Chapter 107: [Navajo Sacred Mountain]

Lao Lu led Ma Shao and others to the sacred mountain of the Navajo people, Blue Pearl Mountain.

Mount Blue Pearl is located not far southwest of the city of Santa Fe. In Mexican language, this mountain is called Cybereta, which means onion.

Lanzhu Mountain is about one thousand meters high. It is winter, and the mountain is covered with snow. The surrounding areas of the mountain range are also mostly covered with ice and snow. It is a vast expanse of white, and the scenery is quite nice.

"This is also a sacred mountain for the Acoma, Hopi, Laguna, and Zuni peoples." The old heron looked longingly at the snow-white mountaintop. "In fact, dozens of tribes consider this place a sacred place. We often have conflicts and even wars over this place."

He took a deep breath: "Every time I take a deep breath here, I feel a strange spiritual energy flowing into my lungs..."

"It looks really good here." Ma Shao said casually, riding his horse slowly down the mountain.

About another half an hour passed.

A wide and long gully appeared in the snow, extending from in front of everyone to a far distance.

"This is an ancient river channel." Lao Lu explained to Ma Shao like a tour guide, "Legend has it that the blood of the twin gods of war once flowed here."

Ma Shao gradually became impatient.

He came here just to see the scenery, and the scenery here was not particularly outstanding, so after taking a quick look around, he wanted to turn around and leave.

"It's getting late, we—"

Ma Shao was about to tell everyone to go back, but suddenly his eyes fixed and the words in his mouth stopped abruptly.

In the half-hidden ice and snow in front of him, he saw a ray of golden light.

Could this be gold?

If there is a gold mine hidden here, it would be a holy place.

Thinking of this, Ma Shao suddenly felt a little excited. He immediately dismounted, walked a few steps to the place where the golden light was, stretched out his hand, and pulled out a golden... crystal from the snow.

The crystals are in the form of stacked sheets, bright yellow with a hint of green, and look very beautiful.

The old heron smiled and said, "Ah, Great Chief, you are worthy of being the messenger of the Great Spirit. You can pick up such a precious crystal stone on your first visit."

"Wow, this crystal is so beautiful!" others also praised.

But Ma Shao's expression became strange.

He recognized the origin of the crystal.

This is a uranium ore...

As a physics teacher, Ma Shao certainly knew what uranium was. In fact, he had learned a lot about it, so he could recognize at a glance that it was uranium ore.

In fact, it is not difficult to identify. Uranium ore is known as the rose among ores, so it is normal for it to look beautiful. The one in front of you is not the most beautiful one.

The Midwest of the United States has rich uranium resources. Since uranium ore has been discovered here, it is most likely a uranium mine.

Ma Shao never expected that the Navajo people's sacred place was actually a uranium mine.

You're still inhaling spiritual energy, but what you're inhaling is nuclear radiation!

But it is not that scary. The radiation level of this unrefined uranium ore is very low. It will not cause any harm unless you carry it close to your body for a long time.

Despite this, Ma Shao didn't want to carry a bunch of nuclear radiation around with him, so he put the ore back to its original place.

"Great Chief, you don't want it?" people asked in surprise.

Ma Shao thought for a moment and said, "I'm just leaving it here temporarily. I'll come back to get it later, and I'll take the whole mountain with me."

The value of uranium is self-evident. If we want to develop nuclear weapons and nuclear power in the future, we must have the support of uranium mines, which is one of the essential strategic resources for a major country.

But Ma Shao doesn't need to worry yet.

Firstly, the technology tree is still very far away, and nuclear weapons are something that will only appear in about a hundred years; secondly, no one pays attention to uranium now.

People already knew that uranium existed.

But no one knew what the element was used for, and people simply used it to color porcelain.

In the original history, it was not until 1938, when Hahn and Strassmann discovered nuclear fission, that people realized the terrible power of uranium. They soon mastered this terrible power and created the atomic bomb.

Therefore, Ma Shao was not worried at all that someone would compete with him for the uranium mines. He could just wait until Apache grew strong enough and then occupy the uranium mines in the Midwest.

I don't know if I can build a nuclear bomb in my lifetime... Ma Shao thought silently in his heart.

He majored in physics and had read a lot of public information about the atomic bomb. After all, which boy has not dreamed of building an atomic bomb?

Moreover, the late 19th century and early 20th century were the shining years of physics, and he could certainly trick a few top physicists into becoming his assistants. In short, there were no obstacles in theory.

There is no problem with the uranium mine either, there is one right in front of us.

What remains is the problem at the industrial and technological level. Ma Shao needs to start from scratch and build a modern industrial system capable of refining and enriching uranium.

In addition, we must have airplanes, otherwise can we use horse-drawn carriages to pull nuclear bombs?

If he could really build nuclear weapons in his lifetime, things would be much easier.

Ma Shao looked back at Lanzhu Mountain and couldn't help muttering, "This is indeed our sacred mountain..."

…

Sleeping Bear City.

Ma Shao took his people to Santa Fe and took charge of most of the tribe's affairs on rainy days. He was busy every day, and when he had some free time, he would update and adjust the "Spiritual Oracle".

At noon that day, in the chief's hall, Yu Tian was chewing beef jerky while writing at his desk, revising a story in the "Spiritual Oracle".

His revision process was more like an attack of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and he had to consider every word and even every punctuation mark.

It is his writing style that makes the expression of "Spiritual Oracle" full of beauty. Even if the content is ignored, it still exudes the charm of language.

On a rainy day, he adjusted the word order of a paragraph, read it again, and nodded with satisfaction.

Just then, a shaman priest hurried in from outside: "High Priest."

"What's wrong, wrinkles?" asked Rainy Day.

His face was full of wrinkles, and he looked to be in his forties or fifties, but in fact he was less than thirty years old. At this moment, his expression was serious and a little horrified: "High Priest, it seems, it seems, it seems that there is a plague in the city."

"Plague!" Rainyday's expression suddenly changed and he stood up.

Plague is the most terrible memory of all Indians.

The invasion of white colonists brought a large number of unfamiliar germs to this continent.

Just like the level of civilization, the various pathogens that evolved in the complex environment of Eurasia also had a similar dimensionality reduction effect on the Native Americans.

Not only were the white people infected passively, they also actively gave items containing the disease to the Indians, causing the plague to spread wildly in the Indian world.

Countless Indians died from infection with these invasive germs, which is also one of the important reasons for the sharp decline in the Indian population.

After more than three hundred years of trials and tribulations, the Indians' resistance has greatly improved, but the plague is still their most terrifying nightmare.

Rainy Day took a deep breath: "Are you sure?"

Wrinkles said: "It should be... it has been transmitted from person to person."

A notice for all the fans of this novel, I apologize for the lack of chapter updates, a few days ago I started with the procedures to enter the university and I do not have enough time, but I will strive to continue uploading chapters, there will be 15 per week. I would appreciate it if you were free members of my patreon, I would like to grow my community.