Seeing the shocked expressions of these officials, Zhou Zhen burst into laughter.
"I'm afraid my dears have already thought of it. You are right. These weapons are made of the same material as this sword!"
"But today I tell you that it does not take a month to forge these weapons. It even takes a skilled craftsman only one day to forge them!"
Wang Feng froze there in disbelief, and then quickly said to Zhou Zhen.
"Your Majesty, this is impossible!"
"This steelmaking requires folding and forging iron ore thousands of times before it can be forged!"
"How is it possible that it can be forged in one day?"
Zhou Zhen smiled slightly, narrowed his eyes and said.
"In other words, the Ministry of Industry can't do it in one day?"
Wang Feng nodded and said decisively.
"Your Majesty, let alone the skilled craftsmen we announced, I'm afraid there is no craftsman in the world who can make thousands of steel in one day!"
Zhou Zhen burst out laughing, suddenly slapped the dragon chair vigorously and stood up.
This shocked the officials in the imperial court. Wang Feng, who was closer to Zhou Zhen, was so frightened that he knelt on the ground, holding the long sword high in his hand.
Zhou Zhen grabbed the sword and said to these officials with great anger.
"It's because no one can produce such sophisticated weapons in one day, that's why my army in Zhou Dynasty is so weak and incompetent!"
"I'm telling you right now, these weapons were all made by Qingzhou's militia!"
"Didn't you say before that the militia had no effect at all except consuming money in the treasury? Do you still dare to say that now?"
Zhou Zhen said this, laughed out loud, and shouted coldly at them.
"These militia teams can smelt iron ore into molten iron. They only need to pour the molten iron into molds to easily mass-produce these weapons."
"I said it would take a day before, but it just takes time to refine!"
Hearing Zhou Zhen's words, Wang Feng's face was full of disbelief.
He is a member of the Wang family, one of the four major families, and the Wang family controls most of the iron ore in the world. He knows better than anyone how difficult it is to refine these iron ores.
Someone can actually smelt iron ore into molten iron. How is this possible?
Nowadays, the method of forging things by the blacksmiths of the Zhou Dynasty is still very primitive. They can only remove the impurities from the iron ore through continuous hammering, and then hammer it into the shape of the vessel. That's why it takes so long to forge. Get these things out.
But if there is molten iron, it is completely different. They can pour the molten iron into the completed mold and then turn it into finished steel.
When used, it only needs to be simply forged and then polished. This can be said to double the efficiency!
Wang Feng only felt dizzy at this moment. As expected, Zhou Zhen's next words made him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave.
"Wang Shangshu, since your Ministry of Industry does not have skilled craftsmen who can forge such weapons so easily, then from today on, all the forging of weapons will be handed over to these militia teams!"
"I just want to see if spending hundreds of thousands of taels of silver every year is really not enough to create a well-equipped army and strong generals!"
After Zhou Zhen said this, he left the court directly, while the courtiers were silent.
Wang Feng knelt on the ground, feeling that his heart was bleeding.
Because he is the Minister of Public Affairs, he is able to purchase a large amount of iron ore from the Wang family every year and brings a lot of benefits to the Wang family.
But now, if the court leaves this matter to others, not only will his Ministry of Industry's responsibilities become weaker, but it will also be unable to bring greater benefits to the Wang family.
The most profitable job of the Ministry of Industry is to forge weapons for these soldiers, and there are huge profits in this.
But now this profit has to be handed over to others!
Thinking of this, Wang Feng felt a breath of relief in his chest.
Feng Shen walked over and sighed, then patted Wang Feng on the shoulder and said calmly.
"His Majesty has already decided this matter, and we have no right to change it."
Wang Feng nodded, stood up and looked at Feng Shen and said.
"Prime Minister Feng, do you think this is because His Majesty is planning to attack us?"
Feng Shen's eyes became darker than ever before. He looked at the direction Zhou Zhen was leaving, slowly shook his head and said.
"The four major families are connected by the same spirit. Your Majesty will probably not use such an incident as an entry point."
"What's more, these four major families are not at the mercy of others. Isn't it very difficult for your Wang family to mine recently?"
An understatement suddenly woke Wang Feng up. He had an expression of surprise on his face, nodded quickly, and said.
"Yes, yes, because the iron ore mined by our Wang family is almost empty now, so of course the price of iron ore will go up!"
Feng Shen's old face showed a scheming smile, and he was thinking secretly in his heart, what does Zhou Zhen want to do this time?
Putting aside their calculations, at least Zhou Zhen used this matter to perfectly take the matter of forging weapons away from the Ministry of Industry and gave full authority to Yu Ruhai.
All the money that was previously used by the Ministry of Industry to forge weapons was allocated to militias in various places, so that all places could imitate the production of steel weapons here.
After these steel weapons are produced, they are given priority to the civilians in the militia.
Liu Wei had complained about this matter before, but later he saw that Zhao Feng only equipped these militiamen with some arrows and the like, so he had to give it up.
After all, they are just some crossbow arrows. How much steel can be used?
Although there are some gun heads and the like among the weapons of these militia teams, most of them do not use much steel.
Originally, the militia team was still suffering from the lack of weapons and money, but after Zhao Feng got the steel, he solved both problems at once, so it was imminent to send troops to suppress the bandits.
It just so happened that the autumn harvest was coming soon. If the bandits were not dealt with quickly, the bandits might come to rob them first.
So Zhao Feng and Yu Ruhai discussed it and directly chose a good and auspicious day to send troops to deal with the surrounding bandits.
"Today I report to the Emperor and the Empress that the militia will send out troops to suppress the bandits. Good luck in the expedition. I wish you a triumphant return!"
Yu Ruhai wore an official robe, stood on a high platform, and recited this with great force.
