Chapter 175: The Ministry of Works

The next morning, Ren Baqian took the token that allowed him to exit the palace, two guards, and a few crooked cows with him and headed out of the palace.

After all, given Ren Baqian’s strength, no one would feel at ease letting him go out alone. Even he himself did not feel safe if he was to go out alone. Therefore, the empress had assigned two imperial guards to him.

The strength of these two imperial guards was much higher than Teng Hulu’s and Tie Dao’s. Teng Hulu and Tie Dao had merely attained the level of Four-way Heaven, which was roughly equivalent to the initial stage of Man Wheel. This level could be attained by even the weakest soldier in Dayao’s army.

The two imperial guards that the empress assigned to Ren Baqian had just attained the level of Kismet Heaven, which was equivalent to Man Wheel. They were much more powerful than the practitioners that had just attained Earth Wheel from the other three nations.

After exiting the palace, Ren Baqian spread his arms and took a deep breath. It had been quite a while since he last came out.

When compared to the palace, the outside was still better. The palace was far too cold and secluded.

Riding on a crooked cow, Ren Baqian moved forward in the middle of the road. The two imperial guards behind him were also similarly riding crooked cows. They were heading for Ministry of Works first.

The roads in Lan City were very wide. The middle of a road in Dayao was for mounts and carriages while the two sides were for pedestrians. The three men riding on crooked cows attracted everyone’s attention. Whispers broke out among the onlookers.

“He is the one that is chosen by Her Majesty to be her husband?”

“From his appearance and the official robe he is wearing, it’s definitely him. There’s no one in Lan City that looks like him.”

“I really don’t get what Her Majesty sees in him.”

However, among the crowd, there was a person who left hurriedly after seeing Ren Baqian. No one noticed him at all.

…

Along with the wind, the whispers drifted into Ren Baqian’s ears.

Even when the aboriginals were whispering, they sounded like ordinary people talking at normal volume. Ren Baqian had always wondered, “Do they have a hearing problem?”

In any case, Ren Baqian could not be bothered with their remarks. He believed that these remarks would die down after a certain amount of time.

There were many people entering and exiting the Ministry of Works. It was much busier than Honglu Bureau. After all, the Ministry of Works was responsible for many different kinds of matters. Honglu Bureau simply paled in comparison to it.

Ren Baqian gave his name and he was led inside building. However, Tong Zhenye wasn’t in at this point in time. Ren Baqian waited for approximately one hour before Tong Zhenye finally arrived. He was still wearing the sunglasses with his nose stuck up so high that it almost reached the sky.

With his formidable physique, bald head and plaited beard, Ren Baqian felt that he was still missing a gold chain.

“Deputy Prefect Ren, what’s the matter?” Tong Zhenye led Ren Baqian to a room and asked him directly.

“Sir Tong, we need to build a blast furnace before we can produce glass. Not only do we need it in the glass factory, we will also need it in the Ministry of Works to smelt metals. A blast furnace can speed up the smelting process by several times, and it requires less wood too,” Ren Baqian explained.

“Oh?” Tong Zhenye was astonished.

Deputy Prefect Ren really knows everything huh.

It would be a great thing if the smelting process could be sped up several times while consuming less wood.

“Deputy Prefect Ren, take a seat and tell me more about it.” An extremely excited look appeared on Tong Zhenye’s face.

“You will need two materials to build a blast furnace. The first one is bricks and the second one is cement. Bricks can be used to build houses and various types of buildings too. With bricks, you will no longer need to transport stones from distant areas, polish them and cut them before building anything. You can save a lot of manpower this way. Cement is even more useful than bricks. Other than the things I mentioned earlier, it can also be used to build cities, pave roads, etc.,” Ren Baqian sat down to one side and continued.

Upon hearing these words, Tong Zhenye’s face turned solemn. If what Ren Baqian said was true, these two materials must be extremely valuable, and they had a wide range of uses.

“Can you tell me specifically what bricks and cement are?” Tong Zhenye asked.

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Ren Baqian roughly told Tong Zhenye about the uses of bricks and cement. Tong Zhenye pondered over his words for a while before asking, “If what you said is true, then bricks and cement really do have a wide range of uses. Will they be produced by the imperial palace as well?”

“We are prepared to hand over this job to Ministry of Works. After all, these two materials are beneficial to the entire Dayao. We believe that things can be done faster if it’s handled by the Ministry of Works.”

Upon hearing these words, a smile appeared on Tong Zhenye’s face. Previously, he was still praying that the palace would not monopolize these two materials. After all, according to Ren Baqian, these two materials were not difficult to make. Furthermore, they could be used in many areas.

“Deputy Prefect Ren, thank you very much then. If you need the Ministry of Works to anything, feel free to tell me,” Tong Zhenye stroked his plaited beard and said.

“Mainly, we need to find a limestone mine. As for clay, we can easily find it everywhere around rivers and mountain foots.”

任八千将石灰岩大概形容一下,这种东西储量很大,应该很容易找到.

Ren Baqian then gave Tong Zheye a rough description of limestone. Limestone reserves were usually very huge, they should be easy to find.

“Deputy Prefect Ren, give me a moment.” After finishing his sentence, Tong Zhenye stepped out of the room and yelled at the top of his voice, “Get me Tie Ze and Tie Quan.”

Following which, he returned to the room and told Ren Baqian, “These two lads roam all over Dayao every day, they might know where to find them.”

After a few minutes, two burly men ran hastily into the room and asked, “Sir, looking for us?”

“Deputy Prefect Ren has something to ask both of you, answer him truthfully,” Tong Zhenye stroked his beard and said.

“But we didn’t create any trouble these past few days,” both of them replied with doubt.

“Just do as you’re told,” Tong Zhenye chided them.

“Deputy Prefect Ren, feel free to ask them any questions.”

“Have you seen this type of limestone before? It is…” Ren Baqian gave them a brief description of limestones.

“Isn’t this thing found everywhere?” The two burly men scratched their heads and said.

“Where is the nearest place?”

“Walk in that direction for half a day and you will find it everywhere,” one of them looked around for quite some time before pointing in a direction and said.

He was pointing at the northeast of Lan City.

“Sir Tong, I might have to borrow these two lads,” Ren Baqian cupped his fists and said.

“From today onwards, both of you will listen to Deputy Prefect Ren’s instructions. If you screw up anything, be prepared to get beaten up when you’re back,” Tong Zhenye ordered Tie Ze and Tie Quan as he widened his eyes in threat.

“Yes, Sir.” Both of them shrunk back in fear.

“I’ll have to trouble you to make a trip to the place that you mentioned and bring some limestone back for me to see. If it’s what I’m looking for, that would be the best. Otherwise, I might have to trouble you to make a few more trips to search for it. Other than limestone, I need feldspar and dolomite as well. If you know where to find them, please arrange some men to bring them back. However, for now, finding limestone is of the top priority,” Ren Baqian continued. At the same time, he roughly told them about the characteristics of feldspar and dolomite.

“You can find dolomite after travelling half a day out of the city as well but it’s in another direction. As for feldspar, they can be found in a few possible locations. We are not really sure,” Tie Ze and Tie Quan replied after thinking about it for a while.

“Alright, I have to trouble you to find them. By the way, have you seen a type of black rock that can be burned before?”

“We are not sure about that.”

“Then please bring back some of the things that I have mentioned.”

After Tie Ze and Tie Quan had left, Tong Zhenye said, “I know what you’re talking about. The people in the north often burn that kind of black rocks. Initially, I was quite surprised that a rock can be burned. Sir Ren, why don’t you burn wood? They can be found everywhere.”

Upon hearing Tong Zhenye’s words, Ren Baqian was overjoyed. “That rock is much better and useful than wood. Furthermore, the heat they produce is much hotter than wood’s. That is really some good stuff.”