Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 368 Golden Beach

On April 18, the late spring wind, carrying the unique moisture of the West Coast, swept across the fields beyond Golden Beach (now Chilliwack, about 100 kilometers east of Vancouver), creating ripples of tender green. The air was filled with the pungent smell of freshly turned earth, mixed with the aroma of cow dung and cooking smoke.

The Jinsha River flows in the afterglow of the setting sun. The rusted gold panning troughs on the riverbed are twisted into some kind of absurd geometric shapes. The quartz sand remaining at the bottom of the troughs glitters with tiny lights, much like the gold fragments that the miners saw dancing in their eyes seven years ago.

Seven or eight years ago, this was a bustling gold mining area where miners, shirtless, sifted and washed gold dust in the icy river water, with campfires burning all night long.

Now, the gold has all been panned out, but the people haven't all left—those who remain are farmers, shepherds, blacksmiths, and tavern owners.

On the eastern slope of the riverbank, a wooden fence encloses a cluster of low houses, the birch bark on the roofs fluttering slightly in the spring breeze.

The most prominent building is the former Mining Bureau warehouse, now converted into a barn, with strings of dried chilies and smoked fish hanging under the eaves.

The waterwheel at the mill next to the warehouse creaked and turned, grinding the rye stored up last year.

Several women, carrying wicker baskets, squatted among the vegetable patches picking tender green pea shoots. Occasionally, they would straighten up, wipe their sweat, and look towards the distant hillside—where cattle and sheep were grazing on the newly sprouted spring grass, and a local shepherd boy rode a pony, lazily cracking his whip.

The "Pi's Tavern" in the center of town is now the liveliest place.

As evening fell, several weathered men sat around an old wooden table from the mining era. They were no longer miners wielding picks to dig sand, but farmers carrying plows and rakes.

Old Pi, the tavern owner—who used to be a cook at the mine—was pouring his homemade liquor into an earthenware bowl. The liquor was cloudy, but it carried the sweet aroma of potatoes.

"I heard that a new mineral vein has been discovered in a stretch of the river more than 100 kilometers upstream?" A man with a missing front tooth took a sip of his drink and asked with squinted eyes.

"It's long past our reach!" the man opposite scoffed, patting the sickle at his waist. "This is farmland now! Gold? That's someone else's dream."

The tavern curtain was lifted, and a hunter in a deerskin coat walked in, carrying a wild deer he had just hunted on his shoulder, blood dripping onto the threshold.

"Give me a bowl of wine, the one from last year buried under the spruce tree." The man slammed the venison onto the pine counter, the brass bell on the corner rattling a few splinters of wood. "This morning in Bear Creek Valley, I saw a pack of wolves, four of them. The alpha wolf's fur was as black as ink, and its eyes were so green they could reflect light. Damn it, if I hadn't run fast, I almost wouldn't have made it back!"

"Old Liu, it's so dangerous, why are you still going hunting? Aren't you going to take good care of your dozens of acres of land?" someone joked.

"Why didn't you prepare it?" Old Liu tossed the venison onto the counter and laughed, "We're short on money! We're tending those dozens of acres of potatoes, and we won't be able to dig up a single coin anytime soon, so I went into the woods to hunt a deer to exchange for some cash. Damn it, it's spring now, and the kids' clothes are too short!"

A burst of laughter erupted in the tavern, but the laughter carried a certain resigned acceptance of fate.

Outside the town, a dozen newly arrived North Korean immigrants were chopping down trees with axes, preparing to cultivate another piece of farmland.

Their children ran barefoot along the ridges of the fields, chasing after a spotted hen.

On the hillside further away, there are several new graves—the graves of residents who fell ill last winter and women who died in childbirth.

A wooden plaque with a name crookedly carved on it stands on the grave, appearing somewhat lonely amidst the lush green mountains and forests.

As dusk settled, the sound of the Jinsha River continued, but no one expected to sift gold from the sand anymore.

Today, Jinshatan Fort relies on the cultivation of corn and potatoes, the harvest of rye, the breeding of cattle and sheep, and the indomitable spirit of the immigrants.

"By the way, what are those people from town doing?" After some haggling, Old Liu sold the not-so-fat deer he had hunted to the tavern. After receiving the money, he immediately filled a jug with liquor to reward himself for his hard work over the past half day.

"I heard it's on the orders of the regional commissioner, preparing to cross the East Kunlun Mountains and head east for an expedition," the shopkeeper, Old Pi, said nonchalantly.

"Hey, what's going on? Is Xinhua expanding eastward?" the man with the missing front tooth asked in surprise. "Or are you planning to go east to find new gold mines?"

"How could a commoner like us know about official matters!" Old Pi waved his hand and ordered a twelve or thirteen-year-old local boy to drag the deer to the kitchen for processing.

"I wonder if they're still hiring. Maybe we can go on an adventure to the east and strike it rich," the man with a sickle at his waist smacked his lips and said wistfully.

"Get rich?" Old Liu scoffed. "Do you know how dangerous it is to cross the East Kunlun Mountains? Months of heavy snow will freeze you solid! And there are hordes of fierce, savage tribesmen. If you go with us, you might end up losing your life instead of getting rich!"

"It shouldn't be that serious, right? I think there are quite a few people in that group, more than thirty, and they're carrying a lot of firearms and swords. Even if they encounter a large indigenous tribe of several hundred people, they'll be able to protect themselves. What danger could there be?" the man replied with a chuckle.

"As for crossing mountains and valleys, that's nothing to us. Back in the day, panning for gold was much harder and more dangerous than that."

“They’re an expedition team. There are many scholars, officials, doctors, and craftsmen in it. At the very least, they have armed guards who can fight and kill. Who do you think you are, trying to get rich by going with them?” a tall, thin man mocked.

"I..." The man hesitated for a moment after hearing this, "I'm strong enough to help them carry their luggage and row the boat. They've mostly been going with the current, but rowing against the current is very hard work! Don't they need a few more laborers?"

"Forget it! Don't make a fool of yourself by dreaming of going east with that expedition team to make a fortune. With that kind of thinking, you'd be better off taking good care of the livestock you keep at home, so they can have more offspring and you can exchange them for some money."

Thanks to the local humid climate and fertile land, there are vast natural pastures around Golden Beach, where more than a thousand cattle and sheep are raised. Apart from a government-run pasture, almost every settled immigrant has a few livestock at home.

The cattle produced milk and meat, which could supply the gold mining areas in the upper reaches of the Jinsha River. The wool from the sheep was sold to fur buyers from Jinchuan and Zhenjiang (now Richmond, near Vancouver). Combined with the crop output from the fields, the residents of Jinshatan lived a good life.

Although they don't have much spare money, they are able to make ends meet and live a peaceful and prosperous life.

After seven or eight years of continuous mining and panning, the gold deposits in the lower reaches of the Jinsha River have gradually dried up, and it is now difficult to find even a single grain of gold.

Currently, Xinhua Precious Metals Management has moved its mining operations upstream to the river section between Tong'an (now Hope Town) and Lixi (now Yale Town), with the furthest mining area even set up at Dongdu (now Litton Town), where the Jinsha River and Anning River (now Thompson River) meet.

Between 1630 and 1637, the total amount of placer gold produced in the Jinsha River basin, in monetary terms, exceeded 3.8 million yuan (in later years, more than 30,000 gold prospectors flocked to the basin and panned for gold worth more than 28 million US dollars in just ten years), contributing significantly to the national treasury revenue of Xinhua and strongly supporting Xinhua's immigration activities.

The area near Lixi is probably one of the areas with the highest gold production in the Jinsha River region. According to statistics, in just two years, the area produced gold worth 100 million yuan from an area of ​​less than one square kilometer.

Of course, this data is only a rough estimate. It cannot be ruled out that some miners may have smuggled gold in privately, or that local indigenous tribes may have taken advantage of the situation and mined some gold in remote areas, but this was not recorded in the official ledger.

Today, gold mining areas are constantly moving upwards. Some former mining areas have been abandoned, while others, like Jinshatan Fort, have become settlements for immigrants to engage in traditional agricultural planting.

Therefore, it may not be accurate for someone to say that Jinshatan Fort is the easternmost settlement of Xinhua.

At the very least, within a stretch of nearly 100 kilometers upstream of the Jinsha River, there are still several scattered gold mining areas that could provide necessary supplies for the eastward-bound expedition team.

"We'll set off early tomorrow morning and try to reach Tong'an Village before dark." Inside the town's barn, Lei Zhensheng, the leader of the expedition team, held a charcoal pencil and emphasized the key points on the simple map, his eyes filled with courage and determination.

"After tonight, we will officially embark on our eastward exploration journey. I hope that each of our names will be remembered by future generations because of this great exploration!"
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(End of this chapter)