sovbooks Chapter 004 Yongcheng is terrifyingly powerful
Chapter 004 Yongcheng is terrifyingly powerful
Chapter 004
Once this hammer blow is delivered, there's no turning back.
The problem is, Wang Tiezhu knows very well that if he doesn't listen to Chen Ying, he might not see the sun rise tomorrow.
"Bang!"
Wang Tiezhu gritted his teeth and smashed the sledgehammer down hard, leaving a large hole in the head of the smiling Maitreya Buddha statue.
Chen Ying slowly put down the hammer in his hand and handed it to Chen Daniu.
"Bang bang..."
Chen Daniu also knew that he had no way out.
Chen Ying knew that this was actually an artifact, which would have some value in later generations, but right now, this pig iron was his first pot of gold.
Many people believe that it is easy to make 100,000 yuan with 10,000 yuan of capital, but it is much harder to make 10 million yuan with 1 million yuan of capital.
That's not actually the case. When you have capital, making any kind of money is very easy.
Cost is the biggest barrier for poor people to get rich.
Chen Ying didn't actually have much money. After receiving more than sixty taels of silver from Song Yanniang, he first solved the problem of housing. With a house, he became someone with a certain amount of influence.
Even Qin Siming, who is a seventh-rank general in the Ma Mu Bai Hu Suo, now affectionately calls Chen Ying his nephew. In the past, he would only call Chen Ying the boy from the Chen family.
The three of them worked together to smash the iron Buddha statue, and then loaded the broken iron onto a cart. Even at night, Chen Ying was worried that others would see him, so he put soil on the iron.
"You're being way too cautious!"
"Better safe than sorry!"
Under the cover of night, Chen Ying transported all the pig iron from the Buddha Iron back to his homestead. To prevent others from discovering it, he buried the pig iron in the yard near the temporary kitchen.
As for the large pit containing the Buddha statue, Chen Ying also destroyed it, deliberately digging out a lot of silt and filling it into the pit. He also removed the surrounding silt layer and hauled it to the backyard to use as fertilizer.
When dawn broke, the three of them were exhausted and lay down on the ground to sleep soundly.
"Good morning, son-in-law!"
"Good morning, Bo Ying!"
Good morning, Brother Chen!
As dawn broke, people from Songjiazhuang and the military households arrived. Today, there were even more people, a total of 150 or 160, including men, women, and children.
Even Qin Siming felt a little guilty: "Nephew, look, everyone... wants to come and help!"
"More people means more work, and it gets done faster!"
The newly arrived military households breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing Chen Ying's words. Some of them did not get along with Chen Ying and even had some conflicts, but now, for the sake of saving face, they also put on smiling faces.
this is the truth.
When Song Xianze arrived, he brought more than a dozen large carts, each loaded with logs. These were all air-dried timbers, undoubtedly brought from the Song family.
"Good morning, Bo'an!"
"snort!"
Song Xianze didn't give Chen Ying a kind look. He was now filled with regret. If he had known that his sister would change so much, he should have stabbed Chen Boying to death with a sword back then.
According to the "Great Ming Code", Chen Boying was guilty of burglary at the time, so even if he killed Chen Boying, he would have died in vain.
But there's no going back in life.
"Chen Lang..."
Song Xianze's heart bled as he watched Song Yanniang holding a new blue round-necked robe. The harvests had been poor these past few years, and Song Xianze hadn't bought any new clothes. This piece of cloth was bought last year, with the promise that it would be made into new clothes for him.
The new clothes were finished, but Chen Boying ended up wearing them.
"How is it?"
"nice!"
Song Yanniang was mesmerized.
"Cough cough..."
Song Xianze coughed, Song Yanniang's face darkened, and Song Xianze hurriedly ran away.
Song Yanniang said, "Chen Lang, I'll go cook!"
"Thank you, Yan Niang!"
"Um!"
Chen Ying looked at the huge construction site, where people were busy everywhere, including military households, clansmen from Songjiazhuang, and some refugees who wanted to work.
Chen Ying accepted all offers; he needed to finish building the house quickly so that construction could begin smoothly.
Chen Ying approached Shen Keqin and Wang Baishun, two renowned porcelain craftsmen from Ma Mu Baihu.
Yesterday, the two of them started building the kiln, and now they are starting to make the blanks.
"Uncle Shen, Uncle Wang!"
Chen Ying took out the blueprints he had prepared beforehand and asked, "Can this be fired?"
"What's so difficult about that?"
Wang Baishun glanced at the blueprints and asked, puzzled, "Isn't this just a bucket?"
"Calling it a bucket is also accurate!"
Chen Ying laughed and said, "However, mine needs to be heat-resistant and able to withstand long-term calcination with coal!"
Wang Baishun was slightly taken aback, then seemed to understand: "Nephew, you want the cauldron?"
"Yes, but it needs to be larger than a regular crucible!"
Chen Ying pointed to the dimensions on the drawing and said, "The diameter is one foot eight inches, the height is about three feet, and there is a small hole at the bottom with a diameter of two ounces!"
"No big deal, just you wait and see!"
Shen Keqin hesitated before asking, "Nephew, could I ask my son to come and lend a hand?"
"no problem!"
Chen Ying laughed and said, "As long as this is made, five bushels of grain will be guaranteed!"
"real?"
"certainly!"
Because the smelting technology of pig iron in Daming was relatively mature, it mainly adopted the blast furnace method, which directly reduced iron ore into pig iron by heating it with charcoal or coking coal. The process did not require complicated processing and the production cost was low.
The price of pig iron is only nine coins per kilogram, and transportation costs are included for large quantities. In contrast, converting pig iron into wrought iron or steel requires multiple processes such as repeated hot forging and decarburization.
During the Ming Dynasty, wrought iron required five heating and hammering processes, which could increase the cost to nearly twenty times that of pig iron, with each pound of wrought iron costing more than 170 wen (cash).
Chen Ying was originally a graduate in metallurgical engineering and had many years of experience working in steel mills. He was preparing to produce steel, which only required turning pig iron into steel products, such as high-carbon steel, which would increase the price by nearly three hundred times.
A waist knife made of refined steel weighs about two pounds and costs ten taels of silver.
The iron Buddha statue that Chen Ying picked up weighs over 2,300 jin (approximately 1,150 catties). Once it is forged into steel, even after deducting labor and material costs, its value can increase at least a hundredfold, or even more.
Around noon, two people appeared in an open space not far from Chen Ying's house.
The leader was a man in his early thirties, wearing a slightly worn blue cloth robe, a square headscarf, with a thin face, three short tufts of beard, and sharp eyes.
Behind him was a man who looked like a clerk, with a goatee, who was pointing at the construction site and saying something.
These two men had an extraordinary air about them, unlike ordinary people.
This man was none other than Sun Chuanting, the magistrate of Yongcheng County. He stood with his hands behind his back, gazing intently at the construction site before him.
"Old Master Dong,"
The clerk whispered, "We've found out that Chen Boying was originally a military household in the Ma Mu Hundred-Household Garrison. He made a fortune by chance and is now undertaking such a large-scale construction project... Could it be that he's become a little too complacent?"
Sun Chuanting said calmly, "He wasn't just carried away by his success; it seemed more like... he did it on purpose."
"Was it done intentionally?"
Not far away, Chen Ying was arguing with his father, Chen Youshi, and the sound of their voices reached Sun Chuanting's ears clearly.
"Boying, you're driving me crazy!"
Chen slapped his thigh angrily and said, "Just because you have a little money doesn't mean you know who you are! Such extravagance, how are you going to manage in the future?"
"Go through!"
Chen Yingdao said, "However, this money isn't saved, it's earned!"
"quibble!"
"Dad, look!"
Chen Ying pointed to the mountain of blue bricks piled up in the courtyard and said, "These blue bricks used to cost one copper coin each, but now we only need twenty copper coins to buy a whole cartload, which is less than ten percent of the original price!"
"But these bricks all belong to...the temple!"
"What business is it of ours if it's a temple?"
"You're being unreasonable and this is going to cause a huge problem!"
"What could possibly happen?"
Chen Ying scoffed, "Doesn't Buddhism emphasize compassion? These refugees picked up these bricks and traded them for food with me—that's a great act of kindness that saves countless lives!"
Chen was sometimes so angry that he didn't want to talk.
Chen Ying actually had no way to explain to Chen Youshi that he needed to build the house as quickly as possible so that he could use it as a cover to start working on the smelting furnace.
To make money, you must invest. To save money, you have to give up time. Time is Chen Ying’s most precious asset. It’s mid-May now, and he needs to earn his first pot of gold within two to three months.
The argument between the father and son was overheard by Magistrate Sun Chuanting. He looked away, understanding Chen Boying's intentions.
According to Sun Chuanting, Chen Boying was emulating the ancient sage Fan Zhongyan. When Fan Zhongyan served as the prefect of Suzhou, a flood occurred in Suzhou. Unlike other officials, Fan Zhongyan did not directly set up soup kitchens to provide disaster relief.
He led the people in dragon boat races and encouraged temples to undertake large-scale construction projects, building government offices, temples, and warehouses. This work-for-relief program not only provided relief to disaster victims but also developed the local area, becoming a widely praised story.
Sun Chuanting finally smiled: "Chen Boying, he really is a remarkable person!"
Sun Chuanting turned and left. Chen Ying had given him a heads-up: he could provide relief to the disaster victims in Yongcheng without levying grain or taxes on the gentry and wealthy households.
The advisor hurriedly followed, and after walking a considerable distance, he whispered, "Sir, is this Chen Boying... really just a military household?"
"What, you look down on military households?"
The advisor was slightly taken aback, then suddenly realized what was going on.
Magistrate Sun Chuanting was actually from a military family. Of course, he was from Zhenwu Guard in Daizhou, while Chen Boying was from Guide Guard. Sun Chuanting was a hereditary centurion. His grandfather, Sun Si, passed the imperial examination and served as the magistrate of Guancheng County.
"The students dare not!"
"Actually, whether he's a military household member or not is irrelevant!"
Sun Chuanting said calmly, "The important thing is that he has the will, the brains, and the courage. If he can really succeed, Yongcheng County might have one more ally."
Chen Ying had actually noticed Sun Chuanting's arrival. Unlike in later generations, where population mobility was high, the appearance of one or two strangers wouldn't attract much attention.
Now we live in the Ming Dynasty; without a travel permit, we can't move an inch.
Chen Ying knew about Sun Chuanting's arrival, and he deliberately said those words in front of Sun Chuanting to leave an impression on the future governor.
Having another option is always a good thing.
Song Xianze quietly approached Chen Ying and said, "Would you like me to introduce you?"
"Do you know Magistrate Sun?"
Is that strange?
Song Xianze said proudly, "Not only Magistrate Sun, but also Vice Commissioner Ding of Daming Circuit, Censor Lian of Sichuan Circuit, Vice Minister Ding of Nanjing Ministry of War, Right Vice Censor-in-Chief, Governor Wang of Guizhou, and General Liu of Guizhou... I know them all!"
"Keep bragging!"
Chen Ying did not believe that Song Xianze had such a large network of connections.
However, after Song Xianze's detailed explanation, Chen Ying learned that in the late Ming Dynasty, during the reigns of Tianqi and Chongzhen, Yongcheng, a small county town, had produced four governors, two viceroys, two ministers, one grand secretary, and one general.
No wonder Liu Bang was able to achieve great things by relying on the people from Pei County in history.
Yongcheng is also part of Huaihai Province, how could it be so terrifying?
Chen Ying looked at Song Xianze, the future founding strategist of the Great Shun Dynasty, and thought to himself, "Based in Yongcheng, there is much to be done in the future."
Song Xianze noticed Chen Ying staring at him intently and became wary: "What are you up to now? Let me tell you, you have neither money nor your life!"