Early the next morning, Hong Tao took Karl, Qi Zu and three whaling team members, armed with crossbows, and with the assistance of Cixi, drove two teams of 20 slaves onto the Predator and Explorer, dragged three small wooden boats, and propped up the sails along the Jin River. The small tributary, Hongtao, had been marked on its own chart, and it was seven or eight kilometers upstream from the camp, and it was easy to find.

"It's a fine stone, just dig it out of here. I don't know how to look at the mine, I need other people's manpower, if this place is dug up, it will be gone, and I need to find the mine again. When Hong Tao took Qi Zu to the place where he had last found the ore, Qi Zu chiseled a few stones from the exposed rock with a hammer and looked at it in the sunlight, and immediately nodded in affirmation of Hong Tao's judgment. But at the same time, he also pointed out the current problem, which was the lack of professionals, and he was able to make do with these slaves to mine, but could not find more copper mines.

"It's okay, you do it first, I'll solve the people's affairs, hehehe......" Hong Tao said about people, and couldn't help but laugh evilly, Qi Zu was deceived by him, or kidnapped, he went to find someone, it was nothing more than this method.

"Well, it's all fate...... Let's get to work. When Qi Zu saw Hong Tao's smile, he knew what he was thinking, and this emotion was difficult to explain clearly. Hong Tao was a kidnapper and an enemy to him, but the life provided by Hong Tao made him feel that Hong Tao was a benefactor. Whether it was hatred or favor, he couldn't figure it out for the time being, so he simply didn't think about it, and beckoned Cixi to drive the slaves to work.

"Dig a bunch of rocks for each person! Or there is no food to eat! Hurry up! Cixi didn't understand what a mine was or not, he thought it was another stone to build a house, and shook the leather whip made of whale skin in his hand crackled. This whip is his heirloom, he carries it with him all the time, he sleeps in his arms, for others, it is just a whip, for him, this is what life is all about.

"Cixi, don't have so many rations, not all stones are needed, if you want this, do you see, so there are yellow-green stones on it." Hong Tao likes this Cixi more and more, not admiring, just liking. With him, everyone in the camp saved a lot of effort, and at least they didn't have to turn over the past when they ordered the slaves to work.

"Everyone looks at it, and if they can't remember it, they don't have anything to eat, so they want such stones, such a big pile for each person!" Cixi trotted to Hong Tao, took the copper ore from Hong Tao's hands with both hands, then held it above her head, ran back to the slaves, let the slaves see clearly one by one, and finally stretched out her arms and drew an approximate scale, even if the amount of labor for the day was set.

"Cixi, come here, take this and follow me!" After all the slaves had their tools and began to dig the mountain, Hong Tao pointed to the wooden barrels on the ground, and then walked upstream along the river with Carl. Cixi didn't look small, she carried a large wooden barrel on her back, which contained a lot of things, and she didn't have any difficulty at all, and honestly followed Karl more than three meters away, neither close nor far away.

Hong Tao is only interested in copper, and has no curiosity about copper mining, if Cixi is allowed to command there, those slaves will inevitably receive a few more whips, this dog-legged man likes to show loyalty in front of him, as long as he is present, he will not even let go of his own son being lazy, he is really a ruthless person. Hong Tao took Carl and Cixi to go to the gold panning, there are not only copper mines by the river, but also golden sand, and in the barrel is the gold panning tool that Hong Tao asked the Wen family to make, a kind of wooden dustpan, whether it is good or not, you have to try, that thing is Hong Tao made according to the memory of watching movies in later generations.

The three big men sat barefoot by the river and sifted the sand to play, which was not interesting at all, and if it weren't for the fact that he could not find some small golden particles at the bottom of the dustpan from time to time, Hong Tao could only hold on for ten minutes. Even with the presence of those golden sands, Hong Tao only lasted for a morning, and after lunch, he quit, took Carl on board the boat and returned to the Predator, and then raised the sail and went down the river to the camp.

He threw the work of copper mining and gold mining to Qi Zu and Cixi, it doesn't matter if there are not enough slaves, with Cixi as a Filipino traitor taking the lead, you can catch as many slaves as you want, there are many small fishing villages like Cixi's family along the coast of Manila Bay, and there is a raid in the middle of the night, and more than a dozen or even dozens of people are captured. Those who dare to run and resist will be shot and killed, resolutely leaving no mouths alive, and they will not know the ghosts.

Hong Tao himself doesn't have much preference for this kind of slave hunting game, and after watching too much life and death and painful life, he will inevitably have negative emotions in his heart. But this job must be done by someone, not only to capture enough labor, but also to train these whaling team members to dare to pull the trigger on anyone, just because his life is threatened and passively counterattack team member Hong Tao does not want it, he wants a group of wicked people who dare to create death and can create death in different ways. Only in this way did he dare to take them to explore farther places, dare to take them to any land that he thought was good, and turn anything he fancied directly into his own.

In early November, the Predator and the Whaler set sail together, and Hong Tao and his crew were to embark on a real voyage to the eastern entrance to the Straits of Malacca, which would later be known as Singapore. With a one-way journey of more than 3,000 kilometers and an estimated sailing time of 20 days, more than 30 young people on both ships will spend the Spring Festival at sea, and then return to Jinhe Bay, which will be 1230 years.

In order to minimize the danger, the two identical sailing ships were equipped with three more whale crossbows, and each was also equipped with two harpoons, a machete and two hand crossbows. At the moment both ships are cruising ships, not battleships, speed is an advantage, they are not afraid of anyone in the sea, and the reason why they carry so many weapons is mainly to prepare for the landing. Who said that the expedition can't be robbed easily, as long as it's not a ship of the Great Song Dynasty, Hong Tao plans to rob whoever is not pleasing to the eye, if there is a Great Song ship that dares to take the initiative to provoke himself, he doesn't mind adding a few more Song slaves to the Jinhe mine.

The night before departure, Hong Tao held hands with Bo Zhu in his cabin, in order to make Bo Zhu pregnant as soon as possible. Every time I see the old man Bo Fu, this matter is the focus of discussion, I have been married for a year, and I haven't separated much, why is Bo Zhu not pregnant? Could it be that some of the organs of the Hong rats that have the ability to grow the world have been affected by time and space? The answer is no, Hong Tao feels that there is nothing wrong with him, the culprit of Bo Zhu's non-pregnancy is himself, he doesn't want Bo Zhu, who is just 19 years old, to have a child so early.

Everything was good in the Song Dynasty, but the medical treatment was still so inadequate, and childbirth was a ghost gate for any woman, and the queen was no exception. In this case, Hong Tao was unwilling to watch Bo Zhu leave in pain, as long as there was such a possibility, he would not be happy. So why are you willing to do so now? Because he sailed a little far this time, whether he could come back or not was not something he could control, and if Bo Zhu lost herself without even having a child, it might not be a good thing for her.

"Rong Wengweng, if we don't come back by February, you can arrange the rest. My suggestion was to abandon Ximaozhou, take all the people there, boil whale oil here, and then we would send it to Guangzhou by boat to Luo Youde. We have the technology of shipbuilding, and there will be copper mines in the future, and it is not a problem to feed thousands of people here, it is more comfortable than rushing to the sea. Before leaving, Hong Tao drove all the people who saw them off, except for the 10 people on the board of directors, and told them his decision, if he really couldn't come back, Jinhewan would be a gift from himself.

"Tao Lingzi, can you not go, if you want to go, you can wait for the big ship to be built before going, it can be safer." Wen Lao Er didn't want Hong Tao to have an accident, the keel of the big ship had been laid, this was a completely different ship type from before, although Hong Tao had broken the construction method with their brothers in the past few months and said I don't know how many times, but he still hoped that Hong Tao could always be by his side, many things had never been encountered when building ships before, it was useless to ask anyone, only to ask Hong Tao, the original designer.

"Wen Bo, you have been on the shore for too long, when did our Tan family be afraid of the sea, these things are given to us by the sea, if we want to live a better life in the future, then we have to go to the sea! Why? One is a ship, the other is a man! Those wooden keels on your shore and these Tanka children on my boat are the capital for us to earn a living in the future. If you don't go to the open sea, they will always have to row a small boat to fish, and even if you build a big boat, they won't be able to drive it. Hong Tao understands Wen Laoer's feelings, but he has his own timetable, if he can't train a group of qualified sailors as soon as possible, it will be useless to build a big ship. Now there is no time to slowly train sailors for him step by step, he can only pull out the seedlings to help him grow, and he will not take risks where the benefits will come from.

"You go, if you can't come back, I'll build you a temple on this mountain, and there will be incense every year. The big ship still has to be built, and the far sea has to be built! We're not afraid! "Old man Rong is worthy of being a native of territorial waters, he can understand Hong Tao's meaning better than everyone else, and he also agrees with Hong Tao's statement. Life and death have seen too much for him, and he and Hong Tao resonate the most in this regard, one is not strange, the other is a game of life, and they are not afraid of death.