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"See the Son!" As soon as Geng Jingzhong arrived at the door on horseback, Geng Da and the others immediately stepped forward to pay their respects.

Geng Jingzhong dismounted and handed the reins to his subordinates. "You guys did a good job, I only turned around for a while before you found out!"

"Hehe, Xie Shizi praised, our people are distributed throughout the starting point town, and everyone has your face firmly in their heads. Someone came back to report to me when you first arrived in town. We didn't dare to disturb your Yaxing, so here we wait! Geng Da grinned.

"Alright, let's all come in."

This is Geng Jingzhong's special courtyard for himself, the place is not small, equivalent to a partial courtyard of the palace, twenty or thirty houses before and after, and it is also a big family in Fuzhou City. The outside looks like white walls and black tiles, and there are no pavilions, rockery pools or anything inside, but all kinds of plants are transplanted more, and the overall arrangement feels quite quiet. Although Geng Jingzhong did not live here permanently, the room was always cleaned.

Geng Jingzhong walked straight to the hall, after riding the horse for so long, he had long wanted to find a chair to lie down! The subordinates in the mansion had already been notified by Geng Da that they were waiting to boil water and make tea. As soon as Geng Jingzhong sat down, his subordinates immediately brought tea.

Yang Jian and the three brothers Geng also followed into the house, and the other guards quickly took over the defense of the mansion. "Sit down, too! Drink some tea! After speaking, Geng Jingzhong took a sip of tea.

"Xie Shizi!" They also knew Geng Jingzhong's temper, and besides, there were no outsiders here, and they were not restrained, so they sat down on the left and right.

Geng Jingzhong finished drinking the tea and loosened his shoulders, feeling much more comfortable. "By the way, Geng Da, Geng Er, Geng San, I have heard a lot about the situation of the starting point town along the way, the development here is so good, you three brothers have contributed a lot!"

When the three Geng brothers heard Geng Jingzhong's praise, they all immediately got up and replied, "Xie Shizi's praise, this is all within our part. ”

"Sit down, sit down! I don't like people standing like that. I remember all your contributions, especially the work of organizing Western craftsmen to open workshops, which you did a very good job. I ignored this before, and you guys did a good job! ”

After Geng Jingzhong finished speaking, Geng Da said: "Back to the world, we didn't expect to do this before. Many of these craftsmen invited back from the West started working in the mines, and they did a good job in the iron-making blast furnaces and steel-making crucibles, which were better than those of our original craftsmen. Most of our brothers were craftsmen who made guns, made iron and steel, and knew how to build ships. There are also a small number of people who have their own unique crafts, such as making clocks and watches. At first, these people just made some goods to sell in the town, and the sales were good, so we moved the idea of opening a workshop. ”

"This idea is very good, when you sent the pocket watch to Fuzhou at the beginning of the year, I thought you bought it from a foreigner in Yuegang!" Geng Jingzhong praised him a little again.

Here, Geng Er also said: "At the beginning of the year, we received a charter from the prince, saying that all the workshops were changed to assembly line operations. We also studied and understood for a while, and then we organized all these craftsmen and opened workshops in different categories. We also arranged for a lot of clever apprentices to learn from them, don't you say, everyone learns the same speed is fast, like the clock quickly made a lot. However, those delicate things, like pocket watches and stuff, are simply not something that can be done in a day or two. Four Western masters brought sixty apprentices, and now they can only make two hundred yuan a month. ”

"This is already very good, as long as those foreigners are willing to teach, it is not a matter of time before we learn, and when these apprentices will be able to do so, then we can make a large number of zuò?"

"Yes, Shizi, after discussion, we decided to give these foreign craftsmen a certain amount of shares, and Mr. Li also approved it. Now in the town, except for those big businessmen, these foreign craftsmen are a group of people who are the richest. ”

"No wonder, I thought that more than a thousand foreigners were so rich, and they were just craftsmen in the town. What about the foreign craftsmen on the other side of the mine? Geng Jingzhong continued to ask.

"Shizi, the foreign craftsmen over there in the mine are responsible for me." Geng San spoke. "There are 700 foreign craftsmen in the gold, copper, and iron mines, and the salary of ordinary craftsmen is 30 silver coins per month, and 80 yuan is at the level of a master master. But we have provided them with housing, and the monthly grain and rice are also provided for free, and in general, they also belong to the small rich group. ”

"Oh! Forget it today, tomorrow you will accompany me to the mine and those workshops to have a look! Go back first! ”

Qifeng Mountain and Dingfeng Mountain are the locations of Longyan Gold Mine, Qifeng Mountain Gold Mine is located six or seven miles southwest of Qiqi Town, and Dingfeng Mountain Gold Mine is located five miles northwest of Qiqi Town. Both gold mines are located in the heart of the mountains, with undulating mountains and dense vegetation, and are inaccessible to people. However, since Geng Jingzhong took over the two gold mines, the road leading to them has been rebuilt, and the narrow dirt road has been replaced by a stone road that is now two zhang wide. The stone road leads directly to the starting point town, which is very convenient to get to and from the horse-drawn carriage, and you can run to it in a quarter of an hour.

Originally, when the bandits secretly opened the mines, there were only twenty or thirty craftsmen in the two gold mines, plus hundreds of captured miners, the scale was very small, and in fact it was a dirt workshop. But since Geng Jingzhong took over, a large number of craftsmen and mining workers have expanded the scale. The water flow of Qifeng Mountain is relatively small, and Geng Jingzhong also ordered people to mobilize thousands of workers to dig a short section of a small river six or seven meters wide with manpower on the basis of the original mountain stream.

All the things in the gold mine were done according to the requirements of the old craftsman, and Geng Jingzhong's subordinates were all laymen, so the last time he was here, he appointed the most prestigious and experienced master craftsman as the general manager, and all his subordinates were at his disposal, so the work of the entire mine was very smooth. Unlike coal and iron ore, this gold mine is very delicate, and the process is also complicated to open other mines, and the most important one is that there is a large demand for water. I remember watching a TV series about breaking through the Kanto region, there are a lot of gold panning pictures, and those gold diggers are working in the stream except for mining. It's much the same here, where the miners first extract the ore, then manually smash it, and then put it in the stream water to wash it and filter out the impurities, and finally there may be a little bit of golden sand.

Unlike the full mechanization of later generations, it is only the middle of the seventeenth century, and the scientific and technological revolution in history is still a hundred years later. At the moment, productivity is very low all over the world, and most of the processes have to be done manually! However, if there is enough water here, a lot of hydraulic machinery can be installed. Now most of the workshops in Fuzhou have used water machinery, saving a lot of manpower and greatly improving work efficiency, but unfortunately the water here is not much and not urgent.

After Geng Jingzhong finished eating early in the morning, he went directly to the nearby Dingfeng Mountain gold mine. Ding Feng Mountain has three not too steep peaks, the three peaks are very close to each other, and it looks like a beacon in the distance, so the local residents also call it Beacon Hill. There are two streams here in Dingfeng Mountain, and the flow is full, which flows down between the two peaks. The entire mine has been renovated, and the mountain trails have become major roads. The perimeter of the gold mine was surrounded by a high fence, and at intervals there were seven or eight meter-high lookouts, each of which had two soldiers standing guard, observing the movement around it. The trail behind Dingfeng Mountain has been blocked, and now there is only one exit in the direction of the starting point town to enter and exit the mountain, which is tightly guarded, and the geographical location is very dangerous.

As soon as Geng Jingzhong and his men appeared at the mountain pass, more than a dozen soldiers wearing new-style army uniforms surrounded them under the leadership of an officer. "Someone, get off the horse immediately!" The leading officer shouted loudly, and the rest of the soldiers raised their new muskets in their hands.

Taking a closer look at the soldiers guarding the mountain pass, all of them were in good spirits and ready for battle, Geng Jingzhong nodded with satisfaction. At this moment, the time for the workers to go to work has passed, and no one is allowed to come and go at will, and it seems that these soldiers are still very dutiful.

"Keep your eyes open and see, the prince of the world is coming, and he won't give way!" Yang Jiannai was the commander of the guards, and when he saw someone blocking the road, he immediately stepped forward and shouted.

More than a dozen soldiers were stunned, and after seeing that this person who was often dressed in clothes was indeed the son of his own family, he immediately knelt down and gave a military salute. "All the soldiers belonging to the second squad of the eighth news of the fifteenth battalion of the Marine Corps are here!" The leading officer reacted quickly and quickly reported his number. The soldiers of the 15th and 16th battalions guarding the two gold mines were transferred here two months ago, and the 17th and 18th battalions will come to replace them in two months. If it is only a force guarding the mountain all the time, it is easy to cause dissatisfaction among the soldiers.

"Okay, get up!" Geng Jingzhong waved his hand and said to the soldiers in front of him with a smile.

"Shizi, are you going to inspect the mines? If you want to enter the mine, please dismount, the mine has a rule that horses are not allowed to enter! Although the team officer was a little apprehensive, he still said stubbornly.

Geng Jingzhong was stunned, he seemed to have heard of this scene somewhere. Thinking about it again, isn't it the fine willow camp of Zhou Yafu in the Han Dynasty! "Oh, there's a rule? Well, all dismount and walk! Geng Jingzhong dismounted first and handed the horses to the warriors who met them. The other guards also dismounted and followed behind Geng Jingzhong. In the barracks in Mawei, horses can still be ridden, but basically they are soldiers who are responsible for transmitting information. Sometimes Geng Jingzhong would also ride a horse and walk in the barracks, which he was used to.

The dedication of these soldiers in front of him made Geng Jingzhong very happy, and he was even more excited than getting ten million taels of silver, he didn't expect that there would be such a surprise here. There seems to be a lot of special things about this gold mine, and there must be a reason why horseback riding is not allowed. If the soldiers are all like this, then it is not what the world's strong army is, and it is very reassuring that this gold mine is guarded by them!

Last night, Geng Jingzhong had already roughly understood some of the situation of the two gold mines, and he also had an overview of them. Since the scale of the gold mine expanded at the beginning of this year, it has been able to produce 2560 taels of sand gold every day, and at its peak it has reached more than 300 taels. The output of a gold mine is converted into 80,000 or 90,000 taels of silver per month! The output of these two gold mines alone can supply the Marine Army for half a year's expenses!

Geng Jingzhong and a few guards, led by a mountain guard, walked into the mine, which was still some distance from the interior of the mine. After about a quarter of an hour of walking up the winding mountain road, a wide open area came into view. When I looked up, I saw two streams flowing down the mountains in the distance, and then merging here to form a larger river. Not far from the river, in a soothing area under the mountainside, brick houses are neatly arranged, similar to the dormitories of the Mawei barracks, which look like temporary residences for the miners.

Walking along the stone path, after a while, you will come to the place where two streams meet. This is the heart of the gold mines, where most of the miners work in the river, where a dozen uniformed soldiers patrol each side. The soldiers are not worried that there are miners hiding the golden sands, which are tightly guarded, and every time they want to go out of the mountain during the holidays, they are collectively bathed and changed their clothes, and then released after several investigations.

Digging for gold is hard work, the sand needs to be refined and cleaned, and it is very dependent on water, and thousands of people are distributed along both sides of the river, constantly working back and forth. Geng Jingzhong took a closer look, and none of the workers were lazy, and it was estimated that there was a set of reward mechanisms in this gold mine. There is a way that there must be brave men under heavy rewards, which is not a fatal job, but if they have money, they will be more motivated to work hard!

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