Black Gold 1983

After leaving the family compound, Renye headed west along the bumpy dirt road. He was going to visit the West Second Mining Area to prepare for earning his first pot of gold.

The wind in January was still harsh, blowing against his face like knives, cutting his ears until they were bright red.

On both sides of the road were gray, frozen solid ridges of fields, the wheat seedlings not yet green, lying drooping on the ground.

Occasionally, I would pass through a village where the slogan "Family planning is a great achievement for generations to come" was painted on the earthen walls.

After hiking for about thirty minutes, we could see a dark gray mountain in the distance.

That was a mountain of coal gangue piled up by the Hongxing Mine over decades, like an ugly scar stretching across the hills and the sky.

Renye parked his bicycle by the roadside, climbed over a low earthen wall, and entered the West Second Mining Area.

This place can no longer be called a "mining area".

Calling it a ruin is no exaggeration.

The wellhead has been sealed off with red bricks, and the words "Danger Area - No Entry" are painted on the wall. Dry wormwood has grown in the cracks between the bricks, shivering in the wind.

Renye stood in the middle of the ruins, looking around.

The roof collapse three years ago happened right here. His father, Ren Shouyi, had his leg broken in that accident. If it had been even half a minute later, none of the twenty-odd people underground would have made it out.

Renye squatted down, picked up a piece of coal gangue from the ground, and weighed it in his palm.

It is grayish-white, loose in texture, and crumbles easily when squeezed.

This is gangue that is a byproduct of lean coal.

The so-called "gangue" is a rock mixed in with coal seams. It contains a small amount of combustible material and is not easily burned. It is commonly known as "gangue".

He stood up, threw the gangue aside, and looked past the ruins towards the hillside north of the mining area.

In his previous life, after he took over the Hongxing Mine, he asked the Provincial Coalfield Geological Bureau to conduct a 3D seismic survey. There happened to be a geological fault below that hillside.

The rock strata are staggered, with a dense and hard layer of siderite sandstone in between, which completely blocks the signals of the real valuable coking coal underneath, making it impossible to detect with ordinary exploration.

This is why the Hongxing Mine classified this area as a "marginal coal zone" and determined that it was not worth mining.

Renye walked north along the bottom of the hillside, and the soil under his feet became looser and looser, feeling like walking on cotton wool.

This is a typical characteristic of surface subsidence in mining areas.

The so-called "mining void" is the large empty space left after the coal has been mined out.

After the upper layers of lean coal were mined away, over time the roof collapsed, and the ground subsided, forming this pitted and uneven subsidence area.

Renye stopped and looked around.

The area of ​​this collapsed land is about 30 to 40 acres, stretching from the wellhead of the West No. 2 mining area all the way to the mountain ridge to the north.

The cracks in the ground spread out like a spider web. Some cracks were wide enough to fit a fist in. If you threw a stone in, you could hear it rolling down and taking a long time to stop.

This kind of land is unsuitable for growing crops.

The soil is loose and cannot retain water. When seeds are sown, they either die of drought or sink into cracks and cannot even sprout.

If you want to grow grain properly, you have to first stabilize the land, then cover it with soil, and then improve the soil. It takes three to five years to grow grain.

The people of Shigou Village lost their land; their fertile farmland turned into a collapsed wasteland. As a result, the well was sealed off, and they couldn't get any compensation. It would be strange if they didn't go to the mine to seek justice.

Renye continued walking forward, and when he reached the base of the hillside, he suddenly stopped.

He noticed something unusual.

Behind a clump of withered yellow grass, the ground collapsed into a pit, about a meter in diameter, with jagged edges. It didn't look like a natural collapse, but rather like it was dug out by human hands.

Scattered around the pit entrance were some gravel, the color of which was different from the surrounding rocks, like fresh gangue brought up from underground.

Renye squatted down and carefully examined the edge of the pit.

Someone built a simple support at the pit opening with wooden stakes. Four wooden stakes formed a square frame, which was covered with a few pieces of tattered tarpaulin and corn stalks. From the outside, it looked almost level with the surrounding ground. If you didn't look closely, you would never notice that there was a hole hidden there.

He lifted a corner of the tarpaulin and peeked into the pit.

It was pitch black; I couldn't see anything.

But a gust of wind rose up from below, carrying a damp, musty smell.

Renye brought his nose close to the pit opening, about to sniff carefully, when he suddenly heard a rustling sound coming from below.

The next second, a large, gray, furry rat suddenly pounced on him!

Renye was startled and instinctively leaned back, almost falling to the ground.

The rat almost grazed his nose as it flew past, but something suddenly grabbed it, leaving it suspended in mid-air, twisting and turning wildly, its squeaks sending chills down one's spine!

Renye looked closely and realized that the beast was actually tied to a wooden stake at the edge of the pit with a rope.

Mining thieves?

This is a trick that Jinye had seen in his previous life.

The so-called "mining rat" does not refer to the rat in front of us.

In the early 1980s, the supervision of state-owned mines was not strict, and some daring people would secretly dig holes on the edge of abandoned mining areas to sneak in and steal coal.

These people were called "mine rats" by the miners, just like rats in the fields, who specialized in stealing what was readily available.

They don't drill new wells because it's too much work and too noisy.

They specifically target old, sealed mine shafts, dig a hole next to them, crawl inside, and stealthily dig along the tunnels until they find unmined coal pillars or residual coal.

There's only one reason they'd keep a rat here—to test for gas.

This is a folk remedy that everyone who goes down into a well knows.

Gas is colorless and odorless, making it difficult for humans to detect. But rats are different; they are much more sensitive than humans. If the air quality is slightly off, they become restless, scurrying around and desperately trying to escape.

Before a miner goes down into the mine, he usually ties a rat down first and then pulls it up after a while. If the rat is still lively and jumping around, it means that the ventilation down there is not a problem and it is safe to go down.

If the rat dies, or becomes listless and motionless, then move it to another location.

Renye examined the pit carefully. It was neatly excavated, sturdy, and well-camouflaged. This was definitely not a "rat hole" created on a whim; someone was seriously illegally mining there.

Renye circled around the pit entrance again.

He discovered some traces.

There were shallow wheel tracks on the ground, but you could tell they were from a cart. The tracks were narrow, less than ten centimeters wide, and were very common in rural areas.

The tire tracks extended from the pit opening, went north for about twenty or thirty meters, and then disappeared into a country dirt road.

Renye followed the tire tracks to the front of the country road, bent down and cleared away a few pebbles, and sure enough, there were scattered coal slags on the ground.

It was jet black, shimmering with tiny sparkles in the sunlight.

Renye picked up a grain, pinched it with his fingernail, and rubbed it between his fingertips. A layer of black mark quickly appeared on his skin, dry and crumbly like flour, which would dissipate with a gentle breath.

This is a characteristic unique to lean coal.

Coking coal dust feels greasy when rubbed on and sticks to the skin, making it difficult to wash off; it's like having a thin layer of ointment on your skin.

Unlike lean coal, the coal dust of lean coal is dry and astringent. After rubbing it, you can just pat your hands and it will be clean, leaving no trace.

The reason why "lean coal" and "coking coal" feel so different is mainly due to the different degrees of coalification of the two types of coal.

First, we need to clarify a concept: there is no absolute good or bad in terms of the degree of coalification; it mainly depends on the intended use.

For example, lean coal with a high degree of coalification has a high calorific value, is long-lasting, and has a short flame, making it suitable for use as domestic fuel or for power generation.

Coking coal with a moderate degree of coalification has good coking properties and is an indispensable raw material for the steel industry.

Although lignite with low coalification has low calorific value and high moisture content, it has large reserves and low mining costs, making it suitable for direct combustion in large power plants for power generation. It can also be used in coal chemical production of fuel oil.

In his previous life, Renye's business layout was gradually developed by leveraging the unique strengths and uses of coals with different degrees of coalification.

This includes multiple sectors such as residential heating, industrial coking, power plant generation, mining production for self-use, and fuel supply to surrounding industrial and mining enterprises.

Now that we're starting over, rebuilding the business empire of the previous life is only a matter of time.

"It seems these mining rats didn't manage to dig up that layer of coking coal."

Renye got up again and walked back to the cave entrance. Although these mine rats might not be able to find the coking coal below, they had chosen the right location.

His original plan was to extract the high-quality coking coal using the most primitive manual tunneling method, rather than relying on mechanized mining. This was the most suitable entry point.

However, unlike these mining thieves, he was secretly mining.

My goal is to obtain the mining rights for this area in a legitimate and legal manner.