"Okay! I am thankful for Guan Jian." Lu Xiangsheng was overjoyed and a little regretful when he heard the number of 20,000 sets of iron armor. With 20,000 sets of iron armor, the combat effectiveness of the troops will inevitably be enhanced several times. Unfortunately, he naturally cannot get craftsmen and cannot make these iron armors by himself.

Lu Xiangsheng then stayed in Handan for a day, and then went south to Henan. Although the bandits left Henan, there were still many endgames to be cleaned up.

Zhao Yan's second battalion was stationed in Handan on the spot, while Zhao Yan began to direct the construction of blast furnaces, coking and steel frying methods.

The business is constantly transporting grain to Handan, and the 700,000 s of sweet potatoes are mainly transported to Handan and Yingzhou. In addition, it is also planned to transfer 300,000 s of rice and wheat to come.

However, most of the grain that goes to Yingzhou must be transported after the Yellow River is opened to navigation, while the grain that goes to Handan is transported from other water routes.

The water networks in this era were very dense, with water transportation routes everywhere (the map is too small, I don’t know the name of the river). There are still many rivers that can be reached from Shandong to Handan.

The blast furnace iron smelting method was developed and improved by the ancient vertical furnace iron smelting. Although many new iron smelting methods have been developed in countries around the world, due to the good technical and economic indicators of blast furnace iron smelting, simple technology, large production, high labor productivity and low energy consumption, the iron produced by this method still accounts for more than 95% of the world's total iron production.

Blast furnaces are a method of iron smelting that can be continuously smelted and have simple technology, so the procurement requirements for raw materials are relatively high and must be continuously carried out.

Manpower is arranged for the mining of three things: lime, coke and iron ore.

After nearly a month of improvement, Zhao Yan finally began to build a blast furnace. After six days of construction, a small blast furnace of 130 cubic meters was built.

This is an experiment and the blast furnace was first used. On the same day, under the command of Zhao Yan, Iron smelting began.

The experiment was very successful. After a day and night of smelting, 150 tons of pig iron were successfully refined. The utilization coefficient was only 1 ton/(meter*).

At the same time, the consumption of coke is relatively large, and 600 kilograms of coke per ton of pig iron is required.

It is still relatively backward in technology. The production efficiency per cubic meter is not high and the coke consumption is also very high. However, the production speed of pig iron in blast furnaces is still shocking.

Such production speed is definitely a huge speed in this era. Zhao Yan determined the blast furnace technology and then handed over this aspect to the people below to continue to build larger blast furnaces and higher production efficiency blast furnaces.

After a large amount of pig iron was found, Zhao Yan began to implement the steel frying method.

First, we need to build a mixing furnace similar to a flat furnace and make the cast iron mature. There is no difficulty. This furnace has been built long ago.

After stirring, the pig iron was successfully trained into cooked iron. Then, under forging, steel was quickly produced.

After confirming these technologies, Zhao Yan will be fine next.

Zhao Yan transferred Zhou Tieming from Shandong to be responsible for steel production, while the Military Equipment Bureau conducted separate management of technology and procurement.

After the technology is determined, what Zhou Tieming needs to do is to expand the scale and continuously renovate the technology to improve production efficiency.

Because Handan will become an important steel base, safety is also crucial. Jiangcheng hurried from Yingzhou and designed an eighteen-angle castle.

If a prism is built large, there will naturally be more prominent corners.

Handan requires a lot of labor. It takes people to build forts, smelting steel, mining, and transportation of steel.

It is even more important to pull up 50,000 second-line troops.

Handan has a population of 130,000, which is far from enough. It is estimated that 500,000 people are enough. Therefore, the business has begun to recruit refugees from all over Henan.

All the following people did this job, and Zhao Yan didn't have anything to do. So in early April, Zhao Yan finally set off to return to Shandong.

...

At this moment, Zhao Yan was already the general of Denglai, and Shandong Governor Zhu Dadian also advanced to the next level and became the Zuo Wailang of the Ministry of War, but he was transferred to the position of governor of the four prefectures of Lu, Feng, Huai and Yang.

Yan Jizu became the new governor of Shandong. When Zhao Yan returned to Shandong, Zhu Dadian had already left Shandong and went to Jianghuai to take office.

After Zhao Yan learned the news, he immediately wrote a letter to Zhu Dadian. The four prefectures of governor Zhu Dadian are one of the most concentrated areas in Zhao Yan's future commercial actions. It is naturally better to have someone to take care of them.

Once back to Shandong, Zhao Quan began to report to him in detail about the development of the business over the past few months.

"In the first three months, the company's quarterly revenue reached 1.8 million taels, of which 1.3 million taels were recorded in glass mirrors, 300,000 taels were earned in salt industry, and the remaining 200,000 taels were revenue from glassware. The current fiscal balance is 430,000 taels," Zhao Quan thought to himself.

In terms of expenditure, we mainly invested in Handan, and 800,000 taels of silver were invested in Handan to ensure rapid development without any hindrance.

"How are you preparing for the cotton cloth?" Zhao Yan asked.

"The textile factory in Shandong has started construction. More than 200 hydraulic spinning machines (mule machines) and more than 500 hydraulic looms have been built in Songjiang Mansion. The construction will start in about half a month." Zhao Quan estimated.

"How are you doing confidentiality work?" Zhao Yan continued to ask.

"More than a thousand people have been transferred to guard the situation. In addition, craftsmen in hydraulic machinery are under surveillance, so they can't make any mistakes." Zhao Quan said, "After all, those craftsmen don't know the profits, and no one is here to poach the enemy now."

"This is not enough. It is best to build a bastion in Songjiang Prefecture, and the cotton cloth is produced in the bastion." Zhao Yan thought for a while and said.

"I'm going to do it right away." Zhao Quan remembered that the phenomenon of building forts among the people was very common in the Ming Dynasty. The government generally ignored it, and it was not difficult to build a fort in Songjiang Prefecture.

This is mainly because they are all Han people, so they are not wary of their surnames. If they are Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and the government will have a stronger reaction.

After the Dutch built a fort in Penghu, they were immediately expelled by the Fujian government.

"In Handan, we have produced iron at present, and the cost is much lower. In terms of steel products, we can also get involved. Send a few people to the market to inspect things like agricultural tools, iron pots, steel needles. If it is profitable, we will be distributed in local commercial banks, but overseas markets will definitely be profitable." Zhao Yan said that the smelting process in Handan has exceeded the technology of this era. The cost has a great advantage and it will inevitably generate income. This is the income from heavy industry.

Zhao Quan quickly wrote it down and said to Zhao Yan: "Young Master, I bought two more lucky ships last month. We have four lucky ships now, all of which are placed in the port."

"I'll go and see tomorrow." Zhao Yan suddenly felt enlightened. However, whether it was private salt, textile industry, or glass mirrors, the returns were not as fast as those of the sea trade.

However, sea trade also cannot be separated from the production of goods, and there is no need to sell without goods.

Japan is undoubtedly the fat meat that makes Zhao Yan covet. Due to the long-term export blockade by the Ming Dynasty and the low industrial level of Japan, the demand for foreign imports is very large, resulting in the rising profits of maritime trade, making it the region with the highest maritime trade profits in Southeast Asia.

Moreover, Japan has a large amount of copper ore, as well as rich saltpeter ore and sulfur, which are what Zhao Yan currently lacks.

——

Votes!
Chapter completed!