The Dragon Prince finally opened his eyes. After entering May, it rained several times in a row, which greatly improved the drought situation. Wu Shigong arranged all the laborers to plant crops in order to ensure that they could harvest more food during the autumn harvest.
Because Wu Shigong used a lot of labor and livestock, and Wu Shigong took precautions to build and dredge a large number of irrigation ditches, the entire process of planting crops was very smooth.
In addition, Wu Shigong also began to deal with the captured trophies. He organized a caravan and packed some of the supplies he had captured that were not needed for the time being. Yuan Xingshan led the team and transported them to Jining Prefecture.
Unexpectedly, after Wu Shigong's caravan was formed, Yao Yuanwai and other local businessmen all asked to go together. Although the rebellion of the Holy Spirit Society had been wiped out, many scattered rebels fell into disgrace, so the situation in the countryside became chaotic.
These merchants were all afraid that their caravans would be hijacked by robbers on the way, so they were willing to pay Wu Shigong some security fees to keep them safe. Of course, Wu Shigong was disrespectful to the extra money that came to his doorstep.
After just two trips like this, Wu Shigong received more than 300 taels of guard fees in addition to the money he earned from his caravan. What Wu Shigong paid for himself was nothing more than sending more than a hundred soldiers to protect the caravan every time it set off.
That's all.
Although in Henan's official circles, except for a few officials who knew about it, almost all other officials knew nothing about Wu Shigong's contribution in quelling the rebellion of the Holy Spirit Society.
However, as the scattered mobs spread word of mouth, Wu Shigong became a monster in the eyes of those green forest heroes. Therefore, during the two caravan escorts, there was not even a shadow of a small thief around the caravan.
Didn't see one.
This made Wu Shigong very happy, as he seemed to have seen a new source of wealth. However, the good times did not last long, and the frequency of caravan departures quickly decreased, reaching once a month at most.
The town where Wu Shigong is located is only a commodity distribution center for several nearby counties. In terms of the total circulation of commodities, it is actually not much. Of course, the bulk of commodity transactions in Guide Prefecture and Jining Prefecture are in Guide Prefecture and Jining.
From the perspective of distance between states, Wu Shigong’s town does not have an advantage in products.
In addition, the circulation of commodities in the Ming Dynasty, especially the circulation of bulk commodities, basically took place by water. The transportation cost of waterways was low and relatively safe.
The only advantage of taking the land route is that the time is shorter. From the small town of Wu Shigong to Jining Prefecture, the longest journey is only five days, while if you take the water route, it will take more than a month. Therefore, only those who are in urgent need, the price
Only high-weight and light goods will be transported by land.
Regarding this situation, Wu Shigong could only feel very sorry in his heart. But if he thought about it carefully: the earning of this money was beyond his expectation. Although the money now is small, at least it is of benefit to him.
He made some amends. After thinking about it, Wu Shigong calmed down.
All matters at Qianhu Office were on track, and people were busy with every matter. At this time, Wu Shigong also had some free time.
One day, he found that the women in the quilt workshop were also very idle, so he ordered them to make a set of military uniforms for each soldier. Anyway, Wu Shigong seized a lot of coarse cloth this time, and these coarse cloths could not be sold for a few taels of silver.
Simply make these coarse cloths into military uniforms and distribute them to the soldiers as a welfare for the soldiers.
But when Yang Goudan's wife came to ask Wu Shigong for his opinion with a pattern of military uniforms, Wu Shigong suddenly had an inspiration.
Now, all of Wu Shigong's soldiers, except for the guards from the capital, basically don't have any armor. Even the guards from the capital basically have cotton armor and leather armor, and only the main bosses have them.
Those twenty sets of arm-armor iron armor for protection.
The number of Wu Shigong's soldiers now is very small. To Wu Shigong, every soldier is very precious. Therefore, Wu Shigong also specially wants to equip his soldiers with more armor and save every soldier as much as possible.
The fighting ability of soldiers.
But Wu Shigong has already inquired about it. Even the cheapest cotton armor costs more than 20 taels of silver, while the ring-arm iron armor costs one or two hundred taels of silver. The more expensive one is the plate armor, which I heard costs 500 taels.
More than two silver coins.
As for why armor is so expensive, Wu Shigong also asked Yang Goudan. Yang Goudan told Wu Shigong: Every iron part of the armor was hammered and hammered by the blacksmith. All the steel was made in this way.
Armor can effectively resist weapon damage.
However, the production requirements of Bai Lian Steel are very high, and blacksmiths who can master this technology are very rare. Of course, Yang Goudan also boasted about himself, saying that he also mastered the technology of Bai Lian Steel.
But what's even more troublesome is that it takes a lot of hard work to make steel, and the production time is quite long. Especially for plate armor, it takes one and a half to two months to make the front and rear plates. That's why the price of these armors is so high
So expensive.
After Wu Shigong knew these truths, he understood that it was impossible to mass-produce armor with his craftsmen. However, Wu Shigong did not have so much money to buy armor. Therefore, his thoughts cooled down at that time.
Come down.
However, now that Wu Shigong saw the style of the military uniform, he remembered the body armor he wore in his previous life. Wu Shigong definitely couldn't make the Kailav material used to make body armor in his previous life, but a design of the body armor gave Wu Shigong an inspiration.
.
In the previous life of body armor, there were always several large pockets in important protective parts. When the person wearing the body armor faced combat, he would insert alloy steel sheets or ceramic bulletproof sheets into these large pockets to increase the number of pieces.
The bulletproof performance of your own body armor.
Wu Shigong thought: Can't he do this? As long as he sews pockets on his military uniform, and then inserts iron pieces into these pockets during combat, wouldn't it also function as armor?
Moreover, the cost of such earthen armor is very low. Even if a few pieces of iron are damaged during combat, it is very convenient and cheap to replace. The only drawback is that the protective ability seems to be reduced. But for these
For soldiers, having earthen armor is much better than having no armor at all.
After Wu Shigong's idea was put forward, everyone greatly appreciated it. This made Wu Shigong quite proud. He thought to himself: "Brother, after time travel, I finally got a golden finger! Brother, I am finally fulfilled."
My dream of invention!”
Wu Shigong's concept of earthen armor was later widely used and developed in his army. When Wu Shigong's soldiers did not have iron pieces, they would insert wood pieces into their big pockets, or even fill them with iron pieces.
Stones. Although the effect of this is not as good as inserting iron sheets, it still has a protective effect.
The only regret is that Wu Shigong's military uniforms, when worn on the soldiers, make these soldiers look like beggars wearing patched clothes. Therefore, this kind of military uniforms also has an alias called "beggar uniforms."
For this reason, many soldiers wore a set of clothes outside their "beggar's uniform". However, this way of wearing made Wu Shigong's novel-design earth armor not spread for a long time.
The days passed like this day by day. One day in July, Wu Shigong suddenly received an invitation, inviting Wu Shigong to a banquet in the county town. The person who sent the invitation was Lu Yunhuan, a gentleman in the county town.
What made Wu Shigong even more interested was that in the invitation, the Yangzhou salt merchant Lu Jianchen was also invited to the banquet. So Wu Shigong readily accepted their invitation.
Lu Yunhuan is a big salt merchant who is responsible for the sales of salt products in several surrounding counties. He and Lu Jianchen are now in big trouble in the sale of salt products. Therefore, they want Wu Shigong to come forward to help solve the problem.
