Ball Ball Cultivation

Manager Jin touched the jade pendant in his hand and stroked his beard lightly. "That's the largest abandoned slave settlement in the Qiang Kingdom, and it's also a place of death. Disobedient slaves and condemned prisoners are sent there, but the slaves there often riot. As you know, riots lead to death, so they are wild and difficult to tame."

Qiuqiu realized that what Manager Jin said was untrue, but still agreed to go to the place of death.

Everyone rode forward on horseback, and Manager Jin also brought twenty guards with him.

Even though Qiuqiu used his spiritual power to secretly speed up, he still didn't reach the legendary death place until the afternoon.

A closer look revealed the bald mountain, a shallow copper mine, densely packed with slaves, their feet bound with ropes. Most of the slaves were shirtless, their ribs exposed, their faces etched with numbness.

When moving a large rock, if you lose your balance and fall, it will be difficult to get up again, and dying on the spot is a blessing.

The supervisor in the distance was holding a whip and would beat anyone who was slacking off.

After being beaten, if the slaves showed no reaction, they would be carried to the cliff on the back mountain and thrown down by the supervisors.

Zhu Qi first took out two hundred gold and handed it to Steward Jin: "This is for the wine money for the officials. Please treat us, Steward Jin. We will divide into thirty teams to select slaves. It will take you an hour."

Manager Jin took the purse in his hand, made a brief introduction to the chief guard of the slave yard, and showed the token of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

The commander then accepted the money bag and assigned ten supervisors to each of the thirty people entering the mining area as a deterrent.

In this Bronze Age, iron tools were only in their infancy, so one can imagine how precious bronze was. It was already widely used in weapons, accessories, and circulating currency.

As a huge bronze mine, this place has astonishing copper ore reserves. Perhaps because the Qiang State had backward smelting technology, the proportion of copper ore refining and application was less than 50%. The raw copper mined here is the most copper output in this mining area.

Abandoned slag is thrown into abandoned mines and can be seen everywhere! The main reason for the low copper yield is the temperature and the ratio of ore to carbon, which prevents a complete redox reaction.

Qiuqiu took Zhuqin and Qishi to the old mining area where waste slag was piled up, hoping to refine the copper ore again and forge some weapons for use.

The leader was a strict one. He immediately winked behind him, and the little leader beside him followed closely with Qiuqiu and others.

The entire mining area is worked by men, while the residential area in the abandoned mining area is actually inhabited by women, the elderly and children.

Zhu Qin had memories of her past life as a mortal, and she felt deep sympathy for the poor slaves at the bottom of society. She became quite emotional when she saw the elderly and children.

He angrily asked the supervisor beside him: "Why are there old people and children here? Are they also unruly slaves?"

The small leader remained calm and said, "They are the death row prisoners sent by the king. It is a mercy of the king to spare their lives. The slaves here cannot be taken away by choice."

Suddenly, an elderly, skinny woman knelt in front of Qiuqiu, holding two boys of six or seven years old in her hands. "Sir, please take them away. They are innocent and know nothing. Just give them something to eat."

Seeing that Qiuqiu and the others were unmoved, he pointed at a taller child and said, "Zi Yu can speak the characters of the Three Kingdoms." Being literate is a privilege of the nobility, and a slave who can speak the characters of the Three Kingdoms is definitely a hot commodity!

He then pulled the shorter boy and said, "Zi Gu knows hundreds of herbs and can already cure diseases and save lives."

She pushed the two children to the ground and kowtowed: "Please, sir, give these children a chance to live." She ignored the murderous look of the supervisor. Here she could actually see a woman personally selecting slaves. She had to fight for her son!

Zhu Qi is more sentimental due to the influence of his past life memories, and he wants to accept these two boys.

The little boss beside him was already impatient and was about to whip them, but Qiuqiu stopped him with a look, ignored the woman kneeling on the ground, and led Zhu Qi and the others out of the mine.

He secretly sent a message to the woman: "I will come here again at midnight tonight. Those who are willing to follow me should prepare to leave."

The woman paused in her kowtow for only a moment, then continued to kneel down, her trembling shoulders showing her inner unrest.

The last ray of light from the sunset was covered by darkness, and the thirty teams that had been testing their spiritual roots came back one after another.

A total of 783 slaves were selected this time. Zhu Qi gave the commander another 800 gold and got the indenture contract, which was considered the money for purchasing the slaves.

Before Manager Jin, who wanted to sell the slaves, could mediate, the slave transaction was completed right before his eyes.

Qiuqiu said goodbye to Manager Jin and asked him to tell Quan Yin, "We accepted his invitation. We will meet at the south gate of Yecheng in a month and go to the Temple of the God of Servant together."

When Zhu Qi was in Blue Star, he bought a lot of gorgeous and exquisite things as souvenirs. He took out three gift boxes from his storage ring and introduced them:

"Thank you, Manager Jin, for your hard work in negotiating. This is just a small gift, but it's not enough to show your respect.

Pointing to two ornately decorated gift boxes, he said, "This one is presented to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and the last one is a birthday gift to congratulate the King. I hope Steward Jin will present them on my behalf."

Manager Jin bowed and took the three gift boxes with both hands. Just looking at the luxurious packaging, he had never seen anything like it before! The treasures inside were even more precious.

In front of the guests and guards, he first opened the gift box given to him. Inside was a bronze cow with fine workmanship and beautiful shape.

Products produced on the Blue Star assembly line must conform to the public's aesthetic taste.

The gift box presented to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince contained six brass terracotta warriors, each with a different shape and lifelike facial expressions.

The last birthday gift presented to the king was a bronze chariot pulled by two horses, with six guards holding weapons beside it. The bronze chariot could still move.

The style and craftsmanship of the bronze chariot alone are priceless.

Qinqin saw that her brother had bought them in the ancient city of Chang'an: the cow was ten yuan, the six terracotta warriors were eighty, and the bronze chariot was one hundred and fifty. Zhu Qi thought they were commemorative and bought more than a dozen sets, which, when averaged out, made them a great bargain.

When Manager Jin saw such an exquisite ornament, he was so excited that he kept expressing his gratitude.

Finally, a friendly reminder: "Our Qiang Kingdom is vast and sparsely populated, and we are good at grazing, so we need the most slaves and have built the most and largest slave farms. Your Excellency came to the Qiang Kingdom to select slaves for this reason.

But the largest slave flow area was the Western Hills of Heizhou, where tens of thousands of slaves were diverted to slave markets in various countries every day.

When nobles from various countries needed a large number of slaves, they would go there to buy them. The slaves there had already been trained and branded, so they were more reassuring to use.

Zhu Qi asked the steward for the specific location, reported it to Qiuqiu, and prepared to go to the Black State Slave Farm.