Ying County is also called "Jinancheng" because it is just south of Jishan Mountain and northwest of Yunmengze. The copper mine closest to Yingxian County and Jiangling, Tongguan, is located on Jishan Mountain.
"In the land of Jingchu, gold (copper), lead (lead), tin and other mineral deposits are much richer than those in the Central Plains. Unfortunately, most of them are still in the hands of the Chu State."
The next day after inspecting the arsenal, Li You took Heifu and others to Jishan to inspect the copper workshop of the official camp. After the copper official Yangxi learned the news, he came to the fork in the road to greet them in person, probably because of the fight with Liehuo Mine.
After many interactions, this person is a bit darker than Heifu...
While walking, Yang Xi introduced his business.
"The largest copper mine is located near Zuo Bing Cao Shi's hometown..."
Hei Fu heard this and immediately remembered: "Could it be Tonglu Mountain?"
"Of course, it is the Tonglu Mountain in Hubei, which is separated from Anlu by the Yangtze River. It is said that people have been mining copper ores and smelting copper ingots there since the Yin and Shang Dynasties. After thousands of years of excavation in the Zhou and Chu Dynasties, there is still an endless supply!"
To what extent are there so many copper mines there? It is said that every time a shower rains, after the soil on the surface of the mountain is washed away, dots of green or blue will be exposed all over the mountain, which are exposed copper veins.
Heifu, who had studied some chemistry in middle and high school in his previous life, remembered that green should be the color of malachite, from which copper is smelted.
Yang Xi even told Heifu and others that when King Zhao Zhao of Zhou went south to conquer Jingchu, he wanted to obtain the "dollars" produced in the Tonglu Mountain in Hubei, and take them back as trophies to cast ritual vessels.
"As a result, King Zhao of Zhou drowned in the Han River and never returned to Zong Zhou." When he said this, Yang Xi felt quite gloating about his misfortune.
He also said that in addition to the Tonglu Mountain in the hills of southern Hubei, there are many large-scale copper mines in Jiangnan (Hunan), Liudi (Anhui), and Gandi (Jiangxi). These copper and tin mines,
This was the confidence that the Chu State dared to aspire to conquer the Central Plains during the Spring and Autumn Period. No wonder King Zhuang of Chu at that time boasted brazenly: "The beak of the Chu State's broken hook is enough to make nine tripods!"
At this time, after the group of people left Ying County and walked north for a few miles, they had arrived at their destination, only to see a small hill dozens of meters above the surface, stretching for more than ten miles.
"Commander Lieutenant, Zuo Bing Cao Shi, please look at it. It rained yesterday. Are some of the stones on Jishan Mountain slightly green? As the saying goes, those with cinnabar on the top have gold below, and those with loving stones on the top have copper and gold below.
"If there is green stone on the top, there will be lead, tin, and red copper on the bottom. If there is ocher on the top, there will be iron on the bottom. This Ji Mountain is a big copper mountain."
"But I heard that the quality of the copper mines here is not good, and it is far inferior to Tonglu Mountain." Li You somewhat disliked this "Copper Mountain" and only felt that it was useless.
"County Lieutenant."
Yang Xi said amusingly: "Even if all the copper mines in Nanjun were added up, they would probably not be as large as the reserves of Tonglu Mountain, and the copper ingots produced by Nanjun every year are less than half of Tonglu Mountain..."
"If we can capture the Tonglu Mountain, I won't have to worry about the lack of copper and iron."
Li You sighed sadly, but he also knew that the Chu people still had a lot of troops in the Jiangnan area, and there were two to three thousand soldiers responsible for guarding the Tonglu Mountain in southern Hubei. Qin's strategy was more inclined to concentrate the army to attack Chu.
In the core area of Huainan and Huaibei, there are no plans to open another Jiangnan front...
Heifu looked around on the horse and saw that the cedars on this small hill had almost been cut down. However, following the shouts, trees halfway up the mountain fell to the ground from time to time with the shouts, as if they were determined to do so.
We will stop only when all the trees in this area are cut down.
"Isn't it stipulated in the field law that logging is not allowed in spring?" Heifu asked Yang Xi.
"The copper and iron officials are not in this case."
Yang Xi replied: "After all, it is a weapon of the military and it cannot be turned off all year round."
He added: "But as Zuo Bing Cao Shi said, the wood in spring is moist and it is really difficult to burn. Therefore, more fuel should be cut from Dahong Mountain and Jingshan Mountain in autumn and winter, and then sent here.
Store for later use. Nowadays, if trees are cut down, it is only to dig the mines below."
Although the copper mine is not large, it is guarded by more than a hundred soldiers, and walls have been built for protection. The entrance is strictly guarded.
The first thing they entered was the residential area, which was supposed to be for the officials, soldiers, and prisoners in Tongguan.
Heifu took a look at it and found that the living environment here was very bad. Most of the people who were sent to work were prisoners who had committed serious crimes, so they were not very motivated to work. They came out of the house only after being urged by whips.
He walked listlessly towards the smelting area.
Li You and his group were also walking towards the smelting area. Before they got close, they smelled a pungent smell and felt a burning heat.
Looking from a distance, I saw more than a dozen oval-shaped furnaces erected in front of me. Not counting the convex rammed earth platform under the furnace, only the furnace body was basically one foot high. Each furnace was five feet apart, leaving
A safe distance has been reached. Around the furnace body, the various parts of feeding, blasting, copper extraction and water supply are subdivided.
At this moment, flames were rising from the bottom of half of the furnaces, and black smoke was rising from above, covering half of the copper officials.
Dozens of craftsmen and ministers were stationed around the furnaces they were responsible for. Some stood on tiptoes on the raised platform, lifting baskets to put mineral materials into the furnace; some were shirtless, pushing simple
The wind bag was sweating profusely and blowing air into the furnace; the craftsmen squatted aside and watched the fire nervously, trying to master the time to turn on the furnace.
"Whenever it is cast into the shape of gold; gold and tin, the black and turbid qi are exhausted, followed by yellow and white, followed by the yellow and white qi, followed by green and white. After the green and white qi are exhausted, the green qi is followed, and then it can be cast."
This is the color-viewing method summarized in smelting bronze, which uses high temperature to smelt out the copper element inside. Whenever a red copper block comes out of the furnace and rolls into the big pit in front of the furnace, someone immediately gets water and pours it on it.
The water vapor evaporates and turns into white mist. These copper blocks are then reheated and poured into the soil mold to produce copper ingots...
The newly smelted copper ingots were brought to Li You anxiously by the craftsmen. Yang Xi also complained that because the copper mines in Jishan did not contain high copper, it often took a lot of ore and smelted it two or three times to obtain the purity.
Higher brass.
Heifu looked around and found no foundry. After asking, he learned that the smelted copper ingots were not cast into weapons on the spot, but were sent to the workshop area in the southwest of Ying County and copper and tin sent from other places.
, the lead is brought together and matched into appropriate proportions before it is cast into bronze.
Seeing Li You frowning and walking around each copper furnace to check the quality of the copper ingots, Heifu called Yang Xi over and asked, "Where is the place where the ore is processed? Take me to see it."
Yang Xi looked surprised. In the past, the county captain sent people to inspect, and they basically just walked around the smelting area and rarely went inside. So he smiled and said: "Zuo Bing Cao Shi, the place where the ore is processed is even dirtier, not just the sewage."
There are cross currents, and there are stone chips and dust flying around, which is not very pretty.”
Hei Fu ignored it and let Yang Xi lead the way. Sure enough, after walking more than a hundred steps in, he was met by flying powder. When Hei Fu closed his eyes and opened them again, he found that they had entered the mine storage yard.
After hundreds of prisoners dug out the mud-covered copper ore from Mount Ji, they used oxen, horses, etc. to transport it in baskets to the water flow at the foot of Mount Ji, where it was washed, and then sent downhill to the ore storage site.
Yellow or green copper ore piles up here.
Prisoners in ocher clothes with disheveled heads and bare feet worked here. Most of them had their hair and beards shaved off. Some of the death row prisoners still wore wooden clamps around their necks, with their heads drooped and their waists stooped. But there was no such thing as
They worked hard under the whip of the supervisor, using hammers, stone rams and other tools to crush the whole piece of ore into pieces.
This is probably the most time-consuming and laborious step in the entire smelting process. The ore is so hard that it has to be smashed hard for a long time before it can be turned into crushed ore that can be put into the furnace.
As he walked, Heifu felt his eyes light up because he saw rows of treadmills in a corner of the mine. Many shabby and skinny prisoners were stepping on them, letting the treadmills slide.
Usui's stone hammer kept lifting and falling, crushing the already broken ore into even finer pieces... because the finer the ore powder, the easier it is to smelt.
Heifu suddenly became interested, pointed over there and said: "When did the ore start to be processed with a treadmill here?"
Yang Xi replied: "Probably after the autumn harvest of the previous year, this thing began to be promoted by the county governors in various counties and villages for use in pounding grain. At that time, the county engineer thought that the treadmill could also be used for copper officials, so that those who were weak and could not
It is indeed easier to use heavy-lifting criminals to trample the ore into finer pieces, but unfortunately it is still not enough..."
He pointed at the mountains of ore around him and whispered: "Now the county commander wants us to increase our copper smelting output, but no matter how many stoves we build, the prisoners still can't process the ore quickly."
It turns out that the Jishan Copper Mine has a low copper content, so each kilogram of copper produced requires more ore. Just processing the ore has made the prisoners miserable, and more than ten people have to die from exhaustion every month.
personal.
Hei Fu nodded, feeling measured in his mind, but remained silent for the time being. He took another look at the prisoners living in the heat of water, shook his head slightly, and returned to the smelting site with Yang Xi.
Far away, they heard the roar of County Lieutenant Li You.
"I don't care what you do. In the next six months, I must hand over twice as much copper as before!"
Yang Xi hurried over, and he and the craftsmen complained endlessly: "Unless we allocate hundreds of prisoners to smash the ore, we can achieve the output required by the county captain, otherwise even if more ore is transported down the mountain, there will be no need to wait outside."
Building more stoves is useless!"
At this time, Heifu interjected: "The county captain and the subordinates have an idea that may solve this problem!"
"oh?"
Li You, Yang Xi, and all the craftsmen with gray faces looked at Heifu, and everyone wanted to know what he had in mind.
"The subordinate is bold and wants to recommend a person, a craftsman, to the county captain, because the subordinate once saw that he made a kind of instrument. If used to process ore, it can not only save twice the manpower, but also double the effect!"
Li You was overjoyed when he heard this and asked: "Is there really such a person? Who is he?"
Heifu said: "She is the elder sister-in-law of the subordinate. It involves forging weapons and enriching the arsenal. The subordinate can only recommend talents and not avoid relatives!"
"Sister-in-law?"
Including Yang Xi, all the craftsmen showed strange expressions.
Some people said in disbelief: "Zuo Bing Cao Shi can save twice the manpower. This is too exaggerated. But you can't brag like this just because he is your sister-in-law..."
They always felt that Hei Fu was taking the opportunity to arrange for relatives to come to the county, and a trace of suspicion flashed in Li You's eyes.
"This is not bragging." Heifu said: "Do you know that Tadi has another name?"
The craftsmen looked at each other: "Anlu Di?"
"Of course!"
Hei Fu held up his palm and said with a smile: "To be honest, my sister-in-law's name is Citron, and he was the first person to make the Anlu Treading Turret! My sister-in-law once threatened me that as long as I give him hands, money and silk, he will
You can transform the treadmill that still requires manual operation into an artifact that can operate automatically without manual operation!"
He began to brag boldly: "By then, we can save twice as much manpower as ten times!"