Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

This tribe has no special products. Even the only three copper daggers were obtained from the tribe further east.

The prospector in the team exchanged an iron axe for a copper dagger.

First spread it on the fingertips to weigh it, then smash it directly with a hammer and observe the broken end of the dagger carefully.

"It is not artificially smelted," the prospector said to Wang Chongdu, "it should be made of natural copper (alloy). There must be rich copper mines nearby. You can ask them where they got it from."

It is difficult to get the result.

Lin Wu took the broken copper dagger and ran to the tribal chief to gesture for a long time. The other party thought that Lin Wu wanted to trade for copper daggers, so he also offered the remaining two, hoping to get the iron axe again.

Lin Wu was so anxious that he scratched his head and didn't know how to explain it.

"Let me do it."

Li Zuqia went over with two iron axes and exchanged the remaining two copper daggers.

Then, he took out three more iron axes.

The chief's eyes lit up, and he quickly asked someone to bring a bunch of miscellaneous items. There were ornaments, paints, bone axes, boomerangs... He wanted to use these things to exchange for Li Zuqia's axe.

Li Zuqia waved his hand and shook his head, pushed the miscellaneous items back, and pointed to the copper dagger to show that he still wanted it.

The chief became more and more anxious and ran to discuss with the wizard.

During the whole process, all members of the exploration team were extremely vigilant. Some people held the handles of the knives, and some people loaded their muskets, fearing that the natives would see the wealth and rob directly.

Finally, the chief ran back and pointed to the dagger first, and then pointed to the farther east.

The meaning was very clear, their copper dagger came from the east.

The natives seemed to be planning to travel far away, organized a team of ten people, and brought dried kangaroo meat. This kind of kangaroo jerky is smelly and woody, and can make people want to vomit.

The real cooking method of kangaroo is to stew and roast it like before, so that enough juice can be retained.

The Mongolian roasted whole lamb with skin is actually a similar method. It is available in Inner and Outer Mongolia. Red-hot stones are stuffed into the lamb's stomach, charcoal is spread on the outside, and then covered with soil to simmer slowly.

While the natives were preparing, Wang Chongdu also sent people back to the shore to call more people and bring enough food.

Two team members were suffering from diarrhea due to water and soil incompatibility, so they were thrown back to the shore to recuperate.

The next day, everyone followed the natives and set off, walking east for more than two days.

There is another tribe here, and it is larger.

The two tribes began to communicate and took out the iron axes they exchanged for display.

Wang Chongdu warned: "This tribe is quite large, with an estimated number of hundreds of people. Be careful that they will suddenly attack because of their desire for the iron axe."

"Always be on guard." Li Bin patted the flintlock in his hand.

Wang Chongdu said: "There is no reason to guard against thieves for a thousand days. When the natives take us to find copper mines, we will shoot and kill one of the prey we meet on the way. Show us our military power!"

Soon, the chief of the big tribe came over and talked a lot.

Lin Wu, still as an exchange personnel, held out a piece of flowered cloth taken from the ship.

Ordinary tie-dyed cotton cloth with blue background and white patterns. The price is not expensive. Even the lower-class people in the Ming Dynasty can tear off two feet to make new clothes during festivals.

The chief of this big tribe likes it very much, although they don't have the habit of wearing clothes.

Accept the gift and return the gift immediately.

"What kind of gem is this?" Wang Chongdu said in surprise.

This thing is about the size of a chestnut, polished to be round and smooth, exuding a dreamy and gorgeous color.

Opal!

There will be more if you continue to go southeast. 90% of the world's opals come from here.

That night, everyone was entertained and took turns to stand guard at night.

The next day, they headed south, and representatives of the two tribes led everyone to look for copper mines.

At a small river, they found more than a dozen kangaroos drinking water. Wang Chongdu shouted, "Fire those big rats to open the eyes of the savages here and prevent them from having any evil intentions!"

"Bang, bang, bang!"

A burst of gunfire startled the natives, and then they saw four kangaroos fall down.

They looked at the Ming Dynasty exploration team, and then at the dead kangaroos in the distance, and they didn't understand what was going on for a while.

Wang Chongdu sent someone to carry the kangaroo body back and said to Li Bin, "Reload the bullets and fire another shot."

Li Bin quickly cleared the chamber and reloaded the bullets. Under the gaze of the natives, he shot at the kangaroos at close range.

"Bang!"

A gunshot made a bloody hole.

The expressions of the natives seemed quite panicked, and several people rushed over to check the kangaroo body.

Suddenly, a native knelt down and kowtowed to the Ming Dynasty expedition team.

They already had primitive religious worship, and obviously regarded Wang Chongdu and others as gods.

Gods do things, so naturally we can't ask too much.

After walking for another half a day, they were short of drinking water, so they set up a pot by the river to boil water, and took a break and cooked food to fill their stomachs.

One reason came from the development of medicine in the Ming Dynasty, the second from the popular science propaganda of the court, and the third from the personal experience of the expedition team. As long as they have the conditions, they will never drink raw water, especially raw water in unknown areas.

The staple food at this moment is rice supplied from Java Island.

Simply cook it into white rice, and grill the kangaroos shot with guns.

It's really unpalatable to grill kangaroo meat directly. Even if you put a lot of salt, you can't suppress the smell, and the meat is woody and hard like an old wild boar. Let everyone start to miss the stewed kangaroos a few days ago.

Some white rice was also distributed to the natives. Those natives were like eating delicacies, thinking that rice was the exclusive food of gods.

After filling their stomachs, everyone waited for the boiling water to cool down and poured the cold boiled water into the water bag for storage.

After walking and stopping for nearly two days, everyone was exhausted.

This is a tropical savanna climate with low temperatures, less than 30 degrees during the day and below 20 degrees at night. But the air is dry and there are many mosquitoes, so everyone applied natural mosquito repellents all over their bodies.

The natives were naked and didn't know how they could resist mosquito bites.

The natives continued to lead the way forward, but the prospector stopped and pointed to the small mound on the surface and said, "Iron cap."

"Iron ore?" Wang Chongdu asked.

The prospector shook his head: "Not necessarily, it could also be copper ore."

Wang Chongdu frowned and said: "Although there are indigenous tribes here, the population is still too small, and it is two or three days away from the coast. Even if copper ore is found, it is difficult to mine. Unless..."

"Unless there is a gold mine." Li Zuqia said.

Copper mines cannot attract adventurers, and local human resources cannot mine much.

Only gold mines are worth mining at this stage.

The prospector found more than ten iron caps nearby, studied them and said with regret: "They are all iron cap copper mines. If they were placed in China, we would make a fortune."

The small mounds that emerged from the ground are copper oxides and hydroxides, which react with iron to form iron caps. It is more difficult to mine than ordinary copper mines, and it is also mixed with gold, silver and other substances.

Under the guidance of the natives, they continued to travel south for a day.

The prospector was almost crazy, because after passing the iron cap belt, he soon found open-pit rich copper mines.

The copper daggers of the nearby tribes were obtained from this area.

"Record it," Wang Chongdu sighed, "It's too far and too desolate here, and it's impossible to mine, but you can report it to the court for merit."

They returned north and took out a few iron axes in exchange for some natural copper lumps.

They also used cotton cloth and other items to exchange for hundreds of opal gems.

Continue to travel east by boat.

When the three large ships set sail, both tribes sent people to see them off, kneeling on the shore and reluctantly seeing them off.

Every time the fleet traveled a certain distance, they sent people to land and explore, and encountered several tribes one after another.

Unfortunately, they did not explore deeply.

During one of the explorations, if they continued to travel south for a few days, they would reach the largest silver mining area in Australia.

According to statistics in 1997, the silver reserves there are 23,000 tons, and the annual output accounts for 7% of the total silver production in the world. Moreover, it has few impurities and is easy to mine.

Most importantly, the silver mine is only more than 300 kilometers away from the coast, and there are some small rivers along the way leading to the sea!

Alas, I missed it.

But Wang Chongdu got more opals. This thing is very beautiful and sparkling. It is estimated that it can be sold at a good price when it is transported back to Ming Dynasty.

That silver mine is also within the opal production area and is relatively close to the core area.

If you come to purchase opals in the future, you may accidentally discover silver mines.

Gradually, the fleet sailed from the tropical savanna climate zone into the tropical rainforest climate zone in the northeast corner of Australia.

Then it turned and went south along the east coast of Australia.

The entire east coast has a growing population and denser distribution of tribes.

This place is suitable for human habitation!

They have been sailing along the coastline, going ashore from time to time to communicate with the natives.

The natives on the east coast are more aggressive, and tribal wars often occur. It seems that some small-scale tribal alliances have been formed.

The Ming Dynasty exploration team was even involved in it. When trading with one tribe, it was raided by another tribe. One person was injured by a flying stone thrown by a slingshot, and Wang Chongdu was so angry that he led people to flatten that tribe.

The tribe that was raided before cooperated with them throughout the battle and respected them as gods.

It took about two months for the fleet to stop and go to the southeast corner of Australia.

They landed at a natural harbor, which was later called Melbourne.

The Chinese have another name for it: New Gold Mountain!

San Francisco is in the United States, and New Gold Mountain is in Australia. Both places have gold.

When exchanging items with the local natives, Li Zuqia walked behind Wang Chongdu and asked, "Is the yellow necklace of the chief gold?"

Wang Chongdu walked closer and observed it carefully. The more he looked, the more it looked like gold.

The necklace was strung together with straw ropes, and there were ornaments made of bones and stones, with a few golden things in between.

Wang Chongdu took out a small bag of refined salt and asked the chief to taste it.

Then, he pointed to the other party's necklace and tried to exchange it.

Perhaps the necklace was very precious, and he added a piece of cotton cloth and finally exchanged the necklace.

That night, the main members of the expedition team gathered together.

Wang Chongdu said, "There is gold nearby. The natives must not have the technology to mine gold. Either the gold sand was washed from the river, or the gold nuggets were picked up from somewhere."

"We are rich!" Gao Wenbao grinned.

Li Bin said, "Don't show your true colors. Ask around tomorrow."