My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 52 Someone is coming
After filling his stomach and smoking a cigarette, Wu Yang took his tools and went up to the small peninsula to join the work team.

Zhou Jingming calmly cut the beaver meat in half.

Half of it was rubbed with salt and hung on the purlin above the earthen stove.

The weather is still quite cold, so it won't spoil so easily. Hanging it above the earthen stove also helps to smoke it out, allowing it to be preserved for a longer time.

The other half of the beaver meat was chopped into small pieces by Zhou Jingming on a wooden block used as a cutting board, and then cooked in an antimony pot with salt, some chili, and cumin.

During the cleaning process, Zhou Jingming discovered that the strong, strange smell on the beaver came from a sac of glands behind its anus. The smell was similar to musk. He didn't throw it away after cutting it off, but hung it on a tree next to the dugout.

Cooking meat in an earthen stove requires adding firewood frequently. He rarely takes a break, so he uses this time to find a piece of poplar tree more than a meter long and about the thickness of a bowl on the woodpile outside. The bark is peeled off, and the inside is smooth and delicate, making it perfect for making leather lasts.

Leather lasts are an indispensable tool for tanning leather, just like shoe lasts used for making cloth shoes these days; they are used to stretch the leather tight.

Unlike those experienced hunters who had specialized tools, they had to use whatever materials were available.

He laid the beaver skin on the poplar tree, stretched it taut, and secured it with small nails. He then found a piece of firewood, simply trimmed it into a three-sided, straight, sharp but not jagged shape, and used it as a wooden knife to scrape the beaver skin.

Sharp edges can easily scratch the skin.

Zhou Jingming used this piece of firewood to scrape the beaver skin laid on the poplar wood horizontally from top to bottom. After scraping one piece, he moved to another position until all the remaining fascia and muscle on the skin were scraped off.

Jin Wang had already eaten all the offal, but still wasn't satisfied, so he ran over to him and picked up all the scraps of dung he had scraped off.

Its curled tail, held high, seemed much happier than usual.

Zhou Jingming spent more than half an hour scraping off the tartar from the beaver pelt, then rinsed it in the river. He also cut two willow branches, bent them into circles to serve as a frame, punched small holes around the beaver pelt with nails, threaded a thin rope through it, stretched it tightly inside the frame, applied salt, and hung it on a birch tree next to the dugout to dry.

When tanning leather, three things are needed: nitrate, salt, and alkali. The role of nitrate is to soften the leather, the role of salt is to fix the hair, and the role of alkali is to dissolve the oil.

This takes time and cannot be accomplished in a day or two. Conditions in the mountains are limited. Salt is available, and alkali can be replaced by the ash left over from burning firewood, but saltpeter is not available.

He could only apply some salt to prevent decay, dry it into a slab for storage, and then deal with it later.

This method was learned by Zhou Jingming from hunters in the Great Northern Wilderness. He used raven pelts to make hats, fox and water dog pelts to make scarves, and roe deer pelts to make sleeping tubes. This method was used for tanning all the pelts.

Thanks to this method, Zhou Jingming was able to get hats and scarves made from raven and fox pelts. He gave a few of them to the farm manager. Each raven and fox pelt was worth at least forty yuan, so those items were quite valuable.

It was largely because of this connection that he was recommended by the farm manager to attend the Workers-Peasants-Soldiers University, which led to his job in the geological team.

People who know how to handle situations are generally more likable.

Otherwise, he would have stayed on the farm like most educated youth until he was able to return to the city and become an unemployed youth.

However, his leather-making skills had become rusty after many years, so he was much slower.

After he finished these tasks, the beaver meat in the antimony pot was almost cooked. He picked up a piece to taste, and probably because he was thirsty for meat and lacked oil, it tasted slightly unpleasant when it was brought to his mouth. But once he put it in his mouth, all he could think of was "delicious".

He placed the antimony pot on the fire pipe, removed the firewood from the earthen stove, and extinguished it by sticking it into the ashes below.

Half the morning has passed. Although I'm taking a break from my busy schedule, I can't really be lazy. Making money is still the priority.

Zhou Jingming specially used a large bowl to pick out nine pieces of meat of similar size, and carried them to the small peninsula, intending to share them with them first.

He knew they were all eyeing the beaver meat in the pot, and at this moment, being able to taste it would be a pleasure, and also a way to gain some favor.

Upon seeing Zhou Jingming carrying a large bowl onto the island, Peng Yuanchao was the first to greet him. Seeing the steaming hot meat in the bowl, he couldn't wait to grab a piece and stuff it into his mouth, exclaiming, "Mmm...it tastes good, so fragrant!"

He wanted more after finishing his meal, but Zhou Jingming slapped his hand away as soon as he reached for some: "One piece each, just to have a taste!"

Peng Yuanchao pursed his lips, but immediately turned to the group and shouted, "Look how good Brother Zhou is to you all. He even thinks of you when he cooks meat... Come and rest, have a bite first, one piece for each person, no more than that." Some people had already seen it, and upon hearing this, they all dropped what they were doing and gathered around, not caring whether their hands, covered in mud, were dirty or not, and picked up the meat and stuffed it into their mouths.

"Hey, I didn't expect this meat to be so delicious!"

"It's quite lucrative too!"

"After taking this bite, my whole body felt comfortable."

……

The oil brought into the mountains for consumption is pure rapeseed oil, also known as "clear oil" by people in northern Xinjiang, which is not very filling.

After all, it is a place where Uyghurs, Hui people, and Kazakhs live together, and they have their own taboos.

Besides vegetable oil, they also eat beef and mutton fat, especially beef fat. This stuff can only be eaten hot; if the weather gets a little cold, it will burn. Even when you eat it, it burns your teeth and tongue. Many of the gold prospectors from the mainland are not used to this kind of oil and smell.

Of course, many Han Chinese still raise pigs, but in years when meat and oil are scarce, it's not easy to buy them from farmers. The supply and marketing cooperatives and grain and oil stores and markets sell them for more than lean meat. If you really want to eat them, the consumption will be quite high. So, cooking oil is more suitable.

That's why eating a mouthful of juicy beaver meat at this time gives you that satisfying feeling of your pores opening up.

As for that slightly strange taste, it became insignificant.

During a brief rest, Zhou Jingming looked at the riverbank below, where the water pumps were making a constant clanging and groaning sound, and asked Peng Yuanchao, "Have those people made any moves?"

Peng Yuanchao had finished the Red Lotus tobacco he brought into the valley, and like the others, he was smoking freshly rolled Mohe cigarettes. He handed Zhou Jingming some cigarette paper and tobacco: "I've been looking over there quite a bit, but I haven't seen anything. They've been working all morning!"

Zhou Jingming rolled the cigarette, lit it, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled: "It would be best if there was absolutely no noise!"

Peng Yuanchao nodded and sighed, "I hope so!"

Zhou Jingming could sense his worry and patted him on the shoulder: "Try to be optimistic. Sometimes, it's not all bad."

After a short rest, the group continued working, and Zhou Jingming joined in, just like yesterday, helping to dig out the mud and sand, while others took over to help Peng Yuanchao transport the mud and sand.

Around noon, since Zhou Jingming had already cooked beaver meat that morning, he only assigned one person to cook rice.

Peng Yuanchao brought back a load of mud and sand from the sluice gate. He squatted at the edge of the sand pit and whispered to Zhou Jingming, "Someone's coming. They're almost at our dugout!"

Zhou Jingming stopped digging and stood up: "Who is it? How many are here?"

"Who else could it be? Two of those guys from the riverbank down there have arrived!"

Zhou Jingming threw down his pickaxe, reached out to Peng Yuanchao, and, pulled by him, climbed out of the sandpit. He patted the mud and sand off his hands, wiped the fine sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and looked in the direction Peng Yuanchao was pointing his chin.

Two people came up the riverbank without deliberately going around to the woods behind the dugout, so they must have come for the dugout.

Zhou Jingming wasn't worried: "If only two come, there won't be any problems. But if they really want to seize our territory, they won't just send two, but more than twenty of them. Let's see what they're here for!"

Jin Wang, who was lazily sunbathing on the riverbank of the small peninsula, heard Zhou Jingming's voice, raised his head and glanced at Zhou Jingming, then immediately turned over and stood up, shook off the sand sticking to his body, ran over, and burrowed between Zhou Jingming's legs, being extremely affectionate.

It suddenly stopped, raised its head and looked towards the dugout, letting out a fierce growl. The next second, it rushed out and arrived at the dugout first, barking wildly at the two people.

Upon seeing this, the two quickly stopped and ceased their advance.

Peng Yuanchao glanced at Jin Wang, then turned to Zhou Jingming: "I still think I should pay for the dog food. This dog was definitely worth raising!"

Zhou Jingming laughed: "I don't want you to have designs on Jin Wang."

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(End of this chapter)