Chapter 5 The Stone Merchant of the Kingdom

Later, in order to avoid being hated by the Soldiers Committee, Turii's shrewd arms dealer, Laos, took the initiative to unite with the Legion Weapon Shop, and handed over the excellent weapons produced to the Legion Weapon Shop for sale, which made the weapons already in the kingdom's weapons market. The Legion Arms Shop, which had been declining in the competition, was revived and soon opened branches in various towns of the kingdom within a few years. Half of its employees were disabled soldiers, and their salaries were not low.

But Arista Glass made a difficult choice—starting a business. He chose the industry he used to work in - quarry. He asked his comrades to raise money, and received strong support from the Soldiers Committee. He brought a few disabled soldiers who were willing to work with him to the Ministry of Commerce, hoping to contract A quarry.

After Dionia was established, a resolution was passed: the minerals in the territory could not be sold to merchants, only they were allowed to contract, and important mines not only had to be auctioned, but also after the mines were acquired, within a specified period of time. The Ministry of Commerce will also send people to supervise, neither allowing its production to be too low nor excessively exploited, to ensure that its annual contribution to the kingdom is constant.

The Ministry of Commerce finally agreed to let Aristagrass contract a quarry in Lucania, not because he was a disabled soldier and should be taken care of, but because the quarry was located in the mountains, which was inconvenient to transport and did not produce much. , it is a limestone mine again, and no businessman is willing to take over it, so the Ministry of Commerce contracted it at a lower price, and only gave it a one-year contract, just with the mentality of giving it a try.

Unexpectedly, after Aristarchus took over, he overcame many difficulties, not only the output of quarry increased greatly, but also sold at a good price (at that time, the Lucania region had belonged to Dionia for several years. The people have gradually accepted the Dernian way of life, living in Greek-style houses, and building the temple of Hades requires a lot of limestone).

Aristagoras gained a lot of wealth and won the trust of the Ministry of Commerce. Based on this, he used disabled soldiers as the backbone, and he became very famous in the stone market of the kingdom. stone merchant.

Four years ago, he did not participate in the Turiyi Chamber of Commerce organized by Laos and went to the Latium war zone because he had just contracted the Turiyi quarry, which was of great significance to him and the kingdom. The affairs of Xu need to be solved by him one by one, and he can't spare time to go to Ladham, not to mention that there is no quarry in Ladium area.

Now, he is a famous stone merchant in the kingdom. He has a group of shrewd and capable subordinates. He no longer needs him to go to the mine to supervise and command. It was ordered that the marble mines needed by the temple should be mainly provided by the Turii stone mines (because the stone mines are close in distance, less expensive, and not easy to damage), and all the slaves of the kingdom of Turii were provided to the stone mines for use in order to Make sure you have enough stone to build the temple in a short time. Because of this, Aristarchus felt a great responsibility, and where he dared to ignore it, he came to the scene every day, for fear of making a mistake.

Aristarchus first salutes the soldiers who are escorting the slaves,

Seriously said: "It's hard work, brothers!"

Then he asked the foremen: "Which team do you belong to? How many slaves did you bring?"

The foreman reported the number and number of people in their formation. Aristarchus' men picked up the wooden board, checked it, and said, "Come with me."

The foreman brought the slaves into the mine. Aristarchus stood at the entrance and chatted with the team officer while waiting for the follow-up slaves to enter the mine. He did not wait until after confirming that all the slaves of the kingdom had arrived and that the number of slaves was correct. "Go and bring in our slaves and our carts," said the opponent.

The subordinate responded, and instead of leaving immediately, he reminded: "Boss, according to the judgment of several old sailors, it is very likely that there will be heavy rain tomorrow in Turiyi, just in case, we must take all the mines today. Otherwise, if it does rain heavily, the ground at the mine will become slippery and muddy, and it will be very difficult and dangerous to transport the stone.”

It is difficult to mine ore, and it is even more difficult to transport it. Aristagoras was deeply aware of it, and he immediately made a decision: "I will discuss with Bloss (the team officer in charge of escorting the slaves today) to try to prolong the working time of the slaves as much as possible. , to ensure that all the stones can be transported away today."

After he finished speaking, he remembered one more thing and said: "You take the time to go to the engineering school of Dionia Academy, contact the scholars there, and say that they mentioned last time about building rails to transport ore. I have already agreed to this matter, and when we have finished providing the stones for the main temple of Hades, I will invite them here to carry out... well, according to their words, it is called a test."

"The one who makes the rails to transport the ore?" The subordinates were a little puzzled, obviously they didn't know about it.

"I don't know exactly what the situation is. After you arrive at the academy, you will find out by asking those scholars in detail." Aristarchus waved his hand impatiently.

The Dionysian Academy of Engineering was established shortly after the end of the Western Mediterranean War. Most scholars came from the original School of Mathematics. It is a discipline that puts theoretical science into practice and is mainly responsible for public buildings and various equipment. the design of. The construction of railroad tracks and minecarts came from an idea that Davos stumbled upon when he inspected the newly established college and talked to scholars, who regarded it as one of the most important research topics for the new college to expand its influence.

Corsica and Sardinia belonged to the kingdom, and the entire Etruscan alliance was allied with Dionia, which made the kingdom have a sufficient supply of iron ore and solved the problem of resources, and Laos was also willing to produce this It is a special and high-quality railroad track, but it is difficult to find a mining merchant who is willing to cooperate, because the initial investment is large, mainly to spend a lot of money to buy enough rails (iron is not cheap in the kingdom, even if a few A few years ago, some new territories with rich iron ore resources were acquired, but the difficulty of mining and transportation has undoubtedly pushed up its cost).

Scholars from the Academy of Engineering have consulted with Aristagrass several times, and he has been hesitant, but after taking over the task of providing stone materials for the main temple of Hades during this period, due to the tight time and heavy tasks, the light He had already lost seven or eight pack cows and injured more than a dozen private slaves by transporting the ore to the Temple of the City Lord in Turien. He finally made up his mind to cooperate with the Engineering Academy to improve the problem of transportation.

After making this important decision, he also felt a lot of pressure in his heart, thinking about whether he could get a huge loan from Cristoia Bank to ease the tension of funds. Said that this is a very important research invention of the kingdom, and King Dionia also attaches great importance to it.

But before that, he had to do another thing first. He turned around and said to another subordinate: "You go to the port in a moment, and book a passenger ship for me first. If it really rains heavily tomorrow, I will go to one. Go to Syracuse and inspect the stone mines there, after all, they are also responsible for providing limestone for the main temple, so you can't go wrong! (Syracuse has the most abundant open-air limestone resources in the entire Western Mediterranean, Arista Glass contracted the rights to one of the quarries).

……………………………………

Maximus brought 50 slaves to the mining area they were in charge of before, and did not start the construction right away, but had to make a good judgment on where to start mining the most suitable, which must be from him as the captain. Make a decision. If the initial location is well selected, the next mining will be smoother and casualties will be reduced. This requires the captain to have rich mining experience and eyesight.

The reason why Maxims can become the most trusted captain of the foreman is because he is very organized in his work. He does not come to make judgments temporarily, but is ready for today's mining at the end of yesterday. A work habit developed by several Roman magistrates.

Several vertical and horizontal straight grooves had been poked into the huge, flat rock in front of them, forming the outline of a rectangular stone.

At this time, Maximus asked six slaves to climb up the rock on a wooden ladder. In groups of two, they knocked dry wooden wedges into the grooves with a wooden hammer. When all the grooves had been embedded densely The rock cracked slightly along the groove when the sawdust was removed.

Maximus immediately ordered the slave who had brought the pitcher to pour water on the wooden wedge. The water flowed into the groove and soaked the wooden wedge. The wooden wedge absorbed water and expanded and became larger and larger. The rip is also getting bigger, and the process takes some time.

At the same time, Maximus did not waste these time. After carefully observing the rock next to him, he began to take a tape measure to measure, and then used an ink pen to draw outlines on the rock, and then there were several slaves. Take the board brush (inlaid with an iron saw on the board) and brush it back and forth along the contour line, eventually chiseling it into a deep groove.

At this time, under the continuous expansion of the water-absorbing wedge, the cracks became wider and deeper.

Maximus felt that the heat was almost over, and sent five more slaves up. Each of them took a slender and sturdy wooden crowbar, inserted it into the crack between the wooden wedges, and began to force the stone out. block, which is an extremely laborious and difficult process. After changing several waves of slaves and breaking a few warping bars, the stone was finally separated from the rock mass.

High-speed text handwriting Ancient Greece: Mediterranean Overlord Chapter List