Liu De stood beside the thatched cottage, breathing deeply the fresh morning air. Dressed in white mourning clothes, he stood out at the foot of the mountain...?...
In the distance, across the vast countryside, the people living here have also begun their day's work.
At this time, Yiyang’s corn has entered the final month of harvest.
"How many five-baht coins have been minted in the money-making workshop so far?" Liu De asked Zhang Tang, who was standing next to him.
"Your Highness, twenty-one million coins have been minted in the workshop. According to your instructions, I have locked them all in the secret room of the Young Master..." Zhang Tang bowed and replied. After thinking about it,
He reported again: "It's just that, Your Highness, there is not much copper left. The remaining copper is only enough to mint another eight million yuan at most..."
"That's it..." Liu De rubbed his temples, this problem was indeed difficult to solve.
Compared with the more than 20 billion of various minted coins currently circulating on the market, the new five-baht coins, which are less than 30 million, are sprinkled into the market, not to mention leveraging the national currency market. The connected currency market,
It cannot be pried, just like a drop of water dropped into the ocean, it will disappear in an instant.
However, copper is a precious metal at this time. It is very difficult for Liu De to obtain copper now. Through reading these books and files.
Liu De learned about something that he thought was very simple in the past, but was actually very difficult - copper mining.
In the Shaofu documents, Liu De read many records of miners quarrying.
In the metal smelting books of the Qin and Han dynasties preserved in Shiqu Pavilion, Liu De saw records of ore refining and smelting.
Taken together, these things tell Liu De that in this era, whether it is mining or smelting, it is a race against time, a test of endurance and even the blessing of luck.
Otherwise, after working hard for a long time, you may get nothing in the end.
For example, Liu De often saw records in the documents of the Shaofu that "so-and-so cut firewood for one day and burned the mountain for two days, and obtained three hundred catties of copper and stone."
After Liu De sought advice from the officials of the Shaofu, he discovered that in this era, mining, even open-pit copper mines, was not as simple as wielding a hoe and pickaxe to dig out the ore as he had imagined. In this era, there was no
**.
The only way to conquer those solid mines is to burn the mountains.
Using the principle of thermal expansion and contraction, the rock wall is baked with firewood continuously for two or three days. After the rock wall cools, the ore will naturally peel off under the rules of physics.
This is just open-pit ore mining.
If the veins are buried deep underground, human lives will be needed to fill them.
A miner working in a mine has a lifespan of only thirty years at most...
For example, in the Chu State's Tonglushan Mine during the Spring and Autumn Period, countless miners died in the mines.
Liu De now understood why King Wu Liu Bi had more than 300,000 people working on the two copper mountains in Yuzhang County.
There are not so many people mining non-stop for a year. How can we meet the demand of Wu King Liu Bi for making money?
It can even be said that the luxurious life of Wu's nobles and the comfort of the people were built on the blood and tears of hundreds of thousands of miners.
It has been decades since the founding of the Kingdom of Wu and Liu Bi, and the two large copper mountains in Yuzhang have been mined for almost thirty years. During this period, how many miners must have died inside and outside the mines?
Liu De even thought of a very critical question.
In his previous life, King Liu Bi of Wu was completely defeated and fled back to the State of Wu in embarrassment. However, few people in the State of Wu were really willing to die for him, so Liu Bi went into exile in Minyue. He was killed by Minyue. His head was sent to Chang'an.
If Liu Zhenzhen had extended favors to the people of Wu State and exempted them from taxes and conscription, how could this be the case?
We must know that after Xiang Yu died, countless people in the entire south missed Xiang Yu. The resistance to resist the Han Dynasty still existed sporadicly after the Han Dynasty was established.
If Liu Bi really loved his people as his own children, he would never have ended up like that!
Liu De knew that he had found the answer to Liu Bi's question.
There are two large copper mountains in Yuzhang. If you want to maintain the scale of mining and maintain Liu Bi's dominant position in the world's money-making business, you must have a steady supply of miners.
Because, the Shaofu's records explain in great detail that a miner can only work in the mines until he is thirty years old at most, and then various diseases and illnesses will appear and take away the miner's life.
Once other mining disasters and landslides occur, miners will be killed immediately.
Therefore, all the miners used in the mines of the Han royal family were criminals, sons-in-law and relatives of criminal officials.
If these people die, they will die, and the court will not feel sorry for them.
But Liu Bi's two large copper mountains require at least ten or two hundred thousand for the miners alone.
Liu Bi's state of Wu only had three counties and fifty-three cities. If he really wanted to be like the imperial court and rely on criminals, sons-in-law and relatives of criminal officials to mine, where would he go to find so many criminals?
Moreover, now that the world is stable and refugees have almost disappeared, it is no longer possible for Liu Bi to recruit as many refugees to work for him as he did when he founded the country.
Then, there are only two ways left for Liu Bi.
One is to learn from the British Empire in later generations and send troops to attack Mitsukoshi and capture enough miners for his mines.
The second is... to tap domestic demand and send the people under the rule to the mines.
Mitsukoshi is now Liu Bi's younger brother and follower. How could Liu Bi attack them?
Thinking this, Liu De shook his head. Liu De had already experienced the shamelessness and cruelty of politicians, but when he understood the true cruelty behind Wu Guomei's lies, he was still a little shocked.
"Liu Bi has been mining Yuzhang Tongshan for decades. How many miners have died in Tongshan from the beginning to now?" Liu De knew that this was a question that would never be answered.
"Hedong County's one million kilograms of steel plan must be reduced to 100,000 kilograms a year..." Liu De thought in his heart. There is no way around it. Liu De cannot be like Liu Bi and do it for himself.
Their selfish desires or other things pushed hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people into the pit of fire.
If he wants to realize his grand plan in the past, he must solve the technical problems of ore mining. At the very least, it can no longer be as inefficient and time-consuming as it is now, and it must use human lives to fill it.
At this time, Wang Dao came over to report: "Your Highness, King Changshan and King Hejian are here. Would you like to go over and greet them?"
Liu De nodded when he heard this and said to Zhang Tang: "Qing, please come too..."
Then, he took Zhang Tang out of the thatched cottage.)
ps:??There will definitely be 4 updates today, 8 words per day~
