At the banquet, Di Qing greatly admired and admired the achievements of the 100,000 iron cavalry of the Xia Army in the Battle of Su Jin and Weizhou, heroes are heroes, for civilian officials and ordinary people who do not understand military affairs, the victory over the enemy army is naturally gratifying, but in their minds it is only a concept of victory or defeat, only the military generals who really go to the battlefield will understand how difficult it is to defeat the strong with the weak.

The two talked and talked, the atmosphere was pleasant, Su Jin mentioned that this trip was to go to Gaonu County, east of Yinzhou in the northeast of Yanzhou, to see what value the oil coming out of the ground could have, but Di Qing disagreed.

"Master Su, that thing is useless in my opinion, but there is black oil mixed with sand and stone spring water flowing out of the valley, and the local Qiang people collect it with pheasant tails, and it can indeed be burned, but the smoke is thick, making it a miasma, and the smell is very unpleasant, you ask the emperor for this place can be said to be useless."

Su Jin said with a smile: "The court owes me the money Su Ji, and now it is really in financial difficulty, I can't force it to ask for debts, right?" I heard that oil combustion and collection of flue gas can make ink, and the quality is good, so I want to set up an ink-making workshop, which can more or less make up for my deficit; You must know that the money that I Su Ji embezzled is all the deposits of the people in Huitong Yinzhuang, if I don't want to make some money, the people will not eat me at that time. ”

Di Qing was stunned and said, "I see, but how much money can you make from making ink?" My lord, if you have difficulties in the turnover of your family's silver village, please be sure to inform the lower officials, who have also saved 50,000 or 60,000 yuan of family property over the years, and you can borrow them from the turnover of the adults. ”

Su Jin laughed, and hurriedly thanked him: "Thank you General Di for your kindness, I have made up my mind with your friend, but I embezzled three million yuan, and fifty or sixty thousand yuan will not solve my dilemma at all; But the general's sincere treatment of Su was extremely moved. ”

Di Qing was shocked and said, "Three million? What did you do? Actually spent so much money? ”

Su Jin didn't want to hide it from Di Qing, so he quietly informed Di Qing when he traded horses with Xixia, and finally said: "The number of horses from the military department is counting, and they will be assigned to the garrisons in various places in the near future. ”

Di Qing was overjoyed, looked left and right and lowered his voice: "Is this true?" Lord Su is really powerful, covering the sky with one hand, such a big thing, I'm afraid the whole court is in the dark, there is no clause for opening trade in the peace agreement between the two countries, not to mention the trade of war horses, how can the Xia people agree? You can also do this kind of thing, and the lower officials are really throwing themselves to the ground. If I have 5,000 cavalry, why am I afraid of the arrogance of the Xia people? Having said that, the imperial court is too inauthentic, Lord Su used private money to buy horses for the imperial court, and the imperial court actually fell into the dilemma of turnover of adults, and he was not afraid of jokes when he said it. ”

Su Jin looked at the anger on Di Qingyingwu's face, and said with a smile: "You can't say that, the imperial court also has the difficulties of the imperial court, and the emperor also said that in the future, the financial and tax will be paid in full, even if it is not given to me, just when I take out the three million to serve the country; I'm not afraid to lose my head in a war, do you still care about this money? ”

Di Qing sighed, and his reverence for Su Jin was even greater, he also knew that there were only a limited number of people who knew about this matter, and Su Jin was able to tell him frankly, naturally he didn't take outsiders, and his mouth had to be closed; Di Qing immediately promised that if Su Jin had any needs in Gaonu County, manpower and material resources would definitely help.

Su Jin saw that Di Qing was indeed a friend, and thought for a while: "General Di, in fact, I asked for that place to see if there is a simple way to refine the oil oil, I thought of a way, I hope I can give it a try, if it is really successful, from then on the oil used by the military and civilian use of the Great Song Dynasty will be safe, the oil is too precious, the battle of Weizhou, if there is no oil to help, it will not last for more than ten days." ”

Di Qing suddenly realized, only then did he understand Su Jin's true intention of wanting that barren mountain and wild mountain, but he didn't believe that there was an easy way to refine the oil oil, and the imperial court's oil reserves were almost zero, because refining was extremely expensive, and after all, it was better to have the money to refine the oil than to build an extra pair of armor and forge an extra bow and arrow; But Di Qingjiu fought on the battlefield, so he naturally knew the benefits of fire oil, but he was just suffering from the lack of quantity.

Su Jin told Di Qing the secret in his heart, which was actually based on some considerations; Di Qing is located in Yanzhou, and Gaonu County, the land of Yindong, is not far from Yanzhou, and as a road envoy of Qinfeng and Jingyuan, it is impossible for him to stay in Yanzhou every day to supervise; This Di Qing is not a treacherous person with real intentions, and he can take care of him by pulling him in, and secondly, as the prefect of Yanzhou, he will not be able to hide it sooner or later under his nose, and it is not as good as telling the truth.

Di Qing happily agreed to Su Jin's request, and early the next morning, he led hundreds of soldiers to carry the list of items listed by Su Jin all the way to Gaonu County in the northeast.

Gaonu County is a border county, in fact, it has long existed in name only, when the two countries were in turmoil, the county seat yamen has been destroyed, and the local residents are also scattered in the unknown barren mountains, most of them are Qiang mountain people; In fact, this place is the junction of the Song and Xia countries, but the barren mountains and mountains are barren and bitter cold, and neither country looks down on this place, which is why Zhao Zhen promised to reward Su Jin with a mountain land of fifty miles; Because of this, the war only lasted to Gaonu County and never developed eastward, and Yinzhou was actually safe under the protection of the barrier of this barren mountain.

After traveling for nearly 100 miles for two days, they finally arrived at this area; Su Jin didn't have any concept of geography, how big was a radius of fifty miles, and Su Jin didn't know, anyway, it seemed that the mountains in front of him were all his own.

Everyone dismounted and entered the mountain, found a valley and camped, Su Jin ordered people to look for the mountain people, but there was no trace, and it took a long time to find a mountain man who was chopping wood on a hillside and pulled it over.

Mahan took out a large pile of money and dangled it in front of his eyes, and said, "Take us to the valley where oil is produced." The big money will be yours. ”

The mountain man was a shrewd boy in his twenties, but he was unmoved by the temptation of a large amount of money, and refused to agree for a long time.

Ma Han said angrily: "Why are you hesitating to give a lot of money if you lead the way?" It's not that you want to die. ”

The young Qiang mountain man stiffened his neck and said: "Money is not good here, we can't buy anything with money here, if you really want me to lead the way, you might as well give some practical ones." ”

Su Jin smiled and asked, "What do you want?" ”

The young man pointed to a donkey in the team and said, "This donkey is quite useful, and Daddy and Mother have to carry the plow on their shoulders to plow the mountains, so it is easy to have this donkey." ”

Ma Han shouted: "You have such a big breath, this donkey is worth three or five times, you lead the way so much lion mouth open, General Di, you are really a lot of people on Yanyan Road." ”

Di Qing was a little embarrassed, and was about to scold the young man, Su Jin hurriedly smiled: "He is filial and there is nothing wrong, besides, people here have no concept of coins, how can he know the value of donkeys; For his filial piety, the donkey will reward him. ”

The young mountain people were overjoyed, and they kowtowed again and again, and during the conversation, Su Jin and the others learned that the young man's name was Danmuji, which meant that the white clouds were drifting, but it was a little poetic; Danmuji led the donkey back, and after a while a large group of mountain people gathered, and everyone looked at Danmuji with envy, regretting that they did not catch this errand; Originally, when the officers and soldiers entered the mountain, they were afraid of being hurt, so they hid early, and now their intestines were repentant.

Su Jin greeted the mountain people with a smile, and ordered the accompanying officers and soldiers to distribute some food to them, this group of people are all black and thin, in Su Jin's opinion, it is obvious that they can't eat enough, and food should be their most practical thing.

Zamuji led the way, everyone climbed a few hills, and arrived at a quiet valley in the evening, as soon as they stepped into the valley, everyone felt that the soles of their feet were soft and slimy, and the grass was yellow and wet, Su Jin pushed aside the weeds and reached out to touch the ground, and suddenly his hands were full of black things, and when he smelled it, it seemed that there was some smell of oil.

Su Jin was overjoyed, sure enough, it was oil seeping out of the open air, but it couldn't be collected at all; Zamuji told Su Jin that there was a big sand pit in front of him, which was the place where a lot of black oil came out, and the local mountain people thought that they had blasphemed the gods and turned the mountain spring into a poisonous black spring. Because it is an oily substance that emerges from the cracks in the rocks, the locals call it oil.

After walking with difficulty, everyone's boots and trousers were covered with dirt, and at last they saw a huge black puddle; Su Jin stood on the edge of the pit and looked at it, stunned, but saw a viscous black bubble bubbling in the pit, and a small piece of liquid in the middle was slowly tumbling, obviously something was bubbling out from the ground; The black water in the pit overflowed the edge of the pit and soaked it in all directions, which is why the whole valley was covered with soft, black oil under the meadows.

Dumbfounded, Su Jin shouted in his heart: "My God, this is one of the most important energy sources in the future, oil, for these things, countries do not hesitate to start wars and fights, in this era, everyone actually regards it as nothing, and inadvertently becomes a contemporary oil tycoon." ”