Republic of China: Guandong Ginseng King

Chapter 314 Gold Field Construction Begins
Qu Shaoyang and Liu Dongshan drank and chatted until quite late, and in the process, they got to know more or less the family affairs.

The next morning, Qu Shaoyang returned to the inspection office to do his job and deal with some recent backlog of affairs.

At the same time, people were arranged to tidy up the various parts of the yamen and re-plan it.

For the time being, the Wood Tax General Office can only borrow a few rooms from the Inspection Office for office use. When the weather gets warmer, they will build some more houses next to the Inspection Office for the general office to use.

Qu Shaoyang now serves as both general office and inspector.

Especially since the General Office had just started its work, it was understaffed and had a lot of complicated affairs. It took some time to get things sorted out, but at least it was almost done.

Perhaps the slap from Chen worked, and from then on, Qu Laokou never acted like a troublemaker again and lived peacefully in the small courtyard at the east end.

Qu Shaoyang assigned people to take care of their daily life, and there were also people watching over them at night. He also asked Doctor He to come and diagnose Qu Laokou and Chen and take care of their health.

Qu Laokou developed many illnesses from fishing at sea in his early years, and his health has been getting worse over the years.

Especially in winter, I keep coughing. It's a good opportunity to take good care of myself.

In the past year or so since Doctor He and Doctor Chen opened their clinic together, Doctor Chen's guidance has greatly improved Doctor He's medical skills.

Qu Shaoyang was willing to spend money on all kinds of precious medicinal herbs and supplements. As long as they were effective for the treatment, he would use them without any regrets.

It's no wonder that under Doctor He's careful treatment, Qu Laokouer's health has obviously improved a lot.

Now that his family is settled, Qu Shaoyang can concentrate on his work.

The Wood Tax General Office finally recruited enough staff, and then Qu Shaoyang arranged for people to go into the mountains and post the regulations formulated by the Wood Tax General Office in every mountain area.

In fact, during this period, various lumberyards and warehouses have arranged people to go into the mountains to inform the mountain workers of the establishment of the new government office.

Therefore, the second-in-commands and foremen of each mountain site did not dare to delay and quickly arranged for people to go to the Maoer Mountain Wood Tax General Office to pay taxes and apply for raft transport permits.

In mid-March, the Yalu River was unsealed and various mountain areas began to arrange personnel to cross the river.

Liu Dongshan also brought tools and manpower and lived in the mountain field. He led people to cut branches of elm and stinking plum, weaved them into ropes, and soaked them in water.

Then use a hollowing axe to make holes of a certain diameter at both ends of the wood, and use a rope, dowel rod, etc. to connect the wood together.

It is narrow at the front and becomes wider at the back. One row can hold up to two to three hundred cubic meters of wood.

Many of the mountain areas along the Yalu River and Hunjiang River have arranged people to go to the vicinity of Maoer Mountain to learn new methods of threading.

The new method of threading is simple in technology, easy to thread, and does not require hiring a large number of carpenters to operate. The threading speed is many times faster than before.

After taking a look at the various mountain farms, I thought they were all good, so I followed Liu Dongshan and studied carefully for a few days.

After mastering the skills, they went back and used the new method to thread the array.

Popularizing the new threading method is good for both the mountain fields and the wooden handles, but it means the carpenters will lose an income.

Fortunately, the new method of threading and connecting has just been promoted, and many mountain farms do not trust it yet, and still use the old method of threading and connecting with original characters.

As a result, there was no large-scale unemployment among carpenters and no one protested.

However, as the new type of arrangement becomes more and more popular, it is only a matter of time before it replaces the original typesetting.

On one side of the mountain field, people were busy preparing to lay the rafts, while on the other side, at the Sandagou Gold Mine, they were also ready to start work.

Qu Shaoyang hired Lao Han as the head clerk and Lao Hu as the foreman.

He picked a smart, capable and reliable servant from among the family to work as an inner clerk in the gold mine, responsible for managing the daily lives of the gold workers.

Transfer Ermaozi from the mountain field and make him the second in command to assist Lao Hu in managing the metalworkers under him.

Qu Jiang was transferred from the warehouse to serve as the accountant.

From the patrol team and the men at home, pick a dozen or so with good martial arts and accurate shooting skills to come and protect the safety of the gold field.

When Lao Han and Lao Hu came over, they brought with them a group of experienced metalworkers.

Together with the workers recruited from his hometown in Shandong and the surrounding areas of Maoer Mountain, the Sandagou Gold Mine has gathered nearly 200 gold workers, all living in several large wooden houses built last year. March 16th is the birthday of the old boss, and the gold mine also chooses this day to worship the gods of heaven and earth and start construction.

Old Han selected a thick red pine tree and built his mansion under the pine tree.

Pig heads, roosters, whole fish, sugar-wrapped dumplings, various snacks, dried fruits, white wine, etc. were placed on the open space in front of the master's house.

Then Lao Han lit incense and burned paper himself, and led all the metalworkers to kneel down and pray sincerely.

"Old Master Jinshen, we have come to pay our respects to you and bring you wine, meat and fruits. Please eat and drink.

"After we have eaten and drunk enough, may we get more gold nuggets this year." Old Han took the lead in reading.

The people behind him also shouted in unison, "Old boss, please bless us, old boss, please bless us."

After worshipping the old head god of the mountain, it is time to erect the hero stake and press the hammer.

Setting up a hero stake is also a way of greeting and reporting.

This is like visiting someone's home, knocking on their door, if you don't say hello, one, it's impolite, and the other is looking down on them, which is not acceptable.

There are mountain spirits in the mountains, water monsters in the water, grass kings in the grasses, and earth walking sun in the earth. You would be sorry if you don't say hello to them.

Gold diggers value politeness and loyalty the most, so before starting work, they have to say hello and set up a hero stake.

There are two ways to set up a hero stake. One is to use a ten-foot-long wooden stick, which is inserted into the roof of the house where construction is about to begin, with a red cloth tied to it.

Another way is to find a tree next to the house, at a height of more than one person, cut a shell, and tie a red cloth on it.

Both of these are called hanging red, which have auspicious and warning meanings.

Red is auspicious, and it symbolizes hope for gods’ blessings, more “big heads” and “red happiness”, as well as good fortune and making a fortune.

At the same time, red also means "blood". Blood cannot be shed in vain. Mining is a cruel struggle with nature and people have to bleed, but they have to be careful.

Hanging red cloth is also a reminder for metalworkers to be careful and avoid getting injured.

After setting up the hero pole, burning incense, toasting, kowtowing and kneeling, the greeting ceremony is completed.

Next, it’s time to press the button.

According to the word "碃", it means digging a gold pit. But in a gold mine, the pit cannot be called a pit, which is unlucky. It should be called a "碃".

When panning for gold, one usually has to dig horizontal holes along the gold lines. The holes are shallow and are often connected to each other, which is very dangerous.

Generally, places with shallow soil are called "Maoqian". If you break the soil layer, you can flow upstream.

If the soil layer is deep, it is called "mao deep". Sometimes it is necessary to dig a pit eight or nine meters deep, which is not easy to do.

Lao Hu found the location of the golden thread according to his own calculations, and then pointed to the ground, "Here, come."

The gold miners were not allowed to ask any questions and just started digging with their tools.

The pit should be dug in a round shape to avoid "taking off the pants", that is, landslide.

Once a landslide occurs, the people working underneath will be buried inside, which is very dangerous.

In March, even though the ground seemed almost thawed, the underground was actually still frozen. If you dug three or four feet down, you would find frozen soil.

"Master, foreman, what should we do?" When the metalworkers saw this situation, they hurriedly asked the master and foreman.

I will take my eldest son to the county hospital for a check-up later. The kid had vomiting, diarrhea and fever last night and was in trouble all night.

I'm convinced, really. There are only a few people in the family, and they take turns making trouble. There is no peace at all.

Please update early today so that I won’t forget because I’m busy.

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(End of this chapter)