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!"

"Master Xie Zhou!" 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?"

"Yes! Xiaomin only 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. I wonder what the result was?"

"Reporting 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, the prefect of Nanhai Shiwu 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 civil and 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, "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 counties, and the army has suffered most of the losses. Now Shi Xie is asking for peace from Liu Bei."

"Ceer to 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 he took the right path, he would at least have 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 deliver the trust!"

The head of Ma Yuan is Ma Jun, who is an official general and is a general of the Central Army. The craftsmanship 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 check it out!"

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 didn't say a word for three days."

What Liu Jing was most concerned about was the progress of the development of the Muniu, which was 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!"

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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 Prefect Bu Zhi, but the county magistrate is Tao Zheng, and there are no garrisons in the county.

Bu Zhi was just the nominal prefect of Qichun. He also served as the prefect of Lujiang. 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. It is still a hundred miles away, but there is 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!"

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In the back hall of the county government office, there is a black wooden cart, about six feet high and ten feet long. From the appearance, it does look 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 disciple of 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 operated by two people. It is not convenient to walk on the mountain road. Our wooden cow walks on the mountain road like walking on the 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 stomach."

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 a hundred miles northeast of Qichun County. It belongs to the remnant of the Dabie Mountains. The mountains are steep and the heights are very different. The mountain roads 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 cows.

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 100 Ma Jun's disciples 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 three months, 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 disciples 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 road up the mountain. There were two Taoist temples on the mountain, and this mountain road was the path up the mountain for Taoist temples to transport supplies.

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

"Put the food!"

Ma Jun's other disciples 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 disciples who manipulated wooden cows put their belts on their shoulders and were ready.

"Set off!"

With Ma Jun's order, twenty disciples pushed the wooden ox to start line up, and Liu Jing followed them with hundreds of soldiers to observe the action of the grain team. As Ma Jun described in advance, the twenty grain trucks were very light. Although they carried nearly 500 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 all at once. The key is that the wheels are very flexible and can easily avoid the big rocks in front of you.

Flowing through the stream and through the jungle, twenty wooden oxen always maintained their formation and walked like flying. Even the disciples who controlled the wooden ox seemed not tired. After walking twenty miles, they finally arrived in front of a Taoist temple where more than a dozen disciples 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 disciples also arrived, bowed and smiled, "Are the provincial governor still satisfied?"

"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 am considering on the road that I 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 be retracted to 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 crossbow. What does 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 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 three years to build 5,000 vehicles at the earliest."

"Three years!"

Liu Jing shook his head repeatedly, "When three years later, the daylily will be cold. What else can I do to Guanzhong? Can it be completed in advance, or do you need five thousand or three thousand wooden cows? When will it be built?"

Ma Jun pondered for a moment and said, "If there were enough craftsmen to process and make rushes, three thousand vehicles could be completed in a 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 three thousand wooden oxen within a year, and one hundred for training soldiers first."

Ma Jun agreed with gaze, "Abide by the orders of humble duty!"
Chapter completed!