In the first year of Hongwu, early August.

Shortly after Zhao Kai passed through Zhao Shu, Zhao Qi and Zhao Xu, the three brothers, and threatened the war to Zhao Huan, a good brother far away in Jinling City. He ordered the queen Zhu Fengying, left prime minister Lu Yihao, Wang Yuan, Jingxi Road pacifier Wang Yuan, Luoyang Prefect Zhao Ding and others to stay in the eastern capital Luoyang. Then, he led a large number of court officials, escorted by the Imperial Treasure Army and the Yulin Army, to leave Luoyang and head east.

The purpose of Zhao Kai's trip east this time was not to attack his elder brother Zhao Huan, nor to deal with the more hateful Jin thieves. Instead, he wanted to inspect Kaifeng Prefecture, which had been surrounded by the flood for several months, and then to see the construction work that controlled the yellow flora.

The current "Northern Song Dynasty" is really in a mess!

So the threat Zhao Kai issued to Zhao Huan sounds scary, but in fact it is more about verbalizing and extorting money.

Unless Zhao Huan is so stupid that he colluded with the Jin thieves to fight the "Northern Song Dynasty", Zhao Kai would not be able to leave the Yellow River area without caring about it. He put a bunch of gold fingers and went to fight with the same room...

In addition, Zhao Kai's mouth also had the intention of stimulating Zhao Huan to strengthen his military equipment - Zhao Kai has now collected 6,000 "vegetable horses" from all over the place, or has damaged his muscles and bones in previous battles, so he can take Wu Haogu, Huang Yue, Chen Xisheng and others to engage in "pseudo smuggling" (in private form and in public). So he had to create a little tension so that Wu Haogu, Pan Shengan and others could raise the price and make a lot of money!

Zhao Kai is really short of money now... because there are so many places to spend money now!

On the way to Kaifeng Prefecture, Zhao Kai got good news that he needed to spend a lot of money!

The first good news was that Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian, among the top ten loyalty merchants, reported to him. The two of them were going to Hebei to inspect the iron ore and recruit craftsmen. Zhao Kai took them on the way and asked them how the iron ore was doing.

And they told Zhao Kai a good news that the large blacksmith work they opened in Xishifang, Luoyang (now there is no market system, Xishifang is just a ground) has begun to produce!

Moreover, these two people also showed that they used the Shu Iron sent by the Sichuan Transportation Commission to create a high-quality cold-forged armor piece!

"Please look at the official family. This collar cover armor was made of cold-forged iron... It weighs only twenty pounds and can withstand the wooden feather arrow shot from the Divine Arm Bow!"

"Official family, this is the cold forging heart armor made by our Zhangji Tiefang with fifty kilograms of high-quality Shu Tie. It weighs 19 kilograms and eight kilograms... It can also be invulnerable to swords and guns!"

While Zhao Kai was resting in a palace outside the Gongyi Imperial Mausoleum, Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian each presented two pairs of cold forging armor.

These two collar and heart-covering armor looked a bit like vests, and were already placed on two scarecrows used as targets, and placed in a courtyard. Guo Tiannu was holding a divine arm bow with a wooden feather arrow, thirty or forty steps away from the scarecrow, preparing to shoot. There was a female squad beside her who was placing an arrow on another divine arm bow.

Zhao Kaize, Yue Fei, Dong Jingang, Li Fuchen, and Ma Wang, who is the supervisor of the Imperial Horse, stood aside and watched.

Is it invulnerable to swords and guns... You can tell by shooting the divine arm bow?

"When..." A crisp sound of metal collision, a sharp wooden feather arrow was instantly bounced away by a pair of armor covering the heart.

"When..." Another crisp sound, another pair of heart-covering armor also withstood the test of the wooden feather arrow!

"good!"

Yue Fei, Dong Jingang, Li Fuchen and Ma Wang all shouted loudly, and Zhao Kai nodded with great satisfaction.

This armor is really good at resisting the Divine Arm Bow at this distance!

Moreover, they are not very heavy, only about twenty kilograms, and can be used by cavalrymen.

Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian soon brought the "Armored Scarecrow" who had just been shot by the wooden feather arrow to Zhao Kai.

The armor worn by the two scarecrows were all painted with white paint. The arrowheads could leave clear scratches on their surface to show which armor leaf was hit.

Zhao Kai carefully checked the auricle leaves and found that a small dot was stamped out on the surface, but it was still early to be penetrated!

"The armor pieces used for the heart-covering armor presented by the official and the grass-roots people are really cold forged, extremely hard, and not fragile, and hard to get into with swords and guns!"

"Caomin's armor is also really cold-forged, exactly the same as the Qingtang Tuber Armor of the Western Pirate..."

Both "loyal businessmen" were boasting about Lao Wang, and Zhao Kai also knew that what they said made some sense.

The so-called cold forged armor, as the name suggests, is a armor plate that is smashed out with a hammer without heating the iron plate!

Of course, you can't give an iron lump to the blacksmith to smash it, as it doesn't have that much strength. You can't use a hydraulic hammer to smash it - later time travel novels often have scenes of smashing a plate armor with a hydraulic hammer.

So Zhao Kai talked about this matter with Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian, two "honest merchants", but the answers he got were all... impossible.

During the heating process, it is OK to use a hydraulic hammer to smash it, because the iron sheet to be processed is thicker and can be blocked! Moreover, the iron after heating becomes soft, with good ductility and will not be smashed.

However, when the nail sheet is processed using cold forging, you have to be very careful. At this time, the nail sheet is already very thin, and the iron is not ductile and can easily be smashed... So you can only use manual work and cannot use hydraulic hammers.

Even if you use careful processing by hand, the nail sheet may be smashed, because this is not only a problem with the forging master's craftsmanship, but also related to the quality of the iron material.

The iron material used for cold forging should not be too brittle (contains too much thio), and must have a certain degree of ductility so that cold forging can be performed.

For the non-brittle (with less thiophosphate), we must not only choose high-quality iron ore, but not yellow ore ore with red color, but it is best to use magnet ore. It is also absolutely not allowed to refine coal, and we must use charcoal to heat it. During the smelting process, lime must also be used to remove the slag... The cost of refining the iron using this method must be very high, so the smelter owners cannot pay such good iron for rent.

Besides, when Iron Supervisor collects rent, he doesn’t care whether the cooked iron is crispy or not. It is not taught in the "Four Books and Five Classics" how to test iron!

Therefore, most of the iron that was sent to the military surveillance in the past was inferior goods refined from coal.

Of course, there are exceptions. For example, Shu iron transported from Chengdu is made of charcoal because Chengdu does not produce coal and there are many trees around it, so the cost of burning charcoal is relatively low.

However, the output of Shu iron accounts for the national iron production of the Song Dynasty, and the distance to Kaifeng Prefecture is far away, so the proportion of iron rental is very low. However, not every piece of Shu iron that is recharged is suitable for cold forging... There is no coal, but it does not mean that the owner of Sichuan will pay the best refined iron for rent. Therefore, the craftsmen from the Zhang family in Hebei and the Chen family in Xuzhou can only carefully select a part of the million kilograms of Shu iron sent from Sichuan for cold forging.

Moreover, Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian also assured Zhao Kai that as long as the money and the people who spend money are in place, they can also use the iron ore of Cizhou, Xiangzhou and Xinde Prefecture to make good iron that can be cold-forged!

"What does it mean that people who spend money are in place?" Zhao Kai couldn't understand it.

Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian smiled but did not answer, and even glanced at Guo Tiannu from the corner of their eyes.

"Officials, this good armor must be tested by those who spend money to buy it, otherwise it will definitely be faked... The price difference here is too big!" Guo Tiannu replied with a smile, "There are many fakes in Qingtang wart armor. They use hot-forged armor to pretend to be cold-forged. They look almost the same, and they will break when they are shot by the divine arm bow!"

I see!

Zhao Kai glanced at the two "Zhongshangs", why did he smile so embarrassingly? Have you done this too? It must be true, I will know at a glance that you two are not good people!

Thinking of this, Zhao Kai looked down and said, "In a year, I want you two to create cold-forged armors like 1,500 collars. The price is easy to say, and you can get fifty cents of each collar, but the quality must be good!

At that time, I will test the shooting with the Divine Arm Bow, and I will randomly check thirty of them... But I will not make things difficult for the Scarecrow. I want you two to put on armor to be targets! If you can't shoot to death, you will collect money. I will not give you a penny and shoot to death... Then you will have to collect the body! How about it, there is no problem, right?"

3,000-collar cold forged armor, one-collar 50 stakes, a total of 1.5 million stakes!

This is not an order from the court or an individual order from the government soldiers, but Zhao Kai is ordering for his cavalry.

So of course, the 1.5 million guan was not taken out by the Ministry of Revenue, but had to be derived from the income from Wu Haogu and his horse selling.

......

At the same time, Qin Hui, who had just mentioned the Minister of Rites in the palace in Yingtian Prefecture (Jinling) in the Song Dynasty, met the Emperor Zhao Huan of Jinling outside a pavilion in the back garden of the palace.

There were also dusty brothers Zhao Shu, Zhao Qi and Zhao Xu standing beside Zhao Huan! These three brothers were really busy all the way! They arrived in Jinling this morning without even returning to the palace, so they immediately entered the palace.

"Qin Hui!" Zhao Huan looked at Qin Hui who was uneasy again and said with a smile, "You are guilty of corruption!"

Is it guilty of falsehood?

Qin Hui's heart was just a thrust, and he colluded with Wanyan Zonghan... This is a traitor!

The stolen country is going to be beheaded!

Qin Hui gritted his teeth and immediately came to die and refused to admit his guilt. "I am loyal to the Song Dynasty. I am not secretly engaging in the Jin thief!"

Zhao Huan smiled and looked at Qin Hui, "Qin Hui, did I say you secretly know the Jin people?"

Isn't this a crime? Then there is... fraud in the imperial examination? Apart from the stolen country, it seems that this is the crime that is quite serious. The other sins are all fine, and there is nothing big.

Qin Hui was sweating profusely on his forehead. He couldn't even admit his fraud in the imperial examination. He would be exiled!

He stuttered a little, "I... I am dedicated to the country, I am really not guilty! I have a clear conscience!"

Having a clear conscience? Zhao Huan sneered in his heart. His official family also has the Imperial City Department, the Censorate, and his brains are also there!
Chapter completed!