Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1724 95 Yu Tian

"It seems that a new batch of materials has just been discovered." Zhou Zhi said to Zhu Qinghong, "Maybe the news has not yet reached Beijiang Arts and Crafts, you can pay attention to it recently."

"Really?" Zhu Qinghong was shocked: "How did you know?"

"Hehehe... I have a lot of informants in Northern Xinjiang now..." Zhou Zhi had no choice but to laugh it off.

There is a story that has been passed down to later generations. One day in May this year, a shepherd in the mountains picked up a palm-sized snow-white stone and sold it to a nearby mine owner.

The whiteness, density, and smoothness of this stone were unprecedented! The mine owner immediately gave the shepherd five dollars and another 150 dollars as a reward, asking him to take him to the place where the stone was found.

After arriving at the place, they searched for several days but did not find any mineral veins. When the exhausted miner was about to go home, he looked up and found some white jade materials under the snow on the cliff.

  It's really hard to find a place to break through the iron shoes, and it takes no effort to get it!

This top-grade mutton fat, which has never been seen on the market, was discovered in such a dramatic way! Because it was almost June, it would be difficult to go down the mountain due to the snow and ice.

Considering that the mining contract is about to expire and it is uncertain who will sign the contract next year, the mine owner had no choice but to take the last resort and blast the mountain to retrieve the jade.

It wasn't until November that the mineral materials were finally transported down the mountain in the snow.

This batch of jade materials weighs 95 kilograms in total. Although it is mountain material, it is known as the "King of Mutton Fat" because of its whiteness, fineness, and oiliness, which even exceeds some of the best mutton fat seed materials. It is also called " Yutian" because it was found in YT County.

This is the famous legend of "95 Yutian" in the Hetian jade circle in later generations.

Regardless of whether the true situation in the previous life was like this, the story of this life is actually completely different from the legend.

In fact, Yutian has been the main production area of ​​Hetian jade since ancient times. There have always been records of ancestors mining jade materials, and the peak period of mining was in the middle of the Qing Dynasty.

After the founding of New China, a mining area was re-established in the Hotan area, which was mainly responsible for the mining, purchase and operation of Hotan jade in the entire area. Zhou Zhi's collection of jade materials in northern Xinjiang was mainly carried out here.

The jade produced in Hotan mainly comes from two rivers. The jade washed by the rivers is called "seed material".

The jade produced in Yutian comes from streams or "ice pits", as well as raw mineral veins found in the mountains. These two types of materials are called "mountain water" and mountain materials.

By the time Zhou Zhi arrived in northern Xinjiang, the mining of the Yutian Mine was declining due to the depletion and collapse of the traditional "ice pit".

Because Zhouzhi purchased jade materials and the Li family created a shopping spree among Hong Kong people in the domestic Hetian jade market, the Northern Xinjiang government saw an opportunity to attract investment again.

So they launched a mining tender for these abandoned mines, allowing outsiders to enter the mining industry. The county government proposed individual contracting of the mines and proposed a management idea of ​​signing contracts year by year, bearing their own profits and losses and risks.

But everyone is not stupid. Yutian is still a poor county. The annual contract fee of 160,000 yuan is not a small amount in today's northern Xinjiang.

Although each of them had their own way of thinking, the county government, district government, arts and crafts, jade carving factory, and even Xu Gang's father and cousin Xia Mili, all thought of a smart guy who loved to spend money - Zhou Zhi.

Because of Zhou Zhi's good investment performance in Northern Xinjiang, he was listed as a key work target. Xia Mili is Xu Gang's cousin. He used to drive for his boss, who was a miner himself, but he only mined copper, lead and zinc mines.

But as the boss's closest person, Xia Mili is no stranger to the mining business.

Now that there is such an opportunity and his boss is supportive, Xia Mili wants to go out on his own.

However, no one's money comes from the wind. Although the boss supports Xia Mili to work alone, it does not mean that he is optimistic about the jade mining industry. Therefore, he only agreed to sponsor Xia Mili an old jeep that was driven from the mine, which was considered the biggest support.

When Zhou Zhi went to northern Xinjiang, the driver Xu's father found for Zhou Zhi was Xia Mili, who was not only enthusiastic, but also hardworking and flexible in his work. He got along very well with Zhou Zhi.

The work of several parties came to Zhouzhi at the same time. Finally, Zhouzhi agreed to let AXA Fund undertake the investment, but put forward several conditions.

The first step is to invest in Xia Mili, who will serve as the mine manager and sign a mining contract with the county government. In addition to paying the government a contract fee of 160,000 yuan each year, the remaining mining costs and profits will be borne by Xia Mili's newly established company.

Secondly, given that the conditions in the mining area are too harsh, there are only four months in a year during the exploration and mining period when normal operations can start, so Zhou Zhi requested an extension of the contract. AXA Fund gave the county 480,000 yuan in one lump sum and the contract was changed to three years.

After that, he invested another one million in Xia Mili, who borrowed two exploration teams and a mining team from his former boss, and the business was set up.

After that, Xia Mili led a mining team to the old Alamas mining area deep in the Kunlun Mountains for exploration and investigation.

He also didn't know why Zhou Zhi was so obsessed with YT County. Zhou Zhi's requirement was that in the three years signed, the exploration of several old mining areas in YT County should be concentrated in the first two years. If nothing was found after two years, then the old mines in other counties could be explored in the third year.

For Xia Mili, he had just left the novice village and needed to train his team and business capabilities. Even if the exploration yielded nothing and the loss was also Zhou Zhi, he could still get training and at most he would just waste two years.

Since the financial sponsor is so persistent, he will just follow his instructions.

In the first few months, the team only found a few tailings, which were not worth mining for various reasons.

As the best mining period was about to pass and the team was preparing to leave the mountain, a surprise finally came: they discovered a previously unknown white jade vein at the bottom of a cliff deep in the old Alamas mining area.

This jade vein is very narrow, and based on its output, it is also of little value for mining. However, as the sampling deepened, Xia Mili discovered that the color of this jade vein was quite white.

Xia Mili immediately asked people to carry explosives and blasting equipment to the new mine.

After an explosion test, more jade materials were mined. Not only was the color white and reached the mutton-fat grade, but the fineness was even far beyond most seed materials!

Although it is mountain material, it is extremely oily. Xia Mili's one month of traveling with Zhou Zhi in northern Xinjiang has broadened his horizons. Jade materials of this quality are rare.

The only problem lies in the mining method, because the explosion method is adopted. Although the jade material is hard enough, it is brittle, which causes the exploded jade material to be broken into pieces and reduced in size, affecting its utilization rate.