Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.
Chapter 1109 1104 [New Jinshan]
Chapter 1109 1104 [New Jinshan]
This tribe didn't have any special products; even the only three copper daggers they had were acquired through trade with tribes further east.
The prospector in the team traded his iron axe for a copper dagger.
First, spread it on your fingertips to weigh it, then break it directly with a hammer, and carefully observe the broken end of the dagger.
"It's not artificially smelted," the prospector said to Wang Chongdu, "it should be made from natural copper (alloy). There must be rich copper mines nearby. You can ask them where they got it from."
It's hard to ask for the result.
Lin Wu took the broken copper dagger and went to the chieftain to discuss it with him. The chieftain thought that Lin Wu wanted to trade for the copper dagger, so he offered the remaining two daggers, hoping to get the iron axe again.
Lin Wu was so anxious that he scratched his head and had no idea how to explain.
"Let me do it."
Li Zuqia went over with two iron axes and exchanged them for the remaining two copper daggers.
Then he took out three iron axes.
The chief's eyes lit up when he saw this, and he quickly asked someone to bring him a bunch of miscellaneous items, including ornaments, paints, bone axes, boomerangs, etc. He wanted to use these things to exchange for Li Zuqia's axe.
Li Zuqia waved his hands and shook his head, pushed the rubbish back, and pointed at the bronze dagger to indicate that he still wanted it.
The chief became increasingly anxious and went to consult the wizard.
During the whole process, all members of the exploration team were extremely vigilant. Some of them held their knife handles, and some loaded their muskets, fearing that the natives would be tempted by the wealth and rob them directly.
Finally, the chief came running back, pointing first at the dagger and then further to the east.
The meaning is clear, their bronze daggers came from the East.
The natives seemed to be planning to travel far, so they organized a team of ten people and brought some dried kangaroo meat. This kind of dried kangaroo meat was smelly and woody, and it could make people want to vomit.
The real way to cook kangaroo is to braise it as before to retain enough juice.
The Mongolian roasted whole lamb with skin is actually made in a similar way. It is found in both Inner and Outer Mongolia. Red-hot stones are stuffed into the lamb's stomach, charcoal is spread on the outside, and then covered with mud and slowly stewed.
While the natives were making preparations, Wang Chongdu also sent people back to the shore to call for more manpower and bring enough food.
Two team members were suffering from diarrhea due to the unfamiliar climate and were thrown back to the shore to recuperate.
The next day, everyone followed the natives and walked eastward for more than two days.
There is another tribe here, and it is even larger.
The two tribes began to communicate and showed off the iron axes they had exchanged.
Wang Chongdu warned: "This tribe is quite large, with an estimated number of several hundred people. Be careful that they may suddenly attack you after their desire for the Iron Axe."
"I've been on guard all the time." Li Bin patted the flintlock in his hand.
Wang Chongdu said: "There is no reason to guard against thieves for a thousand days. When the natives take us to find copper mines, we will just shoot and kill any prey we encounter on the way. Show us our military strength!"
Soon, the chief of the big tribe came over and talked a lot.
Lin Wu still served as an exchange staff member and held out a piece of flowered cloth taken from the boat.
Ordinary cotton cloth with a blue background and white patterns was tie-dyed. The price was not expensive, and even the lower-class people in the Ming Dynasty could buy two meters of it to make new clothes during festivals.
The chief of this large tribe liked it very much, although they had no habit of wearing clothes.
Accept a gift and return the favor immediately.
"What kind of gem is this?" Wang Chongdu asked in surprise.
This object is about the size of a chestnut, polished to be round and smooth, and exudes a dreamy and brilliant color.
Opal!
There are even more as you go southeast. 90% of the world's opals come from here.
That night, everyone was entertained and took turns standing guard at night.
The next day, they headed south, and representatives from the two tribes led everyone to look for copper mines.
At a small river, Wang Chongdu found more than a dozen kangaroos drinking water. He shouted, "Fire the guns and shoot those big rats to open the eyes of the wild people here and prevent them from having any evil intentions!"
"Bang bang bang!"
A burst of gunfire startled the natives, and then they saw four kangaroos fall down.
They looked at the Ming exploration team, then at the dead kangaroos in the distance, and for a moment they didn't understand what was going on.
Wang Chongdu sent someone to carry the kangaroo's body back and said to Li Bin, "Reload the bullets and fire another shot."
Li Bin quickly emptied his gun and reloaded it, then shot at the kangaroo at close range under the gaze of the natives.
"boom!"
A gunshot rang out, leaving a bloody hole.
The natives looked quite panicked, and several of them rushed over to check the kangaroo's body.
Suddenly, a native knelt down and kowtowed to the Ming expedition team.
They already had primitive religious worship and obviously regarded Wang Chongdu and others as gods.
When gods do things, we naturally cannot ask too many questions.
After walking for another half a day, they ran out of drinking water, so they set up a pot by the river to boil water and take a rest while cooking some food to fill their stomachs.
The first is from the development of medicine in the Ming Dynasty, the second is from the popular science propaganda of the imperial court, and the third is from the personal experience of the expedition team. As long as they have the conditions, they will never drink raw water, especially raw water in unknown areas.
The staple food at this time is rice supplied from Java Island.
Simply cook it into white rice and grill the kangaroos that were shot dead.
Roasted kangaroo meat is really unpalatable. Even with a lot of salt, it still can't suppress the pungent smell. Moreover, the meat is woody and hard, like an old wild boar. Everyone began to miss the roasted kangaroo from the previous day. Some white rice was also distributed to the natives. The natives ate it like a delicacy, thinking that rice was the exclusive food of the gods.
After filling their stomachs, everyone waited for the boiling water to cool down and poured the cold boiled water into water bags for storage.
After walking and stopping for nearly two days, everyone was exhausted.
This is a tropical savanna climate, the temperature is not high, less than 30 degrees during the day, and drops below 20 degrees at night. But the air is dry and there are many mosquitoes, so everyone applies natural mosquito repellent all over their body.
Those natives were naked and had no idea how they could resist the bites of mosquitoes.
The natives continued to lead the way forward, but the prospector stopped, pointed to a small mound on the surface and said, "Iron cap."
"Iron ore?" Wang Chongdu asked.
The prospector shook his head: "Not necessarily, it could also be a copper mine."
Wang Chongdu frowned and said, "Although there are indigenous tribes here, the population is still too small, and it is two or three days away from the coast. Even if copper mines are discovered, it will be difficult to mine. Unless..."
"Unless there is a gold mine." Li Zuqia said.
Copper mines cannot attract adventurers, and not much can be mined with local human resources.
Only gold mines are worth mining at this stage.
The prospector found more than ten iron caps nearby. After studying them, he said with regret: "They are all iron cap copper mines. If they were in China, we would have made a fortune."
The small mounds that emerge from the ground are copper oxides and hydroxides that react with iron to form iron caps. They are more difficult to mine than ordinary copper mines, and are also mixed with gold, silver and other substances.
Under the guidance of the natives, we continued our journey south for another day.
The prospector was almost going crazy because after passing the iron cap belt, he soon discovered an open-pit rich copper mine.
The copper daggers from the nearby tribes were obtained from this area.
"Let's record it," Wang Chongdu sighed, "This place is too far away and too desolate to be mined, but we can report it to the court to gain merit."
They returned north and took out a few iron axes in exchange for some natural copper lumps.
He also exchanged cotton cloth and other items for hundreds of opal gems.
Continue sailing east.
When the three large ships set sail, both tribes sent people to see them off, kneeling on the shore and reluctantly seeing them off.
Every time the fleet traveled a certain distance, they sent people to land and explore, and they encountered several tribes one after another.
Unfortunately, they did not explore deeply enough.
During one of the explorations, if they continued walking south for a few days, they would reach the largest silver mining area in Australia.
According to statistics from 1997, the silver reserves there are 2.3 tons, and the annual output accounts for 7% of the world's total silver mine output. It has few impurities and is easy to mine.
The most important thing is that the silver mine is only more than 300 kilometers away from the coast, and there are some small rivers along the way leading to the sea!
Oops, missed it.
Wang Chongdu got more opals. They were very beautiful and sparkling. I guess they could be sold for a good price when they were shipped back to Ming Dynasty.
That silver mine is also within the opal producing area and is relatively close to the core area.
If you come to purchase opal gems in the future, you may accidentally discover silver mines.
Gradually, the fleet sailed from the tropical savanna climate zone into the tropical rainforest climate zone in the northeast corner of Australia.
Then turn and head south along the east coast of Australia.
Across the east coast, the population is growing and the tribes are becoming more densely distributed.
This place is suitable for human habitation!
They sailed along the coastline, going ashore from time to time to communicate with the natives.
The natives on the east coast are more aggressive, tribal wars often occur, and some small-scale tribal alliances seem to have been formed.
The Ming Dynasty exploration team was even involved in the incident. When they were trading with one tribe, they were attacked by another tribe. One person was injured by a flying stone thrown by a catapult, and Wang Chongdu was so angry that he led his men to flatten that tribe.
The tribes that had been attacked before cooperated with them throughout the battle and worshipped them like gods.
It took about two months for the fleet to reach the southeast corner of Australia after stopping and starting.
They landed at a natural harbor, later called Melbourne.
The Chinese have another name for that place: New Gold Mountain!
San Francisco is in the United States and New San Francisco is in Australia. Both places have gold.
When exchanging items with the local natives, Li Zuqia walked behind Wang Chongdu and asked: "Is the yellow necklace of the chieftain gold?"
Wang Chongdu walked closer and looked more carefully. The more he looked, the more it looked like gold.
The necklace is strung together with straw ropes, and contains ornaments made of bones and stones, interspersed with a few golden things.
Wang Chongdu took out a small bag of fine salt and asked the chief to taste it.
Then, point at the other person's necklace and try to exchange it.
Perhaps the necklace was very precious, so he added a piece of cotton cloth and finally exchanged it.
That night, the main members of the expedition team gathered together.
Wang Chongdu said: "There is gold nearby. The natives definitely don't have the technology to mine gold. They must have either panned the gold sand from the river or picked up nuggets of gold from somewhere."
"We're rich!" Gao Wenbao grinned.
Li Bin said, "Don't show your hand. Ask around tomorrow."
(End of this chapter)
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