"Selling land? No way! Absolutely not! ”

Although Li Shi has a plan, he still needs start-up funds, but his purse is shriveled, so he has to use his brain on the skin of his own ten acres of paddy fields. And Guan Fengsheng misunderstood that he was only thinking about selling the land and handing over the emperor's grain, and shook his head very resolutely.

The two of them were heading towards the mine, and Li Shi's plan had to start here. This mine is a mountain farm rented by the people of Fengtian Village to Master Zhong, and the rent is to hand over a quarter of the smelted pig iron.

But there is still a difference with renting land, during the Kangxi period, private mining was generally a forbidden word, but it still couldn't stop private mining, and their mine was the black mine of later generations. Although Master Zhong rented the mountain farm to them, it was his people who were responsible for the operation and management, for example, the pig iron smelted could only be bought by the merchants contacted by Master Zhong. The chief is Lai Yipin, nominally the chief is only responsible for managing the miners of the mine, but Lai Yipin is actually the supervisor sent to the mine by Master Zhong. In addition to Lai Yipin, the guest chief who is in charge of the executive management, and the section chief who exchanges money with money, are all from Master Zhong, and they also have more than a dozen guards, and the salaries of these people are all counted on them, the tenants.

This mine is actually Mr. Zhong's property, and it is said to be a "rent", but it is just a name for Mr. Zhong to get out when the officials are prohibited.

"Uncle Guan, don't you have no land? Don't worry, I don't rely on the land to pay the imperial grain, otherwise I will pay it this year, what will I do next year? I need some money to make a living, and I'll help you get this mine up by the way. ”

Li Shi said this, Guan Fengsheng smiled bitterly.

"What's so much to do with this mine? There is a lot of iron refining, so Master Zhong lowered the price, refining less, and seeing that we were out of breath, he raised the price so that we could live and not break up. said that we rented his mountain farm, but in fact, we were all hired by Master Zhong. ”

There are two or three hundred people in the whole mine, and there is only one furnace, and each can produce more than 1,000 catties of pig iron.

"I am a blacksmith in my own business, but my father and ancestors also passed on some iron-making skills, so I talked to Master Zhong about this mine, and the pig iron smelted can barely be sold. In the past two years, I have learned some tricks, and I can finally lead everyone to survive this mine. ”

Listening to Guan Fengsheng's introduction, Li Xi gradually gained a deeper understanding of the situation in this mine. After turning the mountain beam, the entire mine fell into Li Xian's eyes, and the messy scene in his memory was presented in a real and orderly manner in front of him at this moment.

A small section of the hill was cut away, revealing a bare section of dry soil and a large pit four or five meters deep and hundreds of square meters wide. A dark hole stretched out into the belly of the mountain, and the clanging sound rang through the cave. Li Xi vaguely remembered that this mine was hundreds of meters deep.

A hundred meters away from the top of the hill is a large river thirty or forty meters wide, and a long line of wooden rafted boats is parked on the bank of the river. On the banks of the river were lined up several large pits, and on the side of each pit stood a tall cross wooden pestle, which was supposed to be a beneficiation pit for crushing ore. At the foot of the mountain in the distance, there is a row of low brick kilns, full of firewood, which should be charcoal kilns. Not far from the charcoal kiln, I vaguely saw the top of an iron-smelting furnace emerge.

It's a bustling place. Hundreds of people come and go here, and the charcoal kiln and iron smelting furnace are on one side of the big pit under the mountain wall, and the top of the pit on the other side is densely packed with dozens of straw sheds. On the bank of the river opposite the hut, a row of more than a dozen wooden houses is much cleaner. Several of the guards leaned against the edge of the hut, watching everyone warily, as if each had a piece of ore in their butts.

Looking at the grass shed, the faces of Jia Gouzi and Wu Shishi suddenly jumped out of their minds, and Li Shi sighed slightly. Memories told him that the people who lived in this grass hut were all dilapidated families in the village who had lost their land and homes, and Jia Gouzi and Wu Shishi's homes were also here, and they only lived on this mine. The neat row of wooden houses on the opposite side is where the management personnel such as the guest chief and the section chief and the guards live.

Last year, the mine produced a total of 400,000 catties of iron, which sounds quite impressive, but the price given by the merchant was only one tael or two taels of silver per 100 catties, and the price on the market was one tael or six cents [1]. The reason is not only the "regulation" of Master Zhong, but also the poor quality of the pig iron smelted, but this is also the general level of this kind of black mine.

Li Xian roughly calculated, the annual output value of this mine is actually 5,000 taels of silver......

But after careful calculation, a quarter was taken away by Mr. Zhong, and there were more than 3,000 taels left, more than 200 laborers, including meals and salaries, calculated according to ten taels of silver per year, which is 2,000 taels. Lai Yipin, the guest chief, the section chief, and the group of guards had to take another 1,000 taels. Guan Fengsheng and Tian Dayou, as well as the "middle-level" such as charcoal head and pot head, plus the twenty or thirty furnace workers, the salary is gone.

And that's just labor, what about production costs? Ore doesn't count as money, but charcoal fire or something doesn't cost money?

"We still owe Master Zhong in our accounts, the tools for mining ore, the oil lamps and wood inlays in the mine, and a lot of other tools, especially the charcoal fire, which cost thousands of taels of silver every year. Master Zhong said that this mountain farm was rented by ourselves, so we had to pay for the money ourselves, but Master Zhong was benevolent and advanced the money in advance. Although your Uncle Tian and I each have a hundred taels of silver every year, most of them are paying these debts. ”

Guan Fengsheng said sarcastically, no wonder in order to top the Li family's imperial grain, he sold his daughter with his eyes closed, and it turned out that he was already negative equity.

This old man Zhong is in the mine, in essence, he is also relying on usury to tie Guan Fengsheng and them, and he is a landlord who oppresses tenant farmers, and a capitalist who exploits workers, it is really bad to the top of his head, Li Xi thought.

"But Master Zhong may not be able to live in peace, the more than 1,000 taels of silver every year, I estimate that less than one-third of it can be obtained."

Guan Fengsheng was still sympathetic to Master Zhong, and when he heard him, Li Shi also felt that there were other people with pus on the soles of their feet. It turns out that Master Zhong still has to be filial all the way, not to mention that these mine guards under his command are all green battalion soldiers from Jinshan Xun, so the Xun guard of Jinshan Xun is said to be a general surnamed Xiao, and he has to be encircled, after all, he opened a black mine in his Xuntang jurisdiction, and if he wants to pretend not to know, he has to pay a certain price.

The county official also has a share, and what is more complicated is that the businessman who buys pig iron also has a chamber of commerce system, and the annual dots are indispensable, after all, this is collecting black goods, and it is not good for the people in the official mine to make trouble.

It is said that Master Zhong still hugged someone's thigh, and his mine is not only here, there is even a blacksmith workshop, Guan Fengsheng only said vaguely, as if he didn't want to let Li Xian get involved too deeply.

In a few moments they were at the iron-smelting furnace, and now the ore had arrived, and the charcoal was not yet alive, and a circle of furnace workers were waiting in the pit. Seeing Li Xi coming, Tian Qing in the furnace worker snorted, turned his head and ignored him, Li Xi naturally didn't bother to pay attention to him, just looked at this big-bellied iron smelting furnace in a daze.

Qu Dajun has passed away, and his "Cantonese New Language" is circulating, which mentions the Foshan iron smelting furnace, "the shape of the furnace is like a bottle, its mouth is out, the mouth is wide and wide, the bottom is three feet and five feet thick, and the body is two feet thick", Li Xi still remembers. As you can see, the size is much smaller, but the structure is roughly the same, it seems that it is the common technology of this period, but the size of the blower wooden fan is much smaller, about half of the "five or six feet high, four feet wide" in the record.

"Uncle Guan, you say...... Is charcoal a big expense? ”

Li Shi had already made a plan, and now that he has seen the truth, he has the bottom in his heart, but he is not ready to take it out all at once, and things have to be done step by step.

"That's right, the trees on this hill have already been cut down, and I can't afford to buy net charcoal, so I have to go to other mountain farms to buy firewood and burn charcoal by myself. But even so, a furnace of iron costs half a tael of firewood, and six furnaces a day is three taels of silver. ”

At present, 100 catties of charcoal are about one penny and two or three, and firewood is three or four cents. A furnace of 200 catties of iron will cost thousands of catties of firewood, and the cost of this part alone is close to 20%.

The furnace is placed in the pit, so that it is convenient to feed from the top of the furnace, the lower part of the furnace is made of bricks, and the upper part is refractory clay.

I have read too many time-traveling novels, and Li Xi is still very familiar with the technology tree of the iron-smelting industry, but he is not Zheng Kezang, and there is no Taiwan to toss him, so now he can only focus on the smallest things first.

"What? Can you make each furnace burn 30% less charcoal? Fourth brother, this is not a matter of writing and drawing, don't talk about it. ”

Guan Fengsheng shook his head, he didn't believe Li Xian, if this could come true, he would be able to save three or four hundred taels of firewood and silver every year.

"It's really stupid to read, how much charcoal can be burned to turn into iron, and less to burn? Where is it less? Interlacing is like a mountain, so don't make trouble. ”

Tian Qing said sneeringly on the side, his words were quite reasonable, and a group of furnace workers all agreed.

"I've only read the secret recipe when I read a book......

Li Xian was not angry, he smiled, everyone was stunned, and Guan Fengsheng was also stunned.

"And a book on iron smelting? Blow it to you! ”

Tian Qing raised his throat, Guan Fengsheng glared at him, and asked a little hurriedly, "What book?" ”

What Li Shi wants to do is the technology of later generations, and there is really no such book, avoiding Guan Fengsheng's question, he smiled slightly: "There are many books about iron smelting, you know the iron factory in Foshan, how they are smelting iron and making steel, I know everything." Seventy or eighty years ago, there was a book that made it clear. ”

Guan Fengsheng muttered in his throat, and his face turned red.

"Fourth brother, do you still know how to make steel?"

[1: In 1724, the "Dictionary of World Commerce" compiled and published by the Savannah brothers in France mentioned that the pig iron in Guangdong was 1.6 taels of silver per 100 catties, and the price of trafficking to the book was 4.5 taels. 】