Watching Zhang Jun's boat slowly sailing upstream, Wang Xiaolie felt a little unspeakable for a moment. This time Zhang Jun came to Xiangyang and gave himself five hundred ultimatums and a thousand crossbows, which seemed to be a lot of gifts.

.But when I think about it carefully, it seems that is not the case.

At this time, the price of the ultimatum is about 300 to 400 guan, and the price of the 500 guan is about one or two hundred thousand guan. However, this is the market price. Official sales in large quantities cannot be at this price. Cutting it in half is not bad. These ultimatums can be exchanged for tens of thousands.

Guanqian is already very rare. For the one thousand hard crossbows given to me, I can only say that the quality from the official treasury should be good. In terms of price, if one crossbow is worth five guan, it is only 5,000 guan.

As for the reception of Zhang Jun and his entourage, not to mention the usual reception expenses, Wang Xiaolie spent more than ten thousand dan just to provide food for his army. Including other expenses, it also amounted to tens of thousands. After all, Wang Xiao

Hunting just doesn't make a loss.

Thinking of this, Wang Xiaolie couldn't help but shook his head slightly. He was still too young and couldn't see clearly these tricks in the officialdom. Zhang Jun went to the front line to fight, how could he spend too much money on the way? He didn't lose money.

Not bad.

The biggest gain this time was that Zhang Jun made Wang Xiaolie concurrently serve as the pacifier and recruiter, and asked him to control the two states of Ying. In this way, the imperial court officially recognized Wang Xiaolie's status and gained control of the entire South Beijing Road.

right.

Zhang Jun was far away, and Wang Xiaolie said to the other prefects: "The privy minister is going to Guanshan, and he has a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. It is not an easy task. Not long after leaving Xiangyang Mansion, you can reach Jinzhou, and Xingyuan Mansion is not far away."

Okay, let's go back to the Yamen and have some wine and meat, everyone is tired these days."

Everyone said so. After leaving the dock, we went back to the Zhishi Yamen together.

After arriving at the back office and sitting down, Wang Xiaolie ordered wine and food to be served. We went out early in the morning, so everyone didn't have breakfast and were a little hungry. The cook prepared a few cold dishes and made a bowl of egg noodles for everyone and served them.

.

Wang Xiaolie said: "It's too early, and there are no extra dishes in the kitchen. Don't be too shabby. Eat a bowl of noodles first, drink a few glasses of wine, and let go of your fatigue. Wait until the cook buys the dishes, and then you can have a full meal."

In fact, Wang Xiaolie usually eats very simply, usually one or two dishes per meal. If there are guests, he only eats four dishes and one soup. These Zhizhou are rare guests, so they eat better. Because they usually eat simple,

There is no habit of preparing food in the kitchen.

Because Zhang Jun was being entertained these days, the cold dishes included chicken feet, pig ears, and mutton, paired with a bowl of egg noodles, and everyone was quite satisfied with the meal.

After breakfast, a few people sat and chatted.

After talking about the recent political situation and military deployment, when everyone felt speechless, Chen Gui suddenly said: "Recently, I made a wonderful thing. It is to use gunpowder and put it in a big bamboo. It can kill two or three people.

Keep this up, and every time you approach the military formation, ignite the fire at the end, and the flames will burst out. Although it has no effect of breaking armor and injuring the enemy, if the fire breaks out suddenly, the enemy will be in chaos when approaching the formation."

After hearing this, the other people couldn't figure out what it was and didn't say anything. However, Wang Xiaolie understood that this was the prototype of a gunpowder weapon, and it was probably the earliest gunpowder weapon. He asked: "There used to be gunpowder makers in the capital.

Make rockets to injure the enemy. I just don’t know how to make gunpowder, and it’s difficult to collect saltpeter and sulfur. It’s hard to make it all at once. I wonder if the prefect has a formula for gunpowder?”

Chen Gui said: "Although the imperial court does not allow the formula of gunpowder to be leaked to Hulu, it is not a very confidential matter. If there are pyrotechnics performers among the people, they can make their own fireworks. In De'an Mansion, there are several workers who used to make gunpowder.

It’s not difficult at all.”

Wang Xiaolie nodded. How could he not know the importance of gunpowder if he had memories of his past life? However, Wang Xiaolie only remembered one saltpeter, two sulfur and three charcoal, but could not remember the specific ratio. And sulfur and charcoal are easy to find, but where can you find saltpeter?

?It used to be in pharmacies, but now, most pharmacies have been closed, and there is nowhere to look for it. I heard that Chen Gui was making new firearms in De'an Mansion, and I realized that it was not difficult.

In fact, Jingxi Road, especially the Ruzhou area, is one of the important producing areas of saltpeter in China. Although there is no mine, it can be extracted from daily alkaline water. However, gunpowder was not very popular at this time and did not form an industry.

After carefully asking about the old gunpowder, Wang Xiaolie was overjoyed. He said to everyone: "This dynasty makes good use of rockets, which are of great use on the front line. If we carefully study this thing and adjust the proportions, it will have unexpected power."

Xie Qian smiled and said: "Observe, this thing has been used in the army for a long time. If there is really something wonderful, it would have been discovered long ago. The most important thing now is to save money and food and raise more troops. There is no use thinking about it."

Wang Xiaolie shook his head: "You can't say that. There are many things in the world that people use unskilledly just because they haven't thought of them yet or can't do them. It's like we say now that immortals can fly into the sky and escape from the earth in one day.

Traveling a thousand miles. But when you understand the principles of nature in the future, it will not be difficult for ordinary people to do it. There are still many things in this world that we don’t know."

After hearing this, several people laughed together and said that Wang Xiaolie was too whimsical. People are just people. Living in this world, there are many things that cannot be done and can only be thought about. If it is like what Wang Xiaolie said,

Doesn’t it mean that people become immortals?

Wang Xiaolie looked at the sky in the distance and said nothing for a while. Yes, in the eyes of people today, many things in future generations can only be accomplished by immortals. There are airplanes and rocket ships that can travel thousands of miles in a day and even fly to the moon.

Go up. There are submarines that can dive thousands of meters. There are telegraphs and telephones that can transmit sounds thousands of miles away. There are TVs and the Internet, and images and sounds thousands of miles away can be transmitted to your eyes in an instant. There are even robots that can partially

Work like a human being. These things may be ordinary in the eyes of later generations, but in the eyes of the ancients, aren’t they just immortals?

Even though Chen Gui had made a firearm that used a bamboo tube to set fire, after hearing what Wang Xiaolie said, he felt that his thinking was too far-reaching.

After everyone had eaten, they went back to their rooms to rest. Wang Xiaolie was not sleepy. He sat alone in the study, thinking about something on his mind. When a person of later generations comes to this world, what is the most important thing? Of course it is gunpowder. Although

Without gunpowder, the Song Dynasty should have defeated the Jin Dynasty, but with gunpowder, the difficulty would be much smaller. And gunpowder is not only used for fighting, but also has many other uses. For example, blasting mountains and paving roads would be much easier with gunpowder. Many people used to think that the roads were impassable.

If there is a place, the road can be built.

In addition to gunpowder, there are of course power engines, and the most impressive one is of course the steam engine. Unfortunately, there is no mechanical foundation now, and it is too difficult to create a steam engine out of thin air, so we can only leave it to future generations. What about others? Of course there are many more

For example, now that cotton is available, the cotton textile industry should be developed. Water conservancy and manpower can be used to build exquisite machinery, which greatly improves the productivity level of society. For example, with bearings, a large number of sturdy and durable machinery can be manufactured. Development first

Industry without steam engines.

Not all machinery uses steam engines, but there are also many machines that use human power, animal power and water power. In previous lives, there were many such machines in rural areas. It’s just that society has developed too fast and these machines have not been popularized yet. This stage will pass.

. For many people, they have never seen these machines and cannot think of their use.

Without a steam engine, it just doesn't have such high efficiency, many tasks cannot be completed, and it lacks versatility. But a large part of things that can only be done through industrialization can actually be done first.

Leaning back on the chair, Wang Xiaolie let go of his thoughts and thought about what would happen next, feeling a little overwhelmed. In fact, Wang Xiaolie had thought of this when he was building those new clubs in Xinye. It was just that there was no talent for the time being.

, I can only think about it. When enough mechanical talents are trained in a few years, things will be completely different by then.
Chapter completed!