On the third day after entering the Invercargill Forest, Suldak and the Thunder Rhino caravan finally arrived at the copper mine located in the middle of the forest.
This is the first time Suldak has returned to the mine after a year away.
When entering this mountainous area, you can see the chaotic buildings on the hillside from a distance. This area was originally the work sheds where miners lived, but now it has been turned into wooden houses of various forms. The outsides of these wooden houses
Put up some plaques.
Although it was too far away to see what was specifically written on these plaques, Surdak learned from Selina that during the year, the free market outside the copper mine had expanded and occupied
The entire hillside.
The dormitories of the mine workers were also moved from this hillside to the mountains further north, which is closer to the mining area.
On the top of the mountain, the large chimneys set up by the three copper ore furnaces emitted billowing smoke, accompanied by some rumbling sounds, and occasionally strong steam spewed out from a certain overflow valve, just like three steel giants lying on the top of the mountain.
The giant beasts are constantly devouring the copper ore transported from the mountains.
On the southern hillside, these three steel giants will spit out carts of copper ingots. Along the steel rails erected on the hillside, these mine cars will continuously transport the copper ingots to the foot of the mountain.
The copper mine has been operating normally for nearly more than a year, and has successively produced 25,000 tons of copper ingots and one ton of magic red copper. These copper ingots were transported from Invercargill Forest to Wilkes City for trading.
The market has brought Surdak an income of nearly 20,000 magic crystals. Of course, this also accounts for about 70% of the labor expenditure. After excluding some miscellaneous expenses, Surdak can put about 20,000 magic crystals in his pocket.
Five thousand magic crystals.
Five thousand magic crystals can buy almost thirty sets of magic pattern structures.
Therefore, for Suldak, this mine can be regarded as a continuous and stable income.
When Suldak and Selina walked out of the wooden house on the back of Thunder Rhinoceros, the fourteen supervisors of the mine were already waiting respectfully at the material transfer station at the foot of the mountain.
Andrew and Tago did not follow Suldak to the copper mine, but rushed directly to the bridgehead camp north of the Great Rift Valley Chain Bridge halfway.
The only people following Surdak were Selina and Gulitem. During the period when Surdak was not in the Bailin plane, Selina was always in charge of managing the copper mine. She almost every two
I have to inspect the copper mine once a month.
She checks the shipping list at the material transfer station, and occasionally checks the shipping list at the Malacom Thunder Rhino Caravan. As long as these documents are completely consistent in terms of amounts, Selina rarely interferes in the copper mine.
management affairs.
Although Selina will not interfere in the management of the copper mine, she will strictly monitor the living conditions of these workers in the copper mine in accordance with Suldak's requirements.
At present, the workers in copper mines are mainly divided into three parts: mine management, technicians responsible for refining furnaces, and ordinary miners.
The mine management team has now expanded to fourteen people.
Among them, there is a mine director, a magic apprentice who can simply maintain the refining furnace, and twelve supervisors, each of whom manages nearly 500 miners. These twelve groups of miners are divided into three major groups.
Each large group supplies the smelting copper ore required for a furnace, and the four groups need to take turns pushing the mined copper ore to the feed port in front of the furnace.
According to Suldak's requirements, miners at the lowest level need to have complete welfare benefits. Not only do miners eat and live for free in the mine, but there are also strict regulations on the miners' weekly meals. In addition to sufficient wheat cakes and vegetable porridge every day,
In addition, there will be a meat meal every three days. There will be one day off every six days of work, and the mine cannot be occupied for any reason on this rest day. The miners are also issued two sets of strong and wear-resistant work clothes and anti-smashing clothes every year.
shoe.
Of course, these are just some small benefits. The most attractive thing about the copper mine is the high salary. Ordinary miners can get one gold coin per month. Even the trading companies in Duodan Town rarely offer such high wages.
salary.
The mine currently has 6,000 miners, and the salary paid by the mine for these miners alone is almost 6,000 gold coins per month.
For an aboriginal of a local tribe, earning one gold coin per month is enough to allow him to marry ten wives in the tribe, raise a lot of children, and live without any problems.
Therefore, thirty-seven indigenous tribes have always competed with each other for the number of miners in the copper mine.
This time Suldak came to the copper mine and invited these thirty-seven tribal leaders to come to the copper mine to discuss the future development of Invercargill Forest.
The Thunder Rhinoceros caravan will line up in a long line outside the yard of the material transfer station. The huge shelves will be parked outside the courtyard, and these Thunder Rhinoceros will be led to the stream to drink water and feed.
Surdak stood on the wooden platform and saw that the courtyard of the transfer station was almost filled with stacks of copper ingots.
Selina has a separate wooden building next to the material transfer station. This wooden building even introduced a mountain spring and built a small pool in the yard.
The bumps along the way made Selina exhausted. After arriving at the material transfer station, Selina no longer followed Suldak to inspect the copper mine, but ran back to the small building with her assistant to rest.
Surdak was surrounded by a group of mine supervisors. The group of people first walked around the transfer station. Surdak randomly picked up a few copper ingots and saw that these copper ingots all showed a soft purple color.
There are almost no impurities visible.
It seems that the three refining furnaces designed by the magician Victor are quite good.
Afterwards, Suldak took everyone around the free market again.
In addition to some food, spices and daily necessities, this market mainly trades Warcraft materials. In addition, after many adventure groups enter the Invercargill Forest, they usually come here for supplies and are reluctant to run back to the farther town of Dodan.
Along the way, dispose of the captured Warcraft materials in this market and replenish some supplies.
Occasionally, some aborigines come here to buy some daily necessities, so the business here has always been good.
The traders in the free market saw the mine supervisors surrounding a nobleman, but they still didn't know the identity of the nobleman...
The name 'Suldak' is almost a household name in Dodan Town, so when the news spread from the free market, a large group of onlookers immediately came. At the beginning, the suffix of Surdak's name was only Commander. Later,
He became the mayor, and now he has become the lord.
After leaving the Bailin plane for nearly a year, many people have not seen the true face of Suldak. Now that they heard that the Lord of Invercargill Forest appeared in the copper mine, many people are eager to see Suldak.
The look of Erdak.
So as Suldak walked, he found that the stalls on both sides of the market could hardly be seen, but were filled with excited onlookers.
I don’t know who shouted: ‘Suldak…’
For a moment, everyone in the market shouted loudly at the same time: 'Suldak...Suldak...'
The shouts almost penetrated the valley, causing the birds that inhabited the forest on the opposite hillside to fly into the sky.
Suldak was not prepared to give a speech in a chaotic place like the free market, so when he saw that the order of the free market was somewhat disordered, he immediately left the market with these mine managers.
Walking up the stone steps built on the gentle slope, from time to time you can see a mine cart filled with hot copper ingots slowly rushing down the hillside. There is almost a traction rope tied behind each mine cart. These fully loaded mine carts
When the copper ingot minecart rushes down the mountain, it will also pull an empty minecart at the bottom of the mountain to the top of the hillside.
Looking at the miners in the mine who were wearing gray-white work clothes, anti-smash shoes, and hard leather hats on their heads, Suldak felt as if he was in another world...
It was only when he saw three magic-powered steel behemoths that he instantly returned to reality.
These three refining furnaces emit huge heat, and you can feel the heat waves hitting your face from more than ten meters away...
Surdak endured the blazing heat and asked about all the key nodes of the furnace, then nodded slightly, and then inevitably felt a little disappointed.
Now he learned about the specific situation of the refining furnace on site, and finally understood that this kind of refining equipment cannot be used in iron ore fields. The reason is that this kind of refining equipment that consumes magic crystal as energy consumes almost every day.
To swallow dozens of magic crystals, the copper ingots produced would only be about seventy or eighty tons, but after all, this is still a relatively valuable copper mine.
Compared with copper ingots, the value of iron ingots is much lower.
If this kind of refining furnace is still used to refine iron ingots, then I am afraid that the value of all the iron ingots produced by the mine, after excluding the high labor costs and transportation costs, will be the last bit of profit that is lost to these steel giants.
If the beast devours it, maybe Surdak will pour money into it.
But Suldak never thought about deducting the workers' income. After all, digging rocks in the mine is not something everyone can do.
It seems that the relocation of the abandoned steel workshop in Luyint City must be put on the agenda as soon as possible. Only by using a cheaper steelmaking process can the high cost problem be solved.
Surdak left the refining furnace on the top of the mountain and followed the mine supervisors to the front of the mine that was being excavated. A large gap had been dug in the mine here, and the exposed ore showed a pale green color.
.
Some miners were stuffing some black powder into the cracks dug out of the rocks. With a muffled sound, the rock walls loosened and cracked.
The remaining miners began to process the broken and loose ore. After they chipped the ore, they loaded it onto flatbed trucks, and then transported it to the three refining furnaces not far away.
After a round of inspection, Surdak finally came to the cafeteria of the copper mine. He saw several pig legs cooking in a large iron pot in the cafeteria. The delicious smell of meat wafted far away. He casually called out to a man.
The young aboriginal miner asked him: "How many days will it take you to eat a meal of meat like this?"