Lord Highlander

  Chapter 1198 1185. On the copper mine

   On the third day after entering the Invercargill Forest, Suldak finally arrived at the copper mine located in the middle of the forest with the Thunder Rhino caravan.

   This is the first time Suerdak has returned to the mine after leaving for a year.

When entering this mountainous area, you can see the disorganized buildings on the hillside from a distance. Originally, this area was full of work sheds where miners lived, but now it has become wooden houses of various forms. The outside of these wooden houses Put up some plaques.

Although it is impossible to see what is written on these plaques due to the distance, Suldak learned from Selina that during this year, the free market outside the copper mine has expanded and occupied The entire hillside.

  The dormitories of the mine workers have also been moved from this hillside to the mountains further north, which is closer to the mining area.

On the top of the mountain, the big chimneys set up by the three copper mine furnaces are billowing thick smoke, accompanied by some rumbling noises, and occasionally strong steam will be ejected from an overflow valve, just like three steel giants crouching on the top of the mountain. The giant beast is constantly devouring the copper ore transported from the mountains.

   On the southern hillside, these three steel behemoths will spit out carts of copper ingots. Along the steel rails erected on the hillside, these mine carts continue to transport the copper ingots to the foot of the mountain.

The copper mine has been operating normally for more than a year, and has successively produced 25,000 tons of copper ingots and one ton of magic red copper. These copper ingots were transported from Invercargill Forest to Wilkes City. The market has brought Suldak an income of nearly 20,000 magic crystals. Of course, there are about 70% of the labor expenses, and after removing some miscellaneous expenses, it can be put into Suldak's pocket. Five thousand magic spar.

  5,000 magic crystals can buy almost 30 sets of magic pattern structures.

  So for Surdak, this mine is a continuous and stable income.

  When Suldak and Selina walked out of the wooden house on the back of Thunder Rhino, the fourteen supervisors of the mine were already waiting respectfully at the material transfer station at the foot of the mountain.

  Andrew and Tago did not follow Suldak to the copper mine, but rushed halfway to the bridgehead camp on the north side of the chain bridge in the Great Rift Valley.

Only Selena and Gulitem were with Suldak. During the period when Suldak was not in the Bailin plane, Selena was always in charge of managing the copper mine. She almost every two Every month I have to inspect the copper mine here.

Check the shipping list at the material transfer station, and occasionally check the shipping list in the Malacombe Thunder Rhino Caravan. As long as these documents are completely consistent in amount, Selena will rarely intervene in the copper mine management affairs.

  Although Selina will not intervene in the management of the copper mine, she will strictly monitor the living conditions of these migrant workers in the copper mine in accordance with Suldak's requirements.

  At present, the migrant workers in copper mines are mainly composed of three parts: mine management, technicians in charge of refining furnaces, and ordinary miners.

  The management of the mine has now expanded to fourteen people.

Among them, there is a mine manager, and a magic apprentice who can easily maintain the refining furnace. There are also twelve supervisors, each of whom manages nearly 500 miners. These twelve groups of miners are divided into three groups. Each large group supplies the smelted copper ore needed by a furnace, and the four groups need to take turns to push the mined copper ore to the feeding port in front of the furnace.

According to Suldak's requirements, the miners at the bottom need to have comprehensive welfare benefits. Not only are the miners free to eat and live in the mine, but the miners also have strict regulations on their weekly meals. In addition to supplying sufficient wheat cakes and vegetable porridge every day In addition, there will be a meat meal every three days. Every six working days there will be a day off, and the rest day cannot be occupied by the mine for any reason. The miners also distribute two sets of strong and wear-resistant work clothes and anti-smashing shoes every year.

Of course, these are just some small benefits. The most attractive part of the copper mine is the high salary. Ordinary miners can get one gold coin a month. salary.

  The mine currently has 6,000 miners, and the mine has almost 6,000 gold coins per month just for the salaries of these miners.

  For an aborigine of a local tribe, earning one gold coin per month is enough for him to marry ten wives in the tribe, raise a lot of children, and live without problems.

  So for a long time, thirty-seven aboriginal tribes have been competing for the number of miners in the copper mine.

  Suldak came to the copper mine this time, and invited these 37 tribal leaders to the copper mine to discuss the future development of the Invercargill Forest.

  The thunder rhino caravan lined up outside the yard of the material transfer station. Huge shelves will be parked outside the yard, and these thunder rhinos will be taken to the stream for drinking and feeding.

  Suldak stood on the platform of the wooden frame and saw that the yard of the transfer station was almost full of stacks of copper ingots.

  Selena has a separate wooden building on the side of the material transfer station. This wooden building even introduced a mountain spring and built a small pool in the yard.

  The bumps along the way exhausted Selina. After arriving at the material transfer station, Selena no longer followed Suldak to inspect the copper mine, but ran back to the small building with her assistant to rest.

Surrounded by a group of mine supervisors, the group of people first walked around the transfer station. Suerdak randomly picked up a few copper ingots, and saw that the copper ingots all showed a soft purple color. Almost no impurities can be seen.

   It seems that the three refining furnaces designed by the Victor magician are still very good.

  Subsequently, Suldak took everyone around the free market again.

In addition to some food, seasonings and daily necessities, this market mainly trades Warcraft materials. In addition, after many adventure groups enter the Invercargill Forest, they are usually not willing to go back to the farther town of Dodan for supplies, so they will come here. On the other hand, dispose of the monster materials captured on the body in this market, and then replenish some supplies.

   Occasionally, some aborigines will come here to buy some daily necessities, so the business here has always been good.

  The merchants in the free market saw a nobleman surrounded by the executives in the mine, and they didn’t know the identity of the nobleman...

The name 'Suldak' is almost a household name in the town of Dodan, so when the news spread from the free market, a large crowd of onlookers immediately flocked. He became the mayor, and now he has become the lord.

After leaving the Bailin plane for nearly a year, many people have not seen Suldak's true face. Now that they heard that the lord of the Invercargill Forest appeared in the copper mine, many people are eager to see Suldak. Erdak's appearance.

  So Suldak walked and found that the stalls on both sides of the market were almost invisible, but full of excited onlookers.

   I don't know who shouted: "Suldak..."

  For a while, everyone in the market shouted loudly at the same time: 'Suldak...Suldak...'

  The shout almost pierced through the valley, causing all the birds living in the woodland on the opposite hillside to fly into the sky together.

  Suldak was not going to make any speeches in such a chaotic place as the free market, so seeing that the order of the free market was somewhat disordered, he immediately left the market with these mine directors.

Walking up the stone steps built on the gentle slope, from time to time, you can see a mine cart full of hot copper ingots slowly rushing down the hillside. Almost every mine cart is tied with a traction rope behind it. When the minecart of copper ingots rushes down the mountain, it will also pull an empty minecart down the mountain to the top of the hillside.

  Looking at the miners in the mine wearing gray and white overalls, anti-smashing shoes, and hard leather hats on their heads, Suldak felt as if he had passed away for a while...

  It was only when he saw the three giant steel beasts powered by magic that he instantly returned to reality.

  These three refining furnaces exude huge heat, and you can feel waves of heat waves from more than ten meters away...

  Suldak, braving the blazing heat, asked about all the key nodes of the furnace, and then nodded slightly, and then inevitably felt a little disappointed.

Now he has learned about the specific situation of the refining furnace on the spot, and finally fully understands that this kind of refining equipment cannot be used in iron mines. To swallow dozens of magic crystals, the output of copper ingots is about 70 to 80 tons, but this is still a relatively valuable copper mine after all.

   Compared with copper ingots, the value of iron ingots is much lower.

If this kind of refining furnace is still used to smelt iron ingots, then I am afraid that the value of all the iron ingots produced by the mine, after removing the high labor costs and transportation costs, the last little profit will also be lost by these huge iron and steel. If the beast devoured it, maybe Suldak would pour money into it.

  But Suldak didn't think about deducting the income of the workers. After all, digging stones in the mine is not something everyone can do.

  It seems that the relocation of the abandoned steel workshop in Ruyt City should be put on the agenda as soon as possible. Only by using cheaper steel workshop steelmaking technology can the problem of high cost be solved.

Suldak left the refining furnace on the top of the mountain, and followed the mine directors to the front of the mine that was being excavated. A big gap had been dug in the mine here, and the exposed ore showed a light green color. .

  Some miners were stuffing some black powder into the crevices dug out of the rock, and with a muffled sound, the rock wall loosened and shattered.

  The rest of the miners began to process the broken and loose ore. After they dug the ore, they loaded it on a flatbed truck, and then transported it to the front of the three refining furnaces not far away.

After inspecting around, Suldak finally came to the cafeteria of the copper mine. He saw several pork legs cooking in a large iron pot in the cafeteria. The delicious smell of meat wafted far away, so he casually called a The young aboriginal miner asked him: "How many days can you eat this kind of meat?"

  (end of this chapter)