The days can really get better and better, because of the coal!

Now there is a shortage of wood, there is no shortage of clay, with sufficient fuel, Wang Hou waved his hand, and the masons in the house directly dug out a few brick kilns in the mountains, and the coal stove was burning hot, and the big green bricks were taken out.

As for cement, there is no shortage of limestone! In ancient times, it was one of the building materials, and the Ming Dynasty Yu Qian and such scholars could chant "Lime Yin", which shows how common this thing is, one of the important ingredients in Roman cement, volcanic ash Wang Hou is indeed not now, but this thing can also be replaced by slag after ironmaking, near the north city is Cao Zong's ordnance supervisor, and the slag outside the door is piled up into a hill, and piles of slag are pulled casually.

However, at this time, there is no steel bar, and the house is not strong just by bricks and cement, so it can only be a solution, and the two-layer bricks are stacked up to about two meters, and the space in the house is only a few square meters, and the shoulders can barely squeeze in a family of seven, as for the overhead, the straw is supported by wooden poles as the roof, and the wind blows and shouts.

But this is a shelter from the wind and rain, especially Wang Hou also gave full play to the characteristics of the palace, a lot of ugly and ugly low-lying houses, but they are all equipped with a fire kang, the cold wind outside is whistling, a handful of coal in the stove goes in, the kang head inside is sitting on the buttocks, hard to dig coal all day, at night can sit on the hot kang head soaked in hot water to gnaw steamed buns, eat pickled radish pieces, in this troubled era of people eating people, it is already a great happiness.

However, happiness can only be for a small group of people for the time being, in order to let the village elders under his command detach themselves from the masses and be envied, and to prevent them from rebelling in the future, the first batch of houses will be lived in by the twenty village families in each village, and the remaining few will be rewarded to the dozen or so families who are most active in production, and the remaining more than 2,000 people will have to drill straw piles.

But there's a hope, right?

However, in the past month, the black coal mountain has been cut out of the ground, but until now, Wang Hou has not exchanged a single stone of wheat.

Now Xu Du lacks winter fuel, when he was looking for Mr. Cao's public relations to get his hands on this coal mine, Wang Hou was ambitious and wanted to make a windfall, but this thing really got it, only to find that there were a lot of problems. It is no wonder that it was not until the middle and late Northern and Southern Dynasties that coal began to be used on a large scale, and it was too difficult to ignite coal, and the smoke and fire were overflowing, and the market facing Wang Hou was all nobles and elegant people! Urbane people don't understand! As soon as this thing burns black, it will be lit up, and the fireworks will be splashed everywhere, who will buy it?

Fortunately, Wang Hou is standing on the shoulders of the giant of time, when he was a child, his family lived in the kang building, and he remembered that the yellow mud and fine coal noodles were burned together.

And now there's a breakthrough!

Pieces of bright and gratifying high-quality large coals, but at this time they were picked and abandoned aside, using only lumps of coal ash, which was mixed with the yellow mud in the small river ditch halfway up the mountainside, and a few shovels were constantly stirring, and a large lump of black mud was closed on the edge of the warm fire.

Then Wang Hou was not afraid of getting dirty, and in the eyes of Wang Fuwang and several plasterers, he personally squatted on the edge of the mud cake and played with the mud.

This time the bricks have been burned a lot, and the experience of the two muddy water generals in the house has risen, and now it is about to be upgraded to the level of the plasterer Marst, according to Wang Hou's requirements, he will be given a lot less bricks with arc-shaped edges, and the four bricks together are an irregular circle, in Wang Fu, Wang Pole and Cao Hongjie's big eyes and eyes, reaching out to grab the wet briquettes, Wang Hou is one by one buckled in the middle of this big money brick, after buckling a piece, he also stuck a wooden stick in the middle like playing with mud as a candle, The buckle full of briquettes is directly placed on the hot kang head and burned, just so busy for half a day, the briquettes put in are still wet, but the first one has been dry and hard, and then the wooden stick just inserted is carefully pulled out, and one by one the transparent holes are densely arranged on the cake surface.

It's really like holding a hot pancake, sending the black flatbread into the stove, and a handful of straw at the bottom, Wang Hou's heart can't help but lift, this is already the seventh day of the experiment and not the eighth day, I don't know how many formulas have been tested, if it doesn't work out this time, he will collapse.

But this time, Lady Luck must have favored him extraordinarily, and mixed in a layer of baked black sawdust, which began to light up within a few seconds of touching the straw, and then the whole coal was crystal clear and red, and emitted a blazing fire in the stove.

Seeing this scene, Wang Hou was about to burst into tears with mixed feelings, Honeycomb Coal No. 18 can be regarded as a fucking success!

It is easy to burn and smokeless, and more importantly, it is much cheaper than the snowflake charcoal fired by firewood from the deep mountains. Presiding over housework all the year round, Wang Fu knows too well how cost-effective this black thing is, and looked at the scorching flames steaming in the fire in surprise, and then the old guy was full of smiles, hugged his fist at Wang Hou, and was the first to slap the sycophants over.

"Congratulations, sir!"

also straightened his waist, and Wang Hou himself hummed refreshedly.

"Let Wang Ni burn such arc-shaped bricks for me! The more the merrier, and then let the women and the elderly who have not been assigned work come and make mud cakes, and do it according to this recipe ratio! We also have to live a luxurious life of two steamed buns, one to eat and throw one, two bowls of soy milk, and one bowl to drink, hahahaha! ”

"Uh~~"

Seeing that his head of the family could see the back molars with a smile in the sky, Wang Fu's old cheeks couldn't help but twitch.

…………

There are more than 400 strong men and 400 people under his command, more than 400 strong men plus 300 old men under 60 and over 45 who are still doing rough work to mine, 200 strong men are responsible for burning bricks and building kangs, more than 1,000 women are responsible for making honeycomb coal, and the rest of the old people, women and children are helping around, and in less than a few days, Wang Hou's mining area has 50 more low and ugly small lying houses and a large shed like a hill of honeycomb coal.

However, Wang Hou can't laugh because of this, and now he understands the troubles of young Koreans in later generations.

I once read a report that young people in South Korea are actually very envious of Chinese young people, because in China, young people can start a business if they want to start a business, open a milk tea shop if they want to open a milk tea shop, open a small restaurant if they want to open a small restaurant, and just register it with the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, but in South Korea, bibimbap has a super chain monopoly, soup rice has a super chain monopoly, and everything has a big consortium monopoly, and the only thing that is a little freer seems to be only fried chicken restaurants, but it is still an extremely competitive industry.

Nowadays, the end of the Han Dynasty is similar, a group of hypocrites of the great family shout Confucian contempt for businessmen, but in fact, it is these Dashi clans who monopolize commerce, and this monopoly is so tight that there are no shops even visible on the surface, and Xu Du's business activities are directly digested within the great family.

For example, the energy coal burned, near the southern foot of Funiu Mountain near Xudu is the royal forest farm assigned by Cao Cao to Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, and the royal family naturally cannot operate it personally, so it is operated by several imperial relatives such as Taishi Dong Cheng, and except for some folk firewood collectors who are scattered and trafficked into Xudu, almost all of the carbon fire supply of the entire city comes from the Dong family.

There is also the Jinyang Wang clan who just kicked him out of the house, he is not a Shanxi coal boss now, but it is still a family that Cao Zong has to pay attention to, relying on the Southern Xiongnu tribe outside the mouth, the Jinyang Wang clan can almost monopolize eighty percent of the horses and livestock transported from the grassland to the Central Plains.

There are Hongnong Yang's, Yingchuan's Xun's, and the family, a large number of families monopolized the corners of the business a clean, Wang Hou made honeycomb coal, and opened up the side of his house on the north street with great interest into a shop, and also transferred a few beautiful young "waitresses" to sell, sold for several days, but a piece of briquettes were not sold, left and right to inquire, next to the north of the house is Shaofu Cheng Dingyi, the old Hongnong Yang Feng, the west is the former Cangcao main book, now Yang Xiu, who is now the imperial historian, is also the Hongnong Yang family, As for the good side of the east, it doesn't have anything to do with the Hongnong Yang family, and it was Wang Lang of the Jinyang Wang clan who directly kicked him out of the door, although he is not a sect with the general prince, but he still doesn't like it.

Then he's still selling!

So he, a lizard gull of a "big business" with 4,000 people, had to run the business himself.

It's the majestic hall of Mr. Cao again, and it's the towering three steps, but seeing Wang Hou lying at the bottom with his head to the ground and his butt facing the sky, Cao Cao is looking a little aesthetically tired, knocking on his skull with a headache, and asking in an impatient tone.

"Which piece of land do you like again?"

"Back to Prime Minister, there is an iron mine on the edge of the 500 acres of mountains and forests that your old man gave to the lower officials, and the subordinates don't need the land, and the subordinates are offering charcoal this time to solve the problem of insufficient fuel in the imperial capital!"

"Please move to the kang room!"

This is also a problem, patience, Cao Cao followed Wang Hou to the side room again, watching him take out the charcoal fire burning in the furnace, and fill two pieces of his honeycomb coal, one carbon fire ignited the honeycomb coal containing carbonized wood chips, not to mention, such a large thing exudes a red flame, it looks quite beautiful.

It's just that for Mr. Cao, as long as it can be burned, he doesn't care how many technical bacteria are contained in it, he takes a general look, and then slaps casually.

"Wang Cangcao has worked hard, and in the future, the burning of the Prime Minister's Mansion will use the charcoal from your mine, go down!"

"Prime Minister, there are still 30,000 soldiers hoarded outside the city, suffering from the bitter cold, the supply of coal on the Xiaguan mine is absolutely sufficient, day by day, please Prime Minister purchase the coal on the Xiaguan mine to warm the sergeants!"

Rubbing his hands, he looked like a profiteer, and Wang Hou was invited. It is estimated that this is the first time in his life that someone has sold it to him, and this time, Cao Cao was stunned for a few seconds, and then pointed to his nose in a bit of an incredible.

"Wang Cangcao, are you asking for money from Benxiang?"