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The person brought in by the magistrate of Zhou was a man in his forties, tall and thin, and looked very smart and capable. His surname was Shan, and he was one of the major managers of the Wu clan business in Jiangling. The middle-aged man knelt down and bowed when he entered the lobby, "Small Min Shan Yue paid a visit to the governor of the state."

Liu Jing smiled and waved his hand, "No need to be polite, please get up."

Manager Shan stood up.

Liu Jing asked again with a smile: "I heard from the magistrate of Zhou that Manager Shan just returned from Jiaozhou."

"It was Xiaomin who just returned from Fanyu County, Nanhai County yesterday."

"I see"

Liu Jing pondered for a while and asked again: "I probably knew at the beginning of the year that Liu Bei's army had a fierce battle with Shi Xie's army in Hepu County, but I don't know what the result was."

"Report to the governor of the state, this battle has long been over. Shixie's army was defeated by Zhuge Liang. Liu Bei occupied Hepu County and Gaoliang County. He ordered the general Chen Dao to lead the army to guard Hepu County and Feng Xi to guard Gaoliang County. Then Zhuge Liang led 20,000 troops to fight against Nanhai County in the east. Just last month, Wu, the guardian of the South China Sea, was killed by Guan Yu. He heard that more than 10,000 troops in Fanyu City surrendered to Zhuge Liang. When I came back, I happened to meet Liu Bei leading the military officials and his family to Fanyu City from Cangwu."

Liu Jing nodded. Shi Xie was not Liu Bei's opponent. He had expected this, but he did not expect that Liu Bei's army would progress so quickly. The nine counties of Jiaozhou had already occupied six counties. He pondered for a while and asked again: "Do you know Shi Xie's situation?"

"Xiaomin only heard that the Shi family retreated to Jiaozhi County, and now there are only Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen and Rinan County, and the army has suffered most of the losses. Now Shi Xie is asking for peace from Liu Bei."

"Seeking peace from Liu Bei"

Liu Jing immediately asked with interest: "Is the news true?"

"Xiaomin only heard some local people talking about it at the tavern in Cangwu County when he came back. Someone saw Shi Xie's envoy, his younger brother Shi Yi. Xiaomin cannot guarantee whether the peace is true."

Liu Jing smiled and said to Liu Xian: "It seems that Uncle Liu chose to go to Jiaozhou. If this is right, at least he has a foundation."

Liu Xian shook his head, "Frankly speaking, I don't like Uncle Liu. Although Zhao Tuo manages, Jiaozhou is still a barbaric land, which is worse than Jingnan, let alone compared to Jingyi. Even if you occupy the entire territory of Jiaozhou, you will not improve without ten or twenty years of hard work, let alone fighting for the Central Plains. It is absolutely impossible."

Everyone was talking, and at this time, a personal soldier reported in the hall, "Qizhou Governor, the owner of Jiangxia Horse Court sent someone to send trust."

The head of Ma Yuan is Ma Jun, who is an official general and the craftsman he founded is still in Xiakou and has not moved to Xiangyang yet. Liu Jing nodded and smiled, "Let the sender come in."

After a moment, Ma Jun's apprentice Liang Yi quickly walked into the lobby and saluted Liu Jing and said, "I am sending a letter to the Zhou Mu on my master's order. When I went to Chengdu, I realized that the Zhou Mu was in Jingnan and rushed over again."

Liu Jing laughed, "Thank you so much for chasing Lingling County."

Liang Yi took out Ma Jun's letter and submitted it to Liu Jing, "Please take a look at the provincial governor."

Liu Jing took the letter and looked at it without panic. He asked with a smile: "I care very much about how your master is talking now."

"Thank you for your concern to the Lord. There is no problem with the master speaking slowly, but if you are anxious, you will not be able to say a word. I was very anxious to develop wooden oxen a few months ago, and I didn't say a word."

What Liu Jing is most concerned about is the progress of the development of the Muniu, which is related to his northern expedition. He opened the letter and read it, and immediately stood up. The letter said that the development of the Muniu had been successful. Liu Jing could no longer control his expectations and smiled at everyone, "It seems that I have to set off for Jiangxia tomorrow."

.........

Five days later, Liu Jing's fleet arrived in Qichun County. At this time, Ma Jun was not in Xiakou, but in the mountainous areas of Qichun County. According to the agreement reached by Jingzhou and Jiangdong, Qichun County is now under the management of the two companies and is officially handed over to Jingzhou in September. Currently, Qichun is in charge of Buzhi, but the county magistrate is Tao Zheng, and there are no garrisons in the county.

Bu Zhi was just the nominal Qichun Guard. He also served as the Lujiang Guard. Most of the time Bu Zhi stayed in Lujiang County, which was actually controlled by the county magistrate Tao Zheng.

It can be seen that the Tao family also invested in Qichun County, renovated the Qichun County Wharf, and moved the Tao family fleet supply station and warehouse from Wuchang County to Qichun County, which led to the development of Qichun County. The Qichun Wharf was full of ships, and people were coming and going on the wharf, which was also particularly lively.

After Liu Jing got off the boat, Tao Zheng and Ma Jun immediately came up and saluted together, "See the governor of the state"

Liu Jing and Tao Zheng exchanged a few greetings and turned their attention to Ma Jun. After all, he came from all the way to Ma Jun's wooden ox. He immediately asked with a smile: "Where can I see the wooden ox?"

Ma Jun also bowed and smiled, saying very slowly: "We have made a total of twenty vehicles and built a test site in Yundan Mountain in the north of Qichun County. There is still a mile away here, but there is also one in the county."

Before he could finish speaking, Liu Jing smiled and said, "I can't wait, so I'll go to the county town."

...........

In the back hall of the county government office is a black wooden cart, about six feet high and ten feet long. From the appearance, it looks like a wooden cow. There is also a cow head carved in front. The body of the cow in the middle is actually a grain cabinet, which is very wide, but there is only one wheel below, which is a bit like a deer cart.

Liu Jing gently stroked the wooden cow and could see that there were many mechanisms, which were definitely not a simple deer cart. A brother from Ma Jun next to him introduced: "The wooden cow has two major characteristics. One is that the storage capacity is large, and four stones of rice can be placed in the grain cabinet, which is equivalent to the load of two mules or two deer carts. Secondly, it is lightweight, and one person can control it. The mule needs to eat grass and the deer cart needs to be controlled by two people. It is very inconvenient to walk on the mountain. Our wooden cow walks on the mountain like a flat ground."

"How can I do this?" Liu Jing asked curiously.

"This is really hard to describe," Ma Jun said slowly with a smile: "The key is that there is a copper mechanism under the wooden cow's belly."

He asked someone to turn the wooden cart over, and there was indeed a set of copper disc-shaped mechanisms below, which seemed very complicated.

Ma Jun pointed to the mechanism and said slowly: "This mechanism is mainly used to adjust the height of wheels and boxes, as well as front, back, left and right, and adjust according to different terrain. In this way, you can deal with it whether you go uphill, downhill or walk on rugged mountain roads."

Liu Jing frowned slightly, "It seems that the manipulation is very complicated."

"It is indeed not easy to operate, and this is the only trouble. People who use wooden ox need to train for several months to proficient in operation."

Liu Jing could no longer suppress the expectation in his heart and smiled: "I hope to see the actual performance of the wooden cow in the mountains immediately."

Yundan Mountain is located about 5 miles northeast of Qichun County. It belongs to the remnant of Dabie Mountain. The mountains are steep and the heights are large. The mountains are rugged, the mountain streams are gurgling, and the forests are lush. It is somewhat similar to the terrain of Zhongnan Mountain. It is the most ideal place for testing wooden oxes.

In the afternoon of the same day, Liu Jing and his group arrived at Yundan Mountain in a mighty manner. At this time, more than one of Ma Jun's brothers had already built dozens of tents at the foot of the mountain as the base for testing wooden oxes. Before Liu Jing's future, they had been experimenting repeatedly for more than a month, constantly adjusting and improving, and finally took out twenty prototypes.

On the open space in front of the tent, twenty black painted wooden oxen were neatly placed. Ma Jun's twenty brothers were ready. They were all tall and strong, very suitable for manipulating wooden oxen.

A few dozen steps behind them was a winding and rugged mountain. There were two Taoist temples on the mountain, which was the mountain path for Taoist temples to transport supplies.

Liu Jing walked forward, patted one of the wooden cows, and smiled at Ma Jun and said, "I'll wait and see, let's start."

"Packing grain"

Ma Jun's other brothers carried bags of grain from a large tent. This was the standard grain bag in Jingzhou. One bag was exactly one stone of rice. They put four bags of grain in each wooden cow's grain cabinet and locked the cabinet door. Twenty brothers who manipulated wooden cows put their belts on their shoulders and were ready.

"Set off"

With Ma Jun's order, twenty brothers pushed the wooden ox to start line up, and Liu Jing followed behind them with several soldiers and observed the action of the grain team. As Ma Jun described in advance, the twenty grain trucks were very light. Although they carried nearly five kilograms of grain, they could still walk on the mountain road as if they were flying.

It is a little hard to go uphill, but it can still be pushed up slowly. When going downhill, it changes the mechanism so that the wooden cow can walk slowly without rushing down. The key is that the wheel is very flexible and can easily avoid the big rocks in front of you.

As they passed through the stream and passed through the jungle, twenty wooden oxen always maintained their formation and walked like flying. Even the brothers who were controlling the wooden ox seemed not tired. After walking twenty miles, they finally arrived in front of a Taoist temple where more than a dozen brothers were waiting.

Soon, Liu Jing led his soldiers to the Taoist temple, and saw twenty wooden oxen parked neatly in front of the Taoist temple. The wooden oxen was intact. Seeing that it was true, not only was Liu Jing's eyes full of praise and smiles, but even his soldiers exclaimed. This was simply a living mule, without having to eat grass and had a large load. It was a treasure for transporting food and supplies in the mountains.

At this time, Ma Jun and his brothers came, bowed and smiled, "Are you satisfied with the provincial governor?"

"Satisfied, very satisfied" Liu Jing said with a smile: "But I have another requirement."

"Please say it to the state governor"

Liu Jing pulled him forward and said, "I'm thinking about it. You can directly order soldiers to transport food without collecting civilians. When encountering enemy situations, the soldiers can put down the wooden ox to fight. So, can the wooden ox be converted into a defensive weapon at the same time?"

Ma Jun thought about it and said slowly: "It should be possible."

He pointed to the wheel and said, "The wooden wheel can retract the belly of the car, so it becomes a kind of cover. Moreover, the enemy does not understand the mechanism and cannot push it forward. In addition, I can modify it in NiuTou..."

Ma Jun patted the Niuta and said, "This Niuta was originally a decoration, but I can turn it into a row of crossbows. In this way, when encountering enemy situations, the wooden ox can also fire the crossbows. What does the Zhou Mu think?"

At this time, Liu Jing was already looking forward to the grand occasion of thousands of wooden oxen walking in the Qishan Mountains. He was already a little impatient. He pondered for a while and asked again: "If I wanted five thousand ox carts, how long would it take to build it?"

Ma Jun was a little embarrassed, "The production of this kind of wooden cow is very demanding. I think it will take as long as 5,000 vehicles to be built at the earliest."

"Year"

Liu Jing shook his head repeatedly, "When the New Year comes, the daylily will be cold, what else can I do to Guanzhong? Can it be completed in advance? Or if there is no need for five thousand vehicles, when will a thousand wooden ox be built?"

Ma Jun pondered for a moment and said, "If there are enough craftsmen to process and make rushes, thousands of vehicles can be completed in one year."

"Then we will decide"

Liu Jing said without hesitation: "I will hand over all the military craftsmen to you. I can allocate as much as I want. In any case, you must build a thousand wooden oxen within a year, and one for training soldiers first."
Chapter completed!