Tao Qiqi rode a horse, his spirit was bright, and said to Yang Dalang beside him: "This time, on the orders of the officials, I will go to review the iron ore you explored. If it is really a rich mine, the officials will definitely reward it. Not to mention the reward, maybe an official will do it for you. ”

Yang Dalang said: "The little one is just a country blacksmith, where can he be an official." ”

Tao Seventeen said: "What's so difficult about being an official! I grew up alone since I was a child, and when I met officials, I made some contributions, and I was not the same as being an official. As long as you do find a big mine and you are a blacksmith, it will be easy to find an errand in the mine! ”

Yang Dalang was sincerely frightened when he heard this. As soon as he arrived at the Yamen of Yingtian Affairs, Quan Erlang received ten rewards and left, and Yang Dalang looked at the money very hotly. In his mind, he was already very satisfied with the ten times the money, how dare he think about being an official.

After being with Tao Seventeen for two days, I listened to him talk about his experience, and I felt that it was not impossible to be an official. What will this person do? It's just to make some machines, looking at the casting cannons, it's the same craftsman's craft, and the official does it smoothly.

Behind the two, Luo Feng was silent. He could write and calculate, and as soon as he was recruited by the Yamen, he was recruited into the bureaucracy. Because it was with Yang Dalang, this time we went to Fangcheng to check the iron mine. Look at the front to Luoqu Town, the mood is complicated.

Tao Qiqi looked at the town in front of him and said, "Let's go in and have some wine and dinner, and go to Fangcheng County in the afternoon." ”

Luo Feng arched his hand: "Official, don't enter the town, there is a place to sell wine and rice to the north, and the road is closer." ”

Tao Qiqi didn't know Luo Feng's origin, and felt strange, and said: "After Luoqu Town, there are no big villages and towns in Fangcheng, even if there are wine and food, they are also small rural shops. It's nothing more than a few more miles to walk, what's the matter! ”

Luo Feng was helpless, so he had to say: "Don't hide it from the officials, the little one is from Luoqu Town." Because my brother couldn't tolerate me, he left home to apply for recruitment in the yamen to get food and clothing. If you enter the town and are seen by your family, you are afraid of causing trouble. ”

When Tao Qiyi heard that he had run away from home, he didn't dare to slack off, so he hurriedly asked what was going on. In this era, filial piety is the most important, if Luo Feng causes trouble at home, his parents will not tolerate it, but he can't ignore it.

Luo Feng didn't dare to hide it, and told his experience. said: "Since my father died, my family has been ruined, and my mother has remarried to the Luo family, without any family property. My two brothers deceived me all the time, and my mother couldn't speak at home, couldn't defend herself, and it was really difficult for me to survive, so I left home to fend for myself. When I left Luoqu, I swore that I would never go home until I made a show! ”

This experience is a bit similar to Tao Qiqi, and after listening to it, he remembered his life experience, and said to Luo Feng: "A man should have this ambition!" Your brother looks down on you, and sooner or later he will regret it! As long as you work hard in the yamen, the officials like to promote their subordinates the most, and they will definitely raise their eyebrows in the future! In this case, we will not enter Luoqu Town, and go straight to Fangcheng! ”

After speaking, he turned his horse's head, bypassed Luoqu Town, and went straight to Fangcheng in the northeast.

Fangcheng is an important place to communicate between the north and the south, since the Spring and Autumn Period, the Chu State plotted against the Central Plains, and I don't know how many battles were fought here. There is the Great Wall of Chu on the nearby Fangcheng Mountain, which is still intact for a long time after a thousand years. There is a pass in the northeast of the county, which is spacious and flat, passing through Fangcheng Mountain until Yexian County in the north. Along this road, the Jianghan Plain in the south can go straight to the Central Plains, northwest to Xijing Henan Province, and northeast to Tokyo Kaifeng Province.

The geographical conditions of Fangcheng Pass are too superior, and the construction of the Xianghan Cao Canal in the time of Taizong is an attempt to connect the Ru River, a tributary of the Huai River, with the Tangbai River, a tributary of the Han River, from here to communicate the water transportation between the north and the south. Due to heavy rains, the dam collapsed, the project was abandoned, and the downstream Tangzhou area was flooded, and the population is still sparse. If the canal can really be built here, the significance should be no less than the spiritual canal. The south-to-north water diversion in later generations also passed through here.

Du Zhongxiao attaches so much importance to the iron ore in Wuyang, in addition to the reason for the abundant reserves in his memory, there is also a reason for this pass. This is the main artery connecting the north and the south, and an iron ore base is built nearby, which can radiate a wide area. The Ru River in the north and the Tangbai River in the south are well developed in water transportation, with the Huai River and Bianhe water systems, the Han River and the Yangtze River water systems, and the water transportation conditions are superior.

Compared with here, although Xiangzhou in the north also has coal and iron, it is too far north and inconvenient to transport it to the south. Compared with the north, the south is more deficient in iron, and the market prospects here are better than those in Xiangzhou. Especially at this time, the Jinghu Road has not yet been developed, and the ironmaking base built here will play a great role in the subsequent development of the Jianghan Plain.

Tao Seventeen took Yang Dalang and Luo Feng into Fangcheng County and visited Zhixian County. stayed overnight, borrowed more than 20 errands from the county seat, and entered Fangcheng Mountain. Following the mark left by Yang Dalang, I traveled all the way east to the place where the iron ore was discovered.

After camping nearby, Tao Qiqi said to Yang Dalang: "In the past two days, we will go to the place where you found the ore seedlings to investigate, and roughly estimate the scope of the iron ore here. The official has already sent an official document, and in a few days he will borrow someone from Xiangzhou who is good at this matter. They came, and they figured out the situation of the iron ore here, so they could open the mine. ”

Yang Dalang arched his hand and said: "The little one only knows a little about prospecting, and if he really wants to make iron, he really wants a veteran to come to see it." ”

Tao Seventeen said: "Hedong Road smelts iron, and now it doesn't use charcoal, but uses charcoal instead." The officials have inquired and found that there are many places that produce coal in the vicinity, but they don't know where there are big mines. Before the people from Xiangzhou came, let's explore the surrounding coal. If there is carboniferous and iron ore, it is easy to smelt iron here. If you do this, you will have made a great contribution, and the court will have a reward. ”

Hedong Road has popularized the use of coal to make iron, and Yang Dalang has only heard of it, but he has not seen it. He went out to help people repair farm tools, and all the charcoal he had been using could only be turned into pig iron and poured on farm tools. In the north of Fangcheng Mountain, there are many places where coal is produced, especially in the triangle composed of Longxing, Xiangcheng and Yangzhai counties. Longxing County uses coal to burn magnets, which is famous all over the world and is exported to all parties. This area is the center of the Central Plains magnet manufacturing, and the famous Northern Song Dynasty celadon and Jun porcelain are produced here.

Du Zhongxiao knew that there must be large coal mines in Yexian and Xiangcheng, but he didn't know the exact location and didn't know what the coal was. To build an iron smelting center, of course, the closer the coal mine is to the iron mine, the better, and Tao Seventeen was instructed to take Ye County as the center and investigate. If there are both large iron mines and large coal mines within a few dozen miles, it is logical that iron smelting will flourish here.

At this time, the iron smelting center in this area was in Longxing County, north of Ye County, but the iron ore there was not large, the grade was not high, and there were only some small workshops. Not to mention that compared with Xiangzhou, which accounts for more than half of the world's iron production, it is far inferior to Xuzhou in the east. However, these small workshops show that the coal and iron resources here are widely distributed, and they also reduce the difficulty of prospecting.

At this time, the place name was different from that of later generations, and the geographical location was also different, and even if Du Zhongxiao knew that the coal resources here were abundant, he did not know where it was. Longxing County is the later Baofeng County, Yangzhai is the later Yu County, the location of Ye County is southern, and the largest coal mine in the Central Plains happens to be located in the middle of these places, which is the later Pingdingshan Coal Mine. At present, these counties all produce coal, but the resource-rich areas are located at the junction of them, and there is no development at all. Especially far away from Fangcheng Mountain, the cost of iron smelting with new mines is higher.