Chapter 38 Mining Disaster

The power of the provincial commander of Zhejiang is a little greater than that of the commander of Jiangsu.

There are not many troops in Zhejiang Province, but there are not many troops who command and cannot be commanded.

The army of Zhejiang Province is distributed from east to west.

To the east is the seaside.

There are several health centers in Linhai, Zhejiang, all of which were used to prevent Japanese invaders. Although it is not used now, some of it has been removed, but the framework is still there.

After all, Zhu Qizhen has enough understanding of the threat at sea.

These troops can be regarded as the coastal defense troops of the Ming Dynasty.

And then there's the west.

Southwest, to be exact.

The garrison here in the southwest is a remnant of Yeliuzong's rebellion.

When the Yeliuzong Rebellion first started, Zhejiang's response can be said to be in a hurry. Caught off guard.

After quelling the Yeliuzong Rebellion, some troops were stationed in the southwest, of course, the number was not too much.

When Zhejiang Province accepted Cao Nai's order, an army of 20,000 people was transferred from various departments to Taihu Lake to listen to the order, which was evenly drawn from all over the country, and the garrison in the southwest was also among the conscripts.

It's just that when there is a move here, there will be a chaos.

To tell the truth, in this almost slave employment system, the most oppressed are not these workers in the south of the Yangtze River, after all, although all kinds of textile work is very tiring and hard, but after all, it is not struggling on the death line.

The people who are really struggling on the line of death are the miners.

After Zhu Qizhen opened the ban on factories and mines.

Mines in southwest Zhejiang have increased significantly.

First of all, this generation itself is a traditional mining area, otherwise there would be no Yeliuzong Rebellion. The second is that Shaofu has a large mine in Japan, and it does not look down on the southern Zhejiang mine.

After all, in a year, it is a lot to have an income of 70,000 or 80,000 taels.

But there are quite a few troubles.

If you want to send people to southern Zhejiang, you must also raise a lot of miners.

Because of Zhu Qizhen's order, the treatment of workers in the factories under the jurisdiction of Shaofu is quite good, of course, there is no way to compare with now.

It's more like the treatment in the military.

Although it can't be compared with the imperial court soldiers, it is also very expensive to raise this miner.

Shaofu plans to calculate that the annual income of seventy or eighty thousand taels, if you want to raise thousands of miners, the balance is only twenty or thirty thousand taels.

It's not too cost-effective to spend so many things for twenty or thirty thousand taels.

As a result, the mines retained by Shaofu have such several characteristics, and the output is particularly large. For example, the copper and silver mines in Yunnan are the most abundant places in the Ming Dynasty. Or it is relatively close to Beijing, and the management cost is not high, such as Shandong, Liaodong and other mines.

And then there's Japan.

The rest of the mines were sold.

Of course, even if they were to sell, the mines would produce gold and silver

Taxes are to be paid.

After the household department receives it, the custom is also to be released to the inner library.

But the same miners working under the Shaofu are completely different from working for private individuals.

After all, with Ye Liuzong's rebellion in front, Zhu Qizhen attached great importance to the treatment of miners. But these people who can take over the mines in the hands of the government are all local figures.

These characters don't have Zhu Qizhen's vigilance, and they don't take mud legs in their eyes at all.

It is darker than the black coal mines of later generations.

Mining disasters or something are even more commonplace.

Especially in recent years, the Ming Dynasty has developed rapidly, especially in the south of the Yangtze River.

Therefore, Jiangnan needs a lot of metals in production, such as gold and silver wires made of gold and silver, such as iron, tin, lead and other minerals.

So the mines around the country urged the people below to mine desperately, and the dead people didn't care at all.

Even if the imperial court reformed the officials, they also sent people to inspect them.

What is the purpose of the inspections?

Is it on behalf of the country to express condolences to the production and life of miners? No, but for the sake of collecting taxes.

As long as you can collect taxes. They don't care about the rest.

In this case, the storm itself is brewing.

Zhejiang is located in a mine in the mountains of Longquan County, the capital of Zhejiang.

With a burst of explosions, the mine collapsed. For a moment, the heavens and the earth seemed to be covered by the sound of the explosion, and all the sounds became blank.

"Uncle," the crowd pounced.

Excavation in the place where the mine is buried. It seems that I want to dig through. It's just that the workload is quite large, and where can it be opened for a while.

The use of gunpowder in mining has long been a fairly common time.

Only this time, I don't know what went wrong, and the gunpowder that was filled for the first time did not go off. I can only send someone to take a look, no, people just went in, and they became like this.

"What for, what are you doing?" More than a dozen overseers with big shoulders and round waists, brandishing knives in their hands, said: "What are you doing, this time there is too much gunpowder, charge it again, and blow up the mine, so that the rubble will be cleaned up, I don't know when it will be cleaned up." ”

"My lord," said a seventeen or eighteen-year-old miner, skinny from top to bottom, in stark contrast to these big-shouldered, round-waisted overseers. "People may still be alive," he said. Just dig it up here, and there may not be a collapse inside. ”

The overseer seemed to have a nostril of air and said, "If you say no, there is nothing, what is dead and alive, if you want me to say that this old immortal should have died a long time ago." The top is urging tightly, hurry up and do things. Otherwise, eat knives. Don't go yet. ”

The miners all stopped.

He stared at the overseers.

The overseers also came up, and the first one fell heavily with the whip, and whipped several people in succession, and said, "Why, do you want to die with that old fellow?" Do you want me

Fulfill you. ”

"Go."

Whether they like it or not, these miners can't beat these overseers.

With another "boom", the rubble flew and the mine was blown open again. Also in the rubble, there was a corpse that was not in shape, and there was not even a single corpse in its entirety.

Although the miners are struggling to open the mine, the atmosphere is extremely solemn. It seems to be like this iron ore.

At night.

All the miners were dressed in thin clothing, and lay next to each other in a den.

What is a nest, it is a kind of half-buried building.

That is, dig a meter up and down the ground, and then build a shed on it, which is not too high, or even a little taller, I am afraid that I can't raise my head inside, it is extremely simple, it is simply used by primitive people. But now it's where these miners live.

These miners also don't have any bedding, some are just straw. Bury the whole person in the straw to keep warm.

After all, autumn in Zhejiang is also very cold.

"We can't go on like this." Today, the young man who confronted the overseer said loudly: "If we continue like this, we will all die together, and it will only be a premature death and a late death." ”

"In that case, I don't want them to have a good time."

"Brothers, who wants to be with me."

The young man's words did not cause a shock.

Because a lot of people are numb.

This kind of thing is never uncommon in the mines. Commonplace.

Where there is oppression, there is resistance.

There have never been riots in various mines, large and small. But the starving, scrawny miners were the same as the well-fed, well-clothed, round-shouldered, and fully armed overseers. Victory and defeat are always obvious.

Most of the rebellion was nothing more than a head-off.

The young man's words even caused cynicism from those who didn't know, and he said: "If you want to go, you can go, and if you can take a head of the overseer, we will do it with you." Little hairy child, it is better to live honestly for a few more years. ”

The boy stood in the middle of the ground, listening to the sound of sneering, sighing, breathing, and so on.

But in the ears of the teenagers, there were all voices of ridicule.

He gritted his teeth and strode out, and several miners tried to pull him back, but he threw him away.

The boy walked into the darkness.

For a long, long time.

By midnight, most of them were asleep.

But he heard a sound, and the boy strode in, with a smell of blood all over his body. The boy lit the fire, and the dim light of the fire illuminated the nest again. He held an oval object in his hand high and said, "I've done it." ”

Immediately, everyone was surprised, but they saw that what the young man had raised in his hand was nothing else, it was a human head, and he really went to kill an overseer and came back.