There are large wild bamboo forests outside Lizhai. The exploration team asked the local Li people to help, cut dozens of bamboos down, selected thick ones to cut them into about the same length, and the thinner ones were cut into bamboo strips and twisted into ropes to tie the bamboo rafts. When the king didn't catch a pheasant, he took out some of his share of sugar and asked a local carpenter to help make the raft.

According to the local Li population, the upstream is relatively rugged because of the gradual entry into the mountainous terrain, and it is often necessary to cross the shallows and rapids. In order to facilitate the passage, the bamboo raft can not be made too large, and the width of the raft made is controlled below 1.2 meters, similar to the simple bamboo raft used in Hunan, Jiangxi and other places, each bamboo raft can carry 5 people, but they have more equipment, so they finally made three. The carpenters in the stockade made bamboo benches and fastened them to the rafts. The icing on the cake was the addition of a canopy to each raft – the sun was shining here.

It took less than a day to build the bamboo raft. Early on the morning of the third day, Li Benqing's malaria had completely recovered, and he was not only conscious, but also his appetite had recovered. He Ping gave him another dose of medicine as a consolidation.

Li Benqing was so grateful to this group of strange Han people who cured his illness that he couldn't wait to take out all the belongings of the family to reward him. Such a cold and heat. It will have an attack once a year. Every time, I have to die like this, and I will toss it for almost a month to get better. This time, I took the medicine for three days and was fine, and the Han people also said that they would not relapse in the future this time. Although I will be skeptical, it is absolutely true that the medicine will work immediately.

It's just that he has nothing left in his house except two machetes and a few crossbow machines. Li Benqing was very embarrassed, so he had to go out to hunt some game to entertain him, but was stopped by Xiong Buyou.

"It's okay with the game, we've been here for a few days and want to go upstream today. Can you help find a guide who is familiar with the place? ”

"Go upstream?" Li Benqing is a little strange, this place is rarely visited by Li people. If you want to collect medicine, you can find it on the mountains upstream, and you can also collect it on the nearby hills.

"Yes, go to Shiluling, do you know this place?" Xiong Buyou asked.

"I haven't heard of it." Li Benqing's refusal was extremely simple. Let the exploration team be suspicious. But according to Mu Min, this person is not lying - she has been a police officer for many years, and it can be seen whether she is lying or not.

Xiong Buyou did not give up, and continued to gesticulate: "There is a river at the foot of the mountain, which flows into the Changhua River, and it is called the Shilu River-"

Li Benqing still shook his head.

Cui Yunhong thought of it:

"Ask him, is there a mountain with green stones?"

The so-called green stone is copper ore - malachite. And the name Shilu comes from malachite. Because the local Li and Han ethnic groups in Hainan are accustomed to putting modifiers after them to express the habit of nouns when speaking, the so-called Shilu is actually "green stone".

Shiluling was first noticed, not because of the iron ore, but because of the copper ore on the surface here. Since the Qing Dynasty, there have been people digging and stealing digging. It was not until 1935 that when the Qiongya Industrial Bureau sent people to Shiluling to investigate the copper mine, it was discovered for the first time that the richest mineral reserves in Shilu were iron ore.

"Yes, yes." Li Benqing suddenly realized, "You are going to Yayuling!" ”

Xiong Buyou didn't know what Yayuling was, but Cui Yunhong knew it, and the content of the textbook had already become clear.

"Yes, yes, it's Yayuling!" Cui Yunhong nodded again and again, thinking that he was really confused, the place name Shilu was only used in the Qing Dynasty. Now it is still the world of the Ming Dynasty.

The king said, "Uncle, haven't you been to Yayuling before?" ”

Li Benqing's face was ugly. One person muttered for a long time, and everyone waited anxiously, but Li Benqing spoke a broken Hainanese, except for Xiong Buyou, there was really no one who could communicate with him.

After a while, Li Benqing lowered his voice and said, "I'm afraid that a few shopkeepers aren't hawkers, right?" ”

Everyone was shocked when they heard this, Xiong Buyou smiled and said, "What are we doing here to do business." ”

Li Benqing said: "A few shopkeepers have cured my illness, so I will say a few more words," he rested for a while, "It's nothing to lead everyone to Yayuling, it's not far from here, and the road is not difficult." I haven't been there a few times, but I still know the way. It's just that I advise a few: the gold and silver on this Yayuling. They are all towns in Qiongzhou, which are cared for by the gods and cannot be taken. ”

It turns out that there are rumors that there is a treasure on this Yayuling, and it has been there many years ago. Even if there are no rumors of gold and silver in the mountains, the copper mine itself is extremely attractive. Therefore, every ten or decades, as long as Li Tong is quiet and quiet, there are Han people who come together to open mines in Yayuling, but no one has ever succeeded, either because of the collapse of the mine and the death and injury, they have to abandon it. Over time, it is rumored that the mountains here are the big towns of the island, and the feng shui is an important place, protected by the gods.

After listening to Li Benqing's gossip, everyone knew that this Shiluling had long been famous. It seems that the so-called lack of pioneering spirit of the Chinese and the like are pure farts, in the ancient society with low level of jishu and closed transportation, how can a nation without adventurous spirit do it by trekking hundreds of miles in this barren mountain to open mines?

"We don't go to gold and silver, we just want to go to Yayuling to see," Xiong Buyou continued to persuade, "and we'll leave in a few days." ”

Li Benqing said: "Take you there, it's all on me." It's just that I asked a few shopkeepers to think about it. ”

Guy Wang didn't have these taboos, and said with a smile: "Uncle, you can go and take them there, come back and the shopkeepers will reward you with a few catties of sugar, you can also use it to ask for an aunt for me, you don't have to go to the door of 'Boudoir' every day to sing and find a woman to 'scare too'!" ”

Li Benqing smiled: "You are young, what are you talking about?" Don't just learn this! ”

The so-called "boudoir" is a special building in Lizhai. When several women in the same village reach the age of marriage, they will build a house by themselves on the edge of the village, and go there to sleep at night, and the man who intends to find a mate will go to the "boudoir" and "slightly a" every night, and if the woman likes, he will stay with the man. Most people say that they go to "Boudoir", they all say "slightly a", that is, the meaning of falling in love, and a few people say "scared too", which refers to two people having sex.

At the moment, it was discussed that Li Benqing would lead the way to Yayuling, but as for the reward, Li Benqing was originally unwilling to ask for it, so Cui Yunhong gave him a new hook knife, a bottle of liquor and a few catties of sugar. Li Benqing liked it very much, so he accepted it.

Taking care of his initial recovery, the expedition team rested in Lizhai for another day, and the exploration team was not idle in the past few days, and roughly investigated the resources around Lizhai and drew a topographic map. In terms of resources, in addition to the Saponaria forest, a small-scale tin mine was also found nearby, but unfortunately the transportation is inconvenient and has no mining value.

Early the next morning, the crowd went upstream on a bamboo raft. Wang's men stayed in Li Zhai to take care of the goods and luggage they left behind. The group traveled lightly, bringing only the necessary equipment and camping tools. Li Benqing brought dry food and salt by himself, and carried a crossbow on his back. Mu Min curiously asked if all the arrows he brought were poisoned.

"No, poison dart wood is hard to find. If you find it, the local Han people are not allowed to use it. Li Benqing gestured. The Han people he said were officials in the city of Changhua.

I heard that poison dart wood is not easy to find, and several camping enthusiasts are a little interested. However, everyone is very interested in his crossbow, and they take turns fiddling, the structure of this crossbow is very simple, and the effective range will not exceed 50 meters, no wonder Li Benqing said that he mainly used this to hit the ground crossbow in a place infested with wild beasts. However, he rarely hunted with crossbow arrows - if he wanted to sell his furs, he would not be worth anything if he had been pierced by a crossbow arrow. Li Benqing's hunting is mainly kao digging traps and setting up all kinds of traps. Several hunting enthusiasts in the exploration team took turns to exchange relevant experiences with him on the bamboo raft, and for most of the day, they even made a fuss about the general meaning of the comparison. The relationship has also warmed up a lot.

Li Benqing really hit a lot of animals. Jiang Muzhi, who was in charge of collecting biological data on the exploration team, soon learned from his description that there were economically valuable animals such as weasel badgers, otters, large and small civets, and civets, as well as hares and wild boars. The most surprising thing is that there are also black bears in the area.

"This thing is not easy to mess with—" Li Benqing shook his head, "Run fast, and climb trees." ”

However, this resource is of little use to the traversers, they do not need bear skins to make hats, and the use of bear bile is not on the agenda, so deerskin is relatively more useful.

Li Benqing said that there are two kinds of deer in the local area, one large and one small. The exploration team quickly figured out that the big one was a sambar deer, and the small one was a red muntjac. Both types of deer are extremely economically valuable.

Because there are few opportunities for forestry professionals to conduct field animal investigations, an old hunter like Li Benqing is the most haode investigation object, and it is commendable that he can describe the characteristics of each hunted animal quite accurately, which makes the judgment of the traversal much easier.

Li Benqing saw that they took a notebook and kept recording his words, both surprised and proud, and couldn't figure out how these Han people would value these things except for chewing their tongues and gossiping on weekdays, and they also took the words and wrote them down. The mystery of their presence has increased.

Because it is the dry season, the amount of water is not large, and the water flow is very gentle, so it is not difficult to prop the boat upstream with a penny, but it is often necessary to pass through the rocky shallows, and everyone often has to get off the raft to push it over. In some places, rocky beaches have risen out of the water, and bamboo rafts have to be carried over to continue on the way.

As the raft ascended, the exploration team carefully observed the changes in the main channel and the adjacent tributaries, and kept recording the surrounding topography and vegetation types. The shore is sparsely wooded, but the bushes and grasses are dense, and bamboo rafts row by, which occasionally alarms birds and some unknown small animals in the grass. There is no sign of human activity on either side of the strait – the Han Chinese miners who Li Benqing said were adventurous have not left much trace here.

At three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the raft finally arrived at the place that was later known as the town of Sanchaohe, which was of course still a barren grassland. The current became shallow, and the raft rubbed the sand and gravel at the bottom of the river more than once. As for the Shilu River, this tributary of the Changhua River is now not able to sail at all, and can only barely drown people's ankles.

The exploration team decided to abandon the ship and land here, and everyone worked together to drag the bamboo raft ashore. According to Li Benqing, go upstream along the river. It's another fifty or sixty miles away. Because it was getting late, everyone camped here and prepared to leave early the next morning.

The exploration team lit a bonfire at the camp and lit many Artemisia annua mosquitoes. In order to prevent suspicion, the expedition team did not take out the equipment that was too eye-catching. Still, their matches, sleeping bags, and dry rations aroused Li Benqing's strong interest - especially matches. Dinner is a grassy series of dry food. Li Benqing ate rice crackers for the first time and actually said that they were delicious. Everyone gave him a lot of their share. Li Benqing made bamboo rice in return, and after adding a little salt and lemongrass, the taste of bamboo rice made everyone appetite.

As they were about to go to bed at night, they heard a suspicious roar. Thinking of what Li Benqing said about the black bear, many people became nervous. In order to ensure a safe sleep, Cui Yunhong took care of the guns and prepared them, and at the same time lit a more vigorous fire, and everyone took turns on duty, constantly refueling a large amount of fuel - the branches of hay and small shrubs were everywhere here.

The next day, they all got up at five o'clock in the morning, hurriedly had breakfast and went back on the road. Everyone continued to walk along the river Xiangshang, turning around and turning around, Kao followed the compass, the map and the guidance of Li Benqing, and walked another fifty or sixty miles, and at sunset, they finally reached the foot of the mountain, and the clear river water slowly flowed out of a valley in front of them.

"This is Yayuling." Li Benqing pointed.

Cui Yunhong knew where he was, he found the compass, looked at the sunset, the compass pointer pointed to the southwest, and looked in the direction of the pointer, it was a reddish-brown peak. He nodded, this area should be the famous Hainan Shilu magnetite.

Everyone was excited, Shilu Iron Mine! This is China's largest Lou Tianfu iron mine, with an average iron content of more than 42%, and magnetite reserves of nearly 300 million tons! It is also accompanied by a variety of ores such as cobalt, copper, nickel, silver, sulfur, dolomite, etc., and if it were not for the lack of coal production here, Shiroku would be a natural large-scale coal-iron complex base.

Cui Yunhong was dizzy with excitement, almost fell down, and was about to climb up the mountain with the equipment in one go, but everyone hurriedly stopped it, saying that it was almost dark now, it was not safe to climb the mountain, and it was not too late to go again tomorrow.

At present, a camp is set up by the stream. There was nothing to say all night, and the next day, Cui Yunhong led the team and formed a team of 5 people to go up the mountain. The rest remained in the camp.

Yayuling is not high, and there is no steepness in the mountain. The overall vegetation on the hillside is still a savanna landscape, with a large area of thatch more than one person high. Although it is better than the rainforest, the climb is quite difficult. Fortunately, with Li Benqing, an old hunter, leading the way, he will choose a route with sparse vegetation.