Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 188 The end of the year
After staying in Wuyang for half a month, Lu Xiangsheng set off for Hebei.He is also a busy man, he manages several mansions, how can he leave for a long time.Yang Menglong prepared several carts of things for him to take back, including potato seeds, some books that he thought Lu Xiangsheng would need, and a batch of triangular army thorns and spear heads that were driven out overtime. It was so useful, he couldn't be more grateful.Yang Menglong was also very grateful to him, if Lu Xiangsheng hadn't given him nearly two thousand warriors who dared to fight, the mighty Wuyang Guard would not know where he is now!

After sending you for more than 20 miles, Lu Xiangsheng stopped and said, "Xiao Shuai Yang, I have to send you off for thousands of miles. I have to say goodbye at last, so let's go here. During this period of time, I have been treated with warm information from you, and I have given you art of war and weapons. Lu I am very grateful, and there will be a big reward in the future!"

Yang Menglong said: "We have been in battle and killed Jiannu, so don't say these outrageous things. Master Lu, take care, I will visit you at Daming Mansion some other day!"

Lu Xiangsheng said with a smile: "Welcome!" After thinking for a while, he said: "You want to reorganize the Nanyang Guard, and you don't have a good source of soldiers. I'm afraid it will be quite difficult. How about this? I heard that the people of Danyang are fierce and fierce. Ask someone to help you recruit some, I hope you can set up this shelf soon... The world is getting more and more chaotic, Nanyang is the place where the Fourth World War is fought, I really don’t feel relieved that you are here to guard this little army!”

Yang Menglong smiled and said, "Thank you so much, sir!" After clapping his hands, Wang Tie hammered a surprisingly large wooden box, Yang Menglong took it with both hands and handed it over, saying: "You sent me two thousand elite soldiers, I have never It’s really unreasonable to give you something decent in return. I made craftsmen work overtime day and night to forge this knife, so it’s just a small thought, and you must accept it.”

Lu Xiangsheng couldn't help laughing: "Are you still doing this with me?" Opening the box, a cold light came out of the box, making the whole body cold.Lying quietly in the box is a Mo Dao. The blade is three feet three inches long and broad and long. The blade is as bright as a mirror, and every beard on the lips can be seen. sharp.Wang Tiehammer explained: "The whole body of this knife is made of manganese steel, and the blade is sharpened, polished, and tempered by the knife casting master himself. Cut the tulle in half, it is really the king of the sword!"

Lu Xiangsheng's complexion changed, and he said to Yang Menglong: "Little Yang Shuai, this gift is too heavy, I absolutely cannot accept it!"

Yang Menglong's face sank, and he said, "No matter how precious a knife is, how much is it that you give me two thousand soldiers? Accept it! If you don't want it, I'll throw it away!"

Lu Xiangsheng thanked him again and again, and then he accepted, and the two sides bid farewell.It wasn't until his back disappeared behind the horizon that Yang Menglong reluctantly got on his horse and returned.There are still many things waiting for him to do.

The potatoes had already been harvested, and the winter wheat had been planted, but Wuyangwei was still so busy—no, the whole of Nanyang was so busy.Every day, a large number of middle-aged men push rooster carts or drive carts to Wuyang, and then load them with potatoes, tomatoes and other stuff and transport them to surrounding counties.Fresh potatoes are officially on the market and have become a novel product in the vegetable markets of surrounding prefectures and counties. Because they are rich in nutrition and low in price, they are very popular. Businessmen who see business opportunities naturally rush to order, or load them on trucks or ship them to various places for sale. Well, the military households of Wuyangwei more or less sold some potatoes, and they made a fortune.There are too many people now, and the carpenter workshop had to move out and enclose a piece of land by itself, otherwise they would not be able to work.These carpenters worked very hard. They managed to make the waterwheels, carriages, suction wells and other things needed by Wuyang thousand households, and received more orders to build water for the other five thousand households. Cars, Taiping cars, suction tube wells, ready to do a big job after the spring of next year.In addition, the gentry in the thirteen counties of Nanyang Prefecture also came to order water trucks. Who knows if the drought will continue like today?There are a few waterwheels, even if it doesn't rain, they can still lift the river water to the canal, and keep some crops to some extent.With so many orders, the carpenters would not be able to keep up even with two shifts. It is said that Yang Menglong has planned to separate the carpentry workshop into a carpentry factory, let them be responsible for their own profits and losses, and just place orders for what they need.The news surprised the carpenters but also made them feel anxious. What surprised them was that the situation was so prosperous. If they went out independently, they would definitely make a lot of money. What worried them was that once they were responsible for their own profits and losses, without Yang Menglong's cover, would they still be able to work like this? So free and easy now?Oh, trouble!

The blacksmith workshop is already planning to split into three.After the separation, the blacksmiths no longer have to be in charge of steelmaking. The blast furnace steelmaking plant under construction is responsible for the steelmaking. They just buy back the iron and steel they need from the steelmaking plant and process them. .The blacksmiths responsible for making weapons will be relocated to the barracks to prevent the leakage of some key technologies, and to ensure their personal safety.The blacksmith workshops left in the Wuyang Qianhu Center have been responsible for their own profits and losses since then, specializing in making agricultural tools such as plows, rakes, hoes, and hatchets. How much they can earn depends on their fortune.These blacksmiths are gearing up, saying that in a few years, they will be able to live a happy life with houses, fields and women. They have such confidence!

As for the refugees who stayed outside the Wuyang Thousand Households Office, they were also pleasantly surprised to find that although winter has come, this winter is not sad. There are job opportunities everywhere... For example, they can go to the factory building of the potato processing factory to build House, you can go to the sulfuric acid plant that has not yet been put into operation to do some chores, you can pick coal.Although the horoscope for the steelmaking blast furnace has not yet been written, Yang Menglong, who is used to thinking about where to work, still started buying coal early.The sulfur content of coal is quite high, so it cannot be directly used to make steel, it has to be burnt into coke first, which requires a lot of manpower.If it is not possible, those refugees can still go up the mountain to cut moso bamboo and sell it. Inspired by Wuyangwei's use of bamboo canals to divert water, the five thousand households decided to follow suit and cut a large number of moso bamboos to pave bamboo canals, which is comparable to the cost of repairing canals. The manpower and material resources are more than ten times lower.Not only them, but the country gentry also began to cut moso bamboo to pave bamboo canals. The demand for moso bamboo soared.Anyway, bamboo has nothing special about it, it just grows fast and fiercely. Don’t look at the fact that it’s been cut down bare. In spring next year, after a few rains, there will be bamboo all over the mountains and plains again!In the spring of the second year, bamboo canals were everywhere in several flat and open counties in Nanyang, which was very spectacular.The most spectacular bamboo canal is in Biyang. There are several stretching for nearly twenty miles, leading the river to the thirsty land. In the rivers of various counties, waterwheels have been set up one after another. The criss-crossing bamboo canals The canal, the waterwheel with its wheels turning day and night, has become an unattractive but absolutely lovable landscape in Nanyang Mansion.

Potato processing plants are also under construction in full swing.The shelf life of potatoes is so long, so we must hurry up.Since he couldn't wait any longer, Cheng Ji simply built a factory and processed it at the same time. Anyway, the difficulty was not high.Hundreds of refugees worked day and night to wash the potatoes and pound them into a muddy state. The buckets of mashed potatoes were lifted down and poured into the vat, where they were separated with water. The residue of potato skins was filtered and the starch was wrapped in tofu cloth Get up and squeeze out the water. At this time, the large wooden barrels made by the carpenters will come in handy.A fixing device in this wooden barrel puts a bag of potato starch in and fixes it, and then quickly turns the handle, driven by a gear, the fixing device rotates at a high speed to throw out the residual water in the potato starch.The last process is drying. Potato flour is poured into the steamer, sent to the drying room and placed in a row on the iron rack. The fireman shovels a shovel of coal to the stove, and the smoke goes straight to Yunxiao. After a while, the heat wave was roiling in the drying room, and water vapor evaporated from the cage of potato starch. When the door was opened, the white water vapor wrapped in the heat wave rushed towards the face, making people breathless.With this method, hundreds of stones of potato noodles can be processed a day, and a thousand stones can be processed at the peak of production. Such a processing capacity is not enough to see now, but it was quite scary at the time.Needless to say, working here is quite hard, especially the workers who wash potatoes and filter starch. Their hands are bruised and blue from the cold all day long, but the advantage is that the wages are high, and they can earn forty or fifty coppers a day at least. , and also take care of three meals, no one thought about quitting their jobs.

As for those potato noodles, often before they are taken out of the drying room, there are a large number of carts waiting outside, and they are directly weighed, loaded, and transported away, with one-stop service.Cheng Ji sold it at a price of seven renminbi per stone. After deducting the cost of buying potatoes and processing fees, he made a net profit of nearly three renminbi, which may not seem like much, but when multiplied by 60 million, it is quite scary.His big brother, who was trying to press his head everywhere, was so jealous that his eyeballs were about to bleed!A large number of potato noodles were sold to several surrounding provinces by water and land. Soon, this relatively cheap flour appeared in more and more rice shops in Zhili, Shandong, Shanxi, Huguang and other places. Competing to buy, the sales scene is called a hot one - there is no way not to be hot, wheat for three taels a stone or potato noodles for more than one tael a stone, which one do you choose?Anyone with a little brain knows the answer!
Potato dregs are not wasted either. They are processed into feed and transported to farms to feed pigs, horses, cows, and sheep until they are chubby. Yang Menglong really refuses to let go of any of them.As for Yang Menglong, Cheng Ji expressed that he couldn’t see through it. This guy spends a lot of money, but he is very careful in his work. No matter what is in his hands, he will squeeze out all the value, and he will not accept it. up!

In the busy process, the first snow drifted down from the cracks in the lead cloud, falling like salt powder, gently and without a sound.Yang Menglong and Xiao Yufang rode together and walked out of the Qianhu House. They saw a lot of traffic on the flat road, chicken carts pushed by strong men, Taiping carts pulled by mules, and carts of potato noodles driving out. There were also quite a few cars driving in with fruit and the like, and they were very busy.Even in snowy days, there are still refugees who come with their families, trying to find employment opportunities.Xiao Yufang watched quietly, then suddenly smiled, and asked Yang Menglong softly, "Do you still remember the first time we met?"

Yang Menglong said: "Of course I remember. It was so cold at that time. I was hungry for several days and fell limp on the side of the road. You saved my life with two eggs... I still remember Xiao's family at that time. The village is so bad that there is no decent house in the whole village."

Xiao Yufang said: "Yes, at that time you were just a homeless man who almost starved to death on the side of the road. Who would have thought that in just one year, this homeless man would achieve such a career?"

Yang Menglong grinned: "It's all thanks to you, if you hadn't taken me in, my bones would be pounding!"

Xiao Yufang blushed and spat: "You're talking nonsense again!"

Yang Menglong laughed loudly, lifted the reins, the horse neighed, and galloped along the special avenue for Wuyangwei, Xiao Yufang exclaimed, hugging him and not daring to move, this made him even more proud.The strong horse is like the wind, the beauty is like jade, the wind whistling in the clouds, the magnificent mountains and rivers spread out under the horseshoes, and the more magnificent and majestic scenery is just ahead...

(End of this chapter)