The Age of Discovery: Chinese cuisine swept across Europe

The benefits given by Min Xi greatly encouraged the natives, and they were very enthusiastic about leading the way. They chattered all the way, even gesticulating and explaining something enthusiastically, but unfortunately they could not understand what the other party was saying.

So both sides tried to learn each other's language to communicate. This was different from Min Xi's learning of European languages, which were assisted by written language and dictionaries, so it was not difficult to learn. The indigenous language had no written language, so to understand their meaning, one had to guess. Min Xi was indeed gifted in languages. Before he even reached the mine, he had already learned several indigenous words and taught a young indigenous man a few Chinese words.

The native boy who was learning Chinese was named Tulu. He was very smart and perceptive. He knew that Min Xi was the backbone of the team, so he was always around Min Xi. Min Xi was also happy to learn the native language from him and teach him to speak Chinese.

They climbed over two mountains, and the ground beneath their feet became increasingly red, even dark red. During a break, Min Xi picked up a heavy gravel from his feet, and sniffed it. There was no obvious odor, but he took out a magnet from his pocket and tested it, with a delighted smile on his face. As expected, it was iron ore.

He planned to bring back some iron ore when he returned, and have the craftsmen refine it into iron. With iron, it would be very easy to produce various tools, and then mining, road construction, and farming would be much easier.

Yun Ji saw him smelling the stone and asked curiously, "What's wrong? What's wrong with this stone?"

Min Xi put the stone in front of him and said, "Take a look."

Yun Ji looked at it suspiciously, and then he leaned in to smell it: "Nothing special."

Min Xi handed him the magnet in his hand: "Try it."

Yun Ji used a magnet to stick it on the surface and felt a weak suction force. He asked, "Is this iron ore?"

"Yes, this is iron ore. It is rich in iron. And you can see the red things around it. They are all iron ore." Min Xi said, pointing around.

Yun Ji turned his head and looked around, and said in shock: "All of them?!"

"Yes! And it's open air, so digging it up is not difficult at all. Just set up an iron smelting plant near the mine and transport the refined crude iron back to Ming Dynasty. At that time, merchants can be allowed to mine gold mines, but merchants cannot be allowed to mine iron mines. The ownership must be taken over by the court." Min Xi said.

Yun Ji was surprised by Min Xi's idea: "Why? Isn't gold more valuable than iron?"

Min Xi said: "Gold is of course more valuable. But iron has a wider range of uses. Think about it, iron is used to make weapons and tools. From a practical point of view, iron has a wider range of uses and is also related to the national economy and people's livelihood. If private individuals can sell iron ore, wouldn't the Ming Dynasty be in chaos?"

"That makes sense." Yun Ji worked in the Ministry of Revenue and knew that an important source of tax revenue for the ministry was the salt and iron tax. Salt and iron had been owned by the government since ancient times, which was related to the lifeblood of the country, especially the iron mines. Once privatized, the chances of rebellion would greatly increase and the country would be in chaos.

At almost noon, they finally arrived at the gold mine. Unlike iron mines, this gold mine is not everywhere, but is located in the mountain stream between two mountains. The gold ore is washed into the mountain stream by rain during the rainy season, and its exact source has yet to be determined.

Looking at the traces of water levels on the stones in the stream, during the rainy season, there is a lot of water here, but at this time there is very little water in the mountain stream and the flow has dried up. Perhaps there is no vegetation on this mountain and the mountain's water storage capacity is very weak, so it will dry up once the dry season comes.

They learned from General Yan that there was another indigenous tribe living nearby, and that tribe had a grudge against the tribe they knew. The specific reason was unclear, but it would be a life-and-death situation when they met.

When they came here the day before yesterday, they met people from that tribe who were coming to the mountain stream to fetch water. As soon as the two indigenous tribes met, they started fighting.

In order to stop the fight, General Yan fired several shots into the air, but failed to intimidate the other side. So he joined the battle and injured the other side. If Yun Ji's horn had not been blown in time, the battle might not have ended so early.

"The natives are fighting as if they don't care about their lives, even though there is a lack of medical care and medicine." This is General Yan's evaluation.

Min Xi arranged for people to guard the high ground to prevent the natives from attacking, and then allowed everyone to enter the stream to look for gold ore. After all, if someone threw rocks down from the mountain, there would be no way to avoid it.

General Yan said that the mountain stream was full of gold ore, which could be easily found. After Min Xi went down, he picked up two stones and found that one of them was gold ore. It was really easy to find.

Everyone in the group was very surprised, and some even started looking for broken gold in the stream. Min Xi and Yun Ji walked up the stream to find out the origin of the ore.

Soon, they determined the origin of the gold mine, which was actually the mountain on the right side of the stream. The color of this mountain was slightly different from the one on the left. The mountain on the left was redder, and the mountain on the right was darker.

Min Xi and Yun Ji climbed up the hillside on the right, and they could see dots of gold in the rock strata, and the gold-containing rock strata extended all the way to the middle of the mountain.

They decided to climb to the top of the mountain to see how big it was. Before they reached the top, they heard the navy soldier on guard said, "Sir, there are people coming over there. They look like natives."

Min Xi and Yun Ji looked at each other, and Yun Ji turned to the people who were looking for gold ore in the stream and said, "Pay attention, the enemy is coming. Don't stay in the valley anymore. The people on the merchant ship should hurry to the opposite mountain. All the navy soldiers should come here. Tell those natives to come over as well!"

Since a gold mine has been discovered here and it is near another indigenous tribe, we must resolve the problem with this tribe. Otherwise, we will offend the local bully and how will we live in peace in the future.

Moreover, according to Min Xi's idea, he was unwilling to make enemies with any indigenous people. He hoped to turn hostility into friendship. After all, mining on the land where other people's ancestors lived was not an act of genocide like the Western bandits.

Soon, the natives climbed up from the other side of the mountain. They were carrying leather bags for drawing water, and it seemed that they were here to fetch water.

When the natives on Minxi's side saw them, they started shouting, as if they wanted to drive them away by relying on their numbers. When the natives saw that the hilltop was full of people, they stopped and did not go up any further.

Upon seeing this, Min Xi quickly stopped the natives and told them not to speak.

Min Xi and Yun Ji discussed it and thought that since they came here to fetch water, it meant that the water was very important to them, so there was no need to embarrass them and they should let them come to fetch water. But those people were obviously frightened by the people here and were afraid to come over. After a while, they turned around and walked back.