Chapter 145: [East Valley Logging Site]

"Is this gold?!"

People quickly recognized that this small piece of gold, smaller than a finger, was gold because it was so heavy and bright.

"It's gold!"

"Great Chief, come and see, it's gold!"

"Gold, there is gold in the river!" Everyone became excited and gathered together shouting loudly.

Some people even leaned over and groped in the water, trying to find gold.

Ma Shao came over, took the gold nugget from the soldier, looked at it, and said, "Be quiet for a moment."

The soldiers fell silent at the first moment, and the others soon quieted down as well.

After everyone quieted down, Ma Shao took the metal detector from the soldier and personally conducted a detection in the river.

In nature, most metal elements exist in the form of compounds, and detectors cannot respond to them.

There are only a very small number of metals that can exist in nature in the form of a single element, and these metals are basically not cheap, the most typical of which is gold.

Ma Shao already knew that there was a gold mine nearby, and the gold he had just discovered made him even more certain that this was where the gold mine was.

Sure enough, as he probed, the speed of the fan indicated sometimes fast and sometimes slow, and it was obvious that there was a lot of metal in the river water here.

These metals are obviously gold.

At several locations where the indicator fan reacted most intensely, Ma Shao reached out and groped in the water, and soon found some gold visible to the naked eye. The smallest was the size of a grain of rice, and the largest was about the size of a finger.

The continuous discovery of gold made people excited again.

"This is a gold mine!" Du Tiao couldn't help but say.

Ma Shao found another grain of gold in the river and said, "That's right - we found a gold mine."

"Gold mine, gold mine, oh my god, we found gold!"

"Wuhu!"

"Captain, you didn't foresee that there was a gold mine here, did you?"

"At first I thought I shouldn't have come to California, but now I see... the chief is a man of foresight!"

Ma Shao turned around and looked at the excited Westward Advance Team: "Calm down, my people, students."

"Remember what I said? If you want to master extraordinary fighting skills, you must first overcome the instinct to close your eyes; if you want to have extraordinary wealth, you must first overcome the instinct of greed and showing off."

People calmed down again.

Ma Shao continued, "A gold mine can bring us wealth, but it can also bring us disaster. I think this is not difficult to understand."

In fact, in the original history, California gold brought almost nothing but disaster to its discoverers.

He had watched a related documentary in his previous life and vaguely remembered that the first few people who discovered gold in California seemed to have a bad ending.

Greed and the greed of others have put them in a difficult struggle.

Most of the gold diggers who came after hearing the news did not have a good ending. The lucky ones worked in vain, the unlucky ones lost their lives, and the even more unlucky ones died without anyone knowing.

Only a very few lucky people made a fortune in the gold rush and returned home in glory.

Of course, there is another biggest beneficiary - the US economy.

The Gold Rush ignited the climax of the westward movement, allowing the West to develop rapidly. At the same time, a large amount of gold flowed into the US market, giving a shot in the arm to the already sluggish US economy.

Originally, the gold diggers in history were just a group of rabble, and gold caused them to fall into extreme involution and chaos.

But the westward team led by Ma Shao was a tight-knit group with a professional army as its core. All members had undergone a certain level of screening beforehand and were sufficiently united and loyal, which was at least a world apart from the gold diggers in history.

Moreover, as a physics teacher in later generations, Ma Shao himself also knew how to detect and mine gold mines efficiently.

So he has the confidence to grasp this wealth well.

At worst, even if the news leaked and triggered a surge in the westward movement of Americans, he would be able to make a fortune before a large influx of white people.

"Who do you think the gold mine here belongs to?" Ma Shao asked.

"Belongs to the Chief!" many people said so.

Even in traditional situations, many people hold the idea that "the chief owns everything."

Moreover, this is clearly not a traditional situation in any sense.

It was Ma Shao who made the decision to come to California, and it was also Ma Shao who invented the magical metal detector.

In addition, people already worshipped Ma Shao very much, so in their view, it was completely reasonable and even natural for the gold mine to belong to the chief.

But Ma Shao said, "Maybe. But strictly speaking, it really belongs to Apache - because I also belong to Apache."

This sentence actually has some elements of showmanship.

But it was indeed very effective. Some tribesmen with low tear points were directly broken by this sentence and cried with emotion: "Great Chief..."

For example, when he was alone, tears could not stop flowing out of his one eye.

He actually has a tearful heart, but the strong personality cult of Ma Shao and the increasingly rampant "Apacheism" in the tribe make it difficult for him to stay rational.

The so-called Apacheism is collectivism and Apache assimilationism.

It is true that we should seek common ground while reserving differences and live in harmony with differences, but that is only relative and can only be so when the differences between each other are not too big.

If there is a fundamental conflict of ideas, then, if the cost permits, there are naturally only two options: destruction or assimilation.

On this issue, Westerners are obviously much more adaptable than Easterners. They can actively preach and even start wars for preaching...

Between the two options of destruction and assimilation, Ma Shao chose the latter, or rather, took the latter as the default option.

"The wealth of a gold mine can allow Apache to develop faster. We can absorb more people, employ more skilled workers, build more houses, hospitals, classrooms..."

Ma Shao said slowly.

"We must be aware of the significance of this wealth. It is not something we use to squander or show off, but something we use to build Apache."

"So we must not be complacent or get carried away, but must always be vigilant."

"If we accidentally leak the news and let the white people know the existence of the gold mine, the endless chaos will cause the Apache to lose it, and even bring disaster to the Apache themselves."

After a pause, he continued, "Keeping the information secret is our primary task. To this end, I plan to build a logging camp here."

"Sawmill?"

Ma Shao nodded. "Yes, we need wood to build a new city, and this place is also suitable for building a lumberyard. In addition to producing wood, this lumberyard will also serve as a cover. We will be active here as lumberjacks or hunters."

Originally in history, Americans discovered the gold mine while building a logging camp.

Building a logging camp here is the perfect choice.

Ma Shao thought for a moment and said, "The name of the logging camp is... Donggu Logging Camp."