I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 3 Awakening
So Zhu Houxuan waved to a young eunuch standing beside him.

This young eunuch was none other than his companion eunuch Hou Sen, who had grown up with him.

Hou Sen came up quickly and said with a simple smile, "What does your Highness want me to do for you?"

"Hou Banban, go find me some blacksmiths."

"Blacksmith?" Hou Sen looked surprised. "I wonder why Your Highness is looking for a blacksmith? And isn't there a blacksmith in the Gongzheng Office in the palace?"

"Those blacksmiths are useless. They can only make some kitchen knives, scissors and the like. I want to forge a few swords. Go outside and find the best blacksmith you can find." Zhu Houxuan waved his hand and continued to urge.

"This slave knows"

Hou Sen was very efficient. The next morning, he brought five craftsmen dressed in shorts to Zhu Houxuan. The leading craftsman was about thirty or forty years old, with thick and messy beard and hair, which had traces of burns from flames. He was tall, and his strong muscles seemed about to burst his short clothes.

"Greetings, my lord!" As soon as the five craftsmen saw Zhu Houxun in gorgeous clothes, they knelt on the ground.

Although he had been traveling through time for two months, Zhu Houxuan still couldn't get used to someone talking to him on their knees, so he asked the craftsmen to stand up and talk.

The craftsmen stood up tremblingly. It seemed that this was the first time for them to come to such a luxurious place. Some of them even wiped the ground carefully with their sleeves when they stood up, as if they were afraid of dirtying the ground.

Zhu Houxuan could see from their expressions that they were feeling uneasy. The leading craftsman was constantly rubbing the corners of his clothes with his big hands covered with thick calluses. Zhu Houxuan was a little worried that he would tear the corners of his clothes.

"This is Master Jin Tong, the best blacksmith available nearby, and he's good at forging swords. Behind him are his four apprentices." Hou Sen introduced softly.

Zhu Houxuan nodded with satisfaction, "I believe all the masters already know why I have called you here."

"Lord Hou has already informed us before he came. I wonder what shape of sword you want to make and what your requirements are?" Master Jin Tong said in a buzzing voice.

"I don't have any requirements. Master Jin, just make the sword that you are best at."

Jin Tong immediately breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this. He was really afraid that this young nobleman in front of him would make some strange requests.

"I wonder how many days it will take Master Jin to complete the forging?" Zhu Houxuan's tone was very kind.

"Seven days will be enough. When we come here, we will bring the forged hundred-tempered steel ingots. If the prince needs it urgently, five days will be enough." Master Jin Tong relaxed a lot.

"Then I'll give you seven days. If you do it well, you will be rewarded generously." Zhu Houxuan said with a smile.

"Thank you very much!" Master Jin and his disciples bowed again.

"Hou Banban, take them to the Gongzheng Office, treat them well, and ask the Dianshen Office to provide them with three meals a day, and each meal must include meat." Zhu Houxun instructed. He knew that many places in the Ming Dynasty only had two meals a day.

"As you command!" Hou Sen obeyed the order hurriedly. Although the prince had become a little strange in the past two months, his previous noble habits were gone. He became more amiable and treated his servants better.

"Thank you for your kindness!"

"Oh, right," Zhu Houxuan thought of something, "Give another person half a pot of wine for dinner." As a time traveler, he naturally knew what those who did heavy manual labor needed.

"We will do our best to live up to your trust!"

Jin Tong started forging with his apprentices, while Zhu Houxuan observed and recorded their forging techniques. In his spare time, he wrote down on paper the modern Damascus forging methods in his mind.

Under the generous treatment, Jin Tong spared no effort and forged the sword day and night. With the help of his apprentice, it only took him two days to forge the sword shape. After another two days of continuous polishing, one day for making the handle and correcting some minor problems, he handed in a long sword on the fifth day.

Zhu Houxuan took out the sword and examined it carefully. It was an Xiuchun sword. The blade had a perfect curvature, the blade was sharpened, and the handle was comfortable to hold. He chopped the air lightly and felt it was very smooth. The center of gravity was perfect. "Not bad! It's a good sword!" Zhu Houxuan praised.

Jin Tong and his disciples exchanged glances with each other, revealing excited expressions.

"But I still need to do some tests." Zhu Houxuan waved his hand, and saw several guards from the palace carrying up some things.

Next, Zhu Houxuan used the swords to conduct a destructive test like in the "Broken Sword Contest", chopping wood and some thin iron bars with the swords. He didn't want to toss around like he did in the show, after all, he didn't use modern steel.

The result was that there were only some minor curling of the blade, and there was no crack in the blade.

This made Jin Tong breathe a sigh of relief. Although he was confident in the knife he forged, he was still afraid of the worst. Then he saw the guards of the palace brought in another cleaned pig and hung it on the crooked tree in the yard.

Then he saw the young prince excitedly walked forward, raised his knife and started chopping the pig. It took five strokes to cut the pig into two pieces.

"A nest of Q!" Zhu Houxuan showed Jin Tong a bright smile. He had seen this killing test many times on the show before, and now he finally tried it himself. It was really cool.

Although Jin Tong didn't know what the young prince meant, he could hear the praise in his words.

"We will live up to the prince's trust!" Jin Tong bowed and saluted. After spending the past few days together, he knew that the little prince in front of him didn't like people kneeling around.

"Master, you have great skills! I'll reward you with 20 taels of silver!" Zhu Houxun sheathed the sword.

Jin Tong was overjoyed. These twenty taels were equivalent to his annual income. This trip was indeed a good decision.

"Thank you for the reward, Your Highness!" Jin Tong said excitedly.

"Your craftsmanship is worth the price!" Then Zhu Houxuan seemed to have thought of something, "Where did Master Jin learn such a good craft?"

"I don't dare to take the title of high-ranking official. I will just work on the property of the palace."

"The palace's industry? What industry?" Zhu Houxuan was interested.

"It's the Daye Iron Mine on the other side of the river." Jin Tong said with a grin.

"Daye Iron Mine? On the other side?" Zhu Houxuan suddenly felt that the name was very familiar. After two months of traveling through time, he had figured out where Qizhou was, but he had not done much research on the surrounding areas of Qizhou.

"Yes, we came here from the other side of the river by boat a few days ago." Jin Tong smiled naively.

Zhu Houxuan looked at Hou Sen with an inquiring look.

"Your Highness wants the best blacksmith, so I can only go to Daye Iron Mine to find one." Hou Sen also noticed that Zhu Houxuan's condition was not right, and answered carefully.

"The palace's property?" Zhu Houxuan continued to ask.

"Yes, the prince usually doesn't care about worldly affairs, so he naturally doesn't know. Daye Iron Mine has been the property of the prince's palace for decades," Hou Sen replied quickly.

"Daye Iron Mine! Daye Iron Mine!" The more Zhu Houxuan repeated the name, the more familiar it became to him. He soon found relevant information in his mind.
"Hanyeping!" he murmured.

Then a name suddenly jumped into his mind, and he suddenly looked up into the distance:
"Hanyang Iron Works!"

(End of this chapter)