At midnight at night, the banquet dispersed.

Zhao Hao came back to see his husband and saw that his father was still having tea, so he knew he had something to say.

"Son, why do you want to leave again by what you mean?" Zhao Shouzheng looked at Zhao Hao reluctantly. "How many days have you been back?"

"Yes, I'm leaving. In the past, my father-in-law was buried, and my son-in-law was with me for thousands of miles. After my father-in-law died, I didn't hold the coffin and went south. Wouldn't it make people laugh?" Zhao Hao nodded and said, "Besides, there is an old lady. Xiaojing and I have to send her back to Jiangling."

"What about after the burial?" Zhao Shouzheng looked at his son. He thought that if he became the chief minister, Zhao Hao would live in the capital.

"The 20th anniversary of the group is still a lot of things to be dealt with." Zhao Hao sighed.

"What after Daqing?" Zhao Shouzheng asked again.

"Next year will be the end of the 4th Five-Year Plan..." Zhao Hao apologized: "Now the group's stall is getting bigger and bigger, I'm afraid I can't stay in Beijing for a few days."

"Oh, it's really a hurry to get together." Zhao Shouzheng said sourly on his nose: "I thought I could finally meet you frequently."

"..." Looking at Zhao Shouzheng's gray temples, Zhao Hao felt a surge of apology. My father is fifty-seven years old this year, and he is a serious elderly person in this era...

Even though he was so clever, he was scraping his stomach and couldn't find a suitable language to comfort his father.

"Look at me, when is it now? I'll talk about this." Zhao Shouzheng smiled and comforted his son, "Don't worry, go back, don't worry, you have arranged it so well for your father."

"Yes, my father and son are better not to be in Beijing at the same time." Zhao Hao nodded and whispered: "If you have something to do, you can tell Mr. Wu that I will answer you that day."

"Oh, you are so powerful now?" Zhao Shouzheng said in surprise. However, he never doubted his son.

"Yes, it's just that now." Zhao Hao smiled and said, "If the world is close, I will know what my father has at first."

"That's great!" Zhao Shouzheng seemed to be very comforted: "If you have anything, you must tell your father as soon as possible!"

"One word is certain!"

"A word is determined!" Zhao Shouzheng got up and hugged his son, tears flowing down his eyes.

The next evening.

Wang Guoguang, the Minister of Personnel, ended his busy day and returned to his Tianguan Mansion in an official sedan chair.

After the sedan chair fell steadily, the sedan chairman pressed down the sedan chair rod, the butler lifted up the curtain of the sedan chair and helped the serious-looking official to come down.

"Tonight, eat cut noodles or sauce noodles?" Wang Guoguang said the top priority in life.

"Go back to the master, I will eat cold noodles tonight. The lady said that if I don't eat it, it will be cold in autumn." The butler replied respectfully.

"Oh..." Lao Wang sighed. The cold noodles tasted so light. He didn't like them very much, so he remedyed: "I put more sesame sauce in my bowl."

"Yes, lord." The housekeeper responded quickly.

"What's wrong with the mansion today?" Wang Guoguang asked casually as he walked into the house: "Are there many people giving gifts?"

August is coming soon, which are two major gift-giving seasons known as the Spring Festival. In previous years, the threshold of the Tianguan Mansion was about to be broken, and the gifts received can squeeze the warehouse!

However, there is no secret in Beijing. The news of his retirement has spread throughout the officialdom. Wang Guoguang was very worried that it would affect his last chance to make money.

"It's okay to go back to the master." The housekeeper replied softly: "I received thirty or forty gifts, but it was much thinner in previous years."

"That's for sure." Wang Guoguang said with a dark face.

"Oh, by the way. The gift from the old master of the cabinet is very important." The housekeeper suddenly said with a strange expression.

"The little master gave me a gift?" Wang Guoguang was just lifting his legs and was about to enter the house. Hearing this, he hung his legs on his back, as if he was a golden rooster and said: "Where did the sun come out?"

I thought I thought I was too cold to think that the old vinegar and Zhuyeqing I gave to his house were too cold? Am I not retiring soon? What else can I spend money?

"Take a gift list and take a look." Wang Guoguang said hurriedly.

"There is no gift list." The housekeeper shook his head and said, "Just two big iron lumps."

"Big iron lump?" Wang Guoguang became more and more strange. "Take it and take a look."

"Oh." The butler responded quickly.

After a cup of tea, six strong servants walked in with heavy steps, carrying a wooden box more than ten feet long.

"Please be careful here and don't smash the floor tiles." The housekeeper directed the servants and slowly placed the wooden box in the hall. "Slow, slow down."

The wood used in wooden boxes is very ordinary, just ordinary pine boards, without even paint, and it is obvious that they are used to load goods, rather than to load people's coffins.

When the servants removed the lid of the box, Wang Guoguang saw two long I-shaped rails lying in the box covered with wood chips.

"Just this thing, it's so sank iron lumps." The housekeeper said from the side: "I don't know what to give this thing?"

"You are stupid, this is a treasure that you can't change!" Unexpectedly, Wang Guoguang's eyes shone, lying on the box, stroking the smooth and straight rail surface with both hands, and murmured: "For us Shanxi, it is a priceless treasure that you can't change..."

He had personally visited the Mentougou Railway in Xishan, and naturally he could recognize that it was the railway track at a glance.

However, the tracks of the Mentougou Railway are much larger than this one, one is five meters long, so it is impossible for him to steal one back to study it. Only then can he see the real thing in person.

The standard size of railway tracks produced by Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant is 16 meters long and weighs 25 kilograms per meter.

The rails should be as long as possible, which Zhao Hao personally asked. This will greatly reduce joints, facilitate installation and make driving smoother.

And the anti-theft effect is excellent. Because in terms of the load capacity of the car in this era, it is more than enough to use light rails below 30 kilograms. If the rails are made too short, the risk of being stolen will be greatly increased. In the Ming Dynasty, iron is very valuable!

A single rail is 16 meters long and weighs 800 kilograms, which will cause great difficulties in transportation. However, it is not too much trouble for groups that transport logs that often weigh several tons a year.

But it is enough to make outsiders lose the bad intention of stealing rails. This kind of thing that can't be smashed even if it can be stolen back, you will have nowhere to hide it!

Zhao Hao cut two 100-meter-long samples down in order to show Lao Wang the rails.

Wang Guoguang asked his servant to call Chu Jing and Liu Dongxing home to eat cold noodles together.

The three giants of the vinegar party were holding the noodle bowl and eating noodles, while watching several old Shanxi blacksmiths identifying the two railway tracks on the spot.

After they finished their noodles, several blacksmiths also came to a conclusion.

"Tell me." Wang Guoguang picked up the handkerchief and wiped his mouth, and said to the leader Ou Blacksmith: "How much does this thing cost?"

"It's impossible to make no amount of money." Ou Blacksmith sighed: "The whole section of this thing is made of steel, and from the cross section, it's also steel inside."

"Puff..." Chu Jing and a mouthful of tea sprayed far away: "What are you talking nonsense!"

He was the Minister of Works and was not unfamiliar with the steel industry of the Ming Dynasty. He knew that the most advanced carburizing method was just to turn a layer of cooked iron into steel.

"But the facts are right in front of you." Ou Blacksmith said with a desperate look: "The steel we have refined in Shanxi in a year can't be beaten for so many sections..."

"Damn..." Wang Guoguang said sweating: "Isn't this a waste of resources?"

"So, we still have a lot of underestimated Jiangnan Group?" Liu Dongxing also said in shock.

"It's so terrible." Chu Jing came to his senses after a while. He was in charge of the weapons and knew the importance of steel to military affairs.

The so-called good steel is used on the blade. The steel blade is both sharp and tough, which can greatly improve the combat effectiveness of soldiers. However, the steel output of the Ming Dynasty was too low, and only the personal soldiers of the generals and elite soldiers of the border army could use that kind of "steel knife".

As for using steel on muskets and cannons, I can't even think about it.

Jiangnan Group can use steel to lay railways, what does this mean? Chu Jingxiu dared not think about it...

Wang Guoguang and Liu Dongxing were also silent, and the hall was filled with a sense of fear.

In fact, it is enough to use cooked iron for horse-drawn trucks. Later European countries used the Pudrin method to pave railways more than 70,000 kilometers. However, due to the fundamental weakness of semi-solidified smelting, the Pudrin method was quickly eliminated after the birth of the converter steelmaking method.

Zhao Hao can already produce cheap steel in large quantities using converter steelmaking method, so he naturally takes it in one step and skips the rails on the mature rails.

However, the production of track steel is not the iron ore from Tangshan, but the iron ore mined from Ma'anshan and produced in Wuhu.

After experiments at Institute 01, it was found that the steel refined from Ma'anshan iron ore had a high phosphorus content, which increased the brittleness of the steel, especially the county lord reduced the low-temperature toughness of the steel, which was called cold brittleness. Therefore, it could not be used to cast weapons.

But at the same time, phosphorus can significantly improve the tensile strength of steel and also improve the corrosion resistance of steel, making it very suitable for manufacturing rails for light rails. Zhao Hao then adapts to local conditions and produces rail steel in Wuhu.

Lao Xier, who was unknown, could not tell what rail steel was and what tool steel was. The two sections of railways sent by Zhao Hao were completely shocked.

On the fourth day of the eighth month, the day when Grand Tutor Zhang Wenzhong moved to the south.

Emperor Wanli sent the Taifu Shaoqing Yu Jing, the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Rites to each produce a Yuanwailang, and the Jinyiwei commander Cao Yingkui, four civil and military officials escorted back to the south. Mrs. Zhao also returned to Jiangling at the same time, and the eunuch of the Sili was Chen Zheng.

Zhang Juzheng's six sons naturally returned to Dingyou together. His daughter and son-in-law also carried the coffin with him. The group escorted his hearse and left the Dashamao Hutong in Dazhamao Hutong for 22 years.

From Dashamao Hutong to Zhengyangmen, the road was not only filled with incense tables specially set up by major yamen, but also tens of thousands of people from the capital came to see him off. On both sides of the street more than ten miles long were crowded with people kneeling on the ground and crying. The scene was very touching.

Infected by the atmosphere of mourning for all the people, Mrs. Zhao fainted in Zhang Xiaojing's arms. Zhang Xiaojing also burst into tears, looking back at the Dashamao Hutong at the end of the long street.
Chapter completed!