"Huh?"
With their skills, such minor injuries should have been nothing. Fang Er stared at the button he had just pressed, a guess forming in his mind.
He reached for the single button with his left hand. This one was different from the one on the right; it was much higher overall.
Furthermore, there was an indentation directly in front of the button, perfectly sized to hook a middle finger into. Xue Rengui had accidentally brushed against this button before.
Fang Er hooked his finger in and felt that it could be moved upwards. So, he tried to pull it.
"Whoosh~!"
With his action, the gold-mining ship instantly shot up from the ground, soaring to an altitude of a hundred meters.
The speed of ascent was so fast it scared a bead of cold sweat out of him.
"Damn it, have you been on drugs!"
He quickly withdrew his left hand, staring at the button and muttering.
It took quite a while for Fang Er to recover.
Feeling that the device seemed to pose no real danger, he then tried all the other buttons.
To put it metaphorically, the left button was like the joystick of an arcade game, controlling the gold-mining ship's forward, backward, left, and right movements. Pulling the button upwards corresponded to ascending, and pushing it down corresponded to descending.
The three buttons on the right corresponded to gold collection, gold intake into the cargo hold, and unloading gold bricks, respectively.
It was simply that direct and crude, with no superfluous functions.
The seat itself was another mechanism. Popping out engaged manual control mode, while retracting switched it to automatic mode.
Fang Er guessed that this automatic mode was likely used for prospecting.
But none of that was important now. What mattered was that he could delegate the gold collection task to Wang Xuance and Xue Rengui.
This way, he could focus on collecting thorium elements.
He landed the gold-mining ship and called the two men over.
Upon hearing Fang Er's explanation of the function of each button, the two men became as excited as if they had discovered new toys.
"Hahaha, Lord Duke, rest assured. This small matter, this humble subordinate will handle it properly~"
Xue Rengui was the first to board the gold-mining ship and hooked a pinky finger towards Wang Xuance.
"Old Wang, a race to see who collects more gold bricks. The bet is a flick on the forehead. Dare you?"
"You scamp, are you looking for trouble after three days without a beating?" Wang Xuance rolled his eyes at him, then walked towards another gold-mining ship.
"Hey, hey, hey! Don't go, bet or no bet, give me an answer!" Xue Rengui shouted at his retreating back.
"You'd best wear a helmet!" Wang Xuance replied without looking back.
With the gold matters handled by the two of them, Fang Er returned to the foot of Mount Fuji and, guided by the system, began searching for the thorium spewed out by the eruption.
The points were rapidly increasing. After scouring the entire area around Mount Fuji, he had accumulated 5% of the point total required by the system, which was equivalent to hundreds of millions of tons of gold.
On the other hand, the gold collected by Wang Xuance and Xue Rengui had already piled up into a small mountain, blinding anyone who looked at it from afar.
The purity of the gold bricks produced by the gold-mining ships was exceptionally high!
Upon collecting these gold bricks and the gold-mining ships, his points surged once more.
"Let's head to the next location!"
After finishing a bottle of strong beer, Fang Er said to the two of them.
The helicopter left the islands of Japan and headed back towards the Great Song Dynasty.
In the cabin, Fang Er took out a world map, marked with numerous red dots of various sizes. Each red dot represented a gold mine location discovered in later generations.
However, one red dot stood out particularly, representing the Mponeng Gold Mine in South Africa!
This was the largest gold mine discovered in later generations, with a mining history of a hundred years. The gold produced accounted for one-third of the global total gold output.
If not for his special feelings for the islands of Japan, this would have been Fang Er's first choice.
Considering that only two people, Wang Xuance and Xue Rengui, were operating three gold-mining ships, he was still short one operator.
Therefore, he planned to make a stopover in Lin'an to pick up Ge Luoyang, Zhou Yanxi, and others, to ensure staggered mining operations.
While the system's method of collecting gold was convenient, it was limited to areas Fang Er could access and only to connected ore bodies.
For ore bodies buried deep underground and isolated, the system was powerless.
However, the gold-mining ships were different. After the trial at Mount Fuji, their capabilities had been proven.
The gold-mining ships had an astonishing gold absorption range of 3 kilometers!
With this, Fang Er could prioritize exploiting the gold mines that the system could extract, and then hand over the remaining work to the gold-mining ships.
—
Lin'an, the Left Guard Army camp outside the city.
The oath-taking ceremony before the expedition had concluded. Zhao Guangyi personally handed the marshal's seal to Yue Fei, patting his shoulder and saying earnestly, "I will await your victory report in Lin'an!"
Yue Fei knelt on one knee, raising the marshal's seal above his head, and responded powerfully.
"This subject will surely serve with his life. I shall not return to the court until I have crossed the Yellow River!"
With that, he rose and walked towards the army formation.
Niu Gao, Zhang Xian, Yue Yun, and other principal generals of the Yue family army were all mounted on their warhorses, their gazes fixed on him.
After taking the reins from the attendant, mounting his horse, and holding the Li Quan Spear, Yue Fei pointed the tip of his spear north and roared.
"All generals, heed my command! March north! Cross the Yellow River!"
"Cross the river!"
"Cross the river!"
"Cross the river!"
The soldiers repeated these two words with all their might.
The two words spoken by Zong Ze before his death had now become Yue Fei's first objective for his renewed northern expedition.
Although snowflakes were falling from the sky, they could not dampen the fervor in their hearts.
They had thought they would never have another chance to fight in this lifetime, but now, weapons were once again in their hands, and armor was back on their bodies.
Only by fighting!
The roar of tens of thousands of men reached the city of Lin'an. The citizens all looked towards the camp, but their view was obstructed by houses.
"It's the Left Guard Army camp, Marshal Yue is going on an expedition!"
"Let's go, hurry and see!"
"Let's go together!"
"Shopkeeper, I want all this meat!"
"Get lost! Don't think I don't know what you're up to. I'm not selling this meat today!"
"Someone, carry all these steamed buns for me! Take them to Marshal Yue at the Left Guard Army camp!"
The citizens put down their tasks and surged towards the city gate.
Shopkeepers also immediately mobilized their employees, carrying their rice, flour, oil, meat, vegetables, eggs, and wine, and excitedly headed towards the Left Guard Army camp.
The camp gate was wide open, and teams of cavalry charged out in formation.
As they emerged from the camp gate, they saw a dense crowd surrounding them.
The citizens spontaneously parted ways, allowing merchants carrying food and clothing to stand at the front.
"Lord Yue, it's cold in the north. Take these clothes for the soldiers to ward off the cold!"
A middle-aged man knelt down and said to Yue Fei, pointing to the ox carts lined up by the roadside.
"Lord Yue, this is our small token of appreciation, some food. Please accept it." Another merchant stepped forward.
Behind him, several workers were carrying several sides of pork.
One merchant after another came forward, displaying the goods they had brought before the soldiers.
"Lord Yue!"
Suddenly, a beggar in ragged clothes rushed forward, knelt at the front of the crowd, and kowtowed three times.
Then, he looked up at the assembled soldiers, tears streaming from his eyes, his expression full of sorrow.
"Lord Yue! This time, can the northerners return home?!"
His words, which seemed like a plea and a question, instantly silenced the surrounding citizens.
Yue Fei dismounted and walked towards him. Zhang Xian and Niu Gao immediately followed, warily observing the crowd.
At such a time, it was impossible to guarantee that no Jin spies were mixed in.