235 Beigu Town Ironworks

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Li Zixiao took quartz and a team of guards, left the White Snake Village, and headed towards Beigu Town.

At present, the iron-making furnaces repaired and newly built by the White Dragon Army are basically concentrated in and around Beigu Town, which is also the industry that Li Zixiao is most concerned about at present.

After all, at this time, his blacksmith shop consumes a lot of iron every day, and if he sells it alone, Li Zixiao's pocket is estimated to deflate faster, so he has to be self-reliant.

After all, Yongcheng County is rich in iron ore resources, and it would be stupid for them to guard Baoshan and not know how to use it.

And Beigu Town is the place where Li Zixiao asked his subordinates to be selected from Yongcheng County, several Zhuang towns with iron-making furnaces, and it is currently the most suitable place for the vigorous development of the White Dragon Army.

During this time, Li Zixiao ordered the reactivation of the iron-making furnace in Beigu Town.

At the same time, 50,000 taels of silver were allocated to build a new iron-making furnace in Beigu Town, recruit manpower, and build this place into the largest iron-making plant under the White Dragon Army as soon as possible.

Beigu Town is a small town, built more than 20 miles north of Yongcheng County, in a flat place.

It is said that there were people who made iron here for a long time, but it is impossible to find out exactly when iron was made here.

But it is certainly an indisputable fact that this town was formed because of the emergence of the iron-making industry.

More than ten years ago, there were more than 20 iron-making furnaces in Beigu Town, and the iron output was considerable, and it was also a very important iron-producing place in Henan.

But because of the bandits in recent years, there was a group of bandits who broke into here the year before last and targeted the relatively wealthy Beigu Town.

The iron-smelting merchants in the town were killed and forced away, so that their furnaces were also abandoned.

Those rebel armies destroyed most of the furnaces here, and since then there have been very few furnaces in Yongcheng County.

So much so that now there are only four remaining smelting furnaces in Beigu Town, and the iron-making craftsmen who used to work here have also run away, and there are not many people left.

The merchants who used to be here did not dare to return here to do their iron-making business, and the original rich families here could also move away, and those who could not move away would be looted.

Originally, as an important town in Yongcheng County, there was an inspection department here.

In addition, there are also officials in charge of local mining and metallurgical tax collection, but these people are now dying, fleeing, and Yongcheng County has long lost its actual control over the local area.

To put it bluntly, the county government has given up here.

Now, although the White Dragon Army took over Beigu Town, Li Zixiao sent someone to say hello to the county commander Wang Yong, and soon Wang Yong assigned this place to the White Dragon Army in an official document.

In fact, the Yongcheng County Government at this time is just a decoration to put it bluntly, but after all, the people are still the county government, and Li Zixiao is also an official after all.

The form that should be taken is still to go, so as not to be grabbed by someone with a heart and deliberately make trouble, but at this time, the county commander Wang Yong is a puppet to put it bluntly, what does Li Zixiao want to do, he doesn't dare not agree.

And the White Dragon Army then went here, stationed two groups of men, not many people, enough to maintain order here.

After all, there are no perfect defense facilities here in Beigu Town, and the walls of the town have collapsed and collapsed, and the population has been reduced to only one-fifth of what it used to be, less than a thousand people.

Leaving too many soldiers and horses to garrison. It has no practical significance, and it is located in the hinterland of Yongcheng County, not far from the White Snake Village, so it will not be threatened by any external threat at all.

At present, two groups of soldiers, a total of about 20 people, have been placed here, leaving a team deputy to manage Beigu Town here on behalf of the White Dragon Army.

After Li Zixiao entered Beigu Town, he saw that it was ten rooms and seven empty, and many houses had already become dilapidated because they had not been inhabited and repaired for many years.

Some of the houses have even collapsed, and only a few relatively intact furnaces are still inhabited, and some iron-making craftsmen have remained in these furnaces to continue working under the supervision of the White Dragon Army.

And their families also live around the furnace, which is also convenient to manage.

The deputy team stationed here will be an old brother under Liu Chong who first followed Li Zixiao, named Ma Datong, who is roughly in his thirties, but he is a diligent person.

It's just that his personal ability is limited, and he hasn't stood out, and after working for so long, he is just a deputy general.

This is still Li Zixiao's special care for the few remaining subordinates at this time, and the group of old people who followed him at the earliest.

And leaving him here to manage Beigu Town is not that he will handle civil affairs.

It was because he had worked as a blacksmith for a few days, learned a little bit of the trade, and knew a little about ironmaking, that he stayed here.

And Ma Datong heard that Li Zixiao personally came to Beigu Town to visit, so he didn't dare to slack off, and immediately took 22 of his soldiers and ran out to meet Li Zixiao.

Li Zixiao took a look at the soldiers of these two groups, although they did not follow the large army at the moment, but there was no scattered situation.

The spirits are still very full, which shows that these days, Ma Datong, who took them, has not slackened his training for them.

In this way, Li Zixiao's impression of this Ma Datong is much better.

People often need to be supervised and spurred, and many people will soon relax once they leave the environment in which they are supervised and spurred.

And Ma Datong stayed here alone with such a small number of soldiers, but he did not relax because of this.

This at least shows that this person is a principled person, not the kind of person who will easily relax his restraints.

Li Zixiao dismounted and inspected the soldiers of these two groups, nodded with satisfaction, and said to Ma Datong: "Brothers, the spirit is good, your deputy general seems to have not relaxed, very good." ”

Ma Datong was very happy with Li Zixiao's appreciation, and immediately replied loudly: "General, my subordinates were brought out by the general."

I never dared to be careless about the general's orders, even if we stayed here, we still had to go out on time every day, and we never interrupted. ”

Li Zixiao nodded with satisfaction, patted Ma Datong's shoulder, and said with a smile: "You have done a very good job of this, I have written it down for you, go back and say to your battalion commander, and reward you and others!" ”

After hearing this, the soldiers were overjoyed, and immediately saluted collectively and thanked Li Zixiao loudly.

Li Zixiao waved his hand and said: "Let's all be busy, Datong will take me on a trip to the town, the purpose of my coming today is to see the ironmaking situation here." ”

"Yes, General. This side please. General Qiyu, there are only four usable refining furnaces left here in Beigu Town, and they are all running.

Since the general ordered the reopening of the iron-making furnaces here, we have reactivated them as soon as we came here, and there are only four intact furnaces left here.

In addition, the general has an order to recruit craftsmen who can make iron, and not to abuse the craftsmen who make irons here, and everyone must be given food money.

Soon a lot of craftsmen who can make iron here were recruited, and just a few days ago, their subordinates had already sent them the first month's money and grain, and now the craftsmen are working very hard.

Every day, the four iron furnaces here have never stopped, and they can produce about five or six hundred catties of iron.

It's just that there are too few iron furnaces at the moment, and a lot of iron ore and coal can't be used, and all of them are piled up in the town. ”

Li Zixiao walked into an iron furnace, which was a very common shaft furnace in this era, about four or five meters high, which was a small iron-making furnace.

All kinds of raw materials such as iron ore, coal, carbon, limestone, and bluestone are loaded into the iron-making furnace from above, and there are large blowers next to them.

A few men were sweating profusely, blowing air into the furnace to increase the temperature of the furnace and reduce the iron in the iron ore.

Finally, the molten iron is released from the bottom of the tap hole, and the smelted molten iron is brought to the crucible by the craftsmen, carried to the iron mold, and then cooled out to become an iron block.

Basically, this is the prototype of the iron-making blast furnace of later generations.

The whole process is very laborious for the craftsmen who do this, and it can be said that it is very hard.

But after these people saw Li Zixiao coming, not only did they not relax, but they kept up with a few clockwork circles one by one, and sped up to do it with their lives.

After the troubles of the artisans here, the local merchants fled, the furnaces were shut down, and they all lost their jobs and had to return to farming to make ends meet.

Some of them also thought about reopening the furnace, but it was not so simple, it required a lot of silver, and then a lot of silver was needed to buy iron ore, coal, hire people, etc.

And these craftsmen are also very poor, and there is so much silver there to support them to reopen the furnace, so the furnace here has been abandoned.

It wasn't until Li Zixiao ordered the reopening of the smelting furnace here, and even allocated a lot of silver, that the smelting furnace here was reopened, so that these craftsmen could return to their old jobs.

This made the craftsmen here grateful to Li Zixiao and Bai Longjun, and when they heard that Li Zixiao was going to inspect their iron-making work here, of course these craftsmen worked hard one by one.

The iron produced is only pig iron, which can only be used for casting, which is considered a kind of cast iron, but cannot be used to build weapons.

If you want to build a weapon, you have to transport it to the White Snake Village first, and fry the pig iron to mature iron before you can use it.

There are a lot of doorways in this, Li Zixiao doesn't know much about these crafts, and his craftsmen will be fine, so he is not willing to delve into this matter.

I just looked at the iron furnace here curiously, chatted with some of the ironsmiths here, and asked them about their life here.

When the blacksmiths learned that this tall young man was the general of the White Dragon Army, their faces were filled with awe.

looked at the sturdy guards beside Li Zixiao, pressing the handle of the knife one by one, and scanning the surroundings vigilantly, so he was even more afraid of Li Zixiao, offended Li Zixiao, and his head was about to move.

However, there are also people who are a little bolder, who will avoid Li Zixiao from a distance, secretly look at Li Zixiao a few times, and then hurriedly go to work hard.

Li Zixiao then ordered Ma Datong to invite the stove head of the tube stove here to come over and speak.

Then a stove head ran over and knelt down in front of Li Zixiao.

Li Zixiao looked kind and said to the stove: "Get up and answer!"

You people don't have to be afraid of me, relax, I just have something I want to talk to you about. ”

This stove head is an old craftsman in his forties and fifties, and his back has collapsed from exhaustion due to years of labor.

The hunchback is more severe, and the skin on the face is also like old bark, full of wrinkles.

Although he is forty or fifty years old, he looks like he is sixty or seventy years old, and he looks very old.

Hearing Li Zixiao speak to him so kindly, the old stove relaxed a little and stood up hunched.

But he still lowered his head vigorously, not daring to make eye contact with Li Zixiao, just a strong thanksgiving.

"Okay, let me ask you, how many people are following you in your stove now?"

Li Zixiao really has no way to take him, who made this social status so clear. Coupled with the social turmoil in recent years, these people are really frightened.

"If you go back to the big house, Xiao Lao'er's stove now has twenty craftsmen under him.

They have special ingredients, feeding, iron, slag, and special blowing, all of which are not idle! If you have less, you won't be able to take care of it! ”

The old stove seemed to be afraid that Li Zixiao would reduce his people, so he hurriedly said.

Li Zixiao understood the thoughts of this old stove head, so he smiled and said: "I said that you don't have to be nervous, I don't want to reduce your people, I don't have many of your mouths to eat."

As long as you work hard, I will never treat you badly, let me ask you again, have you been paid your wages this time? ”

When the old stove heard this, he quickly knelt down again, kowtowed to Li Zixiao, and said, "Little Lao'er, thank you to the general!"

If the general hadn't given us these grains this time, then our whole family, young and old, would probably not have been able to survive the summer harvest, but you would have saved our whole family! ”

Li Zixiao knelt down and kowtowed again when he saw this stove, and he was also helpless, he didn't like people to kowtow to him all the time, and he didn't see that no one under his command kowtowed!

He has long changed the rules in the White Dragon Army, and he is only allowed to salute in the army, and he is not allowed to kowtow.

According to Li Zixiao, a manly husband can only kneel to the sky, kneel to the ground, kneel to his parents, teachers, kings in the middle, and the rest of the people can be ordinary etiquette.

But at this time, seeing these people, kneeling down and kowtowing at every turn, Li Zixiao is really uncomfortable, you think about letting a person who can be his father kowtow to him all the time, isn't that a discount on his life!

Seeing Li Zixiao shaking his head helplessly, Quartz on the side spoke out unhappily and shouted: "Stand up, our general doesn't want to watch you talk on your knees like this, what are you afraid of?" Just answer my general's words honestly. ”

The old stove was like a spring under his legs, and as soon as he heard the scolding of quartz, he immediately bounced up, which made Li Zixiao can't believe that his legs and feet will be so sharp.

Because of Quartz's fierce and vicious ugly face, coupled with his shout, this stove dare not get up immediately!

Li Zixiao also immediately these people, they were also afraid, and comforted: "Now you can rest assured, I, Li, will never be mean to you."

As long as you work hard, I must ensure that everyone here is well fed, so that their wives and children will no longer suffer and starve.

Now you have the first month's money, and there will be a second month, a third month. That's what you deserve.

As long as you follow me Li, I will never let you go back to the hard life you used to have, can you believe me? (To be continued.) )