Chen Wenlong's words are very obscure, but this is indeed the practical problem Xiao Ming is facing now.

The Qi Palace has no money, and it is hard to cook a skilled woman without rice. It is impossible to force the men to strengthen them, otherwise the heavens would be angry and the people would be resentful, and the image he had just established would collapse again.

"It's yours, the money is mine." Xiao Ming gritted his teeth. He wanted to integrate the equipment department even if he was selling his body. This was his only chance to turn things around.

Otherwise, with the poverty of this fief, he would have to be reborn from Yao and Shun in two years under the barbarian's butcher's knife.

Chen Wenlong looked at Xiao Ming who was frowning and thinking hard, confused. This equipment department has never been taken seriously in the Great Yu Kingdom, and the King of Qi didn't know what he had done today.

However, when he remembered the rude character of King Qi in the past, he didn't dare to ask too much. He thought that King Qi might just be on a whim, but since he had given such an order, he could only reply: "Abide by your order, Your Highness."

He told Chen Wenlong to gather the carpenters and blacksmiths in the city, and Xiao Ming thought about how to raise money and return to the royal palace.

He called Qian Dafu and asked, "Dafu, how much silver does our Qi Palace have?"

"Go back to Your Highness, plus the silver that Concubine Zhen brought to Aster and Green Ivy, our Qi Palace still has about one thousand taels of silver."

"One thousand taels?" Xiao Ming frowned.

In the past, Xiao Ming did not have the ability to make money, but he had the ability to spend money. He used the money he helped by Concubine Zhen to squander him a lot, and he knew the prices of Qingzhou City very clearly.

Generally speaking, you can buy two stones of rice for one tael of silver in the Great Yu Kingdom. According to his experience, one stone in the Great Yu Kingdom is equivalent to one hundred and twenty kilograms of modern times.

One tael of silver is equivalent to buying 240 kilograms of rice, while the average price of a kilogram of rice in modern times is basically 2.51 kilograms.

So one tael of silver is basically equal to 600 yuan in modern RMB.

This thousand taels of silver seems to be a lot, but it is only enough for the royal mansion. After all, servants, grooms and cooks in the royal mansion all need to pay wages.

For example, Qian Dafu earns twenty taels of silver, green ivy, and asters for a year, and fifteen taels of food and drink. In addition, the amount of food and drink is sufficient, the remaining amount is limited.

"Take out five hundred taels and give them to me." Xiao Ming stretched out his hand.

"Your Highness, this is the New Year's silver that the Empress just gave this year. It's all for you. You have to save some money."

Qian Dafu looked stingy, afraid that Xiao Ming would squander the money again like in previous years.

"I am doing a serious business this time, not looking for flowers and willows." Xiao Ming curled his lips.

After hearing this, Qian Dafu hesitated to get 500 taels of silver bills and gave them to Xiao Ming.

After receiving the silver notes, Xiao Ming said to Qian Dafu: "Work in the pen and mo, I want to send a letter to my father."

Qian Dafu has become numb to Xiao Ming's strange behavior these two days, so he asked his servant to prepare pen, ink, paper and ink.

Of course, he wrote the letter this time not to reminisce about the past with Xiao Wenxuan, but to cry for poverty. The letter roughly means that the fiefdom is in a difficult situation and the people will not be able to eat.

Even so, he still had to pay and work to resist the barbarians. He just captured thirty barbarian cavalry yesterday, and the losses were quite large. The Equipment Department had no money to create arrows, hoping to give some assistance.

"Send it to Chang'an with a quick horse!" Xiao Ming looked at the 1,000-word essay about crying with satisfaction, and threw it to Qian Dafu.

If Xiao Wenxuan was still caring about his kindness, he might be able to allocate some money. If Xiao Wenxuan was heartless, this letter would be considered disgusting to him.

Xiao Ming basically thought about the way to raise money, and the only one left was the local wealthy family.

However, these human spirits will definitely not be willing to pay for it. They wish that the Qi Palace would be half-dead, so that they could be free and easy.

But Xiao Ming would not let them go. Now these wealthy families are just fat sheep. Xiao Ming is a man who plucks his hair by the geese, let alone fat sheep.

After thinking about it, I guess I can't grab it, but it's very easy to make them throw away money. These big clans either serve as officials or work part-time merchants. As long as they have products that they are attracted to, they are not afraid that they won't buy them with money.

In the next three days, Xiao Ming stayed in the Equipment Department all day, and 500 taels of silver made the Equipment Department unprecedentedly rich. The wood, coal cakes, and iron ore they bought every day came in and out, changing the miserable appearance of the past.

In the Equipment Department, thirty craftsmen sat on the ground, and Xiao Ming stood in front of them and talked endlessly.

These thirty craftsmen are basically all the craftsmen in Qingzhou, mainly carpenters and blacksmiths. Now what Xiao Ming told them is a kind of thing they had never heard of before - lathes.

After analyzing the knowledge in the science and technology library and combining the experience of the first industrial revolution, Xiao Ming believes that the basis of the industrial revolution is lathes, including boring machines, milling machines, grinding machines, drilling machines, gear processing beds, etc.

On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, it was the birth of these tools that precise mechanical accessories were produced, and precise mechanical parts produced qualified steam engine cylinders.

The steam engine further automates the lathe, and more precise spare parts appear, making more machinery possible.

During the Warring States Period, primitive lathes appeared in China. These lathes were generally used to cut logs for water trucks, and this process has been preserved.

However, the lathes of this period were made of wooden structure and were pedal-powered, and the machine tool tools were very unstable.

A real lathe requires high-quality rigidity so that the machine tool can be fixed and various instrument parts can be processed.

As the saying goes, if you want to do something well, you must first sharpen your tools. This refers to the tools of craftsmen.

As the accumulation of craftsman's technology, lathes are also the basis for inducing the industrial revolution.

What Xiao Ming wants to do now is to let the craftsmen make all kinds of tools first.

Now that he is standing on the shoulders of a giant, he does not need to follow the long steps before the Industrial Revolution, but directly touches the key point.

Of course, before making the lathe, Xiao Ming had to do one more thing, that is, teach these craftsmen how to make steel.

Xiao Ming observed the steps of these craftsmen to build weapons. Strictly speaking, these craftsmen are still using the traditional steel filling method, and the steel refined by this method can still be used on machine tools.

However, he originally wanted to teach them the crucible steelmaking method, but the people here didn't know where the crucible material graphite was.

However, through the science and technology library, Xiao Ming learned that Shandong was originally a major graphite mine province in modern times. If the location of the graphite mine is accurately positioned, he could make people look for this graphite mine.

At that time, he could fire crucibles and achieve large-scale crucible steelmaking.

It is now the end of the 17th century, and the Great Yu Kingdom is just as unaware of the changes in the outside world in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

Because of the news, Xiao Ming was not sure.

But he knew that the Mongolian conquered Europe in history did not seem to have happened. If Europe had achieved a stable period at this time, he could not predict what extent European civilization has reached.
Chapter completed!