Chapter 150: Tianjing is a place of all virtues
"Young Master, Second Young Master."

The Zhou Mansion's carriage drove into the Huwei Bingfang, and immediately a steward from the Gongshu family came to meet them.

This military camp is close to Mount Fuyao, and covers an area of ​​more than 3,000 mu. It supports ten fifth-rank "Spirit-endowing" masters from the Gongshu family, twenty fifth-rank "Weapon Forging" masters from the Bing family, and with the genius Gongshu Sheng in charge, it is one of the largest military camps in Tianjing, except for the few military camps with third-rank masters in charge.

Zhou Tieyi got off the carriage and looked at the steward, who was about thirty years old and had achieved the fifth rank. He was considered to be a man of great talent. He wore a pair of very delicate glasses, a work suit with tight cuffs, and a Luban lock hung around his waist, looking particularly capable.

At first glance, these glasses are some kind of special mechanical device. In the hands of Gongshu's people, they can exert powerful combat power.

While Zhou Tieyi was looking at the steward, Sun Zhong was also carefully sizing up Zhou Tieyi. He was the direct descendant of Gongshu Sheng and had naturally seen Zhou Tieyi many times before, but it was really difficult to connect the former dissolute second young master with the ruthless man who was now stirring up the turmoil in Tianjing.

"Manager Sun."

Zhou Tiege responded with a smile, "We are looking for the public transport manager. Please take us there."

"I dare not say trouble."

Sun Zhong spoke neither humbly nor arrogantly. He knew that Zhou Tieyi and his brother seldom came to Bingfang and were not familiar with everything about Bingfang now, so he introduced everything as they walked.

Soon half an hour had passed and Zhou Tieyi felt a little sleepy. He had heard too much repetitive talk like this during his research in his previous life.

Zhou Tiege listened with great interest. He and Zhou Tieyi had different goals. In the future, he wanted to be in charge of the entire Zhou family. No matter whether he understood it or not, he had to pretend that he understood it in front of his subordinates.

Zhou Tieyi waved his hand. He thought that if he didn't interrupt, this Steward Sun could tell him stories for days. "Has the new dormitory been renovated?"

Sun Zhong's expression froze, the highlight was coming, this second young master was indeed very scheming, he had been pretending before!
"The renovation started a few days ago. Do you want me to take you to have a look?"

He was actually a little puzzled about Zhou Tieyi's renovation of the new dormitory. After all, the entire Huwei Weaponry was already saturated with blacksmiths and apprentices, and recruiting new apprentices would only be a waste of resources.

"Need not."

Zhou Tieyi said, "If you can't even do this well, there's no need for me and my brother to go and see."

Although he was beaten by Zhou Tieyi, considering Zhou Tieyi's power in the past few days, Sun Zhong still smiled and nodded, "Second Young Master is right, then I will take you to find Master Gongshu?"

Sure enough, after being beaten up, Sun Zhong no longer played tricks on him and led the two of them directly to a huge factory.

This factory was no different from the factory in the previous life. There were a large number of mechanical creations, and Gong Shu's disciples were operating robotic arms to pour out a furnace of molten steel. The red flames illuminated the entire factory.

Gong Shusheng walked up to a piece of cooled steel billet, touched it with his mechanical hand, and examined it carefully. If he wanted to promote the steam engine, cost was a key issue.

Of course, it cannot be as extravagant as the prototype he made. Durability and economy are the most important things.

So even though Gong Shujia already has many formulas for composite steel, he will also experiment to find the most cost-effective one among them in the next few days.

"teacher."

"Second uncle."

The two brothers Sun Zhong and Zhou Tieyi walked up to greet them.

Gongshu Sheng nodded casually and looked at Zhou Tieyi, "Here you are. Take a look at this piece of steel. Can it be used as a rail?"

Zhou Tieyi smiled awkwardly, "Second Uncle, you really think I know everything. Whether you can do it and whether you can do it well or not, you have to experiment many times. There is no need to succeed in one go." He could give theoretical guidance, but he didn't dare to give blind guidance when it came to the specific hardness and flexibility of the steel.

Gongshu Sheng thought for a moment and nodded, "Yes, I was a little too anxious."

Sun Zhong listened to the conversation with a puzzled look on his face. The word "railway" was easy to understand. It should be similar to the iron cable of a boat, and it sounded like something running on the ground.

The steam engine was a matter of great importance, so Gongshu Sheng did not even inform his own disciples until it was ready. In any case, the preliminary preparations were arduous and there was no need for the disciples to know specifically what to do.

"What are you doing here this time?"

Gongshu Sheng asked.

Zhou Tieyi said proudly, "My second uncle and elder brother are better than me at forging, but I am still somewhat confident in training people and running a factory. This time, I came mainly to visit the Train Chamber of Commerce."

Gongshu Sheng thought for a moment and nodded, "I'll go take a look as well."

Then he instructed his disciple Sun Zhong, "Try adding other ores to forge the iron. You need to improve the corrosion resistance, pressure resistance, and wear resistance of the iron embryo. By the way, cheapness is the first priority. We need at least 100,000 kilograms of this iron material."

Gongshu Sheng said that even with the iron smelting data accumulated by the Gongshu family, Sun Zhong estimated that he would not be able to do anything else in the next few months.

Zhou Tieyi looked at him sympathetically from the side, fortunately he did not switch to studying mechanical engineering.

This materials science experiment is indeed not a job for humans.

Hao Ren's family was a royal merchant, and he had people who were good at business. He himself was also a seventh-rank "calculator" in the merchant class. He had been working non-stop for twelve hours, and with 100,000 taels of silver as a start-up capital, he had already built the general framework of the Railway Chamber of Commerce in a few days.

Now the Railway Chamber of Commerce is mainly divided into two parts.

One part is the "Operation Department" established in Suzaku City. This name was given by Zhou Tieyi and is mainly responsible for talent recruitment and business negotiations.

The latter has not yet launched any projects and is only recruiting talents.

Tianjing is a place of great virtue, and it is much easier to recruit ordinary people as technicians.

First of all, because various schools of thought in this world are competing for students, the literacy rate among the lower classes is much higher than that of the feudal dynasties in previous lives.

Each school of thought will open a school and recruit young children for enlightenment. This is basically a loss-making business and the school needs to subsidize itself. But if you don't do this, you will lose competitiveness among the hundreds of schools and eventually disappear.

Therefore, the literacy rate of adults is close to 30%. In a place like Tianjing, the literacy rate can reach an exaggerated 60%. This is one of the reasons why Tianjing is said to be a place of a hundred virtues.

This is a great advantage for Zhou Tieyi. In addition to the prosperous development of business, the budding of industry also requires a large number of skilled technicians.

To become an excellent technician, one must be literate.

Second, the business in Tianjing was prosperous, and there was no need to tie ordinary people to the land. So although ordinary people also had to do labor, Emperor Gaozu issued a policy similar to the Single Whip Law.

One of the provisions was to allow ordinary people to use silver and money taxes to offset labor. Although this law was difficult to implement outside Tianjing, it at least liberated the labor force of Tianjing residents to a certain extent.

(End of this chapter)