Nanming Engineer

Chapter 89 Armor
Wang Huan jumped over, grabbed Ma Chongming's hand and asked anxiously, "Did you buy the food?"

Ma Chongming said with a dark face: "Of course I bought it back. There are two thousand stones in total. It took a lot of effort to get it."

Wang Huan was even more happy after hearing this, and said cheerfully: "The horse-headed people are really capable. It's great that they can raise so much food in these years of continuous disasters!"

Ma Chongming glared at Wang Huan with displeasure on his face and said roughly: "That's good, but Mr. Wang, how much money did you spend to make such a big scene in the past ten days? The money I bought for food was paid for." Others borrowed it at usury, you have to give it to me quickly."

Wang Huan smiled slightly, and said with great emotion: "That's natural, I'll give it to you when I turn back. The horse-headed people don't care about the silver, good steel is used on the blade, and the silver is like broken copper and iron if you don't use it. Yes, don't you think so?"

Ma Chongming grumbled heartbrokenly: "If you are not in charge of a family, you don't know how much money is expensive. Although there is a lot of silver in the Tubao village bank, if you use it like this, I'm afraid it won't last long."

Wang Huan laughed loudly when he heard this, shook his head, and shouted to a scribe who was following him, "Zhou Cheng, come and report the number to the horse-headed man, so that the head-man can clearly know how many we have now. How big a scene can a family have!"

Zhou Cheng, an old scribe, bowed slightly and replied, "Yes."

He took out a booklet from his arms, turned to a page with densely written words, cleared his throat and read: "Tubaozhai Silver Mine currently has 2000 miners, divided into two shifts, working day and night, and a smelting plant." There are 600 silversmiths, 100 guards, and 500 people. Since the opening of the mine on June 25, excluding the time required for the construction of the mine in the first two days, in the past ten days, 20 catties of ore have been produced every day, and 2000 taels of silver ingots obtained from smelting have been consumed. , As of today's Chenshi, a total of 2 taels of silver have been obtained."

Wang Huan looked at Ma Chongming with a smile: "Horse-headed man, did you hear that?"

Ma Chongming could no longer speak, his face turned pale from shock, and he stammered, pointing to the booklet in Zhou Cheng's hand, and asked, "Day, day, Nissan tael, 2000 tael?"

Zhou Cheng bowed calmly and said, "Headman, yes."

Ma Chongming suddenly shouted: "Impossible, the best silver mine in Ming Dynasty has a daily output of less than 200 taels. How can we have such a high output in this poor mountain valley!"

Wang Huan said with a smile: "I heard that as soon as you came back, you ran to the bank to have a look. Don't you believe your eyes?"

Ma Chongming suddenly remembered what he had been doing in the bank. The piles of silver bricks and silver ingots were not made of iron sheets, but solid silver, not fake.However, his status is expensive as the leader, and it would not be honorable for such a shameful thing to be known by others.

But he has been so sophisticated for a long time, and his face is thicker than Wang Huan's. He didn't even twitch his brows, but looked at Wang Huan in surprise: "Counselor Wang, how did you do it?"

"Technically speaking, silver mines are divided into different grades. The silver mines in Daming, the official mines have good mineral quality and high purity, but corruption is serious. Since they are short catty taels, the output is 1000 taels and reported as 100 taels, so the output is naturally not high; private mines Without the means of mineral processing and prospecting, finding one place after another is like a blind man riding a blind horse, just trying his luck. Of course, there will be no good ore." Wang Huan calmly went to class: "And once the ore is dug out, how to smelt it is also It’s a big problem. Nowadays, both government and private mines use fire smelting, which has low efficiency, high losses, and extremely low output. But I use my own wet smelting method. One day’s work is equal to five days of fire smelting. What do you think of ours? Why is the output not high?"

Ma Chongming was confused and didn't understand at all, but he still knew a little bit. The Wang Huan in front of him was a walking God of Wealth!

Wang Huan asked with a smile, "So, how many days of our output will it take for your little money to buy food?"

Ma Chongming was stunned for a moment, his mind was spinning, and then he waved his hand and shouted boldly: "Forget about the little money, Mr. Wang, you can give it to me whenever you say. Can I still not trust you? Remember first. On the account."

Wang Huan was suffocated, thinking that if it hadn't been for that last sentence, he would have really thought that Ma Chongming suddenly became stupid when he heard that there was such a huge amount of money.The result is still not stupid.

He took Ma Chongming's hand affectionately, and said enthusiastically: "Since the Matou people are so trusting, that's great. Come on, let's take a walk and talk."

The two of them walked slowly along the roads in the city full of construction sites. The roads in the city had only been leveled, and the ground was still dirt, and stone slabs had not been paved yet, but there was no problem in walking.

Ma Chongming is full of calculations, counting the production of 2000 taels of silver a day, how much is it in one month, how much is it in a year, and how much is his own share? Hua, laughing nonstop like a fool, was in the midst of joy when she heard Wang Huan, who was walking a step ahead, questioning herself.

"Horsehead, I heard that in the past when my adoptive mother sent troops to fight, the sergeants in the army were all from each tribe, and they prepared their own armor. The Xuanwei Envoy was only responsible for training and weapons. Is that so?"

Ma Chongming quickly broke free from his smirk. The God of Wealth could not be distracted when he asked, and hurriedly responded: "Yes, that's exactly the case. Speaking of this, but it's a long story. The imperial court has always only given the military standard to President Qin. Battalion weapons and armor, Qin Zongbing's standard battalion has only [-] places, and we have to prepare the extra. Qin Zongbing managed to get some money to solve the weapons, but we have to prepare the armor and clothes by ourselves .”

"That's why my Shizhu white-armed soldiers go out to fight, with uniform weapons and various clothes. General Qin's soldiers wear iron armor as standard, and our tribal soldiers mostly wear leather armor, bamboo armor and rattan armor."

"Bamboo armor? Rattan armor?" Wang Huan stopped in his tracks, turned around and asked, his eyes sparkling, as if he heard something of interest.

Ma Chongming became excited for no reason. This young Mr. Wang turned stone into gold. As long as he was interested in something, he might be able to find business opportunities to make big money, so he quickly replied: "Exactly, bamboo armor and rattan armor are both It is unique to our Tujia and Miao families. As you know, Sichuan is rich in bamboo and rattan, but has little iron and animal skins. Therefore, armor is scarce. Our ancestors were wise and cut bamboo into pieces to imitate iron armor and sewed it with threads. Bamboo piece armor, bamboo is tough and cannot be penetrated by arrows, so it can have a certain protective effect."

"This method can prevent long-distance arrows, but it can't prevent close-range arrows, knives, slashes and spear stabs. The effect is better than nothing." Wang Huan nodded, thinking thoughtfully: "What about the rattan armor?"

Ma Chongming became proud, raised his chin and said: "The rattan armor was handed down by Meng Huo during the Three Kingdoms period. Have you heard of the storytelling in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Hi, yes, the rattan armor is the rattan armor that Zhuge Liang used to burn the rattan armor soldiers. That is Collect the vines from the mountains, braid them into pieces, soak them in tung oil and soak them for a month or two, expose them to the sun, dry them out, soak them again, and then dry them again. Repeat this four or five times until the vines become extremely hard. It is comparable to copper and iron, but it is extremely light. It can move around easily after wearing it. It can protect against swords, guns and arrows, and it is not afraid of far or near. However, this rattan armor has a shortcoming, that is, it is afraid of fire. As long as it touches a spark, it will catch fire, so now Very little is used.”

Ma Chongming told what he knew in one breath, then looked at Wang Huan eagerly, and asked tentatively full of hope: "Master Wang, are you going to make this bamboo armor and rattan armor for sale? Is there any buyer for this kind of thing?" Many, bamboo armor is fragile, wearing it is not much different from not wearing it, rattan armor is afraid of fire, and the story of burning rattan armor soldiers is well-known, who will buy it?"

Wang Huan looked up at the sky, frowning slightly, looking for a long time as if trying to see a hole in the sky, which made Ma Chongming also look up, but saw nothing.

He looked away from the sky, but saw Wang Huan looking at him with a smile, and asked, "How many rattan armors are there in your tribe's warehouse?"

(End of this chapter)