The stone castle is just a manor of the Ice Lotus family, and a large area of land around the castle is directly managed by the manor, and the three of them walked for more than half an hour before leaving the range of the manor field. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info walked along the dirt road for another hour before reaching a nameless village.

As soon as the three of them arrived at the outskirts of the village, they were seen by several village women holding clay pots, and although the women were short-sighted, they also felt that the three of them were indescribably awkward. When the three of them entered the village, the village chief, who had received the news, had already come out, and the village chief had gray hair, was dry and black, and was slightly hunchbacked. He quietly looked the three of them up and down, left and right, but he still couldn't figure out where the three people came from, and said after careful consideration:

"I don't know what the three of you call them?"

"Call me Jiao Ming, these two are my family. Jiao Ming pulled the ice lotus standing in front of him back and spoke first. He found that the old man looked old and dim, but he had a peasant-like cunning. As the saying goes, people are old spirits, ghosts and old spirits, no matter how much they show their feet, they can still be found to be a traverser, but once the aristocratic habits of Ice Lotus are revealed, it will most likely arouse resistance and cause unnecessary misunderstandings "Presumably you are the village chief, I don't know what the old man is called"

"Everyone in the village calls me Agen, but I can't be regarded as the village chief, I just usually adjust the neighborhood conflicts. A cripple with two women largely removed the guardiness of the village chief, and as he spoke, he led the three of them to a clay shack at the head of the village, most likely the village chief's house. "There is nothing to entertain in a poor place, forgive me. I just don't know what the three of you are doing here?"

"Nature is here to farm. Jiao Ming likes this unforgiving way of speaking, of course, no matter how much he likes it, the answer is still made up.

"The three of them don't look like people who are farming. ”

"Then Uncle Agen, what do you think we look like?"

"Uncle doesn't dare to be, you are the aristocratic lord who escaped from the south, right?" The eyes of the village chief Agen seemed to see through the heat and coldness of the world, and there was nothing in his tone that could not hide the pride of the old man.

"Hello eyesight!" Some people just like to fool themselves, Jiao Ming laughed secretly in his heart. "Whatever the past, now we are just civilians. After that, he shook his head, with a lonely expression that could not be looked back on, with the empty sleeves and trouser legs, even the second daughter behind him almost believed it. "Our family is so depressed, if we can really settle here, there are still many places that need the help of my father-in-law. This uncle naturally deserves it. ”

"For the sake of this uncle, I will naturally do my best, the three of you don't have any luggage with you?"

"Our family was passing by here, and the elders in the family had difficulty moving, so the three of us came over to check on the situation. ”

At this point, the old man Agen thought that he knew all the circumstances, and his vigilance was completely gone, but he comforted Jiao Ming: "Don't be discouraged young man, it's good that people are still alive!"

Jiao Ming put away his half-truths and went straight to the point: "I want to ask you about the local situation, and I hope you tell the truth." ”

"That's nature, and I'm familiar with the boundaries around here. ”

Next, Jiao Ming asked a few questions about land, population, and production one by one, and secretly remembered them in his heart.

"One last question. Is there a kind of insect here, as thin as a child's fingers, as long as a palm, black flesh, mostly seen in the early morning after rain? ”

"Yes, yes. The old man said a strange pronunciation, but Jiao Ming guessed that ninety percent of them were earthworms.

"Can you dig one out and take a look?"

"Second baby!" the old man shouted outside the house, and immediately ran in a little boy of six or seven years old, with a coarse cloth coat on his upper body, but wide open underneath, and his little friend fluttering in the wind. The old man gave a few instructions, and after a while, the little boy came back with an earthworm in his hand. Jiao Ming checked it and confirmed that it was correct, and his heart was at peace.

When the goal was achieved, Jiao Ming did not stay long, and said that he would continue to walk north and leave.

Jiao Ming was embarrassed to tell Binglian that this was actually his first social survey, and he didn't know what the social survey should investigate. So Jiao Ming's original plan was to take a casual look at what was lacking in the countryside here, and then refer to the earth to use the soil method to cottage it, teach it to Binglian's subordinates and promote it, and then they could eat, drink and have fun.

But the specific situation is very different from Jiao Ming's imagination!

On the way back, Jiao Ming began to ask: "Don't you have any iron here?" Jiao Ming had already discovered the biggest and ultimate problem, the villagers were actually using all wooden farm tools, was this a joke? The village chief's adobe shack was full of wooden shovels and pickaxes, and I was sorry for the radicals of these two Chinese characters. When Jiao Ming was chatting, he also picked up a stone with a unique shape by the way, and after pondering for a long time, he guessed that this was a stone sickle for harvesting.

"What is iron?" asked Ice Lotus rhetorically.

"It's metal, it's very hard at room temperature, and the surface is shiny and shiny, and it melts when heated to high temperatures......

"Yes!" Bing Lian understood what Jiao Ming meant. "What's wrong?"

"It's expensive?" Although there is, the villagers don't use it, and the reason is that they can't afford it.

"Why do you ask this? Of course it's expensive. "Ice Lotus is inexplicable.

No matter how expensive it is, Xin Zhongguo's experience tells Jiao Ming that everything is expensive to buy and everything is cheap to build. "Then do we have iron ore in our territory?"

"What is iron ore?"

"......" Jiao Ming wondered if Binglian was deliberately teasing himself, but he quickly determined that Binglian's doubts were from the heart. "Black, red or yellow stones can be refined from metals when heated at high temperatures. ”

"You're so funny! Where can there be such a miraculous stone, metal is the product of alchemy, and it can be described as priceless. Binglian looked at Jiao Ming's stunned and unbelievable look, and then gave an example: "A few years ago, my father bought a metal magic sword, but it cost five hundred slaves, which is equivalent to the family's income for three or four years. ”

Jiao Ming was even more surprised after hearing this: "Metal matters aside, why do you still have slaves here? How can the feudal system regress to slavery again?" Jiao Ming has long known about the backwardness here, but he didn't expect that there are still slaves. Lao Tzu wants to apply for a re-crossing!