My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 182 Mercury Refining
The snow in the mountains fell sporadically for three days, followed by two more days of gloom before the haze gradually dissipated.

It's already late March, and the sun has already warmed up.

Although the pincer-shaped ravine is located on a shady slope, it is a barren slope with little shelter, and in just two days, most of the snow on the mining site had melted.

Due to the weather, Zhou Jingming did not urge everyone to work until the weather truly improved. Only then did he let everyone start working. The only thing they did was to peel back the surface of the grassy slopes on the back mountain, transport the excavated ore to the riverbank, and pile it up along the river.

In fact, because many of the rivers in the Altai Mountains originate from groundwater, which has a slightly higher water temperature, except for a few sections, the larger rivers will have some ice on both banks, but they will not be completely frozen, and the rivers will flow continuously all year round.

Zhou Jingming could have started the diesel engine and used a water pump to wash the metal chute.

But no matter how you do it, the rinsing process is indispensable.

At times like this, washing things in the icy river water is too likely to cause frostbite to one's hands and feet. It would be better to prepare the materials and wait until the weather is warmer. At worst, we can send more people to shake the golden buckets.

Of course, Zhou Jingming didn't come away empty-handed these days. While digging for ore, he would always pick up some gold nuggets or small pieces of gold.

Zhou Jingming handed over the management of the mining site to Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun, while Su Xiulan was responsible for statistics.

Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun kept a close eye on things, and they would promptly discover any small movements anyone made, collect the gold coins they were trying to hide, and naturally, they would also give them a warning or a few kicks.

With so many people involved, it was impossible to keep an eye on everyone. Zhou Jingming knew that hiding gold beans was unavoidable, so he didn't deliberately blame them excessively. As long as the matter wasn't too outrageous and the amount wasn't large, they could just be handed over if discovered.

Water that is too clear has no fish. Being too strict and harsh can easily drive people away. Of course, if one warning is ineffective, they will not be treated politely if they reappear.

He hadn't weighed the gold nuggets and small pieces of gold he'd accumulated over the days, but he estimated they amounted to about two ounces.

After sunrise, Zhou Jingming didn't stay at the mine site. He took a hunting rifle, a hammer, and a short-handled pickaxe, and led Jin Wang into the mountains to search for mercury ore.

The purpose of searching for mercury mines is, of course, to refine mercury, which will then be used to turn the gold in the refined sand accumulated last year into amalgam, and then further refine it into gold.

Mercury is a substance that is widely present in nature; it is not found in a particular place, but rather in varying amounts.

The simplest way to obtain mercury is naturally to buy it directly, or to buy cinnabar and refine it. However, cinnabar is usually sold as medicine in some pharmacies. Zhou Jingming needs a considerable amount of mercury, and after calculating, he felt it was not worthwhile.

Mercury mines can be found in the mountains. Since I had nothing better to do anyway, I just picked up some random hobbies and did it as a pastime.

Every day he would go into the mountain valleys, specifically searching for those barren slopes and rock formations.

The first three days yielded no results.

On the fourth day at noon, he finally saw some dark red interlayers in the rock strata of a ravine.

When searching for mercury ore, Zhou Jingming has his own identification techniques, the most important of which is to look at the appearance characteristics.

Genuine mercury ore is usually bright red, dark red, or brownish-red, with a relatively uniform color, and often appears in crystalline form, sometimes cubic, sometimes rhombohedral. When scratched in an unglazed bowl, it will leave a red mark.

The place Zhou Jingming found, in professional terms, is a breccia, a grayish-white rock composed mainly of calcite, cinnabar, flint, and other materials.

Having dealt with gold for half his life, and with his background in geological exploration, he is quite proficient in distinguishing various minerals.

Although northern Xinjiang is not a major mercury-producing area, mercury can still be found in the mountains.

The ones Zhou Jingming found weren't of high quality, but they were found in several crevices on a hillside. He could collect more and that would be enough.

Not far from the mine, that day he used a short pickaxe to dig up some soil and carried it back in a simple backpack made from the burlap sacks he had brought.

The next day, he simply gathered a few people, pulled a cart to that hillside, picked out the good quality mercury ore, and dug two cartloads back.

In the days that followed, he treated the ore as if it were gold mine, using a hammer to break the transported ore into fine particles.

Work when you can, and rest when you feel tired.

They worked on and off for several days, and finally managed to process all the ore.

Due to limited conditions in the mountains, Zhou Jingming used ancient methods to refine mercury.

Normally, he would need to get some rattan from the mountain and weave a simple rattan basket.

The crushed fine particles were transported to the riverbank, where they were loaded into baskets and washed with water from the river.

As it was shaken, the fine sand fell to the bottom and separated from the slightly larger particles.

The fine sand is washed in the shallow water of the river using a gold scoop. The filtered turbid water settles in the gold scoop, and the sediment is mixed with cinnabar. The process is similar to panning for gold. In the end, what remains at the bottom of the gold scoop is red cinnabar.

However, Zhou Jingming's purpose was to refine mercury, not to deliberately separate cinnabar, so these steps were omitted.

Su Xiulan was very curious about what Zhou Jingming was going to do. After asking, she learned that he was going to refine mercury. Her understanding of mercury was that it was the tiny bit in the thermometer used to measure body temperature when you have a fever. Zhou Jingming wanted to explain to her, but after a long time, she still looked confused. In the end, he simply told her to wait and see.

Cinnabar extracted from rock strata is usually called rock sand, cinnabar extracted from mountain streams is called river sand, and cinnabar extracted from underground rivers in caves is called cave sand.

Zhou Jingming simply smashed the ore, put it in bags, and carried it to the edge of the dugout. The next morning, he drove his tractor, which hadn't been used for many days, to Tiemaike.

The following evening, Zhou Jingming returned with a lot of onions, cabbage, and potatoes, as well as two iron pots, a thin iron pipe, and two jars.

The next morning, after Su Xiulan completed the personnel registration, he led her to a relatively flat area at the mine to begin refining mercury.

There were two iron pots, one large and one small, and he had knocked a hole in the bottom of the smaller one.

The two went to the edge of a poplar grove a little further away, dug an earthen stove, placed a large iron pot on the stove, filled it with ore, and put a small iron pot on top to cover the ore. To prevent air from leaking out, they sealed it with a thick layer of mud.

Then, Zhou Jingming inserted the bent iron pipe into the hole at the bottom of the small pot and sealed it with mud. He then inserted the other end into a jar filled with cold water and sealed the rim with mud as well. The two of them then lit the stove and started burning the ore.

When a certain temperature is reached, the mercury sulfide in the ore will be heated and transformed into mercury vapor, which will be introduced into a jar through an iron pipe and solidify upon cooling, becoming mercury.

Refining a batch of ore takes about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

When the first batch was almost ready, Zhou Jingming turned off the heat and waited a while before opening the jar. He was quite satisfied when he saw the shimmering silver liquid at the bottom of the jar.

The ore was of a higher grade than he had expected.

Su Xiulan also went over to take a look, and when she saw the mercury, she found it incredibly amazing.

Her gaze toward Zhou Jingming grew increasingly adoring.

Since the results are good, we can just repeat the process, replacing the old ore with new one, sealing it up, and continuing to refine it over a high flame.

It took Zhou Jingming two whole days to collect two cans of mercury.

To prevent evaporation and dissipation, it was divided into three canning jars, sealed with water, and placed in the dugout.

The following afternoon, Old Liu returned from the lower reaches of the valley, bringing back a roe deer.

This roe deer isn't very big, probably only about 40 pounds.

Zhou Jingming, who was watching everyone digging for materials at the mine, approached him and offered him a cigarette: "Grandpa, where did you get this?"

"I went downstream to check on the pheasant traps I caught yesterday, but I ran into one in the valley. The bastard didn't even run away when it saw me, so of course I didn't hold back and shot it. I got a free meal."

Old Liu said happily, "I'll have someone prepare it, and while it's still fresh, I'll cook a pot of it tonight!"

"Row!"

Zhou Jingming immediately instructed Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun: "Wu Yang, Shunzi, arrange for two people to come and take care of the roe deer. We'll have meat for dinner tonight."

Taking care of roe deer is much simpler and more comfortable than mining, and it's a good opportunity to rest. Everyone looked at Bai Zhishun, hoping to be called on.

Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun had been watching them for a while and knew who was honest and hardworking, so they each called on a capable worker to take care of the roe deer.

This thing is not much different from killing a sheep. It's just a matter of skinning and gutting it. As for the offal, it doesn't need to be taken care of at all. They know that Zhou Jingming will definitely use it to feed Jin Wang, that lazy dog ​​who doesn't go hunting with Old Man Liu and just wanders around the mine all day.

As the two men were skinning the roe deer with knives, Old Liu remembered something: "I forgot to tell you, a group of people came down and have already started digging dugouts at the mine site where you put up the wooden sign."

Zhou Jingming didn't go to check every day, but would stroll around every few days. Naturally, he wouldn't know immediately if anyone had been to those mining sites, which stretched for two or three kilometers upstream and downstream.

When he heard this, he laughed: "Business is coming in, sir. How many of them are there?"

"Not many, about ten!"

Old Liu chuckled: "I asked them if they hadn't seen the wooden sign posted at the mine site, but they just ignored me, as if they hadn't heard me."

"Playing dumb, huh?"

Zhou Jingming immediately turned around and called out to Wu Yang, "Wu Yang, come with me, people from the mining site are here!"

Upon hearing the sound, Wu Yang immediately ran over and went with Zhou Jingming to the dugout to retrieve the gun.

Zhou Jingming checked the bullets in his Eagle Rabbit brand hunting rifle, loaded a few bullets into his pocket, and quickly left the dugout, where he saw that Wu Yang was already waiting outside.

Most of the thirteen hunting rifles were kept in the dugout where Zhou Jingming and Su Xiulan lived.

Wu Yang took one for himself; as for Old Liu's, that was his own.

This is a trivial matter; Old Liu doesn't need to get involved.

The two men led Jin Wang downstream along the riverbank.

(End of this chapter)