Chapter 223
In the next few days, Qiao Sheng and his four companions were busy in the mines every day. Old players left the island and new players joined every day.
The chaos they expected did not happen. Instead, under the new regulations issued by Song Hao and his companions, the miners stopped complaining because they got the benefits.
First, the daily ten-jin whole fish was changed to multiple fish to make up ten-jin, but the total weight remained the same.
This was not difficult for Qiao Sheng and his companions, but it made it a bit difficult for them to catch small fish under ten-jin, especially for Xia Beibei and Li Mu. A twenty-jin fish was considered small.
Therefore, the fish that paid the protection fee are now fished by Lin Haiyang and Qiao Sheng. Before fishing, they have to take off all the equipment and titles that increase their luck, so that their unlucky physique can infect the small fish.
This is also done to not stand out among the players. Sometimes being too conspicuous among the players means being targeted by others, and danger will follow.
Secondly, the alliance now provides a bowl of fish soup every day. Don't worry about whether there is fish in the soup. Anyway, at the end of the day, the smell of fish spreads throughout the entire mining area.
Lin Haiyang also went to get a bowl out of curiosity. After returning, none of the four people drank it. The fish soup, which should have been milky white, looked bland. Ah Dai, who was out playing, took a sip and vomited in disgust. He even knocked over the wooden bowl of soup when no one was paying attention.
Qiao Sheng quickly took a few leaves from his bag and spread them on the ground, and then covered them with nearby soil. The miners on the island now cannot be said to be lacking in food and clothing, but they are not rich either. Such blatant waste will easily be targeted.
The last announcement was the welfare that Song Hao gave to the miners in the entire mine. Every five days of mining in the mine, they can evaluate the recorder's registration form and take their own number plate to collect 20 pieces of coal.
This gave other players a feeling that some could eat, some could take, and they could also take small pieces of fish to make up the number. However, according to the comparison of Qiao Sheng and his team over the past few days, it was actually equally heavy to carry and hold. It was impossible to go to the canteen of the alliance and only eat a bowl of fish soup.
In the past, a bowl of fish soup that cost ten pieces of ore contained fish meat, but now it was just water with a little fish flavor. However, the price of baked sweet potatoes has increased a lot, from five pieces of ore to seven pieces.
In the minds of players, it used to take 15 pieces of ore to have a bowl of soup and a piece of baked sweet potato, but now only 7 pieces are needed to have both soup and sweet potato, which can at least fill the hunger bar. If you eat less fish, you still have 8 pieces of ore left, which is a good deal.
So this possible riot was quietly resolved, and Qiao Sheng and his friends felt that there should be a think tank in Song Hao's team. After all, this wave of operations is far from what Song Hao did when they first came into contact with them.
Recently, Qiao Sheng and his miners have been unemployed in an orderly manner, and the amount of coal produced every day is enough for them to use next winter.
Of course, the best news is that they got a mining hoe from the system store. This thing really saves time and effort, and it simply improves their work progress. The key point is that this hoe has additional benefits when mining.
They are not slow at using the iron hoe to pick up ore, but because the mineral resources in this area are not abundant, they keep producing coal. Compared with other players, they produce multiple times more coal than others, but in the end, it is still the most ordinary coal.
The iron hoe produced by the mall shows its uniqueness. Every time you mine, you will produce associated ores, sometimes rare metals, sometimes iron ore, and some other miscellaneous ores.
All the ores dug out from the mine, except for rare metals and coal, need to be smelted before they can be used, otherwise they are equivalent to a pile of useless stones.
That is why Song Hao uses coal as hard currency instead of other more scarce ores.
The newly replaced iron hoe is mainly for Xia Beibei and Li Mu to use. The reason is very simple. The ores produced by these two are relatively good. Qiao Sheng and Lin Haiyang have also used them. The two European emperors must produce five hoes, while they need ten hoes. The European emperors produce
rare metals or their scarce iron products, while the two of them produce all kinds of strange ores. It cannot be said that they are useless, but they don’t know where to use them for the time being.
Because they are guarding the ore veins, the furnaces on the ship are basically working 24 hours a day. The number has also increased from a few to 20 now. Qiao Sheng has 10 on his ship and Xia Beibei has 10 on her ship. If there is enough ore for one furnace, they will melt it. If there is not enough ore for one furnace, they will dismantle the container and melt it. Anyway, the furnace cannot be rested.
The effect is also very obvious. The canning production line at home is also gradually increasing. The various ingredients in the refrigerator that were not fresh enough are filled on the production line, and the freshness is refreshed again.
Qiao Sheng sorted the new cans while saying that this was a bug in the card system. In the future, they could store all the fresh ingredients in the refrigerator for half a year, and then can them for another half a year.
Gradually, they were not satisfied with digging by themselves, so they changed to exchanging food for ore with nearby players. Although this decision was a bit dangerous, the effect was very significant, and the amount of ore increased exponentially.
However, this kind of transaction had to be done secretly, and the food used could not be too conspicuous. Most of them were coarse grains such as potatoes and sweet potatoes. There were also fish. The small ones were exchanged directly, and the larger ones were also divided and exchanged.
So the originally leisure time at night was also used. After dinner, they sat in a row and chatted while fishing.
Qiao Sheng would ask the system about the number of ships and players on the island from time to time, but he didn't know whether the game was controlling the number of players or whether Song Hao had done something wrong.
The number of players always stayed around 150. If the number exceeded this, some players would leave. If the number was less than this, most of the players who came would sign the agreement and enter the mining area.
Once or twice, Qiao Sheng and his friends thought it might be a coincidence, but after so many times, they couldn't help but think about it, otherwise how could it be so stuck every time.
"Just now, when you guys were busy cooking, I was standing at the window playing with the boys in cassocks. I saw a boat approaching. It was Song Hao who went to meet people. There were a lot of tall and strong male players standing on the deck, but those people didn't go to the island at all. The boat stopped for a short while and then raised the sail. The point is that I also saw Song Hao gave the other party a backpack. The strong man opened it and took a look, and patted Song Hao on the shoulder happily." Xia Beibei held the fishing rod in his right hand and kept taking strawberries from the small iron basin in front of him with his left hand. It was a pleasure to eat some sweet and sour fruits after the meal.
"It seems that the number of people on the island has been controlled by Song Hao and his alliance. Beibei's words reminded me that the teams that have been trading ore with us recently all have female players! The ship just now was full of strong men, and the ship we saw the night we just arrived was almost full of male players. Could it be that they deliberately drove away those teams full of male players and left these mixed teams?" Qiao Sheng threw the fish he caught into the big wooden barrel next to him. Suddenly thinking of this possibility, he couldn't help but sit up straight. In
the next two days, they focused on observing this matter. Sure enough, there was not much difference from what Qiao Sheng guessed. The number of people was controlled by them, and even the team that signed the agreement was carefully selected by them.
At first, the team that got angry because of the fish was expelled for a reason. The other party also resisted, but because there were fewer people and Song Hao came out to play the good guy and gave the other party a lot of food, they managed to get over the matter safely.
Although Qiao Sheng and his team didn't understand what the other party wanted to do, it didn't seem to be a threat to them at this time. Li Mu felt that the other party just wanted to control the danger within a controllable range.
"Did you know that the logistics person on Song Hao's ship came to exchange food with me today? The ratio was very suitable, and I didn't refuse, so I exchanged it directly. The other party even thanked me for a long time." Qiao Sheng told everyone about the transaction during dinner.
In their previous transactions, they had always avoided Song Hao's alliance, so they didn't know how the other party knew that they were exchanging ore. Qiao Sheng exchanged with the other party this time because the ore they brought was large in quantity and of good quality. She had even thought about it. If there was a problem, she would retreat. At worst, she would just sell it with a hammer. Unexpectedly,
Song Hao came to them late at night. He didn't mention the transaction, but just informed them that there were too many players entering and leaving the mining area recently. In the future, only half of each team can go in to mine. The rest of the people can't enter, and they can't pay the protection fee.
If the other party didn't keep looking at their open cabin door when he said this, they would really believe that Song Hao had no other thoughts.
Unfortunately, when Qiao Sheng and his team built the first ship's cabin, they deliberately built an extra wooden wall to cover the drive equipment. Now the furnace is next to the drive equipment. Song Hao looked for a long time and saw nothing but wooden walls and ship's cabin door.
After Song Hao left, Qiao Sheng and his team began to discuss whether to continue collecting ore. After so many days of digging in their mining area, they didn't know why the iron ore suddenly increased.
Qiao Sheng gave Ah Dai a snack reward because he dug up a lot of iron ore. Otherwise, if they chose the fifth area according to their idea, who knows what would happen.
Qiao Sheng and Xia Beibei both supported staying and continuing to work. After all, they had hoes, so it wouldn't be a loss to go in and mine. Xia Beibei and Li Mu would go there, and they wouldn't have to bring too many boxes to store things.
With people on board, they could send back ore at any time, and Qiao Sheng and Lin Haiyang could go fishing on the boat, and then secretly exchange various ores with nearby fleets.
Not entering the mining area also had its advantages, as it saved them from having to go back and forth into the forest every time they traded. When no one was around, Qiao Sheng felt like he was stealing a mine.
After the arrangement was made, the next day, Li Mu and Xia Beibei went out early and came back late. The lunch they had at noon was mailed by Qiao Sheng. Xia Beibei couldn't help complaining after the meal. The two of them didn't eat like the four of them before, with a dining table and chairs, and all kinds of soups.
Each of them had a big roll and drank iced green bean soup for lunch. Xia Beibei also whispered to Qiao Sheng that being a teacher is really boring. Li Mu can't say a few words all day. The two of them are really just miners. Apart from eating, they work.