The Age of Discovery: Chinese cuisine swept across Europe

Min Xi took the gold piece and felt it was heavy. With a little force, he could deform it. It was indeed gold, but the color was a little reddish. The purity was not too high, and the gold content was about 70% to 80%.

Yun Ji also took it and tried it: "This is real gold, at least half a pound in weight, how can there be such a big piece of gold?"

Min Xi said: "It should be a piece of nugget gold, which he smashed into gold flakes. I just don't know where he got it from."

Min Xi picked up the gold piece and asked the other party: "Where did you get this from?"

The other party naturally didn't understand what he said, so he just gestured to ask if he could exchange things.

Min Xi took out his things and let the other party choose. The man was overjoyed and picked a dagger. He wanted to take another one, looked up to see Min Xi's reaction, and saw that Min Xi did not object, so he took the second dagger away.

He pointed to the pottery jar again, and Min Xi took him a pottery jar and two bowls, filled one bowl with sugar and the other with salt, and gave him a pair of scissors and two pieces of cloth, as well as needle and thread.

These had completely exceeded the other party's expectations, and he happily called a woman over to help him get the things.

Min Xi called him, pointed at the gold in his hand, and gestured desperately, trying to find out where he got it from.

The other party was not stupid either, and finally understood what Min Xi meant. He pointed to the river not far away. It was obvious that the gold nugget was fished out of the river.

Yun Ji looked at the direction of his finger and said, "It looks like it was picked up from the river. It seems there is a gold mine upstream of this river."

"It should be." Min Xi looked at the gold piece in his hand. It was such a big piece of gold nugget. It seemed that this gold mine was quite rich.

"Should we go look for the location of the gold mine?" Yun Ji asked for his opinion.

"Go ahead. Since you know there is a gold mine here, it's better to determine the location."

Min Xi had not originally planned to look for gold mines here. He knew that when more Ming merchant ships came in the future, more and more gold mines would be discovered. But now the news of the gold mines was right in front of him. If he didn't go, it would be a waste of opportunity.

After exchanging pearls with the natives, Min Xi took out the finger orange and wanted to ask if there were any similar fruits here. When the natives saw the finger orange, they picked it up curiously and looked at it, and then gave it back to him. Obviously, they had never seen this kind of finger orange before.

Min Xi was just worrying about how to ask them what edible fruits there were, when he caught a glimpse of a few native women passing by carrying a huge giant clam shell filled with green fruits.

Min Xi hurried forward and looked at the green fruit in the giant clam shell, which was obviously a tangerine. Min Xi gestured to the women, indicating that he wanted one.

The dark-skinned native women were impressed by Min Xi, who was much whiter than them, and smiled at him. One of them grabbed a handful of fruit and handed it to him. Min Xi took it and nodded to thank them.

Yun Ji walked up to him and said, "Ninth brother, what is it?"

Min Xi looked down at the green tangerine in his hand. It should be an Australian tangerine. "I've eaten this kind of tangerine before, but it's not ripe yet. It's very sour, but we don't have to worry about it being sour. The important thing is that it can replace finger limes to supplement the vitamins we need. I don't know if it's wild or grown by them. If it's wild, we can pick it ourselves."

"They grow better, we can buy some from them," said Yun Ji.

"You're right!" Min Xi quickened his pace, caught up with the women, took out a piece of cloth, and expressed his desire to exchange the oranges with them.

The women didn't understand what he meant at first, but the natives who had exchanged things with them understood what Min Xi meant and hurried up to explain to the women.

The women understood what Min Xi meant and looked at the piece of cloth with some hesitation. A piece of cloth was a bit troublesome for them. How could they divide it?

Seeing this, Min Xi thought for a moment, then put away the cloth, took out a few needles and balls of thread and handed them to them.

The women were even more confused when they saw the needle and thread. Min Xi took out a needle, pulled out the thread from the ball, put it in his mouth to wet the thread, then passed the thread through the needle, cut the thread with scissors, tied a knot at the end of the thread, then picked up the cotton cloth and started sewing.

The women now understood what Min Xi meant. This was a good thing. In the future, they would be able to connect different leathers together when making tents and clothes.

They put down the oranges in their hands, took the needle and thread from Min Xi, held it up to the sun, and looked at the thin needle carefully. They could not imagine that someone could make a needle so thin, and the needle was very hard and could not be broken by hand. The thread was also very thin, but very strong. To them, it was a good thing.

When someone saw Min Xi wanted oranges, they hurried back home and brought the oranges from their home to Min Xi, but the quantity was too little, so Min Xi could only give the other person some candy.

Min Xi had people pack the oranges into bags and return the giant clams that contained the oranges to the women. Although giant clams were good things, this one was too worn out and no one knew how many years it had been used. There was no need to buy it.

After exchanging things, Min Xi and others returned to the beach with their gains. When they saw the large piece of gold in his hand, their eyes widened. There was such a large piece of gold in this place! This showed that the gold mine here had a higher gold content than the previous two gold mines.

So when Min Xi proposed to look for gold along the river, no one objected.

This time the search for the gold mine took longer than the previous ones. Min Xi and his party walked upstream along the river for seven days, but they still didn't find the gold mine until the river was too shallow for boats to sail. They had to abandon the boat and continue on foot. They walked along the river for another three days before they found the gold mine they had been waiting for.

The reason they kept going up was that they found gold in the river, and some even found a piece of gold nuggets the size of a pigeon egg. But compared to the gold picked up by the native, it was nothing.

It was precisely because of this temptation that they persisted to the end and found a gold mine in the upper reaches of the river, near the source. The terrain of this gold mine is somewhat similar to the first gold mine they found. The mountains on both sides of the canyon are gold-containing mines, and the canyon is covered with rocks, many of which contain gold.

Due to the low rainfall in this season, there was not much water in the canyon. They found a lot of broken gold among the rocks. Some people were lucky enough to find some relatively large gold nuggets.

Fragments of gold can also be seen on the cliffs on both sides of the canyon. To be honest, they are very tempting, but they do not plan to stay there because they have been out for too long. Now that they have found the place, they will go back quickly and wait for someone to come and mine later.

They made a fire on the spot and cooked, eating the kangaroos that Yun Ji and his men had hunted. After eating and drinking, Min Xi went to get water to put out the fire, so there was no need to worry about fire.

The canyon was full of rocks, and the water was in the lower center of the canyon. Min Xi held a basin of water and carefully avoided some protruding rocks.

At this time, Yun Ji suddenly called him: "Ninth brother, stand still and let me serve."

Min Xi answered as he walked, "It's okay, I can do it." Before he finished speaking, his foot was stuck between two stones, and the stone on the bottom of his foot happened to be a slightly sharp stone, which hit the sole of his thousand-layer shoes, and it was really painful. He couldn't help but yelled "Ouch".

Yun Ji ran over quickly: "What's wrong?"

Min Xi tilted the basin in his hand and some of the water spilled out: "It's okay, my foot is just stuck."

Yun Ji walked over quickly, took the basin from his hand and put it down: "Let me see your feet." Then he squatted down to check Min Xi's feet.

Min Xi held his shoulders, pulled his foot out, and turned his ankle: "It's okay, it just hurts a little."

Yun Ji grabbed his foot and squeezed it: "Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt, it's really okay. Let's go, everyone is waiting for us." Min Xi withdrew his foot and walked to a flatter place.

Yun Ji was relieved after making sure that he was fine. He turned around to get the basin of water and suddenly froze. He dug at the place where Min Xi had just splashed water, picked up a large, uneven stone from the ground, and put it in the basin to wash it.

Seeing that he didn't catch up, Min Xi stopped and looked back at him: "What's wrong?"

Yun Ji held up the thing in his hand and said, "Look at this, is it a gold nugget?"

Min Xi looked at the object that was bigger than Yun Ji's head. The stone, which had just been washed, revealed its original color, which was golden and dazzling. "Oh my god, it really is! Is it this big? Is it sinking?"

Yun Ji weighed it and said, "It's very heavy, at least ten pounds."

The others were all stunned and came to Yun Ji: "Let me see, is it real? Such a big gold nugget?"

"My God, you are so lucky!"

"What a huge gold nugget! This is going to make you rich!"

Min Xi had already walked back to Yun Ji. He took the nugget from Yun Ji. It was so heavy that it took his hand down. "Haha, it really is gold! How did you see it?"

Yun Ji said, "The water you brought just now splashed on it, revealing a bit of gold. I picked it up and washed it, and found that it was really a nugget of gold."

Min Xi laughed happily when he heard this: "It seems that I can turn stone into gold."

Everyone gathered around to look at this huge piece of gold nugget, and they all thought it was amazing. They were about to leave, but Lord Min went to fetch water to put out the fire, and Lord Yun came to help, and as a result, they discovered this piece of gold nugget. They were really lucky in the extreme.

Yun Ji let them play with the gold nugget while he picked up the basin of water to put out the fire.

They should have left, but everyone was itching to find a piece of gold nugget. They all wanted to make a fortune and find a piece of gold nugget in this canyon.

"Sir, let's not leave today. Let's leave tomorrow. Let's stay here for a day to see if we can find the nugget of gold." Someone begged.

Min Xi and Yun Ji looked at each other, and Yun Ji smiled and said, "Okay, let's just look for it today and leave tomorrow."

Min Xi reminded everyone: "Be careful not to sprain your feet. We still have to walk for a few days before we can get back."

"Got it!" Everyone responded loudly and happily, and hurried to the canyon to look for gold nuggets.