Johime Three Kingdoms

Chapter 301: Slow development of General Mansion

Pork is already very common in Yangzhou. Except for some die-hards, many wealthy families have accepted pork. Naturally, these "main dishes" are indispensable at the New Year's Day banquet.

At the New Year's Eve banquet of the fifth year of Jian'an, in addition to pork, there was another main dish - cement.

It’s not about letting everyone eat cement, but it shows the effect of “cement”!

This magical "soil" that dries quickly after being stirred with water quickly attracted the attention of the general's civil and military officials.

The military generals thought that they could quickly build a "small Uburg" when setting up camp in the future, while the civil servants thought of renovating houses and adding city walls...

Brick buildings in the Eastern Han Dynasty still used yellow mud as an adhesive, and their sturdiness and durability were not high.

City walls, including the Great Wall of Qin, are mainly made of rammed earth, with very few sections containing stone walls.

Normally, after the Song Dynasty, lime mortar using lime mixed with sand appeared as an adhesive. In the Ming Dynasty, lime mortar and glutinous rice juice began to be mixed as an adhesive to build the Ming Great Wall.

The presence of cement means that city walls can also be changed to masonry structures, and for military purposes, cement can be directly transported to cast bunkers!
"Lord, how much does this 'cement' cost?" Lu Kang was the first to ask.

Lao Lu is also worried. If he doesn’t ask for the price first, then the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the Privy Council will all open their mouths, and the Ministry of Revenue will not be able to bear it even if they drain their blood!

"Manufacturing is very simple. After three years of secrecy, we can almost open up to private operations. Counterfeiting is not cheap now, but... there are many raw materials. If the mining scale increases, the cost will be low." Bai Tu said.

Lu Kang was relieved when he heard this, and then looked at Lu Su with a smile.

Although Bai Tu didn't say the specific cost, it... made it very clear that it needed to be "mined."

Well, that means...the Ministry of Civil Affairs is required to mine it on its own!
If it will be enough by then, everyone can go to the Ministry of Civil Affairs!
Especially since the Ministry of Civil Affairs itself is a big consumer of consumables, and now it wants you to mine it yourself, let’s see who else you can go to to collect the debt!

"This year is the fifth year of Jian'an. We will strive to ensure that cement can be used on the front lines in the second half of the year. In the seventh year of Jian'an, we can start using cement to build the main city walls. In the ninth year of Jian'an, we can use cement to build roads in the city and the main roads from the port to nearby cities. Jian'an 12 We can start building official roads with cement in [-]." Bai Tu expressed his vision for the future.

When I heard that in a few years, all official roads would be repaired with this artifact, many people understood the cost of this thing - it must not be high, but no one cared about it before, so the raw material mining was not intensive!

Of course, now everyone has adapted to Bai Tu's statement.

The so-called construction of official roads with cement in the 12th year of Jian'an is just a "beginning". Not to mention that it will take several years to complete all the main official roads, and it does not mean that the previous roads in the city, The main road from the port to nearby cities was completed in the 12th year of its construction.

It just means that by the 12th year of Jian'an, the cement production was enough for everyone...

"My lord, didn't you say before that roads support people's wealth and increase people's strength? Since cement can be obtained so easily, why not mobilize the labor force in various counties and at the same time, mine the raw materials for cement and add it to the Ministry of Personnel's inspection projects. We are not afraid of heavy burdens!" A chief clerk of the Ministry of Personnel said, patting his chest to Bai Tu.

The other surrounding ministries, especially the prefects and magistrates from various places, looked at him with increasingly unkind eyes.

Are you still human?
You are not afraid of heavy burdens...

You who come here for acceptance inspection have a heavy burden!
Of course, there are many people who are anxious to build roads. After seeing the effect of cement, especially the raw materials and products of the workshops that need to be transported long distances, and the families who contract the mines, they are eager to pave the roads quickly.

"It's good for everyone to have this kind of heart, but now each county and township has their own burdens. Hard work can benefit the people, but manpower can't be easily overdrawn." Bai Tu acted as a brake instead.

There is no way, the price of everything being on track is that a large amount of squeezed out manpower has been clearly arranged.

It is no longer possible to easily gather a large amount of manpower and focus on a certain project through disaster relief as before.

At the same time, this is also the real advantage of General Mansion!
Cao Cao thought it was enough to imitate Bai Tu’s weapons and wealth?
Even if Bai Tu shared with him the blast furnace iron-making and steel-filling methods, the Prime Minister's Office has no foundation in other aspects. How many nails can it make by just squeezing the people's power?
The Ministry of Industry and various regulatory agencies, including saltworks and the like, have recently captured many spies from the north and even Jingchu.

While Bai Tu was urging everyone to pay attention to security, he was actually not in a hurry...

In the final analysis, the benefits of salt and iron are just a disguised way of collecting taxes from the people. In the Central Plains under Cao Cao's governance, the people's power has been overdrawn. If you give him a means of collecting taxes, the changes will be very limited.

As for letting Cao Cao squeeze out manpower to repair waterways at this time?It's better to just ask him to surrender...

For the General's Mansion, the constraints to development are coal, or population and manpower.

If the Zhenqi machine can be further improved and put into civilian use, it will further squeeze out the industrialized population and make up for the lack of coal. Otherwise, relying solely on charcoal... Bai Tu has cut down the Xing'an Mountains, which may not be enough for industrialization.

There are also high-yield crops, which can also crowd out the population.

In addition, the only way to alleviate the shortage of population and manpower is to liberate the productivity of other regions.

For example, if Jingzhou is captured, the total population can be doubled. As long as the Yangzhou model is started in Jingzhou, in two or three years, there will be a large amount of manpower that can be overflowed from agriculture and invested in industrialization.

As long as the progress bar of industrialization can be pushed up, Bai Tu doesn't know how to lose. No matter whether it is agricultural civilization, nomadic civilization, fishing and hunting civilization, no matter how many horses there are, no matter how fierce the blood, it is impossible to be tough. industrial civilization.

"It's the 12th year of Jian'an again..." Lu Lingqi wrinkled her nose at the side.

Because it was the Suidan banquet, not the Suidan meeting, Lu Lingqi sat next to Bai Tu, and no one said anything more.

Lu Lingqi lamented like this because many of the plans of the General Mansion seemed to take 12 and 13 as important nodes.

For example, the graduation tide of the first batch of students from rural to county schools, who were really trained from childhood; the promotion of pig and poultry breeding, the promotion of the use of chemical fertilizers, the per capita consumption of vegetables, fruits and meat, included in the assessment content of local officials; the plan covers the entire Yangzhou, large-scale The second phase of the water conservancy project is completed; the steel output is basically stable, the rotation of military service is fully realized, and the Double Twelve Plan of building 12 large ports in Jian'an [-] years...

"Yes, what a coincidence!" Bai Tu also sighed.

The 12th year of Jian'an in history was also an important year. In this year, Cao Cao completely regained Hebei and defeated the Wuhuan who tried to go south. Gongsun Kang presented Yuan Shang's head to Cao Cao as a sign of surrender. The old white-faced man in Jingzhou was also there. This year, he fell ill and was unable to govern. The Cai family colluded with the Nanjun family to monopolize power, and the eldest son Liu Qi was not allowed to visit.

It was also the year before the war that truly determined the pattern of the Three Kingdoms kicked off...

　Dongdong: The Chinese New Year is coming soon, and I have to go to my girlfriend’s house for a few days before the Chinese New Year. I will enter a slightly, slightly, slightly shorter manuscript saving mode... I will have a recommendation tomorrow, and it will be long.

　　


(End of this chapter)