Chongzhen six years, February.

Yixian County, Shandong, Fengmingshan Coal Mine, at the foot of the mountain is a fairly neat and orderly shed.

C7 wooden shed, No. 3 Chase shop.

At seven o'clock in the morning, just after dawn, I heard the gong of Dangdang.

Miner Mao Xilong opened his eyes, lifted the quilt, left the warm quilt with some reluctance, put on his clothes, washed up briefly, took a bowl with a large scoop, filled a multigrain porridge (mixed with rice, wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, etc.) in the canteen, and then asked for two baked cakes filled with shredded radish, squatted aside and ate.

Five light coins of multigrain porridge, one biscuit, plus a free green onion, this breakfast cost a total of 11 yuan.

Hulala~

Mao Xilong's voice of drinking porridge is very loud, and the baked cakes are also eaten very quickly, the same as the eating of the surrounding workers, there is no emphasis on civilized diet, just to eat well, and even the sound of sucking will be deliberately louder, expressing the meaning of 'I eat very fragrantly, dare to disturb me and kill you'.

After all, in the past few years on Phi Dao, Shuangdao and other islands, most of those who have not developed this eating habit have become starved corpses.

Calculate the time.

It has been more than a year since he was defeated and captured in December last year, and now he has become a miner who concentrates on mining.

This more than a year of mining career, for Mao Xilong, the hard work is indeed very hard, there is almost no easier work, especially at the beginning of the extremely uncomfortable, not only had the idea of resisting and escaping, but also almost put into action.

But......

Failed.

Under the strict defense of more than 300 elite mine protection teams, the success rate of escape is very small, and they will only be beaten in vain.

And those who tried to riot or escape, accumulating more than twice, although the mine owner Hu Wenting was kind-hearted and would not torture or kill, he would just sell this kind of miner to Lu Youxing, who operated the iron mine, at a loss of 20 silver dollars, and Lu Youxing was known as the king of the Yama, and the miners who fell into his hands could be imagined.

The huge risk of being resold made Mao Xilong dare not act rashly.

After working for several months in a row and gradually getting used to the labor intensity of mining, Mao Xilong slowly found that he was actually getting used to this kind of life.

There are three main aspects that make him feel satisfied, and thus gradually wear out the yearning for freedom.

First, in terms of food, although the variety of meals provided by the canteen is not very rich, it has achieved one thing - full.

As long as the miners can pay for it, they can eat as much as they want, and there is fish and meat every once in a while, and they can buy it with money to satisfy the appetite of the next person.

And this kind of long-term life can be managed, is the life that Mao Xilong once dreamed of, after the rebellion of the army in Dongjiang Town, he enjoyed a period of time, but not stable for a long time, now working in the mine, actually relying on hard work to get food and clothing, but also eat fish every three days, eat meat every seven days, white rice and noodles are made casually, such a life is heaven.

The second is that the mining income is high.

Mining in the Fengmingshan Coal Mine, whether it is the free people miners who came from the surrounding villages and towns, or the miners captured by the rebels of Dongjiang Town like Mao Xilong, or those contract miners from Jiangnan, there are tens of thousands of miners, in order to facilitate management and improve the enthusiasm of mining, the mine owner Hu Wenting does not adopt a fixed wage system, but more work and more pay, according to the weight of coal.

Dig out a pound of raw coal, even if it is 1 penny.

Dig out 100 catties of coal, even if it is 100 yuan.

The more you dig, the higher the salary, there is no upper limit, and there will be no deductions.

The Fengmingshan Coal Mine is a shallow coal mine, the burial depth is only twenty or thirty meters, and the workload of drilling, ventilation and drainage is not too large (this kind of safe work is done by the elderly, women and children, and they get a fixed salary of 50 yuan a day), and after carrying a basket down the mine, Mao Xilong can dig out at least two or three hundred catties of coal a day.

This means that the daily wage is two or three hundred yuan.

In this day and age, it definitely belongs to the high-paid class.

In addition to the cost of food for three meals a day, the cost of buying clothes and daily necessities, you can save at least 100 wen a day, and at least 30 silver dollars a year.

In the end, there is a glimmer of hope.

A glimmer of hope for freedom from the mines.

Because as a prisoner of the rebels in Dongjiang Town, Mao Xilong's atonement silver is 500 taels, that is, as long as he finds a way to save enough money, he can atone for his sins, he can be free, he can go wherever he wants, he can live in seclusion in the mountains, cultivate the fields for farming, marry a wife and have children, and reproduce.

Mao Xilong is 23 years old this year, and if he saves 30 silver dollars every year in the future, then as long as he takes more than 16 years, that is, when he is almost 40 years old, he can save enough money to atone for his sins and embrace the precious freedom.

It was this glimmer of hope that made him work hard to mine and make a plan to save money.

Now, more than a year later, his current progress in saving money is - he only has less than 5 silver dollars on him.

What's going on? How did he save so much, and where did he have a few dozen silver dollars?

No way, Mao Xilong likes to eat, his food expenses are always higher than others, 300 Wen a portion of braised pork, he must order it every seven days, which means that one day's salary goes into the stomach.

Mao Xilong also likes to gamble, and every day when he comes back from work, he has to get together with his co-workers to gamble twice, winning and losing, losing more and winning less.

Mao Xilong also likes P, no, it is Widow Liu, who is also working in the mine and is responsible for drainage, seeing that he is handsome, he often takes the initiative to seduce him, Mao Xilong can't stand the temptation of Widow Liu, so he occasionally goes to the back of the mine with her to roll, not to mention the loss of a lot of nutrition, and the money bag will also be deflated.

After combining many factors.

Mao Xilong, who only saved 5 silver dollars in more than a year, means that it will take a hundred years to save enough money for sin, and the probability of freedom is very slim.

But Mao Xilong doesn't plan to think about this aspect anymore, there is food and drink, there are gambling and women, this kind of life is very good, not to mention that there are not many people who can live past the age of forty in this era, how can he think about it so far.

Just lie down and enjoy the moment.

After breakfast.

At the special place where the tools are kept, I received my own safety helmet, back basket, iron pick, LED flashlight and other tools, and then went down the mine through the shaft.

In the dark underground tunnel, the faint white light released by the small flashlight can barely see the road, and find the black coal, then pick up an iron pickaxe, dig hard, peel off the extremely hard coal, and put it into the back basket.

This process is not only hard, but also has a lot of danger, even if the mine owner Hu Wenting pays great attention to the safety of the miners, and adds a lot of reinforcement, ventilation and drainage facilities to the mine road, there will still be two or three landslides every month, killing and injuring several people.

After digging hard for a while, the back basket next to it gradually filled.

In the middle of the tunnel, some small talk began to appear.

"Hey, everyone, I heard that in the Zhaoyuan Gold Mine, there is an electric air pick, driven by thunder and lightning, which can crush thousands of catties of raw ore a day, not only is it not tired, but the efficiency is much more powerful than our iron pickaxe, I don't know when we will be able to use this kind of mining weapon." A freedman miner.

"Really, if you crush thousands of catties of raw ore a day, if you use it to dig coal, wouldn't you be able to earn a few silver dollars a day?" A miner with a Jiangnan accent asked.

"It must be the real Jiangnan Tsai, I will go to Zhaoyuan Gold Mine in a few days to have a look, use it personally, make a make, and come back to tell you how to use it." The freeman miner said in a smug tone.

"Okay, if there really is such a mining weapon, how about we buy one together? Thousands of catties of crushed ore every day, much faster than we dig, and people are more relaxed, even if the money will not be too much, it is much better than now. "This miner with a Jiangnan accent is very business-minded.

"It's feasible, as long as that kind of electric pickaxe can be bought, Jiang Nanzai, I will definitely find you to join forces."

"How about I get a share too?"

Mao Xilong's heart moved, and he hurriedly interjected: "I have money, and I want to follow you into a share." ”

"The barbarian from Liaodong, you also want to take shares, do you think you are worthy?"

"Liaodong barbarian, we are discussing things, don't intervene, it's not your turn to buy shares."

"Hahaha, the life of a lifetime of mining, do you still want to turn over? Stop dreaming! ”

Time.

Mao Xilong was unanimously ridiculed by the local miners with Shandong accent and Jiangnan accent, who all laughed at him for not being self-sufficient, daydreaming, and letting him pee on himself.

"You-"

In the shrill laughter, Mao Xilong was so angry that he wanted to kill them with an iron pickaxe, but after all, he could only choose to swallow his anger and not say a word.

There is no way, this is the survival situation of the rebel miners in Dongjiang Town.

The local freeman miners have a high status, which is something that cannot be helped, because they are all good citizens, not only protected by the government, but also protected by Xujiazhuang's "Mining Law", plus they have freedom of action, they are the masters of the mines! No matter how fierce and arrogant the miners are, they don't dare to offend in the slightest, Mao Xilong has been slapped a few times by the free miners for fighting for the mine road, it is obviously not Mao Xilong who is wrong, but he is the one who is asked to apologize, who made him a rebel in Dongjiang Town? Who is entitled to rob the freemen's mines?

Even if you are wronged by the free miners, you can only consider yourself unlucky, but I didn't expect that the Jiangnan miners, who were also prisoners, would become the second master in the mine, and they couldn't provoke and offend, and occasionally they would be bullied by the Jiangnan miners and slapped by them.

But whoever let the Jiangnan miners redeem their bodies is only 100 taels, which is one-fifth of the rebel miners in Dongjiang Town, and they can be redeemed after two or three years at most, and then promoted to free miners, so the Jiangnan miners are also one level higher than them.

It's not fair, it's really not fair!

In addition to complaining in their hearts, Mao Xilong and the others could only be cautious in front of the Jiangnan miners, treating them as second masters, and did not dare to call them Jiangnanzai.

Fortunately, in the chain of contempt in the Fengmingshan Coal Mine, Mao Xilong and other rebel prisoners in Dongjiang Town are not at the bottom of despair, and there are more than 20 Xiyi miners (that is, the remnants of Western artillery captured in the Jiangnan War), these Xiyi people are at the bottom of the contempt chain, so Mao Xilong and others, every time they feel wronged, they will call hundreds of Dongjiang Town brothers to run to find trouble with these Xiyi people, and after beating them violently, let them kneel down and call themselves a master.

It's just more than half a year ago, maybe they were beaten badly, and those Xiyi people don't know where they were transferred, resulting in every time they were wronged by the uncle and the second master, they couldn't even find a channel to vent, and they were really uncomfortable with a burning stomach, so they could only vent on the coal and stone in the mine.

……

In the afternoon, the gong sounded for the end of work.

At the weighing place not far from the mine crossing, Mao Xilong got the fruits of today's labor - 355 Wen, which can be described as extraordinary performance compared to usual.

"I'll order a 50 wen hairtail fish later, treat yourself."

Suddenly.

A tumultuous sound, coming from the bottom of the mountain, accompanied by a message, like a gust of wind, reached the ears of all the miners:

"There's a new miner here today!"

"They are all rogues from the Central Plains, and they are all murderers without blinking."

"Now they have come to the mine to be our companions, and they will be our co-workers in the future!"

Hear this.

Mao Xilong, who was going to eat in the cafeteria, immediately changed his attention, stopped eating dinner for the time being, and took hundreds of rebel brothers from Dongjiang Town to Wubao Town at the foot of the mountain to watch the excitement.

……

Outside the dock fort.

A team of about 5,000 men, women, and children, all with a short rope tied to their feet, all looked numb, escorted by hundreds of mine guards, and entered the dock fort and arrived at their destination.

And this one is in the ranks.

A middle-aged man with serious injuries in his legs and could only lie on a sliding pole was carried by four emaciated teenagers, and instead of despair and numbness on his face, he looked at the dock fort and the mine in front of him with a look of contemplation.

"Is this the place where my Zhang Xianzhong dragon plate is?"

"Judging from the popularity of the fireworks on the mountain, at least tens of thousands of young people gather here."

"Okay, okay, miners and even the strongest soldiers, it seems that my eight kings, Zhang Xianzhong, will soon be able to make a comeback."

Zhang Xianzhong looked at all this in front of him confidently, not only did he not pay attention to the mine guards next to him, but he seemed to be patrolling his territory, his eyes were turning slyly, and he didn't know what plan was brewing.

And Zhang Xianzhong's unruly performance, like a piece of coal mine illuminated by a small flashlight, quickly attracted Mao Xilong's attention.

He rushed over quickly, came to the sliding rod that had just been put on the ground, his arm was rounded, and a slap was thrown on Zhang Xianzhong's black face, Mao Xilong said viciously: "Special mother, quickly call me master, this is the first rule you have to abide by!" ”

Zhang Xianzhong's eyes were full of stars, and the corners of his mouth were bleeding, and this slap for no reason suddenly cast a shadow on the plan in his heart.