In the north of Zhaoyuan City, the peaks of Luoshan Mountain Range are undulating, in the summer season, the forest is verdant, and the wind moves the forest Tao refreshing and pleasant. The strange pine and strange stone forests in the mountains are quiet, the clear spring passes through the forest and the stones, and flows into a river under the mountain, the river is crystal clear, and flows happily in the mountain.

After turning a bend in the river, the crisp noise was suddenly broken by the noise, and a group of shoulder-to-shoulders appeared by the river, carrying countless broken stones in dustpans, and washing them with the water flow. In the blink of an eye, the river became turbid.

This is the Zhaoyuan Linglong Gold Mine, which is the place where the Zhaoyuan Gold Mine produces the most, and is located about 20 miles northeast of Zhaoyuan City. The mountain is covered with thousands of potholes, large and small, and thousands of miners and their families travel back and forth on the mountain road, transporting ore to the river.

The small river that flows through it is the Gold Rush River, which winds through the foot of the mountain and flows through a number of large gold mines in Zhaoyuan, where countless ant-like miners work on both sides of the river, and they wash the ore with gravel by the river, and the sediment of the Gold Rush River contains a lot of placer gold. Many children and women also pan for gold sand, just to earn a living ration.

A group of gentlemen from Laizhou walked around the mountainside, all with gloomy faces, because recently all the Tunpu in Dengzhou were recruiting, and from time to time some people came to spread among the miners. Some of the miners quietly ran away, so that these gentry had to recruit people from Laizhou, but the miners could not do it at once, so they were a little worried, and at the same time had to increase the wages of the miners, which made them hate the town of Nadengzhou even more.

The leader is a middle-aged man, he is Zheng Hegui from Laizhou Mansion, his father is a man in the twentieth year of Wanli, and Bi Ziyan is the same year. At that time, he was old, and he became an official not long after. His family has nearly 2,000 acres of land in Laizhou, and only two or three hundred acres pay taxes. Zheng Hegui's father has a good heart, often gives money to help poor tenants in the countryside, and also helps build some temples and bridges, etc., and has a good reputation in the countryside.

The Zheng family is quite good at operating in Laizhou, and the last time Li Jiucheng besieged the city, the Zheng family took the lead in contributing people and money, leaving a good impression on Zhu Wannian, and he was also more prestigious among the people of Laizhou.

Zheng Hegui is actually very shrewd, he has been eyeing the Zhaoyuan gold mine for a long time, the original gold mine in Ye County, Laizhou is also good, but the output is far less than Zhaoyuan, the annual output of more than 20,000 taels of gold in various mining areas here, so that the surrounding forces are salivating.

In the past, the Dengzhou gentry were strong and strong, Zheng Hegui couldn't fight them, so he could only dare not move, Li Jiucheng uprooted the Dengzhou gentry at once, Chen Xin immediately cleaned it again, and there was a power vacuum in Zhaoyuan. Zheng Hegui seized the opportunity, and when the Wendeng camp was still busy fighting for land and salary, he gathered a group of gentry from Laizhou, recruited villagers together, and seized the gold mine before the Wendeng camp.

The various ministries of Dengzhou grabbed land in Pingdu, Penglai, Laiyang and other places, and the news also made Zheng Hegui and others tremble, but the concept of civil and military cheapness was deep-rooted, and Zheng Hegui thought that he could use civil officials to deal with Chen Xin and others. The last time he beat up the Dengzhou soldiers in Ye County, Laizhou, he planned it, that is, to give Chen Xin and others a dismount, and he bribed Wang Tingxuan at night, and he thought that he had completely achieved his goal. It's just that Chen Xin didn't think about it at that time, and thought that it was because of the gold mine, and he thought that it was because of the land dispute, Zheng Hegui could be said to be thrown to the blind man.

Zheng Hegui stopped in a mine, a shirtless miner was dragging a piece of ore, desperately crawling out on all fours, Zheng Hegui stopped the miner, picked up a piece of ore casually, there were dots of gold in the broken place, and couldn't help but smile proudly.

The Luoshan fault zone under his feet is very rich in gold resources, and the veins were even placed on the ground at the earliest time, so mining began very early. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Linglong gold mine alone reached an annual output of 7,000 taels, and after the use of large-scale mechanical mining, the output was even higher. During the period when the army occupied the Linglong gold mine, the annual output was 40,000 taels of gold, and at the same time, there were anti-Japanese guerrillas who secretly mined other mining areas, and a total of 130,000 taels of gold were transported to Yan'an during the Anti-Japanese War, which greatly supported Yan'an's economy.

Zheng Hegui didn't know this, but he knew that this thing in his hand was real money, since he intimidated the Dengzhou generals last time, he thought that Chen Xin had broken his courage, when Song Wenxian sent someone to negotiate with him, he relied on the relationship between the court officials, the lion opened his mouth, and wanted to build a mining area for his three relatives and six relatives, and finally even the land of Pingdu was also on it, and Song Wenxian naturally couldn't negotiate with him.

Zheng Hegui threw the ore block into the back basket and glanced into the hole of the black rumbling, because the gold veins are not large, the mine hole used in this era is very small, only one or two people enter each time, and there are no security measures, working in a narrow and dark environment full of crises is a great tempering for the spirit and body of the miners, they are engaged in a lot of labor every day, so the miners are often very tough, plus the labor also needs to have a spirit of cooperation, obedience and organization are much higher than that of a single family labor, This is the reason why Qi Jiguang likes to find Yiwu Dongyang miners the most.

The treasure in Qi Jiguang's eyes is just a group of livestock in Zheng Hegui's eyes, and in the place of Denglai, he thinks that giving them a bite to eat is a great gift.

A boy in a thin satin coat next to him flattered Zheng Hegui and said: "Brother Zheng's mine is like a treasure, and there are often dogs' heads of gold coming out, it turns out that Brother Zheng's fortune is far better than ours." ”

Everyone else agreed, some of them took advantage of Zheng Hegui's momentum, and now that the harvest is good, of course they have to please him.

Zheng Hegui said proudly: "This is still a Linglong mine, Jinhua Mountain and Wang'er Mountain are also good mines, now we all occupy it, and slowly dig it, forgive that Wendeng rough people dare not say much, brothers, this is an inexhaustible source of wealth, and the descendants of the descendants can ensure that the generations are rich." ”

The gentlemen agreed again, but the satin-clothed boy whispered to Zheng Hegui: "Brother Zheng, there is a military tun in Dengzhou Town not far from here, my cousin went to Dengzhou a few days ago to do business and came back, saying that there seems to be a large number of soldiers there, will there be any schemes?" ”

Zheng Hegui looked up to the sky and laughed, "I told you a long time ago, I have strong reinforcements in Beijing, and now Lord Wang is also on my side, why should I be afraid of a so-called martial artist, he has a large number of soldiers stationed in Zhaoyuan, but he has ever dared to send a soldier to Linglong?" As long as he dares to send troops, I will definitely take it down and catch the governor's office, and I have to ask Chen Xin to kowtow to my son and admit his mistake. ”

After a few words of flattery, the satin boy still persuaded; "Brother Zheng, we still have to keep an eye on those people, there are more people guarding the intersection of the mountain, in case they come, we can be prepared."

Zheng Hegui proudly pointed to the east side of the hill in the distance, "There is no pergola on the top of the mountain, from that tunbao, you must take two roads, you can get to it from the top of the mountain, there is a flag standing outside the pergola door, if the flag falls, there are soldiers coming." ”

"I see, it's still Brother Zheng's old way." After speaking, the satin boy raised his eyes and went to the mountain over there, looked at it for a while and said, "I didn't have a flag, did you forget to stand up?" Or maybe there was no wind at this time, and the flag didn't fly. ”

"What?" Zheng Hegui went over carefully, and if he really didn't reach the flag, "two dogs ......"

"Brother Zheng!" The satin-clothed boy suddenly pointed down the mountain, Zheng Hegui looked down, and two groups of black figures appeared on both sides of a hill on the east side, and shiny swords and spears could be found in the queue, they ran quickly, extremely fast, and gradually unfolded.

"Brother Zheng is really here, what should we do?" The satin-clothed boy grabbed Zheng Hegui's sleeve anxiously.

"What to do, how to do it......" Zheng Hegui's mind was a mess, he had never fought before, how did he know what to do, he didn't expect that what Dengzhou Town was doing in Pingdu and other places would be staged here, thinking of the tragic killing of An Xiangbao and other places in the rumors, he couldn't help but tremble his legs.

The miners all over the mountain also noticed the movement over there, and they all put down their work and stood in place at a loss.

Zheng Hegui, the boy in satin, had no backbone, so he turned around and ran away, but it was the descendants of several other Zheng families, who roared loudly: "The Dengzhou soldiers are coming to rob our mines, they want to starve your wives and children to death, everyone will fight with them, and everyone will have silver to fight them back." ”

Zheng Hegui reacted with a spirit, dragged up the miner on the ground and said loudly: "It's the bandits who are coming, go and ask the villagers to come out with anti-bandit weapons to block those Dengzhou soldiers." ”

Zheng Hegui panicked, a bandit and a Dengzhou soldier, the miner was pushed by him again and again, had to run to get a fork Some of the miners heard the shout, and also rushed to the shack to find their own equipment, these miners are usually many people, many of them are villagers, and they are equipped with equipment, ordinary bandits can't beat them at all.

When someone was preparing, Zheng Hegui breathed a sigh of relief, and then to the east, there was still a steady stream of soldiers, and the front ones had already rushed to the foot of the mountain, and the miners on both sides of the river were too scattered, completely unorganized, and they all panicked and avoided on both sides.

Zheng Hegui lost the time to warn, and now he was completely unable to organize under the surprise attack of the other party, he hesitated whether to escape, but remembered that there were still thousands of taels of gold here that could not be transported away, and there were some lucks in his heart. "They don't dare to kill." Zheng Hegui thought.

At this time, I heard those soldiers shouting loudly, "Dengzhou magistrates arrest the demons of the Wenxiang Sect, and kill those who stand in the way." ”

Those miners who wanted to resist all hesitated when they heard that it was the government, they could fight with the countryside and bandits, and once they were against the government, they didn't have the courage to do so, in their minds, it was rebellion, it was a felony.

Several tenants of the original Zheng family desperately went up to intercept them, and those soldiers raised their knives and guns mercilessly, and after a few screams, several tenants turned into corpses on the ground. The team rushed almost unhindered towards the mountainside, and it was clear that they already knew who the leader was.

A group of remaining gentlemen and students shouted and fled, how could their bodies compare to those soldiers and horses, they fled less than a hundred steps, Zheng Hegui snapped on his back, and a strong force came, Zheng Hegui fell to the ground one by one, and then was pressed by several people, and then began to be tied up.

Zheng Hegui was stunned by these blows, and when he came back to his senses, he was already surrounded by his comrades, who were tied up and thrown to the ground, including the satin-clothed boy who ran first also sat on the side with his head down, and there were two nosebleeds under his nose.

"You, you are so bold, do you know Lord Hubu Shangshubi?"

"Zheng Gongzi, even if Mr. Bi (Shangshu's honorific title) is the same year as your father, you can't enter the Smelling Fragrance Sect, how do you say you can live up to Mr. Bi's love." Song Wenxian appeared in front of him with a smile.

Zheng Hegui was so angry that he smoked, "You slander!" When did I have an affair with the Smelling Fragrance Sect, is it that Chen Xin......"

Song Wenxian bowed down and looked at Zheng Hegui, "If Zheng Gongzi dares to talk nonsense again, he will no longer talk nonsense, there are people you recruited along the Gold Rush River, no less than thousands of miners, it is really easy to find out a dozen or so Wenxiang Sect White Lotus Sect, what do you want to gather so many chaotic people here!" Supervisor Lu has specially ordered General Chen to gather and gather the Xiangxiang Sect, which can be killed directly, what else does Zheng Gongzi have to say? ”

"I, I...... Please spare your life, Lord Chen. ”

(To be continued)