Young Master Zhao stood beside an open-pit mine that was about ten feet deep, watching the short Japanese miners carrying the mined ore up in wicker baskets.

Zhao Ping had someone bring over a basket, and from the wicker basket of gravel filled with loose soil, he dug out the reef sand and showed it to Master Zhao.

The so-called "reef" is a block of silver ore, and the fine pieces are "sand". Zhao Hao took a fist-sized piece of silver reef and looked at it carefully, only to see branch-like silver lines on its surface.

Zhao Ping told him that this was called "rivet", which was the silver contained in the ore. He then took out a copper-shell magnifying glass from his chest pocket, magnified the surface of the ore for Zhao Hao and said: "Those golden spots on it are gold."

"So little?" Master Zhao couldn't help but exclaim.

"The average gold content in one ton of ore is about five grams." Zhao Ping said calmly: "This quality is already very high. The ore in Daming is about 2 grams per ton, and it does not contain silver."

As he said this, he sighed and said, "It is said that 'where Kun Yuan essence comes from, there is no silver within 300 miles, and where silver comes from, there is no gold within 300 miles.' However, this Lightning Island not only has gold mines and silver mines, but also gold and silver co-existing mines. It can be seen that the arrangement of the Creator is not something that mortals can presume on."

"This can all be explained by science. If the conclusion is wrong, it means that the method of drawing the conclusion is unscientific." Young Master Zhao said calmly, "How much silver does the ore produce?"

"About 400 to 500 grams per ton." Zhao Ping replied, "The purity is very high."

"That's really good." Zhao Hao said in surprise, "It's higher than Iwami Silver Mine."

"I've also been to Shijian. The quality of the ore is actually similar, but the mining conditions are much worse than here." Zhao Ping waved his hand and asked two porters to carry the heavy wicker baskets to the ore processing plant at the foot of the mountain for washing.

Of course, how many years has Iwami Silver Mine been mined? The mountain has been dug through long ago, how can it be compared with a new mine where you can find ore just by digging a hole?

"Once we have explored almost all the ore veins, we can plan the mine structure, install lifting equipment, and lay a railway track leading to the waterwheel ore dressing plant." Zhao Ping said excitedly, "This will greatly improve efficiency, and we won't need to increase the number of manpower, and the production capacity can be greatly increased."

Jiangnan Group Mining Corporation currently operates nearly ten large and small mines, including coal, iron, sulfur, chalcopyrite, lime, and alum. The research center is constantly launching and improving various machines to improve production efficiency, and its production level should currently be among the best in the world.

"Well, go ahead and do it." Zhao Hao was also infected by his enthusiasm and said, "If you need any equipment, just report it directly. I have already informed President Jiang that you will be given priority." He patted Zhao Ping's shoulder and said, "Let's go and see how gold and silver are refined."

~~

The ore transported from the mine is first hand-selected and washed in the concentrator to remove impurities and crushed into ore sand before it can be put into the furnace for smelting.

At the initial stage, the furnace for silver refining is still made of earth. The earthen furnace is about five feet high, and each furnace can hold two stones of silver ore. Then add two hundred kilograms of chestnut charcoal and stack it around the ore... In fact, using coal is more efficient, but unfortunately there is no route for transporting coal from Jiangnan to Sado Island, so we can only make do with it for now.

The workers, with their upper bodies bare, worked in groups of three to pull the bellows back and forth to raise the temperature in the furnace. The furnace master directed other workers to add charcoal with long iron shovels from time to time until the ore in the furnace melted into a mass before the fire was extinguished.

This step is called "sintering", and its purpose is to remove non-metallic impurities in the ore. Two stones of ore can produce about 100 kilograms of "reef mass"... In fact, it is an alloy of gold, silver, lead and tin, and more than 90% is lead. After cooling, it needs to be transferred to another "gold separation furnace" to continue high-temperature calcination to separate them.

The reactions in the gold-separating furnace are very mysterious as recorded in various ancient texts. However, after Zhao Ping studied "Elementary Physics", he realized that this is actually just using the different melting points of metals to separate the various components in the "alloy".

First, the tin with the lowest melting point will melt first and then flow out from the small holes at the bottom of the furnace. Because tin is a base metal and the amount obtained is small, it is not processed and is thrown away directly.

Next came a large amount of lead, but what flowed out was lead oxide, which had to be taken to another furnace for re-smelting before we could get the shoulder pole lead used to make projectiles.

In fact, if the temperature is well controlled, gold and silver can be separated at the same time. However, the melting points of both are around 1,000 degrees, with a difference of only 100 degrees. With current technical conditions, it is obviously impossible to accurately control the temperature below 1,000 degrees, so direct separation is not possible.

This is where the knowledge from elementary chemistry comes into play - add sulfur to the furnace to make it react with silver to form silver sulfide. The melting point of silver sulfide is only 825 degrees, which is far from the melting point of gold. It can flow out first, leaving only gold in the furnace.

Then put the silver sulfide in another furnace, add charcoal to reduce it, and you can get a considerable amount of pure silver...

Of course, it needs to be refined and purified repeatedly several times depending on the actual situation, but this is the principle.

~~

Finally, Master Zhao saw the smelted snowflake-patterned silver and gold bars in the heavily guarded warehouse.

"It's so beautiful." He held the gold in one hand and the silver in the other, looked left and right, and became more and more fascinated.

"Young master must be the richest man in the world, right? Why do you value gold and silver as much as ordinary people?" Zhao Ping asked curiously.

Zhao Hao glanced at him. No wonder no one spoke up for him after he was thrown into the quarry for three years. But he remained expressionless and said in an unfathomable way:

"Of course, this thing is not only wealth, but also a regulator to stabilize Ming society and a supreme weapon to change the world!"

"Yes." Zhao Ping nodded humbly and said, "I am indeed superficial."

"Sir, can you give this gold and silver mine a name?" Only Sun Dawu, the dog slave, could speak. He even waited for the young master to name the city under his jurisdiction. Before, he had always referred to it as "this city".

"Crane's son and silver mountain." Young Master Zhao said without hesitation.

"Ah..." Everyone was stunned when they heard this.

"Young master, Hezi Silver Mine is the one originally owned by the Wadahara family, although it is indeed not far away." Zhao Ping reminded decisively.

"I know, that's the name. We are mining Hezi Silver Mine. How can we have any other discoveries?" Zhao Hao said indifferently, "The discovery of a new mine must be kept strictly confidential, both domestically and in Japan."

"Yes." Everyone then understood that the young master wanted to keep it secret and confuse the public, no wonder he changed the name of Sado Island.

"It is indeed necessary." Ma Yinglong agreed and said, "If the country knew that we were mining silver, there would definitely be an uproar. In Japan, the daimyo would also be jealous. Especially Uesugi Kenshin on the other side, who is known as the 'greedy dragon'. We must keep it a secret from him as much as possible."

"There is no such thing as a wall that is impenetrable." Jin Ke said in a deep voice, "We still have to be prepared for the battle."

"It is better to strike first and wipe out his Echigo navy first!" Ma Yinglong said gritting his teeth.

"Yes, I have a feeling that there will be a war between us eventually." Zhao Hao nodded and said, "But time is on our side. The later we start the war, the greater our chances of winning. Besides, Uesugi Kenshin is busy fighting with the Tiger of Kai and has no time to withdraw for the time being."

"The task of active combat is handed over to the garrison." He looked at Yan Wu and Sun Dawu and said, "You have two tasks. The first is to build a large bastion, at least the north and south bays. Although Uesugi Kenshin is known as a military god, he is actually a nag at sieges. He would piss himself if he knew there was a strong city on the island, and his courage to land and fight would be reduced by at least 70%. The second is to use the slack season to train militia, which can not only help defend the city, but also cultivate a strong folk spirit."

"In short, it's the same old saying. We should despise the enemy strategically and take him seriously tactically." Zhao Hao finally said in a deep voice, "We should delay the start of the war as much as possible. Once we have to fight, we should strive to concentrate our superior forces on the battlefield we choose to annihilate the enemy and prevent them from invading again for a few years!"

"Yes!" Everyone put their legs together and answered loudly.

~~

After leaving Lightning Island, Master Zhao and his party continued northward for another 700 miles to visit the last stop of the trip, which was also the end point of the garrison area’s main fleet’s cruise - Zhenyuan Island.

Zhenyuan Island is a small island located at the western exit of the Tsugaru Strait. Its original name was "Small Island". It covers an area of ​​less than two square kilometers. In fact, it is a mountain protruding from the sea, so there is no land suitable for farming and no one lives there.

But the location of this island is very important. By setting up the Marine Police Station here, it is easy to control the Tsugaru Strait and thus cut off the connection between Japan's Honshu and Ainu Island.

Moreover, there is fresh water on the island, which provides conditions for long-term survival and can also be used to grow vegetables, so Zhao Hao renamed it Zhenyuan Island and set up the fifth water police station under the garrison area here.

Of course, compared with the other four water police stations with at least a thousand people, the police force here is pitifully small.

Because the Jiangnan Group does not have much interest to protect here. Only the fleet of the Tamra Chamber of Commerce doing timber business will travel across the Tsugaru Strait. But the goods they transport are too cheap, just the most common food, coarse cloth, cotton and ironware. It is not worth it for the pirates to take the risk of offending the merchants in Sakai City to rob.

And the big logs they pulled on their return journey were not wanted by the pirates even if they were given away for free.

Therefore, there is really no need to deploy heavy troops here at the moment, and the garrison area is too short of manpower.

So after building the bastion and the dock for them, the engineering team withdrew to Lightning Island to continue construction. Only one hundred officers and soldiers from the Water Police Bureau were left, stationed alone on this remote island four thousand miles away from the Ming Dynasty.

So when the fleet sailed into the Zhenyuan Island wharf, all the coast guard officers and soldiers put on police uniforms, lined up neatly on the side of the ship, saluted, and paid tribute to these respectable sentinels of the end of the world!

All the officers and soldiers of the Zhenyuan Island Water Police Station had already been waiting at the dock, wearing police uniforms and shiny leather shoes.

There was no music, no firecrackers, not even a banner. It was much more shabby than the previous welcome ceremony, but this quiet scene made people feel extremely solemn, and a sense of sacred mission arose spontaneously.

ps. Second update.