Yingxian County is also known as "Jinan City", because it is just in the south of Jishan and the northwest of Yunmengze. The nearest copper mine to Yingxian and Jiangling, Tongguan, is located on Jishan.

"In the land of Jingchu, gold (copper), even (lead), tin and other mineral deposits are far richer than those in the Central Plains, but unfortunately most of them are still in the hands of Chu."

On the second day of the inspection of the arsenal, Li You took Heifu and others to Jishan to inspect the copper workshop of the official camp, and after Tongguan Yangxi learned the news, he personally came to the fork in the road to greet them......

As he walked, Yang Xi introduced his business.

"The largest copper mine should be ...... near the hometown of Cao Shi, a soldier of the left army."

When Heifu heard this, he immediately remembered: "Could it be the Copper Green Mountain?" ”

"However, it is the Tonglu Mountain in Hubei Province, which is separated from the Anlu River, it is said that there are people who have mined copper ore and smelted copper ingots there since the Yin Shang Dynasty, and after thousands of years of excavation in Zhou and Chu, it is still endless!"

How much copper is there? It is said that when a shower rains and washes away the soil on the surface of the mountain, the mountain is covered with green and blue stars, which are exposed copper veins.

Heifu, who had studied chemistry in middle and high school in his previous life, remembered that green, which should be the color of malachite, was smelted from copper.

Yang Xi even told Heifu and others that King Zhao of Zhou went south to Jingchu in order to obtain the "US dollars" produced in the Tonglu Mountain of Hubei and bring it back as a trophy to cast ceremonial vessels.

"As a result, King Zhao of Zhou drowned in the Han River and never returned to Zong Zhou." When he said this, Yang Xi was quite gloating.

He also said that in addition to the Tonglu Mountain in the hills of southern Hunan, there are many large-scale copper mines in Jiangnan (Hunan), Liudi (Anhui), and Jiangxi (Jiangxi). These copper and tin mines are the confidence of the Chu State in the Spring and Autumn Period to dare to win the Central Plains, no wonder the King of Chu Zhuang at that time boasted unashamedly: "The beak of the Chu State is enough for Jiuding!" ”

At this time, after walking a few miles north from Yingxian County, they had already arrived at their destination, but they saw that this was a small hill dozens of meters above the surface, stretching for more than ten miles.

"County Lieutenant, Zuo Bing Cao Shi, please see, it only rained yesterday, are some of the stones on this Ji Mountain faintly green? As the saying goes, there is gold under the dansha, copper and gold under the stone, lead, tin, and red copper under the greenstone, and iron under the ochre. ”

"But I've heard that the quality of the copper ore here is not good, and it's far inferior to the Copper Green Mountain." Li You disliked this "copper mountain" a little, and only felt that it was a chicken rib.

"County Lieutenant."

Yang Xi said with a smile: "Even if you add up the copper mines in the entire Nan County, I am afraid that they are not as large as the reserves of Tong Lu Mountain, and the copper ingots produced by Nan County every year are less than half of that of Tong Lu Mountain......

"If you can take the copper green mountain, this captain doesn't have to worry about the lack of copper and iron."

Li You sighed, but he also knew that the Chu people still had a lot of troops in the Jiangnan region, and there were two or three thousand soldiers who were responsible for guarding the Tonglu Mountain in southern Hunan. The strategy of the Qin State was more inclined to concentrate the army to attack the core areas of the Chu State, Huainan and Huaibei, and did not intend to open up another Jiangnan front......

Hefu looked over his horse, but saw that the cedar pines on this small hill had been almost cut down, but with a sound of a trumpet, trees fell to the ground from time to time with shouts, and it seemed that he had to cut down all the trees here.

"Isn't it stipulated in the field that you are not allowed to cut down trees in the spring?" Heigh asked Youngster.

"Copper and iron officials are not in this case."

Yang Xi replied: "After all, it is a weapon of militarism, and it cannot be extinguished all year round. ”

He added: "However, as Zuo Bing Cao Shi said, the wood in spring is moist, and it is indeed not easy to burn. Therefore, more fuel is still harvested from Dahong Mountain and Jingshan Mountain in the autumn and winter season, and then sent here for storage and later use. Now the trees are cut down, just to dig the mines below. ”

Although this copper mine is not large, it is guarded by more than 100 soldiers, and a fence has been built to protect it, and the gate is strictly controlled.

The first thing they entered was the residential area, which was supposed to be for the officials, pawns, and prisoners of the bronze officials.

Hefu took a second look, and found that the living conditions here were very bad, and most of the people who were punished to work were prisoners who had committed serious crimes, so they were not highly motivated to work, and only came out of the house under the urging of the whipping, and walked listlessly to the smelting area.

Li You and his party were also walking towards the smelting area, and before they got closer, they smelled a choking smell and felt a burning heat.

Looking from afar, I saw more than ten oval refining furnaces erected in front of me, not counting the convex rammed earth platform under the furnace, only counting the furnace body, basically one zhang high, each refining furnace is five zhang away from each other, leaving a safe distance. Around the furnace body, it is subdivided into feeding, air blasting, copper output, and water supply.

At this moment, half of the furnace was filled with flames, and black smoke rose from above, enveloping the small half of the bronze officials.

Dozens of craftsmen and subordinates stood around the furnace they were responsible for. Some people stood on the high platform on their tiptoes, and lifted the basket to pour ore into the furnace; Some people are shirtless, pushing simple bellows, sweating profusely into the furnace; The craftsmen crouched on the sidelines and nervously watched the fire, trying to keep track of the time to open the furnace.

"Whatever is cast of gold; Gold and tin, black and turbid air exhaustion, yellow and white second, yellow and white gas exhaustion, blue and white second. The green and white qi is exhausted, the green qi is second, and then it can be cast. ”

This is the method of color observation summarized when smelting bronze, using high temperature to smelt the copper element inside. Whenever the red copper block came out of the furnace and rolled down into the big pit in front of the furnace, someone immediately took water and poured it on it, and the water vapor steamed and turned into white mist. These copper blocks are then reheated and poured into the clay fan to make copper ingots......

The copper ingots that had just been smelted were sent to Li You by the craftsmen with trepidation, and Yang Xi also confessed that because the copper content of Jishan's copper ore was not high, it often took a lot of ore and smelted two or three times to obtain brass with higher purity.

Heifu looked left and right, but did not find the foundry, and when he asked, he learned that the smelted copper ingots were not cast into weapons on the spot, but sent to the workshop area in the southwest of Yingxian County, where they were combined with copper, tin, and lead sent from other places to match them into the right proportions before they were cast into bronze.

Seeing Li You frowning around each copper furnace and checking the quality of the copper ingots, Heifu called Yang Xi over and asked, "Where is the place to deal with the ore blocks?" Take me to see it. ”

Yang Xi was surprised, in the past, the county lieutenant sent people to inspect, basically just went around the smelting area, and rarely went inside. So he smiled and said: "Zuo Bing Cao Shi, the place where the ore is processed is dirtier, not only the sewage is cross-flowing, but also stone chips and dust are flying around, which is not very beautiful." ”

Heifu didn't care, let Yangxi lead the way, and sure enough, after continuing to walk more than a hundred steps inside, he was greeted by flying powder, and when Heifu closed his eyes and opened them again, he found that they had entered the storage field.

After hundreds of convicts dug up the mud-stained copper ore from Ji Mountain, they transported it in baskets with oxen and horses to the water flow at the foot of Liujiao Mountain to wash it, and then sent it downhill to the storage site. Yellow and green copper ores are piled up here.

Most of them had their hair shaved and shaved off, and some of them wore wooden tongs around their necks, drooping their heads and hunched waists. But they did not delay them to work hard under the whip of the overseer, and crushed the whole ore into pieces with hammers, stone rams, and other tools.

This is probably the most time-consuming and arduous process in the entire smelting process, the ore is hard, and it has to be smashed for a long time to become crushed ore that can be put into the furnace.

As he walked, Hefu only felt a light in his eyes, because he saw that in the corner of the storage yard, there were rows of treadmills. Many grizzled and scrawny prisoners were trampling on it with their feet, so that the stone hammers that were stepping on them were constantly rising and falling, and the ore that had been smashed into pieces and finer...... Because the finer the mineral powder, the easier it is to smelt.

Hefu was immediately interested, and pointed to the other side, "When did you start processing ore with treadmills here?" ”

Yang Xi replied: "Probably after the autumn harvest of the previous year, this thing began to be promoted by the county guard in various counties and townships and used for the grain valley. At that time, the county engineer felt that the stepping mill could also be used for copper officials, so that those who were weak and could not lift heavy objects could step on it, and beat the ore spoon more finely, which was indeed more useful, but unfortunately it was still not enough......"

He pointed to the mountains of ore around him and said in a low voice: "Now the county lieutenant wants us to increase the production of copper smelting, but no matter how many stoves are repaired, the prisoners still can't process the ore quickly. ”

It turned out that the copper content of the Jishan Copper Mine was low, so for every pound of copper smelted, more ore was needed, and just processing the ore had already made the prisoners miserable, and more than a dozen people were exhausted to death every month.

Heifu bowed his head, his heart was already measured, but he didn't move for the time being, he glanced at the prisoners who lived in the aquatic fire again, shook his head slightly, and returned to the smelting ground with Yangxi.

From a long distance, they heard the roar of the county lieutenant Li You.

"No matter what you do, in the next half year, you must hand over twice as much copper as before!"

Yang Xi hurriedly passed, and he and the craftsmen all complained bitterly: "Unless hundreds of our convicts are allocated to smash ore in order to achieve the output required by the county lieutenant, it will be useless to bring down more mines from the mountains and build more stoves outside!" ”

At this time, Heifu interjected: "Lieutenant, the subordinate has an idea, and may be able to solve this problem!" ”

"Oh?"

Li You and Yang Xi, as well as a group of craftsmen with ashen faces, all looked at Heifu, and everyone wanted to know what he had in mind.

"The subordinate has the courage to recommend a person, a craftsman, to the county lieutenant, because the subordinate has seen him make a kind of instrument, if it is used to process ore, it can not only save twice the manpower, but also double the effect!"

Li You was overjoyed when he heard this, and asked, "Is there really such a person?" Who is it? ”

Heifu said: "It's the sister-in-law of the subordinates, it's about casting weapons and enriching the arsenal, and the subordinates can only be virtuous and not avoid relatives!" ”

"Sister?"

All the craftsmen, including Yangxi, had strange expressions.

Someone said in disbelief: "Zuo Bing Cao Shi, save twice the manpower, this is too exaggerated, but you can't boast like this because he is your sister......"

They always felt that Heifu was taking the opportunity to install relatives in the county, and a trace of suspicion flashed in Li You's eyes.

"This is not boasting." Heifu said: "Do the second and third sons know that there is another alias for Ta Jie?" ”

The craftsmen looked at each other: "An Ludi? ”

"Yes!"

Heifu slapped his palms and smiled: "To be honest, my sister-in-law's name is 橼, and she is the first person to make An Lu Tuo!" My sister-in-law once threatened to me, saying that as long as he gave him manpower and money, he would be able to transform the manpower into an artifact that could run automatically without manpower! ”

He began to brag unashamedly: "At that time, Hugh said that the manpower saving is double, and it can be ten times as much!" ”