My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 115 Money can make the world go round

Upon seeing that it was Li Guozhu who had arrived, Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Before long, Li Guozhu ran to the tent, put his hands on his knees, and said breathlessly, "Qing...Qingshan Team...is here!"

Zhou Jingming helped him sit down on a wooden stool by the fire, then turned to Wu Yang and said, "Brother, pour some tea for Brother Li!"

"it is good!"

The two were grilling fish, and the tea they had brewed was naturally placed beside them. Wu Yang took a bowl, poured some warm tea from the antimony pot, and handed it to Li Guozhu.

After Li Guozhu took the bowl, he gulped down the entire bowl of tea. It seemed like he still needed more, so Wu Yang took it and poured him another bowl.

He took it again, this time only drinking half a bowl. He took a few deep breaths, finally calming down, and said the same thing again: "Brothers, the Qingshan team is here, you guys get out of here..."

He glanced around and, seeing that only Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang were at the entire mine, couldn't help but ask, "Where are they?"

"I went to Timbuk to buy diesel!"

"What are you going to do now? The Qingshan team is here!"

Zhou Jingming appeared somewhat calm: "Even if they come, there's nothing I can do. With just the two of us, not to mention anything else, it would be difficult for us to move that diesel engine. We can't run away!"

Wu Yang asked, somewhat puzzled, "Brother Zhou, what does the Qingshan team do? Why did they run away?"

Zhou Jingming glanced outside the valley: "According to regulations, you need a permit from the relevant department to pan for gold in the mountains. And it is strictly stipulated that the gold you pan for can only be delivered to the purchasing station."

However, in reality, only a small number of people who come to the valley to pan for gold register and obtain a license; most are simply drifters. Moreover, even those who obtain a license often fail to deliver their gold to the purchasing stations.

Therefore, the authorities specially organized a mountain clearing team to conduct inspections in the mountains from time to time, saying that it was not allowed to illegally mine and destroy mineral resources.

At the same time, those entering the mountains for inspection will be arrested if they cannot produce identification and a gold mining permit.

Therefore, every time they came, the gold prospectors in the Gold Rush Valley were always chased and forced to hide.

Have you ever seen sheepdogs herding sheep? If we are the sheep, then they are the sheepdogs.

"That's right!"

Wu Yang frowned, then asked again, "In such a chaotic gold rush valley, aren't they afraid of running into ruthless people and never returning?"

"Brother, how many gold prospectors do you think would dare to do this?"

Zhou Jingming asked a question in return, and then explained: "In the Gold Rush Valley, you see fighting and killing, fighting and grabbing, and if someone dies, you just carry them over and throw them into the river and that's it. But they are different; they are officially employed."

To give a simple example, imagine you were in the detachment. If you suddenly disappeared or died, do you think your detachment would have ignored you?

Wu Yang shook his head: "That's definitely not the case... We will definitely search hard and investigate the cause!"

Zhou Jingming took a deep breath: "That's right, they're the same. If someone goes missing, they'll mobilize a lot of people to search for them. In this situation, who would dare to mess around? They're simply not worth the trouble, unless they're tired of living!"

Wu Yang finally understood: "Then what do we do?"

Zhou Jingming thought for a moment: "It's not clear yet... By the way, Brother Li, do you know their captain?"

Li Guozhu thought for a moment: "I don't know them, but last year when I was panning for gold in the valley, they chased me away once in the summer and once again in the autumn. At the time, I was only focused on hiding and only caught a glimpse of them from afar."

I was chased away again. Those damn bastards burned down our dugout. I hid in the woods and saw that it was the same leader from last year, with some pockmarks on his face.

I heard them say last year that his name was Liang Tongshu.

Upon hearing the name, Zhou Jingming's furrowed brows relaxed: "It's Liang Mazi!"

Upon hearing this, Li Guozhu was taken aback: "You know him?"

know!

Zhou Jingming certainly knew him.

In his past life, Zhou Jingming helped Boss Jin find a seedling, and that's how he got to know him. Later, when he became a leader and led his team to work independently, he still had a lot of dealings with him.

He understood this person's temperament and character, and moreover, after being reborn, Liang Tongshu was on his list of plans.

I didn't expect to meet you at the Haiertes River so early.

Of course, Zhou Jingming couldn't say he knew him, so he only replied to Li Guozhu, "I've only heard about him from others!"

After a pause, Zhou Jingming continued, "Brother Li, I went to your mine site a while ago and found a different group of people on that small peninsula. What's going on?"

"What else could it be? It's been taken over!"

Li Guozhu sighed: "Right after you had your encounter with those people, we also got into trouble. Those people set their sights on our mine site. There were more than twenty of them, and they cornered us in our dugouts."

This time it was different from those robbers. They had two guns and surrounded the dugout, planning to burn it down and force us out... We had no choice; we were too few in number, so we had to back down and hand over the mining site.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Jingming thought to himself: This is a case of two fire-wielders meeting.

He then asked, "They didn't do anything to you, did they?"

"They didn't want to make enemies, so they didn't do anything. They didn't steal supplies or gold; they just asked to give up their territory!"

Li Guozhu gave a bitter smile: "This is already the best outcome. The people who followed me are all from my hometown and are related by blood. Since I brought them out here, I still hope that they can all make money and leave alive."

"If I weren't worried about them losing their lives, I would have fought them to the death."

Zhou Jingming pressed on, asking, "So where are you now?"

"We've found a mining spot downstream in this ravine that was mined last year, and we'll start working on it for now." "How's that mining spot?"

"Of course, it's not as good as that small peninsula, but it's still acceptable. We found another small gold mine next to that site, and they can get a gram of gold every day they work there..."

"That's a bit low-class."

Why didn't you come looking for me?

“You’ve just run into some trouble too, and I don’t want to trouble you too much. If your manpower is affected by this, I’ll feel bad and it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Li Guozhu shook his head: "Let's not talk about that. You should focus on resolving the Qingshan team's matter as soon as possible. I was thinking that if all your people were still here, you could move everything to minimize the losses..."

They all went out, which is a problem.

"So, your most valuable possession must be that diesel engine. The three of us need to get to it quickly and hide the important thing. We have to act fast, or it will be too late..."

Zhou Jingming thought for a moment: "Those things are hard to move... I'll go see if there's another way to solve this problem."

Li Guozhu thought for a moment: "You want to use money..."

Zhou Jingming smiled and said, "That's right. Money makes the world go round. These people are like that. They travel all year round in the gold rush valleys. They're so diligent, all for that little bit of stuff. If you give them some benefits, they should let it go."

The main problem is that there are only three of us; there's no time to move our things!

"Then... why don't you give it a try!"

After a moment's thought, Li Guozhu said, "I won't keep you any longer. I need to hurry back too, otherwise those kids are causing trouble, and it would be a problem if they got caught. I need to go back and keep an eye on them!"

Zhou Jingming bowed to Li Guozhu with his hands clasped in a fist salute and said, "Thank you, Brother Li!"

Li Guozhu paused slightly when he saw Zhou Jingming clasp his hands in greeting, then laughed: "You weren't much of a help... I'm leaving!"

After saying that, he turned and quickly disappeared into the woods without looking back.

Zhou Jingming watched him walk away, then forgot about grilling the fish, turned back to the tent, grabbed a small oil paper bag, and told Wu Yang to wait by the tent.

He ventured more than thirty meters into the woods and stopped in front of a dense climbing pine tree.

This is where he hid his gold during this period.

Zhou Jingming looked around to make sure no one was there, then tiptoed, parted the branches and leaves, reached in, and took out a jar stuck in a tree branch. He unscrewed the lid, poured out some bran, put it in an oil paper bag, and weighed it in his hand, estimating it to be about fifty grams.

He carefully wrapped the gold in the oil paper bag and put it back into the bag. He put the can back on the tree branch, looked at it carefully again, and seeing that there was nothing unusual, he quickly returned to the tent.

"Brother, come with me!"

Zhou Jingming gave a shout and led the way downstream.

Wu Yang quickly caught up, but Zhou Jingming noticed that he had put on the hunting rifle and stopped in his tracks. "Take the gun back. You can't bring this thing. According to regulations, you need a hunting rifle license to use a hunting rifle. The Qingshan team will also check. Moreover, if you bring a hunting rifle, they will be on high alert, and it will be difficult to talk to them later."

Wu Yang quickly returned the hunting rifle to the tent.

This reminded Zhou Jingming that he also needed to find a place to hide the hunting rifle in the tent. If things didn't go smoothly and Liang Mazi insisted on coming to the mine and finding these things, it would be a disaster.

In Zhou Jingming's eyes, these guns were more valuable than water pumps, and they were the team's only means of survival in the valley.

Even without a pump, you can still pan for gold, it just means you'll find less gold each day.

But without these hunting rifles, it might be difficult to even defend the small peninsula.

He hurried back, called Wu Yang, and they packed the hunting rifles into two burlap sacks, tied them up, and hid them in the woods.

After getting ready, the two quickly came down from the woods and walked downstream along the riverbank.

When they arrived at the riverbank where Lao Tang and his men were panning for gold, they saw more than a dozen members of the Qingshan team in the distance, dressed in uniforms, carrying hunting rifles, and riding horses.

Looking around at the surrounding woods, several gold prospectors were carrying their luggage and heading into the woods. They had already seen the clearing team coming and were packing their things to hide.

Further away, several fires and smoke rose from the ground, presumably from the burning dugouts.

They rushed to a dugout, found it empty, and immediately rode their horses after the people.

Upon seeing this, the gold prospectors dared not linger and scattered in all directions.

One of them hadn't run far when he was surrounded by three men, who dismounted him, pinned him to the ground, and searched his body.

The rest of the men chased into the woods. Presumably because the horses had difficulty traversing the mountains in the woods, they soon rode back to the edge of the dugout. Three of them dismounted and crawled into the dugout tunnel.

The door to the dugout was probably locked. There were several loud banging sounds coming from inside as the door was kicked open. Finally, the door was kicked open, and the three people crawled inside.

After a while, they crawled out of the dugout again, and the group huddled together, talking about something.

The group mounted their horses again and continued riding upstream along the riverbank.

Looking at these people, Wu Yang couldn't help but curse, "Damn it, they look like a bunch of bandits!"

Zhou Jingming smiled and said, "It's not just similar, it's in the bones. This Gold Rush Valley is a place without order for gold prospectors, and it's no different for the Qingshan team."

If these gold prospectors were to run too slowly and get caught, their gold would be confiscated as stolen goods. As for where the confiscated gold would end up, only they themselves would know.

Do you know why gold dealers are welcomed by gold prospectors when they come to the mountains to buy gold? Besides offering higher prices, another reason is that the clearing teams are very aggressive in their pursuit.

(End of this chapter)