Sixteen short of people

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  Two days later, Thomas, who couldn't bear to look at the gold bars again, with a pair of panda eyes, under the personal protection of Long Guozhang, took a few people to rush to the place where Du Dazhuang found the dog-headed gold, which he estimated was likely to be the location of the gold vein.

  Li Mo then handed over the gold bars to Li Fu for safekeeping and began training with Zhao Long's selected forty men.

  The training was tough, Zhao Long followed the requirements of the German instructors in the new army to train these people. When a day's training ended, everyone was so tired that they almost collapsed, but when these fishermen and mud-legged men who had just picked up guns for a few days saw that 12-year-old Li Dashi also managed to hold on, their complaints disappeared without a trace.

  In the next few days, Zhang Shun still led a few agile men to search for the lair of the natives everywhere. Thomas took Long Guo Zhang and didn't know what he was busy with, rushing in and out, his feet not touching the ground. Li Dashiye naturally had no time to ask questions either. These few days of high-intensity training almost made him unable to get out of bed, especially the shooting training, which almost made him want to desert.

  At this moment, he lifted his clothes and looked at his dark purple shoulders. Li Mo secretly lamented in his heart that this was much more tiring than the military training he had participated in before. At that time, he was an engineer, and the military training was just a formality, shooting a few guns to get a feel for it. It wasn't like now, holding a gun to practice aiming for half a day, plus the recoil force when shooting. At his current age, his arm hadn't been dislocated, which was already very good.

  "Ah, we've been to school together, shouldered guns together, and done that thing together! No choice...". Thinking about the three iron laws that would be evaluated by later generations, Li Dashi's mouth curled up in a bitter smile. In order to win people over, it seemed this life would have to continue for a few more days.

  Li Mò was just about to adjust the wick a bit longer, looking at his shoulders and thinking of a way to reduce the swelling first, when he saw Xiao Jīng walking in with a basin of water, hastily trying to cover up his collar.

  But he was quick, and quicker still was the little maid who had been staring at him, seeing Young Master Li Yunfei covering his shoulder with his sleeve. The little maid hastily put down the water basin and ran over, and when she saw Li Yunfei's shoulder, she let out a frightened cry: "Young Master, you......"

  "Shh, don't shout, don't let Fu Bo hear it." Li Mu hastily covered the small mouth and pointed outside in a low voice: "Nothing, it's just from practicing shooting these days, it'll be fine in a few days."

  "Master, why are you so miserable? Don't you have Zhao Long and the others?" Looking at the huge, swollen black and blue bruise, Xiaoyu's tears couldn't stop flowing, and she hastily fetched a few pieces of cotton gauze, dipped them in clear water, and began to gently wipe away Li Yunfei's wounds.

  "Ah......" The cold water splashed onto his skin, and Li Mo's forehead instantly broke out in a sweat, sucking in a breath of cold air. And the little girl was so scared that she didn't dare to move her hand again, standing there stupidly, not knowing what to do.

  "It's okay, let's continue." Li Mo gritted his teeth and nodded at Xiao Qiao to continue, before slowly saying: "You think I don't want to be lazy? I also want to sleep with you in my arms every day, but these things I must do. If everyone else is busy practicing hard, and only I'm here enjoying myself, what would people think?"

  Xiao Qiao nodded slightly, this kind of buying people's hearts was something General had done many times before, only that time it was just for show, but now Young Master was different, getting himself all battered and bruised, yet even so, he still gritted his teeth every morning to get up early and go training with everyone.

  Just thinking of the young master now, bringing himself and his people to this remote place, struggling to survive, tears couldn't help but flow.

  "Alright, stop crying, it's not good to cry until your face is all messed up. If you don't behave, I won't let you sleep with me tonight, okay?" Li Mo teased and comforted Xiao Qiao, but in his heart he was thinking about Zhang Shun who had been out for several days, and asked with some concern: "By the way, has there been any news from Zhang Shun?"

  "Not yet." Her small face turned red as she shook her head.

  "Why hasn't he come back yet?" Looking out at the starry night sky, Li Mo furrowed his brow, starting to worry.

  The next morning, Li Mo was woken up by a loud scream from outside. Before he could open his sleepy eyes and figure out what had happened, he saw the old steward, Li Fu, already standing beside his bed, smiling and saying: "Congratulations to the young master!"

  "Congratulations to me?"

  "Yes! Thomas has found the location of the gold mine!" The quick-witted and excited shout rose up.

  "What!" Li Mo sprang up from the bed and was about to rush out, but suddenly thought of something, turned his head and said to Li Fu: "Fu Bo, we are no longer in the Qing Dynasty, so don't call me 'old slave' again, it's uncomfortable for me to hear."

  "Ah, this won't do! I've been serving since childhood......" Just as he was wondering why the young master had returned, Li Fu hastily said "I don't dare".

  "Stop! There's no need to ask if it's okay or not, since you all said I'm in charge now, this rule is set! And you, little girl, you're not allowed to call me 'young master' anymore. If you dare say it again, young master will sleep with you right away!" Li Mo didn't give Li Fu a chance to speak, and looked at the small, sneaky Xiao Qiao, scowling.

  "Oh, got it, young master!" The little girl stuck out her tongue and responded obediently.

  Soon, Li Mo followed the still nagging and unwilling to change his words Li Fu, and saw Thomas, who was discussing with Long Guozhang about how many people to take to open the mine. Seeing Li Yunfei, he hugged him excitedly: "Oh my god, dear Li, do you know what I found? God, you should go see it for yourself!"

  "Get out of the way, you're not a drag!" Li Mo kicked Thomas away, and this guy didn't know how many days he hadn't taken a bath, Li Yunfei, who was only up to his armpits, almost got suffocated by that stench.

  At this moment, Thomas didn't mind Li Mo kicking him at all. Instead, he continued to look at him with an excited face and shouted: "Li, let your people hurry up and take action, I'm already unable to hold on."

  "Alright, then turn a few hundred people out for me!" Li Mo said with his hands spread open.

  "How many people can be changed?" Thomas quickly reacted, now there are only more than 200 people in the camp, Li Mo has also drawn out 40 people as guards, plus the necessary logistics personnel and the gold miners on the river bay, it is estimated that less than 30 people can be drawn out to open the mine.

  To know that it is a super large gold mine, conservatively estimated to have at least hundreds of tons of gold. Such a large mine, if all are to be developed, in addition to the necessary machinery, will need at least thousands of people. Moreover, on Li Mo's map, there are several similar mines, and the population needed is even more than tens of thousands.

  "Otherwise, let me go find some people!" Long Guozhang interrupted, listening to the conversation between the two.

  "This is a way, but the distant water can't solve the near thirst. If you want to dig out the mine before winter comes, at least 500 people are needed!" Chen Ping calculated and said immediately.

  "Five hundred people?" Li's head hurt, where could he find so many people? At first, he just wanted to find the main mine vein, now that he had found it, but didn't have enough personnel to develop it, was he supposed to go to nearby residential areas to recruit people?

  Li Mo shook his head, before he had enough strength, he didn't want to deal with the foreigners. At least he wanted to wait until he had saved up enough money to buy all the mining land, and then he could openly recruit workers. Otherwise, if the news of discovering a large gold mine leaked out, it would be a disaster!

  Li Mo Zheng was worried about how to solve the personnel problem, when Zhao Long suddenly interrupted, "It's not that there's no way to get people, it's just..."

  "What's going on?" Li Mo immediately asked Zhao Long as soon as he heard something was up.

  "Master, have you forgotten? Zhang Shun has been out for four or five days already. I reckon we'll get news in the next couple of days. Once we catch those natives, won't that be enough manpower?"

  "Exactly!" Long Guozhang slapped his thigh and sighed, "Why didn't I think of that? Killing these guys to avenge would be a waste anyway, might as well use them as piglets!"

  Today, I despise these guys. They've just escaped their fate as coolies and are already thinking of treating others as coolies. However, this method isn't bad either. Li Mò has no good feelings towards those Indians. Let's not mention that they killed his people; even if that hadn't happened, with more and more people coming to pan for gold, conflicts would eventually arise. As for whether it's humane or not, please, someone will do this kind of thing anyway. Compared to being slaughtered by others in the future, making them laborers is already quite merciful.

  Thinking of this, Li Mo hurriedly said: "Zhao Long, you need to strengthen your training! Once Zhang Shun comes back, we'll set off immediately."

  "Yes." Zhao Long nodded and went back to training those new recruits again.

  "Guo Zhang, Yuan Xiao, you two discuss it, can we go back and find some people? After all, there are too few of us. If we rely on capturing locals to make up the numbers, once they gather, I'm afraid it's easy to give rise to unexpected changes!"

  Young master is right! Long Guozhang and Chen Ping hastily nodded in agreement.

  "Alright, everyone's been worried for too long, let's go take a look at Mr. Thomas' big discovery first!" Li Mu smiled and pulled along the language-barriered, hiding-on-the-side-and-thinking-about-something Thomas who then set off.

  Half an hour later, Li Yunfei arrived at the mine vein discovered by Thomas. As several guards opened the temporarily excavated mine entrance, Li Mo was the first to drill in.

  The tunnel was very narrow, temporarily dug out, and with insufficient manpower, it was only a dozen meters long. But when Li Mo arrived in front of the mine wall, he was still stunned. Under the high coal oil lamp that had been temporarily propped up, on the wall of the mine cave, a wonderful, shimmering golden thread gradually extended to the end, where the fine line suddenly enlarged and turned into a large ball of golden sand, one end of which was embedded in the mine wall.

  "Thomas said that there are at least 300 tons!" Chen Ping, who had already started using the metric system under Li Yunfei's indication, hastily added.

  "Three hundred tons?!" Li Mo wanted to tell everyone that after more than a hundred years, after excavating over 500 tons of gold here, the output was still increasing. However, he restrained himself, because he knew that in this era where surveying methods were insufficient, saying so would only make people think he was crazy!

  The most important thing now is not to estimate the output, but to extract enough gold as soon as possible, exchange it for cash, and then have Thomas come forward to legally buy this land.

  Moreover, this land is not only rich in gold, oil, tungsten, copper, iron, coal and sulfur, but it's almost an inexhaustible treasure trove! For Li Mo, controlling this place is the real beginning of his rise to power.

  As long as the resources here are controlled, there is a possibility of snatching food from the tiger's mouth under the siege of the powerful countries. Of course, this is Canada, and next to it is the United States. He won't be foolish enough to want to establish a power base here, or else the army will probably come in the second day. What Li Mo wants is only the resources here, and that's getting them without being noticed by others. So the best way is to find a spokesperson, Thomas just happened to be one, even if there wasn't him, there would probably be a second, third person being supported.

  The most critical issue at hand is the population, a large number of people, only then can we quickly extract the first bucket of gold and buy out the land here to establish a vast mining empire.

  "Damn it all! Where are those Indians hiding?"