After walking for more than half a day, Su Yan led the team to the place where he had marked ten days ago, where Su Yan found three green stones, which proved to be copper ore, and there were copper mines in the nearby area.

Su Yan looked around and could see that the area in front of him had fewer trees than other areas.

Su Yan used a wooden stick to scratch on the ground, and it didn't take long to find a piece of green copper ore, Su Yan took the copper ore and said to the clansmen: "You are scattered in groups of five, looking for this green stone, pay attention to safety when looking for it." ”

Orders were given to quickly form groups of five tribesmen, each of four males and one female, the women of the tribe were weaker than the men, and they were in the protected category.

After dividing into groups, the nine groups of people dispersed, and Biao followed Su Yan with a group of people.

"King, here are the green stones."

"King, there are green stones here too."

"Green stones are also found here."

In just a few dozen breaths, the tribesmen successively reported their discoveries loudly, there were indeed many copper ores distributed under the decaying branches and leaves and a shallow layer of soil, this is a copper mine, or a surface mine, the copper ore is exposed on the surface, and it is very easy to mine this copper mine.

It's just that the scale of the copper mine can't be determined, but no matter how big or small the copper mine is, it is enough for the Dragon Tribe, which has a population of less than 2,000 people, to mine and smelt for the time being.

"Biao, gather the clansmen."

"Assemble! Assembled! Everyone's assembled! Biao took a deep breath and let go of his voice and shouted loudly, Su Yan, who was standing next to Biao, was a little uncomfortable in the face of Biao's shouting.

Hearing Biao's shouting, the nine groups of people who had scattered quickly converged in this direction, Su Yan didn't want the clansmen to disperse too far, so it was easier to encounter danger.

Soon, all the clansmen converged, and the green stones also gathered in a small pile, and Su Yan and the team continued to explore the surroundings, wanting to roughly determine the scope of the copper mine.

It wasn't until evening that Su Yan stopped and led the team to find a place to camp.

According to the exploration during the day, Su Yan roughly understood that the diameter of the surface of this copper mine was more than 300 meters, that is, copper ore was found everywhere in the area of 300 by 300, and copper ore was also found in the outer area, but it was distributed less and less.

The discovery of a large copper mine is of great significance to the Dragon Tribe, as long as the Dragon Tribe begins to smelt copper ore on a large scale, soon the Dragon Tribe will be able to enter the Bronze Age and even the Bronze Age from the Stone Age, and the tools cast in bronze are far better than the stone tools.

The most critical issue is the mining of copper ore and the smelting of copper ore.

The area where the copper mine is located is about half a day's distance from the dragon tribe's residence, not far but not close, it is impossible to start from the dragon tribe in the morning to the copper mine to mine copper ore and return to the dragon tribe in the evening, and it will take a day to travel back and forth, and there is no time to mine copper ore.

Su Yan thought about it carefully and felt that a temporary camp should be built in the copper mine area, and a group of clansmen should be arranged to live here and mine copper ore all day, saving the time wasted by walking back and forth.

As for the number of tribesmen who arranged mining, the total population of the Dragon tribe was not large, and there were only about 1,700 slaves, of which nearly 250 were male laborers, and more than 300 were pregnant women.

Mining is a manual work, the clansmen cannot mine for a long time, they need to work for a period of time and rest for a while, Su Yan thought about dividing all the adult labor force into three batches, with an average of one hundred and eighty people, and men and women should be evenly distributed among the three batches as much as possible.

The three groups of people are divided into three teams: Team A, Team B, and Team C, Team A lives in the copper mine area and mines copper ore every day, Team B is responsible for transporting food from the Dragon Tribe's residence to the copper mining area, and then transporting the copper ore mined by Team A back to the Dragon Tribe, and Team C is responsible for the daily work of the Dragon Tribe, fishing, hunting, building houses, etc.

About every ten days, the three teams of A, B and C rotate the labor projects, and the three teams will carry out all three labor projects in a month, and will not let one team of people keep doing the heavy physical work of mining copper ore, and after ten days, they can rotate other labor as a relaxation.

The number of a team is about 180 people, so the temporary camp in the copper mining area can accommodate 180 people.

The main time for copper mining is spring and summer, autumn is busy with autumn harvest, and winter is cold to stop most activities at home, so the temporary camp houses only need the kind of simple shelter from the rain made of wood and plant leaves, and the houses inhabited by 180 people are expected to be built in three days, and there is no need to spend a lot of time building tiled houses.

Su Yan, an earthen blast furnace for smelting copper ore, was not intended to be built near the copper ore mining area, but in the area near the Dragon Tribe's residence.

As the king of the Dragon Tribe, Su Yan has to sit in the Dragon Tribe's residence most of the time, and building the earthen blast furnace in the area near the Dragon Tribe's residence is conducive to Su Yan's improvement of the earthen blast furnace, in addition, there is a large amount of clay in the area near the Dragon tribe that can be used to burn adobe bricks to build an earthen blast furnace, and there is not much water resources in the copper mine area, so it is very difficult to burn adobe bricks.

For the journey between the Dragon Tribe and the copper mine, Su Yan thought of a way to shorten the time taken to travel back and forth - open up the wasteland, use fire to burn a road in the jungle between the Dragon Tribe and the copper mine, and the clansmen will walk on the road opened up, the round-trip time will be less than one day, and in the future, they can also make a car, and use the car to transport copper ore on a large scale more easily.

However, the matter of clearing the wasteland has to wait for a while, every time the dragon tribe opens up the wasteland, it will wait until the end of the spring and the rainy season arrives, and only in the weather that is about to rain will Su Yan dare to command the clansmen to set fire to the wasteland.

Once it doesn't rain on the day of the wilderness, the fire burns out and the rain doesn't extinguish the fire, the fire will only continue to spread, burning a large area of the jungle, and the homes of the primitive tribes living in the jungle may be burned by the fire, and even some primitive people will be burned to death by the fire, and more seriously, the dragon tribe itself will also be affected by the fire of the wasteland.

Therefore, we must be careful when clearing the wasteland, as a mistake will lead to a disaster.

On the second day of exploring the copper mine, Su Yan gave up the idea of continuing to explore the copper mine, anyway, he had almost explored it, and it was clear that this copper mine was a copper mine suitable for mining, and other things such as copper ore grade were not important, and it was enough to find a copper mine suitable for mining.

After breakfast, Su Yan took the exploration team on the way back.