"Emperor, cement has been made, and the Inspector has made people mix it with sand and gravel according to your will. It is very strong and will solidify soon!"

The eunuch Qiu Ju, who was covered in dirt, brought a group of people from the Royal Industrial Company to smile and said to Zhu Houzhao.

Zhu Houzhao looked at the newly manufactured cement of Royal Industrial Company and smiled with relief. After the glass was made, he asked Royal Industrial Company to find a way to develop cement. Now four years have passed, it has been successfully manufactured. Although it is still far from the various new cements in later generations, it was undoubtedly the most advanced infrastructure adhesive in the Ming Dynasty.

If the Ming Empire wants to expand to the outside world, it is inseparable from a developed infrastructure technology, while good infrastructure naturally requires cement and its derivatives and concrete with stronger hardness and wear resistance and shorter solidification time.

"Very good, let's light the cannon, let's try it and see if it can destroy the concrete wall!"

As Zhu Houzhao said, he took a group of officials to the designated position. Seeing the soldiers igniting the artillery, a loud bang, and the solid shell hit the newly solidified concrete wall, but the concrete wall did not move at all, did not collapse, and only some stone chips splashed!

"Your Majesty! This cement is indeed a magical thing, and the shells cannot hurt him at all!"

Ye Heng, who had been promoted to the Minister of Works, came to the Royal Industrial Experimental Base with Zhu Houzhao. Now he was amazed when he saw this cement concrete.

"There are also those who are as strong as this. For example, if glutinous rice and brown sugar are added and then compacted, they can be as solid as iron. However, the advantage of this cement concrete is that it is low manufacturing cost, mainly lime, and does not require grain or manual compaction for a long time. The solidification time is extremely short. It can be completely solidified in five or six hours. In the future, road construction and wall construction will naturally be faster."

Zhu Houzhao said and said to Qiu Ju again:

"Now the production of cement can only be made of hydraulic machinery, and the production speed cannot be improved for the time being. Now you send more people who know cement production to find abundant water in various places that facilitate the production of cement. Royal Industrial Company will pay the money to participate in the shares. They can also borrow from Royal Bank and build their own cement workshops. At that time, there is no need to worry about not being able to sell it. I will let the Ministry of Industry acquire it in a unified manner!

At the same time, I will also issue an order to encourage private traders to make cement, and the technology can be sold to them by Royal Industrial Corporation, which can not only solve the problem of insufficient production, but also allow Royal Industrial Corporation to realize profits through trading technology.

However, the Royal Industrial Company's own cement workshop must also expand and recruit refugees to Beijing for production! These cements will play a great role in the development of territory in the Ming Dynasty in the future."

"I will receive the order!" Qiu Ju said.

Zhu Houzhao originally wanted Qiu Ju to set up another industrial school in person to train more students to participate in industrial research, but now Qiu Ju is busy managing the Royal Industrial Company and producing cement workshops, so he is afraid he can't be busy, so he can only keep this idea in mind first.

At this time, Zhu Houzhao ordered Ye Heng, Minister of Works:

"Ye Heng, now you have also seen the beauty of this cement. I will give your Ministry of Works a month to recruit a group of skilled masons to master the production and use of cement concrete within this month, and then start a month later to build a cement concrete road from the capital to Datong!"

"Your Majesty! From the capital to Datong, it is mostly mountain roads. It is afraid that it will take a lot of manpower and countless money and food to build this road!"

Ye Heng said hurriedly.

"These are not what you consider. You are only responsible for recruiting personnel to repair them. I will ask the Ministry of Revenue to allocate the money and grain, but you will arrange the personnel yourself. I will allocate the engineers to you first, and you will be allowed to recruit refugees from all over the country. However, these people still do not understand the methods of making and using cement concrete, so you have to find a way to train them yourself;

That's why I asked you to recruit a group of masons with skilled skills. You can ask the court to reward some craftsmen with skilled bridges and road construction skills and other meritorious backgrounds!

But I hope to see a cement road from the capital to Datong in the shortest time in the future, so that the court can recover Hetao and control Hetao! Even control the southern desert! The grain and grass transported from the south can also go directly to Datong to the border town! You should understand the benefits here!"

"I understand!" Ye Heng replied.

"Since that's the case, within three days, I will give me a memorial, telling me how you, the Minister of Works, plan to start building the first cement road in the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Houzhao smiled slightly and left the Royal Industrial Experimental Base.

Three days later, after hard work, Ye Heng, Secretary of the Ministry of Works, finally submitted a memorial to Zhu Houzhao, determining the basic plan for building a cement road from the capital to Datong, and even specifically explaining the width and main direction of the planned cement road, as well as the amount of money and grain that may be used, the number of craftsmen and migrant workers, as well as the preliminary training plan and the expected construction time.

However, when Zhu Houzhao asked the cabinet to sign up, the Minister of Works Ye Heng asked the Minister of Works to add an estimated labor remuneration for craftsmen and migrant workers. In this era, many officials and landlords have not had the habit of paying the people because the people have the obligation to serve the government for free, and basically, labor-for-relief is just a meal.

But Zhu Houzhao wanted to change this method. The labor of migrant workers must be respected. The premise of respect is to give them the reward they deserve. In order to increase their enthusiasm, there must be a more flexible reward incentive mechanism. Only in this way will more people be willing to work for the government and love the Ming Dynasty, because only when the Ming Dynasty regards them as human beings, they will regard the Ming Dynasty as their own heaven.

Only in this way can these refugees not become tenants and serfs in the landlord's manor again.

It is now spring famine, and many refugees come to the capital to beg for the capital. The powerful and powerful gentry may give some porridge with kindness. They naturally drive out the door indifferently or keep them as slaves, but keeping them as slaves is only a few children with their appearance. Most refugees can only rely on begging to live.

But because of this, Ye Heng, the Minister of Works, easily recruited a large number of refugees when he was preparing to build Jingtong Road under the order.

Moreover, it was not only Ye Heng, the Minister of Works, who recruited a large number of refugees, but also recruited a large number of refugees, the Ordnance Bureau and the Royal Industrial Company, which required a large number of migrant workers, successfully solving the labor shortage caused by the expansion of the scale of ordnance production and industrial production.

In order to satisfy the increasingly heavy banking business, Xu Jing of Royal Bank also bought a group of smart children. He asked Zhu Houzhao to approve it. Royal Bank invested to establish a money method study class, which specifically asked people to teach only arithmetic, literacy and money method knowledge.

...

"The food is distributed!"

Dong!

With a gong, Li Changning big bull, who was temporarily named the first production team of Jingtong Road, knocked and shouted at the migrant workers and craftsmen who were still brushing cement and mixing concrete on the road full of gravel and dust.

Behind him was a ox cart, which was the food that the Ministry of Revenue had just allocated.

These migrant workers and craftsmen came over with their own small notebooks. Although they were unkempt, they all had excited smiles on their faces. One of them even smiled: "I should have 31 work points this time. I have been working twice, so I can get more rice."

"I'm relatively fewer this time. Because I was sick, I worked less for three days and I guess I only had twenty-seven job points. It's really unworthy to get sick. I'll lose less job points!" One of the migrant worker's companions sighed.

At this time, more and more craftsmen and migrant workers gathered together. Li Changning Daniu and the ox cart behind him also stopped. Ning Daniu took out a book of accounts and shouted:

"First calculate the work points. According to the requirements of the above men, those who do more work will be paid more, those who do less work will be paid less, those who have a punishment record will be deducted. Line up and come one by one. The first one is Wang Changsheng! Have you come!"

Although most of these craftsmen and migrant workers are not familiar with words after training, they can also learn to use charcoal pens to mark the notebook to indicate how many days they have worked. One work point a day is calculated, half a day is calculated, and half a work point will be calculated. According to the rules, the payment of rice will be checked with the government management staff before it will be distributed.

This was the method Zhu Houzhao asked Ye Heng, the Minister of Works, to avoid the officials below oppressing craftsmen and migrant workers at will. He also appointed a supervisor censor to specifically accept reports from these craftsmen and migrant workers about who swallowed the fruits of their labor.

Because of this, officials of the Ministry of Works did not dare to ingest the project funds at will, and allowed craftsmen and migrant workers to work in vain, thereby reducing the production enthusiasm of craftsmen and migrant workers, and also maintaining a relatively fast progress in the entire construction.

However, it also caused many craftsmen and migrant workers to die of exhaustion. However, because they were working overtime voluntarily, there was not much public grievance. At most, some literati lamented and criticized the court when they saw it.

A bag of Xingu was released, all of which were transported from Jiangnan. The grains were full and very attractive. These migrant workers and craftsmen were as excited as they saw the money, and they began to line up to calculate the work points to collect them.

The reason why it is to give money to rice rather than silver is naturally because the court protects the money.

Except for the apprenticeships of the Ordnance Bureau and the Royal Industrial Corporation, the lowest-level craftsmen and migrant workers who did not form a written contractual relationship were distributed.

After all, I understand that there is not much silver now. These craftsmen and migrant workers at the bottom of the country eat rice or plant them in their own thin fields, and do not consume them, and it is meaningless to pay for them.

...

Urus Borot, the young prince's special envoy, happened to see this scene at this moment. He asked Gao Zehui in confusion: "Mr. Gao, how rich is this Han man? He actually gave food to these untouchables?"

"The Lord Jinnong didn't know that this pass has always been rich. These emperors and gentry delicacies every day, and these untouchables could naturally afford some food, but they would rather give these food to these untouchables to create the illusion of no hunger in the prosperous times than use it to train the army;

Therefore, they appear to be rich, but they are very weak. If they are not blocked, thousands of cavalry under Lord Jinnong will be able to kill them, and they will run away with wolves and rats!"

Gao Zehui said.
Chapter completed!