Chapter 1558 Chaotic Mining Road (1/2)

Li Du was over the moon when it became apparent that what he stumbled upon was indeed a jade mine. Though he had expected this and knew that there was no way Tang Chaoyang would have given him inaccurate information, the moment of truth was still an exhilarating one.

Every jade mining area had a potential profit margin worth hundreds of billions. The Hpakant area had been reclaimed for hundreds of years and now, every area stood to earn tens of billions annually. It was truly a staggering amount of money.

The jade mine of Dena Mountain could not hold a candle to Hpakant in terms of vein quality and scale, but its value lay in the fact that no one had mined here before. Everything was essentially untouched so, naturally, there would be value in that!

That said, discovering the mine was the easy part — the real difficulty was the actual extraction. Even if Li Du could come up with the shortest and most efficient excavation path, the actual excavation was still a herculean effort in and of itself. The jade was hidden beneath granite that was virtually indestructible so it would take a lot of energy and effort to extract. The good news was that someone had already dug a hole, so they did not have as much work to do.

Li Du waited for two days as the people from the casino packed up their stuff and left as they had promised to. The mine was now unoccupied and he was free to take over it, even though he was still not completely at liberty to do as he pleased.

First, according to Myanmar laws, he had no right as a foreigner to contract the mining of jade. There were no loopholes to this: Myanmar was a country with no resources and its GDP was heavily reliant on jade ore, which explained why they were so protective of jade as a resource.

Secondly, the people of Wooku Town would not be pleased with seeing Li Du mine at Dena Mountain. The people had been so cautious with hiding what they knew about the jade in the mountain so there was absolutely no way they would let anybody go near that area.

Li Du had been careful to keep a low profile after he arrived in town. Originally, he had had no reason to shell out money to buy the mine from Du Enhai. The man was just an insignificant hooligan from a small town, so even if it had come down to violence, there was no doubt that Li Du would have been able to chase his gang out of the area. However, this would have caused a lot of unnecessary trouble for him so he chose to pay the man off instead. It was a win-win solution that had the added benefit of minimizing the influence Li Du would gain from occupying the mine.

After Du Enhai left, Li Du gathered a large amount of supplies with the help of the mayor and brought a bunch of people with him to stay on the mountain. The mine was situated at a location that concealed it somewhat. It sat halfway up the mountain and was surrounded by a lush forest. Right now, it was autumn, and the forest was a dense canopy of leaves and branches. Occasionally, the stray red or yellow leaf would float down, which served to conceal their traces.

At the mine, he found a hole and used a hammer to widen it. He then brought an engineer recommended by Zhong Dapao to inspect the reinforcement of the tunnel. Li Du did not have the faintest idea who dug the hole but it was obvious that whoever did it had full confidence that there would be a jade mine hidden beneath the ground. The hole was spacious and amply reinforced. Even though a decade had passed, the reinforcements were still very much robust.

There were no issues with regard to the safety of the mining hole, so Li Du arranged for Brother Wolf to bring a few men along with him to test it out. They entered from the top and all the way down to the bottom of the hole, completely unscathed through the entire experience.

Brother Wolf then set about retrieving all the tools from the hole. It was rather dry inside so the tools were not rotten or rusted. This was further proof that there was a mine here: the process of jade formation did not require water or moisture so the surrounding land was also dry.

A whole range of equipment was retrieved from the hole: pickaxes, shovels, a variety of hammers, hydraulic hammers, and hydraulic shears. The bulk of them was usable but the arm of the remodeled excavator was not in working condition.

Brother Wolf waited as the men fiddled with the arm to try to find the root of the issue but to no avail. Driver came over as well, since he knew his way around machinery; it was actually quite similar to cars. He was an expert when it came to repairing cars so naturally, he would be good at repairing the mechanical arm, too.

After inspecting the arm, he said, ”The circuitry is old and some parts have short-circuited. Also, the car relies on battery ignition and diesel to start, but the battery is as good as trash now and the oil in the diesel engine has dried up, which affects the operation of the machine.”

”Can it be fixed?” Li Du was most concerned about this.