Zhuge Jin regarded Pang Tong as his own, so he didn't hide such a plan. It is not because the other party has only been here for three days that he has to "inspect and investigate" before entrusting him with an important task.

This made Pang Tong fully feel the trust and "no suspicion in employing people, no suspicion in doubt", and suddenly felt a sense of acquaintance.

"Brother Zhuge is a big person, just because I and A Liang were classmates for a short time, and they intersected with knowledge and knowledge, so they can use people like this, which is really rare in this troubled era. We also have to work hard to prove that we are worthy of this attention. ”

Pang Tong couldn't help but make up his mind so secretly in his heart, and he had the idea of being competitive.

However, Zhuge Jin's plan looks perfect, but there is still a huge obstacle to the implementation of it - you want to use the "newly discovered huge copper mine" to seduce the greed of the Shanyue tribe, you are so good that you can really discover the copper mine!

As long as copper ore is discovered, even if it is not mined in large quantities for the time being, it can cause others to compete for it.

But if there is no shadow of the copper mine, it would be too nonsense to expect a complete fraud to lure people into the bait. The chieftains were not mentally retarded, and they would also send people to serve as miners and go undercover to see if the copper was really mined.

If you expect to directly take out a large pile of smelted copper to deceive people, and do not let people see the whole production process of mining ore and smelting copper from ore, the ghost will be fooled.

Pang Tong is also a person with a high IQ, he quickly figured out this truth, and couldn't help but point out these problems to Zhuge Jin.

When Zhuge Jin heard this, he only smiled slightly: "Shi Yuan won't think that I want to pretend to find copper mines to seduce people, right?" I said I wanted to mine copper, but of course it was. As long as you are responsible for requisitioning and sending the citizens of Poyang County to serve in the slack time, you should first prepare the road into the mountain.

Or if the people are not able to levy it for the time being, I can give you some money, and you can try to contact and hire the surrounding hermitages, or the Shanyue tribes, and ask them to send people to build roads along the Poshui to the upper reaches of the mountains, and then clean up the dangerous shoals and reefs in the Poshui, so that the future mining ships can sail directly upstream.

You don't have to worry about other prospecting matters, you just need to organize the manpower and money, take care of the food for the servants and miners, and provide tools, so as not to make a shortage. ”

When Pang Tong heard that he was only needed to provide manpower organization and logistics support, he breathed a sigh of relief, and secretly thought that if he didn't do this job well, it would be too embarrassing, and he must work hard.

……

For more than ten days after that, Pang Tong did not receive new instructions, so he organized 2,000 conscripts.

In addition, with the budget given by Zhuge Jin, he exchanged for some materials that were in short supply for the mountain people, and then used hundreds of county soldiers to escort them, and ran to two or three Shanyue tribes in Poyang County and the upper reaches of Poshui, and directly traded with these tribes, exchanging materials for labor, and asking Shanyue people to be guides for them to treat the dangerous shoals and reefs of the mountain rivers.

As for the production tools needed, they must be provided by the Han people, and after the matter is completed, some iron tools can be given to these Shanyue tribes as compensation.

The Shanyue people were considered to be more kings among the four Yi in the Han Dynasty, and they liked to take money and be hired by the Han people. Danyang soldiers are the product of typical Shanyue people who take high salaries as mercenaries.

Zhuge Jin had just killed Zhenrong, and there was no shortage of money - as mentioned earlier, after he broke Chaisang City, the confiscated bronze statue was worth more than 10 million yuan after it was melted and cast. And Chaisang is still one of the three main strongholds of Zhenrong, and the scale of Buddhist affairs is relatively small.

In Nanchang County, the old nest of Zhenrong, the scale and number of Buddha statues seized in the city are several times that of Chaisang. In the end, Zhuge Jin counted that all the bronze Buddhas in the three counties were cast, and the cumulative amount could exceed 100 million! With such a large amount of wealth, it is certainly possible to hire Shanyue people at the moment.

(Note: In the history of Zhenrong, he looted the three counties to make Buddha statues, and he was indeed very rich.) It is recorded that he held a Buddha festival in Guangling, and invited more than 100,000 people to eat porridge, as long as you expressed your belief in Buddhism, you could eat and drink for nothing, which cost "hundreds of millions". Even if there is an exaggeration, it is said that the bronze statue of Zhenrong costs hundreds of millions of dollars, which is absolute. ）

Pang Tong had enough budget in hand, and relying on his excellent eloquence, he immediately fooled several chiefs of the Shanyue tribe so that they couldn't find the north and were willing to take money to do things.

In just a few days, the main stream of Poshui and the channel leading to the fork of Poshui and Le'an rivers have been renovated, and the roads on both sides of the river have been simply smoothed.

The length of this section of the river is about seventy or eighty miles, and there are ordinary people and towns on both banks, and the basic conditions are good, and it is not too deep into the mountainous area, so it is easy to rectify.

After crossing the fork of the Poshui and Le'an rivers, the situation is more complicated, and Pang did not know which river to focus on in the next step.

He felt that the Poshui mainstream basin was obviously of greater economic value, and the river valley plains were relatively fertile, so that the government could control more remote villages and towns in the future and benefit the mountain people.

The volume of water in Le'an is much smaller than that of the main stream of Poshui, and the route is more rugged and the farming area is much smaller. However, it seems that mining is generally found in the mountains, and it seems that there is a good chance of copper ore here.

Pang Tong didn't dare to be self-dictated, so he asked the hired people to go up the river along the two rivers on average, and at the same time he went back to the county to report the first phase of work, and asked Zhuge Jin to see how he looked for minerals.

……

"So quickly, you have already gone up the river and renovated nearly 100 miles of rivers and roads along the river? Yes, Shiyuan is really convenient. ”

Zhuge Jin, who was in Poyang City, praised him first after receiving the report, and then ordered, "Go, in the next few days, I must be ready to camp in the mountains for investigation, and I will also come to look for minerals in person." ”

Pang Tong asked a little eagerly: "Then the main stream of Poshui and the Le'an River, which river should we use as the main river to renovate the road into the mountain?" Brother Zhuge is so confident, he must be able to guess which side of the mountain has a greater chance of copper mines? ”

Zhuge Jin didn't want to be a god, so he insisted on not reporting the answer: "I don't rely on guessing, I have to look at it on the spot to know." ”

Pang Tong was stunned: "What do you think of this?" ”

Zhuge Jin: "You'll know when you arrive." ”

As the group spoke, they packed their luggage and set off, walked for two days, and came to the middle reaches of Poshui and Le'an River.

Pang Tong is a single dog, and no one cares about sleeping in the mountains.

Zhuge Jin went to Haohao's house and there was a step trainer who was very sensible, and helped him carefully pack his bags, as well as various daily supplies, and the step trainer originally pestered him to say that he wanted to take care of Zhuge Jin's diet and daily life, but Zhuge Jin refused on the grounds that the mountains were rugged and inconvenient, and the foot trainer was too young.

The location of the fork of the Poshui and Le'an rivers is about the vicinity of Leping County in Jingdezhen in the later world. From there, if you continue to swim upstream along the main stream of Poshui, you will reach the main urban area of Jingdezhen in later generations, and if you go upstream along the Le'an River, you will reach Dexing County, the famous copper capital.

Of course, Zhuge Jin knew in his heart that there was a big copper mine in Dexing, and there was nothing in the main urban area of Jingdezhen.

But he didn't want to report the answer directly, so when he arrived at the place, he first took Pang Tong and pretended to go to the upper reaches of the two rivers for a day to investigate, and then took out a transparent crystal cup that he had prepared in advance, scooped up the river water and looked at it carefully.

Crystal was already very popular in the Han Dynasty, but it was a little more expensive, and when making small utensils, it could completely replace the transparent glass of later generations. In later generations, the Hangzhou Museum had a "Warring States Crystal Cup" exhibited cultural relics, which looked very similar to modern glasses.

Zhuge Jin's crystal cup was also captured by Guan Yu when he was counting the reverse production in Nanchang City after winning the battle, so he took it and used it casually. Buddhists have always liked all kinds of seven-treasure glazed ware to decorate the façade, and it is normal for Zhenrong to have such luxurious things.

Pang Tong was also slightly surprised when he saw Zhuge Jin actually take out a crystal cup to scoop the river water, but he felt more and more that Zhuge Jin was reliable in his heart - such a big battle, it shouldn't be a trick, right?

Zhuge Jin looked at it for a long time before he clapped his hand and said: "Let's go, in the next few days, along the upper reaches of this Le'an River, all the way to find tributary forks, after each fork, learn from me to scoop a glass of river water, be sure to thoroughly clear it, skim off the green algae foam, and then observe the color of the river water, and decide which river to look for." ”

Pang Tong was stunned again: What is the principle? Besides, if you look at the color of the river, you can't see the difference.

He couldn't help but raise his own questions, and Zhuge Jin just prevaricated casually: "Can't you see that this cup of river water scooped out of the Le'an River is slightly bluer than the water in the main stream of Po'an?" ”

Pang Tong looked left and right: "I can't see it!" ”

Zhuge Jin: "That's because you have bad eyes!" Believe me, the more you go upstream, the easier it is to see, and when the river diverges, you can finally find out which stream this slightly blueish water flows from and joins the main stream! ”

Zhuge Jin actually didn't see that the river water scooped out of this cup of Le'an River was bluer, but he knew the answer, so he forcibly said that he could see the subtle differences, and the contrast in the other party's eyes was not enough. And when you really get upstream, the flow is getting smaller and the water is bifurcating more and more, and this difference will be more obvious.

Pang Tong had doubts in his heart, strictly followed the method explained by Zhuge Jin, and went all the way upstream to explore.

For the next ten days, they ran all the tributaries of the Le'an River as far upstream as they could, and the further they went, the less water there became, and finally there were almost all kinds of mountain streams.

And Zhuge Jin's method is also very direct: once you see the fork of the confluence of two small rivers, you will see which side of the water is bluer, and focus on the blue one.

In order to avoid errors, his experimental methods have become more and more rigorous.

For example, in order to prevent the reflection of the green mountains on both sides of the river, which makes the river water look green in reflection, he specially made a pure white wooden box painted with white ash, and put the crystal cup in the box after each river water to observe it again to isolate the reflection of the environment.

In addition, there are not only visible algae in the river water, but also some suspended microorganisms that are difficult to remove.

And these means are obviously not possessed by the Han Dynasty, and the Han Dynasty people simply cannot eliminate these errors.

Relying on these methods, a few days later, Zhuge Jin and Pang Tong finally traced the source to a trickling stream in the upper reaches of the Le'an River.

The further upstream it forks, the more obvious the blue water of the stream becomes, and in the end it can almost be almost as blue as the "blue waterhole mine" posted by those traveler bloggers on Douyin in later generations.

Zhuge Jin knew that he had finally succeeded.

In the eyes of liberal arts students, this kind of turquoise wild waterhole may be able to praise the natural wonders of poetry.

But in the eyes of science students like Zhuge Jin, there will only be one comment:! It's a pool of copper sulfate solution! Poisonous!

Any student who has passed chemistry in junior high school, if he sees a "blue transparent solution" on the paper, he will almost reflexively think about copper sulfate, and if he sees "blue flocculent precipitation" again, he will bite the "copper hydroxide precipitation".

It can be said that copper sulfate and copper hydroxide are the breaking points of the junior high school chemistry problem "analyzing a bunch of unknown substances".

It's just that many people read the book but don't combine it with reality, and in real life, they see the abandoned mine cave waterhole in nature so blue, but they don't think in this direction - so it's not difficult to travel back to ancient times to find copper mines, one or two of the most common knowledge of junior high school chemistry is enough, but many people can't think of it.

……

"Shi Yuan, take the iron rod."

Zhuge Jin finally saw a pool of clear water in the pool at the source of an unknown creek in the upper reaches of the Le'an River, and after completing the first two steps of pretreatment, he then instructed Pang Tong.

Pang Tong carefully took out one of the pre-prepared thin iron rods and handed it to Zhuge Jin.

Zhuge Jin inserted it into the blue water, left it in the air for a few minutes, and then took it out, and saw a layer of reddish-yellow metal attached to the surface of the iron rod.

The metal replacement reaction that I learned in junior high school: copper sulfate is added to iron, which becomes ferrous sulfate, and elemental copper is replaced.

When Pang Tong saw this magical scene, he was immediately shocked: "This ...... What is it? Is it copper? ”

Zhuge Jin smiled slightly: "Has Shi Yuan ever read the work of alchemy of ancient alchemists?" Do you know that gallium can make copper? ”

Pang Tong's pupils shook, he looked at Zhuge Jin, then at the pool of blue water, and pointed in disbelief and said:

"Brother Zhuge is saying that this pool is Zeng Qing? That's why it's so blue? I did read "Shennong's Materia Medica", and it was said in the book: Zeng Qing was coated with iron and made copper...... Occasionally, gold and bronze can also be obtained. ”

Cholelum, which is what the ancients called copper sulfate crystals.

Zeng Qing is what the ancients said about copper sulfate solution.

"Zeng Qing coated iron and got red copper" should be the most well-known sentence in the entire "Shennong's Materia Medica"——

Because this sentence appeared in the junior high school chemistry textbook of the later generations, everyone who has received compulsory education must memorize it.

And Zhuge Jin is so simple, relying only on the common sense of a junior high school student's t0-level popularity, he solved the problem without any bells and whistles.

He calmly pointed to this pool of blue water: "The karst cave here can soak the mountains and rivers so blue, it can be seen that there must be a lot of copper mines in the surrounding mountains and rocks." Let the coppersmiths and miners dig carefully and explore the rocks around this waterhole, and they will get something! ”

The last kick in the door, specifically digging copper ore and sorting ores, this Zhuge Jin still doesn't know, he just knows a little common sense.

But his insight can make the craftsmen narrow the search range at least hundreds of times, which is also immeasurable, at least the craftsmen do not need hundreds of mountains to try and make mistakes, directly locate the mountains for you, which is already a great efficiency improvement.

Zhuge Jin also personally camped nearby and lived, preparing to supervise a little for ten days and eight days, and strive to see results as soon as possible.

With Zhuge Jin personally in charge, the servitude husbands, miners, and hired laborers in Shanyue, who had already regarded him as a god, did not dare to be lazy at all, and pulled the work efficiency to the maximum, and worked hard to find copper with great enthusiasm.

Zhuge Jin didn't interfere too much with the daily exploration, he just gave an extra order:

During the camp, you are not allowed to drink the water of this blue water stream, and the daily water must be drawn from the nearest other creek with non-blue water, and then boiled and cooled before drinking.

For this requirement, many forced laborers who did not understand the copper mine did not understand it at first, but later heard that 'Zeng Qingshui was poisonous', so they hurriedly put away their negligence and strictly complied with it.

……

Ten days later, the first pit was operational, although the copper mine had not yet been mined on a large scale.

The coppersmiths set up an experimental copper smelting furnace in this valley, and smelted the first furnace of copper materials, obtaining hundreds of catties of relatively pure copper ingots.

At the same time, some people also tried the "displacement reaction" production method of exchanging iron for copper and other precious metals, which was obviously taught by Zhuge Jin to his craftsmen based on the common sense in junior high school chemistry textbooks.

The disadvantage of this method is that some iron is wasted, but the advantage is that the reaction is very fast, and the effect is very good for copper in the state of copper sulfate, but it is useless for copper sulfide in chalcopyrite, and the scope of application is relatively limited.

However, as people tried this new method with more precision and became more sophisticated, the craftsmen soon discovered a new surprise.

"If these Zeng Qing had just put the iron rod in it and taken it out for a few breaths, they would have been able to scrape off a very thin piece of gold from the surface! It's really gold! Then put it in and take it out quickly, and you can attach silver to it! In the end, I reacted slowly, and what I got was copper! ”

This discovery almost directly made everyone blood rush to their brains, and they were so fanatical that they couldn't do it.

Originally, I came to open a copper mine, and there was actually associated gold and silver!

Among all of them, only Zhuge Jin was not surprised by this.

Dexing Copper Mine originally had 15% of the country's copper production reserves, as well as 8% of the country's silver and 12% gold reserves. As a high-grade copper-sulphide chalcopyrite, associated gold and silver are normal.

And if the traditional smelting method is used, the associated gold and silver are more difficult to separate, if the replacement method is used, because gold is the most inert, silver is also more inert than copper, so it is easy to replace it in time.

(Note: In fact, you can also insert the silver rod into the solution first, which will only replace the more inert than silver, which is only gold.) Then the copper rod is inserted into the solution, and only the silver is replaced. Finally, the iron rod is inserted into it and the copper is replaced. ）

Zhuge Jin doesn't expect the output of the replacement method at the moment, but the visual impact of the replacement method is the strongest.

The iron rod, which changed color almost instantly, had a golden glow on the surface, and it was all in the eyes of the hired laborers of the Shanyue tribe.

A few days later, Zhuge Jin said that there was no need to hire any more guides, that the copper mine had been found, that he had paid the Shanyue guides enough, and that he would send them back to their respective tribes.

Only a part of the laborers remained, and they continued to be responsible for disposing of the rapids and reefs along the upper stream of the Le'an River, and smoothing the rugged roads in the valleys on both sides, so that they could be transported directly by water to the foot of the mine in the future, and the huge amount of copper ore could be transported away.

After all, the cost of water transportation is still dozens of times cheaper than land transportation, not to mention the huge and bulky materials such as copper ore.

The government made such a big effort to improve the road traffic conditions into the mountains, and there were real direct iron rods to replace gold, silver and copper from the pool water, these news spread almost instantly like a whirlwind to the Shanyue tribes in the surrounding counties.

And because the Shanyue people have a low level of education and can't understand it, the more the rumors spread, the more evil they become, and the more bizarre they become.

"What? Zhuge family is a bit of a golden immortal? Found a blue water that can directly turn iron rods into gold, silver and bronze? Where is it? Say it! Where the hell is it! Take us to see it right away! ”