My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 227 Getting to the bottom of things
At the Haxionggou mining site, Zhou Jingming was still burning the wool felt, and a burnt smell permeated the site along with the thick smoke.

It burned for more than an hour before all the felt was burned, and a lot of fine sand was collected, filling several bags.

Once the temperature in the iron pot had dropped, Zhou Jingming had Su Xiulan carry the fine sand in buckets to the riverbank. He and Wu Yang then moved the large iron pot into the river, filled it with water, and poured in the fine sand. As they stirred, the felt ash that could float was swept into the river and carried away.

The remaining fine sand still needs to be sieved through a gold sieve to remove some of it.

Since mercury is used to absorb gold, there's no need to separate it too completely, which significantly increases the speed of shaking the gold pot.

Nevertheless, Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang squatted by the river, shaking the golden dipper, but they couldn't finish shaking it even after a whole day.

The next day, we spent most of the day working on it before finally completing the second round of screening.

After sifting out most of the impurities, gravel, and sand, the amount of gold and heavy sand mixture remaining is significantly reduced.

Zhou Jingming took two cans of mercury and poured them all into an iron pot. He then had Wu Yang pick up pebbles from the river and grind them in the pot. Zhou Jingming, taking advantage of his head injury, sat aside and smoked.

Wu Yang had always been curious about this kind of thing: "Brother Zhou, how do you determine if there's enough mercury in the mercury when using mercury to bite gold?"

Zhou Jingming had previously instructed that no one was allowed to approach him without permission when he was handling the gold, and Wu Yang and the others simply watched from a distance as Zhou Jingming did this.

This was the first time Zhou Jingming had involved him in this matter.

"It's actually very simple. Use mercury to 'bite' gold. Gold coated with mercury will turn into a silvery paste, which is called amalgam. As long as you see excess mercury at the bottom of the pot, the amount is fine."

Normally, a little extra mercury is added to ensure there's enough mercury and the food isn't completely clean.

The fact that the mine can yield more than ten kilograms of gold each month is largely due to Zhou Jingming's use of mercury to extract the loose gold particles that cannot be sorted out, thus making the collection more thorough.

Wu Yang ground the powder for about an hour. Just when he thought it was almost done, Zhou Jingming picked up the gold bucket again and used it to separate the heavy sand by shaking the bucket. In the end, only a ball of mercury gold was left sloshing around at the bottom of the bucket. He collected it and put it into a canning jar.

Previously, this was something Zhou Jingming had to do every day at the mine. Now, with more than half a month's worth of refined sand concentrated together, even with Wu Yang's help, it was impossible to finish it in one day.

As a result, we spent another morning shaking the sand the next day and finally managed to wash all the fine sand.

In the afternoon, Zhou Jingming filtered the amalgam through multiple layers of gauze, squeezed out the excess mercury, recycled it into canning jars, and took the remaining clumps of mercury-gold to a hot iron pot to evaporate and recover the mercury.

It took until almost dark to finally get the job done.

Zhou Jingming brought the gold back to his dugout and weighed it. He was delighted to find that it weighed more than thirteen kilograms. Adding the gold nuggets in the can, he estimated that it would weigh more than fifteen kilograms.

It is expected that by the end of July, more than 18 kilograms of gold will have been mined, making this month's gold production very good.

Old Liu didn't return until after dark that day.

The first thing to do is to find Zhou Jingming's dugout and knock on the door.

Su Xiulan opened the door and quickly welcomed him inside.

"Xiulan, please go and get something to eat for the old man."

Zhou Jingming gave Su Xiulan an instruction, and after she left, he invited Old Liu to sit down, offered him a cigarette, and lit it for him: "Grandpa, how is the situation?"

It's quite a long journey from Haxionggou to Haiertes River. Old Liu spent three days returning, probably traveling through the night, which was evident from his exhausted appearance.

Only an experienced hunter like him with rich experience in traversing mountains could have such legs; if it were Zhou Jingming, he knew he would have a hard time doing it.

Old Liu took two puffs of his cigarette: "This time I went directly to their mine and asked the people there. They said Hou Xiangdong has been gone for several days and hasn't come back yet. You're right."

The mining site is now in complete chaos. People are lazy and disorganized when they work; it's just a disorganized mess.

When I went there this time, I brought two pheasants with me. They weren't very wary of me. While we were drinking, I managed to find out some things. It turned out that Liang Mazi did have a relationship with Hou Xiangdong. Every time Liang Mazi went to see Hou Xiangdong, he would be treated to good food and drink and he would even help him find women.

At this time of year, the people living in the dugouts are driven out, and they are all furious.

I don't think there's anything left to investigate. It must have been Liang Mazi who instigated it. After Liang Mazi went to their mine, Hou Xiangdong and the other two left the next day. When they returned, only two of them were left. They stayed at the mine for a few days and then left again... The timing matches what happened at our mine and the bombing of you all."

Zhou Jingming nodded: "I was thinking that if Hou Xiangdong returned to the mine in Haiertes River, I would deal with him first. Now it seems that this plan won't work. I don't know where to find him in the future." Old Liu was very persistent: "I will rest for two days and then go out again. As long as he is still in Xijingou, I will be able to find him."

Zhou Jingming shook his head: "Grandpa, I'll take care of this. You just need to keep watch over the mine site for me."

Old Liu asked again, "The most troublesome one is Liang Mazi. Have you thought about how to deal with him?"

"This matter needs careful consideration; it can't be rushed. However, I already have a plan. Once I've recovered, I'll go out again..."

Zhou Jingming made up his mind to deal with Liang Mazi ahead of time, but before that, he had to collect the gold Liang had saved up.

I wonder how much Liang Mazi has saved up now.

In my previous life, I heard that Liang Mazi had been dealt with, but that was several years later. By then, he had been accumulating gold for many years, so he must have accumulated even more.

But now, Zhou Jingming is getting impatient.

If he continues like this, forget about panning for gold at the mine; he might not even be able to save his own life.

Since that's the case, we can only make arrangements in advance.

It was getting late, and Su Xiulan couldn't cook a proper meal. She simply boiled two large bowls of noodles with extra mutton and brought them to Zhou Jingming and Old Man Liu.

Zhou Jingming accompanied Old Man Liu, and they had a small meal with noodles and mutton as appetizers.

Old Liu ate quite quickly, probably because he was exhausted from the long journey. After finishing the bowl of noodles, he went to sleep.

Zhou Jingming never expected that the next day, around noon, Liang Mazi would so openly lead his two subordinates on horseback to the mine.

Upon hearing the noise, Jinwang began to bark wildly.

While resting on the grassy slope behind the mine, Wu Yang noticed Liang Mazi coming down the slope diagonally opposite. He immediately came down to meet Zhou Jingming: "That son of a bitch is here again... Brother Zhou, if he can do dirty tricks on us, why don't we give them a sneak attack in return?"

Zhou Jingming shook his head: "The nature of this is different, brother... Don't rush, let's see what he's up to first."

Zhou Jingming rinsed the mud off his hands in the river and returned to the edge of the dugout to wait.

Before long, Liang Mazi and his two companions rode their horses through the poplar grove, tied them up at the edge of the grove, and headed towards the mine.

Zhou Jingming pretended nothing was wrong and went up to him, saying, "Brother Liang, what brings you here again?"

"What do you mean, 'again... I shouldn't have come'?"

Liang Mazi glared at him: "There are people illegally digging and mining everywhere, I'm just doing my job... What's going on with you?"

Zhou Jingming smiled and said, "I ran into you in Tiemaike that day. On the way back, someone threw explosives at me and blew me up. Brother Liang, it was the guy who came with you who did it."

Liang Mazi frowned: "What do you mean by that? You suspect that I ordered him to do it?"

Zhou Jingming shook his head: "I didn't say that. What kind of person is Brother Liang? How could he do such a thing? I just want to ask, since Brother Liang knows him, does he know where he is? I have to settle accounts with that bastard."

"Don't ask me about this kind of thing, I don't know him well. You know, this is the kind of job I do, there are always a lot of people trying to slip things into my pocket... You should know, there are plenty of people like that."

Liang Mazi sighed deeply: "I came here to find him as well."

"Don't you know where his mine is? How did you end up here looking for him?"

“I’ve already been to his mine. I heard from the people there that he hasn’t been back for several days… He’s a dangerous man. I only found out later that he’s a wanted criminal with a murder charge against him. I came here to let you know that if you see him, remember to report it to the police station in Tiemaike.”

Liang Mazi then looked at Wu Yang next to Zhou Jingming: "Brother, what did you do before? We didn't get to know each other properly last time we met."

Zhou Jingming scoffed inwardly. He had figured it out: Liang Mazi was there to test the waters and gauge the reaction.

(End of this chapter)