Qin Official

Ying County is also called "Jinancheng" because it is just south of Jishan Mountain and northwest of Yunmengze. The copper mine closest to Ying County and Jiangling, Tongguan, is located on Jishan Mountain.

"In the land of Jingchu, gold (copper), lead (lead), tin and other mineral deposits are far richer than those in the Central Plains. Unfortunately, most of them are still in the hands of the Chu State."

The next day after inspecting the arsenal, Li You took Heifu and others to Jishan to inspect the copper workshop of the official camp. After the copper official Yangxi learned the news, he came to the fork in the road to greet them in person, probably because of the fight with Liehuo Mine. After many interactions, this person is a bit darker than Heifu...

As they walked, Yang Xi introduced his business.

"The largest copper mine is located near Zuo Bing Cao Shi's hometown..."

Hei Fu heard this and immediately remembered: "Could it be Tonglu Mountain?"

"Of course, it is the Tonglushan Mountain in Hubei, which is separated from Anlu by the Yangtze River. It is said that people have mined copper there and smelted copper ingots since the Yin and Shang Dynasties. After thousands of years of excavation by the Zhou and Chu Dynasties, there is still an endless supply!"

How abundant are the copper mines there? It is said that every time there is a sudden rain, after the soil on the surface of the mountain is washed away, green or blue stars will be exposed all over the mountain, which are exposed copper veins.

Heifu, who had learned some chemistry in middle and high school in his previous life, remembered that green should be the color of malachite, from which copper is smelted.

Yang Xi even told Heifu and others that when King Zhao of Zhou conquered Jingchu southward, he wanted to obtain the "US dollars" produced in the Tonglu Mountain in Hubei, and take them back as trophies to cast ritual vessels.

"As a result, King Zhao of Zhou drowned in the Han River and never returned to Zong Zhou." When he said this, Yang Xi was quite gloating about his misfortune.

He also said that in addition to the Tonglu Mountain in the hills of southern Hubei, there are many large-scale copper mines in Jiangnan (Hunan), Liudi (Anhui), and Gandi (Jiangxi). These copper and tin mines were the basis for the Chu State to dare to aspire to the Central Plains during the Spring and Autumn Period. No wonder the King of Chuzhuang at that time boasted shamelessly: "The beak of the Chu State's broken hook is enough to make the Jiuding!"

At this time, after a group of people walked a few miles north from Ying County, they had arrived at their destination, only to see a small hill dozens of meters above the surface, stretching for more than ten miles.

"Commander Lieutenant and Zuo Bing Cao Shi, please look at it. It rained yesterday. Are there faint green colors on some of the stones on Ji Mountain? As the saying goes, those with cinnabar on the top have gold below, and those with loving-kindness stones on the top have copper and gold below. "If there is green stone on the top, there will be lead, tin, and red copper on the bottom. If there is ocher on the top, there will be iron on the bottom. This Ji Mountain is a big copper mountain."

"But I heard that the quality of the copper mines here is not good, and it is far inferior to Tonglu Mountain." Li You somewhat disliked this "Copper Mountain" and only felt that it was useless.

"County Lieutenant."

Yang Xi said amusingly: "Even if the copper mines in the entire Nanjun were added up, they would probably not be as large as the reserves of Tonglushan, and the copper ingots produced by Nanjun every year are less than half of those of Tonglushan..."

"If we can capture the Copper Green Mountain, I won't have to worry about the lack of copper and iron."

Li You sighed sadly, but he also knew that the Chu people still had a lot of troops in the Jiangnan area, and there were two to three thousand soldiers responsible for guarding the Tonglu Mountain in southern Hubei. Qin's strategy is more inclined to concentrate its army to attack Huainan and Huaibei, the core areas of Chu, and does not plan to open another front south of the Yangtze River...

Heifu looked around on the horse and saw that the cedars on this small hill had almost been cut down. However, following the shouts, trees halfway up the mountain fell to the ground from time to time with the shouts, as if they were determined to They will stop only after cutting down all the trees in this area.

"Isn't it stipulated in the field law that logging is not allowed in spring?" Heifu asked Yang Xi.

"This is not the case for copper and iron officials."

Yang Xi replied: "After all, it is a weapon of the military and it cannot be turned off all year round."

He added: "But as Zuo Bing Cao Shi said, the wood in spring is moist and it is really difficult to burn. Therefore, more fuel should be cut from Dahong Mountain and Jingshan Mountain in autumn and winter, and then sent here. Store for later use. Nowadays, trees are cut down only to dig the mines below."

Although the copper mine is not large, it is guarded by more than a hundred soldiers, and walls are built for protection, and the entrance is strictly guarded.

The first thing they entered was the residential area, which should be provided for the officials, soldiers, and prisoners in Tongguan.

Heifu took a look and found that the living environment here was very bad. Most of the people who were sent to work were prisoners who had committed serious crimes, so they were not very motivated to work. They came out of the house only after being urged by whips. He walked listlessly towards the smelting area.

Li You and his group were also walking towards the smelting area. Before they got close, they smelled a pungent smell and felt a burning heat.

Looking from a distance, I saw more than a dozen oval-shaped furnaces erected in front. Not counting the convex rammed earth platform under the furnace, only the furnace body was basically one foot high. Each furnace was five feet apart, leaving A safe distance away. Around the furnace body, it is subdivided into various parts such as feeding, blasting, copper tapping, and water supply.

At this moment, flames were rising from the bottom of half of the furnaces, and black smoke was rising from above, covering half of the copper officials.

Dozens of craftsmen and officials were stationed around the furnaces they were responsible for. Some people stood on tiptoes on the raised platform, lifting baskets to put minerals into the furnace; some were shirtless, pushing simple windbags and sweating profusely to blow air into the furnace; craftsmen squatted He was watching the fire nervously, trying to grasp the time to turn on the stove.

"Whenever it is cast into the shape of gold; gold and tin, the black and turbid qi are exhausted, followed by yellow and white, then the yellow and white qi is exhausted, followed by green and white. The green and white qi is exhausted, followed by green and green, and then it can be cast."

This is the color-viewing method summarized in smelting bronze, which uses high temperature to smelt out the copper element inside. Whenever a red copper block comes out of the furnace and rolls into the big pit in front of the furnace, someone immediately takes water and pours it on it. The water vapor evaporates and turns into white mist. These copper blocks are then reheated and poured into the soil mold to produce copper ingots...

The newly smelted copper ingots were brought to Li You anxiously by the craftsmen. Yang Xi also complained that because the copper mines in Jishan did not contain high copper content, it often took a lot of ore and smelted it two or three times to obtain the purity. Higher brass.

Heifu looked around and found no foundry. After asking, he learned that the smelted copper ingots were not cast into weapons on the spot, but were sent to the workshop area in the southwest of Ying County, and copper and tin were sent from other places. , lead are combined together and matched into appropriate proportions before being cast into bronze.

Seeing Li You frowning and walking around each copper furnace to check the quality of the copper ingots, Heifu called Yang Xi over and asked, "Where is the place where the ore is processed? Take me to see it."

Yang Xi looked surprised. In the past, the county captain sent people to inspect the area, and they basically just walked around the smelting area and rarely went further inside. So he smiled and said: "Zuo Bing Cao Shi, the place where the ore is processed is even dirtier. Not only is sewage flowing across the place, but there are also stone chips and dust flying around. It's not very nice to see."

Heifu ignored it and let Yang Xi lead the way. Sure enough, after walking more than a hundred steps in, he was met by flying powder. When Heifu closed his eyes and opened them again, he found that they had entered the mine storage yard.

After hundreds of prisoners dug out the mud-covered copper ore from Jishan Mountain, they used cattle, horses, etc. to transport the copper ore in baskets to the water flow at the foot of Liujie Mountain for cleaning, and then sent it downhill to the ore storage site. Mountains of yellow or green copper ore pile up here.

Prisoners in ocher clothes with disheveled heads and bare feet worked here. Most of them had their hair and beards shaved off. Some of the death row prisoners still wore wooden clamps around their necks, with their heads drooped and their waists hunched. But it did not delay them from working hard under the whip of the supervisor, using hammers, stone rams and other tools to crush the whole piece of ore into pieces.

This is probably the most time-consuming and laborious process in the entire smelting process. The ore is so hard that it takes a long time to smash it into crushed ore that can be put into the furnace.

As he walked, Heifu felt his eyes light up because he saw rows of treadmills in a corner of the mine yard. Many gray-faced and skinny prisoners were trampling on it, causing the stone hammers of the hammer to be lifted and dropped continuously, crushing the already smashed ore into even finer pieces... because the finer the ore powder, the finer it is. Easy to smelt.

Heifu suddenly became interested, pointed over there and said, "When did the ore start to be processed with a treadmill here?"

Yang Xi replied: "Probably after the autumn harvest the year before last, this thing began to be promoted by the county governors in various counties and villages for use in pounding grain. At that time, the county engineer thought that the treadmill could also be used for copper officials, so that those who were weak and could not The heavy-lifting criminals trample the ore into finer pieces, which is indeed easier to use, but unfortunately it is still not enough..."

He pointed at the mountains of ore around him and whispered: "Now the county captain wants us to increase our copper smelting output, but no matter how many stoves we build, the prisoners still can't process the ore quickly."

It turns out that Jishan Copper Mine has a low copper content, so each kilogram of copper produced requires more ore. Just processing the ore has made the prisoners miserable, and more than ten people have to die from exhaustion every month. personal.

Hei Fu nodded, feeling measured in his mind, but remained silent for the time being. He glanced at the prisoners living in the water and heat again, shook his head slightly, and returned to the smelting site with Yang Xi.

Far away, they heard the roar of County Lieutenant Li You.

"I don't care what you do. In the next six months, I must hand over twice as much copper as before!"

Yang Xi hurried over, and he and the other craftsmen complained endlessly: "Unless we allocate hundreds of criminals like us to smash the ore, we can achieve the output required by the county captain. Otherwise, even if more ore is transported down the mountain, there will be no more ore outside." Building more stoves is useless!"

At this time, Hei Fu interjected: "The county captain and the subordinates have an idea that may solve this problem!"

"oh?"

Li You, Yang Xi, and all the craftsmen with gray faces looked at Heifu, and everyone wanted to know what he had in mind.

"The subordinate is bold and wants to recommend a person, a craftsman, to the county captain, because the subordinate once saw that he made a kind of instrument. If used to process ore, it can not only save twice the manpower, but also double the effect!"

Li You was overjoyed when he heard this and asked: "Is there really such a person? Who is he?"

Heifu said: "She is the subordinate's sister-in-law. It involves forging weapons and enriching the arsenal. The subordinate can only recommend talents and not avoid relatives!"

"Sister-in-law?"

Including Yang Xi, all the craftsmen showed strange expressions.

Some people said in disbelief: "Zuo Bing Cao Shi can save twice the manpower. This is too exaggerated. But you can't brag like this just because he is your sister-in-law..."

They always felt that Heifu was taking the opportunity to arrange for relatives to come to the county, and a trace of suspicion flashed in Li You's eyes.

"This is not bragging." Heifu said: "Do you know that Tashi has another name?"

The craftsmen looked at each other: "Anlu Di?"

"Of course!"

Hei Fu held up his palm and said with a smile: "To be honest, my sister-in-law's name is Citron, and he was the first person to make the Anlu Treading Turret! My sister-in-law once threatened me that as long as I gave him hands, money, and silk, he would Then we can transform the treadmill that still requires manual operation into an artifact that can operate automatically without manual operation!"

He began to boast brazenly: "By then, don't talk about saving twice as much manpower, but ten times as much!"