The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 98 Heaven-sent land
"Damn it, the people of China are all a bunch of vampires!" Lori Fisher held a dozen gold yuan coupons of different denominations in her hand and cursed viciously in her heart while following her companions around the shops on the street.

He took ten ounces of gold, but when he went to the currency exchange office in Zhangdebao City, he only exchanged it for less than 40 yuan in gold yuan coupons.This gave Lori Fisher, who had taken all kinds of risks and endured all kinds of hardships to dig out the gold, reason to feel aggrieved.

What?Want to deduct gold purity?
Are there additional precious metal processing fees?
Do you want to deduct currency conversion fees?

Is there a so-called special mining tax?
……

There are all kinds of things, and after seven deductions and eight deductions, you can only get a dozen thin "pieces of paper" in exchange.

Well, it's actually quite a lot. In Dutch guilders, it's almost more than 300 guilders, which is equivalent to the annual income of a middle class in the United Provinces.

However, in Zhangdebao, and even in the entire Xingshan mining area, the prices of all materials have become extremely high. A piece of ordinary Hanzhou bread (steamed bun) costs two cents. If you eat three in a meal, that is 6 cents, which is 1 cents a day, so it is more than 8 yuan a month!

If you add meat, vegetables, wine, and necessary sugar, cocoa powder, and fruits, you will need eight or nine yuan just for food.Not to mention, you also have to buy replacement clothes, mining tools, repair dilapidated tents and sleeping bags. In a month, you will have to spend at least a dozen or 20 yuan.

Oh God, this is unimaginable!Most of the gold they worked so hard to find was cheap in the end for the local government of South Africa and those unscrupulous traders.

"I think that compared to us digging for gold in the mining area, these local residents who don't have to do anything will make more than us in a month!" Lori Fisher and several companions made a comparison after a round of comparisons. , I finally made up my mind to buy a few bags of slightly yellowed flour. As for the price I paid, it was five times higher than in Cape Town.

"Come on, Lori." Companion Nezel Cook quickly pulled him away to prevent his nagging complaints from angering the impatient Qi merchant in front of him. "We should feel lucky. Compared to those who are For the gold diggers in the mining areas who eat rats, grass roots, and tree bark, the least we can do is have money to afford food.”

"Having said that, such a high price really makes my heart bleed." Lori Fisher muttered, stacking the flour and some newly purchased daily necessities on the dilapidated carriage, and then looked up This slightly deformed and prosperous town let out a long sigh of relief, "What are we going to do next? Find a restaurant for a big meal, or leave the city immediately to join Erlo and the others?"

"I think it's better to find a restaurant to have a meal first." Ron Wells licked his lips and said, "It's been more than a month, and I haven't had any oily smell. I either eat dry food or eat noodles every day. Gosh, my stomach has already started to make a fuss!"

"That's fine." Nezel Cook also made a move in his heart. "After we have eaten and drank enough, we will buy more cooked food and drinks and bring them to Ello and the others."

"Oh, then we may need to spend a lot of money again!" Lori Fisher was also eager for a hearty and delicious meal, but when she thought of taking out a few thin sheets from her pocket, "Paper", I suddenly felt a lot of pain in my body.

"Haha..." Ron Wells hugged Lori Fisher's neck and laughed, "Stingy Lori, we came to Xingshan to dig for gold, isn't it just to make more money? ! So, what should we do after making money? Shouldn’t we live a life of abundance and enjoyment? Now it’s just lunch, we need to treat ourselves! After all, we have eaten so much in the past month or so. Less pain!"

"Every dollar we spend now means less land to buy in the future." Lori Fisher murmured to herself.

"Lori, I really doubt whether you have Jewish blood in you! Look at you, your whole body reveals endless greed and stinginess!"

"Of course I'm not a despicable Jew! I just don't want to become a homeless man with nothing. Yes, I don't want to starve and freeze anymore and continue to be a despicable refugee. I must become a rich man and I want to buy a house. A huge manor, I want to build a luxurious house, I want to buy a hundred black slaves, I want to live like a noble!"

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

"Oh, look, a big shot from the Qi Kingdom is here!" Nezer Cook watched in surprise as two carriages drove in from outside the city, with dozens of soldiers on horseback guarding them on the left and right, causing vendors on both sides of the street to hurriedly avoid them. .

"You shouldn't be here for the gold, right?"

"I hope this big shot will consider the people's livelihood here and find ways to import more supplies here to reduce the extremely high prices."

"Lori, to be honest, if possible, I really hope to elect you to be the governor here."
-
"The quality of this gold is quite good!" In the Zhangdebao government compound, Cheng Gongmian, who was newly transferred to the Xingshan District Administrative Office, picked up a cast and refined gold nugget and couldn't help but admired it.Cheng Gongmian was just appointed by the Governor-General of Qianzhou last month. After receiving some advice from the Governor, he hurried to Zhangdebao to take charge of the overall affairs management of the Xingshan area.

As soon as he took office, he immediately inspected the gold refining and processing plant and the mint.The two only small industrial facilities in Changdeburg are located in a corner near the military camp. They are mainly two crucible smelting furnaces and a small steam stamping mint. They smelt the gold collected by the government and the currency exchange office into the Imperial Bank. Unify standard gold nuggets and also mint a small amount of gold coins for gold exchange.

The scattered gold required to mint gold coins is basically gold collected from illegal gold miners when Army soldiers go out to patrol gold mining areas. A considerable number of gold prospectors hide in remote mining areas in order to avoid paying gold mining license fees. Mining gold.In addition, the army officers and soldiers also seized some trophies when they raided the surrounding indigenous tribe camps.Of course, there is a high probability that the soldiers will hide a lot of seized items secretly. After all, it will not be difficult to find someone to smelt underground in the future when they return to the local big city.

At present, about four or five tons of gold nuggets have been smelted and more than [-] yuan of gold coins have been minted.As usual, the local government was not allowed to move the money. All of it had to be transported to Changning (now Durban, South Africa) and deposited in the local vault of the Qianzhou Branch of the Imperial Central Bank.After a certain amount has been accumulated, the South African Squadron of the Navy's West Indian Ocean Fleet will send warships to transport it to the mainland, where it will be managed uniformly by the Imperial Household Department and the Imperial Central Bank as reserves for the issuance of gold round notes.

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

Of course, what the entire Xingshan area, including Zhangdebao, lacks most is not money, but a large amount of grain, cloth, sugar, oil, salt, medicine, and various daily necessities. What is needed is real materials, and It’s not gold or coins that you can’t eat or drink.

According to feedback from officers and soldiers of the Army's [-]th Regiment stationed in the Xingshan area, violent conflicts are increasing among gold prospectors in gold mining areas as it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain daily supplies.In the past, in order to compete for territory, they would fight if they disagreed, and even many lives were lost.Now, with the shortage of supplies in the entire region, gold diggers have begun to fight for food and trigger fierce armed battles, which has made the already unoptimistic security situation even more intense.

"More than a thousand officers and soldiers of the [-]rd Cochin Regiment of the Indian Garrison Army have arrived at Zhangde Fort and are currently building temporary camps to adapt to the local environment and climate." Cheng Gongmian left the smelting and stamping workshop and led a group of officials and subordinates to the official hall. As he walked, he told his subordinates, "Send them some supplies in a moment. Don't let the officers and soldiers complain that our local government is not taking care of them. After they have rested, we will We count on them to stabilize the production and living order in the entire Xingshan mining area. If the local area wants to develop, stability should be the top priority and cannot be ignored."

"In addition, we need to build a simple road to Nanchuan as soon as possible. Well, we don't need a first- or second-class road, just a gravel road that can pass heavy carriages. Otherwise, just rely on those scattered trails. How to strengthen communication with coastal ports? To build roads, it is natural to recruit a large number of indigenous laborers. The indigenous people within dozens of kilometers around Zhangdebao were almost wiped out by gold diggers, although a lot of vacant land was left for us. Land, but it has also destroyed the labor we urgently need. So, what should we do? We can only rely on the army brothers to take the trouble to sweep the valley and grassland areas to the north and east to capture a large number of indigenous populations. .”

"Although it is not yet known whether the planned Chang (Ning) Chang (Deburgh) Railway will be approved by the Cabinet Department of Transportation, we need to take precautions and make preparations in advance. Once this simple road is built, it will not only enable communication Coastal ports facilitate the transportation of materials inland. When the railway is built, it will be more or less conducive to the rapid arrival of road construction materials along the railway line to achieve the purpose of multi-section construction."

"Also, although the current focus of work is still to stabilize local order and strengthen the extraction and expropriation management of gold mines, agricultural and animal husbandry production cannot be easily ignored. It should be noted that the basis of local colonization activities is always food production. This is The foundation for all industrial, agricultural, and military operations is the top priority. In the near future, Changning Port will successively transport a group of immigrants from Qin, Annan and Japan, who will be resettled in our Xingshan area. I intend to choose In some places with good agricultural conditions, a number of state-owned farms will be established with a view to achieving basic self-sufficiency in food within three years."
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In a gold mine more than ten kilometers east of Zhangdebao, hundreds of black miners are working hard to extract and sort ore under the "guidance" of supervisors' whips and sticks.With numb expressions, they mechanically wielded their picks and shovels, digging out pieces of ore one after another, and then piling them up behind them.

Some thin black miners and a large number of strong black women used rakes, iron drills, and dustpans to carefully screen the roughly selected gold ore.Not far away, a dozen supervisors were holding whips and staring at their work process with sharp eyes. In addition to supervising their work progress, they also wanted to prevent the miners from hiding gold.

Around the mine, a simple circle was formed with wooden stakes.Four towering watchtowers stand at the four corners, and several observation sentries are stationed on them to closely monitor the movements inside and outside the gold mine.Groups of heavily armed soldiers, carrying muskets and leading hunting dogs, patrolled the perimeter of the mine.

"As early as a few decades ago, the indigenous people in South Africa did not know the wonders of gold, and there was no history of large-scale use of nugget gold as a general equivalent. Even so, our army men also grabbed a lot of gold from them , so who can tell me how much gold is contained in this mining area?" Ni Henglin, deputy commander of the [-]th Army Regiment and Lieutenant Colonel Linghui, looked at a dozen gold nuggets of different sizes placed on the ground and couldn't help but He was amazed, "In all these years, I have never heard of any gold mine having so much nugget gold. This shows that the mining conditions in the gold mining area are very good, the mining efficiency will be very high, and the cost should be very low. ... This This is God’s favor for our country of Qi!”

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

Many of their tribes have already entered the slave period. They can forge iron and smelt copper, and then shape it into various utensils. Gold is just a kind of metal. Over the long years, they will not fail to realize its value.What's more, over the years since the Qi people and the Dutch came to the coast of South Africa, they have also sent many expeditions and caravans to the inland areas to trade with black people. They have learned from the unusual thirst for gold of these foreign merchants. Understanding that this metal has a value that surpasses other items, they will slowly begin to consciously increase their reserves of this metal to cope with trade.

Of course, now that the Qi people are "full-fledged" and their strength is increasing in South Africa, they will no longer trade with them.The rural regiments and army soldiers with live ammunition replaced the merchants loaded with goods, and the sharp bayonets replaced the dazzling array of daily necessities. The black tribes were defeated one by one, and the people were either made slaves or killed, and the property they left behind became all The trophies of the Chinese people naturally include a large amount of gold nuggets.

"Sir, if a civilization as backward as black people can collect so much gold, then with our more advanced technology and stronger determination, the amount of gold we obtain will inevitably far exceed that of these ignorant natives." Army No. [-] Qu Shuliang, commander of the [-]st Battalion of the [-]th Regiment and Xuangjie Colonel (Major), said with a smile: "I led my troops to patrol tens of kilometers around Zhangde Fort, and gold diggers can be seen everywhere. Moreover, they are almost human." Everyone has gained something, the most is more than ten kilograms, and the least is more than hundreds of taels. I think that the entire Xingshan gold mining area is so vast that it may be unparalleled within the jurisdiction of our country of Qi. It may even be the largest gold mining area in the world, which is a huge and incalculable wealth.”

"By the way, I heard that rich coal and iron mines were discovered dozens of kilometers southeast of Xingshan?" Ni Henglin seemed to have thought of something and suddenly asked: "Is this news accurate? Have you sent anyone? Have you verified it?"

"Sir, this news should be true." Pei Shangyi, the intelligence staff officer of the Ninth Army Regiment and Xuangjie Colonel, nodded and said: "More than ten days ago, our department dispatched a company of officers and soldiers to escort more than ten geological exploration experts to Zhangde. In the mountainous area 130 kilometers southeast of Fort, a large-scale coal storage belt was indeed discovered there. The coal quality is high, the reserves are large, the burial is shallow, and there are many types. It is much better than the coal mine near Nanchuan. Moreover, Next to the coalfield, the geological exploration personnel also found traces of iron ore, and through various signs, they concluded that it was an iron ore with very large reserves, but I don’t know what the grade is, but I guess it shouldn’t be too bad.”

"Oh, really?" Ni Henglin said with a smile: "From this point of view, South Africa is really a treasure land. It not only has gold mines, but also coal mines and iron mines. If the cabinet government is interested, it can definitely build several extraordinary projects here. A good coal and railway joint venture. Coupled with the so-so agriculture and animal husbandry in the area, our Qi country can build the entire South Africa region into a solid and powerful colonization base. Based on this, we can conquer the Atlantic region along the coast, or we can pass through In the land direction, we will continue to go northward to encroach on more indigenous territories and build our African colonial empire!"

(End of this chapter)