Chapter 212: Saving Tenfold the Manpower!

Ying County was also called "Ji'nan City," because it lay directly south of Ji Mountain and northwest of Cloud Dream Marsh. The nearest copper office and copper mine to Ying County and Jiangling was located right on Ji Mountain.

"The Jing-Chu region is far richer in ores such as copper, lead, and tin than the Central Plains; it's a pity that most of them are still in Chu's hands."

The day after inspecting the armory, Li You took Heifu and the others to Ji Mountain to tour the official copper workshop. When Copper Official Yang Xi got word, he came in person to the fork in the road to welcome them. Probably from dealing so much with the Blazing Fire Mine, this man was a few shades darker than Heifu himself...

As they walked, Yang Xi introduced his operations.

"The largest copper deposit should be near the hometown of the Left Arms Section Clerk..."

Heifu immediately recalled upon hearing this: "Could it be Copper Green Mountain?"

"Indeed. It is Copper Green Mountain in E-land, separated from Anlu only by a river. It is said that people have been mining copper there since the Yin-Shang era, smelting copper ingots. After a thousand years of excavation through the Zhou and Chu dynasties, it still yields an endless supply!"

Just how abundant was the copper ore there? It was said that whenever a sudden downpour washed away the surface soil, the whole mountain would reveal scattered specks of green or blue — those were the exposed copper veins.

Heifu, who had at least studied a bit of chemistry in middle and high school in his past life, remembered that the green should be the color of malachite, from which copper was smelted.

Yang Xi even told Heifu and the others that back then, King Zhao of Zhou marched south against Jing-Chu precisely to seize the "fine metal" produced at Copper Green Mountain in E-land, to bring back as spoils of war and cast ritual vessels.

"In the end, King Zhao of Zhou drowned in the Han River and never returned to Zongzhou." As he said this, Yang Xi was rather gloating.

He also said that besides Copper Green Mountain in the hills of southern E, there were many large-scale copper mines in Jiangnan (Hunan), the Six Lands (Anhui), and Gan-land (Jiangxi). These copper and tin mines were the foundation that allowed Chu to aspire to the Central Plains' throne during the Spring and Autumn period. No wonder King Zhuang of Chu had boasted shamelessly: "The broken hook-tips of Chu are enough to cast the Nine Tripods!"

By this time, the group had traveled several li north out of Ying County and arrived at their destination. They saw a small hill rising a few dozen meters above the ground, stretching for over ten li.

"Commandant, Left Arms Section Clerk, please look. It rained only yesterday — do some of the rocks on Ji Mountain have a faint green hue? As the common saying goes, where there is cinnabar above, there is gold below; where there is lodestone above, there is copper-gold below; where there is green stone above, there is lead, tin, and red copper below; where there is reddish-brown stone above, there is iron below. This Ji Mountain is a great copper mountain."

"But I've heard the quality of the copper ore here is poor, far inferior to Copper Green Mountain." Li You was somewhat disdainful of this "copper mountain," feeling it was merely a chicken rib.

"Commandant."

Yang Xi said with a wry smile: "Even if you added up all the copper mines in the entire Southern Commandery, their reserves likely would not match those of Copper Green Mountain. And the copper ingots Southern Commandery produces each year are less than half of Copper Green Mountain's output..."

"If only we could seize Copper Green Mountain, this commandant would not have to worry about shortages of copper and iron."

Li You sighed and wrung his hands, but he also knew that the Chu people still had considerable troops in the Jiangnan region, with two to three thousand soldiers specifically guarding Copper Green Mountain in southern E. And Qin's strategy leaned toward concentrating its main army to attack Chu's core regions of Huainan and Huaibei, with no plan to open a separate Jiangnan front...

Heifu gazed out from horseback. He saw that the firs and pines on this small hill had already been largely felled, yet with each rhythmic work-chant, trees on the hillside still crashed to the ground from time to time, as if they would not stop until every tree here was cut down.

"Doesn't the Field Statute stipulate that logging is forbidden in spring?" Heifu asked Yang Xi.

"The Copper and Iron Office is exempt from this rule."

Yang Xi replied: "After all, it is for the instruments of the army and the state; the fires cannot be extinguished all year round."

He added: "However, as the Left Arms Section Clerk noted, spring wood is moist and indeed does not burn well. So most of the fuel is cut in autumn and winter from the Great Hong Mountains and Jing Mountains, then transported here and stored for later use. The trees being cut now are mainly to excavate the ore beneath."

Although this copper mine was not large, it was still guarded by over a hundred soldiers, with a protective wall built around it and strict gate security.

The first area they entered was the residential quarter, presumably for the clerks, soldiers, and convict laborers of the copper office to live in.

Heifu glanced around and found the living conditions here were extremely harsh. Those sentenced to work here were mostly convicts guilty of serious crimes, so their enthusiasm for labor was low. Only under the urging of whips did they emerge from the huts and shuffle listlessly toward the smelting area.

Li You's group was also heading toward the smelting area. Before they even got close, they smelled a choking odor and felt a wave of scorching heat.

Looking from afar, they saw over a dozen oval smelting furnaces erected ahead. Not counting the convex rammed-earth platforms beneath them, just the furnace bodies alone were basically one zhang tall. Each furnace was spaced five zhang apart, leaving a safe distance.

At the moment, flames were blazing under half of the furnaces, black smoke billowing from above and shrouding nearly half the copper office.

Dozens of artisans and convict laborers were stationed around their respective furnaces. Some stood on tiptoe atop raised platforms, lifting baskets to charge ore into the furnaces; some, stripped to the waist, pushed simple bellows, sweating profusely as they blasted air into the furnaces; the artisans crouched to the side, nervously observing the heat and calculating the time to open the furnace.

"The signs of casting metal: When metal and tin are smelted, first the black and murky vapor is exhausted, then the yellow-white follows; when the yellow-white vapor is exhausted, the blue-white follows. When the blue-white vapor is exhausted and the blue vapor follows, then it can be cast."

This was the color-observation method summarized for smelting bronze, using high heat to extract the elemental copper within. Whenever a red-hot copper block emerged from the furnace and rolled into the large pit before it, someone immediately fetched water and splashed it on. The water vapor steamed, turning into white mist. These copper blocks were then reheated and poured into clay molds to produce copper ingots one by one...

Those freshly smelted copper ingots were nervously presented to Li You by the artisans. Yang Xi also apologized, explaining that because the copper ore from Ji Mountain had a low copper content, it often required many ores and two or three rounds of smelting to obtain brass of relatively high purity.

Heifu looked around but found no casting yard. Upon asking, he learned that the smelted copper ingots were not cast into weapons on-site. Instead, they were sent to the workshop district southwest of Ying County, where they were combined with copper, tin, and lead delivered from other places, blended into the proper proportions, and only then cast into bronze.

Seeing Li You frowning as he circled each copper furnace, inspecting the quality of the ingots, Heifu called Yang Xi over and asked, "Where is the ore processing area? Take me to see it."

Yang Xi looked surprised. In the past, when the commandant sent people to inspect, they usually just did a round of the smelting area and rarely went further inside. So he smiled and said, "Left Arms Section Clerk, the ore processing area is even filthier. Not only does foul water flow everywhere, but stone chips and dust fly all about. There's nothing much to see."

Heifu paid no heed and had Yang Xi lead the way. Sure enough, after walking another hundred-plus paces, they were greeted by swirling powder. When Heifu closed his eyes and opened them again, he found they had entered the ore storage yard.

After hundreds of convict laborers dug out dirt-covered copper ore from Ji Mountain, they used oxen and horses to carry it in baskets to the stream flowing at the mountain's foot for washing, then transported it down the sloping path to the storage yard. Copper ore, yellow or green, was piled here like mountains.

Red-garbed convicts with disheveled hair and bare feet toiled here. Most of them had their hair shorn and beards shaved off; some death-row prisoners still wore wooden cangues around their necks, heads drooping, backs hunched. Yet this did not hinder them from laboring hard under the overseers' whips, using iron hammers, stone rammers, and other tools to crush and grind the large chunks of ore into fragments.

This was probably the most time-consuming and grueling step in the entire smelting process. The ore was hard, and one had to exert great effort smashing it for a long time before it became fragments suitable for the furnace.

As he walked, Heifu's eyes suddenly lit up, for he saw, in one corner of the ore storage yard, rows upon rows of treadle pestles. Quite a few grimy, emaciated convicts were stepping on them, making the stone hammers of the treadle pestles continuously rise and fall, pounding the already smashed ore even finer and more pulverized... because the finer the ore powder, the easier it was to smelt.

Heifu immediately grew interested and pointed over there, asking, "Since when did this place start using treadle pestles to process ore?"

Yang Xi replied: "Probably after the autumn harvest the year before last, when the Commandery Governor's office began promoting this device in various counties and villages for hulling grain. At the time, the Commandery Artisan-Master felt that treadle pestles could also be used at the copper office, letting those convicts too weak to lift heavy objects tread on them to pound the ore finer. It is indeed quite useful, but unfortunately, it's still not enough..."

He pointed at the surrounding ore piled like mountains and said in a low voice: "Now the Commandant wants us to increase copper production, but no matter how many more furnaces we build, the convicts still cannot process the ore any faster."

It turned out that the copper ore from Ji Mountain had a relatively low copper content, so smelting one jin of copper required far more ore. Just processing the ore already made the convicts suffer unbearably, with over a dozen dying of exhaustion each month.

Heifu nodded, already having a sense of proportion in his mind, but for the moment he kept his expression neutral. He glanced once more at those convicts living in dire misery, shook his head slightly, and returned with Yang Xi to the smelting yard.

From a great distance, they heard the roar of Commandant Li You.

"This commandant does not care how you do it; in the next half year, you must deliver double the previous amount of copper!"

Yang Xi hurried over. He and the artisans all cried out in distress: "Unless you allocate several hundred more convicts to us to smash ore, we cannot reach the output the Commandant demands. Otherwise, even if more ore is transported down from the mountain and more furnaces are built outside, it will be useless!"

At that moment, Heifu interjected: "Commandant, this subordinate has an idea that might solve this problem!"

"Oh?"

Li You, Yang Xi, and all the soot-faced artisans turned to look at Heifu, everyone wanting to know what idea he had.

"This subordinate boldly wishes to recommend a person to the Commandant, an artisan, because this subordinate once saw him build a type of device. If used to process ore, it can not only save half the manpower but also double the efficiency!"

Li You was overjoyed upon hearing this and asked, "There is truly such a person? Who is he?"

Heifu said: "He is this subordinate's brother-in-law. Since this concerns the casting of weapons and the replenishment of the armory, this subordinate can only recommend the worthy without avoiding his own kin!"

"Brother-in-law?"

Including Yang Xi, all the artisans revealed strange expressions.

Someone said skeptically: "Left Arms Section Clerk, saving half the manpower — isn't that too exaggerated? You can't boast like that just because he's your brother-in-law..."

They all felt that Heifu was seizing the opportunity to place a relative in the commandery. A flicker of doubt also passed through Li You's eyes.

"This is no idle boast," Heifu said. "Do you fellows know — does the treadle pestle have another name?"

The craftsmen looked at one another. "The Anlu pestle?"

"Exactly!"

Heifu clapped his hands and laughed. "Truth be told, my brother-in-law is named Yuan, and he is the very man who first created the Anlu treadle pestle! My brother-in-law once declared to me that if you gave him the hands and the coin, he could transform the treadle pestle — which still needs human strength to work — into a divine device that needs no human hand, yet runs all by itself!"

He began to boast without the slightest shame. "When that day comes, it will not merely save twice the labor — it will save ten times!"

(End of chapter)