bullyxtreme Chapter 34 I never expected there would be a gold mine in this place!
Chapter 34 I never expected there would be a gold mine in this place!
"Good heavens, where did all this golden stuff come from? Is it gold dust?"
After opening the several small boxes in front of him, Rock saw a pile of glittering gold particles inside. He grabbed a handful and examined them closely. After weighing them in his hands, he figured they were probably gold dust panned from the water.
He turned to look at the bandits leading the way, a glint of menacing light in his eyes. He never expected that these bandits would have a gold mine on their hands, or that they knew where there was a gold mine.
If there were a gold mine, that would be fantastic.
Owning a gold mine means that, at least for the short term, Rock won't have to worry about running out of funds. Whether it's ore or placer gold, it's enough to sustain his expenses for a while!
"Tell me properly, where did all this gold come from?"
After having the cavalry bring the bandit over, Rock asked excitedly.
"Alright, Your Majesty, I'll explain slowly..."
The bandit quickly recounted everything he knew, and after listening, Rock understood what the gold was all about.
In general, there is a placer gold vein located in the northern part of the bandits' stronghold, and all the gold they possess is mined from that mine.
The Northeast region has always been rich in gold, and the discovery of gold in this land has never been anything new. During the Qing Dynasty, this area was an important source of gold for the Manchus.
Among all gold veins, they can be roughly divided into mineral gold and placer gold. Mineral gold is generally extracted from gold mines and consists of large chunks of ore.
As for placer gold, it is often caused by flowing water washing away gold mines, which washes the fine gold fragments into the river and eventually deposits them in the calmer parts of the riverbed, forming what gold panners generally call placer gold.
It was impossible for these bandits to seize the gold mine, because the Qing government had extremely strict control over gold mines. Once discovered, they would inevitably fall into the hands of the government for mining, and no one else was allowed to get involved.
However, in comparison, placer gold, which is derived from gold mining, is not as important.
Because placer gold has a lower yield and lower purity compared to gold, and requires more cost to smelt, mining placer gold is not only troublesome but also inefficient, and it is not worth the Qing government's efforts.
However, the Qing government's disdain for these placer gold mines did not mean that the bandits did the same. On the contrary, even such a placer gold mine was enough to make countless bandits fight to the death for it.
Currently, the gold mine is occupied by four distinct forces, including the Black Dragon Mountain bandits who have been eliminated by Luo Ke. Besides Black Dragon Mountain, there are the largest local bandit forces, Erlong Mountain and Black Flag Ridge, as well as a group of horse bandits known as the Ge Family Army.
"I really didn't expect that Black Dragon Mountain would be the weakest of these forces..."
After listening to the bandit's introduction, Rock frowned slightly.
He realized that he had underestimated these local bandits; there were really a lot of bandits in Northeast China these days!
Among these three forces, the Ge family army, which consists of horse bandits, has the fewest members, totaling no more than 200. However, they are all on horseback, move swiftly like the wind, and are particularly adept at breaking into smaller groups. If an encirclement and annihilation is launched, ordinary people simply cannot find them.
The number of people in Black Flag Ridge wasn't particularly large, but they still numbered four or five hundred. Moreover, they had a very special unit that these guys called the Foreign Rifle Team.
To be honest, when Rock first heard the name, he almost spat it out. However, this foreign gun team was naturally quite different from the other foreign gun team.
This foreign-armed squad only had foreign guns, but no foreigners. They seemed to have connections with the Russians, so they had a number of old-fashioned flintlock muskets smuggled from Russia, probably the kind of flintlock musket that Rock had that met the standards for combat.
This foreign gun squad wasn't large, only a little over a hundred men in total. After all, these guns had been smuggled all the way here, changing hands countless times, and the price was far beyond what ordinary bandits could afford.
But with this foreign-gunned bandit team, Black Flag Ridge was able to dominate the surrounding bandits. No bandit group could directly challenge the foreign-gunned bandit team. Therefore, they also successfully became shareholders of this gold mine.
The largest force was Erlongshan, with over a thousand bandits who could roam freely in the surrounding area, not to mention a large number of vassal forces on the periphery. They were also the second largest shareholder in this gold mine.
As for who the largest shareholder is?
To Rock's surprise, the largest shareholder of this placer gold mine was actually a local official—Wan Fu, the garrison commander of Kaiyuan City!
At first, Rock didn't know who this Wan Fu was, and the bandit certainly wouldn't casually reveal his background. However, judging from his description, this old Wan seemed to be quite extraordinary:
Because this guy actually comes from the royal family and has royal blood!
Of course, as for what this imperial bloodline was all about, the bandit couldn't explain it. He had only heard about it from their leader, who said that this Qing general was from the imperial family.
Rock was slightly surprised, but then he didn't think there was anything wrong with this royal bloodline, because this guy was obviously the kind of person who wasn't very favored and was probably from a less prominent branch of the royal family.
If this guy were really some kind of prince, he definitely wouldn't have come here to take up a post. The Qing court had very strict control over the princes with iron caps and a bunch of imperial relatives, and they simply didn't allow these guys to leave the capital.
Besides, he's quite old, and now he's just a local garrison commander with only a thousand or so Manchu and Green Standard Army soldiers under his command. And to put it bluntly, these soldiers are pretty much rotten to the core.
If this were during the early Qing Dynasty, facing a combination of thousands of Eight Banner soldiers and Green Standard Army soldiers, Luo Ke might have been more wary of them and taken them seriously.
After all, at that time, both the Eight Banners and the Green Standard Army were at their peak in terms of combat effectiveness.
But now, well... hehe!
To put it bluntly, the most capable force the Qing Dynasty had at its disposal had already been lost to the Anglo-French allied forces in the previous Battle of Palikao. The remaining Eight Banners and Green Standard Army troops in these remote areas were basically just existing forces.
Rock even doubted whether these guys really numbered in the thousands.
In his memory, the situation of Green Standard Army soldiers drawing salaries without working was very serious in these areas. Some units that were nominally thousands of people could only manage to put together 300 people, which was considered good. Even when it came to inspections and exercises, they had to hire people from outside to make up the numbers.
Even so, despite their declining combat effectiveness, they were still government troops, representing the government, and their position was still very important.
The route from Kaiyuan to Tieling was a vital transportation route to Mongolian territory. If you wanted to do business with the Mongols, you had to pass through their territory.
Furthermore, these guys have official status, so if they really come to attack this gold mine, the bandits will have no choice but to retreat unless they are willing to become rebels.
In this situation, to prevent these guys from causing trouble for themselves and to prevent their smuggling routes from being blocked, they would definitely have to use a considerable portion of it to feed these government troops, or rather, to feed Wanfu.
"Your Majesty...that's all I know...If you want to ask anything else, then I can't answer!"
Seeing that Rock was deep in thought, the little bandit beside him spoke tremblingly, afraid that Rock's expression would suddenly change and the surrounding cavalry would cut him down.
The main reason was that the cavalrymen standing around him were all tall and strong, and their eyes were too intimidating.
Although they didn't draw their cavalry heavy swords, just looking at their attire and appearance, the little bandit felt his legs cramp.
Rock ordered the bandit to be taken away; he would need the man to be his guide later.
After he left, Rock took the map from a cavalryman and examined it carefully.
"My goodness, are maps this rudimentary these days? Don't they even have a scale or anything like that?"
Looking at this crooked, hand-drawn map, Rock felt dizzy for a moment. Although he could barely make out some of the surrounding terrain, he had to admit that this thing was drawn too abstractly.
"General, should we take a share of this gold mine? With the current strength of our Luo family army, I think if we inform the other gangs, they should be willing to leave us our share."
Seeing Rock looking at the gold mine and gradually becoming deep in thought, a militiaman next to him excitedly raised his hand and said...
But Rock shook his head.
"Heh, just sharing a piece of the pie isn't very interesting. Compared to getting a scrap from these people, I much prefer to keep it all to myself!"
As Rock spoke, he sneered, but after studying the terrain of the gold mine, he did not intend to send troops to attack it immediately.
He still lacks sufficient troops. If he were to confront the bandits in this area, he would have to fight at least 2000 bandits one after another.
He didn't know if his current forces could defeat 2000 bandits, but even if they could, it would probably be an extremely brutal victory.
Thinking this, he shook his head. He decided to focus on training his troops first and then continue expanding his sphere of influence.
By planting his flag in more villages and collecting security fees from them, he can gain their protection. Once his territory expands, his population will naturally increase, allowing him to recruit more soldiers.
By then, it will just be a placer gold mine, and he refuses to believe that he can't take it down!
After smiling, Rock looked at the gold behind him, silently said "recharge" in the system, and then recharged all the boxes of gold there.