When everyone left the house and came to the yamen, Cao Jingyuan had already gathered eight guards and He Zhutou outside the door, and everyone was carrying something like a shovel and a shovel on their backs

Hao Tieniu stood in front of the door excitedly, and when he saw Fang Ling and his party coming from a distance, he whispered to everyone: "Your Highness is here!"

Everyone hurriedly turned their heads to look, and saw that although the young man was young, there was a sense of nobility between his gestures.

Then they saluted.

Fang Ling smiled and asked everyone to get up, and asked: "You must have already listened to Lord Cao's orders, we are going to Stone Mountain to look for iron ore today, you must look carefully, you can't let go of any place, any possibility." Of course, today's work will not make everyone's hard work in vain, each person will be rewarded with 2 taels of silver, in addition, if anyone can find iron ore, 10 taels of silver!"

Everyone listened to the mood and suddenly became emotional, one by one even their faces turned red, in this small town, the standard of living is not as high as the imperial city, even the buns can be sold for 3 yuan each, here 3 yuan can buy several buns, and these 2 taels of silver are basically the monthly salary of the soldiers defending the city, just go to the mountains to find a circle, you can get 2 taels of silver, what a great good thing this is?

What's more, if you find iron ore, you will directly earn 10 taels!

Everyone jumped up and responded loudly in unison: "Subordinates obey orders!"

Hearing everyone's angry answers, Fang Ling nodded with satisfaction, in fact, he also understood in his heart that even if they didn't use silver, these soldiers would also work hard to find mines, although they even wore official uniforms that were a little shabby and washed white, but that pride and loyalty were easily written on their faces.

However, he prefers to reward their hard work with practical actions.

The group went out of the city gate and came to the first stone mountain a mile outside the city.

When he came to the foot of the stone mountain, Fang Ling found that this stone mountain was actually quite large, with a height of several hundred meters, and the mountain was full of large and small stones and some turned over soil, but these stones looked white at a glance, and there was no darker color.

However, since it is to be found, it is not something that can be seen at a glance, and the child said last night that it was found on this mountain, so there must be more than one.

Since Huang Jian was familiar with mines and the like, he commanded the soldiers and guards into three groups to prospect at the foot of the mountain, on the mountainside and on the top of the mountain.

Fang Ling and Meng Zhiyuan were not idle, one picked up a shovel and explored around the foot of the mountain, Cao Jingyuan also followed, but he was a scholar, and he was really not good at this kind of hard work.

The prospecting work sounds very simple, but in fact it is not easy, you must pry open the stones one by one, check the situation below, no one knows which piece can find traces of iron ore under it, because although it is a "dew" mine, but it is still buried under the surface of the stone layer, but it is relatively close to the ground, and it is easy to "exposed" after being washed by rain.

Sometimes a stone is pried open and poisons such as snakes and scorpions are found.

Fortunately, everyone present has martial arts, and they are not afraid of these, especially Dong Canghai, who was even more happy when he saw poisonous snakes and scorpions, and only sighed that he forgot to bring a cloth bag, otherwise he would catch a bunch of them and go back to soak in wine, but it would be very replenishing.

Time flies, and by noon, there is still nothing, and after everyone has eaten, they have not taken a nap, and they have come directly to the mountains to prospect for minerals.

Seeing the sun gradually set, the temperature gradually cooled, and under the rocks turned over were either thick soil or a large pile of gravel, and there was no trace of iron ore.

Just as Fang Ling was about to call it a day, an exciting voice suddenly came from the mountainside, and then he saw Hao Tiepan running down the mountain happily and presenting a dark stone.

Huang Jian took it and looked at it, and immediately said with great joy: "Your Highness, this is it!"

Fang Ling was overjoyed, and hurriedly asked Hao Tieniu to lead the way, and at the same time directly took out an ingot of 10 taels of silver and stuffed it into his hand, not only the soldiers were envious, but even Cao Jingyuan was a little envious, because even if he was a county order, his monthly salary was only five taels of silver a month.

The place where Hao Tieniu found the iron ore was on the south side of the stone mountainside, and when they came to the discovery site, they found that Hao Tieniu had actually dug a large hole of nearly one meter horizontally here, and the hole was full of dark and black iron ore, and it only needed to knock it hard, and it would fall down.

Before the sun set, the soldiers and guards began to dig along the hole to a depth of about one meter, and found that the ore could be dug in about half a meter in many places on the south side of the mountainside.

Since it was too late, the prospecting work was suspended, and when he left, Fang Ling specially told him that the work of discovering the iron ore must be kept secret, and no mention of it was allowed to be mentioned to anyone, including family members.

Over the next few days, the six stone hills outside the city were surveyed and the conclusions were quite astonishing: each of them had considerable iron ore reserves under the surface of the gravel, and they also penetrated deep into the strata below the mountain, connecting them into a very large vein, four of which were high in iron and the other two were slightly lower.

The excitement of this news even Fang Ling couldn't help but jump up with excitement, not to mention other people, Cao Jingyuan sighed even more, for more than ten years, he had been running for the people and all living beings, where did he expect that there would be six golden mountains outside the city gate.

That night, Fang Ling, Dong Canghai, Chen Mou, Cao Jingyuan, Huang Jian and Meng Zhiyuan began to discuss the development of iron ore in the hall of the house.

Chen Mouxian said, "Your Highness, since the content of iron ore is so abundant, it seems that it is necessary for us to build a smelter in imitation of the checkpoint fortress. ”

Fang Ling nodded and said: "I also have this idea, just when I was in Qingshui Pass, I once visited the smelter and made detailed inquiries about the equipment inside, I think with Uncle Huang here, it shouldn't be a problem to build these equipment, right?"

Huang Jian said: "The uncle of the grass people also used to work in the smelter in the county, and I have also heard of these equipment, as long as there are materials, and then the specifications are clear, the refining should not be a problem, but some helpers are needed." ”

Cao Jingyuan said on the side: "There are two blacksmith shops in the county, and there are several blacksmith masters and apprentices, who should be able to help." ”

Fang Ling asked again: "Then where is the most suitable place for the factory to be built?"

Cao Jingyuan said: "There is a vacant land near the north gate of the city, where a mile out of the city is a mine, which is more convenient, and there are no houses nearby, so it will not affect the lives of the people when making iron tools." ”

Fang Ling bowed slightly: "Lord Cao is very thoughtful, then the matter of setting up a factory for smelting is solved, and the next thing is about the sale of ironware, Lord Chen can investigate clearly?"

Chen Mou replied: "The minister went to Xihe County and Maling County to investigate in the past few days, and found that these two counties are indeed much richer, and the iron tools used by the people are basically produced by the blacksmith shops in their own counties, and they are self-sufficient, and the iron ore of the blacksmith shops is purchased from other counties, and as for military weapons and the like, they used to be sent by the county every year. ”

Fang Ling groaned and said, "So, iron products can only be sold to other counties to make a profit?"

Chen Mou nodded and said, "Other than that, there is no other way. ”

In addition to being used for the smelting of military weapons, the inferior ones can be purchased by merchants and sold to blacksmiths and other places where iron ore is needed for refining civilian iron.

Because of the discovery of iron ore, everyone was naturally excited, which was definitely a treasure for a fiefdom, so that there was no need to pay a high fee to buy iron ore from other provinces.

However, after the development of these ores, they must be used for profit, and it is impossible to invest all of them in refining military weapons, because the labor and cost required to develop iron ore itself are very high.

However, if you want to sell the refined iron to other places, you must pass through Gukou Avenue, which is a place where bandits haunt.

Fang Ling was silent for a while, and suddenly smiled: "Then recruit troops." ”

"What, recruitment?" everyone was taken aback.

Fang Ling smiled slightly: "Yes, this king is going to recruit one hundred young and middle-aged soldiers in the county, and after training them, divide them into several batches, first, to protect the county's ironware to reach Gukou Town safely and sell it, and second, to protect the opposite merchant traveler through Gukou Avenue at the same time, so that not only can you successfully sell ironware, but also more and more merchants who feel safe, and when the county becomes richer, they will also be stationed." ”

As soon as these words fell, everyone couldn't help but applaud loudly, and Chen Mou said with admiration: "Your Highness's trick is really clever, it can be described as a strategy to draw salaries from the bottom of the kettle, with Dong Guards and others here, why worry about not being able to train a hundred elite soldiers." Although we can't go into the mountains to fight bandits, we can ensure that these bandits don't rob on the mountain roads. As long as there are safe entrances and exits, there will naturally be more business travelers willing to come to the three counties. ”

Meng Zhiyuan asked, "Then do you want to charge a certain fee for this escort?"

Chen Mou said, "Don't charge a fee, these business travelers are a live reputation, free escort, and you can make His Royal Highness's prestige deeply rooted in the hearts of the people at once, and through these business travels, you can pass on all parts of the Chu State." ”

Meng Zhiyuan nodded again and again when he heard this, but Cao Jingyuan said with difficulty at this time: "Your Highness, the smelter wants to recruit a large number of people to do things, and now it has to recruit soldiers, this silver is a lot of money, and now it is in the county treasury...... It's really difficult. ”