Chapter 177 Copper-Tin Symbiotic Ore
Next to a stream, Jiang Xuan, with thirty warriors and tourists showing the way, rode the Black Wind Rhinoceros up the stream in search of malachite.
This forest is located in the northwest of the Teng Tribe, about a day's journey away from the tribe. Because the vegetation is sparse, the hunting routes of the Teng Tribe's warriors do not pass through here.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Jiang Xuan couldn't help but ask after walking for a long time.
The tourist and a Teng tribe warrior were sitting on the back of another black wind rhinoceros. Hearing Jiang Xuan's question, he replied, "It must be here. I won't be wrong."
"Well, go ahead and find where you picked up the stone."
The group continued to move forward, and after walking for about half an hour, they suddenly heard a loud sound of flowing water in front of them.
When they walked over and looked, they saw a cliff in front of them. A small waterfall fell from a height of seven or eight meters, hitting the small pool below, making a roaring sound.
The tourist's eyes lit up, and he pointed at the pool and said, "I picked up that stone right here. I remember it very clearly!"
Jiang Xuan perked up and said, "Go and take a look."
Jiang Xuan and others got off the back of the Black Wind Rhinoceros.
The tourist took Jiang Xuan to the edge of the pond, pointed to the shallow water, and said, "That's where we found the stone."
Jiang Xuan took out the palm-sized piece of malachite from the big pocket of his beast leather jacket.
This piece of malachite is the one that tourists take to the trading area for trading. It is oval in shape and has a very smooth surface, like a pebble.
This is consistent with what the tourists said.
Apart from artificial polishing, such smooth stones can only appear in places that have been washed by running water for a long time.
Jiang Xuan held up the malachite and said to the soldiers, "Everyone, spread out and look for this green stone."
"yes!"
The warriors of the Vine Tribe agreed and went to the edge of the pond and near the pond to look for malachite.
Jiang Xuan and the tourist also went to the water's edge and searched carefully, hoping to find more malachite in the same place.
The stream water is very clear and you can see the bottom at a glance. There are some small fish swimming in the water, but no big fish can be seen.
Not long after, Jiang Xuan suddenly saw a little green among the rocks under the water, and he was delighted.
He reached out his hand through the cold stream, turned over the rocks, and touched a green stone larger than his palm.
“Clatter…”
Jiang Xuan picked up the stone and looked at it, and immediately became happy.
"It's malachite. There really is malachite in this place!"
This piece of malachite is larger than the one picked up by the tourist, but it is broken and not round, but the pattern on it is equally beautiful.
Seeing that Jiang Xuan had already found one, the soldiers sped up their search, hoping that they could also find such a beautiful stone quickly.
One of the soldiers was searching hard in the water. Suddenly, he found a stone that looked a little different, so he quickly took it out of the water.
However, after picking it up, he was greatly disappointed by the appearance of the stone.
This stone is bumpy and uneven, and looks very bad. Most of the surface is dark brown, with only a small amount of green, which is completely different from the green of malachite.
"I'm happy for nothing."
The warrior was disappointed and prepared to throw the stone away.
Just then, Jiang Xuan happened to see the ugly stone and was attracted by it.
"etc……"
The warrior was throwing the stone when he saw the leader walking towards him quickly, so he stopped and looked at him in confusion.
"show me."
Jiang Xuan stretched out his hand, and the soldier had no choice but to hand him the stone.
Jiang Xuan took the ugly stone, turned it over and over to observe it for a while, then held it with both hands and broke it hard.
Jiang Xuan is a four-color warrior with great strength. He can break ordinary stones directly.
However, this ugly stone did not make a crisp sound of breaking. Instead, it became bent, and the cracked surface showed a purple-red metallic luster.
"Natural copper, this is natural copper!"
Jiang Xuan became excited, and a look of surprise appeared on his face, even more excited than when he saw the malachite.
The biggest difference between copper and iron is that there is copper of relatively high purity in nature, that is, elemental copper. After picking it up, it can be directly forged into tools without smelting.
However, there is no elemental iron in nature, so iron ore can only be smelted and then forged into iron tools.
That's why Jiang Xuan was so excited.
He had never tried to smelt copper himself, and he was actually a little doubtful as to whether he could do it.
But if you pick up enough natural copper, you can directly make it into various copperware.
Of course, although pure copper utensils have good ductility, their hardness is too low, so they can only be made into utensils such as copper bowls and pots, but cannot be made into weapons.
The soldier who picked up the natural copper and almost lost it was a little at a loss when he saw Jiang Xuan's ecstatic expression.
He asked cautiously: "Chief, is this stone also a treasure?"
"Of course it is a treasure. In my eyes, it is even more valuable than these two pieces of malachite!"
The soldier said awkwardly: "I almost threw the treasure away as if it were a broken stone."
Jiang Xuan smiled and said, "It doesn't matter. You don't know natural copper, so it's normal to think of it as a broken stone. Keep looking."
"good."
The soldier lowered his head and started looking again, even harder than before.
Jiang Xuan shouted to the other soldiers, "Pick up any strange rocks you come across and pile them on the shore."
"yes!"
The soldiers agreed and continued their search.
After searching for a while, another soldier found a piece of malachite and held it up excitedly.
Another soldier found a blue stone. Jiang Xuan felt it looked very much like azurite, but he couldn't be sure because he had only seen pictures of azurite in his previous life and had never seen the real thing.
Over the next half day, people discovered malachite, native copper, and stones suspected to be azurite.
Based on these ores, Jiang Xuan concluded that there must be copper mines in this place!
Because these malachite, native copper, and stones suspected to be azurite could not have appeared here out of thin air.
The most likely possibility is that there is a copper mine nearby, and some of the ore fell into the water and was washed into the pool by the flood.
As they worked to find copper ore, the sky gradually darkened.
Jiang Xuan had no choice but to give up the search and build a temporary shelter with the soldiers for the night.
With thirty black rhinos there and a bonfire, they were relatively safe to spend the night in the wild.
Many of the warriors of the Teng tribe have eaten night-shining mushrooms and have a certain degree of night vision.
When it was getting dark, all kinds of animals in the forest came out.
The warriors took their weapons and hunted several wild beasts and some large insects nearby for dinner.
That night, Jiang Xuan was in an excited state. He guarded the pile of stones and felt like he was guarding the future of the Teng tribe.
Metal tools are extremely important. Without them, many tasks cannot be carried out at all.
With metal tools, the Vine Tribe will enter a stage of rapid development, leaving tribes of similar strength far behind.
That night, the soldiers took turns to keep watch. This area was rather desolate and there were few large wild beasts, so the night was relatively peaceful.
The next morning, Jiang Xuan led the soldiers to search around the pond again, hoping to find the exact location of the copper mine.
Only by finding copper mines can we smelt copper on a large scale and make copperware. Relying solely on the few pieces of malachite and natural copper we picked up is far from enough.
However, the copper mine was buried underground, and the ore they picked up now was washed over by water from nowhere, so it was not easy to find the location of the copper mine.
Jiang Xuan and his team searched for a long time near the pool, then climbed up the hillside next to it to the top of the waterfall, and went upstream along the stream. They searched for a long time but still found nothing.
Jiang Xuan realized that this way of searching was not a solution, because they were short of manpower and only brought two digging tools, so the efficiency was too low.
"Go back first and find someone."
Jiang Xuan made a prompt decision and after searching for a long time, he took the warriors back to the Teng tribe.
After returning to the Teng tribe, Jiang Xuan first put the copper ore he found away properly, then went to the planting team to find a dozen warriors who were good at digging, and brought a hunting team of more than 100 warriors, and rode their mounts to the place where the copper ore was discovered again.
This time, the tourist no longer needed to follow Jiang Xuan. Jiang Xuan fulfilled his promise and let him join the Teng tribe and become a member of the outer tribe of the Teng tribe.
One after another, tourists were admitted to the Teng tribe as exceptions because of their meritorious service, which made the surrounding tourists very envious.
Many tourists became excited. They also wanted to be like the previous tourists, find an opportunity to make a great contribution, join the Teng tribe, and get rid of their wandering state.
On the other side, Jiang Xuan led the soldiers of the hunting team and the planting team back to the place where the copper ore was found.
This time, they brought enough digging tools and had several times more people.
Even so, so many people searched for three days in a row, digging pits everywhere near the waterfall, but still did not find the copper mine.
But Jiang Xuan was unwilling to give up and was determined to find the copper mine.
It wasn't until the fifth day of the search that things took a turn for the better.
At noon on the fifth day, when Gou Teng and several warriors were planning to hunt some wild animals for food, they accidentally discovered a cave dug by a giant claw beast.
The giant clawed beast is a beast that is very good at digging holes. Its limbs are very strong and its claws are very sharp, which are very suitable for digging in the soil.
In addition, the caves dug by the giant claw beasts are often very deep. Usually, if warriors want to catch the giant claw beasts, they can only rely on traps or happen to encounter them on the ground.
Originally, after discovering that it was the cave of the giant claw beast, Uncaria had planned to turn around and leave because the giant claw beast was too difficult to catch.
But at this moment, he accidentally found some fine malachite and azurite ore in a pile of soil dug out by the giant claw beast!
"Found it, found it! The stone the leader is looking for must be here!"
Uncaria grabbed a few tiny malachite stones and cried out excitedly.
Then, he immediately took these pieces of malachite to find Jiang Xuan.
Jiang Xuan was sitting next to the campfire, looking at the sky dejectedly.
When he saw those small malachites, he immediately became energetic and his depressed mood disappeared.
"Come on, take me there quickly."
Jiang Xuan hurriedly followed the hook vine towards the giant claw beast's cave.
Walking to the entrance of the giant claw beast's cave, Jiang Xuan first dug up the fresh soil and found some fine malachite and even a thumb-sized piece of natural copper.
Jiang Xuan said excitedly: "This giant claw beast must have dug into the vein of the copper mine. Dig, dig along the cave!"
After Jiang Xuan finished speaking, Gou Teng and a strong warrior immediately took the bone hoe and stone hoe, stepped forward and started digging vigorously.
The other soldiers cleared the nearby grass and trees and then started digging.
Because their goal is not to catch the giant claw beast, but to find the copper vein. The wider they dig, the greater the chance of finding it.
The giant claw beast underground never imagined that its home would be suddenly dug up by someone.
After hearing the noise, it also started digging quickly underground. It wanted to dig out another exit and escape before the warriors of the Vine Tribe dug open all the caves, so as to avoid becoming food.
"Huff, huff..."
On the ground, the warriors of the Teng tribe took turns digging. Although they didn't know what the stones were used for, the leader said they were very important, and everyone was very enthusiastic.
“Scratch, scratch, scratch…”
In the underground cave, the giant claw beast was also digging desperately. It was frightened by the movement above and was eager to dig a hole to escape.
In this way, the warriors of the Vine Tribe dug on top and the giant claw beasts dug below, and both sides worked very hard.
Although the digging tools of the Teng tribe warriors were rather crude, they were all warriors with great strength.
Half a day later, a deep pit had been dug out on the ground.
As it got dark, Jiang Xuan asked the soldiers to stop digging temporarily and go hunt some wild animals to fill their stomachs.
After all, digging is hard physical work. If you don’t fill your stomach, you won’t have the strength.
They hunted some game nearby, dug up some wild vegetables, and caught a lot of prawns in the creek.
After dark, the warriors of the Teng tribe gathered around the fire, excitedly discussing how long it would take to dig up the stone that the leader wanted.
Jiang Xuan did not tell them what these stones could be used for or how effective they could be.
Because bronze artifacts are epoch-making products, it is best not to let too many people know about them when the tribe is not yet strong enough to be fearless of anything.
After the exciting discussion, the soldiers who had worked hard all day filled their stomachs, and then most of them fell into a deep sleep, leaving only a few to keep watch.
In the middle of the night, Jiang Xuan heard the "scraping, scraping" sound of digging again. At a certain moment, the giant claw beast finally dug out another exit and ran away with a "whoosh".
Jiang Xuan didn't care and even had a smile on his face.
This giant claw beast helped them find the location of the mineral vein and was a great contribution to the Teng tribe. Jiang Xuan had no intention of killing it, so he let it run away.
The next day, the Vine Tribe warriors continued digging.
By noon, they finally hit the copper vein.
A thick, ribbon-shaped, colorful vein of minerals emerged from the ground, like a giant metal dragon lurking underground.
Jiang Xuan looked at the large chunks of malachite, azurite, and small chunks of native copper, and smiled so hard that his eyes narrowed.
At this time, a soldier dug out another kind of silvery-white ore from the copper mine vein.
Jiang Xuan walked over and took a look, and was immediately overjoyed.
“Tin ore, it’s actually tin ore. This is a copper-tin symbiotic ore. Hahahaha, this is God helping our Teng tribe to rise!”
The discovery of copper-tin symbiotic ore means that the Teng tribe will have the opportunity to smelt bronze, which is harder than pure copper and more suitable for making weapons and tools! …
It is said that every extra monthly vote cast by book friends can increase the probability of successful bronze smelting by one point. I rely on your help...
Congratulations to "Hao Qingtian" for becoming the owner of this book, and thank you for the reward of 4,500 book coins.
Thanks to the book friend "Zuodaolunlu" for the reward.
Thanks to the book friend "Wang Yue Xi Chen" for the reward.
Thanks to the book friend "It's too difficult to name it" for the reward.
(End of this chapter)
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