Daming kill

Chapter 188-Ambition
I left Wuchang on the 23th and arrived at Fuchi at noon on the 300rd. It took me four and a half days to travel about [-] miles across the river. Even considering that the intermediate organization has crossed several rivers and crossed the Yangtze River, this speed is still a bit slow. .

However, on the second day after arriving in Fuchi, that is, on the 16th day of the first lunar month in the 24th year of Chongzhen, Li Ping quickly completed the basic survey of the topography and landforms around Fuchi, and then harvested countless surprises and shocks.

I don’t know, I’m scared.

Fuchi, also known as Fuchikou.

It is not only the place where rich water flows into the river, but also the exit of a large plain and lake area surrounded by mountains.

During the Jiajing period, because the rich water flowed into the Yangtze River here, the town that began to prosper by the river was officially named "Fuchikou Town".About 40 miles upstream of Fushui to the southwest of the town, the county seat in the center of the entire small plain is Yongxing County (now Yangxin County), the state capital of Xingguo Prefecture.

Xingguo prefecture belongs to Wuchang prefecture, governed by Yongxing, and owns Tongshan and Daye counties. Like Qizhou, it is an important prefecture.

Fuchi Town has set up a special inspection department.

We must know that the inspection department in the Ming Dynasty was not set up casually. This agency mainly arrests thieves and interrogates traitors and forgers.

Although the inspection is a military post from the ninth rank, strictly speaking, the inspection department does not belong to the military system, but mainly undertakes the function of public security.

Generally speaking, small counties often only have one, and large counties and prefectures often only have four or five.

There are only two inspection departments in the whole Xingguo Prefecture, and the other inspection department in Huangjiakou Township is about [-] miles upstream of the Yangtze River, very close to Qizhou.

The establishment of an inspection department in Fuchi Town itself shows that this place is extraordinary. Of course, this place is indeed extraordinary, and it is also very extraordinary.

The inspection department of Fuchi Town was even appointed to handle the inspection of tea quotations during Yingzong's time. Its prosperity and importance can be seen in general.

The 400-meter-high mountain in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, which is very close to Fuchi Town, is the famous Banbi Mountain. "Chu River Lock Key" (Although the wall of this inscription in the Ming Dynasty was damaged, it is still passed down and recorded).

Because of this special topographical feature, it has been a battleground for military strategists since ancient times, and countless famous generals have left behind galloping figures.

In the late Qing Dynasty, the famous battle where the Hunan Army smashed the Taiping Army's "iron lock sinking the river" took place here, and it was also one of the battlefields of the Battle of Crossing the River in the War of Liberation.

But the most famous thing in Fuchi is not the location, but the copper and gold mines, and it has been famous all over the country since ancient times.

Since the Shang Dynasty, this place has been the most important copper mining center, known as the "Hometown of Gold and Copper", and the legend of casting swords in Fengshan Cave in Fuchi has been passed down.It is said that both Wu Zixu and Yue Fei once stationed troops here to forge swords.

In particular, what happened to Wu Zixu should be true.

According to the people captured in the surrounding mountains who showed them the way, there are many people surnamed Wu in Xingguo Prefecture, most of them have family trees, and are recognized as direct descendants of Wu Zixu (Wu Xiuquan, the former deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, came out of here ).

Although Zuo Liangyu's army burned and killed them all the way, they retreated wildly after all, and it is impossible to have time to search the surrounding area.And most of the common people were caught off guard by Zuo Liangyu's army flying down the river, and they fled in such a hurry and embarrassment that many of them only had time to hide in the nearby mountains.

As soon as Li Ping scouted out the surrounding troops, he found a large number of civilians and quickly obtained a lot of information.

Now that he knew that copper was produced here, and it was still a high-yield area, Li Ping naturally wanted to check it on the spot, and Li Ping was shocked by the number of mining areas and mines around here.

Since many people who escaped from Fuchi Town were quickly found by them, most of Li Ping's troops did not occupy the magpie's nest in Fuchi Town, but chose the east valley five miles upstream of Fushui. I entered and stationed at a place called Wujiaba next to a large lake surrounded by mountains on three sides.

Wujiaba, which is today's Wujiaba.

It is a huge and flat land sunken into the mountains in the southeast of Dakou Lake. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides and a large lake on one side. It is about a dozen miles away from Fuchi Town by road. It is a very ideal and safe natural fortress.

It is said that this is the place where Wu Zixu built the city and trained troops, and it was also the place where the infantry was trained on land and the water army was trained in the lake.

It is said that Wu Zixu trained soldiers and opened mines here for several years, mainly to replenish weapons, and the seven-star Longyuan sword he wore was cast here.

Legend has it that when Yue Fei was training troops in Fuchi, he also took copper from the nearby Fengshan Cave and trained the army. The method was: mining first, followed by shaft furnace, copper smelting, and sword casting.

There are so many copper mines in Fuchi, the ease of mining and high quality are almost beyond everyone's imagination.

Lijiawan in the northeast of Wujiaba, Fengshan Cave in the east and Jilong Mountain in the south are the areas with the richest copper mines and the most concentrated mines and pits in the entire Fuchi area. within a few miles.

While looking at the mine, Li Ping took the "expert" Han Jiu along.

Song Baolai didn't go with him, he was busy organizing people to build a house in Wujiaba.

There are also private houses in Wujiaba, even scattered in several small villages, but the number of private houses is always limited, even if all the residents inside cannot return, it cannot meet Li Ping's needs.And these days are becoming more and more surprisingly cold, sleeping in tents or directly using quilts will not last long.

Han Jiu was born as a miner and knew a lot about mining, ores and miners, so it was enough to bring him along.

But in fact, Han Jiu doesn't need to look at this. Li Ping, a layman, can see that there are indeed a lot of ore here, and it is a typical rich mine. Some ore near Fengshan Cave are even exposed on the surface.

Professional exploration in later generations has also confirmed this point. The copper ore fields here include the three deposits of Fengshandong, Lijiawan and Jilongshan.

Among them, Fengshandong Copper Mine has the largest scale, more types of mineralization, rich ore, and associated metals such as iron, lead, zinc, tungsten, molybdenum, tin, gold, silver, etc., and even the rock mass of the deposit has an exposed area of ​​0.72 square kilometers.

In the vicinity of Fuchi, the reserves of copper are as high as more than 100 million tons and the reserves of gold are 44 tons. It is the third largest gold base in the country. Calcite, marble, limestone, coal and other non-metallic minerals are also rich in variety and large in reserves.

You know, this is still left after more than 2000 years of large-scale excavation.

What's even more surprising is that there is a sulfur mine a few miles southwest of Wujiaba across Jiajie Lake, which is a great boon for Li Ping, who has a serious shortage of gunpowder but has a huge demand.

With such a dangerous terrain and such rich resources everywhere, Li Ping soon became emotional.

This is basically a sacred place, and it is also a treasured place for military training. No wonder Wu Zixu and Yue Fei both came here to train soldiers.

In Li Ping's head, he began to dream of various bright futures, such as mining, shaft furnace, copper smelting, and weapon making. He even only needed to repeat Yue Fei's steps.

However, problems arose immediately.

He doesn't have anyone who mines.

Although there was no time for the people in the mine to take away a lot of ore when they fled, it was far from enough for Li Ping, who had already developed a great plan.

And Li Ping can't spend his precious manpower on mining, because mining does not need hundreds of people in the era without industrial machinery, but thousands of people.

Therefore, Li Ping must try his best to bring back the original people and miners here.

Cleaning up the ruins caused by Zuo Liangyu's army and burying the corpses are necessary. It is also easy to strictly restrain the behavior of the troops who are sent out to investigate, and they can even specially instruct the subordinates to intentionally provide some food and medicine to the people they find. Medical assistance.

Notoriety spreads quickly, and goodwill also spreads quickly under the watchful eye.

People always want to eat and live. Li Ping has put on a posture that he does not intend to leave at all. Some residents and miners who took refuge in the nearby mountains will always come back.

But this is far from enough.

It takes time to generate trust, and many people and miners may also find that Li Pinglai will flee farther if he does not leave here, or even never come back.

At this time, Han Jiu, who was a miner, played a very important role.

Han Jiu can judge the scale and mining conditions of these mines and the approximate number of original miners based on his past experience, and select the mines and pits that they need to occupy and organize their own mining.

At the same time, Han Jiu can also gather his eloquent miners to meet with the miners who tentatively returned here and were found by them, and persuade them to recall more miners. Li Ping is willing to hire them at a higher salary than before. They keep working.

Furthermore, Han Jiu could persuade the young miners who came back here to join Li Ping's army.

With such a good source of troops as miners, Li Ping would be reckless if he didn't expand his army on a large scale.

Unlike being sent to persuade the trackers, Han Jiu was very happy to do it this time. His previous experience made him have great sympathy and enthusiasm for the miners.Moreover, his confidence is also very high.

Of course, Han Jiu's previous task of persuading the trackers was also very good. Although most of the trackers decided to go with them at the last moment, they finally persuaded most of the trackers.

This is a resounding large number of high-quality soldiers!
After returning to Wujiaba, it was already dark.

Although he climbed the mountain for a whole day, Li Ping was not in a hurry to rest. Instead, he looked around for the construction of the barracks which was still in full swing.

Finally, I don't want to go anymore, I finally have a stable place, and everyone is full of enthusiasm for their new home.

At this time, Zhou Wen brought a message to Li Ping.

Since the troops sent out to investigate found several officials of the inspection department who were hiding today, Zhou Wen quickly found out from these well-informed people that the man on horseback who they saw when they passed by Qizhou was talking to them. Depending on the civil service situation.

That civil official was Xu Wenqi, whose name was Woxi, and a native of Renhe, Zhejiang. He was very famous around here. Almost everyone in the officialdom was familiar with him, and many even admired him.

Xu Wenqi has a prominent family background.

His grandfather, Xu Ziliang, was once the governor of Guizhou Youqian Capital, and his father, Xu Lianshu, was once the governor of Guangxi Zuozheng.

Xu Wenqi himself was a Jinshi in the seventh year of Chongzhen, and he was appointed Fang Langzhong in Nanjing.Assisted Shangshu Fan Jingwen to defend against civil unrest.Later, he was transferred to the magistrate of Huangzhou. During the battle with the bandit army, he shot and killed a tiger, the leader of the bandit army, and returned it with the banner.

During this period, Xu Wenqi sent seven prisoners who had been sentenced to severe sentences back to visit their relatives, and set a time to return to prison. All seven prisoners kept their promises.Xu Wenqi then asked Shangguan to forgive him.

As a result, Xu Wenqi's fame was greatly boosted.

In the 13th year of Chongzhen, Xu Wenqi was transferred to the deputy envoy of Xiajiang Fangdao and stationed in Qizhou.

During this period, when Zhang Xiongfei, the bandit army, was crossing the Yangtze River in the south, Xu Wenqi ordered the guerrilla Yang Fu to attack and burn down the bandit army's ships, forcing the bandit army to give up their plan to cross the river.Later, in the process of defending various bandits, big and small, Xu Wenqi also made great achievements, and once extinguished a rebellion of hundreds of people in his own army.

His subordinate Yang Fujiu was in Qizhou, but the governor Song Yihe sent general Mao Xianwen to defend together. As a result, Yang and Mao were at odds, and the soldiers and people were uneasy.Xu Wenqi dispelled the suspicion between the two by organizing a banquet, and his prestige and skill can be seen.

A few days ago, when Zuo Liangyu's army crossed the border, Xu Wenqi immediately confronted the Zuo army on the riverside. No one dared to invade, so Qizhou and its surrounding areas were preserved.

At this time, Xu Wenqi had received the notice to be promoted to grain superintendent to participate in politics (from the third grade, which is equivalent to the deputy provincial level), but instead of leaving, he sighed to the left and right: "I have guarded this lonely city for the emperor for three years, and my duty should be Defend the territory, now it is critical, why should I leave."

Then, he ordered his wife to send his mother back home, and ordered Yang Fu and Mao Xianwen to lead their troops to prepare for the defense.

Such Xu Wenqi is courageous, righteous, and resourceful. Zhou Wen kept admiring him while talking, and it was obvious that he admired him very much.

But Li Ping was a little surprised, such officials are rare.

Standing beside such a person, he didn't realize for a long time whether he should be happy or unhappy.

During dinner, Li Ping told Song Baolai, Gao Lei and Zhao Lanyue about Xu Wenqi, and the three of them were equally moved.

However, they did not say anything about the situation in Qizhou.Although Gao Lei showed great affection for Xu Wenqi, Song Baolai expressed concern about their going to seize the mine here, which was also a headache for Li Ping.

If Xu Wenqi really came to reprimand him, what should he do?He broke up with Zuo Liangyu, but he can't break up with the civil servants too!Especially with such a powerful and powerful official.

It is absolutely impossible for him to spit out the mine.

Righteousness always depends on the situation!

But soon, excitement took over again.

It has not been a day or two since I came to this cannibalistic world, and everyone knows the importance of resources very well.

Now that they are in this unique treasure land and stationed independently, a new longing is ignited in everyone's heart.

(End of this chapter)