Recently, this large mine with more than 20,000 miners has become much calmer than usual.
Because the boss Hu Wenting is kind-hearted, he gives all the miners a seven-day annual leave. In other mines, it is good to have three days of rest. Some don't even have a day off. As long as there is no illness, disaster or accident, the mine will work every day.
Work has to start, and those who are absent from work a lot will be punished in various ways, such as salary deductions, being assigned to work in dangerous mining areas, deliberately weighing scales, etc. There are always ways to force you to work hard.
Mine owners like Hu Wenting can only be said to be very few, and the miners in Fengmingshan Mine, through special publicity, basically understand the working and survival conditions of other mines, so they work harder while mining.
, and very few dissatisfaction and complaints. After all, compared with the hells elsewhere, Fengmingshan Mine cannot be said to be paradise, but at least it is like a place where one should feel content.
Almost a year.
For young miner Li Dingguo, he has been working in this mine for almost a year.
Summarize the achievements of the past year.
Li Dingguo worked in the mine for a total of 288 days.
A total of 77,184 kilograms of coal and stone were dug out, and the income was 77,184 silver dollars.
But the meal cost 22 silver dollars.
A total of 24 silver dollars were spent on clothing, footwear, mining tools, medicines, daily necessities, etc.
The final balance was 31 silver dollars and 184 light coins.
That is to say, after working hard for nearly a year, I have saved a little more than thirty silver dollars.
In fact, Li Dingguo dug out more coal than he had planned. He could dig an average of 270 kilograms of coal every day, which was no less than what those adult miners dug.
However, the money saved was much less than originally imagined, and the goal of saving at least fifty silver dollars every year was not achieved.
The plan of striving for more than eight years to save enough redemption money and obtain freedom in the early twenties seems likely to be postponed later.
However, this was not the part that most made Li Dingguo feel that the plan could not keep up with the changes and that the good expectations clearly lagged behind the reality.
An incident that happened two months ago made him feel even more desperate.
The fourth brother Ai Nengqi died.
Encountered a mining accident with a low probability, and was never able to ascend the mine, and even the corpse was difficult to find.
Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang, Liu Wenxiu and other young men all felt unbelievable that their fourth brother, who was less than twelve years old, had left them forever. For the first time, they felt strongly about the impermanence of fate and the separation between life and death.
But there is no way.
Mining accidents are an event with a small probability, but whoever encounters it will be ruined. Only a few can survive, and they can only blame themselves for their bad luck.
Li Dingguo did think so at the time and didn't think too much about it.
But last month, the third brother Liu Wenxiu suddenly pulled him and Zhang Kewang over. While shedding tears, she said with fear: "Big brother and second brother, I have investigated clearly. The death of the fourth brother may not be an accident."
, but was deliberately killed by someone. The person who killed the fourth brother is most likely our Ada!"
Buzz~
As if something exploded, Li Dingguo shook his head repeatedly and said: "Impossible, impossible! Why did the adoptive father kill the fourth brother? The fourth brother did not do anything to cause outrage, and the mine disaster was not something that people could control. The adoptive father, he
Are you so capable? Stop guessing, it was an accident, it must be just an accident." He strongly denied it.
But Liu Wenxiu provided several huge doubts.
First, the adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong spent a lot of money in the months before his fourth brother Ai Nengqi suffered a mining accident. He spent all the money he earned from mining every day on making friends and successfully won over thirty people.
The 'good brothers', 'old brothers', and vaguely headed by Zhang Xianzhong, seem to have returned to the days when everyone responded to everyone's call. Although they made fair-weather friends, it was no problem to ask them to help with small things.
Secondly, the place where the fourth brother Ai Nengqi encountered a mining accident is an area with a high incidence of mining accidents. Under normal circumstances, except for the brave mining masters with high skills, ordinary people rarely go to mine, but on the day of the mining accident, they did not know how to recover.
As a result, the fourth brother Ai Nengqi was led into the depths of the dangerous mine tunnel. The man who lured Ai Nengqi to the depths of the mine tunnel was named Li Laisheng, and he was the best friend of his adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong.
Thirdly, Liu Wenxiu found a way to find someone to help, and invited Li Laisheng to drink several times, and then got a sentence out of him: "That kid is too greedy. As long as you don't tell him that it is a dangerous mine tunnel, there will be nothing inside."
There are a lot of scraps of coal and stone, and he will slowly risk his own life. Brother Zhang has done what he asked. I heard that the boy still has more than thirty silver dollars in wages in his account. Brother Zhang
It has been taken out, I have to ask him to buy me a few more drinks.'
Fourth, the 33 silver dollar salary that the fourth brother Ai Nengqi had in the bank account of the mine was withdrawn on the day he suffered a mining accident. The only person who was qualified to withdraw this money was his adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong.
, there is no one else.
Based on the above clues.
Anyone with a normal mind can roughly guess the cause and effect. After all, the person who had the idea to deprive Zhang Xianzhong of his adopted sons' rights to wages was the fourth brother Ai Nengqi.
After such an analysis.
Sun Kewang said tremblingly: "Just because I offended Ah Da a little, the fourth brother's life will be lost. If we don't listen to Ah Da again, it will be our turn soon. Ah Da can also find a way to make us
Died in the mines."
Liu Wenxiu said: "Brother, second brother, let's report it to the mine quickly. Just yesterday, my adoptive father started asking me for money. When I said I couldn't get the money out, he gave me a fierce look and said
He took it all out sooner or later and told me to be more sensible. I think it will be our turn soon. If we don't pay, we will end up like my fourth brother."
Sun Kewang said: "My foster father has long been degenerate. He spends whatever he earns every day. He has a lot of sex and women. He has never thought about leaving the mine. He drags us into the water together and wants us to serve him filially until he dies.
Until then! If we don’t report it, we won’t even be able to live a good life!”
Li Dingguo kept holding his head, looking like he couldn't accept it, and murmured: "No, that's definitely not the case. Nengqi is also your son. Tiger poison cannot eat its seeds. No matter how angry you are with your fourth brother,
It won’t kill him.”
But no matter how much Li Dingguo couldn't accept it, his adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong could not escape the many doubts about the mining disaster that his fourth brother Ai Nengqi encountered.
even so.
Li Dingguo still tried his best to stop Sun Kewang and Liu Wenxiu from reporting their adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong's actions, because it meant completely breaking their skin and they were likely to suffer immediate retaliation, so he advised them not to do so.
As for the adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong who wants money to spend, fine, he will give it, and Li Dingguo will give it to him, as much as he wants. His life was given by his adoptive father, so what if he gives it back to his adoptive father?
So when Zhang Xianzhong ran to him and asked to borrow money, Li Dingguo personally took out all the thirty silver dollars from the bank account and handed it to Zhang Xianzhong. He also said that this was a little thought from the three brothers, which was equivalent to every
The man paid ten silver coins as a filial piety.
"Okay, stop trying to make up for them, Dingguo, I know you are the most filial among your sons. They are all beasts and bastards. I, Lao Zhang, will make them regret it sooner or later."
Zhang Xianzhong threw away the silver dollars in his hand, cursed and left, heading towards the busiest gambling stall in the living area of the mine, losing all his thirty silver dollars that day.
But Li Dingguo has become numb and has given up completely, intending to accept this dark and hopeless life.
The plan to save money has also been cancelled. I no longer require myself to dig so much coal every day. I only need to dig two hundred kilograms of coal. I no longer have to push myself every day.
In short, before his adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong passed away, his life existed to repay his adoptive father.
Although Li Dingguo at this time can already be described as "giving up treatment".
But that doesn't mean he has completely given up hope.
On the contrary, because he had more free time in his spare time, he actually developed a strong interest in learning. He was very eager to use the extra time to learn something useful, instead of being asked by his adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong to follow him. Today, he will go to this gambling stall and tomorrow.
Li Dingguo didn't want to go to that dark place and drink with his fair-weather friends the day after tomorrow. He would rather find a quiet place, pick up a book and pretend to read, even if he couldn't understand it at all.
Using this as an excuse to escape, after all, the adoptive father hates books and scholars the most, but he has to show respect and not take forced actions, which seems contradictory and reasonable.
In order to understand the knowledge in books, Li Dingguo had to look for someone in the mine who could read and hyphenate. Sure enough, he found a scholar named Niu. After kowtow to become his disciple, he studied with Niu Xiucai for a period of time.
Li Dingguo's learning talent is very good, and he can be said to have a photographic memory. In less than a month, he emptied the dry goods in this talented scholar's belly, only to find that this talented scholar is only half a bucket of water, and his reputation as a scholar depends on it.
The actual level of what was bought with bribes is not high.
But in a mine full of illiterate people, Niu Xiucai stood out from the crowd and was highly respected.
Li Dingguo has spent all his money and will definitely become the second most respected cultural person in the mine in the future.
It's just that Li Dingguo is not satisfied. He has a lot of free time and no pressure to save money. Now he just wants to master more knowledge and enrich himself.
So he studied hard on his own.
And he soon focused on a new type of knowledge that he was very interested in.
That is another set of knowledge system spread from Xujiazhuang.
Such as simplified Chinese characters.
Such as mathematics, physics, etc.
In the process of delving into this knowledge, Li Dingguo became more and more excited as he learned more, as if he had discovered a vast world. He believed that this new knowledge would play a great role, and even increase the efficiency of mining dozens or hundreds of times.
, reducing the workload that takes a miner several years or more to complete to just a few days.
For example, a mine water pump from Xujiazhuang (used in emergencies) can quickly pump out underground water at the cost of thousands of manpower.
For example, one set of electric mining picks from Xujiazhuang has been introduced to Fengmingshan Mine, which can dig tens of thousands of kilograms of coal in a day, equivalent to the manpower of forty or fifty people.
Etc., etc.
If you can master the new knowledge from Xujiazhuang.
Furthermore, with the ability to use and repair these mining equipment, he might be able to become a miner controlling machines in the future. Once his adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong leaves, he might be able to complete the ten-year project within a year with the help of these machines.
During the mining mission, I successfully earned 500 silver dollars of atonement silver and gained freedom quickly.
Excited.
Thinking of this, Li Dingguo was very excited!
but……
If a person is groping and studying alone, no matter how smart he is, he will not be able to master and digest this new knowledge. Moreover, there are very few books that can be found in the mines, and it is impossible to form a knowledge system and study systematically. He just studies for five or ten years.
Don't even think about making much progress.
No matter how talented a person is, working behind closed doors will not work.
Among all the personnel in the mine, those with the highest level of education and the most familiar with the new knowledge in Xujiazhuang are the mine owner Hu Wenting, some accountants, stewards, technical staff, etc.
If you want to learn and master that new knowledge, you must learn from these people and get the approval of the mine owner Hu Wenting.
After thinking for a while, Li Dingguo summoned up great courage, holding a broken book in his hand, came to Wubao at the foot of the mountain, and made a request to see the mine owner.