Researching Hai Wuya
He was amazed by his brother's novel suggestions and plans, each one something he couldn't have come up with no matter how hard he racked his brains.
Perhaps this is why my younger brother was able to have such a miraculous encounter with immortality.
Lin Xiao is truly different, unlike anyone else.
Lin Yun sometimes thinks that he actually has such a special younger brother. He can see the present and the future, he can be imaginative and down-to-earth, he can see through the ways of the world, yet he still retains a childlike heart.
Although this younger brother was spoiled by his family since he was a child, he didn't turn out badly. His mother in heaven would be very happy to see this.
Although I couldn't come up with those novel ideas myself, being able to help my younger brother complete them one by one, and watching each new idea gradually become a reality, is truly the best thing in the world.
With Xiushui City taking the lead, the construction of the train is progressing relatively smoothly.
However, different countries have reacted differently to the issue of funding.
Of the agreed-upon first-phase project payments, less than one-third of the countries were able to make direct payments. The remainder either agreed to pay in installments or wanted to wait until the first phase was completed before settling accounts.
Although the commotion that Xiushui City has caused in recent years has been quite significant for the entire Mortal Realm, the main beneficiaries have been the cultivators, and it has little to do with ordinary people, especially those in areas far from Xiushui City.
At most, it's the cultivators at the top who benefit. In some areas, the oppression of ordinary people might be reduced, or in some areas, cultivators might need lower-level labor and pay to hire them, etc.
However, overall, the improvement is not significant for the vast majority of ordinary people in the Mortal Realm.
Therefore, the overall finances of these countries have not improved significantly.
Apart from a few already wealthy countries, the only country that has significantly benefited in recent years is Pusi Kingdom. This is because Lingxian Sect frequently provides support for various disaster relief projects and regularly dispatches disciples to be responsible for agricultural assistance throughout Hufang Province and even some surrounding areas, spreading basic agricultural knowledge. As a result, agricultural income in many regions of the Pusi Kingdom has been effectively improved.
However, the Lingxian Sect has limited manpower and cannot cover the entire country, and this approach is not suitable for other sects in other countries.
Agriculture is the foundation of people's survival, a fact reflected in the number of people recruited to build railways in various countries.
Countries with relatively strong overall national power recruit the most people in a short period of time.
Building railways is not a short-term project; it takes much longer than the service needs of various countries. Therefore, for many families, choosing to build railways would mean losing a strong laborer for at least several years.
For rural families without cattle, losing a strong laborer means losing a lot of food in a year.
Perhaps they could be advised to use their wages from building the railway to buy grain, but for most rural people who have spent their lives farming, spending money on grain is unsettling. With grain prices fluctuating, who knows how much grain their wages could buy?
The food grown on your own land is the most reassuring.
Many families lack able-bodied men and dare not sign up for work, fearing that their land will be left uncultivated.
For farmers of this era, money could improve their lives, but food was the foundation of survival.
Lin Yun told Lin Xiao about the situation, and after understanding it in detail, Lin Xiao then consulted with Liao Pantu about research in the agricultural field.
This time, they didn't do it by themselves; instead, they went to Spirit Field Group and lived with Old Master Lin and a group of former Xiushui Village elders in a thatched hut next to Lingtian.
These thatched huts were built by Old Master Lin and his family casually by the fields for convenience. However, when Mo Yuanjiao came to find his master, he was worried that the thatch on the roofs would be blown away by the wind, so he casually installed some small reinforcement arrays.
There was a row of thatched huts. Lin Xiao and Liao Pantu settled down in the thatched hut of Old Master Lin and refused to leave. They even piled up a bunch of research materials and tools in the hut, leaving Old Master Lin with nowhere to put his feet. He had no choice but to go to his two sons' thatched huts to rest.
"Senior, do you know what the difficulties are in our research this time?"
Inside the thatched hut, Lin Xiao sat cross-legged on a futon and took out a half-meter-tall cauldron, placing it in front of him.
He was already surrounded by a pile of bottles and jars, and behind him he had even casually converted a simple smelting furnace and forging platform.
Liao Pantu looked around, ignoring his question and instead asking, "What are you doing? Refining pills and crafting weapons at the same time?" As he spoke, he noticed that Lin Xiao had pulled out a stack of the most basic blank array plates that he himself had looked down upon when he was a beginner.
This array plate is as big as a futon, but the materials are extremely cheap, and it can only support a limited number of array patterns. Liao Pantu used it once hundreds of years ago and never used it again. He was very surprised to see Lin Xiao suddenly take out a bunch of them.
"Do we still need to inscribe the array?"
Lin Xiao then said, "I want to develop something that can comprehensively improve agricultural output and reduce labor pressure."
"Don't we already have those? We're using them in our spirit fields now." Liao Pantu, puzzled. "Don't the sects already have spirit hoes, spirit fertilizers, and various formations for regulating temperature, humidity, and pest control in the spirit fields? Why do we need to do these things now?"
Lin Xiao then explained, "Those things are simple, but mass production is still quite difficult. Most importantly, although these things are already very cheap for cultivators, they are still unaffordable for ordinary people as agricultural consumables. So I want to research something that is particularly cheap, so cheap that ordinary people can easily afford it."
"So, senior, the challenge of our research this time lies in how to use readily available and inexpensive materials as much as possible, and with the simplest possible process, to produce a series of agricultural products that can significantly improve agricultural productivity."
Only then can we establish a factory in Xiushui City, recruit workers, and mass-produce goods.
Upon hearing this, Liao Pantu's eyes widened slightly.
"To create something with the effects of a spirit using ordinary materials... no one has ever researched this before."
Lin Xiao nodded and shrugged, saying, "Yes, so this is the main difficulty of our research this time. How about it? Interesting, isn't it?"
After pondering for a moment Liao Pantu slowly nodded. "It's not bad, we can give it a try."
The two hit it off immediately, and Lin Xiao turned around and went to find Old Master Lin and other experienced farmers to learn from their experience.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, they also asked Xiushui City to contact various countries to promote existing infrastructure such as waterwheels.
Considering the cost, Lin Yun decided to include the waterwheel project in the list of projects for the monk volunteers.
After all, building a railway in the mountains and forests would inevitably require logging, and waterwheels could be made directly from local materials.