Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The piece of gold Huang Lun found was about the size of a thumb, and could barely be considered a nugget.

He was excited for several days and nights, and people came to congratulate him every day, actually wanting to see what a nugget looks like.

Wang Chongdu also came to express his condolences and said to Huang Lun: "If you are afraid of losing it, you can sell it to me. Nugget gold is more valuable than ordinary gold, but yours is too small and will definitely not sell for a high price."

Huang Lun was afraid that he would get into trouble if he kept waiting, so he nodded and said: "I will sell it if the ship owner gives me a suitable price!"

The two bargained for a while and traded at the official Guangdong gold price at the time of going out to sea, with a 10% increase.

Of course, the boat tickets, food, medicine, waist knife, and port tax that Huang Lun owed on credit had to be deducted, and this did not include the monthly gold mining tax.

After all the digging, Huang Lun still owed Wang Chongdu.

If he continued to work hard to mine gold, he would soon pay off his debts here, and then he would pay off his debts back home.

By purchasing a nugget, Wang Chongdu reiterated to the gold diggers: "You can sell all your gold to me, and you can take the rest back to pay off your debts. But I want to remind you that when you return to China and file taxes at Hong Kong, you must sell all your gold and silver to the government. Anyone who hides them and takes them home is guilty of smuggling gold and silver!"

This rule was not set by Zhu Ming, but has always been the case in the early Song Dynasty.

While allowing private mining and gold panning, the Northern Song Dynasty stipulated that the mined gold and silver must be sold to the government. However, because the official purchase price was too low, more and more people privately hoarded gold and silver.

The Ming Dynasty learned from the lessons of the Northern Song Dynasty and raised the official purchase price, and announced the current price of gold and silver every six months. The people called it the "official price", and all gold, silver and currency transactions were based on the official price.

Of course, gold and silver also have a certain quality.

There are always some corrupt officials who pick and choose when purchasing gold and silver in mining areas and ports, saying that the quality is not enough and deliberately lower the price.

There was a big incident in Fuzhou. As the gold sand in Keelung River was exhausted, many gold diggers took their gold back to Fujian, but the government generally lowered the price by 40%.

The gold diggers became more and more angry, and in a state of excitement, they smashed the government office that bought gold and silver.

This incident caused a big disturbance and soon alarmed the inspector. Following the clues, other cases were found. Two officials and seven clerks were beheaded, 19 people were exiled, and 36 people were imprisoned.

Wang Chongdu continued, "I know you have a hometown association. You can help each other, but don't do anything shameful. The two ship owners Li and Gao and I are all from Shanxi. Although we don't have many Shanxi fellows, you Fujian and Guangdong fellows can't bully us. Think about it yourself."

"From Anxi Protectorate to Andong Protectorate, from Japan to Jambi, there are hometown associations everywhere, and they make trouble from time to time. The court hates this. Although it has not ordered to ban it, it has also overtly and secretly disbanded the hometown associations."

"To tell you the truth, when I just got off the ship, I deliberately disbanded the gold diggers from various provinces. From now on, you only recognize your own teams and teams, don't talk about fellow townsmen. If you make me angry, I will dig a pit and bury you, and when you return to China, you will say that the natives killed you!"

Wang Chongdu walked along the river named Jinshan River, and kept telling the gold diggers along the way.

He had to slowly establish rules, and wait until the monsoon changes, leaving only a few armed personnel here, and the rest of the people had to return home. At that time, it was easy to get into trouble, maybe the natives came to kill, or there might be chaos among the gold diggers.

Wang Chongdu didn't want to see one more person die.

For example, those who died of illness on the way still owed Wang Chongdu the money for the boat ticket, food and medical expenses. He couldn't go back to the country to ask the families of the deceased, because those who were willing to go to sea were all poor, and how much money could they get from their poor families?

"After one month, each team will re-elect the captain, deputy captain, team captain, and deputy team captain. You may not be convinced by the captain I temporarily appointed. When you re-elect the captain, you will listen to the captain's orders in the future. If the captain does something unfair, come to me or the person in charge I left behind!"

Wang Chongdu had walked several miles along the river while saying these words.

Suddenly, exclamations came from a distance.

Wang Chongdu went to check it out in person, and then he found out that someone else had discovered nugget gold...

In another time and space, 80% of the nugget gold weighing more than 10 kilograms recorded in human history was found in Australia.

Especially in the place where Wang Chongdu brought the gold diggers, nugget gold can be said to be endless.

When the gold here was almost mined, two guys ran to the upper reaches to look for gold mines. On February 4, 1869, they found a super large nugget gold.

Because the nugget gold was too heavy, they couldn't find a suitable balance scale, so they had to break it into three pieces and weigh them separately: 79 kilograms!

This nugget gold is in the upstream area, only a dozen days away from this gold mining site.

By the way, the largest nugget gold in human history weighs about 285 kilograms. It is just north of this gold mining site, and it takes more than a month to walk there.

"Where's the scale? Bring it!"

Wang Chongdu pushed the crowd and squeezed in, and found a gold digger holding a large lump in his arms.

The team leader of this group was very responsible. He held the sieve in his hand and gestured to the surroundings, not allowing anyone to get too close, fearing that someone might be jealous and rob it directly.

"It's so big, how did you find it?" Wang Chongdu asked.

The gold digger was an honest man, excited and frightened at the same time. He held the gold there and trembled all over. He trembled and replied: "I... I thought it was a stone... a stone. The sieve hit it... several times, and I wanted to pick... pick it up." Get up and throw...throw it ashore..."

Wang Chongdu was speechless.    Soon, the scale came.

More than 24 pounds!

The Jin system in the Song Dynasty went through several changes. After the founding of the People's Republic of China by Zhu Ming and his sons, the standard in the late Northern Song Dynasty was adopted, with one Jin equal to approximately 625 grams.

Converted to modern kilograms, this piece of nugget gold weighs about 30 kilograms.

Wang Chongdu glanced around and said to the gold digger: "Stop digging for gold. Death from illness and exhaustion is not beautiful. You can keep the gold yourself, or you can store it with me. When the monsoon comes, come back to Guangzhou with me." "

The gold digger was just honest, but not really stupid. He subconsciously hugged the nugget gold tightly and said, "I...I will go back with my fellow villagers."

Wang Chongdu couldn't laugh or cry: "I don't want to harm you. I want to bring you and the nugget gold back to Guangzhou to attract more gold diggers here. If you are afraid, you can also find a few fellow villagers to go home with you. Or let Fujian and Guangdong All the gold diggers mentioned you when they wrote home. With so many people writing home, do I dare to steal your gold? I have to take care of you all the way, lest you die at sea. "

The gold digger was still hesitating.

There was no way, Wang Chongdu could only ask: "Where is your hometown?"

The gold digger said: "Huizhou, Heyuan County."

Wang Chongdu ordered his followers: "Call everyone from Heyuan County to bear witness together. Forget it, call everyone from Huizhou."

The Huizhou fellows who had been scattered to go out to hunt for gold gathered together one after another. They were shocked when they saw such a big gold nugget.

With the support of his fellow villagers, the gold prospector finally felt relieved and signed a note to deposit the nugget gold with Wang Chongdu.

This old man has only been working for more than half a month, and he really no longer pans for gold, because gold panning is too costly for his waist.

He had a skill as a carpenter, and he specialized in carpentry from then on, making furniture or tools for other gold diggers. He waited for the monsoon to come and then sailed back to Guangzhou.

Wang Chongdu couldn't eat such a big gold nugget, and the Guangdong government didn't dare to keep it privately. It would definitely be handed over to the emperor in the end.

In just one day, word of this had spread, and all the gold diggers felt more powerful.

Huang Lun was stunned for a while when he heard the news. He thought he was lucky, but he didn't know that he was even worse than others.

In the following months, 12 pieces of nugget gold were discovered one after another.

There are also many gold pieces the size of fingernails. Although they are not gold nuggets, they are enough to make the lucky ones cheer.

There is so much gold here!

Historically, 120,000 gold prospectors worked here for three years. After panning the river, they went to both sides of the river to dig for gold. Then the Chinese gold diggers arrived late, and could only mine the waste mines abandoned by the white people a second time. However, as long as the Chinese miners survived, they all still made money and went home.

At that time, more than 100,000 people gathered here. In the first few years, there was news about gold nuggets almost every month.

In human history, 80% of gold nuggets weighing more than 10 kilograms came from Australia. Nearly half of Australia's gold nuggets come from here and hundreds of kilometers around it. Not to mention those under ten kilograms!

Half a year later, Huang Lun developed a back problem from exhaustion and planned to work for another year before going home.

He believed that by then not only would he be able to repay his debts, but he would also have surplus money for business.

Just set up shop and do business here.

There are definitely more and more gold diggers, and there is no shortage of customers at all. His family used to do business. The eldest brother would definitely not want to come. You can bring the second brother and some fellow villagers.

He wants to be the founder of the Huang family in Jinshan, Australia!

Since the gold mining results were much higher than expected, even Wang Chongdu's group could not help but join the gold mining team.

Wang Chongdu could not stop them all the time, so he had to set rules for changing shifts (enough manpower must be left to guard the ship and guard against indigenous raids), and at the same time increase his salary during his stay in Australia.

After thinking about it, Wang Chongdu led his people to take the initiative to raid the tribe near the port. That tribe also participated in the attack on the gold diggers last time.

He captured many more indigenous prisoners of war, not to let the indigenous people pan for gold, but to let them cultivate land and cultivate food.

It is impossible to sustain the consumption of so many people solely by transporting food from Java or hunting here.

Those indigenous prisoners of war didn't know anything, and it was difficult to communicate verbally, so they could only teach them step by step. If you don't know it after two more lessons, you can get it with just one beating.

After half a year, the monsoon finally changed. Wang Chongdu left a group of armed men behind and returned to Guangzhou with the rest of his men.

Also taken away were a few gold diggers and a large number of gold diggers' letters from home.

There are also the ashes of nineteen gold diggers, two of whom were bitten by venomous snakes.

Over in Guangzhou, you will soon know what the nugget gold shock is.