Overlord's Road to Ancient Emperors

"Which factory is the general going to?"

"Can't you just look around?"

"Of course you can, but the prince is at the glass factory, you just go to the second gate to the west."

Kou Xiao didn't expect to meet Li Xu here, it seems that Ye Changqing's side will be in vain, I don't know why, but thinking about it this way, he feels better.

Kou Xiao was not in a hurry to go to the glass factory, but went around the nearby ones, and went in to have a look at each factory area. Some workers didn't know him, and they looked at him vigilantly, fearing that he would sabotage or steal technology.

He has seen a similar cement factory, but the one here is bigger, so Kou Xiao didn't look carefully. He saw a blast furnace standing by the river, so he walked over, and then saw a group of men bathing in hot water by the river. .

Damn it, they can take a bath with hot water in May, and Kou Xiao himself doesn't have that kind of treatment.

"That's a worker who works the morning shift, and now he can rest after getting off work and washing up."

Kou Xiao turned around and saw that it was Lei Zhan. This old Juncheng was wearing a short gray suit, with mud on his trousers. He looked like an ordinary peasant, but he was very energetic, and even his white beard looked pleasing to the eye. a lot.

"Why is Lord Lei here?"

Lei Zhan made a bow, and said energetically: "The general doesn't know, the next official is no longer the county magistrate, but just the chief steward here."

The chief steward, that's terrible, the monthly salary is not much different from that of the county magistrate.Kou Xiao was sour again, "Oh, my lord values ​​you a lot, how are you doing?"

Lei Zhan straightened up, and said in a loud voice, "It's not bad, it's much easier than when I was an official."

Kou Xiao nodded, and admired Li Xu very much. He thought it was a lie when he said that he wanted to use Lei’s family to do business, but he did what he said, and let the other party do it without complaint. Look at this expression, I don’t know People thought he was a servant of the palace.

Pointing to the two blast furnaces, he asked, "What is this?"

"This is a blast furnace for making iron. This kind of blast furnace can melt iron into molten iron, and after it comes out, it is cooled and shaped. There is no need for additional processing to make ordinary ironware, just sharpen the blade. A batch of agricultural tools have been completed last month, and now they are being manufactured. The weapons used by the factory guards, the prince said, since it is our own factory, we should use our own weapons and not take advantage of the general."

Kou Xiao was noncommittal, Li Xu took advantage of him so much, could it be worse?But thinking about the production of this factory building, some of which were eventually used in the military camp, he had nothing to say.

"By the way, why can they wash in hot water? The prince doesn't need to be so sympathetic to the craftsmen."

"It's the hot water that comes with the blast furnace. It's a waste if you don't use it, so it becomes a bathhouse for the workers. It happens to be able to wash clothes by the river after washing, so everyone will come here to bathe and do laundry after get off work."

Kou Xiao complained in a low voice: "The life is better than this general, no wonder so many people come to work."

"At the beginning, not many people came here, most of them came from other places, but after a while, I don't know who spread the monthly salary and benefits here, so many people came for interviews when they were recruiting again."

Kou Xiao walked around the blast furnace a few more times, and asked curiously: "How about the weapons made in this way? Can it compare to those forged by blacksmiths?"

Lei Zhan couldn't help being stunned again, bowed his body and said, "I'll take you to have a look. The first batch of gun heads were just formed yesterday, and the carpenter is making wooden handles."

Lei Zhan took Kou Xiao to the factory on the other side of the river. The guards here were obviously much stricter than other factories. Even if they were familiar faces, they had to go through three inspections and signed their names three times before entering the factory.

Kou Xiao originally thought that the batch of gun heads that Lei Zhan mentioned was about a dozen or so, but when he entered the factory, he saw two rows of neatly arranged gun heads, at least hundreds of them.

There is a shortage of iron in South Vietnam. On weekdays, he would make a weapon with buttons and buttons, and most of them were snatched from other places. The weapons of the Kou family army were repaired and repaired. Even the long gun he carried with him had been used for decades. Compared with these two rows of brand new gun heads, the old things are really inferior.

On the other side, there are ten carpenters making wooden handles. Lei Zhan said: "These wooden handles are all made of hard iron wood. The iron wood was bought by the prince at a high price from Wang Yonglian, and the quantity is not large. It is only enough Made this batch of long guns."

"That old iron man Wang Yonglian is very stingy, willing to sell things to the prince? He has gained a lot of benefits."

"No way, that old Tie Pi gave the prince a few thousand taels of money just now, and the next day his daughter and Ji Li invited the prince to go, and the prince happened to see his iron wood. I don’t know what they talked about because the daughter is being a concubine to the prince, and the iron wood that the prince bought is only a little higher than the market price, but there is no such a lot of iron wood in the market.”

Kou Xiao wrote down Wang Yonglian in his small notebook, and he will look for an opportunity to settle the score later, "That old man is really unwilling to take any losses, the prince is going to be his son-in-law, so it's not too much to use as a dowry."

"You are joking, why would the prince accept their daughter? This status is not worthy."

"It's better than the people from Xifenglou." Kou Xiao thought that Li Xu was really not picky, and the people from the brothel Chuguan also accepted.

Lei Zhan still knew the inside story, his old face turned into a chrysanthemum with a smile, "Haha, the general misunderstood, those people brought back by the prince from Xifenglou are to be tea masters, I heard that they have left Fujian."

Kou Xiao's face remained unmoved, and his heart burst into laughter. He responded flatly: "Oh, the rumors and rumors outside are really unbelievable." The tip of the gun was more than half lighter, very thin, pointed and slender in shape, and had not yet been sharpened.

"If this thickness is used too much, it will easily curl the blade, but it is enough for factory defense."

Lei Zhan nodded secretly. This specification was determined by the prince. The prince also said so at the beginning. These guns are only used in the factory. It's easier to get up.

Kou Xiao disliked his own weapon a little bit. When he first took over the Kou family army, his arm holding his father's gun, Ri Wu, was sore. After using it for a few years, he got used to it.

I have to ask the prince to order a new gun for him. If I use his soldiers, I won't lose a gun if I pay him.

Kou Xiao gave the horse to Lei Zhan to look after, and went to find Li Xu empty-handed. Lei Zhan personally led the way and took him into the glass factory area, which was still under construction and was a bit messy.Kou Xiao is very curious about glass. This thing is completely unfamiliar to the South Vietnamese people, and they don’t know whether it is round or flat. But the glass factory is still in the preparation stage, and there is nothing to see, except for the towering chimney. Kou Xiao looked at it for a long time and couldn't figure out what the glass was, so he didn't pay attention to it.

"This is the factory building, the buildings on the right are where the stewards work, and the prince is in the study at the innermost."

Kou Xiao followed and walked over, and saw hundreds of people around, the young ones were only thirteen or fourteen years old, the older ones had gray hair, they were probably past forty years, they stood quietly in line, Wait for someone to call your name.

"How many people will be recruited here?"

"The initial plan is 50 people. If we do well, we will definitely add more people."

"All the common people have come here to work, so is the land cultivated? Food is the foundation, so don't mess with the foundation."

"Many officials have responded to this issue, but you don't know that the prince has issued several decrees recently. If they can be made, the food production in the future will increase exponentially, and it will not be a problem to supply these craftsmen. And these few The things produced by the factory are astonishing, and if you take any of them and sell them outside, you can get a hundred times the amount of food in return. The prince said that every aspect of business, agriculture, industry and commerce must be taken care of, and one cannot lose sight of the other.”

Kou Xiao looked at him speechlessly, this old man was trembling with Li Xu at the beginning, but now he has become his number one supporter, I don't know if Lei Ming would faint from anger seeing him like this.

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Li Xu was looking at the data in the office, and he didn't have to worry about the job recruitment. He mainly wanted to see how to improve the quality of the glass produced by the first batch of glass. Architectural glass, and also plans to make a batch of glass handicrafts, which can earn a lot of money if sold in other places.

When glass is introduced to the north in the future, it will inevitably lower the market price. If you don't make a fortune at this time, you will be sorry for the ecological environment he destroyed.

Once this industrial area in the western suburbs is fully built, the surrounding pollution will be uncontrollable, and even because the fuel has not kept up, the surrounding wood felling has exceeded control, even if Li Xu asked them to replant the trees immediately after felling, it would be impossible. Still can't make up for the damage to the ecology.

"We still have to dig coal." Li Xu took out a map and circled a few large coal mining areas and oil areas in his impression, but the time difference is thousands of years, and it is not the same world, so the distribution of minerals must be different.

Someone knocked on the door, Li Xu thought it was the manager of the factory and let people in, but he didn't hear footsteps for a long time, Li Xu raised his head curiously, and saw Kou Xiao leaning against the door and hugging his chest, looking at him very intently.

The corner of Li Xu's mouth curled up, the moment he saw Kou Xiao, he felt the burden on his shoulders was loosened, this was something he didn't even realize.

"When did you come back?"

"This morning." Kou Xiao walked in, closed the door, and sat across from Li Xu. This was another set of furniture he was not familiar with. His expression makes one unable to relax and stretch his body.

He was sitting upright, and first reported the good news of finding Ye Changqing. Sure enough, Li Xu stood up happily and walked around the office.

Kou Xiao curled his lips sourly, "Yeah, life is really big, but he said he brought a secret back, and he doesn't know what it is, the prince can ask it himself when he goes back."

Li Xu put down what he was doing and prepared to rush back. Ye Changqing was too important to him. He was not only Lin Zhao's adopted son, but also the captain of the Yulin Army, and he was also a person who wholeheartedly helped him. The stewards around him were gone. You can change the batch, but if Ye Changqing is gone, you won't be able to find a second one.

Before he left, he looked at Kou Xiao who was sitting calmly, and asked amusedly, "Won't General Kou go with you?"

Kou Xiao waited for his invitation, nodded immediately, and said: "It's already past noon, the general hasn't eaten yet, I don't know if the cook in the house has food left."

Li Xu ate at the factory cafeteria at noon. The big pot rice here was so delicious that he didn't eat much, so he lied, "I haven't eaten, either. Go back and ask Aunt Xu to make another table."

"Is there any new food recently?" Kou Xiao has been away for a month, and he never forgets the delicious food in the palace, and even with nature, he never forgets the prince.

"A new one comes out every day. This is the rule. It will not be over until Jiang Lang is exhausted, but I believe that other people will think for me at that time." Li Xu remembered a funny thing. Tell Kou Xiao, "The chef at Fulai Restaurant is very shrewd. Knowing that there is such a rule in this king's grocery store, he came to the door with a few recipes, saying that he wanted to sell recipes, and a recipe was not expensive. Only for a tael of silver."

Kou Xiao said disdainfully: "If he can have any good recipes, why wait for today, the menu of the restaurant is already in the morning."

"No, in the past, his newly created dishes were given to the restaurant for free. The shopkeeper Xu didn't even give a bonus. After the grocery store opened, he saw business opportunities from it, so he kept the newly created dishes. , sell it to me as a secret recipe.” Li Xu said with a smile: “Think about it, the restaurant often buys secret recipes from me, if shopkeeper Xu knew that some of them were created by his chef, wouldn’t it be Spitting blood? He buys a secret recipe starting at ten taels."

Kou Xiao didn't know if shopkeeper Xu would vomit blood in anger, but he knew that Li Xu really knew how to do business. This time, he made a net profit of more than ten times, which was much faster than stealing money by himself.

Back at the mansion, Li Xu asked Wu to go into the kitchen to explain, and hurried to see Ye Changqing himself, Kou Xiao knew they wanted to talk in private, so he didn't bother him, but wandered around in the yard.

This is his own yard, but it is quite different from the original one. Li Xu has lived in it for a long time, and many new things have been added to this yard, completely changing his style.

There is a small pond in Xiyuan, and a group of ducks are raised in the pond. It is said that the prince also released a batch of fish fry, planted lotus root, and there will be a good harvest in summer. A plank road was built around the pond. The little princess led her little friend, the little girl. Playing shuttlecock.

Seeing Kou Xiao suddenly, a group of little girls were startled, but the little princess threw away the shuttlecock and ran over with her skirt, "Uncle Kou is back, did you bring a gift for Shu'er?"

Indeed, Kou Xiao rubbed his nose in embarrassment, he has not changed his habit after learning it from Li Xu, and he will remember to bring them presents when he comes back this time, "I met a caravan from Lingnan on the way and bought some pearls The gemstone will be delivered to the little princess later."

As soon as the little princess heard that it was jewelry, she didn't really want it. Firstly, these things were too expensive, and secondly, she was not too rare. Compared to these, she preferred weird things, or toys that could be played with.Recently, there have been many craftsmen at home, and many small gadgets have been made, and the little princess is having a lot of fun.

"These are too expensive, Shu'er still doesn't want them."

Kou Xiao was rejected when he bought a gift for someone for the first time, and asked sadly: "Doesn't the little princess like jewelry?" The sisters in his family obviously like it very much.

"Are you going to tell the truth?"

Kou Xiao shook his head, needless to say, he already understood, he sighed a long time, "Forget it, let's bring something else for the little princess next time."

The little princess felt a little embarrassed, so she suggested to him: "Uncle Kou can give it to my father, my father will definitely like it."

"Really?" Kou Xiao thought about it carefully, and asked uncertainly: "Will the prince like jewelry and jade?" In Kou Xiao's view, these are the things that female relatives like.

The little princess nodded positively, "As long as it's valuable, my father will like it."

Kou Xiao thought to himself that it would be more practical to give silver directly, and what jewelry to give, and save it to add makeup to the little princess later.

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In the guest room, when Li Xu saw Ye Changqing, he was startled by his thin body and dark skin, "Why did you become like this?"

Ye Changqing cried once when he saw Jia Pingping, and couldn't help crying again when he saw Li Xu, "My lord, I thought I would never see you again."

This is what Li Xu wanted to say. Who knew that Ye Changqing could come back from the sea. He couldn't help scolding: "Do you think you are stupid, dare to go to sea alone, do you think your life is too long? You can come back." Ancestors bless you." The two Habayashi soldiers who went out to sea with him must not be able to return, otherwise it would be impossible for only Ye Changqing to come back.

After Ye Changqing calmed down, Li Xu said, "Rest today, and we'll talk about it tomorrow if you have something to say. Have you eaten lunch yet?"

Ye Changqing nodded, "Yes, I ate three bowls of rice, a whole roasted chicken, and a bowl of bean curd and..."

"Stop, the king is going to have a meal with General Kou and then come to see you. You should sleep first."

Ye Changqing's eyes lit up, "My lord, let me go with you, I think I can have another meal."

Looking at his figure, Li Xu knew that he was hungry, so he took him to the restaurant together, and then asked Wu to go in and call Yan Chen, and asked him to take good care of Ye Changqing's body, don't ruin the body of a great general, Miaozi, That's a shame.

Kou Xiao was studying the simulated flowers on the dining room table, his eyes lit up when he saw Li Xu coming in, after a while, Li Xu changed into a set of home clothes, loose single clothes, without a belt, looking a bit slack.

"What are you looking at?" Li Xu sat down and asked.

Kou Xiao pointed to the vase and asked: "What kind of flower is this, I don't seem to have seen it before, and it's fake, right?"

Li Xu took out a flower, it was a flower he drew on a whim one day, and when the little princess saw it, she took it to test her new wife and asked her if he knew the flower's name.

Of course the new master didn't know, but it was not good to tell the students that he didn't know, so the next day he made a fake flower out of red cloth to coax the little princess. We learned fake flowers together, and the bottle on this table is only part of their masterpiece.

Li Xu was in a hurry. He had only met this new wife once after he was recruited. He was a 16-year-old kid. He was not very knowledgeable.

Li Xu asked him: "Do you think the world we live in is round or square?" The other party honestly went back to read the book for one night, and told him that he didn't know, and he restrained himself a lot after that.

But at a young age, the child has a big heart. I can play with a group of little girls. It is said to be in class, but in fact I spend most of the time playing. Today I play flower arrangement, tomorrow I play fishing, and the day after tomorrow I may take a group of little girls to play building houses. What you can't think of, there is nothing he can't think of.

Li Xu was very satisfied with this, little girl, what do you do with studying and don't need to take exams, there is nothing wrong with being able to learn while having fun.

After pulling away, Li Xu handed the flower to Kou Xiao, "This is a flower, a flower that represents love, similar to the rose."

Kou Xiao didn't know flowers, and he never knew that flowers could represent love. He glanced at Li Xu, and silently put this flower into his sleeve pocket.

Li Xu couldn't laugh or cry when he saw his coquettish operation, so he didn't dare to tease him again, lest he would be embarrassed to confess his love in public.

Just when Wu Jin brought the dishes to the table, he could smell the spicy smell from a long distance away. Li Xu suddenly regained his spirits and sold his spicy dishes to Kou Xiao, "This time Lei Yang came back with a lot of peppers and seeds, and the peppers are used to make The food is so delicious, you should try it too."

A strange expression appeared on Wu Jin's face, and he put the pot of boiled fish in front of Kou Xiao. Kou Xiao took a deep breath and coughed a few times.

Before he could put down his chopsticks, a pair of chopsticks stretched out to pick up a piece of fish, Kou Xiao turned his head to look, frowned and asked, "Why are you sitting here?"

Ye Changqing was about to start eating, when he heard this question, he was stunned for a moment, "Why can't I sit here?" Could it be that General Kou is a person who talks about dignity and despises his humble status?But didn't they all eat and live together along the way?

Kou Xiao changed the question: "Why are you eating now?"

Ye Changqing understood, heaved a sigh of relief, and replied with a smile: "The food in the palace is so delicious, I'm hungry just after eating it."

Li Xu was afraid that Ye Changqing's body was not suitable for eating chili, so he picked up his piece of fish and put it in his bowl, then handed him the chicken soup with mushrooms, "You are not in good health, drink more soup to nourish yourself."

In fact, Ye Changqing wanted to try the bright red boiled fish. He had been drinking chicken soup these days, and his mouth was tasteless.

But Kou Xiao couldn't see how Li Xu cared about him, so he squinted at him, "Lieutenant Ye is very hungry, you should pay more attention to your diet, overeating is not good for your health, why don't you ask the kitchen to cook some medicinal porridge for you .”

Ye Changqing still thought that he cared about him, and thought in his heart that General Kou had been talking sarcasticly to him all the way, but he was actually a warm-hearted person, and he was wrongly blamed.

Li Xu naturally understood that Kou Xiao was chasing someone away, but he didn't want to be alone with Kou Xiao at all. Since he received Kou Xiao's letter last time, he has been thinking about how to deal with the relationship between the two of them. It is impossible to refuse. He didn't confess, how strange he suddenly said that I don't like you.

But what if the other party touches him again?Then it can no longer be regarded as normal physical contact between brothers.

To be honest, if other people had such thoughts about him, he would have thrown them overseas or hundreds of thousands of miles away, and it would be clear if they were out of sight, but Kou Xiao is not someone else, and Li Xu can't leave him for the time being. Apart from him, Nanyue would not be able to do without the God of War, so he didn't know when this ticking time bomb would explode.