated and used, but the advantage is that it is simple to modify. The more important thing about the first steam engine model is to understand the structure of the steam engine. Only by determining the structure of the steam engine can steel be used to build a usable steam engine.

Fang Nan has been paying attention to the research of the steam engine by Tang Bei and Wang Dachui project team.
Chapter completed!