"Now?"

An He asked in surprise, it's noon, the sun outside is very poisonous, what is the emperor crazy about, he wants to go so far to see the coal mine?

An He felt that there seemed to be something strange in this, but he couldn't guess it for a while, and looking at Li Xiaojiu's appearance, it seemed that he had made up his mind to go to the coal mine, so An He could only agree. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Seeing An He's agreement, Li Xiaojiu immediately got up, and the group went downstairs to get into the carriage, and began to drive away to the Black Stone Mountain outside Chang'an City, there are several coal mines, but it is the closest here, and it is only about twenty miles away from Chang'an, the speed of the carriage is extremely fast, and the guards brought are also riding horses, so in just half an hour, they came to the Black Stone Mountain.

The road in Heishi Mountain is not easy to walk, Anhe has asked people to use cement to build a road from Chang'an to here, but it has not been repaired yet, now the road is simply paved with cinders and crushed coal, and the carriage of Datang has no shock absorber, so this road almost vomited out of Anhe, plus the weather is hot, although the windows on both sides of the carriage are opened, but the hot wind blows in, and the sweat on the body is also layer by layer, even if it is drinking herbal tea.

When they finally got out of the car, An He and Li Xiaojiu's faces were not very good-looking.

Heishi Mountain and the surrounding area were bought by An He for dozens of miles, and outsiders were forbidden to enter, and it was the largest of several coal mines, and the largest number of Tibetan prisoners of war sent here, more than 1,000 people.

As soon as An and the others approached the coal mine, they were immediately stopped by the recruits in charge of the guards, and when they saw that it was An He in the car, they immediately let them go, and sent someone to inform the warden army.

An He accompanied Li Xiaojiu to park the carriage in a flat square at the bottom of the mountain, which was covered with many brick and cement houses on one side, which was the residence of the royal soldiers, and behind this row of houses, there were some shacks made of wood and thatch, in which the Tibetan prisoners of war lived.

In the center of this square is piled up with freshly mined coal, forming a small coal mountain, some special carriages are loading coal next to it, these coals are to be transported to various cement factories in Chang'an, the carriages are provided by Wang Yusheng's car dealership, specially used to transport coal, the huge profits of coal mining are accounted for, but the surrounding related industries are handed over to Wang Yusheng, although the profits are not as good as coal, but also very considerable.

In the mines that had been mined in the mountains, countless tattered-clad Tibetan slaves were toiling under the whip of the overseers, and these slaves were working in groups of ten, all with iron shackles on their feet, wielding pickaxes to mine large pieces of coal, and then put them on a special cart and transported them by special people to the main square where Anhe was located.

"Your Majesty, please see, this is the Black Stone Mountain, the mountain and the surrounding area are covered with coal, and the mining cost is very low, but in order to further reduce the cost, the minister bought a lot of Tibetan prisoners of war as coolies."

An He jumped out of the carriage with Li Xiaojiu, and pointed to the busy scene in front of him and said.

Li Xiaojiu looked around at the surrounding scene, nodded with some satisfaction, and showed a little smile on his face, and walked to the small coal mountain in the middle of the square with great interest, watching the loaders throw charcoal on the car.

The work on the coal mine was not all done by the Tibetan slaves, they were only responsible for the hardest and most tiring work of coal mining, in addition, such as transporting the coal to the square and loading the car, and some cooking, boiling water, sewing and mending and other work, all of which were done by hiring the poor people around them, which was regarded as compensation for them after Anhe occupied the Black Stone Mountain, after all, after he bought this place, these poor people could not take charcoal for heating in winter, and the wages that Anhe gave them were relatively rich, enough to feed a few people.

At this time, two loaders, an old man and a young man, finally filled a car, and now it was noon, both of them were hot and sweaty, and their dark skin was covered with black soot, which was soaked by sweat, forming a layer of black sludge, which looked very dirty.

The young and old couple were about to take a break, walked to the side of the pool, scooped up a towel of unknown color, wrung it out and wiped it on their faces and bodies, not for cleaning, but just to cool down by the evaporation of water, and then rushed to a simple pergola on the right side of the pool, scooped out a bowl of water from a large bucket and poured it down.

Li Xiaojiu walked to the pergola and greeted the old man who was forty or fifty years old:

"This brother is invited, can I have time now, I have something I want to talk to my brother about?"

"Yo! The nobles are very polite! ”

As soon as the old man saw Li Xiaojiu's bearing and dress, he immediately knew that the other party was not a mortal, so he said very respectfully,

"I wonder what happened to you? The old man had just finished loading the car and was about to take a break before doing things. ”

"Hehe, it's actually not a big deal, I just want to talk to my brother about family life."

Li Xiaojiu smiled, and then asked,

"I don't know what to call my brother, this year's Gui Geng, what did you do for a living before?"

After the old man asked Li Xiaojiu to sit down, he replied:

"Oh, the old man's name is Zhang Dashan, he is just fifty years old this year, he used to live next to this black stone mountain, guarding a few acres of thin fields at home, and he ate the last meal without the next meal, fortunately, someone took a fancy to this place, opened this coal mine, and my grandson and I were able to find a job to live here, and the family was much richer."

The old man said and pointed to the seventeen or eighteen-year-old boy, probably because of malnutrition, although the boy was seventeen or eighteen years old, he was not yet fourteen years old, and An He looked tall and strong.

"Oh? You're so old, why don't you let your son come to work? ”

Li Xiaojiu asked strangely.

"Alas, speaking of this, the old man I feel uncomfortable, in fact, we are not Chang'an people, because a few years ago I fled the famine and came here, my son and daughter-in-law were separated on the road, only this one grandson followed me, the government here is not bad to us, and we have allocated some fields to our grandchildren, but because there are many people around Chang'an, the prescribed mouth can only divide the fields so little, and the little food that comes out of the field every year is not enough to eat, and the old man does odd jobs everywhere to raise his grandson so big, but he is seventeen years old this year, but he didn't even say a daughter-in-law." When the old man talked about the sad things, he couldn't help but shed tears, but the young man beside him opened his mouth to comfort his grandfather.

"Brother mourning, didn't you just say that the family is much richer, and when you save some money in the future, you will tell your grandson about the daughter-in-law, and you and your son are just separated, maybe there will be a day when we meet, so you must look away."

Li Xiaojiu didn't expect the old man in front of him to have such a bumpy experience, so he could only open his mouth to comfort.

"The noble man said that the owner of this mine is generous, and the salary is higher than that of other places, and after a period of time to save enough money, the old man will tell his grandson that he is a daughter-in-law, but the old man is rude for a while, so that the noble man laughs."

The old man suddenly came to his senses, after all, the other party was a stranger, and it was really a very rude thing to lose his temper in front of others, so he hurriedly wiped away his tears and smiled.

Li Xiaojiu didn't mind at all, and said with a smile that it was okay. (To be continued.) )