"Damn, the people of Qi are a bunch of vampires!" Lori Fisher held a dozen gold yuan bills of different denominations in his hand, and cursed viciously in his heart as he followed his companion through the shops on the street.

He took a full ten ounces of gold, but went to the money exchange office in the city of Zhangdebao to exchange it for less than forty yuan in gold yuan. This gave Lori Fisher, who had taken all kinds of risks and endured all kinds of hardships to dig up the gold, to be indignant.

What? To deduct gold purity?

Do you need to charge an additional fee for precious metal processing?

Do you want to deduct a currency conversion fee?

And the imposition of a so-called special tax on mining?

……

After seven reductions and eight deductions, they only got so many thin "pieces of paper".

Well, in fact, it is quite a lot, and if it is converted into guilders, it is almost more than 300 guilders, which is equivalent to the annual income of the domestic middle class in a united province.

However, in Zhangdebao, and even in the entire Xingshan mining area, the price of all materials has already become abnormally high, a piece of ordinary Hanzhou bread (steamed buns) will be sold for two cents, if you eat three at a meal, it will be 6 cents, and if you eat it a day, it will be 1 dime and 8 cents, then, it will be more than 5 yuan a month!

If you add meat, vegetables, wine, and the necessary sugar, cocoa powder, and fruits, it will cost eight or nine yuan just to eat. Not to mention, you also have to buy a change of clothes, mining tools, repair dilapidated tents and sleeping bags, and at least ten or twenty yuan a month.

Oh God, it's unimaginable! Most of the gold they worked so hard to find turned out to be cheaper for the South African government and the black-hearted traders.

"I think the local people, who don't have to do anything in the mines, make a lot more money than us in a month!" After a round of comparisons with a few companions, Lori Fisher finally made up his mind to buy a few bags of slightly yellowed flour, which were five times higher than in Cape Town.

"Come on, Lowry." His companion Nezel Cook hurriedly dragged him away, lest his chattering complaints would anger the impatient Qi trader in front of him, "We should feel fortunate that we can at least afford to buy food than the gold diggers who gnaw on rats, grass roots, and tree bark in the mines." ”

"Having said that, such a high price really makes my heart bleed." Lori Fisher muttered, stacking flour and some of the groceries he had just purchased on the dilapidated wagon, then looked up at the slightly misshapen and prosperous town, and let out a long sigh of relief, "What are we going to do next?" Should you find a restaurant to eat, or should you go out of town immediately to join Elo and the others? ”

"I think it's better to find a restaurant to eat first." Ron Wells licked his lips and said: "It's been more than a month, and I haven't been stained with any oil, and every day I either gnaw dry food or eat batter, and my stomach has long been upset!" ”

"It's fine." Nezel Cook was also moved, "When we have eaten and drunk enough, we will buy more cooked food and drinks and bring them to Ello and the others." ”

"Oh, then we might have to spend a fortune again!" Lori Fisher also desperately longed for a hearty and delicious meal, but the thought of pulling out a few thin pieces of "paper" from his pocket made her feel a pain in her flesh.

"Haha......" Ron Wells put his arms around Lori Fisher's neck and laughed, "Stingy Lowry, we came to Xingshan to pan for gold, isn't it just to make more money!" So, what do you do after you make money? Shouldn't we live a life of abundance and enjoyment? It's just lunch, and we need to treat ourselves! After all, we have suffered a lot in the past month or so! ”

"Every dollar we squander now means that we will buy a lot less land in the future." Lori Fisher muttered to herself.

"Lowry, I wonder if you have Jewish blood in you! Look at you, your whole person reveals endless greed and miserliness! ”

"I'm certainly not a despicable Jew! I just don't want to be a homeless person anymore. Yes, I don't want to go hungry and cold anymore and continue to be a lowly refugee. I must become a rich man, I will buy a huge manor, I will build a luxurious house, I will buy a hundred black slaves, I will live like an aristocracy! ”

"Haha...... I have to admit that Lowry's dream is also the dream I pursue!"

"Oh, you see, here comes the big man of the Qi country!" Nezaire Cook watched in amazement as two carriages approached from outside the city, with dozens of soldiers on horseback to support them, causing the vendors on both sides of the street to scramble to get out of the way.

"Isn't it for the gold here?"

"I hope that this big man can take into account the livelihood of the people here and try his best to import more supplies here, so as to reduce the abnormally high prices."

"Lori, to be honest, if it were possible, I would really like to have you elected as the Governor here."

——

"This gold is in pretty good condition!" In the Zhangdebao government compound, Cheng Gongmian, who was newly transferred to the Xingshan District Administration Commissioner, picked up a piece of gold nugget after melting and refining, and couldn't help but admire.

Cheng Gongmian had just been appointed by the Qianzhou Governor's District last month, and after receiving the Governor's order, he hurried to Zhangdebao to preside over the overall management of the Xingshan District.

As soon as he arrived, he inspected the gold refinery and mint. The only two small industrial facilities in Zhangdebao were located somewhere near the barracks, mainly two crucible smelting furnaces and a small steam stamping coinage, which smelted gold collected by the government and obtained from the currency exchange office into the uniform standard of the Imperial Bank, and also minted a small number of gold coins for gold exchange.

The bits and pieces of gold needed to mint gold were mostly from illegal miners who had been seized by army soldiers who had gone out to patrol the gold mining areas – a significant number of gold prospectors who had taken refuge in remote mining areas to avoid paying licence fees. In addition, the officers and soldiers of the army also had a small amount of captured booty when they swept the camps of the surrounding indigenous tribes. Of course, it is very likely that the soldiers will hide a lot of seizures, after all, it is not difficult to find someone to smelt underground after returning to the big city in the future.

At present, about four or five tons of gold nuggets have been deposited, and more than 60,000 gold coins have been minted. The money was not allowed to be touched by the local government, and all the money had to be transported to Changning (present-day Durban, South Africa) and deposited in the treasury of the Qianzhou branch of the Imperial Central Bank. After accumulating a certain amount, the South African Detachment of the Navy's West Indian Ocean Fleet will send warships to the mainland, which will be managed by the Imperial Household Department and the Imperial Central Bank as a reserve for the issuance of gold yuan bills.

Looking at these yellow and clear gold nuggets and gold coins in the warehouse, Cheng Gongmian no matter how much desire he was filled with in his heart, he could only reluctantly put it down in the end, let the handling staff carefully count it, and then wrap it in silk cloth and lock it in the box. After all, these are the money of the Cabinet Department and the Imperial Central Bank, and they have little to do with him, the commissioner, and the Xingshan area.

Of course, in the entire Xingshan area, including Zhangdebao, what is most lacking is not money, but a large amount of grain, cloth, sugar, oilseeds, salt, medicine, and all kinds of daily necessities.

According to the officers and soldiers of the 9th Army Regiment stationed in the Xingshan area, the number of violent clashes among gold prospectors in the gold mining area is increasing as it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain daily supplies. In the past, in order to compete for territory, a big fight would be made if there was a disagreement, and even a lot of lives would be killed. Now, with supplies scarce across the region, gold diggers are fighting for food, fueling the already unpromising security situation.

"More than 1,000 officers and men of the 3rd Regiment of the Indian Garrison Cochin have arrived at Fort Changde, and temporary camps are currently being built to adapt to the local environment and climate." Cheng Gongmian left the smelting and stamping workshop, and led a group of officials and subordinates towards the official hall, and explained to his subordinates as he walked, "You should send them some supplies in a while, don't let the officers and soldiers complain and say that our local government will not take care of it." After they have finished resting, we will also count on them to stabilize the production and living order of the entire Xingshan mining area. For local development, stability should be the top priority and should not be neglected. ”

"In addition, we need to build an easy road to Nanchuan as soon as possible, well, we don't need that kind of first- and second-class roads, as long as the gravel road can pass through the heavy carriages. Otherwise, how to strengthen communication with coastal ports with those scattered trails? To build roads, it is natural to have to recruit a large number of indigenous laborers. The indigenous people within a radius of tens of kilometers around Zhangdebao were almost wiped out by the gold prospectors, and although they freed up a lot of vacant land for us, they also wiped out the labor we desperately needed. So, what do we do? It would have to be up to the army breezes to capture large numbers of indigenous populations by sweeping the valley steppes to the north and east. ”

"Although it is not yet known whether the planned Chang (Ning) Chang (Debao) railway will be approved by the Cabinet Ministry of Transport, we need to prepare for a rainy day. Once this simple highway is built, it can not only communicate with coastal ports and facilitate the transportation of materials inland, but also help the rapid arrival of road construction materials along the railway line when building the railway, so as to achieve the purpose of multi-section construction. ”

In addition, although the current focus is still to stabilize local order and strengthen the management of gold mining and expropriation, agricultural and animal husbandry production cannot be easily ignored. It should be understood that the basic activity of local colonization is always food production, which is the basis of all industrial, agricultural, and military operations, and is the most important thing. In the near future, Changning Port will successively send a group of immigrants from Qin, Annan and Japan, who will be resettled in the Xingshan area. I intend to set up a number of state-run farms in some places with better agricultural conditions, with a view to achieving basic grain self-sufficiency within three years. ”

——

In a gold mine more than 10 kilometers east of Zhangdebao, hundreds of black miners are "guiding" the overseer's whips and sticks, and they are struggling to mine and sort the ore. Numb, they mechanically swung their pickaxes and shovels, digging out piece after piece of ore and piling them up behind them.

A few emaciated black miners and a large number of strong black women used rakes, iron drills, and dustpans to carefully sift through the rough selection of gold mines. Not far away, more than a dozen overseers with leather whips and fierce eyes stared at their work process, in addition to supervising the progress of their work, and also to prevent the miners from hiding gold.

Around the mine, wooden piles are used to form a simple circle. Four towering watchtowers stand at four corners, and several observation sentinels are stationed on them, closely monitoring movements inside and outside the gold mine. Bands of heavily armed soldiers, carrying muskets and hounds, patrolled the perimeter of the mine.

"A few decades ago, the indigenous people of South Africa were not aware of the wonders of gold, nor did they have a history of large-scale use of ko's head gold as a general equivalent. Even so, our army boys have stolen a lot of gold from them, so who can tell me how much gold is hidden in this mining area? Ni Henglin, deputy commander of the Ninth Regiment of the Army and lieutenant (lieutenant colonel) Linglu, looked at more than a dozen dog-headed gold of different sizes on the ground, and couldn't help but be amazed, "For so many years, I have never heard of such a large amount of dog-headed gold in any gold mine. This shows that the mining conditions in the gold mining area are very good, the efficiency of mining will be high, and the cost should be very low. …… This is God's favor for my Qi country! ”

In fact, what Ni Henglin said may not be true. Although the black people in South Africa have no history of using gold as a general equivalent, although they are socially ignorant and extremely backward in productivity, this does not mean that they do not know the value of gold.

Many of their tribes had already entered the slave period, and they could smelt iron and copper, and then make it into all kinds of utensils, and gold was just a metal, and they would not fail to realize its value for a long time. What's more, the Qi and Dutch came to the coast of South Africa for so many years, and also sent many expeditions and caravans to the inland areas to trade with the blacks, and they already understood from the unusual thirst of these foreign merchants for gold that this metal had a value beyond other items, so they would slowly and consciously increase the reserves of this metal to cope with the trade.

Of course, now that the Qi people are "full-fledged" and increasingly powerful in South Africa, they will no longer trade with them. Heavily armed township regiments and army soldiers replaced merchants laden with goods, snow-bright bayonets replaced a dazzling array of daily necessities, black tribes were crushed one by one, people were either slaves or killed, and the property left behind became the spoils of war of the Qi people, which naturally included a large amount of dog's head gold.

"Sir, with such a backward civilization as the black people can collect so much gold, then we will definitely get more gold than these ignorant natives if we are more technologically advanced and more determined." Qu Shuliang, commander of the first battalion of the Ninth Regiment of the Army and captain (major) of Xuanjie, said with a smile: "Within dozens of kilometers of patrolling the vicinity of Zhangdebao, gold diggers can be seen everywhere. Moreover, almost all of them have harvested, more than ten kilograms, and less than ten hundred taels. I think that the entire Xingshan gold mining area is so vast that it may be unparalleled within the jurisdiction of our Qi country, and it is even very likely that it is also the largest gold mining area in the world, which is a huge and immeasurable wealth. ”

"By the way, I heard that dozens of kilometers southeast of Xingshan Mountain, there are also coal mines and iron ore with rich reserves?" Ni Henglin seemed to have thought of something, and suddenly asked, "Is this news accurate?" Have you sent anyone to verify this? ”

"Sir, this news should be true." Pei Shangyi, intelligence staff officer of the Ninth Regiment of the Army and Captain Xuanjie, nodded and said: "Ten days ago, our department sent a company of officers and soldiers to escort more than ten geological exploration experts to the mountainous area one hundred and thirty kilometers southeast of Zhangdebao, where a super-large coal storage belt was indeed discovered. Its coal is of high quality, has large reserves, is shallow buried, and has many types, which is much stronger than the coal mine near Nanchuan. Moreover, next to the coal field, those geological explorers also found traces of the existence of iron ore, and through a variety of indications, it was inferred that it was an iron ore with very large reserves, but I don't know what the grade is, and it is estimated that it should not be too bad. ”

"Oh, really?" Ni Henglin said with a smile: "In this way, South Africa is really a treasure land, not only gold mines, but also coal mines and iron mines. If the Cabinet government is interested, it can build a few very good coal and iron joint ventures here. Coupled with the so-so agriculture and animal husbandry in the region, in this way, our Qi country can build the entire South African region into a solid and powerful colonization base, according to which we can attack the Atlantic region by coastal routes, or we can continue to encroach and annex more indigenous territories by land, so as to build our African colonial empire! ”

(End of chapter)