Zhang Mingliang was very worried, and kept thinking about whether there would be new news from the Hou Mansion, and whether Nan'an Hou would be able to turn the crisis into peace and lead the government army to drive away the group of thieves. I couldn't help but wonder if there would be the worst news coming, if Nan'an Hou couldn't afford to fall ill before the pirates arrived, it would really be all over.

The crowd has been walking in the sea of grass, from the afternoon to the evening, walked about 40 miles, during which they encountered several groups of natives, which was not common in the south before, the southern plains are too large, the aborigines of the whole island are only about 100,000 people, the southern mountains are not as towering as the north, and the jade mountain is a perennial snow-capped mountain, and the aborigines are also active in the semi-plains.

In the south, most of them are in the mountains, and there are small basins in the mountains that are suitable for farming, but because the whole island is too big, and the development of indigenous civilization is too low-end, most of the mountain people still make a living by hunting, exchanging deer skins and sand gold for some food and daily necessities, only women are not suitable for hunting, they will plant some buckwheat sorghum and other crops in the basin in the mountains, but they have no experience and level of farming, just throw seeds, but the harvest is also good, because the climate of the Eastern Fan Island is too good, but this harvest is in the eyes of the Han people, It's a complete waste of fertile land and seeds.

In the north, many indigenous people cultivate in the basin, and their community land is not small, but it is almost in a state of abandonment, with only a few scattered ears of rice, some sorghum straw, and some buckwheat stalks, which can be seen to have been cultivated in some places.

For some soldiers, as well as Zhang Zhong and other craftsmen, this way of cultivating land is simply a tyrannical thing, they sighed and admired, in Fujian Road, no matter which military state, these good plots, good fields near the water, can grow high-yield crops, these soils, can simply pinch out oil, and the central part is better than the south, the land here is almost all paddy fields, no matter which way in the Great Wei, which military state, the price of paddy fields is many times more than the dry land, because the dry land is difficult to cultivate, it takes many times the energy, And the harvest is far from being as good as the paddy fields.

In the south, the Hou Mansion opened up a large number of acres, the speed is much faster than the Ming Zheng in another time and space, Zheng Chenggong has Chen Yonghua and other capable officials to help, and brought a large number of clans and civil and military generals in the Southern Ming Dynasty, so that they enclose the land for farming, and there are many official households, and the other is to move Zhangquan immigrants to reclaim, but at the end of the Ming and Zheng Dynasty, the population of the island was only more than 200,000 people, and the cultivated land reclaimed was only hundreds of thousands of acres, which was too slow in efficiency and speed.

To develop the central and northern regions, Xu Zixian's plan for the time being is to focus on the central region, which is actually related to the changes in Jianzhou.

There are a large number of miners in Jianzhou who are unemployed, and the place is in chaos, Wang Yue actually wants to reshuffle all the mining and iron industries and support the agents he trusts, which is why he has forced the merchants in Tingzhou. But Wang Yue's eyes are low, and Jianzhou is getting more and more chaotic, and now it is not only Wang Yue who blockades Nan'an and does not trade ironware with Nan'an Houfu, but foreign merchants who come to Jianzhou with money in their hands, and also find it difficult to find qualified iron merchants to trade.

Fujian iron is sold all over the world, accounting for about 30% of the country's iron industry, and Fujian all the way to 30% to 40% of the world, and most of them are high-priced to understand everything.

And Jianzhou accounts for sixty to seventy percent of Fujian Iron, the chaos of Jianzhou's iron industry has affected the overall situation of the world, that is, the imperial court is delayed in the Northern Expedition, the two governments and the three divisions can't take care of this matter now, and the iron has long been reserved, otherwise, just because of such a big basket, Wang Yue should have been replaced a long time ago.

Xu Zi first wants to develop the central part, not the basin plain here, there is still a considerable amount of land in the south that has not been developed, almost all of the plain area of 5,000 square kilometers can be developed into cultivated land, and the population of the Eastern Domain is now less than 100,000 people, there is still a considerable surplus of places that can be developed, and there is no need to rush to the central part of the development.

In fact, until the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the central and northern parts were scattered forts, and there were only more than 10,000 jia and more than 100,000 acres of land developed.

Later, the population surged to more than 3 million, with Dajiaxi as the center, Taiwan Prefecture was established, Taipei Prefecture was set up in the north, and counties were established, and the northern and central parts were gradually developed.

Xu Zixian's training plan is not only for the army, but also for the army to have a place to live, but to gradually build military forts, villages, and hundreds of households in this place, and move people to settle here.

The more important idea was to dig coal and iron ore here and build your own iron industry.

That's all that matters!

The coal reserves of the Eastern Domain are quite high, although it is inferior bituminous coal, but the quantity is enough for large-scale development for decades, the iron ore reserves are not much, and the quality of iron ore is also very average, but with the current level of development and casting, it is enough.

The most important thing is that there were several large coal mines in the central and northern parts of the Eastern Domain, and the first modern coal mine in the Eastern Domain was in the central part and was mined for a long time.

As for the iron ore, it is also an iron mine in the mountains of the central to northern regions, which is not large, but it is a shallow vein, and the ore quality is not good, and it can also be solved with better smelting technology, Xu Zixian is quite confident in this.

Now Zhang Mingliang and his entourage are out to determine where the iron ore mine and coal mine are located, determine the distance range, calculate the cost, the manpower required, and everything.

In the evening, people camped in the depths of the grass, the soldiers were responsible for setting up tents, and the craftsmen and Zhang Mingliang and others carved out an open space, boiled water and boiled dry food, and everyone chatted.

If everything is normal in a normal period, people will be full of confidence and will be very interested, but Zhang Mingliang is very worried, Zhang Zhong and others are also quite depressed, everyone is worried about the situation hundreds of miles away, under such pressure, except for a little motivation to do the right thing, other thoughts are not at all.

Before dark, Sun Rulan sent some cavalry to scouts around to determine the rotation personnel and cordons.

After dawn, he continued to walk, and Zhang Mingliang had some feeling that if there was a coal mine beyond this distance, I am afraid that the price of excavation would be too high.

Fortunately, at the end of the hour, people clearly saw the place where the coal mountain was located.

It is really a coal mountain, a large number of black ore layers are quite clear, there is almost no vegetation, the upper layer of the coal mine only has a shallow soil layer, and in some cracks, people can clearly see where the ore layer is located.

It is indeed not a high-quality coal stone, and compared with some coal in the north, the coal seams here are relatively loose, and the color is also different, which is obviously inferior bituminous coal.

In fact, the anthracite reserves in China are quite average, or even very small.

Not far from Yingzhou, across the river, North Korea has an astonishing amount of coal reserves, and there is a considerable abundance of high-quality anthracite.

Curiously, there were also a large number of high-quality anthracite coal mines in the Mongolian steppe in the north, and in later generations, these two places became two important places for China to import high-quality coal.

Zhang Mingliang stretched out his hand to the coal seam and tried to stir it, he felt that the pressure in the mine was not too large, he grabbed his hand hard, and he had already grabbed a handful of black coal gravel.

"Very often." Zhang Mingliang said to Sun Rulan and the others who looked expectant: "It's almost lignite, this kind of coal is too impurity, and it is almost impossible to use it to make iron." ”

"Isn't there a good way?"

"It can only be used to make water and fire coal, but this Fajing Master and some mine owners on Hedong Road will keep it a secret." Zhang Mingming's face was gloomy, and he opened his palm, and the black granular coal stone fell down and fell to the ground.

"The prince will have a way." Sun Rulan said with a smile: "At that time, the prince confessed, from the central to the northeast and southeast, so the old rumors each have two coal mines, to be honest, we have seen the southeast one, the vein layer is deeper, we just can't be sure, which side of the coal is better." Since they are all inferior, it is natural to choose a road that is easy to build and closer. ”

"That's what you're looking for?"

"Yes." Sun Rulan said: "This mine is two and a half days away from the port, and most of it is hilly and mountainous. Mr. Zhang should have found that we walked at the speed of the common people and ordinary strong men walking or catching big cars, and it was only forty miles a day, but in fact, if the road was repaired, it was not too difficult to walk seventy or eighty miles a day. If you take 80 miles a day, it is actually a distance of one and a half days, which is not too far. ”

"You've already explored earlier?"

"We were already instructed to do this a month ago." Sun Rulan's face was a little gloomy, and he said: "At that time, the prince was in a lot of interest, as if he had said something very happy. ”

Xu Zixian is very interested, which is something that Sun Rulan can also see.

Of course, Xu Zixian's interest will be very high, isn't it obvious? Wang Yue's two hundred and five messed up Jianzhou, and this kind of old Confucian student will always feel that he has suffered a loss when he becomes an official in the end, either to make money, or to try to move to a higher position. Wang Yue was honest and honest in the first half of his life, and when he was the imperial history, he was known for his honesty and outspokenness.

But at this time, this kind of old official suddenly felt that he would lose everything, and it was better to take advantage of the power in his hands to hurry up and do something that he was unwilling to do before, or did not dare to do.

If the center has lost its prestige, why can't it be a prince to the south?

The worst is the worst, and he should make a lot of money, as for the local chaos and the people's livelihood, who cares about him?

Jianzhou was in chaos, a large number of mines were closed, iron factories were closed, and the Jianzhou iron industry was destroyed almost instantly.

From this matter, Xu Zixian also came to a conclusion that if there is no power to resist, any trade, whether it is a worker, a businessman, or a mine, seems to be thriving and sprouting everywhere, but in fact, as long as the power is struck, it will all be finished.

This is also the reason why he tries to promote the club in the local area, Xu Zixian can still do things for decades, fix these promotions, and when he leaves this world in the future, he hopes to leave each other to check and balance, hedge, and know that compromise and talks can also solve troubles and problems, not like now, seemingly prosperous, but in fact built on a pile of sand, a slight change, everything is over.

Of course, the current situation is that iron can be smelted in the Eastern Domain, even if the coal and iron reserves are average, but this is generally relative.

For example, the Eastern Domain claimed to have the largest gold reserves, and the natives often mined sand gold in the mountains, which was also one of the important sources of income for the natives.

But this is at most relative, but millions of tons of reserves, in the future of the world, not worth mentioning. There are more than a billion tons of gold reserves in the world, and of course these reserves contain a variety of other metals, such as silver, copper and gold, as is the case in Taiwan's sand gold mines.

Iron ore is also more than 2 million tons, relative to the gold ore is indeed very little, in the world is not worth mentioning at all, in the later generations of some large iron mines, a mine will reach the iron reserves of the whole island.

The reserves of gold, copper, coal and iron are too small, but more than 2 million tons are concentrated in a few mines, and one mine has hundreds of thousands of tons of reserves, and there are more than 100,000 tons of shallow ore veins that are relatively easy to mine.

Zhang Mingming's mind moved, and he said with some surprise: "Then you have also found iron ore?" ”

"Found it." Sun Rulan said with a smile: "The strange thing is that the two mines are very close to each other, and from here to the northeast for another day and a half, there is an iron ore mining area." There are dozens of miles in the middle of the mountains and half hills that are easy to mine, we found quite a lot of iron ore, this time called Zhang Zhong, that is, to assess the distance between coal and iron mines, demarcate the lot, build a blast furnace in the iron ore area, build a charcoal furnace here, and lead the stream to the two mine mining areas, build a living area, the two mines should be connected by roads, and build roads all the way to the port area. ”

Sun Rulan smiled and said: "What Mr. Zhang has to do is to determine a number of coal mine veins, as well as iron ore veins, and must determine the areas with rich reserves and easy to mine. Now that we are at the beginning of everything, we can't invest too much manpower, and there is no way to dig deep wells to mine, which is too time-consuming and labor-intensive. At least in a year or two, Junhou's idea is to seize coking coal and iron, and grab the market, and can't let Beitie take advantage of the chaos in Jianzhou. ”

The rebellion in Jianzhou led to a sharp drop in the output of Fujian iron, and many miners had no food and clothing.

Of course, this is a matter of the establishment of a state, and it is also an opportunity for the Eastern Domain.

Xu Zixian has already planned to attract a large number of miners to the Eastern Domain, this is a rare opportunity, the miners are very hard, the income is relatively high, if there is no chaos, with the current conditions of the Eastern Domain, it is relatively difficult to attract experienced middle-aged miners.

Now, it's pretty easy.

"I roughly understand what the prince means." Zhang Mingliang smiled bitterly.

What Xu Zi has to do first at the moment happens to be something that Zhang Mingliang is quite proficient in, and it can be regarded as a reward for the Eastern Domain to protect him.

Previously, Zhang Mingliang had also taken the initiative to ask to do something, if Xu Zixian had not been ill, his current mood would definitely be different, and it would be completely two states.