Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

v9 Chapter 5: Kingdom's Stone Merchant

Later, in order to avoid being jealous of the Soldiers Committee, Laos, the savvy weapon trader of Turui, took the initiative to unite with the Legion Weapon Shop and handed over the excellent weapons produced to the Legion Weapon Shop for sale, making it already in the Kingdom's weapon market The legionary weapon shop that showed a slump in the competition has regained its vitality, and soon opened branches in the cities and towns of the Kingdom within a few years. Half of its employees are disabled soldiers, and their salary is not low.

But Arista Grasse made a difficult choice-entrepreneurship. He chose the industry he used to work in—stone mines. He sought comrades-in-arms to raise funds 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 stone mine.

After the establishment of Dionia, a resolution was passed: minerals in the territory cannot be sold to merchants, and they are only allowed to contract. Important mines not only have to be auctioned, but also have been acquired within the specified period of time. The Ministry of Commerce will also send someone to supervise, neither allow its output to be too low, nor allow it to over-exploit, to ensure that its share of the annual contribution to the Kingdom is constant.

The Ministry of Commerce finally agreed to allow Arista Grasse to contract a stone mine in Lucania, not because he is a disabled soldier and should be taken care of, but because the stone mine is located in a mountain range, which is inconvenient to transport and has poor output. It is a limestone mine, and no merchant is willing to take over, so the Ministry of Commerce let it contract at a lower price, and only gave a one-year contract, just with a mentality of trying.

I did not expect that after taking over by Arista Grasse, overcoming numerous difficulties, not only the stone mine output increased significantly, but also sold for a good price (at that time, the Lucania region had been owned by Dionia for several years. After vigorous cultural dissemination, the local The people have gradually accepted the lifestyle of the Dernians, living in Greek-style houses, and building the temple of Hades, which requires a large amount of limestone).

As a result, Arista Grasse gained a lot of wealth and won the trust of the Ministry of Commerce. Based on this, he also used disabled soldiers as the backbone. He became very famous in the kingdom's stone market. Stone businessman.

Four years ago, he did not participate in the Turui Chamber of Commerce organized by Laos, and went to the Latina war zone because he just contracted the Turui ore mine, which is of great significance to him and the kingdom. He needed to resolve all of his affairs, and couldn't spare the time to go to Latinum, not to mention that there were no stone mines in Latinum.

Today, he is a well-known stone merchant in the Kingdom. He has a group of savvy and competent men who no longer need him to go to the mine to supervise and direct himself. However, this time the project of rebuilding the main temple of Hades is very important. Ordered that the marble ore required by the temple was mainly provided by the Turui quarry (because the quarry is close, the cost is low, and it is not easy to damage), and all the Turui Kingdom slaves were provided to the quarry for the purpose of Ensure that sufficient stone is provided for the construction of the temple within a short period of time. Because of this, Aristaglass felt a heavy responsibility. Wherever he dared to neglect, he came to the scene every day for fear of making a mistake.

First, Arista Grasse marched to the soldiers who escorted the slaves and said seriously, "Tough work, brothers!"

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

The foremen reported the number and number of their formations, and Arista Grasse's men picked up the wooden board, and after checking, they said, "Follow me."

The foremen brought the slaves into the mine, and Arista Grass stood at the entrance to chat with the team officer and waited for the followers to enter the field. It was not until he confirmed that all the kingdom slaves had arrived and the number was in line. The opponent said, "Go and bring in our slaves and the cart."

The men responded and did not leave immediately, but reminded: "Boss, according to the judgment of several old sailors, it is likely that there will be heavy rain in Turui tomorrow, just in case, we must have all of the mines today. All the stones have been transported away, otherwise if it really rains, the ground of the mine will become slippery and muddy, and it will be very difficult and dangerous to transport the stones. "

The mining of ore is more difficult, and the transportation is more difficult. Aristaglass knew it. He immediately made a decision: "I will discuss with Bloss (the team officer responsible for escorting slaves today) to extend the working hours of slaves as much as possible. To ensure that all the stones can be shipped today. "

After speaking, he remembered another thing and said, "You take the time to go to the engineering school of the Dionian Academy, contact the scholars there, and say what they said about building railroad tracks to transport ore last time. I have agreed on this matter, and when we have finished providing stone to Lord Hades's temple, we invite them to come here ... well, it's called an experiment as they say. "

"Anyone who makes railroad tracks to transport ore?" The man was a little puzzled, apparently not aware of it yet.

"I don't know exactly what the situation is. After you arrive at the academy, you can ask those scholars for details." Arista Grasse waved impatiently.

The Dionysian Academy of Engineering was established shortly after the end of the Western Mediterranean War. Most of the scholars came from the original Mathematics Academy. It is a discipline that puts theoretical science into practice. It is mainly responsible for public buildings and various instruments. the design of. The construction of railroad tracks and mining carts came from the idea that Davers occasionally mentioned when he inspected the newly established college and talked with scholars, but scholars regarded it as one of the most important research topics to expand the influence of the new college.

Corsica and Sardinia belong to the kingdom, and the entire Etruscan alliance with Dionia has provided the kingdom with sufficient iron ore supply, solved the resource problem, and Laos was willing to produce this This kind of special, high-quality rails, but it is more difficult to find a mineral merchant willing to cooperate, because the initial investment is large, mainly to spend huge sums to buy enough rails (iron is not cheap in the Kingdom, even a few Some new territories with rich iron ore resources were newly acquired a few years ago, but the difficulty of mining and transportation is undoubtedly driving up its cost).

The academics of the Academy of Engineering have consulted Arista Grasse several times. He has been a little hesitant, but this time after taking the task of providing the kingdom with stones for the main temple of Hades, due to time constraints, heavy tasks, light It was because he transported ore to the main temple of the city of Turuii that he had lost seven or eight yaks and a dozen private slaves. He was finally determined to cooperate with the Academy of Engineering to improve the problem of difficult transportation.

After making this important decision, he also felt a lot of pressure in his heart, thinking in his mind: Will it be possible to find a large sum of money from Kristoa Bank to ease the tension of funds? After all, according to the academics of the Academy of Engineering This is a very important research invention of the kingdom, and King Dionia attaches great importance to it.

But before that, he had to do another thing first. He turned around and said to another man, "You go to the port in a while and book a passenger ship for me first. If it really rains tomorrow, I will go Visit Syracuse and inspect the stone mines there. After all, they are also responsible for providing limestone for the main temple, but nothing can go wrong! (Syracuse has the most abundant open-air limestone resources in the Western Mediterranean, Arista Grasse contracted one of the quarries.)

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Massimus brought 50 slaves to the mining area they were responsible for. They did not start work immediately. Instead, they had to make a judgment. Where to start mining was the most appropriate. This must be brought by him as the captain. Make a decision. If the initial position is selected well, the mining will be smoother and the casualties will be reduced. This requires the captain to have rich mining experience and eyesight.

The reason why Maximus can be the most trusted captain of the foreman is because he is very organized, not to judge temporarily, but at the end of yesterday, he was ready for today's mining. Work habits developed by Roman city officials over the past few years.

A few vertical and horizontal straight grooves have been pierced on the huge and flat rock in front of them, forming the outline of a rectangular stone.

At this time, Maximus asked 6 slaves to climb the rock on the wooden ladder, two of them, and knocked a piece of dry wooden wedge into the groove with a wooden hammer, when all the grooves had been embedded in the dense At the time of the sawdust ~ lightnovelpub.net ~ the rock cracked slightly along the trench.

Massimus immediately ordered the slave who had brought the water tank 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, becoming larger and larger, and the rock was stressed, which caused the groove to The rift is getting bigger and bigger, and this process takes some time.

At the same time, Maximus did not waste this time. After carefully observing the rocks next to him, he began to take a tape measure to measure, and then used ink pen to draw contour lines on the rocks. Then there were several slaves. Holding a plate brush (inlaid with an iron saw on the wooden board), brush it back and forth along the contour line, and finally cut it into a deep groove.

At this time, the rock next to it was under the continuous expansion of the water-absorbing wedge, and the cracks became wider and deeper.

Massimus felt that the fire was almost over, and sent five slaves up. Each of them took a long and sturdy wooden crowbar, inserted it into the crack between the wooden wedges, and began to pry the stone out. Block, this is an extremely laborious and difficult process. After replacing several waves of slaves and breaking a few sticks, the stones finally separated from the rock.

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