Heading south from Yingdu Province, the first stop is Ha Hua Province.

The location of Hehua Mansion is the Hejing of the later generations, and the main urban area can basically be said to have no changes, so it is very convenient to determine the location of the iron mine with high pragmatism.

How are you sure? Gao Shishi once had two memories of the Shixi Iron Mine in Hejing, one was by the sea, not far from the sea; Second, it is only eight kilometers away from the city of Ha Tinh. With these two "coordinates", it is certainly not difficult to determine the general location.

The last time he sent a letter to Liu Xin to inquire about the distribution of minerals in Annan, Liu Xin's reply was a hundred times clearer.

Liu Xin said that the Changshan Fold Belt is one of the very important iron, copper and gold polymetallic metallogenic belts in Southeast Asia, and there are many large and even super-large deposits in the belt, among which the most famous ones are Shixi Iron Mine, Pengmiao Gold Mine, Fushan Gold Mine, Sepan Gold Mine, Fukang Gold Mine, Lishan Iron Mine, Funuoan Iron Mine, etc.

However, Liu Xin also seems to have guessed what Gao was going to do, and pointed out a few areas that are relatively easy to mine and may be more convenient to transport, such as the iron ore mines in Ha Tinh and the gold mines in Da Nang.

Of course, on iron ore alone, or Hejing Shixi iron ore is the most, this iron ore is the largest skarn-type magnetite in Southeast Asia, not only has more than 600 million tons of reserves, but also the average grade is as high as 61 or more, beating the vast majority of iron ore in Daming.

However, the trouble is not without trouble, the biggest trouble is the reserves of more than 600 million tons, and only a small part of Gao Pragmatic can be used now, because although this mine can be directly mined in the open pit, the total depth of the ore body is terrible, and the exploration results of later generations have reached more than 400 meters below sea level.

In this era, it is unthinkable to dig below more than 400 meters above the sea level, especially since it is still located on the seaside, maybe there is groundwater or something, so Gao Pragmatic can only dig a layer on its surface, and it is almost the same to dig down ten zhang and twenty zhang at most.

Fortunately, this is enough - not only is he pragmatic and not digging, but no one in the world can dig too deep. So, what are you worried about? I'm really afraid that there is no iron mine, and it won't be nice to take Australia first in the future. Anyway, the surface part of the Stony Brook Iron Mine can be mined for at least a hundred years with the production scale set here with high pragmatism.

The second trouble lies in the supply of coking coal. Because Gao Pragmatic's ironmaking in Daming has been used by him in coking coal technology, it has always been made from coal to make iron and steel, so the demand for coal is not small. However, not all coal can be used to make iron, and the most critical use of coal in the ironmaking industry is coking, and the main coal used for coking is coking coal.

There are a lot of this kind of coal in the country, but Annan's coal is known for its high-quality anthracite, roughly speaking, this is a kind of low-impurity thermal coal - if it is now the era of steam power, high-quality anthracite is of course good news, but now it is not necessarily, the use of anthracite is relatively single, even with the technical level of Jinghua, it can only be used for blast furnace injection and sintering iron ore fuel and casting fuel.

Useful is useful, but coking coal still does not solve.

There is a coal mine not far northwest of Ha Jing, and it is not difficult to dig it, but according to Liu Xin's memory, the coal in that place is also mainly anthracite - it can be dug but not necessary, because Liu Xin has another supply place.

This supply site was later known as the Hongji Coal Mine, which was located near Ha Long Bay in the northeast of Annam, and was the largest coal mine in Southeast Asia. Although the coal mines here are mainly anthracite, in general, there are still many types of coal, and there are enough coking coal and other types of coal to meet the high practical demand.

In fact, before the high pragmatic crossing, Daming had used earth kilns to coke and smelt iron with coke, but the technical content was very low, and the quality of the iron smelted was not good.

After the high pragmatic crossing, on the basis of the original technology of the Ming Dynasty, two kinds of earth kilns were made, round kiln and long kiln, the former is suitable for areas with low groundwater level and good coal coking; The latter is less affected by groundwater and has a shorter coking time because the bottom of the furnace is higher than the ground, which is suitable for areas with more rain and slightly worse coal coking.

But Gao pragmatic also knows that the characteristics or shortcomings of the clay kiln are that the coking chamber and the combustion chamber are not separated, and the coking heat source relies on the gas produced during the dry distillation of coal and part of the coal material burning, so the coking rate is low, the coke ash content is high, and the coking time is long about 8~12 days and nights - as for the chemical products can not be recycled, and the air pollution is serious, he ignores it.

Just knowing that it is not possible, you have to think of improvements, but he did not succeed in this for several years, and then he still thought about it and asked Zhu Zaiyu to help design and improve, so he came up with a round kiln with a fixed vault, which is called a honeycomb coke oven.

The coal loading capacity of this coke oven is about 10,000 catties per hole, and the coking time is reduced to two to three days, which greatly improves the efficiency and the coking quality is also extremely excellent in the current era, ensuring that Jinghua is a leader in steel production.

These two circumstances determine one thing: the Hejing Iron Mine can be developed, but it needs to be "allocated" to the Huang family from Anbang Xuanfu Division Coal.

It must be a dream to expect Huang Zhiting and her family to dig coal by themselves, and Gao Pragmatic must let Jinghua participate, and he must lead - of course, it is not easy to dominate profits, but it must be dominated by production.

Therefore, after talking to Huang Zhiting, he sent someone to send a letter to Gao Xiaozhuang, asking him to prepare to send someone to "aid Vietnam".

Passing by Ha Hua Fu was mainly for iron ore, and when he arrived in Hue, Gao Pragmatic did not stay much, while telling Gao Jue and others to quickly incorporate the Annam army of Nguyen Huang in Hue, while continuing to go south with the Jiading Escort Regiment, heading towards Da Nang in his mind.

Hue is not far from Da Nang, about 100 miles, and it took less than three days to reach this bay.

This place is really just a small fishing village now, a huge bay, a radius of dozens of miles, and the population is less than 1,000 households, which is not as many as the family guards brought by Gao Pragmatism.

Under the assignment of Gao Pragmatic, the Jinghua Fleet also sent a part of the ships to Da Nang to inspect the conditions of the harbor, and the results were of course gratifying.

But Gao Jing, Boss Hu and Boss Li raised a question to Gao Pragmatic at the same time, but where is the market?

The location of Da Nang, which has entered Quang Nam, is the southernmost Xuanfu Division in Annam, and it is the "land of the Southern Barbarians" that was taken from the Cham people back then - my God, in their eyes, Annam is the land of the Southern Barbarians, and this place is still the Nanban of the Southern Barbarians, and it feels like there is no business opportunity just by sounding like it.

The first priority of business opportunities must first be people, and no one can talk about business opportunities? But what is lacking in this place is people!

However, if they can think of this, how can Gao Pragmatic not think of it? Although a large part of his reason for building Da Nang was to build a bridgehead to the South Seas, he did not intend to make a loss-making business - at least not in the long run.

Therefore, Gao pragmatic was very calm, but very godly, and said to them, "You can rest assured about this matter, the population will be soon, because in Quang Nam...... There are at least two large gold mines. ”

"Big gold mines?" Gao Jing and the other three of them opened their eyes together.

Boss Hu was even more busy, and then asked, "How big is the gold mine?" How would the press tell? ”

Of course, Gao Pragmatic couldn't say that Liu Xin told him, so he could only continue to pretend to be a ghost, and said, "How do you know?" Don't you know? ”

Oh...... There is this legend, after all, the vision of high press platform prospecting is accurate, and no one in the world can stand out.

Boss Hu and Boss Li were both excited, rubbing their hands together and asking in unison, "I see, I don't know how much gold these two big gold mines can have?" ”

Gao said lightly, "There is one of them, there are at least four million taels of gold reserves. ”

"Shhh

"Four...... Four hundred...... Ten thousand taels? Boss Li trembled when he spoke, and the whole person was a bit like a swing.

"Four million taels...... Or is it just one of them? "Boss Hu's situation is not much better than that of Boss Li, he lives like a pair of difficult brothers.

Gao pragmatic smiled, "Yes, one of them." ”

He really wasn't joking, this is a gold mine that Liu Xin specially highlighted, that is, the Pengmiao Gold Mine in later generations, its reserves are cautiously estimated to be 200 tons, that is, four million taels, if the "imprudent" estimate, maybe five million taels is also possible.

Four million taels of silver can already make countless people grab their heads, what is the concept of four million taels of gold?

Not to mention anything else, as long as Gao Pragmatic puts this news out, even Daming doesn't know how many gold diggers will come - human beings' desire for gold has almost never decayed! And there is no distinction between Chinese and foreign.

At this moment, Boss Hu and Boss Li even wanted to change their careers to pan for gold here.

It's a pity that Gao Pragmatic immediately extinguished their hopes, because Gao Pragmatic said, "But Guangnan is so big, with a radius of hundreds of miles, and only Benji knows the approximate location of these two gold mines......

The golden flames in the eyes of the two bosses had just risen and were extinguished.

That's right, what if there is a gold mine, this is not a radius of dozens of miles, but a radius of hundreds of miles in the Nanban region, those two big gold mines only know the location of the high press platform, what is the use of let's top?

Can you find it? Can you dig it? Can it be transported?

"Then, I don't know how the press plans to develop these two gold mines?"

Gao pragmatic smiled and said, "The two bosses are smart people, and they are really thorough - let's put it this way, one of the mines, I Jinghua asked for it myself; The other mine, Jinghua does not want, is specially used to attract gold diggers. And then what...... This press will open a flight, divided into multiple routes, from the Ming Dynasty to transport these gold diggers in a steady stream, if the two are interested, you can also participate in this matter, and spread the news widely. ”

Oh...... So that's what happened.