Chapter 56: The Salt and Iron Trade

With the arrival of Su Li, there is also a benefit, Su Li found a secret iron mine in the area of Baitan Mountain in the early years, but at that time, for the future scheme, it has been buried in Su Li's heart, this time Su Li brought people to join the Mona Lou Department, and told the secret.

A few days ago, Zuo Mei had nothing to do, wandering around, and also found an iron mine, as soon as the two of them said it, they found that Zuo Mei and Su Li were actually talking about the same mine, Duan Chen was naturally very happy to know the news, so he quickly asked people to investigate, and found that sure enough, on an unknown hill behind Baitan Mountain, there was a large iron ore vein, Duan Chen hurriedly ordered someone to come over to mine and protect.

However, there is a new problem, the miners are easy to find, mining, for this kind of digging behavior, the people do not reject it, but how to get this smelting iron ore? Without a good blacksmith master or a good craftsman, iron ore can't be smelted, weapons can't be made, and it can only be wasted.

Duan Chen's first thought was to plunder the people who knew blacksmiths, but Yin Lang proposed that we could trade with the imperial court and exchange important strategic materials such as horses for craftsmen, etc., Duan Chen thought about it and felt that this method was feasible, so he specially sent Yin Ran to Jicheng to discuss the transaction with King Yan.

After Yin Ran went to Jicheng, King Yan was particularly happy about Yin Ran's arrival, and ordered a banquet to invite Yin Ran, after all, since the Mona Lou Department was attached to King Yan, in the past few months, he has been very well-behaved and obedient and sensible, not only giving gifts to King Yan every once in a while, King Yan doesn't look down on that little gift, but this horse, King Yan is very important, with the strong support of Mo Nalou's department, King Yan used these horses to form a new cavalry, led by his subordinate Qi Hong.

During the banquet, King Yan repeatedly asked Yin Ran for warmth, and even asked Yin Ran whether he was married, Yin Ran had to answer one by one, after listening to the request of Mona Lou, Yan Wang waved his hand and agreed, and then selected a group of people from the official blacksmith artists and folk blacksmith artists in Jicheng to let Yin Ran take them away, and also gave Yin Ran some pig iron and large salt cubes very generously, in short, Yin Ran returned with a full load.

Before Yin Ran left, King Yan was also very considerate to allocate a team of cavalry to escort Yin Ran out of the pass, Yin Ran under the protection of the guards, followed by a long convoy, when he arrived at Chifeng Pass, Yin Ran looked at Chifeng Pass, and felt some emotion in his heart, a few months ago, they were more than a dozen people running around like lost dogs, at that time, how could they have thought that just a few months later, they would be able to take the guards through Chifeng Pass again.

Yin Ran smiled faintly, however, Yin Ran immediately thought that King Yan's body didn't seem to be very good, although it was the first time he met His Royal Highness King Yan, but he found that His Royal Highness King Yan had a pale face and vain steps, and after drinking, his face showed a faint crimson, which was obviously a sign of weakness, and King Yan's age was not young, more than forty, but the key problem was that King Yan had no prince, only two princesses, that is to say, once King Yan returned to heaven in the future, There is no one to inherit the title or something.

Yin Ran then smiled self-deprecatingly, why are you worrying about these things? The most important thing at the moment is revenge, and when he thought of this, Yin Ran's hand couldn't help but clench into a fist. Thinking of the desperate entrustment of his parents before he died, and thinking of the bloody scene of his younger brothers and sisters dying at a young age, he clenched the reins and crossed the Chifeng Pass.

When Yin Ran transported the salt and iron given by King Yan to the foot of Baitan Mountain, Duan Chen and the others couldn't help but make a sound of joy after seeing the big black iron and the big yellow salt, this is a lot of wealth, at least the people of the Monaro tribe think so.

Yin Ran briefly explained to Duan Chen, this time he gave King Yan 500 war horses, as well as some grass goods, before King Yan left, he gave 500 catties of pig iron, as well as more than 2,000 catties of large pieces of salt, Duan Chen simply estimated that these pig iron have good craftsmen in Youzhou, at least 200 sabers, or 3,000 spears, or 20,000 pure iron arrow clusters.

After accepting nearly three thousand Wuhuan people led by Su Li, the strong man reached an unprecedented six thousand people, although

The men and horses of the Monaro tribe were originally equipped with a certain number of weapons, and the royal tent guards of the Monaro tribe were even more quantity and quality. However, with so many extra people out of thin air, the weapons and equipment of the tribe are a big problem.

After accepting the salt and iron of King Yan, Duan Chen added some manpower to Suli, and divided Suli's troops into two Jiala, Suli led a Jiala, Wushu led a Jiala, plus the two Jiala, and now the entire military force belonging to the Monaro Department has a total of four Jiala, a total of 6,000 people, although many of them are not fully equipped with weapons, but whether it is the Monaro Department or the Wuhuan Department of Suli, they have at least gotten rid of the previous predicament, It is no longer the same as before, one is worried about being undermanpower and will be swallowed up by other tribes, and the other is worried about wandering the world without a fixed place.

At the foot of Baitan Mountain, Duan Chen decided to take advantage of the fact that now when Mona Louru, Mona Lou Yong, Su Li and others were all there, he gathered the four Jialama of the entire Mona Lou Tribe. Under the instruction of Mona Lou Yong and Mona Lou Ru, the great witch of Mona Lou officially appointed Duan Chen as the left sage king of Mona Lou and Su Li as the right sage king, and everyone swore allegiance to Mona Lou Yong, the leader of Mona Lou Yong.

Immediately afterwards, Duan Chen convened a tribal meeting, and considering the lack of tribal weapons and production tools, everyone agreed to unify the deployment of iron tools and give priority to ensuring military needs. It's a reluctant choice to move the limited amount of pig iron to the military at a time when the tools for production are needed most. Fortunately, now whether it is the Monaro tribe or the Wuhuan tribe, they are now mainly fishing and hunting for a living, and seeing that spring is about to begin, even if there is a famine, it can be controlled within a tolerable range.

As the leader of the tribe, under Yin Lang's earnest teaching, Mona Lou Yong has also learned to carry forward the spirit of selflessness and take out the part of salt and iron that belongs to him for public use. At the meeting, Duan Chen and others also finalized the mining plan, smelting plan, forging plan, etc., Duan Chen and others planned to build all the existing pig iron into spears and arrow clusters. It is used to improve the hunting ability of the tribesmen. In addition, they had to make some iron tools, razors and other things and give them to the women, so that the women would no longer have to skin and cramp the beasts with simple stone knives.

Today, all day long, the entire Mona Lou tribe was boiling, and under Duan Chen's instructions, salt was first distributed to all the families in the name of Mona Lou Yong, and then everyone was called on to support the construction of the tribe with their own labor.

Anyway, regardless of whether everyone understood it or not, Yin Lang issued an order, ordering the various leaders and staff to start letting everyone work in teams, some were assigned to cut wood, some were ordered to dig trenches, some were assigned to dig cellars, and some people set up a lot of large furnaces near the iron mine in the back mountain of Baitan Mountain under the command of the blacksmiths from Youzhou who came from afar. The remaining children and old people were not idle, collecting firewood, picking wild vegetables and grasses, and stockpiling some materials.

After the Jin blacksmiths came to Baitan Mountain, they were a little scared when they saw the Xianbei people casting a big furnace, afraid that these Xianbei people would cook and eat themselves and eat them alive, but they heard that this was to prepare for forging weapons. Although according to the blacksmiths, such cold weather is actually not suitable for striking iron, but these Xianbei people are fierce and vicious, and no one can do anything.

At first, the Jin blacksmith was still a little scared, but then he slowly found out that these Xianbei people were just roaring, and they didn't really want to kill them, after all, they still had to count on them to strike iron, besides, the stomach could also be full, although they slept in the cave, but the cave was also hot, and a group of Jin blacksmiths let go of the vigilance in their hearts and began their own work in full swing.

At the same time, Su Li led the Wuhuan people to start building their own camp, although most of the Wuhuan people were warriors, but these days of drifting made them desperate for a solid place to sleep, rather than a leaky broken cottage. Because the Wuhuan people have used their housekeeping skills, they are also in full swing of construction.

Su Li and others chose a relatively gentle place on the other side of Baitan Mountain, although this terrain defense is unfavorable, but it is leeward to the sun. These Wuhuan people are indeed very capable, under the well-organized construction, the newly built camp of the Wuhuan people dare not be said to be impregnable, at least it is more stable than the reasonable arrangement of the camp of the Mona Lou Department in Baitan Mountain.

As for Duan Chen, he was very leisurely, after the tribal assembly was distributed, he had nothing to do, looking at the Yin brothers, the Zhao brothers all had things to do, even Zuo Mei was busy in the iron mine in Baitan Hou Mountain, and Li Hu was busy training new soldiers and distributing equipment.

Duan Chen wandered around Monaro's department, but didn't find anything that needed him, Duan Chen was a little depressed, and went back to his own felt tent to lie down, watching Monalo's subordinates busy working through the small window.

Duan Chen sat quietly on the felt cushion, his thoughts flying freely. What do I want? What is the way forward?