The first year of Hongwu, early August.
Soon after Zhao Kai, through the three brothers Zhao Shu, Zhao Qi and Zhao Xu, issued a war threat to his good brother Zhao Huan who was far away in Jinling City. He ordered Queen Zhu Fengying, left prime minister Lu Yihao, Jingxi Road pacifier Wang Yuan, Luoyang Prefect Zhao Ding and others to stay in Luoyang, the eastern capital, and then left Luoyang with a large number of court officials, escorted by the imperial army and the Yulin army. , went eastward.
The purpose of Zhao Kai's trip east this time was not to attack his eldest brother Zhao Huan, nor to deal with the more hateful gold thief. Instead, he was going to inspect Kaifeng Mansion, which had been besieged by floods for several months, and then he was going to see the major work to control the yellow flood area.
The current "Northern Song Dynasty" is really full of waste!
Therefore, Zhao Kai's threat to Zhao Huan sounds scary, but in fact it is more of a lie and extortion of property.
Unless Zhao Huan is really stupid enough to collude with gold thieves to fight the "Northern Song Dynasty", it is impossible for Zhao Kai to leave the Yellow River Pan-region alone, keep a bunch of golden fingers, and go to fight with his roommates...
In addition, Zhao Kai's rhetoric also has the intention of stimulating Zhao Huan to strengthen his armaments - Zhao Kai has now collected "vegetable horses" from everywhere who have shoulder heights that are not up to standard, or who have injured their muscles and bones in previous battles and are difficult to recover. Six thousand horses were taken by Wu Haogu, Huang Yue, Chen Xisheng and others to engage in "pseudo smuggling" (private in appearance but public in reality). So he had to create a little tension so that Wu Haogu and Pan Sheng'an could raise the price and make a lot of money!
Zhao Kai is really short of money now...because there are so many places where he needs to spend money!
On his way to Kaifeng Fucheng, Zhao Kai got good news that cost a lot of money!
The first good news was reported to him by Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian, who were among the top ten loyal businessmen. They were going to Hebei to inspect the iron mines and recruit craftsmen. Zhao Kai took them on the road with him and asked them questions by the way. How are the ironworks and iron mines doing?
And they told Zhao Kai the good news that the large-scale blacksmith they opened in Luoyang Xishifang (now Luoyang no longer has a market system, Xishifang is just a ground) has started production!
Moreover, these two people also showed Zhao Kai that they had used the Shu iron sent by the Sichuan Transport Envoy to create high-quality cold-forged armor plates!
"Officials, please take a look. This collar-covering armor is made of cold forged iron... It only weighs twenty kilograms and can withstand the wooden feather arrows shot by the divine arm bow!"
"Guan, this is the cold-forged heart-covering armor made by our Zhangji Iron Works using fifty kilograms of high-quality Sichuan iron. It weighs nineteen kilograms and eight taels... and it is also invulnerable!"
When Zhao Kai was resting in a palace outside the Gongyi Imperial Mausoleum, Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian each presented two pairs of cold-forged heart-covering armors.
The two heart-covering armors, which looked a bit like vests, had been put on the two scarecrows used as targets and placed in a large courtyard. Guo Tiannu was holding a divine arm bow loaded with wooden feather arrows thirty or forty steps away from the scarecrow, preparing to shoot. Next to her, there was a female Banzhi who was loading another divine arm bow with arrows.
Zhao Kai, on the other hand, stood aside and watched with Yue Fei, Dong Jingang, Li Fuchen, and Ma Wang, the supervisor of the imperial horse.
Is it invulnerable? You can tell if you shoot it with the Divine Arm Bow?
"Dang..." There was a crisp sound of metal collision, and a sharp wooden feather arrow was instantly deflected by a pair of armor plates.
"Dang..." There was another crisp sound, and another pair of heart-covering armor also withstood the test of the wooden feather arrow!
"good!"
Yue Fei, Dong Jingang, Li Fuchen, and Ma Wang all shouted, and Zhao Kai nodded with great satisfaction.
It can withstand the divine arm bow at this distance. This armor is really good!
Moreover, they weigh not much, only about twenty kilograms, and can be used by cavalry.
Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian quickly led people to carry the "armored scarecrow" that had just been shot by wooden feather arrows to Zhao Kai.
The armor worn by these two scarecrows is painted white, and arrowheads can leave clear scratches on the surface to show which armor leaf was hit.
Zhao Kai carefully inspected the nail leaf and found that a small dot was punched out on the surface, but it was still too early to be penetrated!
"The armor pieces used in this heart-covering armor presented by the officials and ordinary people are all made of real cold forging. They are extremely hard and not easy to break. They are difficult for even swords and guns to penetrate!"
"The armor of the grass-roots people is also really cold-forged, exactly the same as the Qingtang Tuzi armor of the Western Thieves..."
The two "loyal businessmen" started boasting like Lao Wang selling melons, and Zhao Kai also knew that what they said made sense.
The so-called cold forged armor, as the name suggests, is a piece of armor that is directly hammered out without heating the iron!
Of course, you can't give a blacksmith an iron lump to smash, it won't be that powerful. Nor can it be smashed with a water hammer - in later time travels, a water hammer was often used to smash out a bridge section with plate armor.
So Zhao Kai talked about this matter with two "loyal businessmen" Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian, but the answers he received were...impossible.
During the heating and forging process, it is okay to hit it with a water hammer, because the iron sheets and blocks to be processed are relatively thick at this time and cannot be hit! Moreover, the heated iron becomes soft and has good ductility and will not be smashed.
But when the nail pieces are processed by cold forging process, you have to be very careful. At this time, the nail plate is already very thin, and the iron is not ductile when it is cold, so it is easy to be smashed... so it can only be done by hand, not with a water hammer.
Even with careful manual processing, the armor pieces may be smashed, because this is not only a problem of the craftsmanship of the forger, but also related to the quality of the iron material.
The iron material used in cold forging cannot be too brittle (contains too much sulfur and phosphorus) and must have a certain degree of ductility so that cold forging can be carried out.
For wrought iron that is not brittle (contains less sulfur and phosphorus), not only the best iron ore must be selected, but yellow and red iron ore cannot be used. It is best to use magnetite. And it must not be smelted with coal, it must be heated with charcoal. During the smelting process, lime is also used to remove slag... The cost of wrought iron made in this way must be very high, so it is impossible for the smelters to pay rent with such good iron.
Besides, when the railway supervisor collects rent, he doesn't care whether the wrought iron is brittle or not - the "Four Books and Five Classics" don't teach how to test iron!
Therefore, most of the iron that was sent to the weapons inspection in the past was inferior goods refined from coal.
Of course, there are exceptions. For example, the Sichuan iron shipped from Chengdu is made from charcoal. Because Chengdu produces coal and there are many trees around it, the cost of burning charcoal is relatively low.
However, the output of Shu iron accounted for a small proportion of the national iron output in the Song Dynasty, and the distance to Kaifeng Prefecture was long, so its proportion in iron rent was very low. However, not every piece of Sichuan iron that is charged with iron for rent is suitable for cold forging... Coal is not used, but this does not mean that the smelting owners in Sichuan will pay the rent for the smelted iron. Therefore, the craftsmen of the Zhang family in Hebei and the Chen family in Xuzhou could only carefully select part of the millions of kilograms of Shu iron sent from Sichuan for cold forging.
Moreover, Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian also assured Zhao Kai that as long as the money and people to spend the money are in place, they can also use the iron ore in Cizhou, Xiangzhou, and Xinde Prefecture to smelt good iron that can be cold forged!
"What does it mean that the people who spend the money are in place?" Zhao Kai didn't understand.
Zhang Guanghui and Chen Qian, on the other hand, smiled and did not answer, and glanced at Guo Tiannu with the corner of their eyes.
"Guan, this good armor must be inspected by the person who paid for it, otherwise it will be fake...the price difference is too big!" Guo Tiannu answered for the two of them with a smile, "Qingtang There are many fakes of Ware Armor. They use hot-forged armor pieces to pass off as cold-forged ones. They look almost the same, but they break into pieces as soon as they are shot by the Divine Arm's bow!"
I see!
Zhao Kai glanced at the two "loyal businessmen", why did he laugh so awkwardly? Have you ever done this before? It must be, I can tell at a glance that you two are not good people!
Thinking of this, Zhao Kai's face darkened and he said: "Within one year, I want you two to each make 1,500 cold-forged armors like this. The price is easy to talk about, one collar can give you 50 guan, but the quality must be good!"
When the time comes, I will personally test-shoot with the Divine Arm Bow, and I will randomly check thirty of them... But I will not embarrass the scarecrow, I want you two to wear armor and serve as targets! If I can't shoot you to death, you collect the money. I won't give you a penny. If I shoot you to death... then I have to collect your body! How about it, no problem? "
3,000 cold-forged armors, 50 guans each, a total of 1.5 million guans!
This is not an order from the imperial court, nor is it an order from the imperial army, but Zhao Kai is ordering for his own imperial cavalry.
Therefore, of course, the 1.5 million yuan was not provided by the Ministry of Revenue, but had to come from Wu Haogu and the others' income from selling horses.
...
At the same time, in the imperial palace of Yingtian Mansion (Jinling) in Nanjing during the Song Dynasty, Qin Hui, who had just been appointed Minister of Rites, was meeting with Emperor Zhao Huan of Jinling outside a pavilion in the back garden of the palace.
Next to Zhao Huan stood the three brothers Zhao Shu, Zhao Qi and Zhao Xu who were tired of life! These three brothers are really in a hurry! I just arrived at Jinling this morning. I didn't even return to the palace, so I came to the palace right away.
"Qin Hui!" Zhao Huan looked at Qin Hui, who was feeling uneasy again, and said with a smile, "You must not be guilty!"
No need to be guilty?
Qin Hui's heart skipped a beat. He and Wanyan Zonghan were in collusion... This was treason!
Those who betray the country will be beheaded!
Qin Hui gritted his teeth and immediately refused to admit guilt, "I am loyal to the Song Dynasty. I, I, I did not secretly communicate with the gold thief!"
Zhao Huan smiled and looked at Qin Hui, "Qin Hui, did I say you were secretly communicating with the Jin people?"
Not this crime? Then there's...exam fraud? Except for betrayal of the country, which seems to be the bigger crime, the other sins are fine, no big deal.
Cold sweat broke out on Qin Hui's forehead. He couldn't admit the fraud in the examination room. He would be exiled!
He stuttered a bit when he spoke, "I... I am devoted to the country. I am really, really not guilty! I, I have a clear conscience!"
A clear conscience? Zhao Huan sneered in his heart. As an official, he also had the Imperial City Division, the Yushitai, and he also had brains!
Qin Hui and Yu Wenxuzhong both have problems. One is a gold thief and the other is a rebel thief!
