Datang: Li Shimin begged me to rebel

Li Ke laughed and got up from the ground, then sat down next to Li Shimin, and quickly began to act cute: "Father, do you think I'm doing a good job!"

Li Shimin Shengsheng got goosebumps all over his body when Li Ke called "Daddy", "Can you talk well?!" Li Shimin leaned back with a look of disgust.

"Hey, Dad, just say, is it useful for my son to reward the craftsmen!" Li Ke began to show off.

"Is this also developed by craftsmen?" Li Shimin's expression became more serious.

"Yes, the road is just a concrete road made of cement mixed with gravel and sand. Although it has been used for a long time, for example, based on decades of history, it is indeed not as hard as stone as a whole, but it is more malleable and repairable. It is also simpler and quicker to get up, and it can become hard in twelve hours."

"Besides, if steel bars are added to its interior, the reinforced concrete it forms can be used to build a bridge over the Yellow River!"

"And the city wall built with it can't be shaken even by a large stone-throwing machine!" Li Ke said seriously, "At present, Erchen is still developing methods to speed up its production. If the craftsmen improve in this area, the cement will The output has increased, dad, can you imagine the effect after all the official roads in the Tang Dynasty are paved with cement?"

All the official ways of Datang? !Li Shimin was a little bit excited by Li Ke's words. The official roads of the Tang Dynasty are all dirt roads. Once it rains, they will be muddy. In addition, the roads in many places are uneven and it is extremely difficult for a horse-drawn carriage, but it is still the best road.

If all the roads are made of concrete, no matter it is raining or snowing, there is no need to worry about it, and the roads are extremely smooth. For the same section of the road, the consumption of materials for transporting food can be reduced by at least [-]%.

From here to Longyou Road Jiuquan, Dunhuang and other places, the time is estimated to be at least ten days earlier.

Similarly, Datang's strategic goals are naturally different.

"You, this is really good." Li Shimin nodded in satisfaction. Don't look at Li Ke making troubles, but Li Ke is really doing things. "By the way, your ten-fold salary to recruit blacksmiths Can you live?"

"I can hold on, Dad, don't worry." Li Ke said with a smile.

Seeing Li Ke's smile, Li Shimin had a bad feeling, this kid...wouldn't have dug another hole for Changsun Wuji and others, right?It's just that Li Shimin couldn't say anything more. He didn't intervene in this matter from the beginning, which meant that he wouldn't intervene unless the matter was stabbed in front of him.

"Aside from pleading guilty to me, do you have anything else to do when you come here today?" Li Shimin looked at him and asked.

"Yes, Erchen wants to start promoting Quyuanli." Li Ke said, he mentioned Quyuanli's role before, although Li Shimin didn't come to ask, but the promotion of this matter must be greeted by Li Shimin.

"Oh? This is a good thing. What do I need?" Li Shimin instantly thought of Li Ke's large-scale recruitment of blacksmiths and craftsmen. What is this kid waiting here?

"I don't need you to do anything, just to tell you, because the promotion of Quyuanli is definitely not something that can be completed in a short period of time, so Erchen has to say hello to you in advance." Li Ke said without changing his face.

Li Shimin narrowed his eyes and greeted me in advance?There is something in the words. Of course, he knows that it is impossible for Quyuanli to be popularized immediately. Although only the plowshares are iron tools for plows used in farming, the pig iron consumed by the entire Tang Dynasty is still a huge amount. can be done.

That's right, only the plowhead part of the plow in this era is made of iron, and the plowshares on both sides are polished and inlaid with wood, because there is really not so much iron, unlike later generations where the entire plow is made of iron.

In particular, Datang has been fighting abroad, and a large amount of ironware has to be used to forge armor, and even fewer can be used for people's livelihood.

But Li Shimin didn't ask, he just said that he knew.

"By the way, Dad, there is one more thing. I have my own blacksmith shop now, so I decided to forge bright light armor for my own guards, so as not to take up the national treasury and consume it. Don't say I rebelled." Li Ke called his father first. Say hello.

Li Shimin: "..." If I was afraid of your rebellion, would I have taken the initiative to give you the Mingguang Armor?

But Li Ke wanted to forge it himself, and Li Shimin didn't care. He just waved his hand and said "I know, get out!"What's the use of rebellion if you have armor and no one?

After leaving the palace, Li Ke didn't do anything else, but let Tian Meng get ready. Five days later, with the release of the next issue of Datang Daily, he was going to start selling Quyuanli's plowshares and other ironware.

In fact, ever since pig iron began to be smelted on a large scale, Li Ke's forging has not stopped. Quyuanli's plowshares have been forged. Except for Quyuanli's plowshares, Mingguang armor build.

The only difference is that the armor pieces used on the Mingguang armor of the Tang army are iron pieces, but Li Ke uses all steel pieces here!However, Li Ke's steel sheet is different from Datang's die forging, he is directly molded and cut. Although his hydraulic device is very simple, it is no problem to cut a steel sheet about 3 mm thick into long strips. .

Many people think that 3 mm is thin, but in fact the thickness of the raw iron armor of Datang Mingguang Armor is only about 2 mm. Li Ke has also thickened a part. In fact, the protective ability of 3 mm steel plate...is already super strong .

There are a lot of scraps after such cutting, but it doesn’t matter if there are scraps. Li Ke’s scraps can be returned to the furnace to be re-fired into shapes, and then extruded into iron plates of this thickness, cut again, and punched with simple machine tools. His speed is faster than that of Datang. It is much faster for blacksmiths to forge nails with manual molds, and then to drill holes manually.

In fact, this thing is already the most crude manual machine tool, including the hand-operated grinding wheel used to polish the edge of the nail piece.

Even if it is a shallow industry, it is still an industry, so the Mingguang armor that Li Ke forged himself should not be too fast. In addition, Li Ke also made some improvements to the Mingguang armor. There are two circular plate armor iron plates on the left and right chests of the Mingguang armor. , This is the main protection area. In fact, in Datang, these two large plate armor protection areas are not easy to build, and they are also the most expensive part of Mingguang armor.

Li Ke here is stamped and formed. He made the plate armor on both sides of the chest into a shape similar to the rib area of ​​a person, but slightly smaller, which increases the protective area without affecting the movement. , that is, a piece of plate armor was added to the abdomen to increase the protective area.

The armor plate on the back is enlarged to form a unified protection area. All the armor plates are passed through by leather ropes, and the inside is a layer of raw cowhide to avoid abrasion. Inside the raw cowhide, a layer of sheepskin is used as a lining. .

It can be said that when Datang did this work, the slowest work was making nails, but in Li Ke's place, the slowest work was sewing. However, there are a large number of women working in Li Ke's place, so the sewing speed is very slow. Not slow either.

In fact, the Mingguang armor Li Ke is building here at a very fast speed. In half a month at most, all the 2000 guards under his name can be replaced with new Mingguang armor.