As time passed, the two teams led by Jin Zi and Zhang Ben took turns to garrison Wild Wolf Mountain, during which they also brought back a large amount of iron ore and preliminarily refined pig iron.

Early in the morning, Xiao Jiu stood next to the Hare Hill Steelworks, which had already been built, and in front of him was a group of ragged men, all of whom were slaves bought by the caravan from all over Yang County.

The current Bactria Dynasty allowed the slave trade, and these slaves were roughly divided into two types, one was the desperate low-level people who were forced to sell themselves or their families for a living, and the other was the families of criminals.

Because the law of the entire Great Xia pays attention to joint sitting, most of these people are women and children, who are directly sold by the government to human traffickers.

These slaves did not have any human rights, and from the moment they were bought, their fate was already in the hands of someone else.

Most of the women would be bought by the peasant households who could not marry their wives or by the large landlords to be slaves and maids, while the men would be bought by the large families to serve as domestic servants.

Xiao Jiu stared at the slaves in front of him expressionlessly, with a hint of compassion.

There was no exciting announcement, just a count of the number of people and the order to start distributing clothes.

This was only the first batch of slaves sent up the mountain, eleven in all, almost all of them skinny and skinny, with uneasiness about the future in their eyes.

Xiao Jiu had already made arrangements for these people to become the first batch of workers in his own steel mill, or to go to the distillery to make soju.

Technology and knowledge are the foundation of Xiao Jiu's foothold, and if you want to keep it secret in a short period of time, you can only use these slaves who have lost their personal freedom.

These people Xiao Jiu will not really be used as slaves, he is not a modern person can be so cold-blooded, Xiao Jiu will pay them, and after working for enough years, he will give them back their free body, and let them decide whether to stay.

There is no impermeable wall in the world, Xiao Jiu does not expect that he can cover the skills of soju and frying steel forever, he just wants to use three or five years to accumulate wealth as much as possible.

In this way, the production activities of the cottage can be separated from the army in the future, and they can also free up their hands to train a group of professional soldiers.

In the next few days, Xiao Jiu did not immediately let these people enter the steel mill, their current bodies were too weak to withstand the high-intensity work, so they were arranged to rest in their respective residences, and announced the policy that had been established for a long time.

When this group of men heard that they could be released from slavery and return to the status of free men after working in the mountains for three years, their enthusiasm was instantly mobilized, and there was no longer the previous numbness in their eyes.

And this kind of thing is something that I didn't dare to think of before, there are so many rich people in the world, but there is only Xiao Jiu who pays slaves, if they wait for the three-year period to expire, they can use the wages they have saved to find a place to stand.

When they first heard the news, the group of trafficked men all had tears in their eyes, knelt directly on the ground, kowtowed in the direction of Xiao Jiu's residence, and the people next to them couldn't hold back.

This group of slaves was not worried that Xiao Jiu would lie to them, because they had nothing, and their lives did not even belong to them, even if it was really just a lie, it could be regarded as giving them a way to live.

Three days later, the steel plant officially began to put into production, and Xiao Jiu also attached great importance to the first steelmaking, explaining various steps and techniques throughout the day.

It was okay at first, but when Xiao Jiu's spit was dry, looking at these people with clear stupidity in their eyes, Xiao Jiu was big for a while.

Fortunately, the first batch of steel ingots was successfully baked, and the blacksmith invited from Lijiazhen was arranged to forge outside the steel mill, listening to the crisp sound of clanging, Xiao Jiu was in a mood and said that it was not nervous, it was fake.

This is also the first time that Xiao Jiu has presided over steelmaking, and he is not too sure about whether he can make high-quality steel, and at this time, he can only see how effective the blacksmith is.

With the last quenching, the blacksmith who struck iron wiped the hot sweat on his head, picked up the forged short knife from the cold water, and handed it to Xiao Jiu.

He has been striking iron for so many years, and he has never seen such a durable material, unlike the pig iron that was forged before, which can be formed by a little hammering, and the forging equipment this time has been tempered for a long time, and there is no tendency to crumble at all.

At this time, Xiao Jiu was holding the beaten short knife in one hand, and with a flick of his hand on the blade, he heard a crisp sound.

Then Xiao Jiu found another piece of wooden stake and slashed it hard, although the wooden stake was not split by the unedged short knife, but the blade that had been hit was intact, and there was no sign of collapse or chipping.

Xiao Jiu looked at the short knife in his hand and his eyes lit up, although the quality of the steel smelted could not be compared with those he knew in his previous life, it had already crushed too many pig iron tools in this era.

Through the frying method, the carbon content in the pig iron is greatly reduced, making it more flexible than those tools forged by pig iron, and the texture will not become brittle due to excessive rigidity, and it has higher corrosion resistance and forging resistance.

The preliminarily forged short knife in his hand can already be called a good knife in this era, and if you increase the number of beatings to remove the impurities, you can get a real sense of steel.

In the following days, Xiao Jiu has been following the guidance of the steelmaking plant, and through experiments again and again, he has also continuously recorded the impact of different steel frying times on the output of steel.

It wasn't until the workers of the entire steel mill were almost familiar with the process that Xiao Jiu handed over the task of production to Lao Ma, who had been conscientiously managing logistics behind him.

Let him have full authority to supervise and be responsible for the garrison of the steel mill, and the soldiers stationed in the steel mill can only use the first group of veterans of Hare Mountain.

The rest of the non-production personnel are not allowed to approach, and if they find people who have entered the steelmaking plant without an order, the garrison team can directly kill them without notification.

Seeing that Xiao Jiu attached so much importance to the steel mill, Jin Zi and Zhang Ben also gave repeated orders in the army, especially emphasizing this matter.

In this way, the steelmaking business in full swing in Hare Mountain began to develop vigorously, and for this reason, a few blacksmiths were invited to live directly in Hare Mountain, specializing in making various appliances from the steel produced by the steelworks.

Waiting for that lump of iron lump to be built into all kinds of utensils, which were sold everywhere with Li Gui's caravan, the silver that would turn into white flowers would be taken into Xiao Jiu's arms.

And if you can forge a batch of high-quality steel knives, the price will be several times higher than ordinary steel knives.

For Xiao Jiu, who has a complete ore vein, there is no need to buy pig iron on the market for forging, this is completely a profitable business, which is simply incomparable to the soju business.

The existence of iron ore veins in Wild Wolf Mountain must be covered to death, but Shrimp Crawler said that there was a prince who had secretly traded with Scarface before.

He knows who the prince is, but now that he is being reprimanded by the county guard of Yangjun, how to deal with the relationship between the two is also a question worth pondering.