Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 336 Yuan Zhao ([-])

Yecheng
"Midnight, why did your Wang family suddenly refuse to sell grain?" Yuan Shao asked with a frown.

"There is a famine in Liaodong, and there is no food to sell." Wang Xiao replied calmly.

"Then can more of those armors and weapons be produced?" Yuan Shao continued to ask. He just took down Gongsun Zan's Bohai County this year. He needs a lot of food to calm people's hearts, and he also needs a lot of weapons and equipment to distribute to the newly recruited soldiers.

All the artisans in Jizhou and Qingzhou were scoured by the Wang family. Yuan Shao really had no artisans to make weapons and equipment, so he could only rely on the Wang family to sell them.

Building is worse than buying, and buying is worse than renting. This concept has become the consensus of Yuan Shao's camp.

"Yes, but the output won't be too much." Wang Xiao replied truthfully. Most of the iron smelting workshops of the Wang family were used to make farming tools for land reclamation. Now the ones sold to the Yuan family were all eliminated by the Wang family's security team. old weaponry.

The private soldiers of the royal family use newly-made weapons and equipment, and the old equipment will not be wasted, but sold directly to Yuan Shao and other Central Plains princes.

But these are not problems.

There are many craftsmen in the Wang family. Iron mines are everywhere in Liaodong. There are also many slaves who dig mines, but they lack time to smelt them.

Therefore, Wang Xiao comforted: "Duke Ming waits for another two or three years, and we will definitely increase production, so that everyone in Duke Ming's army will be armored, and everyone will be majestic!"

"Then let's wait for the good news from Midnight." Yuan Shao nodded with satisfaction. As the number one family in the Central Plains, he had plenty of money, but he was worried that the Wang family would not sell it.

At this time, Xu You entered the house, first glanced at Wang Xiao, and then said respectfully to Yuan Shao: "Minggong, Gongsun Zan was defeated by the Southern Huns, and now he has retreated to Yijing (Xiongan New Area), and he is still digging around Yijing. The moat was built, and migrant workers were mobilized to heighten the city walls of Yijing.”

"Okay!" Yuan Shao was overjoyed, the frown he had just now was gone.

Gongsun Zan's most affluent Bohai County has been captured by Yuan Shaogang, and Liaoxi County, his hometown, has also been occupied by the Southern Huns. Now Gongsun Zan only has Guangyang County, Yuyang County, Shanggu County, Dai County, and Zhuo County.

However, these places are not stable, because Liu Yu's old subordinates have always wanted to rebel. When Gongsun Zan was strong, they might still bear it. Will continue to live in peace.

"Duke Ming, it's better to let General Qu Yi go to besiege Gongsun Zan. With the victory in the battle of Jieqiao, Gongsun Zan will definitely not dare to leave the city. At that time, Duke Ming can take over the counties of Youzhou with peace of mind." Xu You suggested.

"Yeah." Yuan Shao nodded in approval, "Ziyuan's words really win my heart."

After another exchange of courtesies between the monarch and his ministers, Xu You left, and then took advantage of Yuan Shao's power to mobilize troops and horses, secretly greedy for military expenses, secretly exchanged the grain in the barracks for sand, and secretly sold the real grain Give it to Cao Cao who is short of food in the south, and then transfer the money from selling the food to his own home.

He did this not because of any collusion with Cao Cao, but purely because he wanted to embezzle. It happened that Cao Cao offered a high price and was close to him, so he would naturally sell it to Cao Cao. Pure people.

Fortunately, Yuan Shaobing had a lot of food, so even if the food was embezzled, it would not be noticed for a while, and even if it was discovered, the military food officer could still be blamed.

Three months later
Liaodong
Wencheng Iron Mine (Maanshan Open Pit Iron Mine, Liaoning)

It is close to Shanhaiguan, and it is the ruling area of ​​the Li family.

Thousands of Southern Huns slaves, Goguryeo slaves, and Fuyu slaves dug mines here, and all the ores dug out were sold by the Li family to the Wang family at a low price, because the Li family's own smelting technology was not very good, and the iron weapons they smelted The quality of farm tools and tools was too poor, so I simply sold all the ore to the Wang family, and then went to the Wang family to buy ready-made iron products.

Because it is close to the sea, the iron ore dug out is piled up in the wharf warehouse of Wencheng Port, waiting for the Wang family to come to buy.

Among these slaves mining, there was a Southern Huns named Liu Bao. He was originally the son of the Southern Huns Shan Yufulo. He took a Chinese name because he admired Han culture.

He was captured by the three major families not long ago, and then became a mining slave in the Li family's iron mine.

The cruelty here made him tremble with fear. The hateful mine owner of the Li family squeezed the surplus value of the slaves to the limit.

Mining for ten hours a day, only two hours are used for eating, drinking, and sleeping. If you are exhausted, you can be thrown into the sea to feed fish if you are lucky. Used to make oil lamps, which then illuminate the mine.

When the slaves were alive, they had to dig mines, and after they were dead, they had to emit light and heat to illuminate the mines.

The so-called food is the bodies of the exhausted slaves.

Muscles are made into food because they have less oil, and internal organs are squeezed out because they have more oil. As for bones, they are usually ground into powder and fertilized. The slaves ate corpses every day, and they would use the bones of these dead slaves to make soup to supplement nutrition for other slaves.

In short, the investment in this mine is very small. It only needs to capture the Southern Huns near Yanshan Mountain as slaves. Other food, oil lamps and the like can be self-produced and sold. It is a perfect circular natural economy.

The investment is very small, but the output is a lot. These years, the Central Plains is fighting and the Wang family is opening up wasteland. Whether it is fighting or opening up wasteland, there is a huge demand for iron ore. Therefore, the Li family can count the money just by selling iron ore. Hand cramps.

"Here comes the bone soup!" A Hun slave who was in charge of making soup brought a few pots of human bone soup and was about to give it to other slaves.

The slaves who were so tired that their eyes were dizzy gathered together to drink soup, but Liu Bao felt like vomiting when he looked at the soup.

"Prince, you are only 14 years old this year. It's time to grow your body. How can you not drink soup to supplement?" The Southern Huns slave who had been a dog for the Li family said with a smile. He used to be Liu Bao's guard, but now But he helped the three major families to oppress their fellow Southern Huns.

"Hmph! Why don't you drink it?!" Liu Bao sneered: "I, Liu Bao, even if I die of starvation, I will never drink a mouthful of your bone broth!"

"This soup is very precious, you have to drink it first, Your Royal Highness!" The soup maker laughed, how could he not be excited to be arrogant in front of his former master?
"Shut up!" Liu Bao felt very aggrieved when he heard His Royal Highness' words.

After capturing Liu Bao, the three major families first released news that Liu Bao's father, Yu Fuluo, would redeem Liu Bao with [-] cows.

However, Yu Fuluo immediately said that it is impossible to give [-] cows, and he does not even have a thousand cows now. If the three big families like his son so much, he can exchange his other son for the three big families. The family's [-] head of cattle.

Hey!I don't want my son anymore, not only I don't want to, I also want to use my other son to find you in exchange for [-] cows!

Yu Fuluo expressed his position like this, and the three major families had no choice but to stuff Liu Bao directly into the mine to mine.

(End of this chapter)