Xu Shiyang predicts that the system similar to a collective commune in Tunken Village will probably be able to be implemented steadily for a period of time, depending on the value of surplus labor in each village.

Because in the present time, where there is a lot of wasteland, there is a limit to what an individual can do.

For example, Xu Shiyang gave 50 acres of land to each household in a certain village, but it was all wasteland, then the families with few men in this village may only have the ability to cultivate 20 acres without help, and the other 30 acres can only continue to be wasted.

In the case of collective work, families with more men can allocate a part of their labor to help families with fewer people to cultivate another 30 acres of land, and the income from these lands can also be divided into a part of the family with more people to subsidize their households.

This is a policy that benefits both sides.

However, with the gradual formation of water conservancy construction, the increase in the number of cattle and horses, and the popularization of animal husbandry, if the surplus value is so large that a person or a certain family can live well without the collective, the appeal of individual interests will prevail over the collective interests, thus causing the disintegration of such commune villages.

But that's certainly not a wasted mess, and that's what it is.

……

Under the jurisdiction of Dengzhou Prefecture, Zhaoyuan.

Denglai and the two prefectures have been rich in gold since ancient times, when the Great Zhou can still control Jiangbei, there are more than 1,000 mines in the territory of Zhaoyuan County alone, and the two prefectures of Denglai produce more than 9,000 taels of gold every year, which is equivalent to ninety percent of the national gold production of the Great Zhou.

After the Great Zhou Dynasty moved south, gold production plummeted, and only a few powerful dock fort owners in the vicinity were still occasionally organizing mining, and most of the gold produced was transported to southern Liaoning or Jiangnan through Dengzhou to exchange for necessary materials for life.

Because of the gold, the life of the Wubao lord in the north of Denglai is much better than that in other areas, and it is precisely because of this that when the Qingzhou Army expanded the province east of the Yellow River, the resistance of the Wubao lord in the north of Denglai was much more fierce than that in other regions.

After the occupation of Denglai, the desperately resisting Wubao lord naturally lost the ownership of the gold mines, and from that time on, the gold veins of the two prefectures of Denglai, mainly Zhaoyuan, Qixia and other places were completely included in the direct jurisdiction of the Governor's Office.

Xu Shiyang once according to his own plan, the local miners were transferred away nearly half, and then some displaced people moved in, and then thousands of foreign miners were transferred, at this time Zhaoyuan County had a total of 31 tunken villages, half of which were mainly engaged in gold mining, and agriculture was a sideline.

Last year, the gold mines in Denglai and other places provided more than 2,000 taels of gold and more than 500 taels of silver for the Governor's Office, and this year by mid-August, there have been more than 4,500 taels of gold, and it is estimated that the annual output of 6,000 taels of gold and 1,500 taels of silver is not too much of a problem.

These hard currencies are very important to the economy of Qi Province, so Zhaoyuan is also a key inspection area for Xu Shiyang, Zhang Mingyi and others.

Now in charge of supervising and managing the gold mining business in Zhaoyuan is Xu Shiyang's second uncle Wang An, the former owner of Rizhaowu Fort who now holds the position of Zhaoyuan County Commander, and can be regarded as taking a lot of advantage with his in-laws.

After Xu Shiyang and his entourage arrived, he did not hesitate to throw down the work in his hand and made a special trip to receive him.

However, Xu Shiyang and Zhang Mingyi are not hypocritical people, they didn't even enter Zhaoyuan City, and went directly to the largest Linglong gold mine in the vicinity.

Wang An naturally would not contradict this high-ranking nephew for this matter, and he also took people to the location of the Linglong Gold Mine, Luoshan on the north side of Zhaoyuan City.

The two groups of people gathered together, stopped in front of a mine, and just saw a scarred bald man dragging out a basket full of ore with his hands and feet.

Xu Shiyang stretched out his head and glanced into the mine, the exit of this mine was okay, but when he really looked inside, it was only about one meter high, and only one or two miners could enter at a time, and it seemed that he could only work on his stomach inside.

In this era, the mining industry is a kind of work that can kill people at any time, and the water seepage, landslide and various toxic gases in the pit can take the life of an entire pit at any time, and the narrow and dark pit is also a great test for the human spirit.

This, in addition to the fact that mine owners ignore safety measures and the treatment of miners in order to save costs, exacerbates the death rate of miners.

Xu Shiyang naturally knew this, but the first thing he did was not to improve the safety measures in the mine or improve the treatment of miners - all of these were done, but they couldn't improve much for a while.

The first thing Xu Shiyang did was to fill the foreign slaves captured from Liaodong into the mines, and exchange the lives of these foreign strong men for the gold, silver, copper, iron, coal and other mineral resources that he urgently needed.

"This year, there are 300 families in the Linglong Mine, and each family has one person to work in the mine every day, but according to what Shiyang said, we Han people are only responsible for the work on the surface such as screening, pushing and grinding, and washing gold."

Wang Ping introduced:

"The work of going down the mine is for those Tartars, there have been 2,000 Ding Zhuang around this year, and there are 800 strong women and more than 800 small Tartars who are more than half the size, and they just came up yesterday, and there are still 1,200 Tartars left, more than 600 strong women, and only 300 small Tartars."

In other words, so far this year, more than 40 percent of the foreign slave labor in the Linglong mining area has been lost, and this is still because it is easy for young women who can give birth to children to survive the first few months, and it is easy to find Han Chinese singles to take over.

This kind of attrition rate makes Wang Ping, an old dock castle owner like Wang Ping, a little unbearable, but for the sake of gold and his own future, he can only continue to fill the pit with his life.

Zhang Mingyi walked to the slave who had just come out of the pit, reached out and picked up a piece of ore from the back basket, he looked at the gold dots on the ore, and couldn't help but smile:

"Zhaoyuan deserves the reputation of 'the world's gold capital', and if it produces 6,000 taels of gold a year, it can be worth 45,000 yuan."

Today's ratio of gold and silver to money is roughly 1 to 5 to 7.5.

"It's not 45,000 guan, if it is melted into gold coins, you can actually get 64,000 kan, but you have to count the cost, this year's cost is estimated to be 20,000 kan, right?"

Xu Shiyang looked at Wang An with uncertain eyes.

"Yes, this year's Linglong mine is estimated to cost 20,000 yuan."

Wang Ping couldn't help but sneak a glance at Xu Shiyang and Zhang Mingyi, and introduced with some weakness:

"But this cost does not take into account the loss of slave labor, which has already broken by almost 15 thousand this year......."

"Hmph." Zhang Mingyi snorted coldly, and casually threw the ore back into the back basket of the Tartar slave laborers, and the military transfer envoy from Jiangnan said indifferently: "Di Yi, beasts." ”

Xu Shiyang smiled and explained to Wang An: "The second uncle will use them as livestock, I will give you another batch before the end of the year, don't be afraid of dead tartars, you have to remember that dead tartars are good tartars." ”

"Even if it's a big animal, there's no such way to waste it." Wang An muttered.

Indeed, in Qi Province, where labor is scarce, such a waste of manpower, even if it is the manpower of the Tartars, does make the Chinese peasants who are used to living a tight life a little distressed.

In fact, if the Tartar slave laborers were really just big animals, they might be able to eat and drink well and live comfortably.

"Okay, uncle doesn't have to worry about it, this is actually a process of taming beasts, only by making sure that these beasts are honest, we can rest assured that we can use them elsewhere."

Xu Shiyang smiled:

"The safety measures in the mine should be improved, but my uncle should understand that it is a welfare package for our own miners in the future, not specifically for these tartars."