The three-day deadline passed quickly, Li Tian and Uncle Wang packed up their things, said goodbye to their aunt and Xiaoen early in the morning, and set off for the mine outside the town under the leadership of the shopkeeper.

The mine is not far to the west of Houqi Town, and the official road bends around the foot of the mountain and leads directly to Houqi Town.

At first, there was only a transit station set up by the government at the foot of the mine hill to transport ore, and outsiders were not allowed to stay here.

Later, many prisoners were transferred to mine, and the number of officers and soldiers stationed there also increased accordingly. At the foot of the hill were then barracks and a prison for prisoners to rotate.

During this period, there were cases where some vegetable farmers who wanted to go to Houqi Town to sell vegetables directly to the garrison.

Since no damage was done, the town lord acquiesced.

As a result, more and more vegetable farmers choose to take their goods to the mine to sell. Because these officers and soldiers are generous, sometimes they can get some extra rewards.

After the treasure is excavated in the mine, according to the will of the immortals, more people need to be mobilized to come to the mine.

The townsman simply lifted the ban on outsiders staying and building buildings, allowing some houses to be built away from the barracks and prisons.

The powerful merchants in Houqi Town heard about this and came here to establish a branch one after another.

There are teahouses, restaurants, rice, flour, grain and oil, and some blacksmith shops and carpenter shops moved over, and gradually became a village, which is called the Ore Village.

The village blacksmith shop can help the barracks repair weapons, and can also use some iron ore from the mine to make some farm tools and sell them to farmers who come to sell vegetables.

Carpenters can build houses and make furniture, tables and chairs for later shops.

The most outrageous thing is that there is actually a Goolan brothel in Ore Village, and the business is extremely hot......

At present, the foot of the mine is directly divided into three areas, one is the barracks and prison area, the other is the village, and the other is the residential area of the miners recruited by the government.

The miners' settlements were built at the government's expense and managed by special people, so they were not placed with the villages.

These government-recruited miners are regular laborers, and as long as they reach a certain amount of mining each month, they can receive wages, and the more ore they dig and the better the quality of the ore, the more they will be paid the next month. It can be understood as more work and more reward, and this kind of initiative has greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of miners.

The miner who dug up the second treasure had lived here before, and now he had been awarded the title of official and silver, and he had been prosperous and wealthy for the rest of his life.

This is a big story among the miners, and every new miner is told, and then these new miners enter the mine with yearning and hope.

The shopkeeper, Li Tian, Uncle Wang, and his party went out of the west gate and walked to the mine in less than an hour.

Then the shopkeeper inquired in many ways, and finally found the registration point for recruiting miners in the third place, that is, the miners' residential area.

The order issued by the government yamen has already arrived here.

An official was in charge of registering the miners, and after the shopkeeper arrived and explained his intentions, the messenger pulled out a paper deed from a stack of official documents.

The deed of work states the reason why Li Tian and Uncle Wang entered the mine, as well as the start and end dates, as well as the minimum amount of ore that Li Tian and Uncle Wang need to hand in each month.

There is another provision here, that is, if a sufficient amount of ore is not handed over within three months, the construction period will be extended accordingly, as long as a sufficient amount of ore is handed in.

In addition, the difference between Li Tian and Uncle Wang's work deeds is not only that Li Tian and Uncle Wang have no wages.

And the minimum amount of ore to be turned in per month is more than other ordinary miners!

However, even so, Li Tian and Uncle Wang are much stronger than those prisoners.

Prisoners, especially those on death row, will be given a chance to survive the next day if they do not deliver enough ore on the first day.

As long as the next day can make up for the first day, and you can pay enough for the second day, it's fine.

But if it can't be done, then just put to death, without mercy!

Next to the deed, there is a stack of empty waist cards, and there is nothing on them.

Soon, the official said how to use these empty waist cards.

Each miner who went down to the mine could claim a piece of these waist cards, with the name and portrait engraved on the front and some personal belongings on the back.

In addition to the pickaxe basket that the government yamen allocated to everyone, most people would choose to carry one or two weapons into the mine.

Write the weapon you want to carry on it, and when you go out of the mine, you can explain that it is your own belongings when you encounter the person who is inspecting it.

There are many caves in the mine, and there are special people at the entrance of each mine to check what items the miners are carrying out of the mine, and if they find that they are carrying items that are not on the waist card, they must be handed in.

For some reason, miners who go down to the mine are not forbidden to carry weapons, as long as they make a clear note on the waist card, they are allowed to enter and exit the mine with weapons.

If you bring out the extra weapons, you can also receive rewards, either to increase the monthly money, or to offset the amount of ore.

Li Tian asked the official to write the black dagger on the waist card, and Uncle Wang asked the official to write his boning knife.

Li Tian was puzzled by this regulation, but also faintly worried, the miners carried weapons into the mine, was it to guard against other miners, or to guard against some other danger?

Finally, it is also necessary for the shopkeeper to make a handprint on the deed of Li Tian and Uncle Wang, which can be regarded as the completion of the deed.

After these formalities were completed, the shopkeeper told the two of them to work here with peace of mind, and he would help take care of the aunt and Xiaoen. Then he told Li Tian and Uncle Wang a few words to pay attention to safety and went back.

Since the two had just come to report today, the official did not let the two of them go to the mine immediately, telling them that they could follow the other miners into the mine tomorrow morning.

After that, the official told them the number of their residence, and he left them alone and began to register the next person.

Li Tian and Uncle Wang were assigned to the same house, which was also a big shop, much bigger than the big house in Tianxiang Restaurant. Moreover, Li Tian looked around and found that there were many such big houses in this area.

Like Tianxiang Restaurant, the house is equipped with a large fire, which is the standard configuration for winter.

The difference with the big kang of Tianxiang Restaurant is that there are four rows of fire kang in each big house, which is divided into two rooms, and there is an aisle in the middle of each house to separate them, and some tables and chairs are placed in the middle aisle for the miners who come back from the mine at night to rest.

In this way, a large house can accommodate a very large number of miners.

The house where Li Tian and Uncle Wang were assigned to still had two empty shops, one in the middle of the kang and the other at the end of the kang.

Li Tian gave up the middle position to Uncle Wang.

For a hot pot, the middle position is much warmer than the last position.

Because of the guarantor, the official did not restrict the freedom of Li Tian and Uncle Wang. Except for the barracks and prison area, Li Tian and Uncle Wang can move freely.

When he first heard the news, Uncle Wang was very happy.

Li Tian was very puzzled by Uncle Wang's happiness, he had left home, his wife and children, how could Uncle Wang still be happy?

When Li Tian asked Uncle Wang the reason, Uncle Wang told him that he was still too young, and if he could move freely, he would be able to find out a lot of news, so that when they went down to the mine again, they would not know nothing, and their eyes would be black.

The people who lived in the same house had entered the mine, so Uncle Wang took Li Tian to the village, and with so many shops in the village, he must have heard a lot of news.

However, since it was the time when the miners entered the mines, there were not many people in the village, and even some shops had not yet opened.

Looking east and west, Uncle Wang took Li Tian to the teahouse.

Ordinary miners here can also afford to spend, and there should be a lot of gains.

Uncle Wang asked for two bowls of tea, sat down at a table closer to the boss and began to chat with the boss.

Uncle Wang also did not reveal that he and Li Tian had come to serve in labor, and announced to the teahouse owner that their uncle and nephew had heard that the mine had a way to make a fortune, so they came from the countryside.

The owner of the teahouse is also a person who likes to chat, and after Uncle Wang said a few interesting things, he completely opened the conversation box and chatted with Uncle Wang endlessly. Li Tian listened with relish on the sidelines.

The teahouse owner said a lot to Uncle Wang.

The most of them is a lucky miner who dug up the treasure, and finally rewarded the official with silver, and the whole family was prosperous and rich.

And then there was the news he had heard from the miners who had come to drink tea.

First of all, the first news, which is also a regulation, is that there are no women in the miners, they are all men. This is a direct order from the town owner, who is afraid that the female miner will encounter accidents after going down the mine.

When the teahouse owner said this, he laughed lewdly twice, saying that whatever happened to him, it was all a man-made disaster! If it is a female miner who goes to the mine, she doesn't know whose child she will conceive after she comes out......

The second news, there is a strange glimmer of light in the mine, which comes from nowhere, so that the mine is not dark and you can't see anything.

In addition, if a team of more than 10 miners goes down to the mine together, the overseer will give the team an immortal item when they go down to the mine.

It is said that this item contains a kind of immortal spell, which can be activated by crushing, and the main function of the item is also to emit light, which can illuminate a large area in a dim mine.

And I heard that the light emitted by this spell can also make people recover some physical strength a little, which is very magical.

The third news is that there are many cave entrances to the mine, and these entrances are basically located on the top of the mountain.

However, the inside of each mine is basically connected, and if you get lost in it, you can almost get out of it by going all the way up.

If you just want to dig some iron ore to make some silver taels, don't go too deep.

If you want to try your luck and make a fortune, then try it all the way down, it is said that the last time you dug up the treasure, the person who rewarded the official with silver, is the treasure brought out in the deep part of the mine.

But there must have been great danger at the bottom, and the miner of the official had followed a large group of twenty people down, and finally he came out alive.

No one knows why he was the only one left, whether he was killing each other for treasure, or if he really encountered other dangers, these outsiders didn't know.

The fourth news is about carrying weapons into the mine, the boss said this, left and right to see if there was anyone nearby, and then whispered to Uncle Wang the reason.

In the early days, there were many officers and soldiers in the group of people who went to the mines, and because they did not know much about the situation in the mines, they basically went to the mines with weapons.

When the ban on the Immortal Family was triggered, many people died, and a lot of weapons remained in the mine.

Then, at the urging of the immortals, more people entered, and this time almost all of them carried weapons, wanting to find the cause of the death of the first people.

But with the second triggering of the immortal ban, more people died, and only a small number of people escaped.

As a result, there are now large quantities of weapons left in the mines.

Those condemned prisoners had to hand over a certain amount of ore every day.

But it's not every day you're lucky enough to find a bonanza.

At this time, those condemned prisoners would plunder other people's ore in order to save their lives.

The weapons scattered by those predecessors have become their best helpers.

Don't think that these prisoners are working with bracelets and shackles, so they can't move, and how many of them can become death row prisoners are good at stubble and have black hands!

After the death of many miners, the government yamen vaguely felt that something was wrong.

The situation improved when miners were finally allowed to carry weapons.

The owner of the teahouse persuaded that if he really encountered a condemned prisoner snatching the ore when he came out of the mine, he should give it to them, and the most important thing was to save his life......