Chapter 1306: Substituting One Thing for Another

In the afternoon, Liu Guangzheng led the crowd out of the city and took a look at the construction status of the blast furnace outside the city.

The imperial court has a Ministry of Works, which specializes in civil engineering work. People from the Ministry of Works usually repair palaces and city walls, and as long as a palace is maintained regularly, there will be no problem for hundreds or thousands of years.

This shows that there are many skilled craftsmen in the Ministry of Industry.

Throughout the dynasties, the emperor has never wronged himself in terms of food, clothing, housing and transportation.

And these craftsmen were asked to repair the blast furnace. Even if Liu Guangzheng only provided a rough sketch, the skilled craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry still only spent more than a month to add hundreds of millions of details to the drawings and officially Construction started, and now, most of the blast furnace has been built.

The blast furnace was built next to the Grand Canal outside the capital, but it was intended to use water power to drive the blower to increase the temperature of the furnace.

As for the blast furnaces, two were built. One was used to desulfurize coal and distill it into coke to prevent iron sulfide from reducing its strength. The other was a furnace.

As for the traditional furnaces of this era, they are simply unable to reach the temperature required to melt iron. Smelting good iron is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also has extremely low output, but iron is the basis of industrialization.

According to Liu Guangzheng's estimation, if only this large furnace were built, its annual iron output would be comparable to 30% of the country's previous output.

This is only the first one, and it is a pilot project. Once the iron is smelted and part of it is sold, more blast furnaces can be built and more iron produced.

As for the original unemployment problem of blacksmiths, he wanted to industrialize and there was a shortage of workers. The former blacksmiths could directly transform.

After looking at the blast furnace, only Liu Guangzheng looked at the gold bricks used to build the blast furnace.

The so-called gold brick is naturally not real gold, but the sound of the brick when struck is clear and crisp, like gold and iron.

This brick is not only durable, but also because it is a clay brick, it is very fire-resistant, with a melting point as high as 1,700 degrees. To produce good iron, a temperature of 1,500 degrees is enough.

And this is also the most refractory material that Liu Guangzheng has found so far.

As for the source of this material, it was a ready-made material that he procured directly from the floor tiles in several halls of the palace.

In Nanhuang, Zhao Chengjian's blast furnace was made of clay bricks fired in large quantities, but some refractory clay was mixed into them, so it barely met the requirements.

The floor tiles in the palace are not easy to bake and are of high quality, so they meet the requirements.

After all, these bricks are engraved with the names of the craftsmen. If the bricks are broken, people will die, and even the three and nine tribes will die. In this case, naturally no one dares to be careless.

Liu Guangzheng naturally knew that lifting floor tiles from the palace was not a long-term solution. Therefore, he had already sent people to study the method of firing refractory bricks.

Boom!

Liu Guangzheng tapped the gold bricks with his fingers, and the sound was clear and crisp. They were indeed good bricks, and no one would pass them off as inferior.

However, he had a change of heart and immediately ordered to go to the south of the construction site.

As soon as these words came out, the team immediately headed south in a mighty manner, but at the end of the team, someone told his men to hurry up and prepare.

Because the bricks pried out from the palace are all good bricks, the kind that are valuable but not marketable. As for the marks on the bricks, just let people rub them away.

As for the things that flowed out of the palace, some wealthy businessmen were very superstitious about this, thinking that there was dragon energy on them, and the floor tiles believed that the earth was rich in virtues and contained the virtues of the earth.

It's just that in the past, no one had the ability to pry bricks from the palace.

This time Liu Guangzheng took the initiative to open his mouth, which naturally gave opportunities to those who were interested.

This is mainly because the power of the imperial court is not what it used to be. Even if it is something that the emperor values ​​​​very much, there are still people who dare to pass it off as inferior.

Now, in fact, most of the bricks have been sold and replaced with inferior gold bricks.

When it comes to the firing of gold bricks, one usually chooses one of four, that is, the best one is selected from the four, and the rest is destroyed directly.

It's just that in the last years of the dynasty, those defective products are generally not destroyed, but only have their marks worn off, and then flow into the market.

Regarding this matter, everyone in the court, except for the emperor, probably knew about it, but the people below had enough money, so they all turned a blind eye.

Facing Liu Guangzheng's inspection, these officials also made several preparations.

There is a batch of bricks, but they have been placed on the car and are on standby. Wherever the emperor goes, this batch of bricks will be sent wherever they go, and stacked on the outermost layers of the defective products.

The emperor's travel time was limited, and it was impossible to really uncover the bricks layer by layer and inspect them.

Therefore, a group of officials did not panic at all.

But halfway through the road, Liu Guangzheng suddenly ordered to stop, and then directly ordered to go to the west of the construction site.

As soon as these words came out, everything was completely silent. Many people broke into cold sweat, but they never expected that such a thing would happen.

After that, the few people at the back didn't panic at all, as if this was indeed the case.

About an hour later, a group of people came to the west side of the construction site. A large number of gold bricks were piled neatly and shiny.

It turned out that the person who ordered his men had long expected that Liu Guangzheng would play the trick of attacking in the east and attacking in the west, so at the beginning, he asked his men to prepare for the west.

Only Liu Guangzheng let out a long sigh. He has special powers and can sense emotions. He can obviously detect the emotional changes of some officials when he said he went to the south.

Obviously, there is something fishy here.

Inexplicably, the joy of seeing the blast furnace built for the most part disappeared.

Indeed, he wanted to save the world, but he had no choice. His subordinates tried their best to drag him down, and they were complacent because they hid it from him, the emperor.

Don't those people know that the Zhao thieves now have only one word for the powerful and wealthy, kill? !

If that day really comes, they will never have a good end.

They all know that no egg will be left intact when the nest is overturned, but they always feel that they are just greedy a little bit, and the court is big and powerful, so it doesn't matter if it's just a little bit, it must be fine.

It's not terrible for one person to think so, but it's terrible that everyone thinks so.

Liu Guangzheng couldn't help but feel a little discouraged. Although he became the emperor as soon as he traveled through time, there were too many pitfalls at the beginning.

"Come here, uncover the gold bricks layer by layer!"

On the imperial carriage, Liu Guangzheng waved his hand and slowly closed his eyes. With this order, an old official at the end of the team suddenly covered his chest and then fell to the ground. He was frightened to death.

Immediately, there was a panic in the field.

…

Two hours later, an imperial edict was issued from the palace. On the second day, more than a hundred officials of all ranks were beheaded, six clans were exterminated, their property was confiscated and their clans were exterminated. For a while, a bloody storm blew in the capital of gods.