Of course, Xinzheng is not short of coal, this place is one of the important production areas of Zheng Coal Group in later generations, how can there be a shortage of coal? From Zhengzhou to the south, through Xinzheng, Xuchang to Pingdingshan, this line all the way to the west, until the huge area of Luoyang, is full of coal mine distribution areas, if you add the Yima mining area in the west of Luoyang, the mining area of the entire western Henan is round.

Of course, Gao Pragmatism does not need so many coal mines at all, he has neither such a strong mining capacity nor such a strong digestion ability, he only needs to open two mines in Xinzheng - roughly the Zhaojiazhai Coal Mine and Wangxingzhuang Coal Mine in Xinzheng City in the later generations.

These two mines have several advantages: the first is that they are very close to Xinzheng County, about 20 miles west of Xinzheng County, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with obvious location advantages.

You must know that in the era of the Ming Dynasty, there is no key to mining, the key is that you have to open the mine and have to transport it, if the transportation is difficult, unless it is a gold or silver mine, or no matter how bad it is, it must be a copper mine, then it will not lose money. If you go to the mountains and forests to dig coal, you will definitely lose all your underwear.

The second advantage is the large mine. How big is it? Let's not talk about Wangxingzhuang Coal Mine, let's just say that Zhaojiazhai Coal Mine, the proven reserves of later generations is 470 million tons, and the mining capacity is 3 million tons per year, which is the largest coalfield in Henan.

Gao pragmatic doesn't expect anything 3 million tons, he doesn't have such good equipment, but even if it is reduced to one percent of the later generations, there will be 30,000 tons of coal...... This was in the Ming Dynasty, and 30,000 tons was not a small amount. If Wang Xingzhuang is added, the two mines together produce 50,000 tons of coal per year, it will definitely not be a problem.

If Gao is interested in vigorously developing around Xinzheng, it will be enough to form his second coal production base in addition to the Jingshi Coal Mine (including Kaiping and Jingxi).

The third advantage is the availability of coking coal. Although China has a lot of coal, the proportion of coking coal is not very high, so the ability to produce coking coal can be regarded as an advantage.

But when it comes to Xinzheng specifically, it is a little embarrassing, because Xinzheng only has coal, and there is no iron ore worth developing, at least Gao Pragmatic does not remember any iron ore worth mentioning in Xinzheng.

Originally, looking at the whole of Henan, iron ore is not the main resource, the nearest to Xinzheng and under the current technical conditions of the Ming Dynasty, the iron ore with some development value, in the impression of high pragmatism, is probably Xuchang iron ore.

The problem, however, is that Xuchang not only has iron ore, it also has its own coal mines, and the output is also not low. If you want to make steel in Xuchang, you don't need to transport coal from Xinzheng at all, you can do it directly locally. In this case, transporting coal from Xinzheng to Xuchang for steelmaking, or transporting iron ore from Xuchang to Xinzheng for steelmaking, in terms of the transportation efficiency of the Ming Dynasty, is completely a brain-pitted behavior.

Gao Pragmatic knows that he is just a liberal arts student, and he only understands iron, coal, etc., all by some contact when he works in the county party committee, so that he can improve Daming's steelmaking technology a little, so that he does not have to use charcoal to make steel, he can still reluctantly give it a try, but to be more advanced, and even to be able to play the railway, it will be too difficult for him.

Therefore, in an inland area like Henan, it is powerless to improve transportation efficiency.

But Gao pragmatic did not figure out the key point, that is, the specific location of Xuchang Iron Mine - it is located in Suqiao Town, Jian'an District, Xuchang City, which belonged to Changge County (the middle of Xinzheng and Xuchang) during the Longqing period of the Ming Dynasty, and is actually only 35 kilometers away from Xinzheng - that is, 70 miles away.

This is actually a completely acceptable distance, but unfortunately Gao Pragmatic does not know.

He thought about it and decided to open the coal mine in Xinzheng first, even if he couldn't make steel, he could still generate income for his hometown by selling honeycomb coal - people in this era have a very deep sense of locality, and if an official does not want to do something to benefit his hometown, he may even be scolded.

To cite two examples: after the highly pragmatic Wubo returned to Xinzheng from the Governor's Mansion, the Shangshu Imperial Court set up Guodian Horse Post in Xinzheng to facilitate the travel of Xinzheng people, for which he also took the initiative to take the lead in funding and fund-raising, and as a result, only the joint contribution of the Gao family's five rooms (four rooms and no heirs, not counted) accounted for half of the local capital; After Guo Puzhishi returned to Anyang, because he was a standard poor official, he could not take care of his hometown financially, so he participated in the compilation of Anyang County Chronicles, etc., which can be regarded as a contribution to his hometown.

Therefore, Gao pragmatic would rather give up steelmaking in Henan for the time being to mine the Xinzheng coal mine, mainly from the perspective of benefiting his hometown - at least after the establishment of the coal mine, many people can go to odd jobs, sell some rice and noodles, fruits and vegetables or other small items to the workers in the mine, in the words of later generations, this is called driving the healthy development of the local economy.

He told Zhang about this idea, and after hearing it, Zhang thought for a while, and asked with some hesitation: "How much can that honeycomb coal sell in Xinzheng?" I know you want to benefit the township, but this kind of thing must always be done within your means, but don't dig up the charcoal and have nowhere to sell it, it will be a great loss. ”

Gao pragmatic shook his head: "I haven't investigated this yet, but according to history, Kaifeng Mansion in the pre-Song Dynasty was already dominated by coal burning, and now there are a lot, and the combustion efficiency of my honeycomb coal is much higher than that of burning briquettes, but the cost is lower. If it is a little difficult to sell to Kaifeng Mansion, you can also sell Xinzheng and the surrounding prefectures and counties first, I think the loss should not be ...... It's really not good, just our Gao family every year, changing charcoal burning to coal burning, can also consume a lot. ”

Zhang waved his hand disapplausively and said, "How can you only try to protect the principal when you do business?" Shall you open a church of goodness? No matter how big your family property is, if a business is not profitable, sooner or later it will not be able to continue, in this case, it is better not to do it in the first place. ”

Hey, mother, you are worthy of being born in a business family for generations, which makes some sense.

Gao pragmatic thought for a while, then nodded and admitted, then thought about it again, and said: "I brought two samples of the shearer that makes honeycomb coal, tomorrow we will get some coal, I will first let people try to make some honeycomb coal for my mother to see the effect, and then we will discuss whether coal mining is cost-effective." ”

Zhang smiled: "There are briquettes at home, no need for tomorrow, if you have time for a while, call a few people to give it a try, if it is really as good as you said, we can also sell it to Kaifeng Mansion - you may not know, Kaifeng itself does not produce coal, its coal there is transported from Zhengzhou or Qixian County, these two places to Kaifeng, not much closer than from Xinzheng to Kaifeng, at most nearly ten or twenty miles, it doesn't matter." ”

Gao was overjoyed: "That's great, as long as you can win the market of Kaifeng Mansion, this chess will be lived." ”

Zhang nodded with a smile, and said: "Also, you just said that the iron mine in Xu County is far away, this Wei Niang is not very clear, but Wei Niang remembers that your fifth uncle mentioned the previous time, the iron used in his trial production of firearms at home is from Xu County, since you are going to visit him in the county tomorrow, you might as well ask him there, to see if the iron in Xu County is dug and refined by himself, or transported from elsewhere, if it is digging a pit by yourself, you can ask where it was dug by yourself, and then calculate the distance, and you can make a final conclusion." ”