Cai Hongming saw Akibig's concerns and explained to him.

When he came, he had already learned that the places where Hetian produces jade are mainly concentrated in the two rivers, Yulong Kashgar and Karakash and its surrounding areas. Among the two rivers, Yulong Kashgar and Karakash, Yulong Kashgar and Karakashgar, the most jade produced is the best and best among Hetian jade. The jade produced by the Karakashgar River is mostly blue jade, blue and white jade, blue and white jade, and also produces a small amount of jade. There are very few white jades produced. The texture and price of jade are far less than that of the white jade produced by the Yulong Kashgar River.

Hetian jade has a long history and entered the Central Plains as early as the Shang Dynasty.

"The Biography of Emperor Mu" records that King Mu of Zhou traveled to Kunlun and once "attacked his jade, took three jade plates, and carried ten thousand jade pieces" and returned. Dongfang Shuo of the Western Han Dynasty even called Hetian mutton fat jade "the essence of white jade" in his "Records of the Ten Continents of the Sea" written by him.

It was just after thousands of years of mining and the use of modern machinery that the banks of the Yulong Kashgar River and the Karakash River have long been dug by jade pickers.

Cai Hongming looked at it with a satellite map and found that there was a hole on the left and the right of the place, which didn't look like a river at all. Imagine how could it be easy to find jade in a place so hard that he wanted to flow up and follow the source to find jade.

There is a provincial highway in Xijiang that is built on the edge of the Yulong Kashgar River. It is only when it reaches about 60 kilometers from Hotan City that it starts to separate from the Yulong Kashgar River. It turns into the mountains and no longer walks along the river.

Cai Hongming wanted to have someone take them and the yak to the fork, and then ride the yak along the river bank to search. It doesn't matter if you can't find it, just play it. After hearing his plan, Akibig felt a little relieved. However, later, he secretly stuffed a gun for him to defend himself to avoid accidents. This place is not as good as the mainland, and everyone is good at it, so it's better to be careful.

Prepare the things. The next day, Cai Hongming and others got up early and took Akibig's car and a truck carrying yaks to the jade search site.

The snow water on Kunlun Mountain melts and flows into a river, which leads to the Yulong Kashgar River, Tarim River, Yili River and other rivers.

Every summer, the snow water and rain that melts after the snow washes down from the mountain, almost all of which will form mountain torrents. The jade fragments of the native jade ore on Kunlun Mountain will be carried down by the flood and rush down into the river. When it reaches a gentle area, the flow rate will drop sharply. The jade is deposited in the river beach and riverbed.

It's like this every year.

It is said that in history, due to factors such as crustal movement or natural disasters, the Yulong Kashgar River, one of the two major rivers originating from Kunlun, has formed a landslide and diverted the route many times. Therefore, the underground area of ​​Hotan can be said to be almost all buried with precious jade.

Every year, when the temperature drops in autumn, the snow water in Kunlun Mountains no longer melts, and the rainfall is greatly reduced. When the river water becomes shallow in the dry season, the jade in the riverbed is relatively easy to be discovered.

Therefore, at this time of year, many locals and outsiders will go to the river beaches that are exposed to the river to find jade and fish for jade. However, they only dare to be in the middle and lower reaches, because the upstream is dangerous and difficult to reach. However, this phenomenon ends after being discovered in the Heishan area (one of the birthplaces of seed jade). Many jade pickers began to take risks to search forward.

Montenegro, known as Karanguitaq in ancient times, is one of the main peaks of Kunlun Mountain. Its peak is 7,562 meters high, with towering mountains and covered with ice and snow all year round.

The jade production location is in the Agejuga Valley, which is one of the tributaries of the Yulong Kashgar River. Some river sections have ice accumulations, hillside collapses, and titaniums are everywhere, which can only be reached by hiking. Here, glaciers are everywhere above the snow edge line. The altitude is as high as 5,000 meters. When picking jade here, you not only need to face an oxygen-deficient environment, but also be careful of the changing climate of the mountains. You must pay attention to it at all times, otherwise you will be at risk of death at any time. But in terms of relative danger, the harvest will be even richer.

There are several types of Hetian jade, one is white jade; the second is green jade and green white jade; the third is jade; the fifth is black jade; and the sixth is topaz.

The so-called seed jade is actually the commonly known mutton fat jade. mutton fat jade is a gem-grade material in Hetian jade, and is the best white medium-quality pure color and white, with the best luster and texture. People in the world are called "mutton fat jade" because of its warm, solid, transparent and pure, and flawless, just like condensed fat. The ancients thought it had the five virtues of gentlemen such as "benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, courage, and purity", so mutton fat jade was very popular among the upper class in ancient times. Sometimes, rulers even stipulated that non-imperials cannot wear mutton fat jade; and among the people, mutton fat jade was regarded as a symbol of "beautiful, noble, auspicious, gentle and quiet" and was widely popular.

Because of this, the price of mutton fat jade is so high.

According to the official 2012 jade price trading table, the price of each gram of top-grade mutton fat jade seed material is between 20,000 and 30,000 yuan, the special grade is between 10,000 and 20,000 yuan, and the premium grade is between 8,000 and 10,000 yuan. Although the market has fluctuated a little in recent years, it is almost hovering at this price. It can be said that as long as you can find a larger piece of seed jade, you can get rich overnight. Such a high price has made countless people who are obsessed with profit and take risks. Therefore, in the Hotan area, you can hear someone die of jade almost every month.

However, compared with Hetian jade players in the circulation and collection fields, the income of jade poachers is a bit insignificant.

Jade merchants and collectors can be said to have benefited the most from the interest chain of Hetian jade, while good jade carving masters make amazing profits.

Because of its abundant profits, it has led to the prosperity of the Hetian jade market.

In the Hotan area, almost everyone is related to Hetian jade. When you go to buy jade, you will sometimes see a child in his 10s rushing out of the crowd, taking out a few jades, and bargaining with people. According to local people's estimates, in the Hotan area, there are at least hundreds of thousands of people who use Hetian jade as an important source of income. In addition to jade digging, there are also jade merchants, jade carvers, etc.

However, the prosperity of the market has also attracted cunning people to use inferior products as good products and fake products to distort real products. If a jade buyer is not careful, he will be deceived.

Therefore, when buying jade, you must not be greedy for small gains, let alone believe the lies they made, the poisonous oaths they made and the stories they told. Some people said: "As soon as the people in the Central Plains swore, God will laugh!" In fact, here, when the Uyghurs swore, the people in the Central Plains will laugh!

The car was driving rapidly on the provincial road. Cai Hongming looked out casually and found that there were many people looking for jade on the river beach. It was October, and the river water was almost cut off and the river beach was exposed to the water. It was a good time to pick jade.

After taking a closer look, he found that not only people, but also countless excavators and forklifts were digging on the river beach.

Are they doing water conservancy construction? no! This is the people who contracted the river beach using large machinery to dig jade.

It is said that at least 3,000-6,000 excavators are operating on the jade excavation peak on both sides of the Yulong Kashgar River every day. Now the Yulong Kashgar River is almost dug upwards, but there are still people who are digging there unwillingly.

When you see the pebbles, you will know that it is a riverbed. When you see the artificially stacked "mountains", you will know how many meters this place has been deeply turned. These are all "masterpieces" of excavators and bulldozers.

Although the Hotan Municipal Government had long been rectifying the abuse of mining and even mobilized troops to clean up the hundreds of kilometers of Yulong Kashgar River. It was strictly prohibited for anyone to dig jade in the river channel and on the riverbed, and sent helicopters to patrol. However, after the troops withdrew, the jade diggers flocked to the scene again, and the ban could not be banned, and it was finally left alone.

The reason why the jade diggers on both sides of the Jade Dragon Kashgar River cannot be driven away is that interests are undoubtedly the greatest driving force.

Therefore, during the dry season in October every year, the beaches hundreds of meters on both sides of the river become quarries.

Here, it is a bit inappropriate to use "digging three feet into the ground" to describe the depth of digging jade, and it is not an exaggeration to use digging thirty feet into the ground.

At this time, Cai Hongming saw one of the forklifts shoveling a bucket of pebbles. There was a person standing on each side of the bucket. They each held a hoe and searched for jade among the pebbles.

This is a life of strength! However, if you have hope, you have strength! Each of them earns about fifty yuan a day, and they also have a commission for finding jade. If you can find jade, the harvest will be good. If you don’t find it, fifty is good.

In the interest chain of Hetian jade, it is undoubtedly the most difficult thing to dig jade.

Here, tens of thousands of jade diggers every day often have to invest a long time and cost to get a good piece of jade.

It is easy to get a thousand gold, but it is hard to get a good jade. No wonder jade merchants bid so high. Perhaps only they know that good seed materials are getting fewer and fewer, so the price is so expensive.

Some people say: People who play stones are all crazy people! Madmen sell, madmen buy, and madmen are waiting. The price of Hetian jade is becoming more and more outrageous. In just over a decade, the price has soared thousands of times. It is such a crazy stone!

ps: I have basically completed the New Year’s goods these days. I don’t plan to go out during the Spring Festival, so I will code at home and try to get a little more. (To be continued) r655
Chapter completed!