Empire of the Ring

Chapter 224: Hot Summer (2)

The Ural River and its branch river were deep and their currents were quite fast. It was impossible to fish in those waters without proper equipment and boats.

Since a powerless vessel would not be able to hold, a power vessel was needed along with a net that suited the vessel’s size. A captain and sailors who could run the boat should be arranged and of course, safety equipment was necessary for all sailors.

Other things were also needed and everything could be resolved with money.

Despite Kim Chun’s efforts, Youngho was only able to get a 5-ton FRP boat. It was still big for a river fishing vessel because it was originally designed to be a fishing boat in the Caspian coast. Five or six people could get on board.

Learning to control the boat was easy, that anyone could learn to run the boat within an hour. If driven cautiously so that it would not run into other boats, it was perfect to be sailed in the Ural River and its branch river near Arirang Farm.

Fortunately, freshwater fish was not so popular to people in Atyrau and there were not a lot of boats in the river. The Koryoins made an effort to make a trip to learn fishing skills from experienced fishermen at the Port of Atyrau. They returned after learning to navigate the boat around the Caspian Sea, net fish, and other basic skills necessary for fishermen.

Fishing skills would not be learned only in a day or two, but whether one had learned basic skills before going to fish or not made a huge difference. Also, there were rules to follow in river fishing, such as netting without impeding the passage of other boats.

After buying the boat, the Koryoins had tried fishing for several times and as they got used to netting, quite a lot of freshwater fish began to be caught.

Serbians on the farm, who were not used to eating fish at first, began to like the taste of fish and the demand for fish soon increased. Because Serbia was a landlocked country, people did not eat fish as their main diet, but as Koryoins passed on their recipes to them, it gained popularity. Their meal tables had become fuller and moreover, as Koryoin diet which mainly had vegetables and herbs attracted the immigrants, they even received cooking lessons from Koryoins to learn their recipes.

It seemed that the herbs in the field would not be able to be found by the next spring.

The most popular dish in the new food custom was eating trout sashimi.

“Boss. How come Europeans only thought about cooking this, when raw fish is so good?”

“If Japanese didn’t spread the sushi and sashimi culture to the world, people would’ve thought that we are weirdos.”

There were many Japanese sushi restaurants all over Europe that many people enjoyed raw fish now.

“As a Koryoin, I’m furious that we were forcefully chased away from our country because of Japanese, but I’ve got to compliment them since they made the raw fish culture popular.”

Although the direct reason for Koryoins’ deployment was due to Stalin’s movement policy, they hated the mention of Japanese since they were away from Korea to fight for the country’s independence against Japan.

As the hot summer night was getting deeper, Youngho took out some Soju bottles that he had been saving. Everyone cheered since they were now used to the taste of the drink. With Soju’s bitter end-taste and sweetness of fresh trout dipped in Chojang*, the fish seemed to melt in the mouth.

Although shivering with the spicy taste of Chojang, Old Niksic and the elders of the immigrants kept eating trout with it.

On a hot summer day, Arirang Farm was bustling with an untimely trout party.

“A battle is a binary system with only zero and ten. It’s either the rage toward the enemy or loyalty to the comrades that one is in the battle. So, it’s one of the two that we shoot and kill the enemy.”

It was Park Jong-il who preached the senseless philosophy by dissolving the binary argument of anger and loyalty into battle.

He was speaking of an idea that he heard from his class as if it was what he had just thought of.

As the security company was settled down, the company had invited an outside instructor to take classes in order to shift from simple tasks to high-value-added projects dedicated to VIP guarding.

Taking advantage of a short break during the lecture, Jong-il was speaking to security crews. He had been sharing a lot of philosophical perspectives lately.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“This lecturer doesn’t receive questions unless he’s getting paid. Even if you’re a boss, please keep your questions until the end of the lecture.”

At Jong-il’s reply, everyone burst into laughter.

He was not confident in answering difficult questions.

“I’m going to tell Mr. Cha to pay you for your lecture. Why don’t you relieve your student’s curiosity?”

“I’m not an invited lecturer, so I can do whatever I want. No questions, I said!”

He was now frustrated, now that he was cornered.

The junior security crews laughed even harder listening to the two’s conversation.

Just in time, the invited lecturer returned to the class, so Jong-il murmured as he returned from the podium.

“Also, I had another thing to say. I almost forgot about it because you suddenly asked me a question.”

“What is it?”

“What is the primary rule for guarding VIP? It’s to act first and control the situation later, isn’t it? I was going to tell you not to regret later, but to act now. Man…”

He was saying to act fast according to one’s intuition and it just reminded Youngho of something.

When Youngho met the queen of Denmark, he had said that he had 30 tons of gold. It would take about ten years to collect that much gold from Serbian ranch. Since the gold mines had to be worked cautiously with limited miners due to the size of mines, the work process could not be faster. However, the alluvial gold field in Koryoin town could be worked on more actively.

Since it is an open mine anyway, it was possible to use as many workers as he wanted. So, it would be possible to dig all of the gold out at once and be done with it. How long would he have to make efforts to transport engineers to remote the village? If he took time, it would be a business with no profit left. There was a lot of work to be done and a lot of money to be spent. It was when a bold move was needed. It was necessary to take an active attitude now.

He needed an active willingness.

“Why are you thinking in the middle of a conversation?”

Gaining a perspective from Jong-il’s words, Youngho suddenly hugged him.

“Dude, you’re my Zhang Liang**!”

“Ew, get off me.”

“We need to dig open the whole Koryoin town’s gold deposit field.”

“…”

“The universe is limitless, but wouldn’t it be a waste if humans are the only ones enjoying the whole space of universe? It doesn’t make sense that there’s not a single civilian in those countless stars.”

Whenever Youngho came to Koryoin town, he had many thoughts looking at the starts in the night sky and Jong-il treated him like a crazy person.

“You were into playing the Middle Ages and now you’re speaking of the universe? Why is that a waste of space? I love it. I just made a wish after seeing a shooting star, but your insanity just blew it off.”

“You still make wishes?”

“It’s poor me that I’m taking care of a dreamless boss like you. I say a person cannot live without a dream.”

Jong-il’s philosophical perspective came out again. Sometimes, his words carried a great truth in them, so Youngho tended to rethink about what Jong-il said.

“Say that again. That was too profound that I didn’t get it.”

“Dude, please.”

The two were going to look around the stream valley near the Koryoin town.

With ordinary people’s feet, they would not be able to look around the valley in a few days, but it was not even a task for both of them. Even though more gold was being collected now due to the gravity separation equipment, the amount was still not satisfactory. It was a machine called ‘Jig’, which recovered even smaller particles while processing large amounts of gold-sand mixture. It was doing many times more work than it was done by human hands. However, given the amount that was being extracted now, the limit of five to seven kilograms per month was likely. Considering the number of inputs, equipment, and residence expenses, there was not much left, so it was more appropriate to put these people into gold mines in Baku.

That was why Youngho was trying to find the source of gold. If it was a rich gold vein, he would have to buy the land and get the right to develop it or meet with the president for a negotiation although he would have to determine if it was worth all that before taking an action.

“So you’re certain that we’ll find gold here?”

Following the stream of the valley, the two had passed a nameless branch of the Emba River and a little stream where the river was beginning. It was only two hours away from Koryoin town.

“He said there would be a vein of gold somewhere around here that had been spreading alluvial gold for the past hundreds of years.”

Youngho had studied the detailed topographic map of this region with Park Youngsun for days and he had come to see a few places that Park Youngsun picked out.

“If Dr. Park Youngsun said that it must be worth trying, but we won’t be sure unless we dig into the ground.”

“This is a dry stream now, but during the wet season, the water would fall from the sloping land. We need to search every direction thoroughly. Let’s split and search for now.”

Park Youngsun said that there must be an exposed vein of gold. Gold was worn and cut in the rain and wind, and that was the reason that gold dust was spread down the stream.

Kazakhstan was already known for its gold resource and Youngho was certain that he would be able to find the vein with his eye-sight improved by the ring’s power.

However, he could not find anything after searching the area for more than two hours. As he was about to move to a different location, Jong-il shouted for him.

“Youngho. Come here and look at this.”

His stern voice was indicating that he had found something. As Youngho rushed to him, he was standing proudly holding a rock.

“Man, we should’ve made an agreement before beginning to search.”

Then, he tossed the rock to Youngho. It was quite heavy.

There was a definite difference from a regular rock. Youngho was sure that it was mixed with heavy metals.

The color of the parts where some of the soil had peeled off was yellowish.

Youngho carefully put down the rock and looked around the area. There were countless small and big rocks that spread out on the ground and all of the rocks did not look usual.

“Not everything is gold, but some of them look like lumps of gold. We need to figure out where they had rolled down from.”

Youngho could not close his mouth.

Jong-il was acting so calmly even if he had discovered a great sight.

“Hey, are you not surprised to see this?”

“Man, you think I’m a saint? I’m exhausted for checking all the rocks because I was in a shock. It’s too many that I can’t keep counting. Back of my neck hurts. I was so stunned.”

“Could this be all gold?”

“If these are all gold, we’d be able to buy out the whole world, but once you extract pure gold out of them, it’ll only be a few percent. But, it’s still way better than collecting gold dust.”

If everything was carried to Baku to extract gold, there was no way for Kazakh people to find out about the place. Youngho had to shout again inside his mind.

‘I’ve seen gold!!!’

*Chojang- Korean red chili-pepper paste with vinegar

**Zhang Liang- an outstanding strategist of Chinese Han dynasty, known for his great contribution to the establishment of the dynasty