In the evening, the north wind whistled and snowflakes danced, and the grassland was dim. However, the mine surrounded by the roar of machines was brightly lit, and the glory of countless gas lamps illuminated the busy mine.

A large number of miners were busy in this open-pit mine, mining iron ore and transporting it to blast furnaces.

Several huge iron-smelting blast furnaces were flashing with fire and thick smoke. Countless furnace workers were busy around these blast furnaces, introducing a furnace of red iron into the guide groove and entering the rail-making section.

King Yuwen Weigan, who supervised the mine on site and produced by iron smelting, looked at the hot work scene in front of him and felt that his body was hot.

It is indeed hot here. Blast furnaces emit hot air like a warmer, while the reddish iron emits hot air. Coupled with the scorching steam coming out from time to time, the temperature in the entire Tieshan Mine Area and the iron smelting and rail making workshops is higher than outside.

Now that the New Year is just over, the wind and snow are still there on the grassland, but the cold cannot enter the hot Tieshan area. Yuwen Weigan stayed here for a while, and even had some illusion: it is summer now.

However, it is not, today is the Lantern Festival.

Yuwen Weigan thought of Chang'an City, the Lantern Festival tonight, the night sky illuminated by gas street lights, and the dim lights.

The scene of the Lantern Festival must be very lively, but it is not bad here either.

Chang'an City is now a city that never sleeps, with gas lights on all parts of the streets. It is also a city that never sleeps on, and gas lights on everywhere.

I don’t know what Luo Khan would feel when he saw this Tieshan area become a city that never sleeps.

Yuwen Weigan retracted his thoughts and walked towards the small station ahead, with the attendant following closely.

During the summer and autumn last year, the Kuluo Khan of the Eastern Turks moved north with his people and moved to the northern grassland of Jibei, without going south to spend the winter.

This means that the Eastern Turkic tribes lost the huge debts owed to Central Plains merchants and parted ways with the Zhou State. Then the imperial court made a decision to send troops to control the Jinan grassland and then hand over the management rights of the grassland to Hanhai Trading Company.

At the same time, it agreed to establish a private Hanhai Railway Company, which will raise funds for the construction of the grassland railway on its own.

The planned Beihai Railway and the East-West Railway were originally planned to be built in many years, but due to the large-scale migration of the Eastern Turks to the north, construction started in winter last year.

As a supporting Tieshan mining area, it has also begun to mine. The iron smelting blast furnace built nearby was also opened in the New Year, providing iron materials for the rail-making workshop to make rails and supplying them to Hanhai Railway Company.

Tieshan is located on the grassland in Chinan. It is named after iron production. It has been a rare and easy-to-mine iron ore mine on the grassland since ancient times. It was previously controlled by the Turks.

However, because iron smelting requires a lot of fuel (charcoal), there are not many decent forests in the central area of ​​the southern grassland where the iron mountain is located. To obtain charcoal, you can only go to the Yinshan Mountains hundreds of miles south to cut down the forests to burn charcoal.

So when the Eastern Turks lost control of the Yinshan Mountains, the Tieshan Mining Area, which had originally had a small scale of mining, then fell silent.

Later, the Eastern Turks and Zhou Kingdom launched border trade. Hanhai Trading Company secretly sent people to explore the Tieshan area for many years. It was surprisingly discovered that the iron ore in this area is rich in reserves and is an extremely rare rich ore. It is expected that the mining potential is comparable to that of Ezhou Daye Iron Mine.

After obtaining this exploration result, Hanhai Trading Company felt like it was a treasure, but the imperial court would not break with the Eastern Turks in the short term, so the company could not mine this treasure land.

Now, the Eastern Turks gave up the Jinan Grassland, and Hanhai Trading Company obtained the right to operate the Jinan Grassland, so they mobilized manpower and material resources to open iron smelting in the Tieshan area, and simultaneously built a rail-making workshop to provide rails for the grassland railway under construction.

The planned East-West Railway in the Chinan Grassland Railway must pass through the Tieshan area, so the Tieshan Mining Area is also part of the railway construction site. The construction of the middle section of the East-West Railway is in the Tieshan area at the western end.

Yuwen Weigan came to the station, looked at the piles of coal, and the coal trucks that had just arrived at the station, and was very satisfied.

According to the new smelting technology, coke must be used for iron smelting, otherwise there will be so much fuel (charcoal) on the grassland for iron smelting. According to the smelting needs of the Tieshan Mining Area, it is not enough to cut off all the forests on the Yinshan Mountains in the south.

Seeing the representative of the Shuofang Coal Industry Guild at the scene, he asked the other party to come over to report the situation.

Shuofang is a regional noun, which generally refers to the Han Shuofang County area. In fact, it is the current "inner" area, including a large number of deserts and grasslands, as well as Xiazhou and other areas in the southern border.

Large coal mines were discovered in Shuofang area one after another, so local tycoons organized manpower to start mining, and the coal produced was supplied to the north (suiyuan, Fengzhou, Jiuyuan) and eastward to the middle reaches of the Yellow River shipping.

These coal mines joined forces to form a huge coal guild, which was the Shuofang Coal Industry Guild.

Shuofang Coal Industry Bank, Hanhai Trading Company and Hanhai Railway Company have negotiated a package of cooperation agreements to provide coke for the Tieshan Mining Area and provide a large amount of coal for the future operation of Grassland Railway.

Today, the coke was escorted, and the Shuofang Coal Industry Guild, who arrived in Tieshan, was a powerful man from Xiazhou, and Liang Shidu, respectfully reported the situation on Shuofang to the King of Chu.

"My king, please rest assured that no matter how strong the wind and sand are, the transportation capacity of Shuofang Railway will never be affected. The coal and coke needed in the Tieshan Mining Area will definitely be fully guaranteed."

Yuwen Weigan looked at the sturdy man and asked, "Li Liang, I heard that Shuofang's Qihu was not honest, is there any possibility of causing trouble?"

"Please rest assured, these Qihus have been dealt with by the government army long ago. If they dare to be honest and cannot make waves, they will definitely throw them into the coal mine to dig coal!"

"Don't catch people and throw them into coal mines. The Shuofang grassland is rich in water and grass, and it is also good to develop animal husbandry." Yuwen Weigan said this and asked again: "What is the scale of the cold storage there?"

"By the king, the warehouse will double this year."

"Double...that's OK, but the Shuofang Railway will be opened to traffic in the future, and double is not enough."

"Yes, what the king said."

"By the way, how has the exploration of the southern Shuofang Railway Line progressed? When will the construction start?"

When the King of Chu asked about the southern line of Shuofang Railway, Liang Shi was in a spirit: "King, the route has been explored and construction has begun this year. We will strive to open traffic with Yanzhou as soon as possible, and then go south to repair and strive to arrive in Chang'an as soon as possible."

"That's right. You should move quickly. At that time, Shuofang coal will be sold to Guanzhong, so you will not have to worry about selling it. You should know that Chang'an has an increasing population and its coal consumption has increased significantly. If you don't sell Shuofang coal to Chang'an, do you think it's too much money?"

No one would think that the money was too much. The problem was that the goods could be transported out. Shuofang (Xiazhou) and Fengzhou Jiuyuan (Uncle Area) had a railway, that is, the northern line of Shuofang Railway, but there was only a post road with Guanzhong and no railway was connected.

If a large amount of coal wants to be sold to Chang'an, he can only go through the Yellow River water transportation.

This is a good idea. After all, the Yellow River shipping itself requires a lot of coal, and then transported to Guanzhong by water, it will sell as much as it can. This makes Shuofang's coal mines earn money Sunday and become rich overnight by selling coal.

The problem is that the middle reaches of the Yellow River will be frozen for three or four months every year, and shipping will be interrupted by that time, so coal in Shuofang area will drop sharply in winter and can only be sold to the Hetao area for heating in these places.

Now, the grassland railway is under construction. Once it is opened to traffic, Shuofang's coal will be sold in huge amounts all year round, but Liang Shidu and other mine owners in Shuofang area will still not forget the huge coal sales market in Guanzhong.

This requires the construction of a complete Shuofang Railway, connecting Chang'an at the southern end and Jiuyuan at the northern end. Now, the northern end of the Shuofang Railway extends to Tieshan.

Tieshan, Jiuyuan, Xiazhou, Yanzhou and Chang'an along the line are roughly on a straight line in terms of longitude, and the Shuofang Railway is of great significance, directly connecting Guanzhong, Hetao and the southern grassland of Jinan.

The army starting from Guanzhong can pass through Shuofang (inner sleeve) and go directly to Jiuyuan (outer sleeve) to reach the southern grassland of Chinan. Of course, the imperial court needed this railway, but there was no money to build it.

It doesn’t matter if the imperial court has no money. The powerful people in Shuofang who made a fortune by selling coal have money and are willing to raise money to build this railway.

Therefore, the northern line of Shuofang Railway was built a few years ago, crossing the Shuofang Desert and the middle reaches of the Yellow River, connecting Xiazhou and Fengzhou Jiuyuan, and mainly used to transport coal:

The coal produced in Shuofang area is transported directly to the Yellow River in Jiuyuan area to supply a large number of steamships.

Now the Shuofang Railway extends northward to the Tieshan area, and slowly extends southward, passing Yanzhou and entering Guanzhong.

The powerful people from all over the Shuofang were hoping that the railway would connect to Chang'an. At that time, not only would the sales of coal and livestock products double, but even the areas along the railway would become prosperous.

The court had no money to repair it, so everyone found a way to raise money to repair it, and went to Chang'an one by one.

When Yuwen Weiqian saw these people, he wanted to slap his chest and ensure that the Shuofang Railway was completed and opened to traffic as soon as possible, he didn't ask much, after all, this was not his responsibility.

His duty is to be a supervisor here, observe the situation of the southern grassland of the Chinan region, and beware of the large-scale movement of the Eastern Turks in spring. At that time, as the sect king on the front line, he would be appointed as the commander of the head of the father and command the army to fight back on the spot.

Yuwen Weiqian looked at the busy Tieshan Mine Area, then looked at the dark grassland in the distance, and then looked to the north.

Chuluo Khan Ashina Shilifushe was the son of Khan Qimin. More than ten years ago, when Khan Qimin arrived in Jinyang, he accompanied him with several sons, so Yuwen Weiqian had met Khan Qilifushe at that time.
Chapter completed!