There are large wild bamboo forests outside Li Village. [Full text reading] The exploration team asked the local Li people for help, cut down dozens of bamboos, selected thick ones and cut them into similar lengths, and cut the thinner ones into bamboo strips and twisted them into ropes to tie up the bamboo rafts. When Mr. Wang didn't catch any pheasants, he took out some of his share of sugar and invited a local carpenter to help him make a raft.
We learned from the local Li people that as the upper reaches gradually enters the mountainous terrain, the river is relatively rugged, and you often have to cross shoals and rapids. In order to facilitate passage, the bamboo rafts cannot be made too large, and the width of the rafts is controlled to be less than 1.2 meters. They are similar to the simple bamboo rafts used in Hunan, Jiangxi and other places. Each bamboo raft can carry 5 people, but they have a lot of equipment. So I ended up making three. The carpenters in the village made some bamboo stools and fixed them on the raft. As the icing on the cake, each bamboo raft is equipped with a bamboo strip-top awning - the sun is very bright here.
It took less than a day to build the bamboo raft. On the morning of the third day, Li Benqing's malaria was completely cured. Not only was he conscious, but his appetite was also restored. He Ping gave him one last dose of medicine as a reinforcement.
Li Benqing was extremely grateful to this group of strange Han people who cured his illness, and he wished he could give his entire family a pawn to repay them. Such cold and heat. This should be done once a year. Every time I have to struggle like this for almost a month before I feel better. This time I was fine after taking the medicine for three days, and the Han people also said that I would never do it again this time. Although I am doubtful, it is absolutely true that the medicine will work immediately after taking it.
But apart from two machetes and a few crossbows, he had nothing else at home. Li Benqing was very embarrassed and insisted on going out to catch some game to entertain him, but was stopped by Xiong Buyou.
"The game is okay. We have been delayed here for a few days and want to go upriver today. Can you help us find a guide who is familiar with that place?"
"Going upstream?" Li Benqing was a little surprised. Even Li people rarely go to this place. If you want to collect medicine, you can get it on the mountains upstream, and you can also get it on the nearby hills.
"Yes, go to Shiluling. Do you know this place?" Xiong Buyou asked.
"I've never heard of it." Li Benqing refused simply. The exploration team couldn't help but be suspicious. But according to Mu Min, this person didn't lie - she had been a police officer for many years, so she could tell whether she was lying.
Xiong Buyou refused to give up and continued to draw: "If there is a river at the foot of the mountain, and it flows into the Changhua River, it is called Shilu River-"
Li Benqing still shook his head.
Cui Yunhong thought of:
"Ask him, are there any mountains with green stones here?"
The so-called green stone is the copper ore-malachite. The place name Shilu comes from malachite. Because the local Li and Han people in Hainan are accustomed to putting modifiers after nouns when speaking, the so-called Shilu is actually "green stone".
Shiluling first attracted people's attention, not because of the iron ore, but because of the copper ore deposits on the surface here. Since the Qing Dynasty, people have been excavating and excavating illegally. It was not until 1935, when the Qiongya Industrial Bureau sent people to Shiluling to investigate the copper mines, that it was discovered for the first time that the richest mineral reserve in Shilu was iron ore.
Arimoto Kiyo suddenly realized, "You are going to Yayu Ridge!" "
Xiong Buyou didn't know what Yayuling was, but Cui Yunhong knew it, and the contents of the textbook that had been vague for a long time suddenly became clear.
"Yes, yes, it's Yayuling!" Cui Yunhong nodded repeatedly, thinking that he was really confused. The place name Shilu was only used in the Qing Dynasty. The world is still dominated by the Ming Dynasty.
Brother Wang said: "Uncle, haven't you been to Yayuling before?"
Li Benqing's face turned pale. One person pondered for a long time, and everyone was waiting anxiously. However, Li Benqing spoke poor Hainanese, and no one except Xiong Buyou could communicate with him.
After a long while, Li Benqing lowered his voice and said, "Are the shopkeepers not hawkers?"
Everyone was shocked when they heard this. Xiong Buyou smiled and said, "Why are we coming to Lidong if not to do business?"
Li Benqing said: "Several shopkeepers cured my illness, so I said a few words." He paused, "It's nothing to lead everyone to Yayuling. It's not far from here and the road is not difficult. Although I don't I've been there several times and I still recognize the road. I just want to advise a few of you: the gold and silver on Yayu Ridge are all from the town of Qiongzhou, protected by the gods and cannot be mined."
It turns out that there were rumors about a treasure on Yayu Ridge many years ago. Even without the rumors of gold and silver in the mountains, the copper mines themselves were extremely attractive. Therefore, every ten or several decades, as long as Li Dong is quiet and peaceful, Han people will come together to mine in Yayu Ridge. However, no one has ever succeeded. Either they cannot mine gold and silver and lose their capital. The mine collapsed and there were casualties, so it had to be abandoned. Over time, it has been said that the mountains here are a major town on the island, an important Feng Shui location, and are protected by gods.
After listening to Li Benqing's gossip, everyone realized that Shiluling had been famous for a long time. It seems that the so-called lack of pioneering spirit of the Chinese people is sheer nonsense. In an ancient society with low technological level and lack of transportation, trekking hundreds of miles to mine in these barren mountains and ridges was not something that a nation without an adventurous spirit could do. ?
"We are not going to mine gold and silver, we just want to visit Yayuling," Xiong Buyou continued to persuade, "We will leave in a few days."
Li Benqing said: "It's all on me to take you there. But please ask the shopkeepers to think more carefully about what I say."
But Mr. Wang didn't have these taboos and said with a smile: "Uncle, just go and take them. When you come back, the shopkeepers will reward you with a few kilograms of sugar. You can also use it to get an aunt for me. You don't have to go to the door of Guilong every day." Singing to find a woman is so scary!"
Li Benqing smiled and said: "You are so young, what nonsense are you talking about? Don't learn it, just learn this!"
The so-called "Guilong" is a special kind of building in Li Village. When several women in the same village reach the age of marriage, they will build a house by themselves near the village and go there to sleep at night. Men who are interested in finding a spouse will go to "Guilong" and "Liaoya" every night. If the woman is suitable, they will Overnight man. When most people talk about "guilong", they always say "luoya", which means falling in love. A few people also say "fengtai", which refers to the sexual relationship between two people.
At that time, it was agreed that Li Benqing would lead the way to Yayuling. As for the reward, Li Benqing was originally unwilling to ask for it, so Cui Yunhong gave him a new hook knife, a bottle of liquor and a few kilograms of sugar. Li Benqing liked it very much and accepted it.
After taking care of his initial recovery, the expedition team rested for another day in Li Village. The exploration team has not been idle these days. They roughly conducted a survey of the resources around Li Village and drew a topographic map. In terms of resources, in addition to the saponaria forest, there is also a small-scale tin mine nearby. Unfortunately, the transportation is inconvenient and there is no mining value.
Early the next morning, everyone took a bamboo raft to go upstream. Mr. Wang stayed in Li Village to take care of the goods and luggage they left behind. Everyone packed lightly and only brought necessary equipment and camping tools. Li Benqing brought dry food and salt himself, and carried a crossbow. Mu Min curiously asked him if all the arrows he brought were poisoned.
"No, curare wood is hard to find. Even if you find it, the local Han people are not allowed to use it." Li Benqing gestured. The Han people he mentioned were officials in Changhua City.
I heard that curare wood is hard to find, so several camping enthusiasts were a little uninterested. However, everyone was very interested in his crossbow and took turns playing with it. The structure of this crossbow is very simple, and its effective range does not exceed 50 meters. No wonder Li Benqing said that he mainly uses this crossbow in places where wild beasts are infested. However, he rarely hunts with crossbow arrows - if he wants to sell the fur, it will be worthless if it is pierced by crossbow arrows. Li Benqing's hunting mainly involves digging traps and setting up various sets. Several hunting enthusiasts in the exploration team took turns to exchange relevant experiences with him on the bamboo raft. After most of the day, they all understood the general meaning even by talking and making gestures. The relationship has also become much warmer.
Li Benqing shot quite a few animals. Jiang Muzhi, who was in charge of biological data collection in the exploration team, soon learned from his description that there were ferrets, badgers, otters, large and small civets, civets and other economically valuable animals in the local area. As for hares, wild boars and the like, they were distributed fairly widely. widely. The most surprising thing is that there are black bears locally.
"This thing is not easy to mess with -" Li Benqing shook his head, "It runs fast and can climb trees."
But this resource is of little use to travelers. They don't need bear skins for hats, and the use of bear bile is not on the agenda. Relatively speaking, deer skins are more useful.
Li Benqing said that there are two kinds of deer in the local area, one big and one small. The exploration team soon figured out that the big ones were sambar deer and the small ones were barking deer. Both species of deer are of great economic value.
Because there are rarely opportunities for forestry professionals to conduct field animal inspections, an experienced hunter like Li Benqing is the best investigation target. What is commendable is that he can describe the characteristics of every hunted animal quite accurately. Come, this makes the judgment of Chuanzhong much easier.
Li Benqing saw that they had taken a notebook and kept writing down his words. He was surprised and proud at the same time. He couldn't understand why these Han people would take these things so seriously and write them down. It adds a bit of mystery to their purpose.
Because it is the dry season, the water volume is not large and the current is very gentle. It is not difficult to use a bamboo pole boat to go upstream. However, we often have to pass through rocky shoals, and everyone often has to get off the bamboo raft to push across. In some places, the rocky beach is out of the water, and you have to carry the bamboo raft over it to continue moving forward.
As the bamboo raft ascended, the exploration team carefully observed the changes in the main channel and nearby tributaries, and kept recording the surrounding topography and vegetation types. The trees on the shore are sparse, but the shrubs and grass are dense. The bamboo rafts passing by will disturb the birds and some unknown small animals in the grass from time to time. There are no signs of human activity on either side of the Taiwan Strait - Li Benqing said that the adventurous Han miners did not leave many traces here.
At three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the bamboo raft finally arrived at a place later known as Sanchahe Town. Of course, this place is still a barren grassland. The water flow became very shallow, and the bamboo raft scraped against the sand and gravel on the river bottom more than once. As for the Shilu River, this tributary of the Changhua River cannot be used by boats at all, and can only barely cover people's ankles.
The exploration team decided to abandon the ship and board the beach. Everyone worked together to drag the bamboo rafts ashore. According to Li Benqing, walk upstream along the river. We'll be there in another fifty or sixty miles. Because it was getting late, everyone camped here to rest and prepare to go out early the next morning.
The exploration team set up a bonfire in the camp and ignited many mosquitoes smoked by Artemisia annua. In order to avoid suspicion, the expedition team did not use any equipment that was too eye-catching. However, their matches, sleeping bags and dry food still aroused Li Benqing's strong interest - especially the matches. Dinner is grass dry food. Li Benqing ate rice cakes for the first time and said they were delicious. Everyone gave him a lot of their share. Li Benqing made bamboo tube rice as a reward. After adding a little salt and lemongrass, the taste of bamboo tube rice whetted everyone's appetite.
At nightfall, when they were about to go to sleep, they heard a suspicious roaring sound. Thinking of what Li Benqing said about the black bear, many people became nervous. In order to ensure a safe sleep, Cui Yunhong ordered the guns to be prepared, and at the same time, a bunch of strong fires were lit. Everyone took turns on duty, constantly adding large amounts of fuel - hay and branches of small shrubs were everywhere.
The next day, they all got up at five o'clock in the morning, ate breakfast in a hurry and started on the road again. Everyone continued to walk upstream along the river, twisting and turning, and guided by the compass, map and Li Benqing, they walked another fifty or sixty miles. At sunset, they finally arrived at the foot of the mountain, where the clear river water once It slowly flows out of a valley on the side.
"This is Yayu Ridge." Li Benqing pointed.
Cui Yunhong knew he had reached the place. He found a compass and looked at the setting sun. The compass pointer pointed to the southwest. Looking in the direction of the pointer, he saw a reddish-brown mountain peak. He nodded, this area should be the famous Hainan Shilu magnetite.
Everyone was excited, Shilu Iron Mine! This is China's largest 1u day rich iron ore, with nearly 300 million tons of magnetite reserves with an average iron content of more than 42%! It is also accompanied by cobalt, copper, nickel, silver, sulfur, dolomite and other ores. If it were not for the fact that coal was not produced here, Shilu would be a natural large-scale coal-iron complex base.
Cui Yunhong was so excited that she almost fell down. She was about to climb up the mountain with her equipment. Everyone hurriedly stopped her, saying that it was getting dark now and it was not safe to climb the mountain. It would not be too late to go tomorrow.
Now we set up camp by the stream. There was nothing to say all night. The next day, Cui Yunhong led the team and formed a team of 5 people to go up the mountain. The remainder stayed at the camp.
Yayu Ridge is not high, and the mountain is not steep at all. The overall vegetation on the hillside is still a savanna landscape, with a large area of thatch as tall as a person. Although it is better than the tropical rain forest, the climb is quite strenuous. Fortunately, Li Benqing, an old hunter, leads the way. He will choose a route with sparse vegetation. ! ~!
