Regarding the refining of oil, it can be said to be difficult or simple.

The most important thing is to see what standard thing you want.

It is still difficult to reform with current methods, but it is not difficult to simply extract gasoline.

This is achieved through simple distillation.

However, lubricating oil still requires a certain degree of difficulty.

The imperial court decided to conduct research on this thing.

So the Golden Army directly issued an order.

Chen Fengzhi's entire 13th Battalion of the Golden Army joined in the detection of black water.

At the same time, a batch of black water must be produced as soon as possible and sent to Chang'an for research.

Of course, there is a lot of resistance to the name Black Water, but everyone is used to calling it that.

Isn’t that just the case with names? The first one to call out the name will often make the people following him subconsciously call him the same.

The road to the Western Region is still under construction.

However, it is not considered to be building roads, at best it is planting trees.

And planting trees is not something that can be done in just one trip. The trees need to be transported from other places, holes need to be dug, and water needs to be found for watering.

So as there are more trips and more people walking, the middle will naturally become a road.

However, it is best not to have too high expectations for this road, because there is no construction on the road surface.

It just relies on people walking on the natural paths formed over the past few days.

And based on the efficiency of use of this road, it is basically certain that by summer in a year or two, the entire road will be covered with grass.

But even so, it's better than other places. At least the trees on both sides of the road serve as navigation.

With the traffic of caravans, the road surface can also be compacted to a certain extent.

As for whether it is feasible, there is no need to worry about this.

Even two thousand years later, traces of the Silk Road of the Han Dynasty can still be found in the Gobi Desert in the northwest.

Although it is difficult to spot without looking carefully, it is still easy to see if you look carefully.

The research on steam engines is still going on, and the right method has been found. The progress is not the same every day, but at least every month, you can see something different.

Various departments are also working together to conduct research and try their best to do their own things well.

In the blink of an eye, time came to the ninth year of Jianyuan, and Han Dynasty also entered the twelfth year since its establishment.

The young boy back then gradually turned into a middle-aged uncle.

Even Wang Buqi inevitably grew a beard.

The main reason is that people in this era like to grow beards, and it is very laborious to shave every day.

These days, there are neither electric razors nor manual razors. Every time I shave, I feel like I am about to cut my neck.

Military reform is no joke, even though there was so much commotion at the beginning last year.

But later everyone discovered that there seemed to be no difference between whether to change or not. People's lives remained as usual, without any changes or any impact.

It was as if this incident never happened at all.

However, it was at the end of the year that the people of Han Dynasty truly realized the impact of military reform.

The first thing to bear the brunt is that the imperial court has reduced the number of conscripts this year. Compared with the number of at least 150,000 soldiers in previous years, this year has been reduced by three times.

The entire Han Dynasty only recruited 50,000 people, and the current Han Dynasty, excluding those counties in the Western Regions, including Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan, and Dunhuang counties, has a total of forty-five counties.

In other words, on average, each county has only a little over a thousand recruits.

But this is just an average number. The Ministry of War has also made slight adjustments to the quotas based on the population base of each place.

For example, each of the four newly established corridor counties has only 500 places.

As for counties with large populations, Sanchuan County, Hedong County, Hanoi County, Yingchuan County, Dang County, Shu County and other counties can only get 1,500 to 2,000 places each.

This quota is simply not enough. Take Yingchuan County as an example. There are twenty counties in Yingchuan County, and each county has a population of more than 100,000. The least is nearly 110,000, and the most is 160,000.

Ten thousand people.

The entire Yingchuan County now has a combined population of more than 2.7 million people, and the largest number of new soldiers assigned to Yingchuan County is only 2,000.

On average, there are only 100 places per county, which was absolutely unimaginable in the past.

Even if some inappropriate age ones are removed, this year's recruits still need to be selected from hundreds of people.

After all, employment pressure is high, and farming does not require so many people. Every household has idle labor.

Although you can make some money doing odd jobs, how can you be as stable as being a soldier?

Besides, now that the Xiongnu have also been destroyed, the Han army is sweeping across the Western Regions. Looking up, the Han can no longer find an opponent that he can take seriously.

At this time, who wouldn’t become a soldier?

But there are no quotas, so you can’t go even if you want to.

Having more wolves and less meat is not without its benefits.

County lieutenants can carefully select from so many applicants, and the result is that the quality of this year's recruits is the highest quality since the founding of the Han Dynasty.

There is no reason why a recruit selected from a hundred should not be of the highest quality.

Of course, you thought this was the end?

Far from it, the impact of military reform has just begun.

According to the two-step military reform planned by the imperial court, it will be divided into three years to complete the reform of the army's establishment, and it will be divided into seven years to complete the plan to reduce the number of 700,000 troops.

This also means that 100,000 people need to be disarmed every year to complete the basic plan.

This year, 50,000 new soldiers were recruited, which means that the number of soldiers who need to retire by the end of this year will be 150,000.

And when these 150,000 people returned to their hometowns, the people really felt what pressure was.

There were not many job opportunities, but now they are all taken away by these able-bodied veterans.

Even if you go to someone to argue with you, you won't be able to convince them.

People say that retired soldiers are in good physical condition, hard-working, energetic, obedient and easy to command, and most importantly, have combat experience.

This is very critical. At the critical moment, these people can act as bodyguards. For the same price, as an owner, why not find someone who can work and act as a bodyguard?

Especially in the transportation industry in various counties, there are some merchants who stock a large amount of goods. These retired soldiers can not only look at the warehouses, but also rely on the habits developed by the army to work meticulously every day. Every place is inspected very carefully and very carefully.

In place.

It's definitely not like that group of people in the past, who just fooled people if they could.

In other words, even if you are the boss and want to light a fire in the warehouse, these people will dare to kick you out.

In addition to taking care of the warehouse, they can also deliver goods everywhere.

Someone did some calculations and found that if he saves the money for delivery and does the delivery himself, even if he makes more money for these people, it will be a good deal for him.

As a result, 150,000 retired soldiers returned to their hometowns and frantically competed for other people's job opportunities.
Chapter completed!