Building city forts in the seven prefectures, three armies and one government office is a big deal! There are eleven administrative districts at the level of prefecture, with dozens of military forts alone, and hundreds of military forts. In addition to the illegally built "red forts" in Jiehe Shang City and its surrounding areas, the city forts in other places have not been well repaired for a hundred years. Now if one-tenth of them is to be converted into brick-covered castles, red bricks and mud alone will require a huge sum of tens of millions of dollars.

Moreover, when building a castle, you cannot just have bricks and mud, and you also have to add a large number of guarding equipment, which is another big expense.

In the inner hall of General Xu's office, everyone's eyes were on Ji Yi, the Hebei Transport Authority, who was holding a huge sum of money.

Ji Yi was calm and took a sip of tea before slowly speaking: "The city we are going to build this time is not one or two, but hundreds of them! There are so many castles that can be done by the Ministry of Transport and Transportation Service and the family of the Ministry of Education. There are no less Xuanfu, the generals, the provincial government, and the county government and the military camps below.

Today we will discuss the division of labor in all aspects and how to share the expenses of building castles.”

Speaking of this, Ji Yi glanced at Wu Haogu, "Hebei Military Affairs is headed by Xuanfu Department, so why not ask Wu Xuanshu to talk about what kind of castle should be built?"

"Not only is it what kind of castle to build, but also where to build it. These two things must be grasped by the General Military Computer Room of the Xuanfu Department."

Wu Haogu took over the topic and then put forward his own opinions. The four appeasers and military supervisor Tan Zhen present did not raise any objections. Anyway, they did not really understand military affairs, so why bother to get involved in such a matter of being responsible for nothing?

"Who will do the construction can be discussed slowly." Wu Haogu continued, "What kind of materials should be used to build the city? Now it can be decided. Xuanfu Department's opinion is that all prefecture cities, prefecture cities, and military cities should be built as much as possible. Like Jiehe Shangshi, the city should be built with red bricks to cover soil.

This has two benefits: one is that the brick city is stronger and durable than the dirt city; the other is that brick-covered soil can be added to the original dirt city. Not only is the construction period shorter, but the construction difficulty is also simpler than the rammed earth plate construction, and the quality is also easy to control."

Wu Haogu and Ji Yi were unable to interfere in the work of building castles, and local officials had to mobilize the civilians. What they could manage was that they provided red bricks, mud and supervisors for building the city.

"There are more than a dozen castles!" Liang Zimei frowned, "How many bricks do you have to use?"

Wu Haogu replied: "If you follow the Jiehe Commercial City's amendment method, you will use about 40,000 bricks in one step, and you will also need 8,000 kilograms of Jiehe mud and 40,000 kilograms of mud and sand."

As soon as he said this, he immediately frightened the old men in the inner hall.

"Ah! So many!"

“How can this be afforded?”

“Too many, too many…”

"How many bricks are there in a kiln? When will it take to burn it?"

Although Xu Jiang, Liang Zimei, Ye Zuqia and Wang Qing are all civil servants who are proficient in practice, they are all middle-aged and elderly people after all. They don’t really appreciate the empirical school’s set, and the information they have is inevitably a bit out of date.

They are still thinking in the era of small peasant economy, and they cannot imagine how the open brick kilns in Jiehe Shang City and Jingdong Shang City burn bricks. Traditional sealed brick kilns have 5,000 bricks per kiln. For example, the city wall of Jiehe Shang City requires eight kilns to be repaired in one step.

The open brick kiln that appeared ten years ago has been favored by commercial capital, the gathered labor force, and cheap carbonite transported by water, and has developed to this day and has become a large-scale production method. The newly put into production of open brick kilns can fire 50,000 to 60,000 red bricks at a time. The efficiency is ten times that of traditional sealed brick kilns!

Therefore, Jiehe Commercial City and JD Commercial City have now developed into the centers of industrial production of red bricks! Without brick making machinery, the total red brick production of the two major commercial cities in a year is as high as more than 100 million yuan! It can not only meet the needs of the two major commercial cities themselves, but can also be sold to various places through water.

The red bricks needed for the tall and sturdy city wall of Jiehe Commercial City are just the output of the two major commercial cities in one year.

Wu Haogu glanced at several old men and explained with a smile: "The amount of bricks used depends on how thick the bricks are used. When the bricks are wrapped, the bricks are used will naturally be more. When the bricks are wrapped, the bricks are used will naturally be less. When the bricks are wrapped thinner, the bricks are used will naturally be less. Jiehe Shangshi City has 40,000 bricks per step because it is wrapped thicker and the city wall is tall. If it is wrapped thinner, 10,000 or 20,000 or even 5,000 bricks can be built. Most of the prefectures along the edges are not big, usually only ten miles or eight miles, three or four thousand steps, and there are 20 to 40 million bricks that can be repaired.

Moreover, Zhending City, among the three armies and one mansion along the border, was originally a stone city, without the need to be covered by bricks. Cangzhou was blocked by the Jiehe Market, and there was no need to be wrapped in bricks immediately. Therefore, only six states and three armies remained, and a total of nine castles were converted into brick cities. It should be enough to use 300 million to 350 million bricks. In addition, 50 million to 60 million jin of Jiehe mud and dust were used.

As for the county town and fortress, you can first strengthen the earth city and then slowly build the brick city in the future. I wonder what you think?"

There are 350 million bricks, 50 million kilograms of mud and 60 million kilograms of mud and dust. In addition, the cost of transporting these red bricks and mud can be used to exempt the taxes along the way from the Hebei Transportation Department as usual, and the merchants can also bring some private goods.

"Chongdao, so many bricks and so many mud, how to calculate the price?" Xu Jiang said, squinting his eyes and looking at Wu Haogu.

Wu Haogu laughed twice: "This matter is not my responsibility. I remember, you are the lucky messenger, please tell me."

Ji Yi frowned, as if she was weighing the pros and cons of her heart. Liang Zimei interrupted and said, "This should be bought with it, right? You can't let the merchant raise the price."

It’s a big pit to buy it!

If you give too much, the censor was impeached. If you detain Wu Haogu, Ji Yi was not allowed to be accused of being greedy and tainted. If you give too little, the free trade environment of Jiehe Commercial City and Jingdong Commercial City will be destroyed.

Moreover, although Ji Yi is a shipping envoy, he is an official with his status and cannot personally inquire about buying bricks. He must be handed over to the subordinates to take charge. There are too many things that cannot be explained here!

Hearing Liang Zimei's words, Xu Jiang nodded in agreement, turned to look at Ji Yi again: "Yizhi, what do you think?"

Ji Yi smiled and said, "Xu Xianggong, Grand Secretary Liang, although this is good for buying, the younger generation cannot adopt it. After all, the expenses for rectifying Hebei's defense and resisting the Khitan this time are too huge, and the emperor has already promised thousands of dollars... If there are omissions, the number of millions is small! With this virtue of the younger generation, how can we afford it?"

"Yizhi, what do you want to do?"

Ji Yi smiled and said, "Not mentioning the small and fragmented expenses, this large purchase... in my opinion, it must be open and honest."

"Full and honest?" Xu Jiang smiled, "Most businessmen are cunning, how can they be honest and honest?"

"The businessman is cunning, and we need to respond with openness to the public!" Ji Yi said, "For large purchases, you should open the package so that all merchants who are capable of supplying the package will be accepted. The transfer department of the Ministry of Transport, the Five Roads Supervisor, and the Hebei Xuanfu Department and the Office of Tan Daguan jointly sent personnel to discuss and decide the target of the contract."

The method he mentioned was actually bidding in later generations, which first appeared in the official procurement and engineering projects of Jiehe Commercial City. Later, it was adopted by a large number of new-style commercial banks such as JD.com, Yuntai Academy, Gezhi Academy, and Republican, Jiehe Construction Bureau, Jiehe Boat Bureau, Jiehe Weapon Institute, Jiehe Iron Factory, Jiehe Bank and JD.com Bank.

As the founder of JD.com, Ji Yi naturally knew this operation method. In fact, there are many tricks in sending packages, but it is a little better than "buying" for making fumes, and it is easy to block the censor's mouth.

Moreover, Ji Yi was also more careful and pulled Xu Jiang, Liang Zimei, Ye Zuqia, Wang Qia, and Tan Zhen into the water. In this way, if the Censorate wants to pick on the censorship, he has to catch all the important local officials in Hebei...

Xu Jiang nodded and exchanged glances with Liang Zimei, Ye Zuqia and Wang Qie, all of whom thought this method was good.

Originally, it was difficult for the four of them to interfere in this "10,000-yuan" big deal. However, Ji Yi took the initiative to open an opening and asked them to join the game. This was exactly what they wanted!

Seeing that several old men had no objection, Ji Yi said to Wu Haogu again: "Chongdao, bricks, stones, mortars, or small heads... The real big head is still equipment and military capital! The new army and the regiment training have a total of more than 300,000 people. The number of armored weapons required is amazing! How to buy, there must be a frank way, right?"

"Aren't armored weapons obtained from the Military Arts Supervisor and Dudu Academy?" Liang Zimei frowned and said, "Why do you still have to buy them?"

In theory, the production of weapons in the Northern Song Dynasty was all official, including the Jiehe weapons controlled by Wu Haogu, which were also the "Duzuyuan" of the Xuanfu Department of Hebei. Naturally, there was no "purchase", but only money, grain and materials were distributed. However, this management model that did not pay attention to efficiency and efficiency could naturally not create any good weapons.

Usually, military craftsmen with military quotas all have a job, and they are treated the same as they do more and do less, and they do better and worse. Most of the officials in charge are laymen and don’t know anything. Of course, the officers and military craftsmen below are fooling around.

Therefore, many military craftsmen who work in the hospital and work in the hospital spend most of their time busy with private work. At the same time, in the name of insufficient staff, they asked the government to detain some farmers and citizens to work in the hospital and let them produce weapons randomly to deal with errands.

Moreover, the establishment of the main office and the main office are very unreasonable, and does not consider transportation, materials and needs, and is completely set up according to administrative divisions. The main office is set up, while the prefectures are set up. In other words, more than 400 "arsidies" were opened in the Song Dynasty and more than 20 "arsidies" were opened in total. It is easy to imagine how large and efficient the "arsidies" were scaled and efficient.
Chapter completed!