The little witch held up her skirt and carefully observed the clear river water with her bare feet. She bent down and grabbed a gold particle the size of a fingernail from the bottom of the water.
"Wow, this one is so big. I only found two smaller ones!" the little witch of the Five Ghost Tribe exclaimed in envy after taking one look at it.
Xu Chen said somewhat depressedly: "Why are your eyes so good? I was so dazzled that I couldn't even find one!"
"Hehe, I'm lucky!"
The little witch smiled with crooked eyebrows, her eyes full of gentle gold, and placed it on Xu Chen's hand: "Even if you find this one!"
"How about that? I will definitely find a bigger one!"
Xu Chen rolled up his sleeves and continued to widen his eyes, searching for traces of gold in the gurgling river like a searchlight.
"Jinga Jinga, where are you? Come out quickly!"
Ye tied her skirt around her waist, stuck her butt out and groped in the river water while groping around.
Xu Chen couldn't help but have black lines all over his head.
This girl is not young now, she is a mother, and her habits have changed a lot over the years. However, she was too excited to go out and play, and she obviously got a little carried away, and began to return to her wild nature.
"Wow, I found a big one!"
Not far away, the little witch of the Gonghuo Tribe, who had been searching carefully in the river without saying anything, exclaimed and grabbed a piece of yellowish stuff from the water. She held up her skirt and ran straight to Xu Chen with a face full of joy.
Xu Chen felt even more depressed when he looked at the heavy golden lump that was as big as a thumb in the palm of his hand.
The three little witches each gained something, and Xu Chen felt as if he had been abandoned by the gods.
Seeing Xu Chen's depressed look, a Cang hunter who accompanied him to fish in the water said with a smile: "It's hard to find gold in spring. After the water rises in summer, there will be more in autumn. We come here to look for it in autumn and winter!"
"
"There are so many less people in the past few years than there used to be!"
"Yes, Ga, I used to pick up gold and even fight with the Qia tribe!"
Several Cang hunters were talking to each other. Xu Chen pointed to the Yinlong Gorge not far ahead and asked, "Have you ever gone into the canyon to search?"
A group of people shook their heads, and one of the older ones said: "The canyon is full of big rocks!"
Xu Chen naturally wouldn't believe this answer.
He originally had a background in geological surveying. The gold in this river must have been washed out of the Yinlong Gorge. There must be veins on the river beach and in the canyon.
It's just that he has been to Yinlong Gorge. It is filled with a large number of tropical large-leafed plants and indeed large rocks. The stream is also relatively fast. Without professional equipment, it is indeed difficult to find gold veins.
But if you really find it, I'm afraid you can dig out a lot.
Over the years, the Ba people have collected at least 200 kilograms of gold. The largest piece of gold was more than ten kilograms the size of a fist. He made it into a large golden weight, which is still kept as a family heirloom among the Ba people.
Almost all of this gold comes from the Golden River, or from the Cang and Qia tribes.
Other tribes near the Ba tribe can occasionally get gold, and I heard that there is also gold in the canyon over there from the Muya tribe.
In other words, there should be a gold vein belt tens of kilometers long among the mountains in Yinlong Gorge and Muya Clan. Although the reserves cannot be estimated, looking at the amount collected over the years, the gold reserves should be quite large.
, or in other words, this gold vein is not buried deep.
But this lack of depth is relative.
The cliffs on both sides of Yinlong Gorge are very steep, tens of meters high, and very narrow. It should be the gap formed by the ancient orogeny, and then the valley formed by the erosion of hundreds of millions of years of water. The gold buried in it was also washed out by the running water.
It is definitely difficult to mine under the current conditions, but in the future, gold will definitely reflect its scarcity value.
With the development of the kingdom and the further growth and expansion of the tribal population, commercial transactions will continue to expand in the future. If iron and coal cannot be found, then copper has always been the main material for making tools, so there will be no excess copper to cast money for circulation.
.
If a certain amount of gold can be mined, gold coins can be used to increase liquidity.
Another advantage of gold coinage is that it can maintain its value, because unlike copper, its output is more scarce and its quantity is more scarce.
Rare things are more valuable, this is an eternal law.
And when this scarcity becomes widespread demand, its value will be even greater.
At present, it is impossible to continue to expand the mining and smelting of copper. If a certain amount of gold can be mined, a certain high-value gold coins can be issued to supplement the shortage of copper coins.
Moreover, the texture of gold is relatively soft, and the coinage processing is also very simple. Just cast a money mold with copper and use a copper hammer to complete the process.
So Xu Chen decided to go to the entrance of Yinlong Canyon to have a look.
Naturally, several Cang hunters did not dare to let Xu Chen and a few shamans go like this, so they all threw away their fishing tools and picked up sticks and spears. After thinking about it, they still felt uneasy, so they turned around to catch a group of people swimming not far away.
The Imperial Guards called Gou Pao over, and then a large group of people escorted Xu Chen and the others toward the Hidden Dragon Canyon a mile away.
The closer we get to Yinlong Gorge, the bigger the stones in the river become. When we reach near the mouth of the canyon, we are already in front of a large boulder beach, which is similar to the situation at the mouth of the Wild Wolf Valley of the Ba people.
Stones of all sizes are basically invisible, and the sand is basically invisible. The river is made up of stones of all sizes.
These stones are not just round pebbles, but broken stones of various shapes, some of which are covered with moss and weeds, which look full of primitive and natural atmosphere.
Once here, it is even more difficult to find gold, because gold is very small particles, not to mention the size of a finger, even if it is the size of a fist or even a basketball, it will definitely be buried in these layers of gravel.
Several Cang hunters said that they usually look for gold at the intersection of Huangjin River and Jicang River. Especially after the water rises in summer, and when the water falls in autumn and winter, gold will be exposed on the gravel surface and is easy to find. Close to the mouth of the canyon
There are so many big rocks here that you can hardly find them.
A group of people did not enter the canyon directly, but started turning over rocks near the mouth of the canyon.
The more than thirty Imperial Guardsmen were all young and strong. They had enough to eat and clothing and had nothing to do every day except training to use stones to build muscles. They could only hold the legs of the bed while driving piles, so they were all energetic. Xu Chen gave the order,
A group of people began to turn over the rocks crazily.
Sure enough, there is strength in numbers, and not long after, someone was heard exclaiming excitedly, and soon a guy covered in black hair and tendons ran over holding a small pile of gold in the sun as if he was having fun.
This is a piece of gold weighing three ounces.
Xu Chen smiled from ear to ear and praised this guy profusely. Then a group of forbidden soldiers started to turn over the rocks even more crazily, as if they had been given a collective shot of blood. Suddenly, the whole river beach was filled with the sound of splashing.
Xu Chen's main goal was not to find gold on the river beach, but to find gold on these large and small gravels.
He looked through the stones carefully and found traces of mineral veins like golden veins on many of the stones, with spots exuding a golden luster.
This made him even more convinced that there was indeed a gold vein in this canyon.
This kind of gold ore contains gold. Once it is washed away by river water, it will turn into fine gold sand mixed with the sediment. Gold is heavier than ordinary sediment. If it is washed away year after year, it will accumulate deeper and deeper.
, only when the water rises, large pieces will be washed away and exposed.
While Xu Chen was observing the gravel slowly entering the canyon, a group of forbidden soldiers also dug out seven or eight pieces of gold one after another, and they were not small. The smallest piece was close to one tael, and the largest piece was only half a catty. The total weight of them all
It actually weighed more than two kilograms. If measured in terms of money, I definitely made a fortune today.
It's a pity that gold has no use except for decoration. No one cares about it at all. To everyone, these pieces of gold are not as valuable as a few copper coins.
After entering the canyon, it is indeed full of jagged boulders, which are bigger than a person. Even after they are piled up, the stream flows from the cracks in the rocks. There are streams like waterfalls everywhere. The sound of the rumbling water is like thunder, and
The valley was filled with mist and filled with various tropical plants, making it impossible to observe carefully.
Xu Chen waded into the stream and walked dozens of meters before giving up quickly.
The further you go, the bigger the rocks become, making it impossible to climb. Not to mention that there are pools of varying depths washed by running water. The poisonous large-leafed plants grow on both sides of the stream, blocking out the sky and the sun. The light is very dark, and there is no trace of it.
If you get some juice on your body, you will feel itchy and itchy.
However, this trip was not fruitless. Among the stones in the valley, many golden spots can be seen distributed. It is absolutely certain that this valley is a broken gold vein belt, and in those clear water pools,
I also picked up more than ten golden lumps, large and small, the size of thumb peas.
After exiting the valley, Xu Chen decided to temporarily give up his plan to mine gold.
The development of gold mines is difficult, the output is low, and it consumes endless manpower and material resources, which can only be accumulated slowly in the future.
But now that he was here, he couldn't just go back, so he rolled up his sleeves, summoned a group of forbidden soldiers, and started moving rocks again near the entrance of the valley.
Two hours later, a group of people were finally exhausted. Almost all the stones that could be moved at the entrance of the valley were turned over. The result naturally did not disappoint Xu Chen. In the end, hundreds of pieces of gold were found.
The smallest lump is the size of a pea, and the largest one is the size of a pottery bowl. This one alone weighs more than ten kilograms, which is definitely a fruitful harvest.
Ye and the little witch and a group of other women, big and small, were extremely excited when they saw so much gold being harvested.
Because it is the first time for them to go out and play like this, and they can get so much gold. If they take it back and put it into the wishing pool, the Mother Goddess will be happy and will bless all the tribes of Ba even more.
In fact, what they don't know is that from beginning to end, the one who likes gold is His Majesty the Witch King, whom they admire and respect the most.
And this kind of love only fulfills his dream of getting rich as a poor loser before he traveled through time.