All the way south, Li Kang kept a stinky face and looked depressed.

Although it was expected, and everyone was more or less prepared, it was always a little unpleasant.

However, the inadvertent discovery of a graphite mine along the way gave Li Kang's injured heart a little comfort.

After ten days of arduous trekking, Li Kang and his entourage of 38 people - Li Kang + Bai Xiaoming + two sergeants (Zhou Bi, the head of the tun, and Hu Zhibin, the deputy commander of the tun, were also the leaders of the first team) + guards + four people with experience in building houses + two carpenters - drove more than 240 miles, and finally arrived at the west bank of the Jinhe River - note, not the east bank - located in the downstream area of the detection office of the Coordination and Coordination Division.

Why are they so sure that the river in front of them is part of the Golden River? Not because they are tired of walking and forcibly hypnotize themselves and think that it is, nor because they can see the yellow golden sand at the bottom of the river when they stand by the river. It's because they happened to meet two spies of the Coordination Division patrolling this area here, and these two spies still know Bai Xiaoming.

At this moment, Bai Xiaoming was leading the two into Li Kang's big tent.

Under the surprised gaze of the doorman, the tent's quilt-like curtain was lifted, and the three of them saw four people sitting cross-legged on the floor covered with a thick carpet, one in the middle, two on the left and one on the right.

Naturally, Li Kang is in the middle.

"Lord, the people have been brought!" Bai Xiaoming bowed slightly and said.

"Well, you sit down first!" Li Kang said with a smile, pointing to the empty seat in his lower left hand, and after Bai Xiaoming thanked him for sitting down, he looked at the two people who followed behind him, and his face suddenly showed consternation.

"The subordinate Second Deacon Dong Wuqiang and the Third Deacon Peng Peng of the Unified Coordination Division, see the lord!" Seeing that Li Kang's attention turned to the two of them, Dong Wuqiang and Peng Peng hurriedly bowed down and saluted - the kneeling ceremony was abolished by Li Kang early in the morning, because the townspeople accounted for the majority before the Song Dynasty, so everyone adapted quickly, that is, the people of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties who were habitually soft knees also happily followed the crowd, after all, they could not kneel, no one was born to be cheap, not to mention that not kneeling in Xin'an Town was the general environment (kneeling and sitting did not count).

The reason why Li Kang was stunned was entirely because he knew one of them, yes, it was Dong Wuqiang, the one who kicked the iron mine, this gentleman Li Kang was born in the guards, and because of his ingenuity, he was arrested by Feng Wenhan. Since then, Li Kang has rarely seen him, but he didn't expect to meet him here.

As for the second deacon, the division of the third deacon is entirely due to the good salary.

"Wu Qiang, after a long time, but he met like this and suffered. Li Kang sighed and sighed.

It feels like they have been separated for decades, but Li Kang is not all coquettish, after more than a hundred days after the crossing, he is sure that he is living like a year, it is not too much to say that the two have been separated for more than ten years, at least for Li Kang, it feels similar.

"Serve the Lord, and the subordinates are not bitter. Dong Wuqiang was also moved, he didn't expect the lord to remember his name, and instantly felt that the hardships of the past few days were worth it.

"Don't pestle, sit down. "Xu is 'meeting old acquaintances in a foreign country', Li Kang is in a good mood, and even his tone is much more excited.

"Thank you, lord!"

"Which of you will talk about it first?" Li Kang looked at the two with a smile, stretched out his hand to stop Dong Wuqiang, who wanted to get up, and said, "Just sit down and say, I am not a person who is not interested in being polite." ”

"No..."Dong Wuqiang said excitedly, "This side belongs to the lower reaches of the Jin River, which is different from the place we first discovered, the proportion of golden sand in the river sand here is already very low, and there is a lot of silt at the bottom of the river, and the river water is much deeper than the same period last year, so it can easily go over the head." So gold panning can be done, but it is relatively difficult and inefficient. ... But... Directly down the river, less than ten miles is the final destination of the Golden River, which is called the Golden Lake by the nearby natives. ”

Originally, everyone here didn't have much interest in this place, and they were going to go upstream early tomorrow morning, but after listening to Dong Wuqiang's words at this moment, their eyes were bright, and their greed was undisguised.

[It seems that we still have to find the roots.] 】

"That's... Is there anything unfriendly around the Golden Lake?" Zhou Bi asked with pity, which made Dong Wuqiang feel excited.

He was summoned by Li Kang with Gao Chu, and he had only seen Zhou Bi a few times at the beginning, and they were not familiar with each other, but they usually saw Zhou Bi very decently, and they didn't expect that there would be such a side.

In fact, how many of those who can get to the position of general in the Song army system are good people?

Dong Wuqiang hurriedly gathered his thoughts, now it is not Zhou Bi who wants to know, obviously everyone in the tent wants to know, including the lord Li Kang. Besides, didn't he just want to get their attention when he said this news? Very well, now that the purpose has been achieved, he said neatly: "The Golden Clan, divided into the main branch, the main branch is eight, a total of about 3,400 people; the main tribe is built six miles southeast of the lake, with a mouth of 1,800 people; the eight major branches are balanced in size, with an average of about 200 people, standing around the Golden Lake respectively, due south, due east, northeast, north, northwest, One in the west, two in the southwest, more than ten miles away from the Golden Lake, close at hand, the Golden Lake is firmly protected in their arms, obviously the Golden Lake has great significance to them. ”

Everyone frowned, realizing that it was tricky.

"How big is that Golden Lake?" Li Kang suddenly asked.

Well, if it's too big, it seems that the distribution of Jinsha is very scattered, although no matter how scattered it is, it is the accumulation of tens of millions of years, and the reserves are indispensable, but the problem is that their ability is limited!

"This... The subordinates are not easy to estimate, and they ask the lord to forgive their sins. Dong Wuqiang said ashamedly, "In short, it's big and boundless." ”

Hiss, white is happy!

Like a deflated ball, everyone could no longer support their straight waists, and sat back dejectedly.

"But..."

"But what?"

"However, they seem to have a tradition of sacrificing to the god of the lake, and they have to make a big sacrifice once a year, and each time a large number of sacrifices are poured into the lake, and the sacrifices are all kinds of simple gold objects or even gold. In addition to the annual festival, there are also individual festivals that can be held at any time. Speaking of this, Dong Wuqiang added another fire, "It is said that their ancient tradition has been maintained for hundreds of years. ”

Boom, the people who had just wilted down suddenly came back to life with full blood, their eyes were blood-red, and they couldn't wait to accept the gold for the lake god.

"It's a tradition worth promoting, it's much more civilized than human sacrifice, and it should be a big call for all indigenous tribes to learn from it. Gao Chu excited Ao Ao shouted.

"Hey, if we sacrifice the gold to the gods, who will we trade with?" Zhou Bi said disdainfully.

"Whatever is traded, just go directly to the water to fish. Gao Chu disagreed, and said with a look of cheap and obedient behavior, "The lake god has eaten gold for hundreds of years, and it is like a pixiu, only eating and not pulling, it must be panicked, and we urgently need us to help him digest and digest it, I can't say, we can still get the protection of his old man!"

"Hehe..." everyone was amused by him, and even Li Kang, who was thinking about his thoughts, was amused by him.

And what was Li Kang thinking?

He wondered if it was these primitive natives, all the attribute points were added to a piece, how did they like to throw gold into the lake, as if there was an indigenous tribe in South America on the earth who also liked to do this, it seemed to be called the Mayans, the Incas or something (please forgive Li Kangda for not being able to forget it)? Nima is so heart-wrenching!

PS: There are thousands of tons of gold and precious stones at the bottom of Lake Guadavida in Colombia, so since the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in the 16th century, the search and salvage of gold and gemstones has not stopped. Eventually, it was determined that the sacred lake of Guadavida in present-day Colombia was the legendary Golden Lake.