By the time it was Gastens' turn to go down, most of the miners had already gone underground. As a Technologist in the Johor Bahru Mine, Gabling? Zinman's little follower, although Gastens also has to go down the mine, but intentionally or unintentionally, the overseers will always give him some small conveniences.

Most of the pyroxene veins are located underground, ranging from tens to hundreds of meters in depth. The Johor Bahru pyroxene mine is not a bonanza and has been mined for a long time before it passed into the hands of the Brown family. The main veins of this mine are at a depth of 300-500 meters, and the air under the mine is so turbid that even if the ventilators are turned on two hours earlier every morning, the first few miners are in danger of suffocation. In the case of the slow pace of the old steam engine equipped in the mine, once it suffocated, before the machine could pull people up, a life would be confessed. Therefore, letting Gastens go to the mine a little later is also a kind of protection for him.

The mine in front of Gastens is called Cave 7, which mainly produces D and E grade inferior pyroxene, and the price is not high, but it is better than the production. At the beginning of the mine, the depth of more than 100 meters was carried out on a lifting platform controlled by a steam engine. The platform has no walls, like a cage, and when you look up, you can see the cramped sky, and when you look down, you can see a row of glowing pyroxene markers that extend to the bottom of the cave. The last thing that is lacking in pyroxene is pyroxene, so even underground, the miners are never short of light. Just clamp the pyroxene with the simple C-shaped clip they carry with them, and let the burning gold at the tip of the clip touch the exposed surface of the pyroxene, and the pyroxene will begin to release light and heat. Low-grade pyroxene emits both light and heat, which results in extremely high temperatures in mines illuminated with pyroxene. Pyroxene, which only emits light and does not release heat, is called pyroxene, and it is the main lighting appliance used by princes and nobles and ordinary people. Cave 7 does not produce pyroxene, and the Brown family will not transport pyroxene from Mine 11, 3 kilometers away, to keep the miners cool, so more than 200 workers, including Gastens, must endure temperatures of more than 35 degrees all year round.

Gastens stripped off his cotton vest and linen pants as he descended, but despite this, he was still sweating hot when the lift platform he was riding on reached the work surface. Together with the same group of workers who had gone down the mine, he walked to the wooden shelf next to the elevator, threw his coat in a woven basket with his name on it, confirmed that he had a water bottle and black bread on his body, and held his slide bar, and waited in front of a mine.

"Little Gas, this is the third day, are you still getting used to it?"

"It's okay, Big Brother Adam, it's just a little hot."

Miner Adam? Nelson reached out and patted Gastens on the shoulder, grinned, wiped the sweat from his palm on his pants, and helped Gastens hang the slider on the track at the top of the hole. He was one of the most experienced miners in the mine, who Gablin had arranged for Gastens to lead the way. You know, Gastens is a cheap labor that can save Gabrin a lot of effort, although according to the requirements of the mine, when there is no steam engine to repair, it will be a pity if he accidentally dies. So, Gabrin looking for Bawei stone? Brown said that, and found such a talisman for Gastens.

Gastens had no opinion on Gabling's arrangement. If he wants to make a revolution in his own world, and if he wants communism to take root in this land, he must be down-to-earth and seek truth from facts. If he didn't do research and understanding, and directly used the revolutionary experience he learned from the earth to make a rash revolution in this world where there were still Magisters, not to mention whether he could succeed or not, it was not certain whether he had followers or not.

In his first life in this world, Gastens had been a serf for most of his life and a soldier for a few years, he knew what the serfs wanted, to get rid of the status of slaves and the land, he also knew what the soldiers wanted, a reliable commander, and a reason to fight. But he doesn't know what the workers of this world want, less work, more vacations? Or a higher salary? Or is it to escape the fate of the workers?

To understand this, it is necessary to investigate, but as a serf, he does not have the freedom to act. Although he had pestered Gablin to learn the basics of writing in the two months since he came to the Johor Bahru Mine, and his progress was so fast that he was even called a prodigy, he still needed the opportunity to go among the workers, to become a worker, to understand the thinking of the working class. And at this moment, the mine manager Bawei stone? Brown was upset with him, a slave who had nothing to do but fix machines, and named him to go down the mine. This request hit his heart, and he couldn't resist, so he became a miner.

The clattering rod slipped for ten minutes before it reached the face where the mining was being mined, and the workers who arrived first had already started their work with their chisels and sledgehammers. Gastens set aside the kettle and the cloth bag containing the bread, took the chisel, found the traces of yesterday, and inserted the chisel half a meter long and three fingers thick.

"Hold it firm!"

Nelson roared, picked up the sledgehammer and slammed it into the thumb-sized section at the end of the drill. The muscles of his arms, shoulders, and neck tensed, imbued with a rugged and primal strength and beauty in the yellow glow of the illuminating pyroxene. Gastens looked at Nelson's muscles with some envy, but the vibrations that followed him made him turn his attention back to his work.

"Be careful, boy! Don't want your hands anymore?! ”

Nelson's hammer barely paused, and there was a peculiar rhythm to match the sound of his breathing. The hammer in his hand, the head of the hammer alone weighs ten kilograms, and if it misses when it falls, it can directly smash Gastens's two hands into comminuted fractures, and with the medical conditions of this world, 100% of them will be amputated. Therefore, the workers who can play this kind of cooperation on the work surface have a lot of trust in each other.

"Got it!"

Gastens replied loudly, clenching the hammer in his hand. Pyroxene veins are not pure, and are often wrapped in rocks in pieces. To mine them, the rock walls must be cracked and shattered, revealing the pyroxene within. Fortunately, perhaps because of their different properties, pyroxene is well separated from the rock that surrounds it. If you're lucky, some pyroxene will be almost exposed during the initial screening and can be thrown directly onto the minecart. For others, workers need to knock on the spot again to remove the excess weight, and then send it to the elevator by the mine cart.

The entire process, except for the final minecart, which is powered by a steam engine placed at the mouth of the elevator, requires manpower. There is no gunpowder in this world, naturally there are no detonators and explosive mining. There is also no electricity in this world, and percussion drills are naturally nowhere to be used. Miniaturized steam engines, Gastens didn't know if they existed in other countries, at least not in Johor Bahru. If you look at it by the standards of coal mining on earth, the mining technology in Johor Bahru is very primitive and backward. The backwardness of technical conditions will eventually need to be filled by manpower. The miners in Johor Bahru are very tired, this mine works two shifts a day, each shift miners work for 8 hours, absolutely not a long time, but the physical exertion is very large, Gastens worked until the third day, with his whole day farming and deliberately exercised body, also a little unbearable. And for old miners like Nelson, this form of manual labor has long since become an instinct to eat.

The conditions in the mine were so bad that the mechanical watches used by the nobles could not last long, and no one could carry them. The mine overseer would only blow the trumpet at the end of the day and summon everyone back. It is up to the workers to decide how to rest and when to eat during these eight hours, and the supervisors only count the daily output of each working group, and if the output is not enough, the wages will be deducted, and if it is not enough, the wages will be deducted until they are dismissed or lynched. If the output is more, the money will be added appropriately, so the workers are still motivated to work.

"Big Brother Adam, it's almost time to eat, right?"

The workers didn't have clocks, but they had their own way of estimating time. The output of a full-fledged working group is stable every hour, and in half a day, a two-person working group can dig a truckload of ore, and at that time, everyone will stop to eat and rest.

"I know, dig some more, you can heat up the rice first."

Nelson replied, and began to smash the rocks they had peeled out with a peeling hammer. Gastens took out a small pot and base from the corner, poured some water and washed the pot, found a piece of good color in the peeled pyroxene, clamped it with a C-shaped clip, and threw it on the base of the small pot. He poured some water into the pot as he watched as the pyroxene he picked out glowed faintly. Gastens put his hand next to him and felt it, and he could feel the obvious heat.

"It's still bread porridge."

He shouted at Nelson, but Gastens didn't wait for a reply. He dug out his and Nelson's black bread, broke it, waited for the water to boil, and soaked most of it in the water. He took out a small bag from the pocket where he had put it, poured a few sun-dried prawns and some salt grains into the pot, and then leaned against the rock wall and stopped.

After a while, Nelson walked over, and in the environment surrounded by pyroxene, he had already taken off only a pair of pants. Gastens had already divided their homemade porridge with seafood bread, and the two of them snorted and ate it one by one.

"Big Brother Adam, are you going to be a miner all the time? What are you going to do if you can't do it anymore, or if you're getting older? ”

Adam? Nelson paused and glanced at Gastens.

"What else can I do, save money, buy a piece of land when I am old, plant it myself or rent it out, and become a small landlord. Things in the mine, after all, are still too dangerous. ”

"Oh, is it someone like Lord Bass?"

"You said your master's house? I'm not that good, I can't buy so many serfs, and it's good that I can buy a serf, or find a tenant farmer to help. ”

Become a landlord and then enslave other serfs?

Gastens frowned imperceptibly and changed the subject. The pyroxene that had been thrown at the bottom of the pot was still glowing, illuminating the faces of the two men in a dim yellow color.

————————

As he climbed out of the mine, Gastens was a little uncomfortable with the bright white sunlight and breeze outside. After spending so much time in the hot mines, he sometimes forgets that it's still spring. Nelson, who was following him, patted him on the shoulder with his hand and walked in the direction of the dormitory. Gastens hesitated and followed.

After taking a shower in cold water, he went to the workers' canteen to get the black bread for dinner, and after Gastens finished eating, he changed into a clean yellow-and-white linen shirt and turned around and left the dormitory. During the day, when there was no steam engine to repair, he mined, and in the evening, it was time to study with Gabling.

Speaking of learning time, in fact, Gablin didn't care about him except for teaching him for half a month at the beginning to ensure that he could independently complete the primary overhaul of the machine in the new mountain mine. It was only at Gastens's repeated request that he put some of the books he had brought with him from Roseville University in a small cabinet in the duty room and gave him the key. When Gastens wanted to read a book, he would go straight to the duty room, where there were pyroxenes, seats, and books.

"Little Gas, here's the paper and pen you wanted, a total of 3 crowns and 45 tinies, you gave me 4 crowns, and this is the remaining 55 tinies, give it back to you, put it away."

Patterson on duty in the duty room? Farahani is an old worker in the mines, having lost a hand in a magic surge. Brown took pity on him and gave him a job on duty. Gastens asked him to help him buy paper, pens and envelopes a few days ago, and today he finally got them.

"Thank you, Uncle Patterson, these 5 Tini will be given to you, take it to buy a glass of wine to drink, count as my thanks!"

Gabrin bought Gastens for 100 Browns, so naturally he will not be paid any more. Gastens had money from his parents before he left, and some of it was paid for his work. Since he came to this world, he has saved a total of 4 crowns and 30 tinis, and this time he bought stationery and envelopes, and used most of them.

But for Garstens, it's worth it. He had now learned the texts of the Ankenrein Empire, and had a reasonable source to explain his knowledge of steam, and the only obstacle that stood in his way to continuing the revolution was the problem of news blockage. And to leave the mines, enter the well-informed big cities, and learn more about and contact with the world, he must get rid of his serfdom. Gablin spent a lot of money for him and would certainly not let him go free. Although the workers in the mines were friendly, many of them were serfs bought by local owners, so naturally they could not help. Gastens could only hope that he would write a letter and send it to Roswell, the capital of the Ankenrein Empire, to attract more attention, gain access to more knowledge, and find a chance to break free from his serfdom.

Garstens' greatest treasure now is that steam knowledge, but if he tells Gablin about it, he will certainly not gain much of it. Therefore, he must find people who understand the value of this knowledge better, and find people who can help him. And from the addresses seen on the nameplates of those steam engines, I think I will be interested in the technology in his hands.

With cautious anticipation, Gastens laid down the letter and, carefully polishing his pen, slowly but firmly wrote down the title of the letter. He was going to knock on the door of the company called The Surging Machinery Power Company with a small part that was very important in the history of the steam engine. He believed that anyone who knew a little about the steam engine would be able to know how useful this little thing could be.

As the daylight faded outside the window, Gastens unfolded the letter he had bought and wrote the letter he had been working on on his letterhead.

"Idea of a Centrifugal Automatic Steam Engine Governor"