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Chapter 193 No tiger will become a vegetarian

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    By the time the group of people on horseback arrived at the dining hall, it was already dark.

    Everyone found an inn in the town to spend the night, and set out for Miaofeng Mountain before dawn the next day.

    The anthracite from Miaofeng Mountain is of the best quality, and Guanglu Temple purchases a lot of it every year. Some of it is used for palace banquets, and some of it is given as "charcoal tribute" to the elders and ministers.

    Several bosses from the Miaofengshan Coal Kiln all live in the town. Ambassador Hou's business was all done last night In fact, if it weren't for accompanying Zhao Hao, he would have just called the bosses to Beijing and had it done.  You can also have a good time and have a good time.

    Along the mountain road, from time to time I saw a foreman holding a whip and driving groups of hunched workers down the mountain.  I saw that the poles on the shoulders of the pickers were bent into crescents, and the weight of the coal in the baskets was probably less than one or two hundred kilograms

    "Is this how coal is transported down the mountain?" Zhao Hao asked the Miaofengshan coal boss who came with him in surprise.

    "You can still use wheelbarrows in other places that are gentler." The coal boss surnamed Niu hurriedly replied with a smile: "I can't help it, the road in Miaofeng Mountain is too steep but they can earn more by picking jobs this way, so they are more willing to do it.  .¡±

    Zhao Hao nodded noncommittally and asked Boss Niu about the situation of the entire Xishan coal mine.

    "There are about four to five hundred coal kilns in Xishan. I can't say for certain." Boss Niu replied: "Because coal kilns are prone to water seepage. Once the water seeps out, it will fill up quickly. You can only scrap it and dig another one. So it is always open and shut down."  , no one can be sure.¡±

    "How many official kilns and how many private kilns are there in these coal kilns?" Zhao Hao asked again.

    "More than 80% of the coal kilns are private kilns, and the official kilns and palace coal kilns only account for more than 10%, and they are all entrusted to us to operate. As long as the coal is delivered to Beijing in a timely and quantitative manner, we don't care about the rest" Boss Niu wanted to say  , Guanglu Temple has this kind of relationship with us, but I didn¡¯t know what Ambassador Hou told this young master, so he stopped talking.

    "Are the taxes heavy?" Zhao Hao asked again.

    "Heavy, why not heavy?" Boss Niu said with a grimace.

    "Isn't it thirty tax per tax?" Zhao Haoxin said, this person really doesn't have enough.

    "Thirty taxes are true." The boss Niu immediately vomited his bitterness: "But in addition to the mining tax, the county also has various apportionments. If they can't manage it for a while, they say we are taking in the refugees and just put them there."  The mine is closed"

    Zhao Hao sneered secretly when he heard this, thinking to himself, is this too breathless?  Wait until thirty years later, when Emperor Wanli releases his mine inspectors and tax envoys, you will know what cruelty means.

    When the time comes, you will definitely miss Emperor Longqing who was light on corvee and did not bother with taxes

    ??~~

    After walking along the steep mountain road for more than an hour, Zhao Hao and his party arrived at the mining area in the valley in the morning.

    Looking from a distance, we can see twenty or thirty small mines on the hillside like a hornet's nest. Hundreds of dark miners are coming in and out, and baskets of coal are being transported out like ants moving.  After the accountant checked and weighed the coal, the picker waiting outside picked up the coal basket with a pole and carried it swaying down the hillside.  Once a team is assembled, a foreman will supervise their transportation to the Yongding River at the foot of the mountain.

    After just walking around the mine, Zhao Hao came up with a dozen ways to improve production efficiency.

    But he had already made up his mind. Today he would only watch and ask but not tell. Naturally, he would not tell the coal boss named Niu.

    ¡°This is all your coal kiln?¡± Zhao Hao asked casually, standing outside a dark coal kiln.

    "If the villain has so many kilns, wouldn't he become the richest man in Mentougou?" The coal boss couldn't help but laugh: "There are six kilns in total, and only five kilns belong to the villain."

    "I think you are almost as good as the richest man." Ambassador Hou joked.

    While the two were laughing, Zhao Hao suddenly remembered that he was the richest man in Caijiaxiang. He couldn't help but awkwardly change the topic and asked the coal boss for advice on how to find this coal-rich valley in the mountains.

    At this time, there was no concept of surveying and geological exploration, but the kiln owners had their own set of techniques for finding coal in the field, similar to the "Xunlong Jue".

    Although they would not reveal the secrets of eating to Zhao Hao, for Ambassador Hou¡¯s sake, they still showed him the tape measure, compass, benchmark, bucket shovel and other tools used for prospecting, as well as their hand-drawn topographic map.

    On that topographic map, Zhao Hao even saw contour lines, a mapping method that would only be adopted in the West 150 years later.

    On the contrary, there is nothing surprising about the coal mines themselves. The coal mines here are very shallow, and the deepest ones are only twenty or thirty feet deep. Most of them are dug to about ten feet above the ground and then abandoned.

    This is because it is not cost-effective to dig deeper due to the limited level of tools.  Secondly, the Xishan area happens to be where Beijing¡¯s groundwater is rich, so we often dig ten holes downward.If the well is not drained in time, the well will soon stop working.

    In addition, the coal resources in this area are so abundant that the kiln owners are too lazy to spend money on drainage. If they have the time, they might as well find another coal nest

    And because the mines are not deep, most of them are well ventilated.  In a small number of relatively deep mines, it is sufficient to use large hollow moso bamboos to exhaust air. Ventilation machinery such as windmills, wind cabinets, and fans are not used, which makes Zhao Hao slightly disappointed.

    However, through conversations with several coal bosses, he found that they were also very dissatisfied with the current mining method, which was as superficial as a dragonfly's water.  After all, no matter how rich the coal mines are in Xishan, they can't just dig out the coal with a shovel. It would be a huge waste for them to just abandon the coal nests.

    So if there is a tool that can automatically drain and transport, they will be very willing to use it.

    ??~~

    After visiting the small coal kiln, Zhao Hao's eyes were attracted by a high-walled compound covered with thorns.

    ¡°This is a pothouse built by six of us as a joint venture. It is a place where workers eat and sleep.¡± Boss Niu explained hurriedly.

    "Go in and take a look." Zhao Hao said.

    "Sir, it's better not to leave. It's smelly, dirty and crowded with so many people" Boss Niu looked embarrassed.

    Zhao Hao walked straight towards the small door.

    "Alas" Boss Niu glanced at Ambassador Hou and couldn't help but whispered: "Why does this young man you brought here have such strange hobbies?"

    "How did I know?" Ambassador Hou was almost exhausted and broke up. He regretted following Zhao Hao into the mountains.

    Boss Niu had no choice but to have the heavy iron door opened.

    I saw more than a hundred miners squatting in the yard, all black and extremely dirty.  Each of them held a coarse porcelain bowl, which contained cabbage soup with only a few oily seeds floating in it.  The miners held two or three equally black buns in their dark hands and were devouring them.

    Hearing the knock on the door, the miners raised their eyes and ignored it when they saw that it was not their foreman.  However, the guy in charge of the pot guy came over and paid his respects to Boss Niu, one of the bosses.

    By asking the team leader, Zhao Hao learned that there were more than 800 miners in and outside the mine.  The pot cook's supply capacity is limited, so he has to come back in shifts to eat.

    In fact, even if the supply can be provided, in order to save time, the coal bosses will only let the miners eat one hot meal a day, and then each person will be given three steamed buns to carry into the mine.  When he was hungry at work, he would eat a few mouthfuls of steamed buns, and when he was thirsty, he would drink the stagnant water from the mine.

    Zhao Shizhen asked what to do if you get sick like this?  Dozens of people lying on the big bunk in the house were injured and injured due to various reasons.  The cooks in the Guohuo are also doctors. If someone is sick, they will randomly grab some herbs. If they can be cured, it is luck, but if they are not cured, it is normal.  And although it costs nothing to see a doctor, getting medicine is much more expensive than in town

    Later, I didn¡¯t hear these words from the leader.  Instead, Zhao Hao asked Gao Wu to take out a bag of copper coins that he had exchanged in the town and distributed them directly to the workers present.  Those insensitive miners finally responded, smiled, said thanks, and became eloquent.

    After chatting with them, Zhao Hao learned that these miners must work in the mine until next summer before they can settle their accounts and go home.  Before that, they had to live and eat in the mine. Even if they had a day off during the Chinese New Year, they were not allowed to take a step away from the cook.  The coal bosses are very self-aware and know that with the abuse they inflict on the miners, once they are released, most of them will probably never come back again.

    ¡°But the coal boss also told Zhao Hao that it was not their intention to turn the pot gang into a prison, but it was the request of the court.

    Because Xishan is too close to the capital, the coal mines recruit a large number of refugees.  The imperial court was naturally very vigilant about the gathering of refugees, fearing that riots would occur and endanger the capital.

    "But the people inside and outside the capital could not bear this hardship, and the coal mines were reluctant to part with the cheap labor, so the two sides reached a compromise, and the coal bosses restricted the freedom of the miners. If the miners caused trouble, the coal bosses would be jointly and severally liable.

    In order to avoid being unable to control the large number of people, the coal boss can only take the initiative to reduce the number of workers recruited, so the scale of production is greatly restricted.  I heard several coal bosses bragging that if the imperial court did not restrict the refugees, they could expand the scale of production tenfold and let the entire Zhili burn Xishan coal.

    Although I don¡¯t know how true or false their words are, based on what Wu Kangyuan said at the beginning, it seems that the imperial court does have a negative attitude towards the refugees.

    "However, tigers in the East Mountains cannibalize people, and tigers in the West Mountains will not be vegetarians. These coal bosses will not be more merciful than the British capitalists in the seventeenth century.

    When leaving here, Zhao Hao suddenly realized that he was actually a member of the capitalists

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