Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1115 [Thirty pounds? ]

The piece of gold Huang Lun found was about the size of a thumb, and could barely be considered nugget gold.

He was excited for several days and nights, and people came to congratulate him every day. In fact, they wanted to see what the gold nugget looked like.

Wang Chongdu also came to express his condolences and said to Huang Lun: "If you are afraid of losing it, you can sell it to me. Dog-head gold is more valuable than ordinary gold, but yours is too small and I am sure it won't sell for a high price."

Huang Lun was afraid that the long dream would bring trouble, so he nodded and said, "I will sell it if the ship owner gives me a suitable price!"

After some bargaining, the two men settled on a price 10% higher than the official Guangdong gold price at the time of sailing.

Of course, the boat tickets, food, medicine, swords, and port taxes that Huang Lun owed on credit must also be deducted, and this does not include the monthly gold mining tax.

After all the trouble, Huang Lun still owed Wang Chongdu.

If I continue to work hard to pan for gold, I will soon pay off the debt here, and the next step will be to pay off the debt back home.

Taking advantage of the purchase of a nugget, Wang Chongdu reiterated to the gold diggers: "You can sell all your gold to me, or take back the rest to pay off your debts. But I want to remind you that when you return to Hong Kong to file taxes, both gold and silver must be sold to the government. Anyone who hides them and takes them home is guilty of smuggling gold and silver!"

This rule was not set by Zhu Ming, it has always been like this in the early Song Dynasty.

While the Northern Song Dynasty allowed private mining and gold panning, it also stipulated that the gold and silver mined must be sold to the government. However, because the official purchase price was too low, more and more people hoarded gold and silver privately.

The Ming Dynasty learned from the Northern Song Dynasty's lesson and raised the official purchase price. It also announced the current price of gold and silver every six months. People called it the "official price", and all gold, silver and currency transactions were based on the official price.

Of course, gold and silver also have different qualities.

There are always some corrupt officials who, when purchasing gold and silver in mines and ports, pick and choose and say that the quality is not good enough and deliberately lower the price.

There was a big incident in Fuzhou. As the gold sand in Keelung River was mined out, many gold diggers brought the gold back to Fujian, where the government generally lowered the price by 40%.

The gold diggers became angrier and angrier, and in a fit of rage, they smashed the government office that purchased gold and silver.

This incident caused a big stir and soon alerted the inspector. Following the clues, other cases were uncovered, including two officials and seven clerks who were beheaded, 19 people who were exiled, and 36 people who were imprisoned.

Wang Chongdu continued, "I know you have a hometown association. You can help each other, but don't do anything shameful. The two ship owners, Li and Gao, and I are all from Shanxi. Although we don't have many Shanxi people, we can't let your Fujian and Guangdong hometown associations bully us. You should think about it yourself."

"From Anxi to Andong, from Japan to Jambi, there are hometown associations everywhere, and they cause trouble from time to time. The imperial court hates this, and although it has not issued an order to ban them, it has openly and covertly disbanded the hometown associations."

"To tell you the truth, when we first got off the ship, I deliberately broke up the gold diggers from various provinces into groups. From now on, you only need to recognize your own teams and teams, and don't talk about being from the same hometown as me. If you piss me off, I'll dig a hole and bury you, and when you return home, you'll say that the natives killed you!"

Wang Chongdu walked along the river named Jinshan River, constantly telling these to the gold diggers along the way.

He had to slowly establish rules, and when the monsoon changed, only a few armed personnel would remain here, and the rest would all return home. At that time, it would be easy for something to go wrong, either the natives would come and kill them, or there could be chaos among the gold diggers.

Wang Chongdu didn't want to see even one more person die.

For example, those who died of illness on the way still owed Wang Chongdu money for their boat tickets, food and medical expenses. He couldn't go back to China to ask the families of the deceased for money, because those who were willing to go to sea were all poor, and how much money could they get from their poor families?

"After one month, each team will re-elect a captain, deputy captain, squad leader, and deputy squad leader. You may not accept my temporary appointment of a captain. Wait for you to re-elect a captain, and from now on all orders will be obeyed by the captain. If the captain does something unfair, come to me or find the person in charge I left behind!"

While talking these words, Wang Chongdu had already walked several miles along the river.

Suddenly, a cry of surprise was heard from afar.

Wang Chongdu went to check it out himself, only to find out that someone else had discovered the nugget gold...

In another time and space, 10% of the gold nuggets weighing more than 80 kilograms recorded in human history were found in Australia.

Especially to this place where Wang Chongdu brought the gold diggers, nuggets of gold were found in endless quantities.

When the gold here was almost mined out, two guys went upstream to look for gold mines. On February 1869, 2, they found a huge piece of gold nugget.

Because the gold nugget was too heavy and there was no suitable scale to be found, it had to be broken into three pieces and weighed separately: 79 kilograms!

This piece of nugget gold is located in the upstream area, only a dozen days' journey from the gold mining site.

By the way, the largest gold nugget in human history weighs about 285 kilograms. It is just north of this gold mining site, and it takes more than a month to walk there.

"Where's the scale? Bring it here!"

Wang Chongdu pushed through the crowd and squeezed in, and found a gold digger holding a large lump in his arms.

The team leader of this group was very responsible. He held a sieve in his hand and gestured to the people around him, not allowing anyone to get too close, for fear that someone would be jealous and rob the money directly.

"It's so big, how did you find it?" Wang Chongdu asked.

The gold digger was honest and terrified. He held the gold and trembled all over. He answered tremblingly: "I...I thought it was a stone...a stone. The sieve hit it several times, so I wanted to pick it up...pick it up and throw it...throw it on the shore..."

Wang Chongdu was somewhat speechless. Soon, the scale was brought.

More than 24 kilograms!

The jin system in the Song Dynasty underwent several changes. After Zhu Ming and his son founded the country, they adopted the standard of the late Northern Song Dynasty, where one jin was approximately equal to 625 grams.

Converted into modern pounds, this piece of gold nugget weighs about 30 pounds.

Wang Chongdu glanced around and said to the gold digger, "Don't dig for gold anymore. It's not good to die of illness or exhaustion. You can keep the gold yourself, or you can leave it with me. Come back to Guangzhou with me when the monsoon comes."

The gold digger was just honest, but not stupid. He subconsciously hugged the nugget tightly and said, "I... I will go back with my fellow villagers."

Wang Chongdu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I'm not planning on you. I want to take you and the gold nugget back to Guangzhou to attract more gold diggers here. If you're scared, you can also find a few fellow villagers to go home with you. Or you can ask all the gold diggers in Fujian and Guangdong to mention you when they write to their families. With so many people writing to their families, how dare I take your gold? I have to take good care of you along the way, for fear that you will die of illness at sea."

The gold digger was still hesitating.

Wang Chongdu had no choice but to ask, "Where is your hometown?"

The gold digger said, "Huizhou, Heyuan County."

Wang Chongdu ordered his followers: "Call all the people in Heyuan County to be witnesses. Forget it, call all the people in Huizhou."

The Huizhou fellows who were dispersed to pan for gold gradually gathered together. They were stunned when they saw such a huge gold nugget.

With the support of his fellow villager, the gold digger finally felt a little relieved and signed a document to deposit the gold nugget with Wang Chongdu.

This guy only worked for more than half a month and really stopped panning for gold because it was too stressful for his back.

He had good carpentry skills and worked as a carpenter thereafter, making furniture or tools for other gold diggers, waiting for the monsoon to come and then taking a boat back to Guangzhou.

Wang Chongdu could not eat such a large gold nugget, and the Guangdong government did not dare to keep it for itself, so it must have been handed over to the emperor in the end.

In just one day, the news spread and all the gold diggers felt that they had more strength.

Huang Lun was stunned for a while when he heard the news. He thought he was lucky, but it turned out that he was not even a fraction of others.

In the following months, 12 nuggets of gold were discovered one after another.

There are also many gold flakes the size of a fingernail. Although they cannot be considered nugget gold, they are enough to make the lucky ones cheer.

There is so much gold here!

Historically, 12 gold prospectors mined here for three years, and after they finished mining the river, they went to the banks to mine. Then the Chinese gold prospectors came late, and they could only mine the abandoned mines abandoned by the white people for the second time, but as long as the Chinese miners were not dead, they all made money and went home.

At that time, more than 100,000 people gathered here. In the first few years, there was news about nugget gold almost every month.

Throughout human history, 10% of the nugget gold weighing more than 80 kilograms comes from Australia. And nearly half of Australia's nugget gold comes from here and hundreds of kilometers around. Not to mention the ones weighing less than kilograms!

After half a year, Huang Lun had developed a back problem from exhaustion and planned to work for another year before going home.

He believed that by then he would not only be able to pay off his debts, but would also have surplus money to do business.

Open a shop and do business here.

There must be more and more gold diggers, and there is no shortage of customers. His family used to do business, and his eldest brother would definitely not want to come, so he could bring his second brother and some fellow villagers over.

He wants to be the founding ancestor of the Huang family in Jinshan, Australia!
Since the gold mining results far exceeded expectations, even Wang Chongdu's men couldn't help but join the gold mining team.

Wang Chongdu could not keep blocking them, so he had to set rules for shifts (enough staff had to be left to guard the ships and guard against aboriginal raids), and at the same time increase their wages while they were in Australia.

After much deliberation, Wang Chongdu led his men to raid the tribe near the port. That tribe also participated in the attack on the gold diggers last time.

He also captured a number of indigenous prisoners of war, and instead of asking them to pan for gold, he asked them to cultivate the land and grow food.

Relying solely on transporting food from Java or hunting here is simply not enough to sustain the consumption of so many people.

Those native prisoners of war knew nothing and it was difficult to communicate in language, so they could only be taught by hand. If they still couldn't learn after two times of teaching, they would be whipped, and they would learn after a while.

After enduring for half a year, the monsoon finally changed. Wang Chongdu left behind a group of armed men and returned to Guangzhou with the rest of his men.

Also taken away were a few gold diggers and a large number of letters from their families.

There were also the ashes of 19 gold diggers, two of whom were killed by venomous snakes.

In Guangzhou, people will soon understand what the shock of gold nuggets is.

(End of this chapter)