The autumn wind is whistling, and the sky is covered with gloomy dark clouds. It seems that it may rain at any time. Pedestrians on the road have also wrapped their clothes tightly and speeded up their walking pace. However, Li Xiu walked leisurely on the streets of Chang'an with a look of leisurely expression. He has not entered the city for a long time, and occasionally walked around the city, and it feels very fresh.

Walking north along Zhuque Street, then turning to a wide street in Dongshi, I saw luxurious mansions everywhere on both sides of the street, and grand gatehouses could be seen everywhere. Li Xiu followed Ma Ye to the door of a most luxurious mansion, and wrote four big characters "Yingguo Duke Mansion". When the guards on both sides of the mansion saw Ma Ye, they did not dare to stop him. At the same time, the instructors in the mansion immediately came out and led them to the front hall of the mansion.

"Uncle Ma, this Duke Ying is so luxurious!" Li Xiu sat down and looked at the surrounding environment and smiled. The whole street was the most elegant gate of the Duke Ying's Mansion. In addition, the layout in the mansion was extremely luxurious. Not to mention anything else, the white jade screen in the hall would probably be priceless.

"Hehe, the Wu family was originally a famous wealthy businessman. When His Majesty raised his army, he was funded by the Wu family. After His Majesty ascended the throne, he naturally rewarded the Wu family and did a bigger business. Building a house was just a drop in the bucket for them." Ma Ye smiled indifferently. If the Wu family had not had strong financial resources and the Warrior was deeply favored, he would not have chosen to do business with the Wu family.

Just as Li Xiu was chatting with Mr. Ma, he suddenly heard a burst of rapid footsteps from outside. Then a tall figure walked in quickly. When he saw Mr. Ma, he immediately laughed and came forward and said, "Brother Ma, I haven't seen you for many days. I really want to kill me!"

"Haha, didn't you just come to have a drink last month?" Ma Master smiled at this time, and his tone of speaking was very polite, but Li Xiu knew that the more polite Mr. Ma spoke to others, the more estranged he was from the other party.

Taking advantage of the opportunity of Ma Ye and Wu Shitao greetings, Li Xiu was also seriously looking at Wu Meiniang's father. He saw that the other party was about forty years old, tall and mighty, and looked quite imposing. In fact, although the Wu family was a businessman, Wu Shitao had been hanging in the army. He used to be the commander of Yingyang Mansion. Later, because of his good relationship with Li Yuan, he served as the marching officer Kai under Li Yuan. Before Li Yuan started the army, Li Yuan was hesitant before he started the army, and it was the samurai who made him make up his mind. Later, Wu Shitao also made many military achievements and was naturally highly valued by Li Yuan.

After a few greetings with Mr. Ma, the warrior looked at Li Xiu next to him. Although Mr. Ma did not tell him in advance that Li Xiu would come to visit him, the smart warrior suddenly had his eyes lit up when he saw the young Mr. Li Xiu and immediately walked forward and said, "Do you dare to ask if you are Mr. Li Xiu?"

"You are polite to Gong Ying. It's Li Xiu!" Li Xiu stepped forward and smiled. Judging from his appearance, this warrior sage does not seem to be a calculating person, but he should not behave like a person. What's more, Ma's eyes have always been very accurate in looking at people. In fact, if it weren't for satisfying his curiosity, Li Xiu would probably not meet someone like Warrior sage at all.

"Hahahaha~, I have heard that Mr. Li is so talented that Wu has long wanted to visit him, but he is afraid of disturbing him, but he did not expect that the young master would come to the door in person today. Wu really feels bright!" When Wu Shiyan heard that the person in front of him was indeed Li Xiu, he couldn't help but say with great spirit. Everyone knows that Li Xiu has no intention of fame and fortune, and has refused the recruitment of the King of Qin and the Crown Prince one after another. However, he is now visiting him in person, which makes him feel light on his face. I am afraid that others will not believe it if he says it.

"You are polite Duke Ying. I am just a idler. How can I afford to be so praised by Duke?" Li Xiu hurriedly said modestly when he heard this. No wonder Mr. Ma said that the other party has a wide range of friendships. Not to mention the other party's character, just this enthusiastic attitude makes it difficult to feel disgusted.

Next, the warrior exchanged a few more greetings with Li Xiu before he invited them to sit down. Li Xiu wanted to ask why the other party wanted to see him, but the warrior did not seem to be in a hurry to talk about this, but instead chatted with them with enthusiasm and asked someone to prepare a banquet. Li Xiu had to give up this idea temporarily.

In a short while, the banquet was ready, and the rain outside finally started to fall. As a result, the Samurai set up the banquet in the back garden corridor of the mansion, where you can drink while enjoying the rain outside. There is also a stove next to it, so it doesn’t feel cold.

"Brother Wu, aren't you going to see Li Xiu? Now someone has come to you for you. Just say whatever you have!" After three rounds of wine, Ma said directly. He was also curious about what the warriors were looking for Li Xiu to do?

"This..." The warrior hesitated for a moment when he heard this, and finally spoke, "Actually, I feel ashamed of this matter. The reason why I want to see Mr. Li is actually related to Carbonifer!"

"Carboniferous? Didn't Uncle Ma always be responsible for this matter? I'm afraid Duke Ying was looking for the wrong person, right?" Li Xiu said in confusion when he heard this. He thought that the carboniferous that the warrior said was that after seeing the huge profits of honeycomb coal, he wanted to master some carboniferous ores, but those carboniferous ores were all in the hands of Ma Ye, so he could only talk to Ma Ye.

"No, Mr. Li misunderstood. What I said was related to carbonite. Actually, I heard from Brother Ma that the reason why he was able to use carbonite as honeycomb coal was all due to Mr. Li's contribution. Moreover, the young master seemed to have a very good understanding of carbonite, so Wu wanted to ask the young master if he could use carbonite for iron smelting?" Seeing that Li Xiu misunderstood what he meant, the warrior waved his hand and finally expressed his purpose.

"Iron Smelting!" Li Xiu became even more confused when he heard this. He couldn't understand why the magistrate of the court, such as Warrior, asked him about using charcoal to smelting iron?

However, Li Xiu couldn't figure it out, but Ma Master knew very well. He ate the food and said with a smile: "Brother Wu, the official system of the court is not yet determined, and the position of the Secretary of the Ministry of Works is mostly vacant. You are temporarily in charge of the affairs of the Ministry of Works. Does Your Majesty want to officially appoint you as the Secretary of the Ministry of Works?"

The official system that Ma Ye mentioned was not determined actually means that after the founding of the Tang Dynasty, it always copied the official system of the former Sui Dynasty. There was no problem at all. However, sometimes because Li Yuan did not consider it thoroughly when rewarding official positions, the power of the imperial officials was somewhat confusing. Someone had long written a letter to formulate the official system of the Tang Dynasty, but it was dragged down for various reasons. Before that, the official positions of the Tang Dynasty were also relatively chaotic. Many important positions were only held by officials and were not formally appointed. For example, the Ministry of Works was managed by the Ministry of Works, but they were not the Minister of Works.

"Hehe, I'm not to hide it from Brother Ma. Your Majesty has indeed revealed the meaning of this aspect, but the Ministry of Works is not easy to control. There are several ministers below who have long been eyeing the position of Shangshu. After I mastered the Ministry of Works, I didn't have any political achievements and my prestige was a bit lacking. So even if Your Majesty wanted me to be Shangshu, I was not sure to hold this position!" In the end, the warriors also complained to Mr. Ma. He would not tell others these words easily, but he was familiar with Mr. Ma and knew that Li Xiu had never interacted with people in the court, so he said it so boldly.

"So that's it. In the past, charcoal was used to smelting iron, and the price was too high, so you wanted to use cheaper charcoal instead of charcoal. But what I can't understand is that if you want to smelly smelting iron, just refine it directly. Do you still need to ask Li Xiu for advice on this kind of thing?" Ma Ye said in the end. In his opinion, isn't smelting iron just burning the iron ore? Which fuel is different?

"Uncle Ma, you are wrong. Ironmaking is not just about using any kind of fuel. For example, using charcoal can produce the best fine iron, but if it is replaced with charcoal, it may only be able to produce crisp and hard iron, which is useless at all." Li Xiu suddenly interrupted at this time, and he finally understood the reason why the warrior wanted to see him.

"That's right, Mr. Li knew that after our Ministry of Works replaced the charcoal with charcoal, the iron refined was crisp and hard, and it couldn't be used no matter how it was built, but I didn't know why, so I wanted to ask Mr. Li for help!" Samurai said to Li Xiu with excitement at this time. Originally, he asked for help from Li Xiu just to be in a destiny state. Even if Li Xiu had no choice, he could use this to get closer to this young handsome man. However, hearing what he said just now, infinite hope suddenly rose in Samurai's heart.

Li Xiu pondered for a moment, and he did know the reason, but even if he said it, the warrior must not understand it, so he finally explained simply: "Duke Ying Guo, carbonite is different from charcoal. It is produced underground, and there are many impurities in it. When burning, these impurities will enter the melted iron. It is precisely because of the existence of these impurities that the iron quality becomes extremely poor. To solve this problem, it is necessary to remove the impurities in the carbohydrate!"

"So that's it. I don't know how to remove the impurities from the carbonite?" Samurai asked excitedly when he heard this. He finally found the right person. Li Xiu knew the reason, but he didn't know if he had a solution?

Li Xiu showed a contemplative expression again at this time. The so-called impurities in carbohydrate actually refer to sulfur. This thing will make the quality of iron extremely poor. There is only one way to remove it, that is, to refine carbohydrate into coke.

To put it bluntly, coking technology is similar to burning charcoal. It is used to isolate the air when the fuel is halfway through, causing a series of changes in the properties of carbohydrate. However, under the current conditions, the quality of the coke produced is probably not very good, and the sulfur content inside will definitely exist. The steel made of such coke will definitely not be as good as the iron made of charcoal in terms of quality. If the Tang Dynasty used coke to make iron, not to mention anything else, the quality of the Tang Dynasty's weapons would definitely drop a lot. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!