e anxious, tugged at Yang Lin's clothes, and frantically gave him eye signals: "Too low!""My wife said the price is too low."Yang Lin shook his head."Two copper coins are indeed low, but madam, am I s..."Is this what you were looking for"

Li Yuxiang asked.

Yang Lin shook his head, didn't explain, and still lay on the ground, carefully studying this black stone.

Although people didn't understand why these black stones all over the place were interesting to look at, they patiently waited for Yang Lin.

Yang Lin was looking very intently. He picked up a chisel and chipped away a small piece, carefully examining the fracture surface, and finally even tasted it.

"Bah!"

Tasting a sour and bitter taste, Yang Lin immediately spat out the small black stone. However, his face grew even more peculiar.

How are you

Li Yuxiang tilted her head, very curious.

Yang Lin nodded: "I recognize it, this is ilmenite!"

Because of the nature of biomineralization, it is not uncommon for coal and iron ore to coexist. However, it is less common to find ilmenite alongside coal seams.

"Titanium... ore"

Li Yuyao repeated these words, but she didn't understand them at all.

Yang Lin wryly smiled: "This is a very valuable mineral, but it's useless to us!"

Why

Valuable, yet useless

Li Yuxiang cannot understand.

"Hmm..."

After some thought, Yang Lin spoke up: "In simple terms, this ilmenite is rich in two elements: titanium and iron."

"Iron is worthless, there are many iron mines, even in the hills behind our house."

But this titanium is very precious! With this ore, you can refine a metal called titanium.

But the problem is…

We can't refine it!

This is also the reason that makes Yang Lin laugh and cry.

He was very clear about the value of titanium.

We can build airplanes, we can build rockets!

Use it to refine alloys, its titanium alloy hardness is also very strong, and the anti-corrosion ability is super strong. Adding it to stainless steel can increase the corrosion resistance of stainless steel by several times!

But the problem is what he said.

Refuse! Don't come out!

Nowadays, even steel is difficult to smelt, let alone extracting titanium metal from ilmenite.

And even if it were actually refined, what use would it be

In the Great Han Dynasty, ordinary steel was already sufficient.

Even if one could truly forge titanium alloys, at most it would only result in crafting some dazzlingly exquisite divine weapons.

"Let's go and see the coal mine."

Yang Lin sighed.

It's like a traveler in the desert finding a gold nugget.

Gold is good, but it's useless without an egg!

Li Yuyu and Liao Hongying glanced at each other, their expressions strange.

Titanium

Can't make it

Then how did he know

Soon, the crowd climbed over the hill and came to the valley behind it.

At a glance, Yang Lin was overjoyed again!

Although called "open-pit", open-pit coal mines are not always directly exposed on the surface. Many open-pit coal mines require further excavation to reach the coal seams.

But the open-pit coal mine before our eyes, most of it exposed on the surface, within a radius of nearly a hundred meters, all is black and shiny coal!

Yang Lin quickly checked and found that the quality of these coals was quite good.

As for the scale of the coal mine, it is currently impossible to quantify due to a lack of advanced detection equipment.

But even a few meters of thin coal seam would be an inexhaustible reserve for Yang Lin! “This is coal, everyone dig and try it, see how fast the mining speed is.”

All ten members of the coal mining team thought it was utter nonsense.

You came all this way to dig up these dark rocks. What use are they

But Yang Lin had said so, and they didn't hesitate. They immediately started digging.

The tool came with it already.

Hammers, chisels, axes, and picks were used. With a forceful hammering all around, the coal lumps of various sizes were soon extracted.

Coal has a low hardness, so although the tools they used were primitive, the mining speed was not slow.

Yang Lin calculated that the ten of them, it took about ten minutes to mine about two hundred kilograms of coal.

Then, the output within an hour can reach one ton!

By the end of the day, it’s about four or five tons!

Of course, this is just the extraction speed, not including transportation.

In this era, transportation is the biggest challenge!

This number of four or five tons, for the coal mine of the previous generation with daily production capacity of thousands or even tens of thousands of tons, is just a drop in the bucket.

But for Yang Lin, it was enough!

"Shall we just do this from now on"

Old Wang looked at Yang Lin strangely.

Yang Lin nodded. "That's right, how do you all feel If anyone feels this job isn't suitable, they don't have to do it."

Everyone shook their heads hurriedly.

Inappropriate

This is perfect!

Smashing these stones is admittedly a bit tiring, but you can earn ten coins a day! Who wouldn't want that

They are just afraid that Yang Lin will collect these useless stones and lose too much money!

Immediately, following the guidance of those few bandits, they led everyone to the bandits' original mountain cave.

Originally, Yang Lin thought these bandits might have some wealth. However, when he saw them, the bandits were also as poor as church mice!

The cave was quite large, but it was completely empty inside. There was only enough food left to feed over twenty people for about ten days.

At least we still have pots, pans and dishes here. Cooking won't be a problem, and with a little cleaning, it will be livable.

He once again briefed Lao Wang on the precautions for coal mining, including the subsequent storage and transportation of coal chunks, and stressed the need to keep a tight watch on these bandits... Yang Lin then left with his guard unit.

Just as they were about to head down the mountain, Yang Lin suddenly thought of something and asked, "Big Brother Zhong, do you know what's behind this mountain"

Zhong Tao shook his head. "I don't know, I've never been here."

The rest of them shook their heads too.

Yang Lin said decisively, "Let's go over and have a look!"

Yang Lin turned his head and instead of returning the way he came, he walked along the mountain pass toward the back mountains.

Li Yuxiang asked strangely, "What are you going to see"

"I want to verify something," Yang Lin said.

"What" asked Li Yiyuan curiously.

"My wife, do you still remember the river in our village"

Li Yuyao nodded, but still didn't understand what Yang Lin meant.

From our village to Old Black Mountain, the way goes upstream along that river. Although we didn't see the river along the way, the upstream of that river must be in this direction.

"So what" Li Yuxiang asked.

"Water flows downhill, and this mountain isn't very big or small. There's no river in front of the mountain, so that river is probably behind it!" Yanglin said.

"The river... behind the mountains"

Li Yuyao repeated the phrase, then suddenly exclaimed, "Are you planning to transport coal across that river"

Yang Lin smiled and nodded.

Li Yuxiang was already stunned.

Before that, she had also been thinking, over twenty miles, transporting these heavy stones, the cost paid would definitely be greater than mining.

Why didn't I think of that, water transportation!

Even in Yang Lin's previous life, let alone this era, water transport was always the cheapest. It's simply unmatched by any other mode of transportation!what dangerous to make, so he won't conduct the experiment until he is fully prepared."No problem!"Du Jing readily agreed.Yang Lin continued, "Making tofu is not only tiring but also has low profit ma...