Tao Shiqi rode a horse and was full of energy. He said to Yang Dalang beside him: "This time, he is ordered by the officials to go and investigate the iron ore you are exploring. If it is really a rich mine, the officials will definitely give it no stingy. If it is not a reward, maybe he will give it to an official for you."

Yang Dalang said: "Who is a young man? He is just a country blacksmith. How can he be an official?"

Tao Shiqi said: "What's the difficulty of being an official? I grew up alone since I was a child. When I met an official, I made some contributions and became an official. As long as you really find a big mine and are a blacksmith, it's easy to find an errand in the mine!"

Yang Dalang was frightened and frightened when he heard this. As soon as he arrived at the Yingtianwuya, Quan Erlang received the reward of ten guan and left. Yang Dalang looked at the money and was very jealous. When he thought, he was very satisfied with getting the money, so how could he dare to think about it as an official?

After two days with Tao Shiqi, I heard him talk about his experience and felt that it was not impossible to be an official. What would this person do? He just made some machines and saw the casting of cannons. He was also a craftsman, and the official was doing smoothly.

Behind the two, Luo Feng remained silent. He could write and calculate, but when he came to the yamen, he was recruited as soon as he applied for the recruitment. Because he was with Yang Dalang, he went to Fangcheng to check the iron ore together. He looked at Luoqu Town before, and was in a complicated mood.

Tao Shiqi looked at the town in front and said, "Let's go in and eat some wine and eat, and go to Fangcheng County in the afternoon."

Luo Feng bowed: "Officials, if you don't enter the town, there are places to sell wine and food straight north, and the road is closer."

Tao Shiqi didn't know Luo Feng's origin, and felt strange, and said, "After passing Luoqu Town, there are no big villages and towns in Fangcheng. Even if there are wine and food, they are also small rural shops. It's just a few more miles away, what's the point!"

Luo Feng had no choice but to say, "I'm not hiding the officials, the youngest one is from Luoqu Town. Because my brothers can't tolerate me, I left home and went to the yamen to apply for food and clothing. If I enter the town and are seen by my family, I will only cause trouble."

When Tao Shiqi heard that he ran away from home, he did not dare to neglect it, so he hurriedly asked what was going on. This era is the most important thing for filial piety. If Luo Feng caused trouble at home and was tolerated by his parents, he could not ignore it.

Luo Feng dared not hide it and told his experience again. He said: "Since my father's death, my family was in decline, my mother remarried the Luo family and didn't bring any property. The two brothers bullied me from time to time, and my mother couldn't speak at home, and it was really difficult to survive. So I left home to make a living. When I left Luoqu, I swore that I would never go home without making a fuss!"

This experience is a bit similar to Tao Shiqi. After hearing this, I remembered my life experience and said to Luo Feng: "Men should be considered as having this ambition! Your brother looks down on you, and sooner or later there will be regrets! As long as you work hard in the yamen, officials like to support their subordinates the most, and they will be proud in the future! Since this is the case, we will not enter Luoqu Town and go straight to Fangcheng!"

After saying that, he turned his horse's head, walked around Luoqu Town, and headed straight to Fangcheng in the northeast.

Fangcheng is an important place to communicate between the north and the south. Since the Spring and Autumn Period, Chu State has planned to the Central Plains and I don’t know how many battles have been fought here. There is the Chu Great Wall on the nearby Fangcheng Mountain. After a thousand years, it is still intact. There is a pass in the northeast of the county town, which is spacious and flat. It passes through Fangcheng Mountain and reaches Ye County in the north. Along this road, the Jianghan Plain in the south can go straight to the Central Plains, to the northwest to the Henan Prefecture of Xijing and Kaifeng Prefecture of Tokyo.

The geographical conditions of Fangcheng Pass were too superior. When Emperor Taizong built the Xianghan Cao Canal, it was an attempt to connect the Ru River, a tributary of the Huai River, with the Tangbai River, a tributary of the Han River, to communicate the north-south water transportation. Because of heavy rain, the dam was destroyed, the project was abandoned, and the downstream Tangzhou area was flooded, and the population was still sparse. If the canal could be built here, the meaning would be no less than the Lingqu Canal. Later generations of South-to-North Water Diversion also passed here.

Du Zhongxiao attaches so much importance to Wuyang's iron ore. In addition to the abundant reserves in memory, another reason is this pass. This is a major artery that connects the north and south. Immune ore bases can radiate to a vast area. The Ru River in the north and Tangbai River in the south are both well developed, including the Huai River, Bian River system, the Han River and the Yangtze River system, and the water transport conditions are superior.

Compared with this place, although Xiangzhou in the north also has coal and iron, it is too close to the north and is inconvenient to transport it to the south. Compared with the north, the south is more iron-deficient, and the market prospects here are better than Xiangzhou. Especially at this time, the Jinghu Road has not yet been developed, and an iron smelting base will be built here, which will play a great role in the subsequent development of the Jianghan Plain.

Tao Shiqi took Yang Dalang and Luo Feng to Fangcheng County and visited the magistrate. He stayed overnight, borrowed more than 20 servants from the county town and entered Fangcheng Mountain. Following the mark left by Yang Dalang, he walked eastward and arrived at the place where the iron ore was discovered.

After setting up a camp nearby, Tao Shiqi said to Yang Dalang: "In the past two days, we will go to the place where you found the mine seedlings and investigate it, and roughly estimate the scope of the iron ore here. The official has issued an official document and will borrow people who are good at this matter from Xiangzhou in a few days. They have come and figured out the situation of the iron ore here so that they can start the mine."

Yang Dalang bowed and said, "I only know a little about prospecting. If I really want to smelify iron, I really need veterans to see it."

Tao Shiqi said: "When smelting iron on Hedong Road, we don't use charcoal now, but we use charcoal instead. The official asked, there are many places producing carbohydrate nearby, but we don't know where there are large mines. Before the people from Xiangzhou came, we will explore the carbohydrate around us. If there is carbohydrate and iron ore, it will be easy to smel iron here. If this matter is done, you will make great contributions and the court will have rewards."

Hedong Road has been popularized to use coal to make iron. Yang Dalang has only heard of it, but has never seen it. He went out to help people repair farm tools. He used charcoal all the time to use can only transform pig iron and pour the agricultural tools. There are many places in the north of Fangcheng Mountain, especially the triangle area composed of Longxing, Xiangcheng and Yangdi counties. Longxing County uses coal to make magnetic instruments, which are famous all over the world and are sold to all parties. This area is the center of the manufacturing of magnetic instruments in the Central Plains. The celadon and Jun porcelain of the Northern Song Dynasty that were famous in later generations are produced here.

Du Zhongxiao knew that there must be a large coal mine in Ye County, but he didn't know the exact location or the coal products. To build an iron smelting center, of course, the closer the coal mine is to the iron ore, the better. He ordered Tao Shiqi to lead his men to investigate with Ye County as the center. If within a few dozen miles there are both a large iron ore and a large coal mine, it would be natural to rise to the iron smelting here.

At this time, the iron smelting center in this area is Longxing County to the north of Ye County, but the iron ore there is not big and the quality is not high, and there are only some small workshops. Not to mention that compared with Xiangzhou, which accounts for more than half of the world's iron production, it is far inferior to Xuzhou in the east. However, these small workshops show that the coal and iron resources here are widely distributed and reduce the difficulty of prospecting.
Chapter completed!