The Wulu River is a large river in northern Myanmar known as the "Uyu River" by the locals, and according to historical records, this generation was under the jurisdiction of Yongchang Province located in Yungui Dehong during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.

The Wulu River Basin is only 240 kilometers long from north to south, but this basin is known for its rich jadeite primary minerals, which are distributed in the Quaternary and Tertiary conglomerate layered jadeite deposits in the Wulu River Basin, in addition to jadeite minerals, there are white and green diopside, hornblende, neonite, albite and other minerals with vitreous luster, as well as green jadeite that reaches gem quality.

Since the discovery and development of jadeite primary ore in the Ming Dynasty, Myanmar has become the country with the largest production of jadeite in the world by relying on the Wulu River Basin, and the Wulu River jade has also established Myanmar's position as the leading country in the world in producing jewelry-grade jadeite

We can see that every other distance on the Wulu River, there will be a chain bridge or bridge across the river valley, in the past, there was only the kind of bridge with wooden planks on the iron cable, just like the bridge in the Feiduo Luding Bridge, which is very dangerous and rickety, mainly used by the locals to catch the market.

Later, someone invested in the construction of the bridge, although it is not as good as many bridges in China, but at least it is much stronger than these chain bridges, mainly because vehicles can pass guò, that kind of chain bridge, vehicles can not cross.

Hpakant is an authentic immigrant city, with a local population of only about 20,000, all of whom have lived on farming for generations, while the remaining 200,000 or so are almost all immigrants, some from abroad and some from other towns in Myanmar. The life of the locals may not be as good as imagined.

This place in Hpakant is full of treasures. In addition to the more famous jadeite, this land underneath. There are also abundant gold, silver and copper mines, including teak from the forest, which are tradable resources that attract all kinds of people who come to Hpakant for various purposes.

Recently, a large number of ruby mines have been discovered, so rubies have become another source of income for Hpakant, and in recent years, there have been more special ruby mines on the Myanmar jade market, in fact, because the Myanmar government also wants to increase its income and diversify a little. Otherwise, if you wait for the jade to finish, you can only sit and eat empty.

Since most of the primary jadeite mines are distributed under the river, the wide Wulu channel has become the mouth of the jade mine, and some have been mined to the ancient riverbed.

Usually the miners drain the river beforehand, then make a hole in the side and march down to the bottom of the riverbed. Sometimes the excavator is not useful, so the workers enter the mining face through the guò roadway and use an electric drill to mine directly.

When encountering a place where jadeite is concentrated, the rock walls are inlaid with turquoise jade everywhere.

That's why the Wulu River is now destroyed by Yan zhòng.

There is a legend in Myanmar. Since most of the Burmese are Buddhists, the Buddha was very happy, so he blessed it and gave it away. There are many deposits of ruby, sapphire and jadeite buried underground in Myanmar.

Among them, the most valuable is the "pigeon's blood" ruby, and the most produced is jadeite, which accounts for about 95% of the world's total production.

Due to the high value of jade jewelry. The high demand has stimulated the development of Myanmar's mineral deposits. Ordinary people in southwest Yunnan flocked to the city, setting off a "mining fever" that lasted for centuries.

In his book "The Chinese in Southeast Asia", the American Bursay wrote: A large number of skilled workers from China who mined jade and gemstones went to Myanmar. As a result, the production of jade and gemstones in Myanmar has increased dramatically, and the names of 5,000 Chinese jade merchants and jade quarryers are engraved on the stone tablets of the ancient Chinese temple in Amoro Bura, the ancient capital of Myanmar.

The towns you encounter on the way to Hpakant are usually full of villas and wooden houses, and the people of the nearby villages either drive wooden carts to work in the fields, or row small wooden boats down the river to fish...... They are active by the river and the wharf, forming a rather exotic and beautiful picture.

But it has to be said that the road conditions here are very bad, and the simple asphalt has long been potholed by large trucks pulling jade and wood, and there is hardly a smooth road surface.

Yang Yaoshan said: "When this section of the road reaches the dry season, the deepest part of the road surface can bury the small wheel axles, and when the vehicle passes by, it will raise dust all the way, and nothing can be seen. "Some sections of the road are still steep slopes, and the thick dust always makes the tires slip, and you can only walk more than 200 kilometers a day. Once the rainy season begins, the jade quarry is completely cut off from the outside world.

However, this is said to be the best situation. Before the 80s of the last century, there was only a rugged mountain road from Menggong to the jade field, and the food and jade were transported out by people and horses.

But even so, it still attracts groups of "gold diggers" to go, a bit like the crazy gold mines in the United States back then, and many people died halfway through, dying in the dream of making a fortune.

When people talk about Hpakant, they always say that Hpakant is run by three lines, namely the white line, the red line, and the green line.

The white line refers to heroin, which is close to the border between India and China, and has always been a place where drug traffickers are active, and many drug lords wanted by Interpol are hidden in places like Hpakant.

However, now the local government has vigorously cracked down on the drug trade, so the drug trade is not as crazy as it used to be, but people always have to make money, and sometimes in order to eat, they have to take risks, so these things can never be eradicated.

The red line refers to the special ruby of Myanmar, which is also very famous in the world, and the green line is naturally jadeite.

It is a small town in the mountains like Hpakant, but it is the center of the jade sea.

It is the jade distribution center of Longken, Xiandong, Mamengwan, Weika, Nanqi, Molu, Damakan, Hongba and countless small fields and pits.

Therefore, Hpakant is not only a holy place in the hearts of those who love and worship jade, but also the jade capital in the hearts of jadeite merchants.

Emerald is the soul of Hpakant and the wealth of Hpakant.

Among them, there are ten famous mines with a long history, all of which are located in the upper and lower reaches of the Wulu River, and those new factories. Most of them are in the Tomo area, where the mines are bare. A large number of exposed rough stones are directly presented on the outside, but there is no skin like the old pit.

Nowadays, many big jewellery companies have their own rough quarries in Hpakant. But if you want to enter here, it is a very difficult thing to go, to be honest, if it weren't for Yang Yaoshan, Zhang Tianyuan would not have had any chance to come here at all.

After driving along the poor road conditions for about an hour, the convoy suddenly heard a steep slope and could be seen that there was a checkpoint there, which happened to be on the slope. If someone wants to break through, the speed can't be increased too fast.

Yang Yaoshan himself did not get out of the car, but ordered the people on the military jeep leading the way in front of him to jump out of the car and negotiate with him, and then the checkpoint was opened, as for what they said between them, Zhang Tianyuan definitely didn't know, but he didn't care about those idle things, as long as he could reach the destination, it was enough, along the way. With Yang Yaoshan here, there must be no big problems.

After passing the checkpoint, the convoy continued on its way, and the road was easier than expected. Because we are almost at the mine, these roads often require large machinery to pass, if not to speak well. That's certainly not a good thing for mining, and that's why. These companies are willing to pay for the construction of roads.

After about twenty minutes, the car stopped. Yang Yaoshan asked Zhang Tianyuan and the others to get out of the car, saying that they had arrived at the place.

"Hey, I've heard a lot of strange hands in this mining area for a long time, but I didn't expect to realize that it was so spectacular after I saw it, Brother Yang, is this your mine?"

The so-called strange hand, this is the name of the local excavator, isn't it very vivid.

Standing there, Zhang Tianyuan raised his eyes and found that the mountains around this place were basically dug up directly, and in the past, there should have been mountains here, but now, he has become a victim of human machinery.

Below the convoy docked, you can see the excavators that are known as strange hands are roaring, like wild beasts, continuing to work on the devastated mountain.

The jewelry is beautiful, but the place where the rough stone is mined is so ugly.

When the excavator takes out the stones on the mountain, there will be skilled workers next to them immediately run up, through guò the fastest way to judge whether these stones are jade rough stones, these people have a feeling under their hands, knock with the stones, basically will not judge wrong, to really talk about it, in fact, these skilled workers who do not have the name of experts are experts in the real sense.

Don't talk about others, just talk about Zhang Tianyuan, if Zhang Tianyuan doesn't have a six-character formula, let him judge the wool like this, he estimates that six or seven out of ten will make a judgment error, after all, the time given to you is too short, even if you have the ability, there is no time and there is no meaning, and these people, the most powerful thing is to be able to see the general situation of the wool in a short time, as long as the stone is material, there will be workers to transport the stone to the car, and transport it away after it is full, without delay at all.

"Brother, let the convoy stop, so that you can see a piece of national treasure jadeite here, of course, it is a national treasure of Myanmar, this is not my mine, go, follow me to see, you will definitely feast your eyes...... "Myanmar national treasure level jadeite, the general requirement is that the volume is large enough, the weight is heavy enough, and the quality cannot be bad, if the quality is too poor, it is meaningless."

"How much does a national treasure-level jadeite weigh, a ton?"

Zhang Tianyuan has seen tons of wool, but he has not seen tons of jadeite, so he has tried his best to imagine it, and he wants to know what this so-called heaviest, the largest jadeite, the national treasure-level jadeite looks like, he has solved the stone before, and he has seen the tons of jadeite, but no matter how heavy it is, he has never seen it, and he has never even heard of it.

"A ton?hahaha!"

Yang Yaoshan laughed and said: "If it's just a ton of jadeite, then I don't have to waste time to stop and let you look at it, a ton is a thousand kilograms, well, your judgment is relatively close, but it's still a lot worse, some people have guessed before, saying that it is hundreds of kilograms, I can't help laughing, hundreds of kilograms of jadeite, why is it called a national treasure." ”

"I said Brother Yang, don't sell it, how heavy is it!"

"It's not very heavy, it's only about twenty tons!"

"How much! Twenty tons! Are you sure it's jadeite and not jadeite rough?"

Zhang Tianyuan was directly frightened by Yang Yaoshan's words, he had heard that the largest jadeite rough in Hpakant weighed only twenty or thirty tons, but what he didn't expect was that there were still twenty tons of jadeite! (To be continued......)