Zhao Yan and they climbed the bamboo tower for a while, Zhaoqu's youngest son brought up a pile of verdant bamboo tubes, and lit charcoal in the fire pit in the middle of the room, and then put the bamboo tubes on the fire to roast, and the bamboo tubes were already placed in the rice, pork, soy sauce, etc., which only needed to be roasted on the fire and eaten.

Zhaoqu is a veteran of making bamboo tube rice, while roasting while turning the bamboo tube, so that the bamboo tube is heated evenly, the result is not a while, the room is filled with a kind of bamboo is burnt smell, but it is not unpleasant, after about half an hour, Zhaoqu took the bamboo tube from the fire, and then gave it to Zhao Yan them, and when Zhao Yan opened the bamboo tube, immediately exuded an attractive fragrance from the bamboo tube, only to see the rice sauce in the bamboo tube, the aroma is elegant, which makes people have a great appetite at first sight.

"It's the first time I've seen this way of making rice, it's really novel, and it smells good, but I don't know how it tastes?" Su Shi said that he picked up the chopsticks and tasted it first, he was originally a foodie, and he had always been unable to control his mouth when he encountered novel food, so he couldn't care about letting Zhao Yan taste it first.

Zhao Yan naturally wouldn't blame Su Shi for some rude behavior, and immediately picked up the chopsticks and tasted it, but he also nodded in admiration, this bamboo tube rice tastes flexible and thorough, every grain of rice has a bit of tenacity, although the bamboo tube rice he ate in the hotel in the later life has a lot of ingredients, but it is not as delicious as the bamboo tube rice with simple ingredients in front of him.

Seeing Zhao Yan nodding in admiration after eating, Cao Song and the others also tasted it one after another, and the results were all praised, in fact, this simple bamboo tube rice may not be more delicious than the food they had eaten before, just because it is novel and rare to make such delicious dishes with simple ingredients, so they will feel very rare.

Zhao Yan never wastes food. After carefully eating the bamboo tube rice in front of him, he smiled and said to the old man of Zhaoqu next to him: "Zhaoqutou people, walking twenty or thirty miles east from you, is there a Shiluling?" ”

"Shirokuling?" The old man of Zhaoqu was stunned when he heard Zhao Yan's words, lowered his head and thought seriously for a moment, but shook his head and said. "This nobleman, twenty or thirty miles east from us, has already left our territory in Wulietong, but I can be sure that there is absolutely no such place as Shiluling!"

Zhao Yan said this to the old man of Zhaoqu, but he didn't show an expression of surprise, because Shiluling was originally the name of the later generations, and now I don't know what it is called? So he said patiently again: "Then please think about it seriously, is there a mountain in the east, and the mountain is full of green stones?" ”

"Oh~" As soon as I heard Zhao Yan say this. The old man of Zhaoqu immediately showed a quiet expression, and then patted his thigh and said, "I know when the noble man says so, dozens of miles east from us, there is indeed such a mountain, but we call it Green Head Ridge, and the mountain is indeed full of green stones as the noble man said." ”

"Zhaoqutou, are you sure that mountain is full of green stones?" When Su Song heard Zhaoqu's words, he stood up with a 'poof'. His face was full of excitement, and others didn't know what the green stone represented. But as one of the most outstanding scientists in the Great Song Dynasty, combined with what Zhao Yan said before, he naturally knew what those green stones represented.

Seeing Su Song so excited, he startled the old man of Zhaoqu again, but fortunately, he was old and well-informed, so he quickly calmed down and spoke again: "It's indeed all green stones. Some of the stones are still very beautiful, so they were taken back by some of our Li women to make jewelry, and we have some in Wulietong. ”

Hearing that there were green stones on Shilu Ridge in Wulie Mountain, Su Song immediately wanted to take a look, although Zhaoqu didn't know why the other party was interested in some stones. However, he immediately asked his younger son to find some green stones to make jewelry. At this time, Su Shi and the others finally reacted, and they were all very shocked, and even Xu Yuan, who had always been calm, said to himself: "The third brother said before that there is a treasure hidden here, and now a green stone has been found on the mountain, could it be a gem or a ......?"

Thinking of the latter possibility, Xu Yuan and the others couldn't help but look at Zhao Yan in shock again, although they all knew that Zhao Yan was very knowledgeable, and there was almost nothing he didn't understand about astronomy and geography, but now it seemed that they still underestimated Zhao Yan, and now he even knew so well where there were mineral deposits, which was like Zhuge Liang who could pinch and calculate.

For Xu Yuan's shock, Zhao Yan just showed an unfathomable smile, and did not make any explanation, in fact, he couldn't explain, he couldn't tell them that he came here a thousand years later, and he also had a friend who worked here, so he would be very familiar with this place, right?

After a while, Zhaoqu's youngest son ran back, holding two pieces of jewelry in his hand, the same is a bracelet and the same is a necklace, although the style is very different, but the use is a kind of green stone, which looks like malachite, but if you look closely, it is darker than the color of malachite, and there are some impurities on the surface of the stone, and it is estimated that it is not worth much.

Su Song hurriedly took these two pieces of jewelry and observed them carefully, but the more he looked at them, the more excited he became, and even his hands trembled, and finally raised his head and shouted to Zhao Yan: "Your Highness, this is really malachite, although the quality is worse and may not be valuable, but as long as there is malachite, it will inevitably be accompanied by a copper mine, that is to say, there is probably a copper mine buried under that Shiluling!" ”

For ancient people, copper is actually money, and even in the eyes of ordinary people, copper is more attractive than gold and silver, because although gold and silver are valuable, they cannot be circulated among ordinary people, but copper is different, whether it is copper products or copper nuggets, copper coins, these can be used as currency, because copper is originally the circulation currency stipulated by the imperial court.

It is also this quality of copper, in ancient times, a copper mine was actually equivalent to a money mine for them, they only need to dig out the copper in it to buy the one they need, whether it is food or clothing, which is why Su Song was so excited when he learned that there was a copper mine in the area under his rule, because as long as the copper ore is mined, it can not only bring wealth to Qiongzhou, but also bring popularity, because there must be many people who are willing to come here to mine.

"Haha, what is a copper mine?" Zhao Yan laughed when he heard Su Song's words and said, "I can tell you that copper ore is just an associated mine here, although the reserves are not small, but the real mineral deposits here are iron ore, and it is also rich in iron ore, the reserves are extremely amazing, if the iron here is mined, it can almost meet the steel needs of the entire Great Song Dynasty!" ”

In later generations, Hainan Island is probably the most famous is its beautiful scenery, but few people know that the mineral deposits on Hainan Island are actually very rich, the most important of which is iron ore, among which Shilu iron ore is known as China's first iron-rich ore, the iron ore here is not only high-yielding, the grade is as high as 60% or more, it is difficult to find such a high iron-rich ore in the whole Asia.

Speaking of China, although the land is vast, the reserves of iron ore are also very high, but most of the iron ore in China is poor iron ore, the quality is very low, which is also one of the reasons why China does not produce good iron in history, of course, there are rich iron ore, but the quantity is very scarce, and the Shilu iron ore in Hainan is a rare iron-rich mine, some people in later generations counted it, and it was found that the reserves of Shilu iron ore accounted for more than seventy percent of the entire China's iron-rich ore, reaching nearly 500 million tons, which shows the importance of this iron ore.

"This ...... There's an even bigger iron-rich mine here? Su Song and Su Shi said almost in unison at this time, they had been in charge of the weapons superintendent, and naturally knew that the quality of the steel in the Great Song Dynasty had not been good, and even the steel in Dali was stronger than that of the Great Song Dynasty, one of the most important reasons was that the Great Song Dynasty could not find rich iron ore, and the quality of the iron smelted by using poor iron ore was too poor, and now they knew that there was a huge reserve of rich iron ore in front of them, which made them even more shocked.

"Hehe, there is another thing that shocks you even more, the iron ore and copper ore in Shilu are open-pit mines, and it is not far from the coast, so as long as we build a cement road from here to Shilu, it is easy to mine the mineral deposits on the mountain, and then it can be smelted on the spot, or it can be transported to other places in the Great Song Dynasty for smelting, but either way, it can bring a lot of wealth to Qiongzhou, and then this will not be a place to exile prisoners, but will become a treasure island in the Great Song Dynasty!" Zhao Yan lured again at this time, in his previous life, he came to visit his friend who worked in the iron mine, and that friend specially took him around, and also introduced the situation of Shilu Iron Mine, so he knew so well.

"Then what are you waiting for, let's go back and mobilize the army to come, occupy this Shiluling first, and then recruit miners to come to mine, so that we can help Qiongzhou, and we can add a big iron mine to our Great Song Dynasty!" At this time, Cao Song couldn't help but be a little anxious, since he managed the bank, his temperament has been much calmer, but now that he has encountered such a major event, he has also forgotten the calmness that he has learned so hard.

In fact, not only Cao Song, Li Gonglin and Su Zhe, Wang Shiyue and others are also very excited, their minds are fantasizing about the impact of this huge iron mine and copper mine on the Great Song Dynasty, among which Su Song is even more excited, he wanted to use Zhao Yan's ability to improve the economy of Qiongzhou, but he didn't expect Zhao Yan to make a "golden mountain" for him all of a sudden, he is now worried about whether his Qiongzhou can eat such a large mineral deposit? (To be continued......)