Chapter 14

"Your Highness, that's not right."

Qian Dafu knew that Xiao Ming would not be able to sit down when these four came. After all, Xiao Ming was so playful that he couldn't stand the encouragement of them in the past.

"Steward Qian, don't worry. This time, we'll take many servants with us. With our respect for your highness, will we harm him?" Qin Mu reassured Qian Dafu.

At this time, Xiao Ming stood up and walked out, "let's go. I'll let captain Lu follow."

He has no friends here, and only these friends can talk and talk about some interesting things, otherwise it's really boring.

"It's no problem for captain Lu to follow naturally." Qian Dafu is at ease now.

Surrounded by Wang Shijie, Xiao Ming takes Wang Shijie's carriage out of the south of the city and goes straight to the Mihe wharf.

On the wharf, a boat is moored, and the Green River Mi rolls from west to East, with the momentum of a big river flowing east.

Xiao Ming was slightly surprised. He understood that in ancient times, because the natural environment had not been damaged, the flow of the river was very large, but this Mihe river was comparable to the contemporary Beijing Hangzhou canal.

"Your Highness." Qin Mu made a gesture of please.

Among the four great families in Qingzhou, the Wangs mainly engaged in coal and iron, the Weis in cloth and silk, the suns in ceramic smelting, and the qins in water transport.

The boat in front of him is not gorgeous. In Xiao Ming's opinion, compared with modern times, so far he has not seen anything gorgeous. It's ancient and simple, but it's everywhere.

At this time, there was a small table with dishes and a jar of wine on it.

A charcoal basin was burning under the table, and winter was coming soon. It was a little chilly, but the boat was warm, but there was a faint smell of coal.

"Your Highness, in order to frighten you, I specially prepared green ant wine, mutton, Douchi, chrysanthemum, sweet and sour crucian carp..." Qin Mu is as precious as a family.

Xiao Ming swept his eyes, which can be regarded as the standard of luxury dinner. In his heart, he felt that he was a failure, and the life of Qin Mu was more comfortable than that of him.

However, there is no way. The Qin family's water transportation business, which travels all over Chongqing, can naturally buy all kinds of things that Qingzhou has nothing to enjoy.

Wang Shijie clapped his hands and said with a smile, "you can't follow brother Qin without good food and good wine. Like me, you can only eat some simple food."

"Brother Wang is killing me. My father asked the boatman to buy the sugar for the sweet and sour crucian carp when he was in Chang'an. The vegetable oil is the same. He spent dozens of grain silver, otherwise there would be no sweet and sour crucian carp today."

Sun Dong has always been the most greedy, said, "brother Qin, next time can you give me a little back, this whole day steamed bread, radish and leek is too monotonous, it's really greedy."

Xiao Ming can't help but drool in his mouth. He can't help it. Compared with the abundance of modern food, it's too miserable here.

In his memory, potatoes, corn, tomatoes and peanuts have not yet been introduced into Dayu.

The variety of vegetables is very monotonous, basically celery, radish, leek, spinach, lettuce, eggplant these things.

And these things are rarely planted, because the people can't eat, who will go to grow vegetables, these things are basically eaten by rich businessmen and dignitaries.

Five people sat down around the small table, the boatman shook the oars, and the boat slowly went to the river.

It has to be said that the environment here is still very beautiful. Both sides of the river are covered with green farmland, which is like an oil painting.

On both sides of the river, there are dense grasses, reeds, ducks and egrets everywhere. In the river, the water waves surge, and sometimes one or two fish spring out.

While enjoying the scenery, Qin Mu poured a glass of green ant wine for Xiao Ming.

Suddenly, the sour taste of rice wine comes to his nose. In Xiao Ming's opinion, the quality of green ant wine is really poor.

Because this green ant wine is a newly brewed rice wine whose dregs are not filtered clean, and the dregs turn green, it is called green ant wine.

Xiao Ming used to drink this kind of wine, but it's really hard for him to swallow.

But there is no strong, he still took up a few drinks, eat his first dish here, sweet and sour crucian carp.

The boat flowed down the river. While enjoying the scenery, Xiao Ming was also observing the situation on both sides of the river.

In Dayu state, good land is basically the land on both sides of the river, because it is easy to irrigate.

He had a look. There are few irrigation tools like waterwheel on both sides of the river. Even if there are, they belong to large families. Ordinary people have no money to build them.

Seeing that Xiao Ming looked at both sides of the river and pondered, Wang Shijie asked, "it seems that your Highness has something on his mind this trip. I don't know if you can tell him."

Xiao Ming is thinking about how to improve the hydraulic irrigation facilities of the fiefdom. Naturally, he is not willing to talk to Wang Shijie about this.

When he saw the charcoal basin burning under the table, he thought of something and said, "I don't have any worries, but the craftsman of the equipment department is making a funny thing, which is 100 times stronger than this charcoal basin. I don't know if you are interested in it."

"Oh?" Wang Shijie showed a look of surprise, "Your Highness was busy in the equipment department that day. Is it for this?"Qin Mu three people also showed an interested look, Qin Mu said, "in this case, we also swam across the river, it's better to see the novelty of your highness."

Wei Qing and sun Dong applauded.

Yesterday, when Xiao Ming taught lathe knowledge to craftsmen, he asked them to make a very practical tool for him today.

This is the contemporary coal briquette stove. After living in the palace for several days, he felt uncomfortable looking at the firewood burned by servants every day.

So the others were not made, but the briquette furnace was given an account in advance.

Xiao Ming is not happy to see that the children of these powerful families are getting on better than his own, which fully shows that the economy of Qingzhou is in their hands.

Correspondingly, Qingzhou's tax is getting worse year by year. As for why, it is their tax evasion.

It's easy for Qin Mu to say tens of taels of silver, and his palace dare not say such a big word.

Now that he is in charge of the science and Technology Library, he doesn't need some novel things to squeeze their money. How can he have the money to establish his own official economy.

On this trip to the Mihe River, Xiao Ming had a basic understanding of the irrigation situation on both sides of the Mihe river. He said, "in that case, we'll go to the equipment department to have a look."

Qin Mu immediately turned the bow of the boat and the five returned to the dock.

When he got ashore, Xiao Ming tightened his tight clothes. It was going to be winter soon. The weather was getting colder and colder. The coal briquette stove could be used at this time. He was not afraid that they would not buy it.

Especially the Wang family, the coal cake and iron ore are so expensive to sell to themselves, can he get around them?

At this time, in the equipment department, a briquette stove with iron flakes on the outside has been produced.

This is a simple briquette stove. Inside the iron sheet is the inner ring of baked clay. The chassis is a mesh iron sheet.

The style doesn't look as modern and exquisite, but the function is basically complete.

The craft of the briquette stove is very simple. This is the first object Xiao Ming gave the craftsmen to practice.

When the five arrived at the equipment department, they saw such a briquette stove.

"What is this, your highness?" Wang Shijie was puzzled.

Xiao Ming smiles a little and asks Chen Wenlong, "have the briquettes been made yet?"

"Back to your highness, it's made. Now it's drying out." Chen Wenlong replied.

www.novelhall.com , the fastest update of the webnovel!