Brother Zhuifeng's depression didn't completely improve until more than three hours later.
That was when they arrived at a place called Xiaojiang Town, where Shuangshan is located, relying on a map of Yangshan in the modern dimension and some roadside signboards along the way.
In order to find such a place, they took several kilometers of wrong roads and wasted almost half an hour.
The reason why Hu Biao went to great lengths to come here was of course because he needed to fulfill his promise and solve the coal shortage problem in the current development process of the Zhongzhou tribes.
According to the information Zhui Feng found in the modern dimension, this is the location of Shuangshan Coal Mine.
Even in 2021, this was a very important coal supply base in the Qingyuan area, so of course you have to come and see it.
However, after arriving at the place, Hu Biao and the others regretfully discovered that the entrance to the mine had long been submerged under water.
Under the relatively clear water surface, they could see many mutated strange fish swimming around in it, which cut off their plan to reuse the original mine tunnel.
Enclosing the entrance of the cave and draining the water is a huge undertaking.
"I don't believe it. A living person can suffocate to death. Let's dig around separately to see if we can find some of the mineral veins. As long as we find a place with coal, we can dig down there.
It’s over.”
After spitting out a piece of grass root that the natives call "thatch root", which tastes a little sweet and is used as a snack.
Hu Biao took off a multi-functional ordnance shovel that had been hanging from the backpack behind him, and gave these instructions.
In the following time, with the idea that their trip should not be in vain, Hu Biao and his group of four people picked a place to dig on the hillside in the surrounding area, each holding a shovel.
I should say it or not, although this approach is a bit silly, isn't there nothing we can do about it?
Mainly so far, there are still no exploration talents in the team, so we can only use these crude methods.
Then, when Hu Biao, Fei Falcon, Da Huyou and other three people dug several two-meter-deep pits in succession, they all found nothing.
Suddenly, Zhui Feng, who was dozens of meters away, cheered, obviously having achieved something different.
When Hu Biao and the others ran over and took a look, they saw that at the bottom of a large pit more than one meter deep that the boy had dug, there was a layer of black coal underneath.
At that time, he didn't care that the thing was black as soon as he grabbed it. Hu Biao jumped down in great excitement, grabbed a handful and looked at it in his hand.
Before he traveled through time this time, he had gained some knowledge about coal.
I can barely tell that these coals have a relatively high ash content and a relatively high sulfur content, so overall the quality is not very high.
This is mainly due to the geological environment of China. Most of the coal in the north is better than that in the south.
The problem is that even though Yangshan belongs to the absolute southern region and the quality of coal is a bit inferior, it still successfully solved the problem that Hu Biao and others had in terms of coal.
Even if the coal in the south is not as good as in the north, such a discovery can completely surprise Hu Biao and others...
After successfully discovering the coal mining site, Hu Biao and others did not go back in a hurry, but brought people and equipment over to start work directly.
Instead, he continued to wander around the area around Shuangshan Coal Mine.
On the one hand, it is to examine how far a mountain road must be built from such a planned coal mining site to connect to a road left over from the past. Although the road surface has many spider web-like cracks, it is barely usable.
This involves the transportation of coal to future steel plants and thermal power plants.
Because the tonnage that needs to be transported every day will not be small at all, but it is a very critical thing.
After wandering around for more than an hour, Hu Biao put down his worries.
They were pleased to find that they could connect such a former county road by building a dirt road with a length of about 1.5 kilometers and a slope of up to 30 degrees.
If you drive about two kilometers on such a county road, you can find a way to connect to a highway.
Eventually, it will be able to pass several kilometers of highway and reach a mountain col near the Zhongzhou tribe; and a series of tribe factories in the future will also be built in the mountain col.
*******
Of course, coal can indeed be burned directly after being mined, but the combustion efficiency is not very good, so it is basically used as domestic coal.
But if you want to use it in industrial production, if you can do some coking operations first, the combustion effect will definitely be much better.
More importantly, a lot of impurities have been removed from the coal after coking, which can save precious diesel and transportation volume.
Therefore, after it was determined that the Shuangshan Coal Mine would be established as a small coal industry base for the Zhongzhou Tribe.
Hu Biao made a decision at the same time: to build a small coking plant in the area near the coal mine.
In fact, the so-called coking is simple to say. It means that after the preliminary coal washing process, a high temperature of 950 degrees is used to produce coke with higher combustion efficiency while isolating the air from the coal.
In such a process, if there is modern equipment such as coke ovens, the effect will naturally be better.
But it can still be burned using some home-made methods, but the quality will be slightly worse.
Methods like this are still being practiced by many Black Uncles in the modern Black Uncle Continent, which shows that this thing really has no technical content.
The biggest difficulty is that toxic substances such as gas and coal tar are produced during the process of coking with local methods.
At that time, the native people who perform the operation will suffer great damage to their eyesight, lungs, etc. if it takes too long.
However, Hu Biao can guarantee that this kind of local coking method can last for up to one year; after one year, the relevant coking equipment can be purchased from the modern plane.
And in such a year, the only thing we can do is to get some labor protection tools to support them, and at the same time, give these workers who are engaged in special types of work a slightly better treatment.
For example, can they eat a meal of meat in two days?
Give them two pieces of Ma Tau soap every month so that they can maintain good personal hygiene and so on?
On the other hand, Hu Biao and the others were planning to look for iron ore at a mountain depression about 3 kilometers away across from Shuangshan Coal Mine.
I had discovered such an interesting point in the county annals of Yangshan before chasing the wind.
Back then, the Rabbit family's exploration team discovered the existence of iron ore here.
Just because the reserves are relatively small, and the grade of the iron ore is only about 28%, which is not too high; therefore, this iron ore is considered a useless existence, and no one has ever planned to mine it seriously.
However, such a result is considered to be advantageous to Hu Biao and others.
Because if there really was any high-grade, large-reserve iron ore here, it would have been mined completely over the years, and there would be nothing left for them.
Thanks to the obvious location of the iron ore, it took about an hour for Hu Biao and the others to knock out something obviously different from the excavated stones, which should be iron ore.
Once again, iron ore with a small amount of copper ore was found here.
From now on, it is said that the Zhongzhou tribe will be able to establish a coal and iron joint mining base here in Shuangshan.
At this time, the sun in the sky had already set in the west, and Hu Biao and the others finally went back with satisfaction, carrying a backpack of samples.
When they were halfway there, a loud engine sound sounded from their heads.
When I looked up, I saw the mad dog driving the paramotor, waving to them with a stern look on his face. It was obvious that today's investigation had a good harvest.