Now that winter has fallen, the large farmland on both sides of the White River has been planted with winter wheat, the black soil is longitudinal and horizontal, and there are small villages one by one, and the sound of chickens and dogs barking from time to time is heard, which looks no different from the countryside in later generations.

But seven or eight miles away, puffs of smoke rose into the air, densely like pillars of smoke spreading across the sky, and the sound of tinkling and banging could be heard.

Soon, the four of them approached the smoking area, the air was filled with a strong smell of charcoal fire and sulfur and iron, Chen Xu found that this place was unusually prosperous, full of copper and iron smelting and processing workshops, countless black and thin ragged workers and slaves smelting copper and iron to make tools under the supervision of the overseer, there were ox carts and carriages one after another along the road, and even some large caravans and dozens of carriages could not see their heads at a glance, all of them were carrying heavy loads, squeaking and jolting all the way, From time to time, copper and iron ore and charcoal fell, and at the entrance of all the workshops, there were cows, horses, and mule carts coming in and out, among which there were many officials in blue clothes, with soldiers constantly patrolling back and forth, and from time to time you could hear loud scolding and scolding.

This situation, falling in Chen Xu's eyes, made him feel inexplicable anger and excitement, anger was because of the miserable experience of those workers and slaves who were whipped and scolded by the overseers, and excited because Daqin actually had such a thriving metal smelting and processing base.

Although they are all very small earthen smelting furnaces, which consume and waste a lot of charcoal and copper and iron ore, and these copper and iron are still unusable after repeated smelting, it has to be denied that the basic industry of metal smelting in Daqin has a certain scale, and the output is naturally quite a lot.

In order to maintain the food and drink of the slaves and other personnel in so many workshops, in addition to the caravans transporting copper, iron, ore and charcoal, the caravans selling grain were also endless every day.

"Xiao Langjun, there are more than 600 copper and iron smelting workshops in the suburbs of Wancheng, and the annual output of copper and iron is countless, and there are no less than 30,000 slaves. Seeing Chen Xu's curiosity, the man who led the way carefully explained.

At this time, Chen Xu also somewhat understood why Qin Shi Huang wanted to move all the copper and iron merchants from all over the country to Nanyang County, the first is not only Nanyang is the hinterland of the Central Plains, in the center of north-south transportation, and the copper and iron smelted here can be transported to the whole country through the transportation network extending in all directions, and there is one of the most important reasons, that is, grain.

To gather these hundreds of copper and iron merchants together to manage, the consumption of grain must be an astronomical amount, and only Nanyang County, an area with developed agriculture, can support such a large daily consumption, and this is only near Wancheng, the entire Nanyang County more than 30 counties, except for the extremely remote and poor mountainous areas of Kaiyang County, almost every county has a large number of copper and iron workshops, and the number of people involved in copper and iron smelting and processing in the entire Nanyang County is close to 100,000, not counting those surrounding personnel who burn charcoal, open mines, and transport supportTherefore, in addition to growing grain, the metal processing industry has become a pillar industry in Nanyang, absorbing hundreds of thousands of people to participate in it.

Although most of them were slaves captured from the Six Nations, there were also many outcasts, convicts, bandits, criminals, and even civilians like the owner of the foothouse, who had been forcibly deprived of their household registration and then sold.

No matter who it is, once these workshops are bought and become slaves, they will basically be miserable for the rest of their lives, just for a mouthful of food every day of hard work, not enough to eat and clothing, compared to the poorest poor people, accidentally sick or injured, the owner will never give treatment, can only wail and wait for death, and this primitive smelting workshop, full of strong sulfur and carbon atmosphere, after a long period of edification, lesions are inevitable, not to mention that there are often things like furnaces collapsing and overturning, Death was therefore a daily occurrence for these slaves, and all of them were in a precarious situation.

And how many of these copper and iron merchants who were forcibly relocated to Nanyang County were loyal to Daqin is completely unknown, and how many of these workers and slaves are willing to live this oppressed life that is worse than death is even more unknown.

Although the slavery system of the Great Zhou Dynasty has completely collapsed, slaves still exist.

Arise, you who do not want to be slaves, and cast our flesh and blood into our new Great Wall......

Chen Xu suddenly sounded this song in his heart for no reason, and at the same time, he seemed to see countless red flags sweeping in front of him, and those ragged and whipped slaves roared up with scythes and axes......

Nima, didn't Lao Tzu sleep well last night!

Chen Xu shook his head and drove this strange scene out of his mind.

Half an hour later, the four of them came to a hill under the leadership of the man, and dozens of yellow or black pillars of smoke rose up in the mountain, and depending on the scale, there must be a very huge copper and iron workshop in it.

"Xiao Langjun, it should be here!" The middle-aged man looked back and said.

The four of them rode along a fairly smooth and wide road for about three miles, and then they saw a huge fence of sharpened thick logs blocking the valley, and behind the fence there were two towers several feet high, and on either side were the steep walls that had been dug out, which were no longer passable.

"Who is sneaky, report your name!" Suddenly, a gruff voice came from the tower.

"I'm Ma Teng's subordinate Hu Kuan, and I want to see your owner for something!" The man roared on his horse.

"Later, wait for me to report!" A person on the tower went down the wooden ladder and left on a horse, and after waiting for about a quarter of an hour, several people followed and returned together, and after looking at Chen Xu and the others a few times through the fence, one of the middle-aged men said loudly: "The owner is not here today, you better come back another day!" ”

"Bold, a businessman dares to perfunctory to me, be careful that I tell Ma Gongzi that you owners will follow the crime to the county lieutenant prison!" Hu Kuan was furious.

"Haha, we have already heard that Ma Teng is not in Xianyang now, why do you come to scare me and wait, Hu Kuan, it's not that we don't want to let you in, but the owner of the workshop is indeed not here today, he entered the city yesterday and has not returned yet, if you are lucky, you can still meet him in the city today, if there is anything important, you can tell the owner in person, there are only charcoal and copper smelting workshops and hundreds of slaves in this mountain, we will not let you come in to play!" The middle-aged man said lightly through the fence.

Hu Kuan's face was ugly but he turned his head helplessly to look at Chen Xu, his face was slightly pale, yesterday Chen Xu said that he had to get the family back today, but now people didn't see it, and they were sneered and touched with a gray nose.

"Xiao Langjun ......"

Chen Xu waved his hand to stop Hu Kuan from finishing his words, this businessman was able to dominate a hill with dozens of chimneys smoking, which showed that this person's financial resources were extremely strong.

But no matter how strong the financial resources are, the status of the merchants in the Qin Dynasty is extremely low, and they will be cautious at any time, but these people in front of them are a little outrageously bold, no matter whether Ma Teng returned to Xianyang or not, according to normal speaking, he would definitely not contradict and ridicule his subordinates like this, and use sharp fences to block the valley, and there are also watchtowers inside, all of which are extremely abnormal.

There's a cat in this mountain!

Chen Xu had some enlightenment in an instant.

But soon he put this idea behind him, since ancient times, officials and businessmen have colluded, there are too many cats, and those who are not greasy have collapsed early, so this is not a problem, the problem is that Lao Tzu can't run this trip in vain, more than 20 miles, it takes at least two hours to come and go, and the back pain of riding a horse hurts chrysanthemums.

"Wang Wu, can you get in!" Chen Xu turned his head and asked.

"Hehe, Chen Lidian is optimistic, Xiao Qi will press me down!" Wang Wu slowly drew the big sword at his waist.

"What do you want to do?" Several people in the fence were suddenly a little flustered, and the middle-aged man shouted angrily at Chen Xu and the others.

"Driving~" Wang Wu's legs clamped the horse's belly, the horse under the crotch cooperated skillfully, and one person and one horse rushed out like a dragon, like a horse's hooves the size of a rice bowl splashed a large area of mud and gravel, and in the blink of an eye, Wang Wu rushed to the front of the fence.

"Up~" accompanied by a roar from Wang Wu, the reins of the horse in his hand were lifted up, and the horse soared into the air and fell directly over the fence more than two meters high and fell into the valley, several people scattered in panic, but the middle-aged man was caught up by Wang Wu in an instant, and a big sword with a cold light rested on his shoulder.

The middle-aged man shuddered and froze in place, crying for mercy.

"Go get the fence out of the way!" Under Wang Wu's persecution, the middle-aged man had no choice but to return to the fence in horror, forcefully lifted down a huge tree as thick as a waist, and then pushed the fence away from the passage that only allowed one carriage to enter.

"Several, the owner is really not ...... today" The middle-aged man was terrified.

"I'm just here to find a few people, it doesn't matter if the owner isn't there, Hu Kuan, you tell him, if I can't see anyone within half an hour, don't blame me for being unkind!" Chen Xu said condescendingly on his horse.

Just when Hu Kuan told the middle-aged man about the appearance and trading time of the family in the foothouse, there was the sound of kicking and trampling horses' hooves and squeaky wheels outside the valley.

"Several, the owner is back, just ask him if you have something!" The middle-aged man also breathed a sigh of relief instantly.

"Who are you?" The carriage soon entered the valley along the passage, and a group of guards saw that Wang Wu had also put a big sword on the middle-aged man's neck, and immediately nervously and quickly pulled out the weapons on their waists and drank together.