Under the command of Yuan Mai, three or two maidservants chopped stuffing, and several other maidservants rolled the skin, Zhen Mi and Cai Yan made dumplings by themselves, everyone was very busy, and the smile on their faces couldn't be hidden.

Women are naturally clever, especially in the kitchen, after Yuan Mai taught them the method, everyone worked for a while, and then practice made perfect.

It doesn't take much effort to make rows of pleasing to the eye, and the ear-like dumplings are presented in front of everyone's eyes, making everyone salivate, and they can't wait to taste the taste of this "dumpling ear".

The boiling water in the firewood room was already boiling hot, Zhen Mi personally took the "dumpling ears" and threw them into the boiling water according to the method Yuan Mai said, and it didn't take much effort to cook them, and the aroma was overflowing, and the beams were endless.

Du Shi is pregnant, after the dumplings are out of the pot, they are first brought to her and asked her to taste, Du Shi closed his eyes and chewed one, and immediately praised: "Wow...... This dumpling is so delicious, I have never eaten such a delicious delicacy, my husband is a genius! ”

Seeing that Du Shi ate with relish, the other ladies couldn't wait, Helan personally brought five or six plates of dumplings and put them on the dining table, and then beckoned Yuan Mai, Zhen Mi, and Cai Yan, and everyone sat around the table to eat.

The dumplings are fragrant in the mouth, the taste is endless, these women are full of praise from the beginning of eating, until the stomach can no longer eat, and they have not finished praising this delicious dumpling!

The maidservants have been busy all afternoon, and they can't just let them drool, everyone has a share. This is not the end, Yuan Mai ordered the maidservant to pack a few more copies and sent guards to Zhao Yun, Wang Shuang, Xu Shu, Tian Chou and others. It means that the son and they are blessed and enjoy the same hardships, and they have dumplings to eat together!

Sure enough, after these civil and military staff members ate dumplings for the first time, they were full of praise, and they were all studying the production method of dumplings.

But. No matter how delicious the dumplings are. It was also invented by Zhang Zhongjing, and Yuan Mai is at most an improver.

In the evening, when the women finished eating, they became interested in the topic of food. Yuan Mai gathered his wives and concubines together. Tell them how to make the buns: Ferment the noodles first. Then wrap the minced meat in it and put it in a pot to steam.

In the middle of the night, the fragrant buns were released for the first time in history. These women couldn't resist the temptation of delicious food, and they feasted again in the middle of the night, and were shocked again, and laughter echoed in the general's mansion!

"Ladies, you have to remember, this bun was figured out by my husband and me, and when others ask in the future, you must proudly pat your chest and say that it was invented by your own man, you know?"

Yuan Mai stuffed the fragrant bun into his mouth with one hand, and told his woman to promote more for himself, as the inventor of the bun, this story is not famous in history, how can it be worthy of such a delicious bun?

Du Shi's mouth was sweet, and he was full of praise while eating the buns: "This is naturally not Lao Fujun's advice, our sisters are indispensable to rub gold and silver on Fujun's face outside." I really didn't expect that my husband could not only govern the country and lead the army to fight, but also be a genius in terms of food. ”

Yuan Mai smiled proudly, patted his chest and said: "It's not that the husband is boasting, I still have a lot of things in my stomach that you haven't seen and seen, and when I have time, I will teach you again, and promise to make your days more and more moisturized!" ”

The next day, when the rain was sunny and the sky was fine, Yuan Mai ordered people to post notices to recruit coal digging laborers in 18 counties in Hanoi, promising to be paid handsomely.

Most of the peasants in this era worked for the landlords for a long time, and few of them cultivated their own land, and they were usually idle. I heard that Lord Thorn Shi was recruiting laborers to mine the black gold stone, and the respondents gathered, and within a few days, he recruited a mining team of seven or eight thousand people. Yuan Mai instructed the Han blacksmiths to build a batch of iron tools for coal mining as soon as possible, and in a few days they would prepare to go north to Shangdang and harvest "Wujin Stone".

While recruiting migrant workers, Yuan Mai did not forget to recruit Zhang Zhongjing, and wrote a letter to Zhuge Jin, asking him to go to Nieyang County, Nanyang County, to meet Zhang Ji, and invite him to Bingzhou to be an official. For diplomatic matters, Zhuge Jin did not resist, received the order, and left happily.

When Yuan Mai was bothering about food and grass, he did not ignore the war in the east. Yuan and Cao gathered nearly 200,000 troops on both sides of the Yellow River to confront each other, and there was no room for a single mistake, and the losing side would inevitably be wounded and its vitality would be greatly damaged, and the winning side would also be like a tiger with wings and take the initiative.

In order to grasp the progress of the war, Yuan Mai sent hundreds of scouts to Chenliu and Yanzhou, closely monitored every move on the battlefield, and ordered them to report the military information they obtained to him at any time in order to make correct countermeasures.

Just when Yuan Mai tensed his nerves and paid close attention to the war in the east, Zhen Yao came to Hanoi with dozens of capable scouts. With this genius spy master to help hunt for information, Yuan Mai was finally a little relieved and temporarily focused on digging coal. Although there is no room for loss in the war, the shortage of food is also imminent, and if it is not solved as soon as possible, it will be too late to find a way when the food is exhausted!

Yan Liang's vanguard troops and Cao Ren, Xiahoudun, and Xu Huang's men and horses faced off near Baimajin, and fought many fierce battles in the wilderness, winning and losing each other, and no one took advantage. Seeing Cao Cao leading his troops to meet the battle, Yuan Shao followed the words of Feng Ji and stationed the army in the area of Liyang, waiting for Cao Cao's changes and waiting for the opportunity to capture the fighters.

Since Yuan Shao's army did not move, Cao Cao was not in a hurry to fight a decisive battle, and also stationed the main force in the Changyuan area, divided his troops to resist the two armies of Gao Lan and Zhang He on the flank, and held on to the counties, in order to find an opportunity to deal a fatal blow to Yuan's army and reverse the disadvantage in strength. For a time, the battle situation fell into a stalemate.

Seeing that the war was stable, Yuan Mai breathed a sigh of relief.

Ordered Zhao Yun, Wang Shuang, Liang Xi and others to strengthen their defenses along the Yellow River and beware of Cao's army crossing the river to raid Hanoi. Then with Xu Shu and Zhou Cang, he led two thousand foot soldiers, six or seven thousand laborers, carrying hoes, shovels, iron drills and other coal mining equipment, and left Huaixian County in a mighty way and went north to the party.

It is only 2780 miles from Huaixian to Shangdang. The team walked sixty or seventy miles a day, and for two days, they entered the territory of Gaodu County.

Yuan Mai rode on a horse and walked side by side with Xu Shu, walking between the mountain roads.

Looking around, I saw that the mountains on both sides of the post road were faintly blackened, and the vegetation on the mountains was sparse, which was very different from the scene of Hanoi's lush vegetation. He ordered someone to take a topographic map to check, and after reading it, he knew that this Gaodu county was the Jincheng of later generations, and it was also an important area for coal production.

"Mr. Yuanzhi, there must be a black gold stone on this mountain!"

Yuan Mai Lema. He pointed at the swarthy mountains with the whip in his hand. said confidently to Xu Shu.

Although Xu Shu has studied strategy, he only knows a little about geography. At first, he was suspicious of Yuan Mai's blind northward mining of Wujin stone. But Yuan Mai swore by it. Xu Shu is a newcomer. It's not good to contradict it, so I have to reserve my opinion in my heart.

At this moment, I saw that the mountains on both sides of the post road were dark in color. Xu Shu's position began to waver.

This kind of swarthy mountains from a distance are everywhere in Bingzhou, if you don't have a preconceived idea in advance, no one will guess what is buried under this mountain, who will care if the mountain is white or black?

However, with Yuan Mai's prophecy in advance, Xu Shu began to feel that he was wrong. Perhaps, there is really a surprising number of "Ugin Stones" buried under this swarthy mountain, but if you look closely, there is indeed a big difference between the mountains of this high capital and the peaks of Hanoi!

"Childe is a true god and a man, and he can predict the prophet, not only the food is well done, but the familiarity with geography is also incredible, and he sighs to himself!" Xu Shu reined in next to Yuan Mai and praised him.

There is nowhere to find iron shoes, and it takes no effort to get them.

Now that the Wujin stone mine has been discovered in Gaodu, there is no need to go far and go north to join the party. Yuan Mai immediately gave an order, set up camp at the foot of the mountain, and buried the pot to make rice. After taking a day off and familiarizing yourself with the geography, tomorrow you will start digging for the Ugin Stone.

In order to promote the enthusiasm of the migrant workers, Yuan Maichuan issued an order that whoever could dig out the first "black gold stone" would be rewarded with 50 taels of silver, 100 stones of grain, and 20 horses of cloth. When the migrant workers got the order, they were excited, and they were ready to dig one by one.

The next day, before the sun rose, six or seven thousand men began to work.

Up and down the swarthy mountains, there is the sound of metal and stone crashing everywhere, and the dust is flying up and down the mountain, and the migrant workers are shirtless, waving shovels in their hands, or digging on the rocks with iron pickaxes in their hands, one by one.

Due to the continuous rain in the past few days, although it is in July, the temperature is pleasant, and the sky is covered with dark clouds, which obscure the sun, and the climate is much cooler than the previous days.

The crowd gathered firewood and the flames were high, and the army of six or seven thousand coal diggers threw off their arms on the mountains and dug fiercely, and after three or four days, they dug down three or four feet. The coal buried in Gaodu was only a dozen meters deep at the shallowest point below the surface, and it was not surprising that it was excavated by shearers.

"Dig up the Ugin Stone!"

The migrant workers who were the first to dig out the first piece of swarthy coal let out a wolf's roar with joy, and the reward won by this shovel was enough to eat for half their lives.

Yuan bought the news, he was very excited, and his plan finally did not fail, and the sky lived up to me!

Immediately took Xu Shu and Zhou Cang, climbed up the mountain to check under the support of the guards, only to see that in the stone pit dug by the migrant workers, he saw a black and swarthy piece of "Wujin Stone", so he ordered to expand around.

With the sound of "clanging", the jet-black deposit is getting bigger and bigger. Obviously, this deposit of black gold stone is not a flash in the pan, but the tip of a huge iceberg, and if you dig it, there must be countless black gold stones waiting to be mined.

"Long live, long live, long live Lord Thorn Shi!"

After a lot of hard work, the harvest was finally reaped, and the migrant workers were excited. I don't know which leader shouted "Long live", and everyone else shouted, at first it was a sporadic sound, and then more and more people echoed, and for a while, the sound of "Long live" sounded all over the mountains, resounding through the valley.

Yuan Mai was taken aback, he didn't want to learn the brainless second uncle Yuan Shu and become the target of everyone. His father is still alive, how dare he pretend to be long live?

Hurriedly waved his hand to signal everyone not to be restless: "Hey...... Brothers, don't shout like that, I understand everyone's feelings, but this is a big rebellion, don't shout! ”

After stopping the excitement of the migrant workers, Yuan Mai ordered the pigs and sheep to be slaughtered, and everyone drank bitterly to celebrate. All of a sudden, the mountains of the capital were filled with the smell of wine and delicacies.

The coal mine has been found, and the next step is how to organize production and maximize the mining capacity. Yuan Mai and Xu Shu discussed for a night and finally made a plan.

Based on the experience of his previous life, Yuan Mai decided to divide the production area for these migrant workers and organize them according to the troops. A battalion of 500 people, demarcate an area, dig down. Five cantonments were set up under the battalion, one for each hundred people, and a cantonment commander was appointed for each of them, who was responsible for arranging detailed production.

In order to promote the enthusiasm of these migrant workers, Yuan Mai also developed a reward method. After each tun excavates the "Wujin stone", send someone to carry it to the bottom of the mountain with a burden, and each tun stores it alone, and the upper will send someone down to weigh it and record it. In addition to the agreed remuneration, the tuns with the highest excavation volume will also receive a considerable additional bounty.

Under the heavy reward, there will be brave men. At present, the migrant workers in the mountains of Gaodu County are in full swing mining, shovels are waving, dust is flying, although the migrant workers are tired, but their faces are full of happy smiles, the more tired the body, the more they earn!

After five or six days, the Wujin stone under the Gaodu Mountain has been piled up like a small mountain, and after the statistics of the scribes, in just a few days, this team of six or seven thousand migrant workers has mined nearly 20,000 stone of "Wujin stone".

20,000 stone is equivalent to about 1,200 tons in the 21st century, which is not as much as the output of a large coal mine in an hour, at best, it is equivalent to the daily output of a small coal mine with 200 people, but it is particularly rare in this era of backward science and technology. Looking at the dark and shiny black gold stone, the coal mining workers couldn't close their mouths one by one.

In this era, there were only a dozen coal mines in the country, and the annual mining capacity of coal was about 100,000 tons, which averaged to the national population, and each person shared less than four or five catties. Therefore, the black gold stone is only a consumable that only the official eunuchs and the rich and noble can afford to burn, and ordinary people can only look at it, and they are full of curiosity about this stone that can be burned!

And now, in winter, ordinary people, they can also use "black gold stone" to warm themselves at home.

Imagine the snow falling outside the house, the red clay stove in the house, warming a pot of turbid wine, and the wife and children hot pit, how can these shearers not be motivated? (To be continued......)