Iron Dynasty

Chen Wenlong's words are very vague, but this is indeed the actual problem Xiao Ming is facing now.

Qi Wang's mansion has no money, and it is difficult for Si Qiaofu to cook without rice, and it is impossible to forcibly pull the strong man, otherwise the sky will be angry and the image he has just established will collapse again.

The matter is yours, the money is mine. Xiao Ming gritted his teeth, he wanted to integrate the equipment division when he broke the pot and sold iron. This was his only chance to turn around.

Otherwise, just because of the poverty of this fief, he would have to die under the slaughtering knives of barbarians after two years, even if Yao and Shun were to be reincarnated.

Chen Wenlong looked at Xiao Ming, who was frowning and thinking hard, puzzled. This equipment department has never been taken seriously in the Great Yu Kingdom. Today, King Qi does not know what he has done.

But remembering the surly character of King Qi in the past, he didn't dare to ask more, thinking that King Qi might just be on a whim, but since he ordered it like this, he could only reply: As per your order, Your Highness.

After explaining that Chen Wenlong gathered the carpenters and blacksmiths in the city, Xiao Ming thought about how to raise money and returned to the palace.

When he called Qian Dafu, he asked, Dafu, how many silver taels do we have in the Qi palace?

Go back to Your Highness, plus the silver taels that Concubine Zhen asked Ziwan and Luluo to bring, we still have about 1,000 taels of silver in the Qi Palace.

One thousand taels? Xiao Ming frowned.

In the past, Xiao Ming didn't have the ability to make money, but he did have the ability to spend money. He spent a lot of money on the relief of Concubine Zhen, and he also knew the price of Qingzhou City.

Generally speaking, one tael of silver can buy two stones of rice in Dayu country. According to his experience, one stone in Dayu country is equivalent to one hundred and twenty kilograms in modern times.

One tael of silver is equal to two hundred and forty catties of rice, and the average price of one catty of rice in modern times is basically two yuan and fifty-one catties.

So one tael of silver is basically equal to six hundred yuan in modern RMB.

The thousand taels of silver seemed to be a lot, but it was only enough for the expenses of the palace. After all, the servants, grooms, and cooks in the palace all needed to be paid.

For example, Qian Dafu’s annual salary is 22 taels of silver, and 15 taels of green dill and aster. In addition to food and drink expenses, the rest is limited.

Give me five hundred taels. Xiao Ming stretched out his hand.

His Royal Highness, this is the New Year's Silver that Empress just issued this year, and it's all delivered to you. You have to save some flowers.

Qian Dafu was stingy, afraid that Xiao Ming would squander his money like in previous years.

This king is doing business this time, not looking for flowers and asking willows. Xiao Ming pouted.

After Qian Dafu heard this, he hesitated and took five hundred taels of silver notes and gave them to Xiao Ming.

After accepting the bank note, Xiao Ming said to Qian Dafu, I will send a letter to the royal father.

Qian Dafu had become numb to Xiao Ming's strange behavior in the past two days, so his servants immediately prepared pen, ink, paper and inkstone.

Of course, he wrote this letter not to reminisce with Xiao Wenxuan, but to cry about poverty. The letter probably meant that the fiefs were poor and the people would not be able to eat.

Even so, he still has to spend money to fight the barbarians. He just captured 30 barbarian cavalry yesterday, and the losses are quite large. The equipment department has no money to make arrows.

Hurry up and send it to Chang'an! Xiao Ming glanced at the thousand-word cry-poor composition with satisfaction, and threw it to Qian Dafu.

If Xiao Wenxuan still cares about the relationship between flesh and blood, maybe he can make some money. If this Xiao Wenxuan is heartless, this letter will be completely disgusting to him.

Xiao Ming basically thought about ways to raise money, and the only one left was a local wealthy family.

However, these people will definitely not be willing to pay for it. They are eager for the Qi Palace to be half-dead, so that they can feel at ease.

But Xiao Ming will not let them go. Now these wealthy families are all fat sheep, and Xiao Ming is a person who plucks the wild goose, not to mention the fat sheep.

After thinking about it, it is estimated that they will not be able to grab it by force, but it is very simple to make them spit out money. These big clans are either officials or part-time merchants. As long as there are products they are interested in, they are not afraid that they will not pay for them.

For the next three days, Xiao Ming stayed in the Equipment Division all day. Five hundred taels of silver made the Equipment Division unprecedentedly wealthy. The daily purchases of wood, briquettes, and iron ore came in and out, changing the desolate appearance of the past.

Thirty craftsmen sat on the ground in the equipment department, and Xiao Ming stood in front of them and talked endlessly.

These thirty craftsmen are basically all the craftsmen in Qingzhou, mainly carpenters and blacksmiths. Now Xiao Ming is telling them something they have never heard before - a lathe.

After analyzing the knowledge in the technology library and combining the experience of the first industrial revolution, Xiao Ming believes that the foundation of the industrial revolution is lathes, which include boring machines, milling machines, grinding machines, drilling machines, gear processing machines and so on.

On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, it was the birth of these tools that produced precise mechanical parts, which produced qualified steam engine cylinders.

The steam engine further automated the lathe, and more sophisticated parts appeared, making more machinery possible.

During the Warring States Period, primitive lathes appeared in China. These lathes were generally used to cut logs for waterwheels, and this process has been preserved.

It's just that the lathes of this period are of wooden structure and are pedal powered, and the machine tools are very unstable.

The real lathe needs high-quality steel, so that the machine tool can be fixed and various machine parts can be processed.

As the saying goes, if a craftsman wants to do a good job, he must first sharpen his tool, which is the tool of the craftsman.

Lathes, as the accumulated achievements of craftsman technology, are also the basis for inducing the industrial revolution.

What Xiao Ming has to do now is to first let the craftsmen make various tools.

Now that he is standing on the shoulders of giants, he does not need to follow the long steps before the industrial revolution, but cuts to the point.

Of course, before manufacturing the lathe, Xiao Ming had to do one more thing, and that was to teach these craftsmen how to make steel.

Xiao Ming observed the steps these craftsmen took to build weapons. Strictly speaking, these craftsmen are still using the traditional method of pouring steel, and the steel produced by this method can still be used on machine tools.

However, he originally wanted to teach them the crucible steelmaking method, but the people here did not know where the crucible material graphite was.

However, through the science and technology library, Xiao Ming learned that Shandong was originally a large province of graphite mines in contemporary times, and he accurately located the location of graphite mines, and he could let people find such graphite mines.

At that time, he can fire crucibles and realize large-scale crucible steelmaking.

It is now the end of the seventeenth century, and the Great Yu Kingdom, like the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, is unaware of the changes in the outside world.

Because the news is blocked, Xiao Ming is also unclear.

But he knew that the Mongol conquest of Europe did not seem to have happened in history, and if Europe had achieved a stable period at this time, he could not predict the level of European civilization now.