The winter wind is invincible to the spring, and everything recovers for a new year. The spring of the thirty-first year of Qianlong.

The spring rain seems to have stopped, falling on the world in a trace. In the surrounding green hills, it seems that this thin rain is also green, falling from the clear blue sky. The soil in the forest is mixed with the fresh smell, feeling the breath of spring, moistened by the spring rain, the grass slowly pokes its head out, in the roots, in the bushes, under the feet of people, quietly spreading the unknown light green for the earth, like a faint gouache.

Xiangxian County, since the late autumn of last year, the Chen family has been operating an iron trading place. Tucked away in the mountains, the road is winding, but it's not difficult to walk. All you need to do is wind your way up the mountain road into the depths of the dense forest, and you can smoothly come to the place where the private railway gathers.

No one knows which big man is behind this den. What appeared in front of people's eyes was just a handful of dilapidated houses in Xiangxian County, which were obviously pushed to the front desk. Although it seems that this decoration can also get a lot of money. But everyone's eyes still want to see the person behind the scenes. Because the strength of this force is a bit frightening, it can take out three or four hundred thousand catties of good iron every month, which is comparable to the ironmaking output of the entire Henan. Of course, no one counts this point, and those who are interested can at most estimate the iron production in Ruzhou. Fireflies are no longer comparable to Haoyue.

And the texture of these iron materials is not worse than that of Guangdong Iron, because of the emergence of a large number of good iron materials, those heroes who eat iron rice in Ruzhou are like cats that smell fishy smells and quickly participate in it, buy back good iron to make iron pots, kitchen knives, etc., and the profits are much better than those of inferior iron, because they dare to sell such iron directly to Shanxi and Hubei. It is not like the original one, which only rotates around one acre and three points of land in western Henan.

Then a large number of high-quality kitchen knives, scissors, axes, wood knives, sickles, hammers, iron pots, shovels and so on quickly emerged in the market of western Henan. By the way, honeycomb coal and coal stoves have also become popular in Ruzhou, which also use iron. This is a new product made by the Lushan Chen family, who made bone china.

It only takes three or four briquettes a day to make a fire and cook, and for people living in the city, the money to buy briquettes every month is much more cost-effective than buying firewood. And it's convenient and fast. Even if you don't bother, you can buy a briquette machine for briquettes, go to the coal shop to buy a basket of coal, and then get some sawdust and loess, you can make briquettes yourself, which is more economical.

Coal is not rare in Ruzhou, but most of the people in the towns of Ruzhou still burn firewood. This is not the city of Beijing, with a population of millions of people, and if you don't burn coal and firewood, it will not be enough for the entire Yingtianfu to be shaved into a 'bald scoop'.

The reason why honeycomb coal was popular in later generations for decades has its own advantages, and the Chen family only promoted it slightly, and soon became popular in the entire Lushan, and then rushed out of Lushan County to the entire Ruzhou, the entire western Henan.

The Chen family didn't expect to make money from this thing, just like bone china, Chen Jiatu was able to increase the application of iron a little, and at the same time continue to brush up on his own fame, nor to find a market for the inferior iron produced in Ruzhou, looking for a way out. There is no need for the Chen family to care.

Although the hundreds of thousands of high-quality iron produced by the Chen family attracted the eyes of the powerful people who ate the bowl of iron and iron in the entire Ruzhou N family, the belly of Ruzhou was too small, and after the first month of madness, the total sales of Ruzhou in Xiangxian Den could only account for one-tenth of the overall output at most.

There are many high-quality iron tools produced in Ruzhou, and they have been hit in Shanxi from winter to spring. However, the local inferior iron in Ruzhou continued to be produced and was not affected by shock or shock. Of course, the smaller the shock to local economic interest groups in Ruzhou, the less they will rebound, and the less likely it is that Chen will leak out.

The monthly output of 340,000 catties of iron is very large, but if it is really put into the entire Central Plains market, it will not stir up much splash at all. Because at this time, the people's demand for iron was far greater than the iron production of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. During the Kangxi period, the price of a pound of good iron was only a penny of silver, and the price of iron had exceeded one and a half cents during the Yongzheng period, and now it was the 30th year of Qianlong, and the Ministry of Industry called the price of Shanxi Jin Iron to buy the price of each pound of iron with foot fees, calculated in four cents of silver.

The iron production of my Qing Dynasty may not have decreased, but the number of people has greatly increased compared to the Kangxi period. In the 30th year of Qianlong, the population of the whole of China was at least 250 million. Another one or two decades, by the late Qianlong period, the population was more than 300 million.

In Zhoujiakou, the Chen family directly opened two vests, bought iron from Xiangxian under the guise of them, and then sold them in the prosperous place of Zhoujiakou, making a lot of profits. It has directly driven the name of Xiangxian Iron Den, and has attracted many big businessmen from Zhoujiakou to the Chen family.

These people are the main buyers of the Chen family's iron materials, so the hundreds of thousands of catties of iron produced by the Chen family did not have much impact on the local market in Ruzhou.

The county magistrate of Xiangxian County did not pay much attention to the den in the mountains, although iron is a relatively sensitive industry, and the Chen family's silver spread in Xiangxian for a few months is not useless. Besides, Xiangxian County is located in Henan Province, which is the hinterland of the Central Plains, and now when I am at the peak of the Qing Dynasty, those who are officials can't think of the word 'rebellion'. Since the entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, there are many mountains and few places in western Henan, and the population is dense, but there is really no tradition of rebellion here. Those who are officials have been living peacefully for a long time, and their thinking has been formed, and they can't get out of that framework. No one would associate the sudden appearance of iron with a rebellion.

Up to now, the den has existed for three or four months, and its name has spread throughout western Henan. Countless pairs of eyes stared at the way of the den's iron material, in order to find the people behind the scenes, but invisibly added a lot of trouble to the Chen family.

But apart from better training the Chen family's armed team, Chen Ming couldn't think of any other use. If you can see the traces of the road bought with white flowers and silver, the Chen family doesn't have to fight any ideas, just wash and sleep, and quickly take the silver to find a backer the next day.

Chen Ming really wanted to go to Xiangxian County, he was curious, and he felt that this feeling of walking on the black road was very exciting from the bottom of his heart. But the son of the daughter can't sit down, and Chen Ming's wish is impossible to come true.

ps: Next week is the first recommendation of this book, although the location is very poor, but I still hope that book friends will support it. You know how important the results of this first recommendation period are for a new book!