Early the next morning, Yang Jing got on the jeep he was riding when he came, and headed west across the mountains and primitive jungles.

As Wu Qinmao said, the road from Myitkyina to Pagan is not a road that people can take at all! Compared with this section of the road, the road from Mandela to Myitkyina is simply a four-lane expressway in both directions!

You said this is not a road, but this winding and uneven road has a clear boundary between the primitive jungle next to it, but if you want to say that this is a road, who is the one who believes?

This is clearly a long mud pond that was stepped on in the jungle with an elephant!

On the way alone, Yang Jing saw no less than a hundred elephants. These elephants either carried huge bamboo baskets with jadeite rough stones, or they might as well tied up some huge jadeite rough stones with mahjong and dragged them to the ground...

Of course, more are the local Burmese people carrying the load on their shoulders.

Deep in the Pagan Mining Area, among the mountains and ridges west of Kachin State, although it is bounded with Shijibang, that area is a primitive jungle area. If jade had not been found in that area, there would be a no-man's land there.

The jeep that Yang Jing was riding could not run at all. The road was apart from mud and a large water hole. If you didn't pay attention, the car would fall into it. On the road from Myitkyina to Pagan, the car had been trapped thirteen times in total. If it weren't for the many elephants on this road, they could pull up the car that was trapped, Yang Jing and the others would have to walk to Pagan one by one when they first got stuck.

Especially when crossing Kumenling, Yang Jing's liver and intestines almost burst out.

This road made Yang Jing really doubt how the jadeite rough stones he dug out from the mining area should be transported out. Could it be that they can only be carried out with elephants or humans?

I set off at around five in the morning and arrived at Laopagan Mine Area until around nine in the evening.

When Yang Jing got off the car, he almost knelt on the ground and could never get up again. This girl is really not a person's fault!

Myanmar's jade mining areas are still far from being compared with those after the new century. In fact, even after entering the new century, jade prices soared, and the entrances of major jade fields are still dilapidated. Here, except for the places where mine owners live and jade raw stone warehouses, other places are not places where people live.

The owners of jade mines are all billionaires, but these billionaires will never spend their money on the workers in the mining area.

It is only 1986, and it is even more unsightly. Although Yang Jing can't see anything, he can feel the dilapidation here from where he lives at night.

Yang Jing and Wu Qinmao lived in a bamboo building. They were the kind of bamboo building that was supported by bamboo, and the floor of the house was about one and a half meters high from the ground, and then the whole house was woven with bamboo.

It is quite romantic to live in a bamboo building, but if you raise a few pigs under the bamboo building where you live, there is only a bamboo stairs between you and the pigs, you probably won’t think that living in a bamboo building is romantic.

Although the bamboo building is not directly grounded, the pigs below are really unbearable. The pigs are not humming, but the smell alone makes Yang Jing almost vomited out.

In the end, Yang Jing could not resist the sour smell. Regardless of the soreness all over his body, an officer who followed him found another room for him.

This house cannot be called "house", this is a thatched hut...

The thatched hut is just thatched hut, at least it does not have that sour smell, which is enough to allow Yang Jing to have a stable sleep on the bamboo bed of the thatched hut.

After getting up the next morning, Yang Jing realized that more than 95% of the houses here were of this kind of thatched hut. Like the bamboo houses I moved into for the first time last night, they were considered high-end houses here. These bamboo houses are usually lived by mine owners or managers.

Of course, there are also houses built with stones in the mining area. Those houses are very large, needless to say, they are all warehouses used to store jadeite raw stones.

Whether in the new century or in the 1980s, at the Jade Field, manpower and even life are worth nothing. There are tens of thousands of miners working here, even if each person only has about twelve cents a day - even in 2016, the daily income of miners here is only $1 per day...

The only valuable stones here are the stones of different sizes and shapes - jadeite rough stones.

After breakfast, Yang Jing and Wu Qinmao took action again. The entrance opened by Wu Qinmao in the Damukan Mine Area is still a distance away from the Laopagan Mine Area - Yang Jing and Wu Qinmao need to ride an elephant and walk for about half a day.

The Damukan Mine Area is only about 30 kilometers away from the Laopagan Mine Area in a straight line, but even after the New Century, there is no road between the two mine areas, and only a mountain road stepped out of an elephant.

Therefore, Yang Jing, Wu Qinmao and the entourage who followed him needed to ride an elephant around the mountains for more than half a day before they could reach the entrance. Not to mention, although it was a little slower to ride an elephant, it was really comfortable. The elephant's wide back was placed on its back, and people sat in it. As the elephant moved forward, the rattan chairs swayed left and right, just like a rocking bed, very comfortable and not bumpy at all.

Yang Jing even slept beautifully in the rattan chair...

As for the big box that was unloaded from the jeep that Yang Jing was riding, it was placed on the back of the elephant together with Yang Jing.

In the afternoon, this team of eight elephants and more than 50 miners arrived at the Damkan Mine Area. The entrance opened by Wu Qinmao is located next to the entrance of Hangba. It is a piece of land with a length of 2.3 kilometers, a width of 1.7 kilometers, and an area of ​​almost 4 square kilometers.

To the north of the entrance of the field is the main river channel of the winding Wulu River, and there is also a tributary of the Wulu River in the entrance of the field.

This area is relatively flat, and there are dense pits on the ground. Countless miners are climbing up and down the pit, moving stones with mud and water out of the pit.

This is the first time Yang Jing saw the excavation of jadeite rough stones. Although the scene was spectacular, Yang Jing looked at it for a while and felt a little reluctant to continue watching it.

The main reason is that the miners are really a bit miserable, with their ragged bodies, which is worse than those worn by beggars. Some miners even wear only a lollipop, and their bodies are covered with yellow mud...

In addition to these miners, there are also many naked children who are also helping adults carry some smaller jadeite rough stones.

In the past, I only heard that the miners who dig jade were so hard, but I never saw it with my own eyes. Now, after finally seeing how these hard miners dig jade raw stones with their own eyes, Yang Jing really couldn't bear it.

It seemed that he could not bear it. Wu Qinmao, who was standing beside him, said: "Boss, the workers here are all like this. They can be said to have relied on mining for generations to make a living. Although these workers do not earn much money, compared to those who cannot dig mines, they at least have a stable income."

As he said, Wu Qinmang pointed to the yards further away and said, "These yards are all connected. In the Damkan mining area, there are 40,000 or 50,000 miners mining. The income of miners is basically the same, which is a tacit matter for each mine owner. As newcomers, we naturally cannot break this default rule at will, otherwise, the mine owners at the yard will not be able to get along with us."

Yang Jing nodded silently, looked for a while before asking: "How are the workers eating?"

Wu Qinmao whispered: "This is fine. Although the wages paid by miners in each yard are almost the same, the food at our yard is quite good. At least it can make the workers full, which is better than many yards."

After a pause, Wu Qinmao continued, "Boss, you have also walked the way you came here, and you have seen the situation here, so all the supplies here, whether they are for food, clothing, or use, need to be pulled in from outside. There are now more than 3,800 people in our yard mining. For this reason, I specially formed a transport team composed of more than 100 people and fifty elephants, which are specially used to transport grain. They travel between the yard and Mogang every day, and pull grain and some necessary supplies from Mogang to the yard."

Yang Jing asked: "So how much money does the workers' wages and food and drink costs need over the past year?"

"It's not much money. The workers here just need to have enough food. Including their wages, plus meals and other expenses, they have only spent less than two million US dollars in the past year. Among them, security costs account for nearly half of them."

When Yang Jing heard this number, he felt a little uncomfortable. There were about 4,000 people, who even had their salary and meals, and they only spent about one million US dollars a year. The living standards here are really too low.

You should know that Wu Qinmao’s salary alone is a full million US dollars per year. This guy’s salary alone is worth nearly 4,000 people’s hard work a year.

However, Yang Jing knew that there was nothing he could do about this. As Wu Qinmao said just now, this is what it is like here. These miners have been here for generations. Especially in the Lao Pagan mining area, it is even more cruel than here.

It is said that African diamonds are blood diamonds, but in fact, jadeites in Myanmar are similar to those blood diamonds.

But Yang Jing was unable to change the situation here. This circle has been formed for a long time and cannot be easily changed by one person or two. And once the rules here are rashly changed, it may be counterproductive.

The workers here are already accustomed to this kind of exploitation, or rather, they have completely adapted to this kind of exploitation at all.

It's very sad, but there's no way to change it.

Yang Jing could only silently feel sorry for these workers in his heart. However, if you ask Yang Jing to give up the scene in front of him because of this regret, he would definitely not do this. This is not China, and these workers are not Chinese, so Yang Jing would not give up the scene because of his pity.

"Old Wu, send more people and elephants, and transport more food and meat every day. I can't change the status quo here, but I can make the workers under my command eat better!"

Wu Qinmao clasped his hands together and said, "Boss, you are so good. I would like to thank you for these workers."

Yang Jing waved his hand and said, "Where is our warehouse? I'll go over and take a look first."
Chapter completed!