Chapter 507： 508 Mine

Chapter 507 508 Mine

The two fell to the ground, and saw that there were all ragged and scrawny men lying inside, and they did not respond to the movement of the two.

Ding Yi stroked Hu Cheng's palm a few times, telling Hu Cheng that he wanted to stay and watch for two days, and then find a chance to escape.

Hu Cheng agreed with Ding Yi's idea, and the two secretly discussed how to deal with the secret language unique to the Dark Guard.

After less than an hour, the people in the cave were woken up. Hu Cheng and Ding Yi were also driven by the guards with a leather whip. They followed the miners and walked forward in a panic.

Ding Yi peeked at the miners in the valley and thought that they should take turns to work. On the road, some miners used wheelbarrows to transport truckloads of iron sand to the iron smelting furnace, and some people next to the smelting furnace packed the iron sand into baskets, and then put them in. into the furnace.

Under a dozen tall iron-making furnaces, in front of the hearth of each furnace, there are more than a dozen black and thin black-faced men, mechanically pulling the blower, and standing with two hands holding skins every other section of the road. Guards with whips and swords hanging around their waists.

The miner's movement was a little slower, and the whip fell on the miner. Those people didn't dare to resist, they could only grit their teeth and quicken their pace.

Suddenly a miner pushing a wheelbarrow stopped, swayed a few times, and then fell straight down. The overseer scolded and walked up, raised the whip and beat him. At first, the man twitched a few times, but after a while, there was no movement.

The overseer bent down and looked at it, then dragged the miner to a cave, and the others silently accelerated their movements.

Ding Yi and Hu Cheng looked at everything in front of them and thought: No wonder these miners are so honest, they couldn't have been so insensitive when they first came, and they must have become like this after being beaten for a long time.

More than a dozen smelting furnaces kept refining day and night, and the fiery red molten iron flowed continuously along the grooves. How much pig iron was produced by the Cheng family? Thinking about how many weapons the Cheng family has produced over the years?

The further we walked, the closer the sound of ding ding dang dang was, and when we turned around, we saw a few rows of burning stoves, with thirty or forty blacksmiths making ironware sweating like rain.

After walking for a while, they reached the depths of the valley. The miners stopped, picked up their tools and walked to the foot of the mountain to start digging iron ore.

The overseer pointed to the basket, hammer, and shovel on the ground, and looked at the two of them, "Two newcomers, go over there with their groceries, and open up the whole piece before they can rest."

Hu Cheng and Ding glanced at the place where the overseer pointed, picked up the basket, walked to the foot of the mountain, picked up the shovel and started working.

The soil and gravel were hewn out, shoveled into the basket with a shovel, and filled a cart. The supervisor asked Ding Yi to push the wheelbarrow and followed the miners to transport the gravel to the place where the iron sand was screened. None of the miners talked to each other along the way, and they were unknown. 's doing.

There is a large pool where the ore is screened and washed. The pool is surrounded by cliffs on three sides. The stream flows down from the cliff and washes the ores. There are more than a dozen miners who constantly screen and wash the ore, and the miners who carry the ore push the wheelbarrow back and forth. Running around, Ding Yi found that the number of supervisors here was the least.

After working non-stop for an hour, the two of them were already hungry. Seeing the two miners beside them slow down, Hu Cheng asked him in a low voice, "Brother, when will we have food?"

The miner glanced at him, shook his head silently, and the overseer raised his whip and shouted, "Hurry up, if you don't want to do it, just drag it into the cave and let you rest for the rest of your life."

Ding Yi and Hu Cheng thought of the miners who were dragged into the cave just now, yes! When you die, you can rest forever.

The miner quickened his movements, Hu Cheng turned his head to look at the supervisor, "Manager, I'm hungry, give me something to eat!"

The overseer walked up to Hu Cheng and pointed his whip at him, "For the sake of you being a newcomer, I will spare you this time, I will tell you the rules, work for two hours at night, rest for one hour, and send Two steamed buns, if you want to eat, wait for another hour. During the day, you have to work harder for me, and then you can rest after finishing the arranged work, hurry up, or the whip of the Lord will not recognize you. "

Hu Cheng did some calculations after listening to it. His grandmother only slept for an hour a night, and had to finish the assigned work during the day before resting. This was treating people like animals, no, it was worse than animals.

The two of them gritted their teeth until they were handing out the steamed buns. One handed out two hard multi-grain steamed buns, and they were driven back to the smelly cave to rest by the supervisor.

After the miners were all asleep, Ding Yi lay there and counted the number of overseers, and found that there were no less than 100 overseers in the valley, and there were guards on the mountain. The place from the furnace to the mining area had the most overseers and guards. Sieve wash pool there.

Ding Yijue was able to escape easily with his skills, but he didn't know if Hu Cheng could escape, did the people sent by shopkeeper Chu keep up? Did you send the message back? If they had gotten the news, they and *** ran would definitely be shocked by the grass...

***

Yuezhou Fucheng, the team to pass the decree has arrived in Yuezhou. Feng Zhifu and the eldest young master of the Cheng family, Cheng Shan, together with the officials of Yuezhou government and a group of squires, greeted the team at the gate of the city.

Feng Zhifu and Cheng Shan glanced at Zhou Jia, who had a warm smile on his face, and smiled, stepped forward and saluted: "Xiaguan greets the imperial envoy Zhou."

Zhou Jia stepped forward with a smile, lifted him up and said, "Master Feng, please excuse me."

Cheng Shan also smiled and stepped forward to salute. After everyone greeted each other, the team who passed the decree moved into the Yuezhou Post House. Feng Zhifu smiled and said to Zhou Jia: "Master Zhou, we will hold a reception banquet at the Zuixianlou tonight. Wait. Rest well, the lower official will send someone to pick you up."

Zhou Jia pushed back and said, "Thank you, Lord Feng, please thank everyone for your kindness on my behalf. It's really exhausting, so the banquet will be avoided!"

"Lord Zhou, everyone is in their hearts, please show your face." Feng Zhifu bowed and saluted.

Zhou Jia nodded, "Okay! Prepare as you please, don't waste it."

Feng Zhifu respectfully responded, "Master Zhou, you rest, and the lower official bids farewell."

The postmaster welcomed Zhou Jia and his servants into the post house, arranged their accommodation and then left. The inner servant sorted it out and went to the Cheng family to pass on the decree.

Zhou Jia looked at the people serving in the post house in the yard and said to Ruyi, "Let them all go back. This official has guards and you, so they don't need to be served."

Ruyi looked at them, "Did you hear what the adults said, you are not needed here, go back!"

"Master, we are sent by the post house to serve you, you drive us back, master wants..."

Ruyi looked at them arrogantly, "If you want to leave, leave quickly, come here and drive them out."

The guards stepped forward and drove them away.