Chapter 328 Returning in October, Mixed Feelings

This is indeed the case. If the people of Chishan tribe want to become slaves of the Ming Dynasty, they naturally need the approval of the Ming Emperor.

There have always been precedents for this kind of thing. For example, some Mongolians who surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, or the Jianzhou Jurchens who surrendered to the Ming Dynasty earlier, also need the consent of the Ming Emperor.

Ha Ming, the father of Yang Han, the former Jinyiwei Tongzhi, was a Mongolian who surrendered to the Ming Dynasty. However, he won the favor of Yingzong when he accompanied Yingzong to study abroad.

Whether these people of Chishan tribe become the people of the Ming Dynasty or become someone's slaves, they naturally have to get the consent of the Ming Emperor.

An old man's eyes suddenly lit up, and he asked hopefully: "Excuse me, where is the Ming Emperor?"

"Can you see the emperor?" As soon as the voice fell, the imperial envoy guard next to him immediately scolded.

Although Chen Zheng has a humble personality, as the emperor's left assistant minister of the Ministry of Works, he is also one of the emperor's close ministers. Naturally, he would not allow such a barbarian to face his own emperor.

"You are not qualified to see the emperor yet. If you sincerely serve His Majesty as your master, our Luzon Guard can accommodate you! You will serve our emperor as your master in the future, and you will obey the command of this general in the future!" Yu Yuanzan made a wishful calculation and immediately put forward conditions.

Although the fighting power of these Aeta people is very poor, they have good endurance and can bring back prey from dozens of miles away. They are undoubtedly very strong transporters.

Now that the Ming Dynasty wants to mine gold here, the biggest problem it faces is the supply of materials, and the people of this Chishan tribe can indeed greatly improve the efficiency of transporting materials.

The people of the Chishan tribe immediately whispered, and soon the most prestigious old man agreed: "We Chishan tribe regard the Ming emperor as our new master, and we will also obey the dispatch of your Luzon Guard!"

The Aeta people have continued the slave system for thousands of years, and they have long been accustomed to being ruled.

Now they are ruled by the more powerful Ming emperor. Although they don't know where the emperor is, they already have a sense of belonging in their hearts.

Both sides got what they needed, so they quickly reached a contract.

When the Aeta people learned that the Luzon Guard would solve their food and housing needs, they immediately agreed to move and also agreed to take on the task of transporting materials for the Ming Dynasty.

The mountains and forests were obstacles for the Ming people, but in the eyes of the Aetas, they were just like flat land. If they transported dozens of kilograms of things from Luzon City, it would be a very simple matter.

The morning sun was already hanging high in the sky, and a series of bright lights fell on the gold mine.

"Oh my God, this is the gold mountain!"

"It's incredible, is there gold everywhere?"

"It's definitely not all, but the gold here is immeasurable!"

...

When Chen Zheng led the Luzon Guard to subdue the Chishan tribe of the Aeta people, the mining area welcomed a group of young men, and there were bursts of exclamations.

Last night, because it was dark, although they entered the gold mine behind, they could not see the real situation.

Only now, under the sun, the entire golden gold mine has been exposed. Now they see the gold mine in front of them, their eyes suddenly become straight.

At this moment, this gold mine refreshed their understanding of gold and also had a new understanding of gold. In the past, a small ingot of gold could be used to spend a night with the courtesan, but now that ingot of gold has become so insignificant.

"My dear, how much gold is here?"

"No matter how much, this gold has nothing to do with you!"

"I think you are thinking about this gold mountain in your heart, so you say that!"

...

Even the prince who was born with a golden key, facing such an amazing gold mine, the greedy heart can't help but move, but no one dares to express his opinion.

After all, this gold mountain in front of him belongs to the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty and belongs to the entire Ming Dynasty. Anyone who dares to touch it will definitely die without a burial place.

Lin Yuanyang returned with his troops and happened to see this group of young men who seemed to have never seen the world. He asked Yu Yuanzan beside him in confusion: "Why did your Majesty bring a group of burdens?"

"Do you think your Majesty is a tyrant or a wise monarch?" Yu Yuanzan knew that the young man in front of him was indeed a burden, but he suddenly asked a question.

Lin Yuanyang didn't even think about it, and said with an extremely firm belief: "Your Majesty's various actions since he ascended the throne are naturally a wise monarch for all ages!"

Not to mention the early rectification of the salt administration to crack down on profiteers and the rectification of the financial industry to save the lower-class people, just settling the millions of disaster victims in Henan can't be said to be a wise monarch in any case.

Although he looks like a tyrant, he is also a tyrant who benefits the country and the people. This time, he insisted on mining gold and traveled across the ocean to Luzon Island to find a large gold mine, which made him even more wise.

Of course, the most important thing is that the emperor changed the scope of selection of talents in the military examination, giving the lower-class people new hope, otherwise he would still be pulling boats on the canal for a living.

"I don't know what your Majesty is thinking, but there must be a deep meaning behind your Majesty's arrangement! Since we are your Majesty's subjects, we must handle this matter properly and not let these young masters make any more mistakes!" Yu Yuanzan bowed to the north and warned seriously.

On the way, he actually had similar doubts.

But when he learned that this matter was specially arranged by your Majesty, and even Chen Zheng, the left assistant minister of the Ministry of Works, was accompanying him, he immediately realized that this matter must be very serious.

He has always been grateful to His Majesty for furthering his education, and he always wants to serve the court. Even if he does not know His Majesty's true intention, he must do his best to do this well.

Lin Yuanyang knew that Zhang Heling's death did have something to do with them, so he immediately and seriously promised: "Well, I will strengthen security and I will not let any of them get into trouble!"

"It will be a long night and a lot of dreams. You should arrange for these young men to visit the remaining four gold mines as soon as possible, and then send them all back immediately!" Yu Yuanzan knew that Zhang Heling's death could be big or small, so he immediately gave serious instructions.

In the next two days, Lin Yuanyang personally accompanied these young men to visit the remaining four gold mines.

The remaining four gold mining areas are not too far away from here, but two are open-pit gold mines and the other two are semi-open-pit gold mines.

Although the open-pit mine brings a direct visual impact to people, the semi-open-pit mine also makes people imagine, so everyone has a different perception of the gold reserves.

No matter how they guessed, the storage capacity of these five gold mines has exceeded their imagination, but there may be undiscovered gold mines around them.

"There is all gold here, but unfortunately none of it is mine!"

“It would be great if I could take a piece back, but it’s a pity that I can only return empty-handed from this trip!”

"Have you seen Zhang Lun? I saw him secretly hiding a small piece under his clothes!"

…

Wang Shouren and other young masters finished visiting the last gold mine, but when they left, they inevitably felt a little regretful. In particular, some people noticed that Zhang Lun secretly took a small piece.

Everything needs comparison. It doesn't matter if everyone returns empty-handed, but Zhang Lun from the British government happened to steal a small piece.

Unfortunately, given his identity and status, no one would be so short-sighted as to report Zhang Lun.

Wang Shouren has traveled all over the country in recent years, not only helping his father suppress bandits in southern Jiangxi, but also leading his troops into the royal city in the battle to overthrow the Li Dynasty, so his identity and status are very transcendent.

He did not expose Zhang Lun, but instead approached Chen Zheng, the left minister of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Imperial Envoy, and said: "Master Imperial Envoy, we have traveled thousands of miles to come here. It is truly a blessing in life to have the honor to see the gold mine. It is a life-long disaster to enter Baoshan empty-handed and return empty-handed. I’m sorry, so please allow me to wait for the Imperial Academy students to take a pigeon egg of gold ore back as a souvenir. Please be kind to me!”

"I am the imperial envoy to make the decision for Your Majesty. You can bring less than five kilograms of gold ore back every month as a souvenir!" Chen Zheng said very proudly when faced with Wang Shouren's request.

"Huh? Really!"

"This is great!"

"Haha...I want to choose the biggest piece!"

…

After learning about Chen Zheng's heroic actions, the young masters who had been extremely disappointed just now rushed to the mining area to select their favorite gold ore.

Most of the young masters present came from wealthy families, so they naturally had no shortage of these fifty-two gold ores. The reason why they were so excited was because they wanted to take a piece back to commemorate and show off.

"Imperial Envoy, is this really okay?" Yu Yuanzan and Lin Yuanyang exchanged silent glances, and finally couldn't help but ask.

Chen Zheng was drinking tea, and he seemed to speak surprisingly authentically: "To be honest with you two, this is not the generosity of this imperial envoy, in fact, it is the emperor's intention!"

During this trip south, he was fortunate enough to have a long conversation with the emperor, so he had already formulated a set of response plans for different situations.

Now it seems that Wang Shouren's request has been accepted, but in fact this is the emperor's instructions before leaving, but he wants these young men to bring some gold ore back to the capital.

"ah?"

Yu Yuanzan and Lin Yuanyang were shocked when they learned that it was the emperor's arrangement, but they were even more certain that the emperor had some plan for arranging this young master to come to Luzon.

It's just that what the emperor is planning will probably always be a mystery.

Although we were returning the same way we came, the situation was gradually getting better when we came, and there were Aeta people helping us carry our luggage during this trip, so the return trip was obviously much faster.

About half a month later, they returned to Luzon City successfully, and the time had quietly arrived in October.

After Zhang Sui became governor of Luzon, his first important task was to promote immigration in Guangdong. He not only arranged for the relocated people to open up land for farming, but also hired people to help build roads.

Facing the imperial envoy who had returned from exploring the gold mine, he looked very serious and asked: "Imperial envoy, do you have any instructions from your majesty?"

"Now that you have found the gold mine, and there are probably more than five gold mines here, go ahead and do it boldly!" Chen Zheng knew that Zhang Sui was a very capable official, so he immediately cast his eyes approvingly.

Zhang Sui knew that he could not act recklessly after hearing a few words from Chen Zheng, so he looked worried and asked: "Will your Majesty really agree to do this? The money for building the road is not a small amount. Although the two-mile road has just been built, But now the governor’s money is about to fall to the bottom!”

"Now that the gold mine has been found, no matter how much upfront investment it takes to build the road, your wise Majesty will definitely allocate funds for gold mining. Your top priority is not to rush for mining, but to repair the road from Luzon City to the mining area. It is best to use this road. The road can lead to carriages, so sharpening a knife doesn't require chopping wood!" Chen Zheng said with certainty, knowing that Zhang Sui still had concerns.

In this day and age, the most difficult problem is often transportation.

Taking water transportation as an example, the loss of water grains was fully 80%. In order to pass on the cost of grain transportation to merchants, the Ming Dynasty even gave up most of the salt profits.

Now the gold mine is in the dense forest and mountainous area. Not only the mined gold needs to be transported out, but also a large amount of materials need to be transported in continuously.

Under the current transportation conditions, the efficiency of relying on personnel to transport materials in is too low, and it is likely that it cannot meet the needs of large-scale operations.

If they can only transport 100 kilograms of gold in one trip after mining gold, then this output is not enough to cover the expenses.

That's right, if you want to complete this mining plan well, the best way is to spend money to build a road that can transport materials.

"Since the imperial envoy said so, then our Luzon Governor's Office will let go!" Zhang Sui is not a fussy character, and he also expressed his position with courage.

Although the initial investment is indeed not a small amount, and they still need the court to allocate funds to them, the gold mine is here. As long as they can persist in mining in the Ming Dynasty, the return will definitely exceed their investment.

As for the supply of materials, he knew that the court would not sit idly by and would definitely send them to support them in repairing this road.

After staying in Luzon for only one night, Chen Zheng led everyone to return to Daming by sea the next morning.

"No!"

"No!"

"The person is definitely not on the ship!"

"If not on the ship, where else can he be?"

...

On the night of the ship, things developed in a weird direction. It was obvious that all the people were returning to Daming by sea, but one person disappeared that night.

This disappeared young man was also a relative-Zhou Gui, the grandson of Changning Bo Zhou Yu.

If Zhang Heling was an accident, then Zhou Gui's strange disappearance or drowning at sea proved that there was a high possibility of a murderer in this team.

Chen Zheng faintly smelled a conspiracy, but he could not think too much, so he chose to take another ship to the northwest.

According to the earlier plan, he did not choose to return to the capital by the same route, but chose to go to Guangzhou City.

After arriving in Guangzhou City, he immediately reported everything that happened through the Tangbao system, and also reported to His Majesty that they had indeed found a large gold mine.

"Master, when will you set off to return to Beijing?" The servant couldn't help asking when he saw that his master had settled down in Guangzhou after reporting.

Chen Zheng wandered around the streets of Guangzhou every day, and sometimes he would seriously inquire about the local prices, and said like a retired old man: "No hurry!"