Chapter 47: Played Big

  From the capital to Xiangzhou, there is a waterway, but it takes a detour. Some big shots in the capital couldn't wait and gave Song Ji a horse-drawn carriage, taking the overland route, crossing the Yellow River at Huaizhou, and rushing to Xiangzhou. However, they didn't arrive in Xiangzhou itself, but rather in Linfen County, west of Xiangzhou, also known as Licheng Jun in ancient times. To the northeast of the city lies two iron pits, which annually submit tens of thousands of kilograms of tribute iron to the state.

  Song Jiuzai in the capital city unknowingly, the population is still very dense, even in the suburbs. The farther north you go, the fewer people you see, and it takes a long way to see a village. In fact, the population is not dense at all, the yield of crops is too low in this era, only two stones per mu in the north, and a household with 30 or 40 mu of land can barely maintain a warm and full life. If the Northern Song Dynasty had not been destroyed, it would have been very dangerous to continue developing at such a high speed, once the population reached 40 million households, all kinds of dangers would have broken out comprehensively in the poor area of the Northern Song Dynasty.

  It wasn't until he arrived here that Song Jiu truly felt the meaning of the two words "ancient times", with backward technology, low productivity and a hard life.

  In front of them was Lin Ze County Town. Song Jiu said to the two guards, "Let's change our clothes."

  "Change clothes?"

  "Change into casual clothes." Following the rules, he could also be considered an imperial envoy, and was supposed to meet with local officials. Song Jiu didn't know what rules were, and those formalities and social niceties, what truth could be seen from them?

  A group of people changed clothes, the Guo brothers sat by the road wiping sweat. This group of four were all somewhat miserable, but Song Jiu was still kind-hearted, he sat in the carriage, two guards rode horses, and they moved quickly, the four could only run to keep up behind them. Song Jiu saw that they were exhausted, so he took turns letting them ride in the carriage to rest for a while and catch their breath. But this way, the group's speed increased, and in one day they could travel almost 150 miles. In just a few days, they arrived at Linhe County.

  They changed into the guards' uniforms, and the two guards took off their armor. They didn't want to wear it either; although the horse armor was lighter, it still weighed over 40 pounds. On a hot day like this, how comfortable would that be? After changing clothes, no one noticed, including the coachman. The eight of them quietly entered Linlü County City and found an inn to stay in. The next day, Song Jiu took them out of the city. Tie Keng was not far from the county city, only a few dozen miles away. Before arriving at Tie Keng, they stopped at a small wine shop near Tie Keng, ordered a few dishes, and slowly drank wine. They were pretending to drink wine, listening to the villagers' gossip, especially when several Tie Keng laborers came over to drink wine. Song Jiu almost put down his wine cup, focusing intently on listening.

  Then gave some reward money to Big Brother and chatted with him for a while.

  It wasn't until the third day that he directly led a few people to rush to an iron pit.

  Far away, I saw a pit and some scattered iron furnaces. This is really frustrating. The iron ore was mined and had to be smelted. How did they smelt it? They built small earth furnaces on the spot, cut down trees on the mountain to make charcoal, and used charcoal and earth furnaces to smelt the iron ore. After smelting, they handed it over to the government. As a result, the iron furnaces were constantly moving, and wherever the forest was cut, the furnaces were built there.

  Song Jiufurrowed his brow and continued walking towards the iron pit, when he suddenly saw an unpleasant scene: someone was whipping a black-clad servant with a leather whip.

  I don't know what's going on in the pit, but I think it will be even more bitter at the bottom. Song Jiu couldn't bear to watch and shouted: "You can't hit!"

  The person who was drawing stopped and said discontentedly: "Who are you, meddling in other people's business?"

  Song Jiuniu nodded, and the guard handed over the imperial edict and the patrol officer's token to the man. The man first paid his respects, but his expression was mostly disrespectful, saying: "Song Chengshi, you are an official of the imperial court, wanting to make a good name for yourself, but if we common people can't pay our iron taxes on time, the yamen runners will come to collect and we'll be ruined."

  Song Jiuyi heard some news and said to Yan: "Don't be in a hurry, speak slowly, you are a commoner, I am also a commoner."

  "You're joking, you're no ordinary citizen, or else the common people would be bullied to death." But Song Jiuxiao's attitude was friendly and close, so this person's courage also opened up, and he poured out his bitter water.

  This is the problem of the mining system in the Song Dynasty.

  The Tang Dynasty's mining system was directly managed by officials, who forced convicts to extract and smelt. This system had many drawbacks. What would happen if there were no convicts? With the presence of convicts, these officials did not treat them as human beings because they were convicts. Many convicts were tortured to death, but these people were sentenced to exile, which meant their crimes were not punishable by death. Zhao Kuangyin and Chai Rong could not tolerate this inhumane behavior. The third problem was that officials in charge were severely corrupt. From Zhou Wei to Chai Rong and Zhao Kuangyin, they gradually reformed the system into a contract-based system.

  Let the officials estimate the annual output first, and then call the local rich households to come over. These iron pits are handed over to you for management, but you have to hand in a certain amount of iron every year. If there is excess production, it belongs to you. It seems more humane, but actually it's not.

  The first is that the wealthy households have money and can exploit, but those who truly have power are not subject to official requisitions. Having wealth without power in this era is still very dangerous, just like a country with wealth but weakness will be treated as a lamb by countless hostile nations.

  The second official also has to be "patriotic", so this estimate can only be overestimated and will not be underestimated.

  The first procedure is completed, and the second procedure arrives. Those who can be masters at this time were originally wealthy, but it doesn't matter if they go bankrupt later. They won't labor with their own hands for the time being, so they hire clients (tenant farmers) as laborers.

  The foremen are diligent and gain a lot, but the laborers are not. They are just going through the motions, working in underground tunnels. When the master is present, they work hard for a while, but as soon as he leaves, they slack off immediately. As a client, it's understandable that the work is bitter, the treatment is poor, and there's danger involved - who would be willing to risk their lives? As a master, it's also understandable that out of ten iron pits, eight are often unable to complete their tasks. What can you do if they don't finish their tasks? When the officials come to urge them on, those who fail to deliver will be punished lightly with flogging or heavily with exile. The only option is to spend money buying iron from private mines to make up for the shortfall. Even if the task is completed, it's good that there's potential for further excavation, but the next year the official quota will increase again, until you're unable to complete it. Therefore, the masters urge the laborers day and night without stopping, but the more they're pressed, the less willing the laborers are, even openly dragging their feet. This forms a vicious cycle.

  In response, the imperial court also had no good strategy and wanted to relax a bit. The key was that when the imperial court relaxed one step, those below could relax ten steps. Originally, there wasn't enough iron to go around, but with this relaxation, the entire country would face an iron crisis. Therefore, Zhao Kuangyi kindly reminded Song Jiu to bring several more guards down. It didn't matter if the bailiffs came to rush for iron, they were all fellow villagers and could be recognized, so they wouldn't dare do anything. However, officials were different, and mine owners would not openly do anything, but they harbored resentment in their hearts. If the number of guards brought was small, they might even incite clients to make things difficult or even beat up officials. The law didn't blame the masses, as long as it wasn't beaten to a pulp, it was essentially a waste of effort.

  Song Jiuyi misunderstood that he was greedy for ink, and the court also sent officials to manage it. However, the management was loose, and when the time came, they would send yamen to urge debt repayment, but Song Jiuyi himself would not go to the iron pit. Even some Wen Chen, like Zhang Doctor and Yan Doctor, were gentlemen who did not discuss benefits, and they did not ask about management at all, entrusting everything to the harsh small officials. There might be some tricks in between, but on the surface, it was not something that Song Jiuyi could see. Zhao Kuangyi also didn't want Song Jiuyi to ask questions, so he deliberately instructed him with a sentence: don't stir up trouble.

  Lizhou army iron pit is a good example, two iron pits, the output of iron is not bad, so the imperial court ordered more than 100,000 catties of iron, undertaken by two wealthy households. Unfortunately, this is Yan Luo Wang's debt, whoever gets stuck with it will be unlucky for eight lifetimes.

  The host finished speaking and burst into loud sobs.

  Song Jiuyou helped him up and said, "Don't worry, fighting is not a good solution. Since the imperial court sent me here, it means that His Majesty also cares about this issue. First, take me to see the pit cave."

  As he entered the pit, it was quite deep. In order to save costs, there were no torches lit inside. Walking in, if the torches were extinguished, it would be like arriving at the underworld. Finally, he saw people mining, using hammers and chisels to strike the stone walls, taking half a day to knock down one piece of iron ore, which was then lifted out with a bamboo basket and smelted in that earth furnace. Not to mention how much iron would be wasted by that earth furnace, this method of mining itself didn't know how much iron would be wasted. Song Jiu estimated that for a high-quality iron mine, using this method, they might not even get one-thousandth of it. What impact this would have on future generations, Song Jiu did not want to think about. But this method made him frown.

  Having listened for a whole day to the mine owner's grievances, Song Jiu's ears were almost numb. The next day, Song Jiu said: "Let's go to Cizhou."

  The coal smelting iron has appeared in Cizhou, which is the focus of Song Jiu's attention. The group continued north and arrived at Guta Town on the west side of Cishan Mountain in Cizhou after three days. The iron pits here and Xingzhou Qicun are the leaders of the iron pits in the Song Dynasty, accounting for almost half of the current iron production in the Song Dynasty. Some people use coal to smelt iron, but it is still an earth furnace. Song Jiu asked, and more people complained that the big iron furnace collapsed. The three states' iron mines are old iron mines, which can be said to have started digging from the Spring and Autumn Periods. The underground tunnels are like a maze, and often when the pits are dug too much, collapses occur. In this era, once a collapse occurs, it means that the people below are... dead! There is also a problem with the iron furnace. Some people want to build large iron furnaces to save costs, but large furnaces are prone to collapse, which is not cost-effective but rather wasteful.

  Song Jiuyi's eyebrows were stuck together and couldn't relax, so he didn't look again and instead went to the coal mine to take a look.

  Another tragic history of blood and tears.

  Coal mines not only collapse, but also have gas. After many people died, someone discovered the rule: before entering, use a long bamboo tube, ignite the front of the tube, if it encounters gas and ignites, immediately lie down on the ground, let the fire pass over from behind, and the person can avoid death. However, some gases are fierce, once they explode, flames shoot out hundreds of feet, even if you don't die, you'll be burned to the bone.

  Old Hu said: "This is simply not something a human can do!"

  I used to think that being a coolie was bitter enough, but compared with these miners, it's nothing.

  Song Jiuyou went to see steelmaking again.

  At this time, the officials of Mian County heard about it and came one after another. They didn't necessarily take Song Jiu seriously, but he represented the imperial court's intention, so they had to entertain him out of courtesy.

  Song Jiubai's head was as big as eight, where his mood was slightly cold and he muttered a few words to go see the steel refining. The hundred-refined steel is expensive, not a common practice, mainly to see the large-scale steel refining method.

  The steel-making method was passed down from the Northern and Southern Dynasties, which was an improvement over the Han Dynasty's puddling process. It involved smelting high-grade iron ore to produce pig iron, then pouring liquid pig iron onto wrought iron to make it infiltrate into steel. Compared with the Han Dynasty's puddling process, this method had many advantages: the pig iron acted as a decarburizer, and after melting at high temperatures, it accelerated the decarburization of the wrought iron, increasing production efficiency. The wrought iron became alloyed with carbon, while the pig iron was transformed into high-quality steel through decarburization. At high temperatures, the carbon, silicon, manganese, and other elements in the liquid iron reacted with the oxides in the wrought iron to remove impurities and form a true alloy. The operation was easy: to obtain steel with different carbon content, simply mix pig iron and wrought iron in a certain proportion and smelt them together. Of course, this last point shouldn't be considered at this time. During the Song Dynasty, the method was further developed by embedding pig iron pieces into coiled wrought iron bars, sealing the steel-making furnace with mud, and then firing it, resulting in even better quality steel than before.

  Progress has been made, but Song Jiuxin carefully thought about the principle in his mind, and then thought about the chemical reaction in between, as well as what he had seen and heard in this line of work. He couldn't help but hold his head and squat on the ground, shouting loudly: "This is getting out of hand."

  That's no small matter!