The locals mine for gold by first using iron rods to chisel holes one to two meters deep into the gold-bearing rock walls, then loading them with explosives to blast out piles of gold-containing rocks. These rocks are then transported back to the workshop, where they are painstakingly smashed with hammers. Afterward, traditional tools similar to stone mills are used to grind the crushed rocks into powder, from which the gold sand is washed out.

The only part of the local gold mining process that seems even remotely modern is the use of explosives.

Across the entire African continent, most industrial goods are quite expensive due to the need for imports. The only exceptions are firearms and explosives, which are both cheap and extremely widespread.

When Edward Baker took out a gun-shaped lighter just now, both John Foster and Emily Carter were shocked. However, they didn’t suspect that the gun in his hand was fake, and this is exactly why.

In Degulamo, getting a gun is really not difficult at all.

All over the streets and alleys of Degulamo, there are plenty of people secretly selling firearms, just like how, at a train station back home, a rural woman might suddenly appear from a corner, furtively grabbing your arm: “Hey brother, got a new movie, animal flick, Tu Fulai, want a copy?”

After visiting the gold mining site, Edward Baker didn’t even have time to talk with John Foster before he fell ill.

However, John Foster is a proper graduate from a prestigious university with a major in engineering machinery, and he’s been working at Dongsheng for four or five years.

After seeing the gold mining situation in Yibogu Village, even Edward Baker, who dropped out of high school and worked less than two years as a mechanic in a repair shop, could come up with a general idea for improvement—so how could John Foster not?

Just as John Foster said, the local gold mining techniques are far too backward. Using such primitive methods, no matter how hard they work, even if they grind one or two tons of ore a day, they might not produce even ten grams of gold sand.

And after deducting the input costs, what profit could the gold mining site in Yibogu Village possibly have?

However, if they could purchase diesel generators, rock crushers, sand-making machines, and other equipment for gold sand extraction and smelting, and revamp the entire mining process, even if they only processed thirty to fifty tons of ore a day, the gold output could increase ten or twenty times accordingly.

There’s another point that John Foster didn’t admit just now, but that doesn’t mean Edward Baker hadn’t thought of it.

The locals are mining lode gold, which is gold sand found in gold-bearing rock ore, but there’s a creek near the mining site.

Over thousands of years, gold sand and gold residue in the rocks have been weathered and eroded by nature, with large amounts of gold sand carried by rainwater and deposited in the riverbed soil.

Whether there is placer gold in the creek’s valley and riverbed, and how much is stored there, is still unknown.

Foreign professional gold mining companies, with their strong capital, usually mine lode gold from underground rock layers, but a full set of equipment can easily cost tens of millions of US dollars—something that independent private gold miners simply can’t afford.

Some small-scale domestic gold miners, or so-called gold panning teams, specifically target the placer gold deposited in riverbed soil.

Edward Baker explained all this to Lucy Clark to make it clear that he wanted to ask Lucy Clark and the recently departed Walter Baker for help with this matter.

Lucy Clark and Walter Baker—one is a cook, the other a driver.

The cooks and drivers hired by Chinese-owned enterprises in Degulamo really can’t be equated with ordinary village women or local youths.

Lucy Clark has a secondary education, and Walter Baker even has a college diploma.

Back when they had to hire a few local employees, for the sake of caution, David Sullivan and John Foster set very high educational requirements, believing that local workers with higher education would be less likely to collude with Degulamo’s criminal gangs.

The overall education level in Kanem is even more backward than China was fifty or sixty years ago.

Just imagine how rare high school and college students were in China in the 1950s and 60s, and you’ll understand why Lucy Clark and Walter Baker are considered elite talent in Degulamo.

And don’t think that Lucy Clark and Walter Baker are being shortchanged by working as a cook and driver at Donghua’s West Africa branch.

Although the branch pays them less than thirty thousand naira (the local currency), which is less than a hundred US dollars, it’s still more than double what white-collar workers at local Degulamo companies earn.

Lucy Clark and Walter Baker both previously worked at local trading companies, and just over a year ago, they switched jobs for the “high salary” at the West Africa branch.

With a brief explanation from Edward Baker, Lucy Clark immediately understood the situation.

And since Walter Baker had accompanied Edward Baker and John Foster to Yibogu Village, and had just witnessed Edward Baker falling out with John Foster, he must have an even clearer idea of what’s going on.

Edward Baker has been in Degulamo for over a year, but it’s still hard for him to integrate into local society.

Whatever he wants to do—especially if he wants to get ahead of John Foster and David Sullivan in negotiating a partnership with the old chief Felician, and then organize local workers to mine gold sand after the deal—he’ll need the help of Lucy Clark and Walter Baker.

“All right, let’s leave it at that for now. We’ll talk about the rest tomorrow when Walter Baker comes over,” Edward Baker told Lucy Clark to get some rest, as he also needed to go back upstairs to sort out his thoughts.

“If Manager Foster and President Sullivan work together, their capital seems…” Lucy Clark also realized the key point and asked with some concern.

She knew very well where Edward Baker stood in the company—he was only a bit better off than local employees like her, and probably didn’t have any savings.