The end of the Ming Dynasty swept the world

Chapter 325 Take what you need
The two sides quickly negotiated terms.

Ding Yi will capture Iwami Yinshan, and guard at Iwami Yinshan, and wait for the shogunate to gather troops to attack, wait for work with ease, and finally defeat the shogunate soldiers and horses, forcing the shogunate to start negotiations.

In the future, Ding Yi will develop Shijian Yinshan, and the silver he gets will be divided [-]-[-] with Songpu.

Ding Yi is responsible for fighting wars and developing Yinshan, while Songpu is responsible for that.

One is to provide food and grass, and support Iwami Yinshan with five thousand shi of grain and rice from the sea every month.

The second is to provide a large amount of gunpowder. As for saltpeter and sulfur, they are available near Iwami Ginzan.

The third is to provide a thousand craftsmen and common people, Ding Yi needs them to do things for him.

Judging from the conditions of cooperation, both parties feel that they are in the right position.

Songpu does not need a single soldier, but only needs to provide food and manpower. It has Ding Yi's own soldiers and horses to fight against the shogunate, and enjoy the share and benefits afterwards.

And if Ding Yi can occupy Iwami Yinshan and force the shogunate, not only can this business line be re-established, but also a large amount of materials can be sent back to Pidao continuously.

This is a win-win situation. Both parties are full of confidence and sincerity in this cooperation.

That night, Matsugaseka was extremely gentle, and the two were better than newly married after a long absence.

Ding Yi's soldiers and horses rested in Hirado for three days.

Songpu quickly sent people to bring in five thousand stone grains and rice, and summoned two hundred craftsmen and one thousand people.

Twenty small and medium-sized boats followed Ding Yi's boat.

It took less than a day from Hirado to Iwami Ginzan.

On July 7, Ding Yi's ship docked in Shimane Prefecture, Japan, and 27 infantry and [-] cavalry rushed up. They occupied Iwami Ginzan that day, drove away the original shogunate officials, and appointed Hara Matsudaira Unano One of his confidantes named Wada Yisuke is Xinfengxing, who is solely responsible for the development of Yinshan, and Ding Yi paid him a commission salary.

One percent of the annual output is the wages of him and officials, and the wages of other craftsmen and miners will be increased.

Wada Kazusuke immediately felt as if he had been given blood, and when the news spread to the original officials, workers and craftsmen, everyone was also as if he had been given blood.

In fact, the output of Iwami Ginzan has shown a downward trend year by year in recent years.

Once Japan learned the ash blowing method overseas, it greatly increased the production of silver.

When Iwami Yinshan was in its heyday, it produced 38 tons of silver (about 100 million taels) per year, and now it still has an annual output of 40 to 50 taels.

The reasons for the low output are firstly that all the good ones have been mined, and it will be more difficult to mine later, and the second is that the workers are not paid well, and they are unwilling to contribute, and there are few.

At its peak, Iwami Yinshan had more than 3000 households of miners (it is a household, not a population.)
But now, there are only more than 8000 people in the entire Iwami Yinshan, and the number of workers is much smaller. Among them, there are more than 1000 Han Chinese (now there is a Tangrenwu Tangren Bridge in the local area, and many Han people were working in the original history).

After Ding Yi occupied it, he first announced that workers' treatment would be improved to stabilize the hearts of the workers, and then began to build fortifications five miles east of Yinshan Mountain.

At the same time, Song Pujia was asked to send workers and grain rice to prepare for the expansion of production.

After Ding Yi occupied Shijian Yinshan, he immediately led people to look around.

This time the ship came with more supplies, only a thousand cavalry. Fortunately, Songpu prepared hundreds of horses and mules to pull carts for him. He now has more than 300 horses.

Horseback riding is not allowed in most of the mountainous areas here. He took people around the Yinshan area first, and then climbed the mountain and looked closely with binoculars. He found that it is a good place that is easy to defend but difficult to attack.

Japan has never had an enemy, so there is almost no defense, and there are very few garrisons, which were destroyed by him.

Yinshan is less than twenty miles away from the sea, and the sea port is very large, where many ships can be docked, and it is also built for the convenience of transportation.

This saved him a lot of time when logging in.

Surrounded by a mountain range, there are two sides that are not conducive to large groups of soldiers and horses. As long as two forts are built to defend both ends, the main soldiers and horses can defend on the front, that is, the east side.

Ishijian not only produced silver, but also produced brass, yellow iron, and lead. Especially after the silver mines were exhausted, copper was the main production.

There are also several volcanic mountains on the side, which are rich in saltpeter, sulfur, flint, etc., which are all urgently needed by Ding Yi.

When Ding Yi arrived here, he discovered that lead is also produced here. Lead is also a good thing, and it can be used as lead bullets.

Ding Yi’s Lumi blunderbuss mainly use steel bullets, supplemented by lead bullets, because it is not easy to buy lead in large quantities. In the Ming Dynasty, gunpowder, saltpeter, and sulfur were military supplies, and they were generally purchased by courts.

In fact, lead bullets are easier to process than steel bullets, which can dig up a lot of lead, of course Ding Yi is happy.

The first thing he did to occupy Yinshan was to stabilize the hearts of craftsmen and workers, raise wages, improve food, and eradicate the Japanese who were obviously hostile to the Ming people. In addition, among the original craftsmen, more than 1000 were Han Chinese. Or the descendants of the Han people, within five days, everyone's hearts gradually settled down.

On this day, Wada Kazusuke took Ding Yi, and Chen Song, the local former Han artisan leader, to see how to practice silver together.

Wada Kazusuke first introduced the general silver-making process to Ding Yi.

In the general silver making process, the workers first dig out the silver ore, use a sickle-shaped hammer chain to chisel off the impurities on the ore, then put it in a bucket of water, wash the soil on the falling stone, and then put the ore left at the bottom of the barrel on chestnut wood. Fill the basin with clear water and shake it back and forth, the heavier silver ore will sink to the bottom of the basin, and the lighter sand will float on it. At this time, the upper sand will be removed, and the remaining ore will be used for further extraction practice.

At this time, the ore still has many impurities, such as iron, silicic acid, alumina, etc., and these impurities need to be decomposed to increase the silver content in the ore.

Workers will dig a pit on the ground, coat the inside of the pit with charcoal ash and clay, then light a fire, burn the ore in the pit, and blow air around the hole to increase the temperature. After repeated burning, the silver ore will be dissolved and the Impurities such as iron and silicic acid floating on the surface are scraped away. At the same time, lead is added during the melting process. The dissolved silver will combine with lead to form an alloy (noble lead). This process is called "plain blowing".

The so-called "ash blowing method" is to use the characteristics of different melting points of silver and lead to separate the silver and lead of the alloy, so as to extract higher purity silver.

Workers dig a pit three feet five inches wide and one foot three inches deep, spread ash as a blowing bed, heat precious lead on charcoal, and place a pile of wood above the pit to prevent lead from being gasified and lost due to the low excavation of lead, it will be melted first, and chemically react with oxygen in the air to produce a white powder called lead dioxide, while the silver that has not yet been melted remains on the furnace, so that The purpose of extracting high-purity silver is achieved.

The ash blowing method has greatly accelerated the speed of silver refining, but the reason for the reduction in silver production in Iwami Yinshan is that the local workers and craftsmen are not paid well, and everyone is unwilling to work hard.

The second is that the later mines are becoming more and more difficult to dig, and the preliminary work of silver smelting is huge, and the third is that the output has indeed been reduced.

Ding Yi asked: "Now how much production can you guarantee for a year?"

Wada Kazusuke and Chen Song looked at each other, and Chen Song spoke to him in Japanese first.

Wada Kazusuke immediately said in Japanese: "If the adults can insist on payment and sufficient treatment, and send more people, we can guarantee between 70 and 80 per year for the first five years."

Chen Song translated immediately.

Ding Yi is more satisfied, this is almost catching up with the peak period: "How many people do you need?"

"At least two thousand." Wada Kazusuke said.

Ding Yi was slightly startled.

(End of this chapter)