People in the Tang Dynasty, Jian'an style

Looking at the cold drink shop that was about to be overwhelmed by the crowd, Li Wenbin was secretly worried. They had not greeted Wang Wanrong before coming, so they did not reserve a seat. Looking at the current situation, it would be difficult to find a seat even if they lined up until the evening.

"Wow! Business is so booming, it's no wonder that this idea came from the prince!" In contrast to Li Wenbin's anxiety, Ruyue and Jinxiu seemed very excited.

After all, this is their pocket money. The more popular the business is, the higher their income will be. How can they not be happy?

Li Wenbin suddenly noticed that the waiter greeting customers outside looked very familiar, as if he was from his house. Although most of the people in the cold drink shop were recruited from outside, Wang Wanrong still transferred a group of people from his house. After all, it was really unsafe to put outsiders in some positions.

Li Wenbin walked towards the cold drink shop. The waiter was sharp-eyed and saw Li Wenbin at once. He was immediately startled and did not bother to greet the customer. He quickly ran up and saluted, saying, "I am here to see you... Your Excellency!"

Chapter 147 Take Me to See

The servant was quite clever. He knew that Li Wenbin didn't like to reveal his identity in public, so he changed his words immediately.

"Well, where is Miss Wanrong?" Li Wenbin had a good impression of this young servant. He looked to be only seventeen or eighteen years old, but smart enough. If he could be trained well, he would be a good talent.

"Your Excellency, as there are too many people today, Miss Wang is personally in the yard behind the store to direct the affairs." The servant replied respectfully.

Li Wenbin also knew that Wang Wanrong would be too busy to get away in today's situation, but there was no need to disturb her for such a small matter as arranging a seat. Li Wenbin smiled and instructed the servant: "In that case, don't disturb her. Help me arrange a seat!"

"Yes, I'll do it right away!" The servant agreed and immediately turned around to leave.

"Wait a minute!" Li Wenbin suddenly called him, "What's your name?"

When the servant heard Li Wenbin asking his name, he immediately showed an ecstatic smile on his face, bowed his head and replied: "Your Excellency, my name is Cheng Liang."

Li Wenbin smiled and said, "You go and do your work. I'll be waiting in the carriage over there."

"Yes!" Cheng Liang agreed and then stepped back.

After watching Cheng Liang leave, Li Wenbin discovered that two cars had appeared in front of the cold drink shop. They were of very strange design, and looked like a large box with two wheels. There was a long queue in front of the cars, mostly children. Behind the cars stood a waiter from the cold drink shop, distributing popsicles to these people.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, those are free popsicles given away in the cold drink shop. Most of the people lining up are poor children who can't afford ice cream." Jinxiu introduced.

Most of the children in the queue were dressed in ordinary or even shabby clothes, which formed a sharp contrast with the wealthy people who were frantically buying ice cream.

"Your Highness, what do you think those children are doing?" At this moment, Su Dingfang suddenly pointed to a corner next to the cold drink shop and asked.

Li Wenbin looked up and found that the children who had just lined up to receive popsicles ran to the corner and handed the popsicles to a man who looked like a small businessman after getting them. The small businessman then passed some copper coins to each child, and the children who received the copper coins immediately ran away happily.

Li Wenbin's heart sank when he saw this. It is said that children from poor families grow up early, and the children in front of him are just like that.

Although these popsicles are free, these children are still reluctant to eat them. They would rather exchange them for some copper coins. They may keep the money to buy themselves something they like more, or give it to their parents and family members. But no matter what they do with the money, in the eyes of those children, it is better than eating a popsicle to keep cool.

Although the Tang Dynasty was rich and powerful, the gap between the rich and the poor could not be eliminated. Where there are rich people, there are naturally poor people. He understood this truth better than anyone else. However, when he saw those children were reluctant to eat even an ice lolly, he couldn't help feeling a little emotional.

At this moment, Cheng Liang from the cold drink shop ran to the car, bowed to Li Wenbin and said, "Sir, a seat has been prepared for you."

So under the leadership of Cheng Liang, the surrounding guards squeezed through a path, and they finally entered the cold drink shop.

Li Wenbin was in high spirits and stayed in the cold drink shop until noon, until Wang Hexuan heard the news and rushed over.

"Mr. Wang, I heard that you opened several coal mines outside the city?" After sending Ruyue and Jinxiu back to the palace, Li Wenbin suddenly turned to Wang Hexuan and asked.

"I did open a few coal mines because coal can be used as fuel for burning cement. It not only burns longer than charcoal, but is also cheaper. Even the waste residue after burning can be used for road construction."

"Well, you are very attentive." Li Wenbin said calmly after hearing this, his expression very calm, "I am very interested in your coal mine, please take me to see it!"

"Now?" Wang Hexuan asked in surprise. It was noon now and the sun was very scorching outside. This little prince actually wanted to run so far to see the coal mine?

"Well, I also want to know how your coal mine works. Why don't you take me to see it?"

Wang Hexuan felt that there seemed to be something strange about this, but he couldn't figure it out for the time being.

And looking at Li Wenbin's appearance, it seemed that he had made up his mind to go to the coal mine, so he agreed.

Seeing that he agreed, Li Wenbin immediately stood up, and the group went downstairs and got on the carriage, and began to drive towards Black Stone Mountain outside Chang'an City.

There are several coal mines, but this one is the closest, only about twenty miles away from Chang'an. The carriage is very fast and the guards are all riding horses, so they arrived at Black Stone Mountain in just half an hour.

The road in Black Stone Mountain is not easy to travel on. The road is simply paved with a layer of coal slag and crushed coal, and the Tang Dynasty's carriage has no shock absorbers, so Li Wenbin was almost vomiting due to the bumpy ride.

When he finally got off the car, his face didn't look very good.

Su Dingfang's face looked normal, except for some sweat stains on his forehead, there was nothing unusual about it.

Wang Hexuan bought Black Stone Mountain and the surrounding area within dozens of miles, and prohibited outsiders from entering. This is also the largest of several coal mines.

Wang Hexuan accompanied Li Wenbin to park the carriage in a flat square at the foot of the mountain.

On one side of the square there are a number of brick, tile and cement houses, which are where the workers live.

Behind this row of houses were some sheds made of wood and thatch, where lived the slaves that Wang Hexuan bought from the Hu merchants.

In the center of the square was a pile of newly mined coal, forming a small coal mountain. Some specially made horse-drawn carriages were loading coal next to it, which was to be transported to Chang'an. The carriages were provided by the carriage company run by Wang Hexuan and were specially used to transport coal.

On the mountain, countless ragged slaves were working hard under the whip of their overseers. These slaves were divided into groups of ten, with iron shackles on their feet. They wielded sharp pickaxes to mine large pieces of coal, which were then placed on a special cart and transported to the large square by specialized personnel.

"Your Highness, please look, this is the Black Stone Mountain. The mountain and the surrounding areas within dozens of miles are all coal. The cost of mining is very low. However, in order to further reduce the cost, I bought a lot of Hu slaves as coolies." Wang Hexuan said, pointing to the busy scene in front of him.

Li Wenbin looked around at the surrounding scenery, nodded with some satisfaction, and a smile appeared on his face.

He also walked with great interest to the small coal mountain in the middle of the square and watched the loaders throwing pieces of coal onto the truck.

Chapter 148: Kindness and Power

Not all the work in the coal mines was done by slaves. They were only responsible for the hardest and most tiring work, which was coal mining.

In addition, jobs such as transporting coal to the square and loading it onto trucks, as well as some work such as cooking, boiling water, and sewing and mending, were all hired from the poor people in the surrounding area. This was considered Wang Hexuan's compensation to them after he occupied Black Stone Mountain.

After all, after he bought this place, these poor people would not be able to use coal for heating in the winter. In addition, the wages Wang Hexuan paid them were relatively generous, enough to support a family of several people.

At this moment, two loaders, one old and one young, finally filled up a truck. It was noon now, and both of them were sweating from the heat. Their dark skin was covered with black coal dust, which, after being soaked by sweat, formed a layer of black mud, which looked very dirty.

The old and young couple were just planning to take a break, so they walked to the pool nearby, picked up a towel of indecipherable color, wrung it dry, and wiped their faces and bodies with it. This was not for cleaning, but just to cool down a little by the evaporation of the water. Then they rushed to a simple shed on the right side of the pool, scooped a bowl of water from a large bucket, and drank it.

Li Wenbin walked into the shed and greeted the old man in his forties or fifties, "Excuse me, sir. Are you free now? I want to talk to you about something."

"Oh! Your Excellency is so polite!" The old man knew that Li Wenbin was no ordinary man when he saw his demeanor and clothing, so he said very respectfully, "What can I do for you? I just finished loading the car and was about to take a break before I can do anything else."

"Haha, it's nothing serious, I just want to chat with you." Li Wenbin said with a smile, and then asked, "I wonder what your name is, how old are you, and what did you do for a living?"

The old man asked Li Wenbin to sit down before answering, "Oh, my name is Zhang Erlu, I am fifty years old this year, I used to live next to the Black Stone Mountain, guarding the few acres of thin land at home, and I had no food to eat. Fortunately, someone took a fancy to this place and opened this coal mine, so my grandson and I can find a job here, and our family is much better off."

The old man pointed at the boy who was about seventeen or eighteen years old. It might be due to malnutrition, although the boy was seventeen or eighteen years old, he looked like a boy of thirteen or fourteen.

"Oh? You are so old, why don't you let your son come to work?" Li Wenbin asked curiously.

"Ah, it makes me feel bad when I talk about this. Actually, we are not from Chang'an. We fled here a few years ago and our son and daughter-in-law were separated on the way. Only this grandson followed me. The government here is quite good to us and distributed some land to us. But because there are many people and little land around Chang'an, the land per head is only a little bit. The little food produced from the land every year is not enough for us to eat. I worked odd jobs everywhere to raise my grandson. It's a pity that he is already seventeen years old this year and he doesn't even have a wife."

When the old man talked about sad things, he couldn't help but shed tears. But the young man next to him spoke up to comfort his grandfather.

"My condolences, father-in-law. Didn't you just say that your family is much better off now? You can save some money and find a live-in daughter-in-law for your grandson. Besides, you and your son just got separated. Maybe you will meet again in the future, so you must be more open-minded." Li Wenbin didn't expect the old man in front of him to have such a rough life. He could only comfort him.

"As you said, the owner of this mine is generous and offers higher wages than other places. When I save enough money in a while, I will find a wife for my grandson. I am sorry for being rude." The old man suddenly realized that the other party was a stranger after all, and it was really rude to lose his composure in front of him, so he wiped his tears and forced a smile. Li Wenbin didn't mind at all and smiled and said it was okay.

Wang Hexuan was waiting on the side, not daring to disturb Li Wenbin's interest.

At this moment, the guards in charge of the palace soldiers came running over. When they saw Li Wenbin, they immediately stepped forward and saluted, saying, "I am Zhao Fu, your Highness the Prince of Qi!"

"Get up!" Li Wenbin said, "Are you used to staying here?"

"Hehe, it's a habit. Thank you, Your Highness." Zhao Fu scratched his head and smiled awkwardly.

After being caught by Li Wenbin and locked up in solitary confinement for three days last time, Zhao Fu's soldier-like temperament was no longer visible. Now when he sees Li Wenbin, he is like a mouse seeing a cat.

Some time ago, Wang Hexuan asked Li Wenbin to send some guards from the royal palace to Black Stone Mountain to help look after the purchased slaves. Zhao Fu was among them. Later, because of his good performance, he was promoted to team leader.

"Is the slave management issue now on the right track?"

"Your Highness, I have followed your instructions. Each squad is responsible for managing one hundred slaves, led by a squad leader. There are a total of one thousand three hundred slaves in the mine, divided into thirteen mining teams. The remaining guards are responsible for guarding and patrolling the mine." Zhao Fu replied.

"Well, you're doing a good job!" Li Wenbin looked at the slaves working honestly in the mine and nodded with satisfaction. Then he asked Zhao Fu, "By the way, nothing happened in the mine these days, right? Why didn't I see Manager Zhou from the palace?"

In addition to a personal guard leader who manages slave matters in the coal mine, there is also a manager who is responsible for handling matters such as manpower and accounts in the mine. After all, those personal guards who only know how to fight and kill cannot manage the operation of a mine.

"Manager Zhou went to a cement factory to collect debts today. There was nothing serious at the mine. Occasionally, villagers from nearby accidentally broke into the mine, but they were all driven away by patrolmen." Zhao Fu thought for a moment and said, but suddenly he remembered something and said, "Oh, because the weather is too hot recently, several of my personal soldiers fell ill, and several slaves died. I was worried that the slaves would be infected with the plague, so I asked people to find a place to burn the bodies and the items they used."

Li Wenbin was speechless after hearing what the other party said. This Zhao Fuzhen did not take human life seriously. He even mentioned the death of a few slaves at the end. Maybe in his opinion, this matter was not as important as the illness of a few personal soldiers.

He could understand the other party's thoughts, because in the eyes of the Tang people, these slaves were actually just items of their masters, and their prices were very cheap, so the death of a few of them was no big deal.

Li Wenbin estimated that if nothing major had happened at the mine, Zhao Fu would definitely not even mention this matter.

"Well, I'm glad you're okay. The weather has been too hot these days. I'll ask the mansion to send you some ice tomorrow. Also, don't mistreat those slaves too much. It doesn't matter if the food is poor, but you still have to ensure drinking water. If too many die, I will let you go up to mine. Do you remember?" Li Wenbin said with both kindness and force.

Chapter 149 Buying Prisoners of War

Although the death of the slaves condemned his conscience as a person of later generations, Li Wenbin was mentally prepared for such a thing.

After all, what he wants to do is to be a coal boss who steps on the flesh and blood of coal-mining slaves, not a charity that provides porridge to people. This kind of thing will happen sooner or later. Anyway, they are not people from the Tang Dynasty. He should be like a real Tang person and treat these slaves as talking objects, and not as human beings at all.

Of course, too many slaves cannot die, otherwise there will be no one to mine for them, so Zhao Fu was told not to go too far. After all, these soldiers are not easy to deal with, and now there is no Geneva Convention, so the abuse of prisoners of war is simply unavoidable.

"Your Highness, rest assured. I will use military law to restrain my subordinates. Also, the guards who want to earn bonuses by mining with these slaves also know their limits." Zhao Fu said with a fist salute.

Li Wenbin has stipulated that if the slaves managed by each team of personal guards can produce a certain amount of coal per month, they will receive a corresponding bonus, and the higher the output, the greater the bonus. These personal guards are now drooling over the promised bonuses.

They tried their best to make their slaves mine as much as possible. Of course, they also knew the principle of draining the pond to catch fish, so they tried not to abuse the slaves in normal times.

"By the way, how many people from the surrounding area do you employ in this mine?"

After the inspection, Li Wenbin was about to leave, but suddenly turned around and asked Wang Hexuan.

This question really stumped Li Wenbin, as he was only concerned with issues concerning the general direction.

As for the details of mine management, they were all handled by the managers of each mine, and he really didn't know the number of employees.

Fortunately, there was Zhao Fu nearby. Although he was not responsible for hiring people, he was in the mine every day and should know something about it.

Seeing Wang Hexuan's signaling look, Zhao Fu immediately understood and stepped forward to report: "Your Highness, the Black Rock Mountain Mine employs more than a hundred people in total, most of whom are young and strong men responsible for loading and unloading, and there are also some women from poor families who are responsible for cooking, boiling water, etc. The other mines employ fewer people than here, but together there are still two or three hundred people."

"Well, a few mines employ 400 people. Including their families, the population they support is estimated to be about 2,000..."

Li Wenbin stopped talking here, frowning as if he was thinking about something. After a while, he said to Wang Hexuan, "Mr. Wang, you have done a great deed. By the way, do you have any other difficulties? If so, please let me know and I will try my best to help you solve them."

Wang Hexuan was cheered up after hearing this: "Yes, of course. It's just that there are too few laborers. I have contacted several Hu merchants, but they don't have any good solutions. There are no more slaves, so..."

"So what, is there anything we can't say openly?"

"I heard that when General Cheng and the King of Qin went on an expedition last year, they captured a lot of Turkic prisoners of war. I wonder if it's okay..."

Good man, it turns out you wanted to buy these Turkic prisoners of war and use them as slaves.

Li Wenbin pinched his chin and thought for a while. This was not a big deal, and Cheng Yaojin would probably give him face.

"Okay, I'll leave this matter to you, my king."

"Yes, then wait for good news from His Highness."

When Li Wenbin returned to Chang'an, he went straight to Cheng Yaojin's house without even going home.

……

As expected, Cheng Yaojin was at home. When he saw Li Wenbin coming, he was overjoyed and welcomed him in.

"Haha, Your Highness Prince Qi, I was just about to go look for you, but I didn't expect you to show up at my door."

After hearing this, Li Wenbin was stunned - what is this old guy going to do?

He rushed to ask: "Uncle Cheng, I heard that you captured more than 10,000 Turkic soldiers this time?"

"Yes, that's right." Cheng Yaojin nodded.

"Hehe, I also heard that these prisoners of war are to be rewarded to you soldiers who have made military achievements?" Li Wenbin smiled a little obscenely.

"That's right. General Niu has already told us that in addition to the reward from the King of Qin, we will also have to share the prisoners of war among us according to our merits." Cheng Yaojin replied, but he suddenly frowned and said, "But those prisoners of war are also a problem for us. We can only sell them at a low price, and they can't be sold for much money when added together."

"Oh? Why is that? Those prisoners of war are all strong and healthy. They can be strong laborers no matter where they are placed?" Li Wenbin asked in surprise. This was obviously different from what he imagined.

"I have heard about this from my brothers in the army." Cheng Yaojin picked up the wine bowl and drank the two taels of wine in the bowl in one gulp. He said with a depressed look on his face, "Those prisoners of war are indeed strong laborers, but the key is that they are not dared to use them. These prisoners of war have been on the battlefield and seen blood. They are fierce in temperament. They are afraid of danger if they are bought back, so it is generally difficult to sell them. After all, the Tang Dynasty buys and sells so many people every day. There is no need to buy unsafe prisoners of war back."

"So that's how it is?" Li Wenbin thought to himself. He hadn't thought of this, but it was not a problem for him at all. He just wanted these prisoners to dig coal for him. They were not kept at home. Even if they rebelled, they could not hurt him.

"General, how many prisoners of war can our Zuowuwei get?" Li Wenbin remembered what Wang Hexuan had said to him, that it would take about two to three thousand laborers to make the coal mine reach maximum efficiency.

After all, in this age without machines, all labor has to be done by human hands, so it is normal to need more manpower.

"Your Highness, do you want to buy those prisoners of war?" Although Cheng Yaojin was honest, he was not stupid. He quickly guessed Li Wenbin's intention and asked in surprise.

"Hehe, that's right. My house is short of manpower recently, so I plan to buy some prisoners of war and bring them back." Li Wenbin said with a smile.