Dongye Town is not a big town, built in the southeast of Yangcheng County more than 40 miles of a flat place, it is said that here a long time ago, there were people here to make iron, the specific era here began to make iron, there is no way to investigate, but here is because of the emergence of the iron-making industry, the formation of the town, it must be an indisputable fact.

Dongye Town had more than 20 iron-making furnaces more than ten years ago, the iron production is considerable, and it is also a very important iron-producing place in Shanxi, but because of Zhao Datong's existence in the local area over the years, these iron-making merchants were killed and forced away, so that their furnaces were also abandoned, and some of the furnaces became Zhao Datong's industry, but some businessmen were unwilling to leave the furnaces they had built with great difficulty to Zhao Datong when they left here, and destroyed their furnaces before running away. In addition, when the Xingtian Army took over this time, before Zhao Datong's remnants of his subordinates here ran away, they were unwilling to leave the smelting furnaces to Xiao Tianjian, and destroyed a few more, so that now there are only four smelting furnaces left in Dongye Town, and the iron-making craftsmen who used to work here have also run away, and there are not many people left.

And Zhao Datong himself, although he actually controls Dongye Town, but because Dongye Town is basically no danger to defend, but only controls the industry in this area, all the iron produced belongs to him, although the officials and soldiers have come to clean up, but as soon as the officials and soldiers come, Zhao Datong will run, as soon as the officials and soldiers leave, Zhao Datong will make a comeback, so repeatedly seesaw, even the original businessmen here, do not dare to return here to do their iron-making business, and the original rich here, can also move away, Those who could not be moved were looted by Zhao Datong or the official army.

Originally, as an important town, there was an inspection department here, and there were also official personnel in charge of local mining and metallurgical tax collection, but these people are now dying, fleeing, and Yangcheng County has long lost its actual control over the local area, to put it bluntly, it has given up here, and turned a blind eye to Zhao Datong's control here.

Some time ago, although the Xingtian Army took over Dongye Town, the Yangcheng County government only sent people to run here for a turn, and did not dare to compete with the Xingtian Army head-on here, and ran back to Yangcheng County, and the Xingtian Army only stationed two squads of men and horses here, after all, there are no perfect defense facilities here in Dongye Town, the walls of the town have collapsed and collapsed, and the population has been reduced to less than one-fifth of what it used to be, leaving too many soldiers and horses to garrison is of no practical significance, plus Xiao Tianjian is busy with other affairs, For the time being, I can't take care of too much here, and for the time being, I just let the two squads of twenty people from Feng Gouzi's sentry pawn be placed here, leaving a deputy team to manage Dongye Town here on behalf of the Heavenly Army.

After Xiao Tianjian entered Dongye Town, he saw that there were ten rooms and seven empty rooms, many houses had already become dilapidated because no one lived in them for many years, some houses had even collapsed, only a few relatively intact furnaces were still inhabited by people, and some iron-making craftsmen stayed in these furnaces to continue to work under the supervision of Xingtianjun, and their families also lived around the furnaces, which was also convenient to manage.

The deputy team stationed here will be an old brother under Feng Gouzi who first followed Xiao Tianjian, named Fang Dashan, who is roughly in his thirties, but he is a diligent person, but his personal ability is limited, and he has not stood out, and after working for so long, he is just a deputy general, this is still Xiao Tianjian's special care for him to some extent in order to effectively control those new pawns under him.

And leaving him here to manage Dongye Town is not because he can handle civil affairs, but because he has worked as a blacksmith for a few days, learned a little bit of craftsmanship, and knows a little about ironmaking, so he stayed here.

And Fang Dashan heard that Xiao Tianjian personally came to Dongye Town to visit, so he didn't dare to slack off, and immediately took twenty-two of his soldiers and ran out to meet Xiao Tianjian, Xiao Tianjian took a look at the subordinates of these two squads, although they did not follow the large army at the moment, but there was no casual situation, and the spirit of each was still very full, indicating that these days, Fang Dashan, who took them, did not relax his training for them.

In this way, Xiao Tianjian's impression of this Fang Dashan is much better, people are this kind of thing, many times they need to be supervised and spurred, and many people will soon relax once they leave the environment of being supervised and spurred, and Fang Dashan alone with so few soldiers, staying here, but he did not relax because of this, this at least shows that this person is a principled person, not the kind of person who will easily relax his restraints.

Xiao Tianjian dismounted and inspected the two squad generals, nodded with satisfaction, and said to the other party: "Brothers, the spirit is good, it seems that your deputy team general has not slackened!" ”

Fang Dashan straightened his chest and replied loudly: "General, the small one was brought out by the general, and he never dared to be careless about the general's orders, even if he stayed here, we people still have to go out on time every day, and we will never stop!" ”

Xiao Tianjian nodded with satisfaction, patted Fang Dashan's shoulder and said, "You have done a very good job in this!" I've written it down for you, and I'll reward you later!" ”

After hearing this, the soldiers were overjoyed, and immediately collectively stroked their chests and thanked Xiao Tianjian loudly.

Xiao Tianjian waved his hand and said, "Let's all get busy!" The mountains will take me for a walk around town! The purpose of my visit today is to see how ironmaking is going on here! ”

"Yes! Checkmate! This way, please! General Qiyu, there are only four usable smelting furnaces left here in Dongye Town, and they are all working right now! Since we came here, the general has an order, not to abuse these iron-making craftsmen, each of them to give food money, a few days ago, the subordinates have sent the first month's money and grain to them, now the blacksmiths are working very hard, every day here four iron furnaces, have not stopped, can produce about five or six hundred catties of iron, Shuangfeng Village will come every day a big car, pull the iron away from here! It's just that there are too few iron furnaces at the moment, and a lot of iron ore, coal, and carbon are not used! ”

Xiao Tianjian walked into an iron furnace, here is a very common shaft furnace in this era, the height is about four or five meters high, it is a small iron-making furnace, all kinds of iron ore, coal, carbon, limestone, bluestone and other raw materials to rely on craftsmen to load into the iron-making furnace from above, there are large blowers next to it, there are several Chinese characters, sweating like rain towards the furnace continuous blowing, in order to increase the furnace temperature, so that the iron in the iron ore can be restored, and finally from the following iron hole to release molten iron, The molten iron is brought to a crucible by craftsmen, carried and poured into an iron mold, and after cooling, it is knocked out to become a piece of iron. Basically, it is the prototype of the iron-making blast furnace of later generations.

The whole process is very laborious for the craftsmen who are doing this, and it can be said that it is very hard, but when these people saw Xiao Tianjian coming, not only did they not relax, but they followed a few more clockwork, and they accelerated their work one by one.

If you want to build something, you have to transport it to Shuangfeng Mountain first, and fry the pig iron to mature iron before you can use it, there are many joints in it, Xiao Tianjian doesn't know much about these processes, so he doesn't want to delve into this matter, but he just looked at the iron furnace here curiously, chatted with some of the iron-making craftsmen here, and asked them about their life here.

When the blacksmiths learned that this tall young man was the big boss of the Xingtianjun, they all had a look of awe on their faces, and then looked at the sturdy guards around Xiao Tianjian, one by one, they pressed the handle of the knife and looked around vigilantly, so they were even more afraid of Xiao Tianjian, for fear that if they were not careful, if they offended the head of this pole, their heads would be moved, but there were also bold people who would avoid Xiao Tianjian from a distance and secretly look at Xiao Tianjian a few times, and then hurriedly went to work hard.

Xiao Tianjian then asked Fang Dashan to invite the stove head of the tube stove here to come over and speak, Xiao Tianjian said to the stove head with a kind face: "Get up and answer!" I'm not a monster, you people don't have to be afraid of me! Although you are working for me now, you can rest assured that I, Xiao someone, will never treat you as a human being like Zhao Datong back then! Relax! There's something I'd like to talk to you about! ”

This stove head is an old craftsman of forty or fifty years old, his back has collapsed due to perennial labor, he is tired and collapsed, the hunchback is more powerful, and the skin on his face is like old bark, full of wrinkles, although he is forty or fifty years old, but he looks like he is sixty or seventy years old, and he looks very old.

Hearing Xiao Tianjian speak to him so kindly, the old stove relaxed a little, hunched over and stood up, but he still lowered his head hard, not daring to make eye contact with Xiao Tianjian, just a strong thanks.

"That's it! All right! If you continue to thank me like this, you will unload me! I'll ask you! How many people are following you in your stove now? "Xiao Tianjian really has no way to take him, who makes this social status so clear? What's more, the handle of the knife is held in the hands of someone like him, and it is estimated that it will be difficult in a short time if you want to keep these honest craftsmen from being afraid of him! So I made a joke and asked him.

"If you go back to the big boss, Xiao Lao'er's stove, now there are 20 craftsmen under his hands, they have special ingredients, some feeding, some tapping, some slag, and some special blowing, they are not idle! If you have less, you won't be able to take care of it! The old stove seemed to be afraid that Xiao Tianjian would reduce his people again, so he hurriedly put his subordinates in his pocket.

Xiao Tianjian understood the thoughts of this old stove head, so he smiled and said: "Don't be nervous, I don't want to reduce your people, and I don't pity the bite of food you eat, as long as the people who work here, as long as my surname Xiao is here for a day, I can't starve you for a day, I will ask you again, have your wages been paid to you this time?" ”

When the old stove heard this, he quickly knelt down again, kowtowed to Xiao Tianjian, and said, "Little Lao'er, thank you to the big boss!" If it weren't for the big boss who distributed these grains to us this time, then I'm afraid our whole family wouldn't even be able to survive this year! You've saved our family! ”

(Keep asking for collections!) Ask for a red ticket! ）