I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 471 Clues to Jinshan

As soon as the expedition team arrived at the settlement, the local people came to watch. Many women were holding pottery jars in their hands, and it seemed that they had already learned how to make pottery.

The leader held up the steel axe and spoke a lot, pointing at Wu Liangshan and his men, probably explaining the situation. He also demonstrated the power of the steel axe by chopping at a piece of wood, which drew exclamations from the tribesmen.

The natives began to cook food in clay pots, throwing in dried broad beans, something like grass seeds, some unknown wild fruits, some beef and butter, and finally a little gray-black rock salt.

Most of the beef is grilled and spread with berries for seasoning, which smells quite fragrant.

After the beef was roasted, the chief personally handed a piece of beef leg to Wu Liangchen enthusiastically, wrapped rock salt with leaves, ate a bite of the meat himself, and dipped his finger in the salt to demonstrate the correct way to eat rock salt.

Wu Liangchen curiously licked the rock salt, and found it tasted salty, bitter and astringent, and he didn't know what impurities it contained. So he asked someone to bring him a bag of salt, and after opening it, he found pure white salt without a trace of color, and smiled as he handed it to the indigenous leader.

The chief took a sip, then his eyes widened and he started chattering and making all kinds of gestures.

Although there was no concept of yellow people at that time, skin color was still very intuitive. The Chinese and Native Americans both belonged to the yellow race, so at least there was no such alienation as when facing white people.

The first meeting between the two sides was very harmonious. After the natives had eaten their fill, they even performed a dance for the Ming expedition team. Many native women also expressed their affection for the expedition team.
That night, everyone slept poorly. First, they were always on guard against the aboriginal plots, and second, many team members were a little distracted by the teasing of the enthusiastic aboriginal women. After all, they had been drifting on the sea for four months and stayed on land for another two months. They hadn't seen a woman for half a year and were almost suffocated. They were in the stage of being as sexy as a sow. Even though these aboriginal women dressed a little strangely and didn't quite suit their aesthetics, they were still aroused.
Fortunately, nothing happened that night. The next morning, the leader took the initiative to find Wu Liangchen, pointing at the swords and steel axes on their bodies and constantly gesturing.
"You still want more?" Wu Liangchen was a little unhappy, thinking that these natives were too greedy.

The leader had people bring many animal skins, mostly bison skins, hats made of feathers of various colors, and carefully polished stone javelins. He placed all of these items on the ground and pointed them at the iron weapons on the expedition members.

"Exchange?" Wu Liangchen shook his head and said, "We don't need these."

The chief was very upset and asked his people to collect treasures, including colorful stones, exquisitely patterned pottery, and even necklaces made of wolf teeth.
The Ming Dynasty expedition members kept rummaging through the pile of garbage.

Suddenly, one of the expedition members asked in a trembling voice: "Dog head gold?"

Wu Liangchen hurried over to check it out and handed it to other team members. Everyone unanimously identified it as a gold nugget.

And at this moment, the team members found two more nugget golds.
Wu Liangchen was overjoyed. The presence of so many gold nuggets in this small tribe was enough to explain the problem. He felt that he had found the clue to the gold mountain.
He kept asking the indigenous leader about the origin of the gold nugget, but after trying for a long time, the leader still looked confused.
Wu Liangchen picked up the gold and said, "I want this, but it's not enough. Ten pieces of gold for an axe!"

The leader still said he didn't understand.
Wu Liangchen squatted down and drew an axe on the ground, and then drew ten nugget-shaped gold patterns. The leader understood now, but he searched the entire settlement and found two more nugget-shaped golds, but there were only five nugget-shaped golds, which was far from ten.
After a while of frustration, the leader suddenly thought of something and became happy, pointing to the northwest and gesturing non-stop. He pointed at the gold, then at the axe, and then continued to wave his hand to the northeast.

Wu Liangchen's eyes lit up, and he also pointed to the northeast, then pointed at the gold and asked: "Are you saying that there is gold nuggets over there?"

The leader thought Wu Liangchen understood, and he started dancing and laughing.
To the northeast of this place is the origin of the American Gold Rush!
Gold mines have been discovered everywhere on the west coast of the United States, especially in California!
The two larger ones, one near Los Angeles and the other in Southern California, attracted only a few hundred prospectors and did not cause a sensation, mainly because those places were full of Indians, but not many Americans settled there at the time.

Now, the place the natives were going to take them to was the gold rush site that had caused a sensation across the United States—the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River.

After walking northeast for about three days, the Ming expedition team encountered a second indigenous settlement in the woods by the river, with more than a thousand indigenous people.

The two settlements have a very good relationship. Although they are close to each other, they can complement each other.

The first indigenous settlement was able to obtain rock salt and buffalo horns. The second indigenous settlement produced exquisite pottery, lived on fishing, hunting and gathering wild fruits, and had more developed agriculture (near the river). They often exchanged rock salt for pottery, each had enough food, and migrated when they multiplied to a certain size, so there was no need to fight for survival.

And there is a larger tribe upstream of the river, and the indigenous people of the second settlement migrated from upstream.

This is the most suitable place to live on the west coast of North America, with abundant resources and a pleasant climate, which can be described as a natural paradise. However, due to its abundance, human development was slow and it did not even enter a slave society.

In fact, another reason why the Indian civilization in North America is underdeveloped is that there are no east-west mountains in North America, only north-south mountains. In winter, polar cold waves can raid from Canada all the way to Texas, and in summer, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico can directly sweep the east coast.

The few limited areas on the West Coast with stable climates are so small that they are like desert oases.

In this kind of geographical environment, there is only one word to describe the consequences of practicing primitive agriculture without the obstruction of east-west mountains - death!

So the North American Indians were unlucky. They were unable to develop large-scale agriculture, which led to their inability to improve their civilization. Their inability to improve their civilization also meant they were unable to resist climate disasters. This was a vicious cycle, and their civilization development was always blocked.
Therefore, the Mexican Plateau was able to give birth to the Aztec civilization, while the North American Great Plains were only home to a group of scattered hunting tribes.

So it is true that North America is rich, but the land does not have sufficient technical conditions and cannot be developed on a large scale.

The prosperity of modern America is the result of productivity sufficient to withstand natural disasters
(End of this chapter)