Beautiful Scenery Below Eight Treasures Mountain

The green color not far off immediately confirmed Luo Chong's guess. It was the color of malachite, and malachite is a sign of copper ore.

Actually, anyone who studied basic chemistry should know that copper sulfate solution is green, so most green stones contain copper, including jadeite.

Yunnan, China and Myanmar are rich in jadeite precisely because there is an acidic volcano there, the Tengchong Volcano in Yunnan. When the volcano erupts, the copper sulfate solution from the earth's core erupts with the magma. After tens of thousands of years, it permeates the stones and turns into jadeite.

So, if you have a lot of money, you could smash a piece of jadeite and burn it to refine copper, but no one does that.

Digging a bit further nearby revealed a lot of purplish-blue azurite, which is a natural crystal of copper sulfide. Layers of indigo, dark blue, and blue-purple precipitate into radial crystals, which are very beautiful, like blue reishi mushrooms with rings of patterns.

After crossing a small hill, the view turned into a large expanse of white. Luo Chong dug around for a long time, and the white mineral vein was very mixed. Most of the surface layer was Guan Yin Clay, which is dolomite, also called kaolin. It's a refractory clay mainly used for firing ceramics or making crucibles for melting metal.

Mixed in with the kaolin was lime, and digging further down also yielded lime. There was also white translucent mica, and at the very bottom, chalk and Iceland Spar, which is calcite. Iceland Spar is colorless and transparent, and its cubic shape closely resembles rock sugar. Chalk is opaque, pure white, and relatively hard in a cubic shape. In reality, these are all types of lime, but because they are buried deeper and subjected to greater pressure, they have become variations of lime.

After crossing the ridge of the Eight Treasures Mountain, only gray granite remained, along with tin ore coexisting next to the granite. This could be seen from the reflection of silver metal seeping from the surface of the granite.

After digging around like this for most of the day, Luo Chong lay on a piece of granite on the east side of the Eight Treasures Mountain. The granite was warm from the sun. Wuda and Ximen were grazing the Antelope Herd on the low bushes around, while Luo Chong internally thanked the geology and chemistry professors at the National Defense University. He was grateful they taught him so much; otherwise, even if he was sitting on a treasure mountain, he wouldn't know how to use it.

Summarizing the day's exploration, this was a rich copper mine. The other minerals were just associated minerals of the copper ore.

However, those associated minerals were also useful. Tin can be combined with copper to make a copper-tin alloy, which is the famous bronze. Currently, bronze is the best metal Luo Chong can obtain.

In fact, bronze alloys are still widely used today, generally for manufacturing machine bearings, but most people don't know this, thinking bronze should only appear in some ancient king's tomb. This is not the case. Bronze alloys are indeed superior to steel in some aspects, so they have not been eliminated even after thousands of years.

When Qin Shi Huang unified the six states, the Qin Army used bronze weapons, while the six states had already equipped a considerable amount of ironware. However, early ironware simply couldn't compare with mature bronze, so the six states' defeat was not unfair.

The complete replacement of bronze weapons with iron weapons occurred during the Han Dynasty. By then, the early hundred-refined steel technology was relatively mature, and iron material that had been continuously folded and hammered was indeed sharper than bronze.

But the use of bronze was not eliminated by the rise of steel. Even up to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, bronze was still used to manufacture firearms. Most of the firearms and Red Garment Cannons of the Great Ming Divine Machine Camp were cast from bronze.

There was very little iron sulfide on Eight Treasures Mountain, not enough to support iron smelting, so Luo Chong could only stick with bronze in the future.

Fortunately, Eight Treasures Mountain was not far from his tribe, only a three-day walk away. A round trip would take six days. If they used the Blue Antelope to pull carts, the time should be much faster. The Blue Antelope was as big as a domestic donkey, so pulling a cart should not be a problem. If necessary, two antelopes could pull one cart. As long as they built a bridge back first, it would be fine.

With future plans made, Luo Chong also had time to appreciate the surrounding scenery. Eight Treasures Mountain was beautiful from a distance, and up close, it was exhilarating. How could a place full of copper not make one happy?

The east side of Eight Treasures Mountain had a well-developed water system, an endless wetland swamp that stretched as far as the eye could see. The area at the foot of the mountain had lush aquatic plants, and Wuda and Ximen were happily leading the Antelope Herd to graze.

A wetland is land covered by shallow water year-round, with the deepest water level not exceeding two meters. It is a paradise for plants and animals, especially waterbirds.

This place was no exception. There was knee-high ryegrass, waist-high alfalfa, which is also four-leaf clover. This stuff is highly recognizable, with four heart-shaped leaves growing together. In modern times, it's called lucky clover, and the four-leaf clover shape often appears in decorations. It's a favorite of various herbivores and also a favorite of little girls, because of its heart shape.

There were clumps of tall and upright reeds, and sweet elephant grass that grew as tall as trees, each stalk reaching six or seven meters high. In this wetland grassland at the foot of the mountain, Luo Chong also saw horses, but he had no interest in catching them.

The horses here only reached his waist, smaller than a sheep. They couldn't pull carts or be ridden, and their hides weren't attractive or warm. Raising them for meat was even less cost-effective because they grew too slowly. To Luo Chong, they were utterly useless, completely like a chicken rib.

There were no goats or sheep here either. Blue Antelopes, however, were not rare; there were three or four small herds of ten or more. Luo Chong really hoped Wuda and Ximen would show some initiative and bring back some female antelopes.

In the grass, there were also beavers as big as domestic pigs, with glossy, brown fur, appearing and disappearing in the aquatic plants.

And there were large snakeskins hanging on the mangrove trees. Holy cow, the shed snakeskin alone was over ten meters long, as thick as a child's waist. Tsk tsk, I really hope I don't encounter a live one, or I really won't be able to handle it, Luo Chong muttered inwardly.

Luo Chong unceremoniously took the Giant Python's shed skin. He was currently worried about not having anything like bags.

He needed bags to carry grass seeds: ryegrass, sweet elephant grass, wild alfalfa, and also broadleaf water leek and water celery. Getting some back to stir-fry with eggs and meat or something would be good, to supplement vitamins appropriately.

Of course, he couldn't just think about feeding himself. In the future, he also had to develop his rabbit raising business, and the Blue Antelopes. He would rely on them for pulling carts in the future, so Luo Chong didn't mind treating them better. The open area in front of the tribal cave was perfect for planting these pasture grasses.

In half an afternoon, Luo Chong's back ached from exhaustion, and he only managed to collect one bag of grass seeds. He didn't sort them, just mixed them all together and tied the bag onto the back of a female Blue Antelope.

The Blue Antelope ate to its heart's content, and Luo Chong also caught his dinner, an Ancient Giant Goose. It had mottled feathers, mostly white, with mixed colors on its wing feathers and head. It was over two meters tall, larger than a modern Red-crowned Crane, with a wingspan of over five meters. Luo Chong shot it twice from where he was hidden in the grass before it fell.

Luo Chong plucked all the feathers that could be used for arrows. After gutting it, Luo Chong planned to roast the entire thing to replenish the dried rabbit meat that was running low in his basket.

As Luo Chong was squatting by the water's edge butchering the goose, he suddenly burst into tears. Tears welled up in his eyes for a long time before finally flowing out. Those hot tears were filled with his longing for Earth.

Anyone who has butchered a chicken knows that a chicken's digestive system is very weak, and food stays in its stomach for a long time. In a TV show, Kangxi once asked the imperial chef to make him a bowl of chaff, but there was no such thing in the palace; it was chicken feed. In the end, they had to kill a chicken and take the chaff from its stomach, showing the chicken's digestive system.

Actually, the situation is similar for other birds, like this Ancient Giant Goose. Luo Chong actually found small fish and shrimp in its stomach, as well as undigested rice.

Thanks to "Pujin Book Friend" for the reward, thank you, boss, for your support. Also, thanks to all the big brothers and little sisters who cast recommendation votes. There were a lot of recommendation votes today, thank you all for your support. I hope you all continue to work hard tomorrow to make our recommendation votes more and more. Qing Shu will also work hard to write this book well for everyone. In the past two days, some readers have given many valuable suggestions. As a new author, Qing Shu indeed has areas where I didn't consider things thoroughly. I will correct them in the future and strive to learn while writing. Thank you all.