wild trail

Chapter 66 Copper Mine
People left the baobab forest silently all the way, and the awkward atmosphere didn't end until half a day later, when they came to a small mountain where a landslide occurred.

"It's here." Kong Yi said excitedly, pointing at the hill ahead.

Looking at the tens of meters high hill in front of him, Wang Lang trembled with excitement. There were countless green and yellow stones scattered densely on the broken hillside. These stones looked very dazzling under the sunlight.

Huo was also shocked by the sight in front of him. These stones looked so beautiful. He didn't expect there to be such dazzling stones in the world. He looked at Wang Lang and asked, "Lang, is this the metal you're looking for?"

Wang Lang took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. Before he went to check it himself, he couldn't help but worry about gains and losses. He was a little worried that the joy would be empty, and he said calmly: "I'm not sure yet, let's go Just look at it."

Others saw that they had finally found what they were looking for, which meant that the journey could finally end, and they ran towards the hill covered with green stones excitedly.

Ten minutes later, when people came to the foot of the mountain, Wang Lang picked up a grass-green stone with trembling hands, and put it in front of his eyes for careful observation. Although Wang Lang didn't have much research on minerals, the thing in front of him was definitely not emerald or jade.

Wang Lang picked up another fist-sized golden stone, which was very heavy in his hand.

"Is it so lucky that there is still gold in this place?" Wang Lang muttered to himself.

In order to determine whether it was gold, he picked up a piece of gravel with sharp edges and scratched it vigorously on the surface of the yellow ore, but no trace was left.

Seeing this scene, Wang Lang was so excited that he couldn't help himself, and said tremblingly: "It's actually pure copper, it's rich, it's rich!"

Such a piece of copper ore with almost no impurities is countless times more important to Wang Lang than the useless gold and silver. Wang Lang only knows that gold and silver are used as coins for circulation, and he does not know other specific uses.

But a piece of pure copper is different. As long as these copper ores are smelted, many useful things can be produced. On this hill, apart from malachite with a relatively small copper content, the chalcocite ore exposed on the surface is estimated to be There are several tons. If the copper ore buried in the ground is mined, it will be enough for the tribe to use for several lifetimes.

Although people were very interested in the beautiful stones in front of them, they were still a little puzzled seeing Wang Lang's excited appearance.

"Put it in the back basket, only pick the yellow ones, and we'll go back after loading." Wang Lang said excitedly.

Hearing that they could go back, people became excited immediately, carrying baskets on their backs and searching all over the mountains and plains for all the yellow stones they could see.

Due to the large amount of chalcopyrite ore, it didn't take long for everyone to collect a lot of copper ore. Since copper is relatively heavy, only half of it is filled in each pannier.

Looking at the bright yellow copper ore in the back basket, Wang Lang smiled from ear to ear. He couldn't wait to return to the tribe and melt all the copper.

"Let's go! Let's go back to the tribe!" Wang Lang said excitedly.

People cheered, carrying dozens of kilograms of copper ore on their backs, and planned to return to the tribe along the way they came.

But Wang Lang stopped them at this time and said: "We don't go back according to the original route, we go directly to the west, so we can go back faster."

"Westward? Then we can find the Horde?" Fire asked.

Wang Lang said confidently, "No problem."

While talking, he drew a simple map on the ground, roughly drawing out the location of even a residence and a copper mine, and said: "Look, we are here now, and we have nearly three days of travel from where we landed. Time, but we will save a lot of time if we go directly to the tribe from here. We didn’t take this route before, just because we were worried that we couldn’t find it here. Now that we have found it, naturally we don’t need to go far.”

People looked at the triangle drawn by Wang Lang with half understanding, and followed Wang Lang's plan in a daze.

Because of the heavy load, people walk very slowly, and they have to stop and rest every few hours. Wang Lang asked people to pull out some dead grass in the rest place, leaving an arrow-shaped open space for the future mining road. Leave a signpost.

Two days later, people saw the familiar river and the long tree line in the distance, and they knew they had returned.

After walking for two days with heavy loads, everyone's shoulders were worn out with blisters, but at the moment, people didn't care about the pain in their shoulders, so they quickened their pace and walked towards the wooden fence that was getting closer.

When the women in the tribe saw the men coming back, they hurriedly pushed open the heavy wooden door, took over the weapons from Wang Lang and the others, and brought them cool river water.

After putting down the heavy baskets, everyone sat on the ground and kept wiping the sweat off their bodies, and drank several large bowls of water.

After relaxing, Wang Lang now felt that his shoulders were as heavy as if filled with lead, and the shoulders were red from the wear of the rope, and there was a burning pain when he moved a little.

The men sat on the ground grinning. Before their shoulders recovered, they couldn't do anything.

Wang Lang called the three women who stayed behind to inquire about the situation of the tribe. During the communication with the women, Wang Lang knew that nothing major happened during the time he left. Only Jian Ya brought some people over to check the situation. He knew that Wang Lang and the others After leaving, he returned to the grassland tribe.

In the next few days, because Wang Lang and the others were unable to work, the three women took care of everything in the tribe. It was not until a week later that the shoulder injury recovered.

During the period of recuperation, Wang Lang carefully studied how to melt the copper ore.

Although the melting point of copper is relatively high, the temperature of the pottery kiln made by Wang Lang can completely melt the copper ore. The difficulty is how to pour the melted copper juice into the formwork.

Wang Lang now admires the wisdom of the ancients very much. Without any reference, he can hardly imagine the time and energy required to research the metal smelting process.

After several days of thinking, Wang Lang finally came up with a very stupid way, which is to put the copper ore containing impurities into the pottery kiln for smelting to obtain pure copper, and then make a furnace similar to the pottery kiln. Put a fixed clay container with a notch, and connect it with a fired semicircular grooved pottery. As long as the pure copper is melted, the outflowing copper liquid will flow into the prepared mold along the groove. inside.

As for whether this method will work, Wang Lang is still not sure, he can only know by trying it.

(End of this chapter)