Yang Cong is not an official of the Ministry of Industry, and his family did not start from mining, but from wood, and it is normal that he does not understand the mining industry.

He learned from Wang Xuan for a while that it was not easy to mine at this time.

The whole world is not the king's land, and the mines and mineral deposits are naturally royal, which means that the mining industry in the Ming Dynasty is monopolized by the royal family, or monopolized by eunuchs.

If you want to mine, first of all, you have to have an official go to the emperor and make an application to explain why you want to mine.

The emperor would then send eunuchs to oversee the mining, also known as mine supervisors.

This is not the end, after the mine supervisor arrives at the place, the local tyrant squire who wants to contract the mine must apply to the mine supervisor, and after the mine supervisor has confirmed the qualifications, the local tyrant squire can organize people to mine, and the mined mine cannot be sold privately, but must be sold to the designated yamen or individuals under the supervision of the imperial court.

In other words, the entire mining process was supervised by the emperor, or by the mine superintendent.

This is Zhu Yuanzhang's special rules in order to prevent man-made rebellion, after all, gold, silver, copper, iron and so on are strategic materials, especially iron ore, if someone privately mines hundreds of thousands of catties or even millions of catties of iron ore, and then turns it into weapons, it will be terrible.

This rule is logically not a problem, the imperial court controls the output and sale of all mineral deposits, and it can indeed prevent some people with ulterior motives from creating weapons to rebel, and there was indeed no problem at the beginning, because Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di controlled the eunuchs more strictly, and the eunuchs under them did not dare to be arrogant, and Renzong Xuanzong was also relatively normal later.

However, in the orthodox years of Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Zhen was favored, and the eunuch turned over and became the master, and the disadvantages of the mining system of the Ming Dynasty slowly appeared.

Because the power of the mine supervisor is too great, it can be said that the mining of mineral deposits is completely controlled by them, and once the eunuch gains power, the mine will not be easy to open, because if you don't feed the mine supervisor, people will not let you mine.

As a result, there are more and more examples of corruption by mine supervisors, while the output of gold, silver, copper and iron ore in the Ming Dynasty is getting smaller and smaller.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the mining volume of gold, silver, copper and iron in the Ming Dynasty ranked first in the world, especially the mining volume of iron ore was several times more than that of other countries in the world combined.

However, since Wang Zhen came to power, the amount of gold, silver, copper and iron mining in the Ming Dynasty began to decline sharply, and in the Zhengde Dynasty, after Liu Jin took power, the mineral mining of the Ming Dynasty decreased sharply, and in the Jiajing Dynasty, the mines were almost suspended, and the miners basically had no work to do, and they had to find another way out to make a living, and the main body of the Qi family army was the unemployed Yiwu miners.

The poor miners can't survive, and they can only rely on the battlefield to desperately earn living expenses, which shows how far the mining industry has declined.

In the late Ming Dynasty, the gold and silver mining volume of the Ming Dynasty could not even be compared with the small Dongying, and the mining of iron ore plummeted, even worse than the relatively backward Mughal Empire at that time.

The reason why the mining industry in the Ming Dynasty will decline, the root cause is that the mine supervisors are too corrupt, and the money they want even exceeds the income of the mining itself, that is to say, you work hard to organize the miners, manufacture equipment to mine, and as a result, all the profits must be honored to those eunuchs, and you have to pay the miners' wages and the cost of manufacturing equipment, who dares to do this kind of business!

When Yang Cong heard this, he couldn't believe his ears.

Nima, isn't it too exaggerated for these eunuchs to be greedy to such an extent?

Wang Xuan saw that Yang Cong didn't believe it, so he simply asked the local craftsmen to lead the way, and took Yang Cong to the Huaishan Iron Mine in the north of Xuanhua City to have a look on the spot.

This Huaishan iron mine is more than ten miles away from Xuanhua Fucheng, out of the north gate and then run north for about a quarter of an hour.

Yang Cong looked at the situation of Huaishan Iron Mine, and finally believed it, because the conditions of this iron mine are really good, Huaishan Iron Mine is in a huge ravine, digging up the surface soil, there is iron ore inside, and the road leading to the ravine has also been repaired, and it is very easy to mine.

However, at this time, there was no one in the Huaishan Iron Mine, only the brownish-red slopes exposed after the oxidation of the iron ore in the ravine.

This guy, pig iron is not cheap at this time, such a good iron mine, just hire a few hundred people, at least tens of thousands of catties a day, and then pull it to the city to smelt it a little, and it is not a problem to produce one or two thousand catties of pig iron a day.

It is clear that no one has mined such a good iron mine, and it is clear that it is not the cause of the mine, but the cause of man-made.

Yang Cong looked at the mountains of iron ore, and couldn't help but say excitedly: "Sir, why don't you organize people to mine immediately, I will send a hundred carriages over, and I can pull more than 100,000 catties of ore to the city for smelting and processing in a day. ”

Wang Xuan hurriedly shook his head and said, "No, if the court finds out, it will be a serious crime." ”

Yang Cong pouted and said: "What are you afraid of, I just made a mistake last time, but the emperor sent me to make weapons and equipment, can you still not let me mine?" ”

Wang Xuan still shook his head vigorously and said: "My lord, it's really not good, those eunuchs don't care what you dig them for, as long as they let them receive the news, we will be finished." ”

Yang Cong said inexplicably: "What's over?" I immediately went back to write the memo, and then ordered someone to rush to the capital for 800 miles, and it took half a day to arrive. ”

Wang Xuan still shook his head and said: "You don't know how greedy those eunuchs are, if you don't have a mine supervisor to open a mine without permission, it is simply looking for death, they will go forward to slander the emperor, saying that you intend to rebel!" ”

Attempted rebellion!

Yang Cong is really a little stunned for this crime, that is to punish the Nine Clans.

He could only say quietly: "What do you mean, first play the fold, and wait for the emperor to send the mine supervisor to mine again?" ”

Wang Xuan nodded and said: "Yes, yes, anyway, it takes time to prepare the iron-making furnace, and iron-making also needs coal, you can play it together and apply for mining, there is a lot of coal in Heiyan Mountain near Datong Town." ”

Doesn't that delay time?

Yang Cong can't help it, there is nothing else, he really can't afford the charge of rebellion, and at this time, the court is almost in the hands of Xia Yan and his party, Xia Yan has a close relationship with the big eunuch Chen Hong in the palace, if people want to harm themselves, this charge of rebellion is really likely to be on their heads.

He could only return to the patrol yamen with Wang Xuan, and then according to the list provided by Wang Xuan, he wrote a copy of the report seriously, and then ordered someone to send it to the capital urgently for 800 li.

Immediately afterwards, he wrote another letter, ordering someone to send it to Dingxiang in an urgent manner for 800 li, asking his father to send the treasurer of two families over and bring 100,000 taels of silver.

According to Wang Xuan, you must pay filial piety to the mine supervisor to open a mine, otherwise people will try to make you unable to open a mine.

Yang Cong is not stunned, he also knows that there are many rules that cannot be changed in a while, and if he accidentally breaks the rules, he will definitely be retaliated by vested interest groups.

The big eunuch beside Jiajing really didn't dare to offend casually, because he was not familiar with the eunuchs in the palace at all, and he didn't dare to be charged with rebellion at every turn.

At this time, he can only break the fortune to avoid disasters and get things done first.

Alas, it's really not easy to dig a mine!

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