A large open-pit coal mine was discovered under the jurisdiction of the 1,010,000 households in Xibo. Less than five days after this incident, Ma Kai, commander of the 21st Vanke Office, personally accompanied Lu Nanfeng, the officer of the Ministry of Works' military farming department, to the jurisdiction of Luo Zongshan.

The reward for discovering minerals is a rule set by Zhu Cijing himself. However, the reward is not unified. The minerals have sizes. If the unified reward is hundreds or ten thousand taels, then those who find large or super-large minerals will suffer a great loss. If the unified reward is a few thousand taels or tens of thousands taels, then if the discovered minerals are a small mineral, the court will suffer a great loss.

Therefore, he also added an additional rule, which is to reward based on the size of the mineral deposit.

If you discover small deposits, you will be rewarded with one thousand taels;

If you discover medium-sized mineral deposits, you will be rewarded with 5,000 taels;

If you discover large deposits, you will be rewarded with 10,000 taels;

If you discover super-large deposits, you will be rewarded with 20,000 taels.

Of course, the size of this deposit is not determined by the person who discovered it, but by officials from the Ministry of Industry to lead relevant professionals to the on-site inspection.

According to Luo Zongshan's description, the coal mine in his jurisdiction is definitely a super-large open-pit coal mine, but what he said is not the final word, and the officials of the Ministry of Works have the final word.

Lu Nanfeng was the official in charge of identifying the size of coal mines. The team of people he led was all professionals in coal exploration and mining. The reason why he came so quickly was because he had arrived in Siberia long ago. The so-called "he must be brave men under heavy rewards." Zhu Cijing and Bi Maokang had long realized that with the temptation of huge prizes, these guards would definitely try their best to find mines, so they sent the officials and related professionals in charge of the appraisal to Siberia early on.

As expected, the relocation of this Tunwei was only less than a month ago, and good news came one after another. Lu Nanfeng had just identified a medium-sized open-pit coal mine at Qianhu Station nearby and found a super-large open-pit coal mine, so he hurried over.

Luo Zongshan was naturally welcomed by their arrival. He also knew that the Ministry of Works would only pay after seeing it. As for how much money it would be given after seeing it, he didn't have much thought. He was from a small place and was used to being poor. One thousand taels was a big fortune for him. Five thousand taels was already a huge fortune. As for ten thousand taels and twenty thousand taels, he couldn't even think about it. How much would it cost!

These professionals from the Ministry of Industry are naturally familiar with the exploration of the size of coal mines. You must know that most of the coal mines that are being mined in the Ming Dynasty are explored by them, but they have only a few people in total. The territory of the Ming Dynasty is so large. Even if they are scattered, they will never be able to run through all the territory of the Ming Dynasty in their lifetime, let alone carefully exploration. Professionals from other mineral deposits are similar. Just a few people, it is impossible to explore all the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

However, the demand for minerals in the Ming Dynasty is increasing. The demand for coal mines, iron ore and copper mines is increasing rapidly, especially coal mines. With the increasing application of steam engines, the amount of coal has doubled. In many places, there are still no way to buy coal, and many places are even burning steam with firewood. I don’t know how much waste it has caused.

Therefore, Zhu Cijiu came up with this reward mechanism. If there is no reward, you will not be careful at all. Now it is different. Not only will there be rewards, but it is also a heavy reward. With the subsequent contracting mechanism, these guards are not looking for them crazy!

Sure enough, this trick was still very effective. Less than half a month after the first batch of Tunwei moved to Siberia, news came from all over the country that they found minerals. Four or five coal mines were found, but Luo Zongshan reported the largest scale here, so Lu Nanfeng gave priority to bringing people to investigate.

To say that the survey technology of this era is still relatively backward, it is nothing more than looking with your eyes and digging. The professionals of the Ministry of Industry do not have any instruments and equipment, so they can only dig while relying on experience, so it takes more time. For example, the coal mine discovered by Yilingyiwei has a large range, which takes at least ten days to complete the survey.

So, Luo Zongshan accompanied Lu Nanfeng and others to start the process of deep digging and sampling, and almost every place had to be dug several meters deep to confirm whether there was a coal seam below.

In fact, it is unlikely that a super open-pit coal mine with a radius of thousands of miles is present. Most of the mines that Luo Zongshan and others dug are drifting from the main mine, floating on the surface, a shallow layer of coal. After digging in many places, they are ordinary earth and rocks, and there are no coal seams at all.

However, it can scatter the coal everywhere, which proves that the main mineral deposit should be quite large. Based on experience, Lu Nanfeng and others began to slowly determine the location of the main mineral deposit. This took a few days to search.

They have had a good time during this period, because the group of hunters brought by Lao Xie has been almost done and have slowly started hunting. I don’t know how many grouse, rabbit, and marten will be brought back in a day. The 10,100 households have gradually gained a stable income and even have money to buy some wine to drink.

Moreover, most of these things are valuable in fur, and meat naturally becomes a good delicacy for entertaining guests.

In order to welcome their arrival, Luo Zongshan specially asked Lao Xie to take ten flintlock rifles to kill a black bear near their gathering place.

In fact, as mentioned in the book, this season is not the best time to hunt bears. The most valuable thing for bears is the pair of bear paws. The best time to take bear paws should be spring, because bears have the habit of hibernation. They make a living by licking their palms during hibernation. The body fluids and grease in the palms penetrate into the palms, which is one of the reasons why bear paws are rich in nutrition.

The bear paws hunted in autumn are not the best, and they are not easy to preserve. It is basically impossible to sell them out and sell them. They can only be eaten by themselves.

However, Luo Zongshan had to order people to kill the bear because its nest was too close to the gathering place. If one day he was hungry and rushed into the gathering place, it would be a big trouble, because most of the time, the strong men went out to work, and the gathering place was full of old, young, women and children, and they could not beat a bear at all.

Although this bear paw is a famous delicacy, there are not many people who have eaten it. Even the commander Ma Kai has never eaten it. Luo Zongshan also sent someone to invite Manager Li from the Xinglong Business in the Ming Dynasty to inquire about it before he knew how to make it.

The easiest way to make bear paw is braised, and it must be steamed for two quarters of an hour before using soup made from chicken, lean meat and bones, and then served with ginger, green onion cooking wine and other seasonings to remove the fishy smell. Only those who have eaten it know about it, and I won’t explain it in detail here.

In short, although Ma Kai went back the next day, Lu Nanfeng and his group enjoyed quite high treatment here, they did not commit favoritism and fraud. In the end, they discovered that the main mine of this open-pit coal mine was about ten miles in radius, which could only be considered a large deposit, not a super-large deposit.

Luo Zongshan was already very satisfied with this result. The reward of 10,000 taels is considered a huge asset for the entire 10,100 households. Moreover, they can also participate in the mining of coal mines in the future, which is a long-term and stable income.

As for how to mine coal mines, let’s see the next decomposition.
Chapter completed!