On the third day, Tong Yangjia was finally ready, with 1,200 craftsmen and 1,500 escort troops, which formed the advance team for the development of Shilu Iron Mine.

The fleet still uses the 20 large ships of the sea patrol lane, plus the more than 20 sea vessels of various sizes mobilized by Hainan Wei, a total of 48 ships of various types.

Tong Yangjia knew that these people were really not enough for an iron mine, and half of the 1,200 craftsmen wanted to build a wharf in Changhua, after all, the carrying capacity of the existing wharf in Changhua could not meet the requirements, and Zhu Hongsan's given task was to transport 30,000 tons of iron ore a year, that is, 100 tons a day.

The remaining 1,500 people are the escort army, this group of people is led by Zhou Yu, and the king of Chu gave a name for pulling the wind, called the Qiongzhou garrison army, is the king of Chu going to build a tuntian in Qiongzhou? (Zhu Hong said: "I fucking know, but I just feel that this name is majestic.") ”）

Zhou Yu brought a group of 3,000 people, leaving half of them in Qiongzhou Mansion, I heard that Leizhou Ma Jiyuan's side is not very stable, and the king of Chu may have to transfer troops over.

Tong Yangjia counted for a long time, but there was still a shortage of people. The major families on the island promised to settle 2,000 people, and Zhou Yu also brought news from the king of Chu, and there were still 100,000 displaced people in Guangdong to be transported to Qiongzhou, and they had to prepare themselves.

But far water can't quench the thirst of the near, and there is really no manpower in front of him, Tong Yangjia thought about it, and had no choice but to catch some shengli.

Tong Yangjia called Tong Tuchang and said, "Chang'er, how many people do you expect to need?" ”

Tong Tuchang thought for a while and said: "If you want to transport the first batch of iron ore in a month and a half, you need 3,000 people in the early stage. Mainly along the Shilu River to clean the river, which requires a lot of manpower, by the way, the second uncle, there are a lot of rocks in the river, a lot of gunpowder is needed, please ask the second uncle and the king of Chu for instructions. ”

Tong Yangjia said: "You don't have to worry about gunpowder, Captain Zhou brought a batch over, it should be enough for a month, and the next batch should have been on board in Dongguan." The main thing is this manpower gap. ”

Tong Tuchang thought for a while, gritted his teeth and said, "Second uncle, do you want Zhou Yu and them to sweep the surrounding Li villages and get some manpower?" ”

Tong Yangjia groaned: "This is also a method, you go and do it first, I will find a way in Qiongzhou, I really can't let the military households of Changhuawei go first." ”

Probably only like this, Tong Tuchang has nothing to do. In an era of low productivity such as the Ming Dynasty, the only way to expand production was to continuously invest manpower.

After the arrangement, Tong Yangjia watched all the personnel get on the boat, and of the twenty big ships, Zhou Yu's men and horses accounted for five. There were thirty artillery pieces, and those natives had never seen any muskets, and Tong Yangjia really didn't understand what could use these cannons in the jungle.

There are also supplies for these 3,000 people, Tong Yangjia really can't understand why the King of Chu eats these Qiu Ba so well, three dry meals a day, and one braised pork a day. Zhou Yu's 3,000 people consume 2,000 chickens and 50 pigs every day. In the past 10 days since they arrived in Qiongzhou, the price of local pork has doubled.

Tao Dayong, the commander of Hainan Wei, had already looked for him, and tactfully said that he could let these guards of the King of Chu stay away from their guards, and now they have found that some of them have fled.

Tong Yangjia can't do anything about this, Zhou Yu and they are directly under Zhu Hongsan, and he can command them because he has a good relationship with Zhao Guodong.

In the end, Tong Yangjia had no choice but to move Zhou Yu and their station far away from Hainan Wei. At the same time, he also learned from Zhu Hongsan outside the city to set up a pig farm and a chicken farm, fortunately, a lot of sweet potatoes and corn were transported with the ship, and he was planting some by himself, and he could supply himself after a few months.

Now there is no way, Zhou Yu's 3,000 supplies are all pulled from Dongguan by ships.

Tong Tuchang led the team away, Tong Yangjia still has a lot to do to stay in Fucheng, and now he has 1,500 people behind him to back up, no longer only two uncles and nephews like half a month ago.

Tong Yangjia plans to govern the capital city of Qiongzhou like the county seat of Dongguan, clean up the city's sanitation, fight crime, and then expand the Baishamen Wharf outside Qiongzhou.

Tong Yangjia felt that since the king of Chu had made him a parent official, he had to do things well, at least after a few years of leaving, the local people could not scold him. (Tong Yangjia has a very bad reputation in history, cruel and easy to kill.) However, during his tenure as governor of Liangguang, he did a lot of good things to the local people, and we must remember the bad things he did, but the good things cannot be erased. ）

Tong Yangjia made great efforts to renovate Qiongzhou City, and Tong Tuchang took the fleet to the mouth of the Changhua River two days later. After getting off the boat, he led the staff to Changhua County.

The guards of the county town had seen so many people, and for a moment they thought that a large number of pirates were attacking the city, so they immediately closed the city gate and rang the gong.

Changhua County has been basically peaceful in recent years, and as soon as He County Ling heard the gong sounding from the alarm, he also thought that the pirates were coming, so he immediately found Zhao Qianhu and came to the city wall to see what was going on outside.

When the outside brigade came to the outside of the city, He Xianling saw that it was not Tong Tuiguan, so he ordered the alarm to be lifted.

Tong Tuchang looked at He Xianling and Zhao Qianhu who were out of the city, and said, "Two adults, these are the people I brought to open the mine. ”

He Xian Ling saw that there were thousands of people behind him, and some people were carrying muskets, and asked, "My lord, are all from Qiongzhou?" ”

Tong Tuchang said: "Yes, there are dozens of boats outside the Jiangkou, and there are still some equipment on them, please ask Zhao Qianhu and Lord He to arrange for someone to get the equipment off the boat." ”

He Xianling nodded, and went back to the city with Zhao Qianhu to gather people. More than half of the 8,000 people in the county were dispatched, and the equipment was finally taken off the ship in two days.

But the next step is not easy, how to get the equipment upstream. One of Tong Tuchang's craftsmen said, "My lord, you can use more than a dozen sand boats in the fleet. I just took a look at the Changhua River, although the water is shallow, but three or four hundred sand boats can still drive in. ”

The Changhua River can be entered, but what about the Shilu River inside? Tong Tuchang thought, let's take a step at a time.

Tong Tuchang arranged for the craftsmen to be divided into two batches, one group went to Shilu Iron Mine first and mined in advance. The second batch was left to build the Changhua Wharf and clean up the Shilu River and Changhua River waterways.

Tong Tuchang left a henchman to preside over the work of the wharf, and after explaining that He County ordered him to fully cooperate, he and the vanguard rushed to Shilu.

It was really troublesome for the team to hurry, and it took five days to reach the Shilu mining area along the way. When they arrived here, they found that the original camp had changed greatly, and the original foreman Zhang had expanded the camp in the past half a month. A mile of radius was burned with fire, and the land was leveled. Wang Dazhuang and the others also used this half month to arrest more than 100 Shengli, and these jobs were all done by Shengli.

Tong Tuchang was very happy to see it, and after resting in the camp for one night, he started work the next day. The first was to get the population, and this time there were 2,000 laborers with the fleet. Tong Tuchang left 500 to build Changhua Wharf, and all the others were brought.

There are now more than 4,000 people in the camp, but this is not enough for those people to open a mine. Tong Tuchang asked Zhou Yu to lead the team to clean up the surrounding Li village.

Zhou Yu is a native of Henan, how do you know that there are local Li and ripe Li, swept away the Li people's village within a radius of 20 miles, and arrested more than 2,000 people of all colors, including many Han people who live together with Shuli.

Tong Tuchang saw that there was no way, so he came forward to appease these Han people who were scared enough, and promised them that no one would pay them five yuan of silver a month, and those Han people would be stable.

As for those Li people, Tong Tuchang didn't treat them as human beings at all, and in the eyes of these Han intellectuals, all non-Han people could not be regarded as human beings. None of the 2,000 Li people captured survived for more than half a year, and they died of exhaustion in the Shilu Iron Mine.

Tong's uncle and nephew found that the Li people's labor, which did not need money, was really useful, and ordered all the government offices on the island to arrest the Li people and send them to the Changhua Shilu Iron Mine, and each Li person could get one or two silver when they were sent to Changhua.

In this way, in the first ten years of Shilu iron ore mining, a total of more than 50,000 Li people died in the mine, and it can be said that the official robes of Tong's uncle and nephew were dyed red with the blood of Li people (Tong Yangjia is a fourth grade, and he can wear Zhu Zi official robes).

This history of blood and tears was covered up by Zhu Hongsan for hundreds of years, and it was not until the first Jinshi among the naturalized Li people that this history of blood and tears of the Li people was revealed. Of course, the emperor at that time was the descendant of Zhu Hongsan, so it was not the one who could say that he was an ancestor, so naturally the basin was buckled on the heads of Tong's uncles and nephews.