As the saying goes, "Food is the first priority for the people", if you think of this in modern times, you may not understand it deeply.
But in ancient times when productivity was extremely backward, it was really "heaven", because not having enough food meant starving to death, and people starved to death in droves.
Ying Zheng immediately summoned his ministers to discuss countermeasures.
However, what can be done if the labor force is insufficient?
Can we also recruit heavenly soldiers and heavenly warriors to colonize the fields?
On the other hand, King Qi of Chu, who had arrived at Dongting at night, was also waiting for this moment.
The removal of a large number of laborers in the Huaibei area actually had something to do with him. Previously, Xiang Yan only moved the laborers to Ruyin.
The reason is that the fiefdom further south belongs to the nobles of Chu State. Wouldn't it be cheaper for those nobles to bring labor to the south?
But at that time, when King Qi of Chu was still Lord Changping, he suggested:
"Placing all these laborers in Ruyin will consume a lot of food and grass. Secondly, if Ruyin falls, won't they, who are slow to move, become prisoners of the Qin army and be used by the Qin army?"
"Now the Qin army can only attack Ru River in one or two days, and it is not unreasonable to move the labor force southward and be trained by the nobles."
"The nobles are jealous of our soldiers and generals. I'm afraid these laborers will not be able to get into their eyes."
Xiang Yan thought it was right.
What's more, with the intimidating power of the King of Chu, there will be no problem in getting his labor back.
So most of the labor force was transferred south.
At this time, when they fled to Dongting, they took these laborers with them south... Dongting area is a wild land, and these laborers are needed to open up new land.
At this time, Mr. Changping could be said to be hesitating or waiting and watching.
If the Qin State could not solve the labor shortage problem in Huaibei, a large number of Chu people would starve to death... To be precise, the Chu people in the areas occupied by the Qin army would starve to death.
Then King Qi of Chu could raise his arms and shout:
"This is what Jiang Qin ended up with."
"It's all about death anyway, why not fight to the death with the Qin army..."
So the people of Chu will soon gather under his new king of Chu.
At that time, even the nobles will be forced by the situation to join him in resisting Qin.
The reason is very simple. People's support is the most important. If the nobles are unpopular with the people, then the people will turn against them. At that time, the nobles will probably die at the hands of their own people.
Secondly, it was these nobles who bore the brunt of facing the Qin army at this time, and it was actually them who hoped to unite to fight against Qin.
Xiang Yan still has more than 100,000 troops in hand. The nobles still have more than 200,000 horses. By then, they can gather another 400,000 troops.
The Qin army only had more than 200,000 troops.
In addition, a large number of Chu people in Huaibei were starved to death, and the common people shared the same hatred of the enemy, so the Chu state may not be able to make a comeback.
However, Lord Changping frowned and remained silent.
Xiang Yan couldn't help but wonder:
"Why is your Majesty so frowning?"
King Qi of Chu replied:
"The general doesn't know something. I have a personal relationship with Shen Bing. He is very resourceful and has fantastic ideas."
"With him here, if we want to defeat the Qin army, I'm afraid..."
Xiang Yan's face turned cold when he heard Shen Bing's name. How could he, who had been defeated by Shen Bing several times, not know how powerful Shen Bing was.
But this time Xiang Yan was not as worried as King Qi of Chu.
Xiang Yan said:
"What the king is saying is that my subordinates also know that Shen Bing is an extraordinary person."
"However, Huaibei is short of labor this time. Even if Shen Bing has three heads and six arms, can he still produce labor?"
King Qi of Chu nodded slightly in agreement.
He thought so too, but he was still a little worried.
So spies were sent to Huaibei to investigate and monitor Shen Bing.
News from all directions reached King Qi of Chu, and the news in the newspapers was the same:
"Shen Bing is asking his soldiers to rush to build the water tanker."
"The wheat seeds brought from Yan State have arrived in Shouchun, but they have not yet been cultivated."
…
After hearing the news, King Qi of Chu felt a little relieved and said:
"This is strange for Shen Bing. There is no shortage of water in Shouchun, so what is the use of Shen Bing rushing to build a large number of water trucks?"
This is what King Qi of Chu said.
The Shouchun area is the Huaihe River system, with many tributaries and many irrigation facilities built. In addition, there is no drought like Zhao State, so most fields do not need water trucks.
This is also one of the reasons why waterwheels were not popular in Chu State. Only some special areas, such as fields above the water source, were originally abandoned for planting. After the introduction of waterwheels, these high fields can be planted.
However, what King Qi of Chu did not expect was that this waterwheel was the most useful one.
In the past few days, Shen Bing first built a waterwheel to use water power to blow air.
This is a very simple thing for Shen Bing.
In fact, it is not simple even if it is said to be simple, because it requires a "cam mechanism".
To put it simply, if the lever is directly mounted on the waterwheel...although it can be pushed, the waterwheel rotates at a roughly constant speed and the angle of the lever itself changes when the lever is pushed, so the thrust force is inconsistent.
This will cause the wind force to be different and the loss of the lever and the bladder to increase exponentially. Especially if the water power is insufficient, it will be easy to get stuck and unable to push when the lever angle is at its maximum...
Therefore, the rotation of a "cam mechanism" is needed to push the lever with a constant force in the same direction.
Now that the pushing problem is solved, the pulling problem becomes simple. You only need to use the same lever in the other direction but pull it back with a hemp rope.
So as soon as the waterwheel turned, the thing called "Long" blew air into the blast furnace evenly one after another.
Seeing this scene, Ben and Qiu were stunned for a long time without even reacting.
In fact, it wasn't just the two of them, every other worker in the iron smelting workshop looked at this thing with half-open mouths in surprise.
After a long while, Benn finally came to his senses and praised repeatedly:
"Things will turn out great for this thing."
"This solves the big problem of blowing the wind, and we can even build a bigger waterwheel to push a bigger cannon."
"then……"
As he spoke, Lian Ben's own eyes widened, and then he asked Shen Bing doubtfully:
"Lieutenant General, will the quality of iron made by this method be better than that of human platoon?"
Shen Bing secretly praised it in his heart.
This Ben is quite capable and knows how to make such inferences.
It should be known that in the past, manual blasting would have insufficient wind power and different sizes. Therefore, it was difficult for the temperature in the blast furnace to rise and fully oxidize the carbon during ironmaking, resulting in a high carbon content in the iron produced.
Nowadays, the "water row" is driven by water power... Human power is called "human row". There are also "horse row" and "steak" which use horse power and ox power respectively. Water power is called "water row".
This means that as long as the hydraulic power is strong enough, larger rafts can be pushed.
Of course, it has its limits. If you blindly pursue the power of the wind and increase it rashly, the skin will easily break.
The water drain can blow in greater wind, which then leads to higher furnace temperatures and the probability of oxidizing carbon.
Although it is not possible to smelt high-quality iron as a result, some improvement is necessary.