Allure of a Country Maiden-Chapter 620 - 618

The investigation and inventory work of the Qi Mountain iron mine was handed over to the soldiers brought by Di Shaowei.

As for the original soldiers in the mining area, under the scrutiny of the tiger, they were reduced to miners who started their rescue efforts.

"The iron ore mined out always needs to be transported for smelting. When the iron ore is transported out, some of it should fall off along the way. We should look for it on the nearby roads and find out where the iron ore has been taken!" Xiao’er suggested.

"The smelting place should not be far from here." Di Shaowei speculated.

Xiao’er nodded, if it was too far, and if too many iron ores would have fallen on the official road, the iron mine would have been exposed long ago.

Many official roads have now been converted into cement roads with toll gates. Each toll gate is manned by soldiers and toll collectors. It’s not easy for these private mines to transport their produce out, so they can only smelt the product nearby and make iron products before shipping them out.

Di Shaowei divided half of the soldiers to stay in the mining area to handle any aftermath and the other half to look for the iron smelting site.

Shangguan Xuanyi did not speak but just held Xiao’er’s hand.

The three of them left the mining area to look around.

In fact, there were only two roads near the mining area, they circled the mining area and turned around to see.

Clear cart tracks were visible on the other road. Looking at those deep ruts, Xiao’er could imagine bullock carts and carriages full of iron blocks bustling on these roads.

They walked down this road. Every once in a while, they could see some pieces of iron ore that had dropped on the road.

After approximately 30 minutes of walking, they saw the end of the road, the entrance to a ravine. The three of them looked at each other: it should be here!

Di Shaowei assigned a hundred and fifty soldiers to guard the entrance of the ravine, while the rest followed him up the mountain to inspect the situation.

Shangguan Xuanyi held onto Xiao’er’s hand tightly, matching Xiao’er’s strength, the two of them flew up together using Qinggong.

Two figures, one purple and one white, flew towards the large mountain with alternating colors of yellow and green, like flying gods, causing the soldiers below to stare in awe.

This scene was so beautiful that people couldn’t even blink.

Is this the fairy couple in their hearts? Someone wondered.

Seeing the two of them leave him behind, Di Shaowei didn’t dare to shout and cursed in a low voice, "Forget your friends as soon as you see a girl," and then hurriedly chased after them.

The three of them quietly reached the top of the mountain and looked down through the cover of the trees:

Although it’s already late autumn and there’s a faint chill in the air, many of the workers below are shirtless, exposing their dark skin, busily bustling about.

Xiao’er counted and found that there were 16 iron smelting furnaces, 1 melting furnace, 1 forging furnace, 8 iron storage pits, 1 large ore pit, 1 raw material pool, various iron implements and casting models, etc. Although it was her first time seeing an ancient iron smelting base, she was sure that the scale of this iron smelting was already quite large.

As the saying goes, to see afar, you need to climb higher. Standing on top of the mountain, there’s much more to see.

Xiao’er also saw a residential area covering thousands of square meters about a hundred meters from the iron smelting furnace. There were women washing clothes, picking vegetables, children playing in the open ground.

And there was another road leading to the outside above the residential area. The road was paved with concrete, but it had already started to crack and become pitted. One can imagine how many iron products had been transported from that road, crushing the hard pavement.

"Dispatch people to block off the other exit, then we can catch a turtle in a jar!" Xiao’er suggested.

"Young lady, you have described it so aptly. I will go and arrange it right away! Fortunately, I thought about it earlier and left three hundred soldiers outside. Now, they can directly go around to the other side and block the exit." Di Shaowei quickly went down the mountain to make arrangements after finishing his words.

Xiao’er and Shangguan Xuanyi remained on the hilltop, observing the situation below.

Xiao’er was seeing the process of iron smelting in ancient times for the first time, and she was utterly intrigued.

Seeing her eyes filled with deep interest, Shangguan Xuanyi explained one by one the operation process below.

"In fact, this iron smelting technology is already outdated. The iron smelting technology and blast furnace design you provided greatly increased iron production, and the number of explosions decreased a lot."

Xiao’er nodded in agreement, that was for sure.

The iron smelting furnace below was built of soil, shaped like steamed buns, which should be a heritage from the Han dynasty. But Xiao’er knew that the iron smelting furnace was constructed by piling up stones, which could endure high temperatures. The shape was similar to the upper part of a beer bottle, with a thin neck and a big belly, which was more conducive to the slag flowing downwards.

The iron smelting furnaces shown below were too large, which was not very good for heat dissipation. Contrarily, it was liable to cause excessive pressure inside the furnace resulting in explosions.

While the two were discussing the backwardness of the iron smelting technology below and how to improve it, suddenly there came the sound of "clip-clop" horse hooves from afar.

They looked over and saw that the leader of the group had one empty sleeve, fluttering in the wind.

"It’s Li Mingjun leading the people." Xiao’er affirmed.

"He probably knew about the mine collapse and brought people to rescue!"

"That’s perfect, catching the thief with the stolen goods! Now we have both people and goods! Let’s see how he can argue!"

"Let’s go, we should make arrangements. Li Mingjun is a very vigilant man and might escape! We must catch him red-handed this time."

Xiao’er and the others stood high and could see far. It would take Li Mingjun some time to reach the mining area, and this time was enough for Shangguan Xuanyi to make arrangements.

Shangguan Xuanyi and Xiao’er quickly ran down the mountain, instructing the soldiers at the foot of the mountain to hide on the mountain.

After instructing these soldiers, the two of them quickly ran towards the mine.

...

Li Mingjun led the way into the mining area: "Huh!"

He pulled the reins, the horse’s two front legs lifted high, then it stopped.

The people behind Li Mingjun also dismounted. freewebnoveℓ.com

Seeing that only soldiers were on-site digging to rescue people, and there were a few bodies lying on the ground, but not a single miner in sight, Li Mingjun felt an ominous foreboding: "Are all those miners buried underneath?"

That’s impossible! There should always be some people above, right!

A soldier lowered his head, his whole body shrank and his voice trembled when speaking, "Return to the master, yes. When it collapsed, it was almost dawn. Recently we’ve been working overtime, yesterday it rained and flooded the mine, delaying a lot of time, the master saw that the rain had stopped last night, ordered workers to get up early in the morning, they all rushed to go below! We were also called to help transport the ore!"

"You damn thing! You should have known that after the rain, the stone pillars might be loosed due to the erosion, why didn’t you check!" Now all those miners are dead! Where is he going to find men to mine!

It doesn’t matter if those miners are dead. But delaying his weapon manufacturing can cause big trouble!