In fact, Yang Jing was not very fond of this warm hospitality. But there was no other way. He had to come to someone else's land to do business, and he had to bow his head to collect jade. If this matter was not supported by the local government, it would definitely not be done.
Hetian jade is also a resource, and an extremely precious resource. Although in this era neither the local government nor various jade lovers have begun to pay attention to Hetian jade as a resource, if you come here to dig up this precious resource, you must have a good relationship with the local government. This is the minimum requirement.
Especially Cole Smith, the foreign philanthropist who was taken advantage of, is now well-known throughout Xinjiang Province. He has been in Xinjiang Province for less than a week, and he has already thrown away 30 million US dollars!
Even thirty years later, 30 million US dollars is still a considerable sum, let alone in this era. 30 million US dollars is an unimaginable amount of foreign exchange in an inland province like Xinjiang.
This wealthy foreign guest was able to donate 30 million US dollars to an unrelated place, so when he arrived at the destination, he would have to invest at least 10 or 20 million US dollars, right?
Such a rich man cannot be neglected. If the foreign guests are unhappy, wouldn’t the investment be wasted?
In this era, government departments are not yet in favor of the "DGP-only theory". The top priority of government departments at all levels is now to earn foreign exchange!
Before 1986, before the promulgation of the Foreign-Invested Enterprise Law, all the foreign capital introduced by Huaxia was joint ventures, and domestic shares had to account for the majority of the joint ventures. Although this ensured the safety of state-owned funds, it caused foreign capital to have many concerns about investing in Huaxia. After all, I invested a large amount of money with real money, but I couldn't get the controlling stake, which made it difficult for those foreign capitalists to accept.
This resulted in not much foreign capital entering China before 1986.
However, with the promulgation of the "Foreign Investment Enterprise Law", China also allows pure foreign-owned enterprises. As a result, many foreign investors dare to enter China boldly. In the past two years, more and more foreign investors have entered China.
However, most of the foreign capital is concentrated in coastal provinces such as the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta. In inland provinces like Xinjiang, where resources have not been fully developed, there is not much foreign capital, let alone domestic capital.
Now suddenly a foreign tycoon comes along and throws out US dollars in units of "tens of millions". How can we not make this guy happy?
This is tens of millions of dollars in foreign investment. Even if it is placed in the coastal provinces, it is definitely a huge amount of foreign investment.
Therefore, under the warm hospitality of many leaders of the Hotan Prefectural Committee and the Administrative Office, Yang Jing was actually drunk twice.
However, Yang Jing came to Hotan this time with the intention of spending money, so at the dinner table, Yang Jing had promised to invest no less than 50 million US dollars in the Hotan area in the next few years to develop local mineral resources and also to purchase top-quality seed materials and mountain materials.
Not only the high-ranking officials and commissioners of the Hotan administrative office, but even the leaders of Xinjiang Province attached great importance to Yang Jing's promise. They repeatedly demanded that Hotan must do a good job in reception and must keep this investment in Hotan.
As for the fact that they want to exploit mineral resources, everyone knows what is going on. Aren’t these foreigners coming here just for the Hetian jade?
If you want to mine, then go ahead and mine, but if you fail to mine, you can’t blame me.
Since ancient times, everyone knows that Hetian jade is a good thing and has high value. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, according to surveys, the reserves of Hetian jade in Kunlun Mountain are also extremely large. A rough estimate is that there are at least one million tons of jade resources in the 1,500-kilometer-long mining area of Kunlun Mountain alone.
One million tons is not a small number. You have to know that the Tatleksu mine, one of the four major jade mines in Kunlun Mountain, has been mining jade for 30 years, but has only mined more than 3,000 tons of jade!
Moreover, this one million tons is just a rough estimate. How many undiscovered mines are there in the vast Kunlun Mountains?
Anyway, for the Hotan government at that time, Hotan jade was simply an inexhaustible mineral resource. But everyone knew that it was not easy to mine so much jade from the depths of the mountains. Even if you invested 50 million US dollars, you could only mine a few hundred or a thousand tons of jade.
Going into the mountains to collect jade is not something you can do just by having money.
How difficult is it to mine jade in Kunlun Mountain? People who have not experienced it personally cannot imagine it.
Yao Yuanzhi of the Qing Dynasty recorded in his "Miscellaneous Notes of Zhuye Pavilion": "Southwest of Yeerqiang is the Mildai Mountain, which stretches to an unknown end. The mountain produces jade that is inexhaustible if you dig it. It is the Jade Mountain. The mountain is always snowy. If you want to mine large pieces, you must ride a yak, carry a large nail and a huge rope, put the nail in and hang the rope, and then dig the jade. When it is about to fall, tie it with a huge rope and slowly descend. This is because the mountain is steep and they are afraid that the jade will suddenly fall into the cracks of the ground."
From this poem from the Qing Dynasty describing the hardships of jade mining, we can see how difficult it is to mine jade! Although modern jade mining tools have improved slightly, the improvement of jade mining tools has not made much difference to the high mountains with dangerous roads, thin air, harsh environment, and continuous snow-capped mountains.
Nowadays, jade is still transported out of the mountains by donkeys and people. In the Hotan area, there is a jingle that describes the hardships of jade pickers like the poem of Yao Yuanzhi: "A small donkey, a two-foot short whip, the dog days are like winter, the four seasons are not like spring and summer, sleeping in Kunlun at dawn, leaving all desires and emotions behind, the beautiful jade is famous everywhere, who knows if it will be a life or death."
On the rugged and steep Kunlun Mountains, manpower is the only means of transporting jade materials. If there is a slight mistake, resulting in the breaking of large pieces of jade materials, the value of the jade materials will plummet, and the personal reputation of the jade miners will also plummet. The mining of Hetian jade has been very difficult since ancient times, and a lot of manpower and financial resources have been invested. The cost of jade mining over the past thousands of years alone is an unknown number of 50 million US dollars, but Hetian jade is still extremely rare.
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