Traveling through time and space and becoming a deposed prince, he just wants to survive!

There is no banquet that will last forever. Even if the love between sisters is as deep as the sea, there will always be a moment of separation.

Li Shuya said goodbye to Zhao Ying reluctantly and in tears. It was not until the convoy went away that she remembered the relationship between Zhao Ying and Zhao Sheng. No wonder Zhao Sheng had been avoiding her all this time.

At the foot of Pingshan Mountain in Jing County, the first iron smelting blast furnace was finally built thanks to the joint efforts of Lu the blacksmith and Zhao Sheng.

To be honest, the largest furnace that Blacksmith Lu had ever seen was not even half the size of this one. Moreover, this furnace was not only tall, but most importantly, it had a unique design of the air duct and a huge wooden blower.

He had never seen such a design, but after listening to what Zhao Sheng said, it would not be a problem for such a furnace to produce 500 kilograms of refined iron a day. If successful, he would build a few more in the future.

In this way, each furnace could be used intermittently. During this period, Zhao Sheng did not pursue high production or use the refined iron for profit. He just wanted to make some reserves.

After all, the times are still backward. At this time, the sorting of iron ore still uses screening and water selection, which is both manpower-consuming and wasteful of raw materials.

However, these sorted raw materials are all good things. They can be used as raw materials for cement and ceramics. In short, Zhao Sheng will not waste these things.

When the first batch of molten iron flowed out of the blast furnace, blacksmith Lu could hardly believe his eyes. In the past, they used to heat the iron slag red and then hammer it repeatedly. They never thought that iron could be as molten as water.

This was actually because the fuel and furnace temperature they used at the time did not meet the requirements, so the iron ore could not be dissolved.

When these things turned into miracles, Zhao Sheng told the blacksmith Lu: "If this molten iron is mixed with other metals, unexpected materials will be produced. We will slowly study this in the future. I will ask Master Lu to build a few more blast furnaces in the future."

Although Blacksmith Lu did not fully understand the meaning of Zhao Sheng's words, he knew that he was responsible for the subsequent matters, which meant that he could experiment with so much fine iron.

In the small house at the foot of Changqing Mountain, he has never given up over the years. He has always wanted to restore the fine iron of that time and how to make it less likely to break after forging.

During this period, Wei Rong's men had been going back and forth in Dingzhou County to inquire, hoping to find out where the frosting was.

However, all the white sugar produced by Zhao Sheng was in Shigang Village. The remaining residue that could be used to make brown sugar was used by him to make wine, so that Shigang Village had never sold a single ounce of white sugar.

Even if the villagers occasionally received some benefits, they were just brown sugar blocks given out by the compound. Such things could also be bought on the market, and the villagers thought they were the same, after all, they rarely used sugar.

Nowadays, if you occasionally get a piece of it, it is only worth a certain amount of silver. You would not even use it to replenish your body, so who would show it off?

However, the Wei family's actions were soon discovered by spies from Dingzhou County. Zhao Sheng knew that the matter was most likely leaked from within, but he could not find out who had passed the news that he could make sugar to the Wei family after searching for a long time.

In the area of ​​Zhao County in Dingzhou County, within a radius of dozens of miles, most families began to grow radish. Because it was not tasty, people from Zhao Village would basically sell it without reservation when they went to buy it.

This thing is not very picky about the land. It can be planted twice a year, with one crop harvested in spring and summer. After autumn, the farmland becomes barren, and many people plant radish in their rice fields. Although the growing period is longer, fortunately it is cold-resistant in winter.

In the spring of the following year, it was harvest time. Some families who were short of food would dig up this vegetable and take it home to eat as food in the winter.

Fortunately, Zhao Sheng knew that in this situation, he would let those families who planted caltrops borrow grain and use the caltrops to pay off their debts in the spring.

In this way, radish was accepted by the people from Zhaojun to the surrounding areas of Luancheng. They jokingly said that radish could be used as silver, and Prince Zhao (Li Xin) only recognized radish and not money.

This actually praises Li Xin's benevolence and righteousness. When the people have no food to eat, they can use reeds as silver to borrow money.

Although this vegetable is grown on a large scale, its root system is not strong enough. Although it has a high sugar content, the extraction rate is not very high, which is far inferior to sugarcane.

Moreover, radishes already existed in this era, but they had not yet been introduced to the Zhou Dynasty, otherwise the two varieties could have been hybridized.

Zhao Hui stayed in Shangjing during this period. He had to deal with his wife giving birth, waiting for the baby to be one month old, the one hundred days old ceremony, and so on. Everything revolved around the baby.

Originally, Zhao Wei wanted to take action, but due to the presence of Zhao Hui, and the fact that he was accompanied by a team of personal guards in the mansion, he felt hesitant to act rashly.

Although Zhao Hui did not attend court, he would often appear in the palace.

His confidants secretly inquired and found out that basically all they talked about with the emperor were issues concerning the child, sometimes asking about milk, sometimes asking if the child could crawl, and even more boringly, asking who was changing the diaper.

When Zhao Wei heard the news, he wanted to curse. He, Zhao Wei, also had a son, but the emperor didn't ask about him.

It happened that problems arose in Chuzhou again. The dispute between the Cao Gang and the Salt Gang had just been settled, and merchants in Binzhou and Chuzhou launched a boycott campaign against each other.

The cause of this has to start with Zhou Li from Donghai. Zhou Li is a crystal merchant in Donghai. He spent a lot of money when the Cao Gang was in power, and now it is time to repay him.

But he was not a salt merchant after all. He went to Binzhou and basically monopolized half of the salt business with his good friend Cai Weidong.

You should know that salt and iron were state-run in the Zhou Dynasty, which means they were government-monopolized. Having a salt permit was equivalent to having a legal business license.

At the beginning, Zhou Li's salt transportation started underground, but he jumped directly onto the surface. He took the salt permits transferred to him by the Cao Gang and transported salt directly in Binzhou.

The Cao Gang was just a gang that controlled the water transport routes, but they had no way to deal with official ships.

In this way, some salt merchants supported by the government came forward and organized a Binzhou Salt Merchants Association. The person behind it was Mu Qiang, the Chuzhou Salt Transport Inspector.

The Binzhou Salt Merchants Association divides up more than 80% of the total salt produced in Binzhou every month. Even foreign merchants with salt permits can only find ways to make ends meet with the remaining 20%.

And these 20% of salt are the worst salt particles at the bottom.

Such a major event could not be concealed from Supervisor Zhou Li. He and Zhou Li were brothers from the same family. He originally wanted to persuade his brother to withdraw and not get involved in the dispute. After all, this place was protected by the second prince Zhao Wei.

How could Zhou Li not understand the mystery behind this, so he found Cai Weidong to discuss the matter.

Cai Weidong used to be a lackey who moved around among various salt merchants. He was well aware of the methods used by these merchants. Zhou Li came to him and, as someone who wanted to make a living in the local area, also advised him to quit, just like Zhou Li.

No matter which dynasty, gangs or groups always represent the interests of the rich.

The Salt Gang was originally the thugs of these salt merchants, who specialized in bullying the lower-class people working in the salt fields. The same was true for the Cao Gang. Initially, they were gangs established to make a living and seize territory, but in the end they only exploited the lower-class people within their own gang.

This is the pyramid phenomenon, the part at the top is always the smallest.

Zhou Li felt somewhat unbalanced, as he had spent a lot of money on the Cao Gang. However, due to everyone's dissuasion, he had no choice but to withdraw and legally transfer the salt permits in his hands through official media.

How could Zhao Heng let this happen? For merchants who could no longer continue their business and wanted to transfer their salt permits, he issued an order to resolutely stop the resale of salt permits.

Moreover, if a merchant is found to be reselling salt permits, he will no longer be allowed to deal with salt in the future.