The Luo family's workshops were mainly built in the mountains near Kishidake Mountain Castle. On the main road into the mountain, a wide marching avenue had also been built at this time.

A checkpoint has been set up at the entrance to the main road into the mountain, guarded by some conscripted peasant soldiers in shifts day and night. On the road after entering the mountain, there are some patrolling peasants along the way, and occasionally you can see Black Hawk ninjas on the side of the road who can reveal their figures to make Masa's conscience know their existence (lest the guards around Masayo misunderstand that someone is preparing to attack Masara).

The real workshop is located in an open valley in the middle of the mountains, which is almost like a small basin. Due to the frequent earthquakes in the area of Wakoku (Masara has experienced no less than ten small earthquakes since he came here), and the mountains and forests are prone to mudslides, for the safety of these workshops and their technicians, Masara sent people to concentrate all the workshops that were originally scattered throughout the mountain range into this small basin that can prevent both earthquakes and mudslides.

Over the years, this small basin has become a small town (known locally as a workshop town) mixed with workshops and houses. A large number of craftsmen, workers and their families live here. It is also quite convenient to live here, and it is completely self-sufficient, and there are two commercial houses that are specially allowed to stay here, Roche House and Kamiya.

In order to keep some of the territory's techniques secret, the inhabitants of this area are almost always required to obtain the approval of the Intelligence Pavilion and Masashi before they can get out of this huge mountain range (Black Hawk's lair is nearby, so they can keep an eye on the surrounding mountains).

In order to appease the artisans, workers, and their families who settled here, Masayo not only paid them a large sum. They were even exempted from taxes. So with the conditions here. It is almost equivalent to a paradise, and the local people are completely satisfied with this life (at this time, whether it is the Ming Kingdom or the Wa Kingdom, there is a scene of war and chaos everywhere, and they can live here quietly, all living materials are guaranteed, children can also learn cultural inheritance skills, and they can also play their own talents, what else can they complain about).

Upon arrival at the small basin where the workshop is located. Masayo first met with the people in the council hall in the center of the basin.

Among the retainers present this time was Togo Heiji, who had to be present as the ruler of the Interior Cabinet of the Territory. Moreover, among the several important ministers around Masayo at this time, Kakukuma Ishizong was sitting in the Bungo Kingdom at this time to deal with the situation around the Bungo Kingdom. Shinnosuke Akabane is in Chikuzen Province and is doing his best to deal with the power of the Ouchi family, and at the same time leading the diplomatic negotiations with the Ouchi family. As the ruler of the Territorial Intelligence Cabinet, Yamamoto Kansuke naturally also wants to sit in charge of the work of the Kishigaku Castle Unified Intelligence Cabinet, and assist the daimyo Masarashi in monitoring the situation in the entire Luo family's territory and abroad. As for the retainers of other military, internal affairs, logistics and other departments, they all have their own specific work to be busy with. Therefore, only the ruling Togo Heiji, who is the cabinet of the Interior who oversees the workshops in the territory, needs to accompany Masayo.

Other than Togo Heiji. In addition, there are the iron tools made of iron by Tadajiro, the weapons in charge of the forging of weapons Liu Ye, the iron cannon in charge of the iron cannon and the iron cannon forged by the national friendly guard, the large barrel in Prussia, the ore in charge of the exploration of mineral deposits, and Tian Xiangyu in charge of ore smelting.

Tian Xiangyu was a native of the Ming Dynasty, and he and Chen Tianjie, who was the official of the Luo family at this time, both came to settle in the Luo family's territory in 1544 with Wang Hai's smuggling fleet. Soon after settling in. Chen Tianjie relied on an opportunity to deal with the visiting Nanban people in Zhu Qinfeng's fleet, and showed his skills of familiarity with the language and culture of the Nanban land, so he won the appreciation of Zhengliang and gradually grew into the Luo family's independent public servant.

After being reused, Chen Tianjie then recommended his friend Tian Xiangyu to Zhengliang. Chen Tianjie and Tian Xiangyu's ancestors were both wealthy gentry in the coastal areas of Zhejiang, and they made their fortunes by doing business with the Southern Barbarians. After the Ming Kingdom banned the sea, their family gradually declined. And some of the wealthy gentry who rose up through the collusion of officials and businessmen and even with the Japanese invaders took the opportunity to continue to eat away at their interests, and finally forced Chen Tianjie and Tian Xiangyu to bankruptcy ten years ago. In desperation, the two took refuge in Wang Hai and tried to use smuggling to make a fortune again, but because they touched the interests of other people, they were jointly attacked by the local gentry and bureaucrats who had been engaged in the smuggling business for a long time, and were finally forced to defect to Zhengliang with their families.

Because the ancestors of these two people had close contacts with the Nanban, the two who had received the influence of Nanban culture since they were children had very rich knowledge of Nanban, and Tian Xiangyu's family was even more secretly engaged in minerals, and they were also very good at smelting techniques. After getting the opportunity to show his talent, he quickly showed Masato such smelting techniques as the "Amalgam Method" of Nanban, and then combined with the local smelting methods of the Ming and Wa Kingdoms, he established a complete set of smelting methods, which greatly improved the smelting efficiency of the gold, silver, copper and other minerals of the Luo family.

Later, he even cooperated with Ore Feng Bao Hongfei to integrate excavation methods such as pit excavation and tunnel excavation, which made great progress in the mining technology of the Luo family. Because of his great contribution to the Luo family, just last year he was directly promoted by Masato from a craftsman foreman to the smelting staff of the Luo family.

In the meeting hall of the workshop, after everyone had finished saluting, Togo Heiji, who was the governor of the Interior Cabinet, first introduced the recent situation in the workshop, and then the territorial mine director Hiroshi handed over an account book kept in a wooden box to Masara.

This is about the various ores found in the Luo family's territory in the past ten years. Since a lot of the information on these ores is confidential (except for a few important people including Zhengliang, even ordinary retainers may not clearly know the situation of the ores in various parts of the Luo family), so Li Hongfei did not report it in public, but presented it to Zhengliang in the form of account books.

Zhengliang took the account book submitted by the little surname Bai Wuxian, and immediately opened it and looked at it. From the information in the account books, it is known that the situation of the Luo family at this time is as follows:

In terms of gold mines, only one large gold mine has been found in the Odaira Mine in the Bungo Province area. In addition, no other gold mines have been found in the territory of Hizen Province, Chikugo Province, Higo Province, Chikuzen Province, and Hyuga Province. However, just relying on the Odaira Mine in the Bungo Province area, this gold mine is estimated to be able to increase the income of the Luo family a lot.

In order to keep the Luo's unique smelting techniques secret, after the gold ore is excavated at the Odaira Gold Mine, the smelting techniques that are now commonly known in the Wa Kingdom will be used at the local smelting workshop, and then the smelted gold ore and waste slag (which actually contains some gold) will be transported in batches to the main workshop near Hizen Kishidake Mountain Castle for the last step of smelting, in order to maximize income.

In terms of silver mines, a rich silver mine was found on Mt. Unye in the Beizhen Mountains of Kanzaki County, Hizen Province, and was named Unno Silver Mine; A silver mine was discovered on Mt. Ishikiri in Kamitsuma-gun, Chikugo Province, and was named Ishikiri Silver Mine. The above two silver mines were discovered by the Luo family after the Luo family occupied the local area, and are currently being mined.

In addition, the Miyahara Silver Mine in Higo and the Odaira Silver Mine in Bungo were discovered by the Otomo family not long ago, but they have now been occupied by the Luo family, and local mining work has returned to normal.

Also for the purpose of keeping the smelting technique secret, these silver mines are first extracted by preliminary smelting in the local area and then transported to the Hizen General Workshop for post-smelting.

In terms of copper ore, two new copper mines were discovered in Shiraishiyama, Songura County, Hizen, and Void Zangshan in Nanhizen (the small copper mine originally discovered by the Luo family on Mt. Notaka had already been mined), and the reserves were very rich, and they were named Shiraishi Copper Mine and Void Copper Mine respectively.

In addition, there are copper mines in Mt. Higo and Mt. Higo that were originally occupied by local wealthy families. At this time, these copper mines also belonged to the Luo family, but these were small copper mines, and they had been mined for a long time, and the reserves were not much.

It is worth mentioning that there are a lot of associated iron ore in the above-mentioned copper mines, which slightly alleviates the demand for iron ore in the territory. Of course, the bulk of the demand for iron ore still needs to rely on imports to solve.

In terms of rare ores, only lead ore and tin ore have been found on the tail ore of Bungo Province. The Cabinet of the Interior is about to mine the two mines after the autumn harvest, and it is expected that their reserves should be able to fully meet the needs of the Roche family for the use of lead ore and tin ore.

The gold, silver, copper, lead and tin ore mentioned above are extracted by preliminary smelting in the local area and then transported to the Hizen General Workshop for post-smelting. Among these minerals, lead ore and tin ore will all be reserved for their own use, and gold, silver, and copper ore will be mined together with Wang Hai, a merchant of the Ming Kingdom, and Zhu Qinfeng, a Southern Barbarian, and some of them will be left for the Luo family for their own use, and part will be left for Wang Hai and Zhu Qinfeng to earn higher profits (the Luo family will send people to participate in the whole transaction process with the ship, and by the way, increase the navigation knowledge of these people).

Coal. Coal mines have been found in several mountain ranges in Chikugo Province, and it is estimated that there may be a large coal mine that has been connected underneath this area. After discovering these coal mines, Masahiro took the time to inspect the local area and preliminarily determined that these coal mines were remnant coal mines. The coal mines discovered in Chikugo Province have been mined and supplied to the Hizen General Workshop. As its production continues to increase, Masahiro plans to extend the daily use of the coal mine to other workshops and the private sector, so that the people can not only use carbon for heating in winter. (To be continued......)