It took them almost three hours to reach the top of the mountain. () Look out from here. As far as the eye can see, there are high and low hills, with savanna vegetation in the near distance and lush forests in the distance.

Everyone carefully observed the surrounding soil and vegetation. In some places, we have also tried to dig up the probes. The soils on the slopes are typical of southern laterite, with no special ore overheads. Although this iron ore is called a lough day, it is still covered with several meters of soil. They had to determine where the iron ore was worth mining – the Traverser didn't have the powerful machines of modern mining to remove the cover from the mine's surface on a large scale.

After digging a few prospecting parties, Cui Yunhong was still not satisfied and decided to use modern geophysical prospecting equipment to find it. Showing his most precious transient electromagnetic instrument, bolt detector and ultrasonic detector for a while, he finally delineated several sites that could be developed, and went down to dig less than 1 meter, and found magnetite ore. He knocked down a piece and looked at it, and sure enough, it was a rare iron-rich ore.

Li Benqing saw that the leading shopkeeper took a few strange things and tossed them, so he began to dig a pit, dug out a stone and put it in his pocket like a treasure. However, this stone is neither gold nor silver, nor is it the favorite green stone of the Han people, so I can't help but be inexplicable.

Cui Yunhong led the team to walk more than ten miles down the mountain, and successively discovered a number of ore sites suitable for mining, and found an associated pyrite. It's a pity that the transportation is inconvenient, otherwise it is a good fertilizer for the agricultural sector.

As for the legendary malachite mine, it has never been found, but Cui Yunhong has not paid attention to it - their demand for copper is very limited compared to iron, and the Japanese red copper imported from Guangdong is almost enough.

Several people carried equipment on the hillside and ridge to trek all the way, and from time to time they had to dig pits and frame equipment to draw. In the hot sun, everyone was sweating profusely, and the fragments of miscanthus stuck to the skin, painful and itchy.

Finally, when it was time to eat and rest at noon, I drank the salt water of He Ping in the morning, and the rice crackers that everyone agreed to be difficult to eat were also eaten by the chirp. The physical exertion is just too much.

"Do you want to continue exploring in the afternoon?" Jiang Muzhi, the representative of the industrial mouth, asked breathlessly, his physical fitness was relatively poor, and he had more fat, and he was already a little unbearable after tossing all morning.

Originally, Cui Yunhong didn't want to take him to join the expedition, but Bai Guoshi left with the ship and was about to lead another expedition team to Tiandu, and there was no one in the team who knew more about biology and animals and plants.

"Of course, it's not easy to come once, so you have to collect as much information as you can."

"God, let me go back to the 21st century, when will this day be the end!" Someone finally couldn't take it anymore and wailed.

"It's like eating KFC." Someone stared blankly at the sky, "There are also lamb kebabs, grilled chicken bones, grilled corn ...... at the entrance of our school."

"It's too late to think about it now, so you can work honestly." Cui Yunhong said with a smile.

"It's such a big mountain, it's not easy to mine, right?" Jiang Muzhi asked.

"It's not difficult to mine," Ye Yuming said. "If you completely ignore the rules and regulations on mine safety, you can give me 50 workers. Purely manual operation, only one shift during the day, 2 tons of ore per person per day is no problem. 100 tons of ore can be produced in one day, and it is almost 40,000 tons of iron ore in a year. "He used to work as a mine safety supervisor and knew a lot about mine blasting and mining.

"Aren't you building a black coal kiln?"

"It's not dark, it's average. Besides, this kind of lou sky mine does not need to dig a tunnel at all, just remove the overlying soil. Ye Yuming looked around at the mountain, "Actually, the amount of earth and rock in this mountain is not too large, if there is enough explosives, it can be blasted out as a whole——"

How many people gasped and exploded overall? Obediently, just drop a mountain, it's really a big deal.

Cui Yunhong knew that this was not an exaggeration, it was very common to blast out a mountain as a whole in Lou Tian mining, and there was not much difficulty on Jishu - as for whether the crossing group had this ability, it was another matter.

"40,000 tons of iron ore a year, Ji is silent and doesn't smile crookedly."

"Such haode is rich in iron ore, and it can be directly made into steel."

"And that's just on the basis of fifty diggers, each with ten hours a day." Ye Yuming said, "When the Japanese opened mines in Shiroku, each worker worked 14 hours per shift, and the quota was 8 tons. The mines at that time had a small number of pickaxes, except for a small number of pickaxes. There is also no talk of how much mechanized mining there is. With our ability to cross the group, it is no problem to maintain a mining team of two or three hundred people, and mine 150,000 tons of iron ore a year. ”

Cui Yunhong said: "In fact, it doesn't take much to mine such a lou day, but it has to be matched. Just the workers have to build a small village just to eat, drink, and Lazar, and it is not possible to arrange it well. Mining and ore transportation are high-intensity labor, the quality of life is too poor, and the mortality rate will be very high. Unless they engage in death-based mining like the Japanese and directly fill it with human lives, the mine will collapse in a few months. ”

Yellow Paw said proudly: "In the future, we will catch men from Japan to come and open mines!" ”

"No matter who drives it, the amount of work is not small." Cui Yunhong said, "The difficulty of Shilu lies in the difficulty of transporting ore. He opened the map, "Originally, the Changhua River provided a convenient passage to the sea, but unfortunately Shiluling is not on the bank of the Changhua River, and the only feasible passage is the same route as the Japanese chose back then, from Shiluxiu Railway to Basho." Then he went to sea from Hachisho. ”

However, the construction of this route was quite difficult, and the terrain along the way was complicated, and the Japanese army laid this 55-kilometer railway line with tens of thousands of workers, and it took 5 months to complete.

The line is from the port of eight to the north of Li, the terrain is flat, and the area between the north Li and the treasure bridge is hilly; To the east of Baoqiao is the mountainous area. The 15-kilometre-long valley and hilly area between Beili and Baoqiao is particularly arduous. A total of 17 bridges were built along the line, including 3 bridges, 3 middle bridges, 11 small bridges, and 178 culverts. All are reinforced concrete or iron frame structures. There is also a tunnel built between the stone roads of Baoqiao, with a total length of 250 meters.

Hachisho was originally a small fishing village, but in order to accommodate the entry of ore ships of more than 10,000 tons, it was expanded into an artificial port. The entire Shiroku development, which includes mines, railways, ports and power plants, employs 140,000 workers. The number of dead and injured workers was in the tens of thousands.

Listen to this number. Everyone felt that it was really not feasible to open a mine here, and Jiang Muzhi whispered: "In this case, didn't we come for nothing?" The Executive Committee will definitely not develop Shiroku. ”

"I also think that at least in the first five years, Jihua will not use this brain." Ye Yuming said, "If you want me to say, instead of bothering to build a railway to Basho and then build a man-made port in Basho, it is better to simply build it directly to Tiandu, and the two major mining areas are connected and transported out of Yulin, a natural port." ”

"The route is about 180 kilometers long, and it's not easy. The Japanese didn't finish it until 43 years. ”

After the discussion on the development prospects of the Shilu iron ore mine, the relieved expedition team continued their investigation activities on the mountain range, during which Cui Yunhong collected other kinds of ore, but malachite always refused to show up - is it his bad luck? Cui Yunhong really wondered that Shilu has been famous for copper ore for hundreds of years, indicating that malachite should be very common on the surface. The search did not end until it was getting late.

On the second and third days, the expedition team continued to investigate and explore around Shiluling, during which it also met a certain black bear unexpectedly, and the two sides looked at each other for a few minutes and then ended with the black bear taking the initiative to retreat.

Cui Yunhong saw that there would be no new discoveries if he continued to investigate, so early on the morning of the fourth day, all the camps turned back. There were no words on the road. Back to the Sanchai River, the bamboo raft is still in place, after a night's rest, get on the boat and turn around, the speed of the boat is very fast, and it has returned to Lizhai in the afternoon.

Unexpectedly, as soon as I entered Li Village, I was surrounded by more than a dozen Li Ding, who were armed with knives and guns one by one, and their faces were serious. In the distance, many ordinary people in the stockade were looking. This jiashi startled Cui Yunhong, thinking that we didn't do anything bad?

"Xiao Mu, what do you think your compatriots are going to do?"

Mu Min said helplessly: "I'm a Li tribe, but I can't speak Li-"

I was in a panic. One of the leading figures in the middle bowed and spoke to them with a very respectful expression. However, I still couldn't understand a word

Fortunately, Li Benqing was there, it turned out that this person was an Aoya in the village, saying that the lord of the village was very sick, and he heard that they Han merchants had a miracle medicine, and they cured Li Benqing's cold and fever at once, and they also wanted to ask them to give a few magic medicines to save the lord.

Everyone was embarrassed when they heard this. If it's just malaria, that's easy, just give a few more chloroquine. But He Ping is just a half-baked hygienist, and if he wants to see a doctor seriously, it just happens that he is right, in case someone is cured - this is the family of the head of the village! In the 21st century, Chinese have to chase doctors and nurses in hospitals when their relatives die, let alone in primitive village houses in the 17th century.

He Ping said, "Let's go and have a look." ”

"Are you really going to heal this lord?" Mu Min was really not at ease.

"It's worse not to go. I think these people are quite sincere. ”

"But you don't even know what disease he has!" Mu Min said anxiously, "This is the lord of a mountain, if you die, the whole village will be angry with you, and it will be too late for us to save you-"

"Don't worry, I've been educated by Dr. Shi for a few months, and I still have basic medical skills, and I can always cope with the past. Besides, if we really want to leave, they may not be able to stop us. ”

Yellow Paw nodded: "Indeed, it's a big deal that we just kill it." If you are afraid of the people who will be affected, you can simply take Li Benqing away-"

"You can rest assured, if you find that it can't be cured, I'll give you some placebos, at most you will be driven away, and you won't be killed."

So they agreed to treat the main body, and the group first returned to Li Benqing's residence and counted the medicine box in the luggage, because it was used by the expedition team, and there were all kinds of bandages, dressings, common medicines, anti-inflammatory drugs and the like. There are also simple surgical instruments and sterilized medicines.

Everyone was cleaning up their things, Li Benqing went around outside and came back quietly, and said to Xiong Buyou with a worried face: "A few shopkeepers, I'm afraid that this master's illness can't be cured by medicine-"

Xiong Buyou hurriedly asked what was going on? Li Benqing whispered to them:

It turned out that the lord had been sick for seven or eight days, and he had also used the herbs of the Li people, but he had not been cured. The people in the village suspected that he was "banned". The so-called "forbidden" is similar to the meaning of ghosts and gods in Han land. It is believed that some magicians have summoned "ghosts" to harm people. The lord invited Dao Gong to be a ghost to lift the ban, but he couldn't solve it anyway. It is said that this "ghost" who was summoned is very powerful. So that no one dares to provoke this matter now.

"You are Han, why bother to provoke the Li family." Li Benqing kindly advised, "In case the person who imposes the ban is angry with you and also imposes a ban on you, won't it be a disaster!" ”

Naturally, people don't care about this, but they can't fearlessly say "We are the warriors of atheists", which is probably unconvincing.

"Old man, don't worry," Xiong Buyou comforted, "We have science—"

"You science ghosts are amazing?" Li Benqing's rhetorical question made everyone cry and laugh. It turns out that the primitive religious beliefs of the Li people do not have the concept of gods, and the supernatural liliang are called "ghosts".

As he was talking, Mu Min suddenly stepped forward and asked, "Since it is said that someone is forbidden, is it forbidden to be a male or a mother?" ”

"I heard that it was a forbidden mother, and the Oyaas have already called for someone to arrest this woman." Li Benqing shook his head and said, "Good haode woman, I don't know what evil happened." ”

"That's bad." Mu Min was a little anxious.

"What's wrong?" Everyone is confused.

Mu Min explained that whenever there is a so-called "forbidden" thing, the Taoist practice will name someone as a person who is "forbidden", the male is called "forbidden father", and the female is called "forbidden mother".

The people who were declared "forbidden males" and "forbidden mothers" were a bit similar to the "wizards" and "witches" in medieval Europe, and everyone feared and hated them, believing that they could be forbidden and harmful at any time. In this way, once someone in Li Zhai is accused of "banning the public" or "banning the mother", the masses will often kill them, and in some places it will be a little more relaxed, but it is inevitable that so-called "exorcism" methods such as torture and forcing naked baths will be inevitable. This phenomenon was not eradicated until the fifties with the vigorous intervention of the people's government.

Now that someone is considered to be a forbidden mother, this woman's life is in danger.

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The information about the "ban" of the Li nationality in Hainan, including all the folk customs and social customs of the Li nationality in this book, comes from the social survey data of the ethnic minorities in Hainan after the liberation of the government. Many of the phenomena, customs, and habits mentioned in this book actually existed from the Qing Dynasty or even the late Qing Dynasty, and there is little information about the Li people in the Ming Dynasty.