236 Develop iron smelting and rectify mines

(Brothers, it's the end of the month, I'm going to sprinkle and roll around for a monthly pass, the second chapter is almost over here, and the chapters are early.) Soon there will be a new plot, pig's feet should also be matched with a daughter-in-law, and I went out to fight with the wild boar skin by the way, cough cough, I'm spoiled here, and I don't vote for a monthly ticket? ）

Little Lao'er believed. In the name of the general's benevolence and righteousness, we all know that now we can eat enough here, all of which the general brought us.

So the big guy works weekdays, and he is not lazy and slippery, otherwise if I see it, I will not spare him.

These days, we have 30% more iron here than we used to produce every day.

We don't have any skills, we can only smelt the craft of iron, and only by smelting more iron can we repay the general's kindness. ”

The old stove head hurriedly nodded again and again, indicating that he believed Li Zixiao's words, and said with a grateful face, these are all his heartfelt words.

Li Zixiao nodded and said: "Haha, your craft is not simple, in the past, no one knew the goods, from today onwards, you follow me Li, with your skills, it is absolutely no problem to feed a family."

In addition, I have good news for you, General Ben plans to expand the furnaces in our town and recreate the scenery of the furnaces we had here.

It won't be long before your town will flourish again. When the time comes, I will have some old masters hire some old masters to open a academy in your town.

Let our local children go to the academy to study, children can read Braille is beneficial, and knowledge changes fate.

And as long as the children go to the academy to study, eat and wear, our White Dragon Army will bear it, and they will not be starved and frozen again! ”

Li Zixiao's plan to start the academy has always been in the planning, but unfortunately he has been fighting before, and the situation is unstable, maybe he will be defeated and run away that day, so the affairs of the academy have been put on hold.

Now that the White Dragon Army has turned into an official army, he Li Zixiao has also become a general.

This has also become his one-third of an acre, and the situation has stabilized, so he doesn't have to worry about the encirclement and suppression of the imperial court all the time.

All, the affairs of the academy were also on his agenda.

On the one hand, Li Zixiao opened the academy so that local children could have books to read, which was really his sincere idea, but he did not deny that he was suspected of buying people's hearts.

The other is to 'brainwash' these children, instill in them the idea of loyalty to Li Zixiao and gratitude to the White Dragon Army from an early age, and cultivate their national consciousness.

Although the cost of the academy was estimated to be quite large, he was still determined to take it out.

Don't look at the small amount of money it will cost, this is a long-term investment, and you may not see anything in the short term.

But after a few years, more than ten years later, when these teenagers and children grow up, they will be Li Zixiao's most loyal supporters.

In the future, these children will be the pillars of the country, and maybe there will be a Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui or something, a loyal minister, a capable minister!

After listening to Li Zixiao's words, the old stove head's eyes lit up, and he couldn't help but be excited, and asked, "Is this true?" ”

"Hehe, of course I mean it. I, Li, am a spit and a nail when I speak, and I will never break my word.

Now the conditions are still limited, and if the conditions are good in the future, not only the older children will have to study, but even the children will let them go to school, and we will cover the cost of children's reading. ”

As soon as the words fell, the old stove grunted, and then knelt down again, this time the old stove was stoned to death and he couldn't get up, and kowtowed to Li Zixiao vigorously.

While kowtowing, he also choked up and said, "Oh, the general is really a good person."

If the general really does this, my old bones will be exhausted, and I am willing to follow the general! ”

In these years, ordinary people's children have no chance to go to school at all, they can't even eat, how can they have money for their children to go to school.

But this does not prevent these people from knowing that it is useful to go to school, even if they only know how to go to school and be literate, so that they can become big officials in the future and no longer suffer from poverty.

So it's no wonder that this old stoveman was so excited after hearing Li Zixiao's words.

Li Zixiao got up and pulled the old stove head, and sat down on a pile of stones on the side, and the old hearth also saw that Li Zixiao was really a person without a frame at this time.

So he completely relaxed, and chatted with Li Zixiao.

"How many craftsmen like you are there in Beigu Town?" Li Zixiao asked the old hearthman.

"It's not much, I think when our Beigu Town was prosperous, there were no less than five hundred iron-making craftsmen in the town.

Not now, there are dozens of people together, and the rest of them are either starved to death, fled the famine, or were killed by poles or official soldiers.

In the past, there were more than 20 large furnaces like this in the town, which could produce hundreds of thousands of catties of iron in a year.

Now only one of my larger stoves remains, and the remaining three are still usable, but they are all smaller stoves.

No matter how good it is every day, that is, it can only produce three or five hundred catties, and if it is good, it can produce five or six hundred catties of iron, and at the end of the year, it will not produce tens of thousands of catties of iron, and it will be wasted, but it's a pity! ”

After Li Zixiao heard this, he was slightly shocked at first, because at first glance, it sounded like Beigu Town was indeed a large iron producer in the past.

But after Li Zixiao thought about it for a while, he laughed dumbly again.

If hundreds of thousands of catties of iron are converted into tons, that is, hundreds of tons, which is not enough to catch up with a later iron-making plant, a fraction of the iron produced in a day.

The number sounds not small, but in fact it is not that big, and this is still pig iron, and even less refined iron will be obtained after returning to the White Snake Village for quenching.

At this time, the White Dragon Army needed more and more fine iron to build weapons, armor, bird guns, etc., every day, and it was not enough at all.

Li Zixiao thought again, a few stoves here at this time, even if they produce 500 catties of iron a day.

So in a year, at least this furnace produces more than 100,000 catties of iron a year, why do so many furnaces produce so much iron in a year?

But then Li Zixiao thought deeply and figured out the truth.

This old-fashioned shaft furnace is not always out of iron all year round, during which it must be turned off and repaired, otherwise it will not take long before it is scrapped.

What's more, ironmaking must at least have sufficient raw materials, and if the mining volume is insufficient, it will also affect the scale of iron production.

"Yes! This is all caused by this world, but now you can rest assured that with our White Dragon Army here in the future, we will not let the previous tragedies repeat themselves.

Does the old man know how to build this iron-making furnace? I would like to expand the size of the furnaces in your town, which are too few to meet our needs. ”

Li Zixiao asked the old stove head.

When the old stove heard this, he said: "You must know that our Feng family, but we have been doing this for generations, and half of the stoves in Beigu Town are repaired by our Feng family."

This craft has been passed down to my generation, and I don't know how many generations it is, and building such a furnace is not a matter for us at all.

However, it costs a lot of silver to build such a furnace, and the larger the furnace is, the more silver it will cost. ”

The old stove didn't forget to remind Li Zixiao at the end.

"Hehe, are you still afraid that General Ben won't be able to repair these refining furnaces? What I'm lacking now is the talent who can cultivate this kind of refining furnace!

As for manpower, there are a lot of people everywhere now, so it's no problem to find some random ones and do some rough work, but the key is that it's not easy to find a stove like you!

If you're willing to restore some of the furnaces, then I promise you, the Old Feng family, are the heroes of my White Dragon Army.

In the future, the children of your Lao Feng family, as long as they are over ten years old, will be able to send them to the academy to study.

And I will give you three buckets of grain every month in the future, plus five taels of silver, so that you can be the steward of iron smelting in Beigu Town! Li Zixiao said to the old stove with a smile.

"Is that true?" The old stove's eyes widened, and he looked at Li Zixiao eagerly.

"A gentleman's word, the horse is difficult to chase!" Li Zixiao replied affirmatively.

The old stove almost jumped up, and hurriedly beckoned a few people to come over and asked them to kneel down for Li Zixiao.

The old stove pointed at them and said: "As long as there are enough people and the materials are in place, the little old man dares to say that within half a year, there will be no problem at all to repair three furnaces of this size!" ”

Li Zixiao laughed and said, "I believe your words, but it takes half a year to build three such big furnaces, which is too little, at least ten such furnaces must be repaired."

And this kind of stove is still too small, I want the kind of big stove that can at least sunrise a thousand pounds, can you do it? ”

"Ahh The old stove screamed, also a little dumbfounded.

"Haha, don't worry, this is a picture I drew, you think about it first, you can try to build that kind of big furnace by hand, but the construction of these furnaces now, you can't delay it."

Li Zixiao was a little confused when he saw the old stove, laughed, and handed him a hand-drawn drawing of his hand, which was actually a simple iron-making blast furnace in later generations.

Li Zixiao believes that the old furnace head who understands the principle of smelting furnace deeply, as long as he is given some time, he can understand what he draws, eat through the things inside, and then build it himself, this kind of iron-making blast furnace.

In any case, the construction of this kind of blast furnace is not an overnight thing, but now this medium-sized furnace, these ironmakers are already very familiar with it.

It can ensure a stable amount of iron every day, which is more suitable for the situation at this time, and after the old furnace really builds the blast furnace and is familiar with it, it is not too late to build a blast furnace at that time.

Beigu Town is very small, and the residents are basically running out, and only a few iron furnaces are still in production, which is really nothing to look at.

Li Zixiao saw a lot of iron ore and coal piled up in the town, but with the current iron-making furnace, it was far from being able to consume so much ore.

Iron production is definitely not going up, which also shows that mining has exceeded the consumption of ore in the furnace.

If this continues, the ore will be piled up more and more, which will cause a waste of manpower and material resources, and in a short period of time, this problem must be solved, so that the iron production will increase significantly.

Before Li Zixiao left Beigu Town, the old furnace head had already begun to take his two sons with him, and more than a dozen furnace craftsmen drawn from several other iron furnaces.

We began to look at a few abandoned but still relatively intact iron-making furnaces in Beigu Town, and began to repair a few of them so that they could be restarted as soon as possible.

As for the manpower of iron-making craftsmen in the future, Li Zixiao will be responsible for solving it.

Anyway, the number of displaced people pouring into Yongcheng County every day is increasing instead of decreasing, and the manpower problem is easy to solve.

After Li Zixiao left Beigu Town, he inspected non-stop, and the three mining sites near Beigu Town are also the most convenient ore delivery points in Beigu Town.

This was originally the mining field of the Cai and Liu families in the county seat, but now it is all controlled by the White Dragon Army.

There were originally three or four hundred miners, because after the White Dragon Army took control of this place, they scared away a group, but later Li Zixiao sent another one or two hundred bandit prisoners.

Today, there are nearly 500 miners, and the amount of iron ore produced is more than the consumption of local iron-making furnaces.

And this situation is not much good, even if Li Zixiao does business with others in the future, he will not export iron ore, and after others practice iron, it will be more profitable to sell iron materials.

Therefore, the output of the mining industry must be linked to their ironmaking industry.

The ore production should not be too large, a little more than the amount of iron smelted is okay, it can be used as a strategic reserve, but not too much.

In terms of their current manpower, a large amount of iron ore can not be digested, which can only cause a waste of manpower.

Li Zixiao's territory is not large, and he is not allowed to waste this kind of manpower.

Therefore, after inspecting several mining sites, he asked about the daily output of these mining sites, and then combined with the current situation of the iron furnace in Beigu Town.

Li Zixiao transferred some of the common miners here to Beigu Town, specializing in iron smelting.

In this way, the two aspects have basically reached a more appropriate balance.

Nowadays, the miners of iron ore mines have a very large amount of labor, and they all rely on manual mining.

The miners carry a small candle on their heads, drill into the mine, dig down the iron ore little by little with a pickaxe, and then carry it out basket by hand, which is extremely laborious.

And it is also very dangerous, the slightest carelessness will rise to the top, once people are covered in it, there is no need to think about the thing of coming out alive.

This is not just the case of iron mines, but also some of the nearby coal kilns.

So dry miners basically work with knives on their heads, and no one knows how long they can live.

When Li Zixiao was on patrol, he also contacted some miners and asked them about the situation.

The miners were very happy that the White Dragon Army had taken over their affairs during this time.

At least they can finally eat two full meals a day.

Regardless of whether the food is good or not, at least the hybrid dough cakes and pickles can basically be eaten.

Compared with the previous days, the Cai family didn't treat them as human beings at all, and every day there was little soup and little water, and each person had a small miscellaneous cake.

Not to mention that you are full, even if you hang your life, it is good.

And now that the White Dragon Army has taken over here, the current food conditions have improved a lot.

They also drank a meal of bone broth the first few days, much to the delight of the miners here.

And among some of the prisoners who were sent to labor camp, many of them were die-hard dogs of the Cai family before.

Li Zixiao spared their lives and sent them here to mine.

Of course, they are not very satisfied with the situation here, not to mention that they used to be errand boys under the Cai family, and they are used to being powerful, they can endure this kind of suffering there, and it is too dangerous to work here.

The food is not as good as when they were used to be lackeys for the Cai family in Yongcheng, and the management here is too strict, and the work is also very tiring.

So people's hearts are unstable, and some people want to run away all the time.

Either they will passively slack off and see the opportunity, incite others to follow and make trouble, and do not allow the miners who work here to work hard.

For these captives, the people of the White Dragon Army are not polite.

In addition to allowing them to eat on time, everyone is strictly monitored.

Eating, drinking, and sleeping are all under militarized management, and they are very strict.

After all, their identities are different from ordinary miners, and no matter how strict they are, some of them will take the opportunity to escape or make trouble.

For this reason, the guards guarding them have already beheaded a few troublemakers here in a row, and it can be regarded as somewhat suppressing their arrogance.

If it weren't for the White Dragon Army's stationing a team of soldiers here, these guys would have rioted and fled long ago.

After thinking about it for a while, Li Zixiao realized that he had thought about things a little too simply.

It's not okay for these guys to mix with these ordinary miners.

For these captives, the freedom of the miners was something they could not hope for, so it was strange not to make trouble.

So Li Zixiao ordered one of the most productive mines to be designated as the prison of their White Dragon Army. (To be continued.) )