The greenery in the distance immediately confirmed Luo Chong's guess. It was the color of malachite, and malachite was a sign of copper ore.
Anyone who had studied middle-school chemistry should know that copper sulfate solution was green. That was why most green stones contained copper, including jadeite.
Yunnan in China and Myanmar produced abundant jadeite precisely because there was an acidic volcano there—the Tengchong Volcano in Yunnan. When the volcano erupted, the copper sulfate solution from the earth's core erupted along with the magma. After tens of thousands of years, it seeped into the stone and became jadeite.
So, if one had plenty of money, one could buy a piece of jadeite, smash it up, and roast it to extract copper. Unfortunately, no one did that.
Digging a little farther to the side, they uncovered a great deal of blue azurite tinged with purple. It was the natural crystalline form of copper sulfide. Layer upon layer of indigo, deep blue, and blue-violet crystals radiated outward, making it extremely beautiful, like blue lingzhi growing in rings.
After crossing another small hill, the view opened into a vast stretch of white. Luo Chong dug around for half a day, but the white mineral veins were very mixed. Most of the surface layer was Guan Yin Clay, which was dolomite, also called kaolin. It was a refractory clay mainly used for firing porcelain or making crucibles for melting metal.
The kaolin was mixed with lime, and digging farther down revealed more lime, along with white, translucent mica. At the very bottom were chalk and Iceland Spar, which was calcite. Colorless and transparent, with a blocky shape resembling rock sugar, it was Iceland Spar. The blocky, pure-white, opaque, harder material was chalk. In fact, all these things were lime. They had merely been buried deeper and subjected to greater pressure, turning them into variants of lime.
After crossing the ridge of Eight Treasures Mountain, only gray granite remained, along with tin ore growing beside it. That could be seen from the silvery metallic gleam seeping from the granite's surface.
After digging around aimlessly for most of the day, Luo Chong lay on a granite slab on the eastern side of Eight Treasures Mountain. The granite had been warmed by the sun. Wuda and Ximen led the Antelope Herd around, eating the low shrubs nearby, while Luo Chong silently thanked the geology and chemistry professors at National Defense University for teaching him so much. Otherwise, even if he possessed a mountain of treasures, he would not have known how to make use of it.
After summarizing the day's exploration, he concluded that this was a rich copper mine. All the other minerals were merely associated minerals of the copper mine.
Those associated minerals were useful, though. Tin could be combined with copper to make a copper-tin alloy—in other words, the famous bronze. For now, bronze was the best metal Luo Chong could obtain.
Bronze alloys were actually still widely used in modern times, generally to make machine bearings. Most people simply did not know that, assuming bronze belonged in some ancient king's tomb. In truth, bronze alloys were indeed superior to steel in certain respects, which was why they had not been eliminated even after several thousand years.
When Qin Shi Huang unified the Six States, the Qin Army used bronze weapons, while the Six States had already equipped themselves with quite a lot of ironware. However, early ironware could not compare with mature bronze, so the Six States had not lost unfairly.
Iron weapons fully replaced bronze weapons during the Han Dynasty. By then, early Hundred Refined Steel techniques had become fairly mature, and iron that had been repeatedly folded and forged was indeed sharper than bronze.
However, bronze did not disappear with the rise of steel and iron. All the way through the Ming and Qing Dynasties, bronze was still used to manufacture firearms. The matchlocks and Red Garment Cannons of the Great Ming Divine Machine Camp were mostly cast from bronze.
There was very little Iron Sulfide on Eight Treasures Mountain, nowhere near enough to support iron smelting. So in the future, Luo Chong could only stick with bronze to the bitter end.
Fortunately, Eight Treasures Mountain was not far from his tribe. It was only a three-day walk, meaning six days for a round trip. If he used the Blue Antelope to pull a cart, it should be much faster. The Blue Antelope were as large as domestic donkeys, so pulling a cart should not be a problem. If that did not work, two antelopes could pull one cart. All he needed to do was build a bridge first.
Having made his plans for the future, Luo Chong finally had time to properly admire the surrounding scenery. Eight Treasures Mountain was beautiful from afar, but up close, it stirred the blood. How could anyone not rejoice at a place covered in copper?
The eastern side of Eight Treasures Mountain had an extensive water system. It was a boundless Wetland Swamp, stretching beyond sight. The water and grass at the foot of the mountain were lush, and Wuda and Ximen were gleefully leading the Antelope Herd around to graze.
A wetland was land covered year-round by a shallow layer of water. Its deepest waters were no more than two meters deep, making it a paradise for plants and animals—especially waterfowl.
This place was no exception. Ryegrass reached knee height, while alfalfa, also known as Four-leaf Clover, reached the waist. It was highly distinctive: four heart-shaped leaves grew together. In modern times, it was called lucky clover, and its shape often appeared on ornaments. It was loved by all kinds of herbivores, as well as little girls. After all, its leaves were heart-shaped.
There were clumps of tall, upright reeds, along with Sweet Elephant Grass that grew as tall as trees, each stalk reaching six or seven meters high. On the wetland grassland at the foot of the mountain, Luo Chong also spotted a herd of horses, but he had no interest whatsoever in capturing them.
The horses here only reached his waist and were not even as large as sheep. They could not pull carts, could not be ridden, had unattractive hides, and offered no warmth. Raising them for meat was even less worthwhile because they grew too slowly. To Luo Chong, they were utterly useless—chicken ribs to the extreme.
There were no goats or sheep here either. Blue Antelope, on the other hand, were plentiful. There were three or four groups of more than ten animals each. Luo Chong dearly hoped Wuda and Ximen would show some backbone and bring back a few more female Blue Antelope.
There were also beavers in the grass, each about the size of a domestic pig. Their brown fur shone sleekly with oil as they appeared and disappeared among the water plants.
There were also huge snake skins hanging from the Mangrove Forest. Holy crap, the shed skin alone was more than ten meters long and as thick as a child's waist. Tsk, tsk—he absolutely must not run into a living one. Otherwise, he really would not be able to defeat it, Luo Chong grumbled inwardly.
Luo Chong cheerfully accepted the Giant Python's shed skin. He had been worrying about not having anything like a bag.
He planned to use the bag to carry grass seeds: Ryegrass, Sweet Elephant Grass, wild alfalfa, Broadleaf Water Leek, and Water Celery. Bringing some back to stir-fry with eggs and meat would be nice too, and would provide a proper vitamin supplement.
Of course, he could not focus only on feeding himself. He still planned to develop his rabbit-raising enterprise, not to mention the Blue Antelope, which he would rely on to pull carts in the future. Luo Chong did not mind treating them a little better. The open ground in front of the tribe's cave was just right for planting these forage grasses.
By the middle of the afternoon, Luo Chong was exhausted and aching all over. He had only managed to gather a single bag of grass seeds. He had not sorted them, mixing everything together, and tied the bag to the back of a female Blue Antelope.
The Blue Antelope had eaten its fill, while Luo Chong had also secured his dinner: an Ancient Giant Goose. Its feathers were mottled white, mostly white overall, with mixed colors on its flight feathers and head. It stood more than two meters tall, larger even than a modern Red-crowned Crane, and had a wingspan of more than five meters. Hidden in the grass, Luo Chong had needed two arrows to bring it down.
Luo Chong plucked every feather that could be used for arrows, gutted the goose, and planned to roast it whole to replenish the Dried Meat in his Back Basket, which was nearly gone.
As Luo Chong squatted by the water's edge slaughtering the goose, he suddenly began to weep, tears streaming down his face. They had circled his eyes several times before he finally failed to hold them back. In those scalding tears was all his longing for Earth.
Anyone who had slaughtered a chicken knew that a chicken's digestive system was weak, and food it swallowed remained in its stomach for a long time. In a television drama, Kangxi once had the imperial chefs prepare him a bowl of chaff, but how could the imperial palace have such a thing? Chaff was used to feed chickens. In the end, they had to kill a chicken and retrieve the chaff from its stomach. That showed just how weak a chicken's digestive system was.
Other birds were much the same. For example, Luo Chong actually found small fish and shrimp in the Ancient Giant Goose's stomach, along with Paddy Rice that had not yet been digested.
Thanks to "Pujin Book Friend" for the reward. Thank you for your support, big boss. And thanks to all the big brothers and little sisters who cast recommendation votes. There were so many recommendation votes today—thank you, everyone, for your support. I hope everyone will keep working hard tomorrow and help our recommendation votes grow ever higher. Qing Shu will also work hard to write this book well for everyone. Several readers have offered quite a few valuable suggestions these past two days. As a rookie author, Qing Shu has indeed overlooked some things, and I will correct them in the future. I will strive to learn while writing. Thank you, everyone.
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