Chaotic Frontier: I Picked Up a Peerless Little Wife at the Start

The heavy rain finally stopped the next day.

Lin Hui ordered his men to clean up the Cheng family manor. It was as if nothing had happened; there were no corpses, no bloodshed, and it remained a garden building with the charm of Jiangnan.

Following Lin Hui's orders, Ling Ziyi cooperated with Song Qingyan to swiftly destroy the Xie family's entire private salt sales network in the surrounding area.

With the death of Cheng Wenjun of the Cheng family, his vast network was leaderless, and Ning Yuanqi's speed was too fast, giving them no time to react.

In a short period of time, Lin Hui completely destroyed the network that the Cheng family had built up over decades, captured more than a dozen of their managers, and obtained a large amount of account books and cash in the process of arresting these people.

The entire illegal salt market surrounding Changyuan County was completely transformed in a single day.

Song Qingyan, along with the monkey and her newly acquired maid Qiushui, was busy running around, organizing account books, figuring out their downstream network, carefully counting the silver, and getting the exact amount. Song Qingyan, who had just recovered from her illness, was so busy that she barely had time to breathe.

Lin Hui couldn't attend to these matters and had to leave them all to Song Qingyan, as he had more important things to do.

After the rain stopped, Lin Hui immediately led Su Yuanzhou to a mountain to the north.

After a night of heavy rain, the mountains were riddled with potholes by flash floods, and the swollen streams had not yet returned to their former tranquility.

The mountains are extremely difficult to traverse.

This mountain is not very high, but it covers a vast area. The peaks stretch as far as the eye can see, traversing the entire county and extending for countless miles.

What's even stranger is that this is a rocky mountain, a completely rocky mountain, with only sparse weeds on it, not a single big tree in sight, and only a few half-dead shrubs.

At the foot of the mountain are rows of wooden houses, which are where the iron ore miners live.

Further up, deep within the mountainside, are numerous cave entrances, which look ferocious, like the gaping mouths of giant beasts.

The entrance to the cave is made of slag and gravel piled up randomly along the mountainside.

Su Yuanzhou pointed to the open space in front of him and said, "General, look, this is the place. There are quite a few people here, no less than five hundred miners and guards combined."

Su Yuanzhou then pointed to the wooden houses and said, "General, this is where the miners live. To prevent them from escaping, dozens of guards are stationed here. The guard captain is an elder of the Cheng family and was originally Cheng Wushuang's personal guard."

"This person is quite quick-witted. I've met him a few times, but we're not very close. However, he has one notable characteristic: he is exceptionally loyal to the Cheng family."

Lin Hui nodded, said nothing more, and continued to urge his horse forward.

Upon arriving at the entrance, several guards saw that it was Su Yuanzhou and immediately greeted him with smiles.

Soon, their captain arrived. This captain's surname was Wang, and everyone on the construction site called him Captain Wang. He was a dark-skinned, thin Chinese man, wearing a worn-out set of border army armor, with a horse-slaying saber hanging at his waist.

Upon seeing that it was Su Yuanzhou, he cupped his hands in greeting from afar and came forward with a smile.

"General Su, you've arrived without even sending someone to let me know beforehand, so I could have prepared wine and meat for you."

Su Yuanzhou dismounted with a chuckle, thinking to himself, "Who knows what will happen to you later? You're laughing now, but you won't be laughing later."

Su Yuanzhou walked towards Captain Wang with a smile, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "We're all from the same time, why be so polite? I just came to visit."

Captain Wang nodded with a smile and led Su Yuanzhou inside. Just as he was about to speak, Su Yuanzhou quickly made a move from behind and pinned him to the ground.

Before Captain Wang could react, the other man had already drawn a long knife with his right hand and swiftly slit Captain Wang's throat.

Captain Wang never expected that his throat would be slit. He pinched his bleeding nose, stared wide-eyed at Su Yuanzhou, and swayed as he collapsed to the ground.

The guards behind were also stunned by this sudden scene. Before they could react, the soldiers who had been lying in ambush rushed forward.

Lin Hui's Ningyuan cavalry were all following Ling Ziyi in eliminating Cheng Wenjun's forces, so this time Lin Hui chose to use the army from Suyuan Prefecture.

The number of people they brought was small, but they were all skilled fighters chosen by Su Yuanzhou. As soon as they came up, it was a flurry of swords and spears. Before the dozen or so guards could even react, they were all taken down with overwhelming force.

A few who reacted quickly, and those at the back, tried to escape, but were all stabbed through by the soldiers who caught up from behind.

In less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, all the guards in the entire mine were completely cleared away.

Upon seeing this, the miners, who were usually oppressed by the guards and had dull eyes, all hid. They were trembling with fear, afraid that they would be the next to be harmed.

So after hiding, he didn't even dare to show his face.

Next, Su Yuanzhou led his soldiers to search every mine shaft. After confirming that no guards were alive, he drove out all the hidden guards.

Hundreds of miners gathered in the open space, their eyes vacant, their faces sallow and thin, their clothes tattered, some even barefoot on the gravel.

Lin Hui looked at them and sighed. These people were exactly like the salt mine workers back then; they had been bullied and terrified.

They watched the army warily, feeling like lambs to the slaughter.

Su Yuanzhou stood on a high point, on a huge rock. The guard captain usually stood here to give instructions. He looked at the miners below and then slowly began to speak.

"Listen up, everyone. Starting today, the mine has a new owner."

He paused, then pointed to Lin Hui and continued, "Look closely, this is the new owner of the mine. You might think you're just working for him, but he's different from the previous owners. As long as you work hard, he'll give you unexpected benefits."

The miners did not react.

These miners never dared to ask for any benefits; their greatest wish was to be beaten less.

Moreover, in the eyes of these miners, the change of ownership of the mine has nothing to do with them whatsoever.

Regardless of whose mine it is, they still have to work day and night, go hungry, and be beaten.

Looking at the miners with their blank stares, Lin Hui knew exactly what they were thinking. After a moment of silence, he chuckled and began to speak.

"Don't be afraid or worried, everyone. I am different from the people before me. From today onwards, you will be completely liberated."

"Work for me, and you'll get one tael of silver a month, a set of clothes and shoes for each season, two meals a day, eat as much as you can, only when you're full will you have the strength to work, and you'll eat meat three times a month."

"Of course, in addition to that, any of you who does a good job and does a great job will receive an extra reward."

"In short, if you follow me, you'll all have a good life."

Upon hearing Lin Hui's words, the miners, who had previously been staring blankly, suddenly changed their expressions and began to look at Lin Hui.

Some of the bolder ones stepped forward and asked, "Is it true or not?"

Lin Hui chuckled and replied, "Don't worry, I, Lin Hui, always keep my word."

The miners below began to discuss it.

"Really? He really gave me money?"

"Who knows? It's probably another scam. I was lured here by money, and it's been years. I haven't seen a penny of it. I don't even know if I'll make it back alive."

"Sigh, this world..."

Amidst the laughter and chatter of the crowd, no one believed Lin Hui's promise; they all thought he was just trying to fool them.

Su Yuanzhou frowned and was about to yell at the miners, but Lin Hui stopped him with a smile.

"What are you doing? Don't scare them, they're all people with hard lives."

"Okay, go and tell the kitchen now to cook exactly as I say, make sure they eat as much as they can."

Su Yuanzhou was taken aback, then immediately went to make arrangements.

Just then, the meal was ready and it was lunchtime. Several soldiers under Su Yuanzhou carried up the thick rice porridge in large wooden buckets.

As the lid of the wooden bucket was lifted, the aroma of rice porridge instantly filled the area.

The miners' eyes were drawn to the rice porridge in front of them. They had nothing but food in their eyes, their throats churning and the sound of swallowing rising and falling.

Lin Hui waved with a smile, and Su Yuanzhou immediately understood, leading his soldiers to distribute rice porridge to the miners.

In addition to rice porridge, each person also received a small dish of pickled vegetables.

As soon as they got their food, they started eating like madmen, as if they hadn't had a full meal in years, wishing they could swallow a whole bowl of rice in one gulp.

He ate with great relish. Lin Hui wasn't in a hurry. He watched from his vantage point. In such chaotic times, a bowl of rice was more useful than anything else.

Seeing that everyone had eaten their fill, Su Yuanzhou shouted to the miners below.

"Are you full?"

"I'm full."

"Now that you've all eaten your fill, what are you all standing around for? Have you forgotten who gave you this meal? Why don't you thank General Lin?"

Yes, now these miners believe it; they believe Lin Hui will give them a different life.

They all knelt down and kowtowed, their mouths filled with words of gratitude.

They used every positive term they could think of, like "parents" and "savior."

Lin Hui waved his hand, telling them to get up.

"Go on, get to work. From today onwards, you'll all have enough to eat every day."

At this point, the miners had no more worries and immediately ran as fast as they could, their faces showing expressions.

Su Yuanzhou had been to this place before and was relatively familiar with it. He led Lin Hui on a tour of the mine, and Lin Hui went into a mine shaft to look at the iron ore inside.

The iron ore here is of very high quality; according to Lin Hui's estimate, more than half of it can be used to extract iron.

He was overjoyed; with such an iron ore vein in hand, he had more than enough to arm an army of 300,000.

After Lin Hui looked around the mine, he realized that the mines here were not very deep, the deepest being only a few dozen meters deep. However, the entire mountain was almost entirely made of iron ore, so the mining area inside was quite large.

It's the kind of mining method that involves hollowing out the entire mountain.

After the iron ore was transported out of the mine, it was all piled up on the open ground outside. Then, a group of skilled old workers were outside using chisels and hammers to break down the large pieces of iron ore.

Lin Hui watched for a while, and the more he looked, the more he felt something was wrong.

Because these iron ores contain a yellow substance.

These things were picked out and thrown away as fertilizer.

Su Yuanzhou picked up a piece of yellow ore with a curious look and examined it carefully in his hand.

He wondered if the things being thrown away were gold.

The more he looked at it, the more convinced he was that it was gold: "Why did you throw away all this gold? This is valuable stuff, gold!"

The miner, who was transporting fertilizer in a wheelbarrow, was startled by Su Yuanzhou's actions. He hurriedly dropped the wheelbarrow and said cautiously, "General, this is not gold."