Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 341
Because of the discovery of the cave, Liang En and the others started digging quickly, but Joan of Arc stopped in the process of digging. "I think some of the caves might not be places to hide treasure."

"Isn't that where the treasure is hidden?" Liang En took a stone she handed over from Joan of Arc, and looked carefully, only to find that it was a piece of malachite.

Malachite belongs to the indicator stone of copper ore, which means that where this stone is found, some copper ore is often found.Considering that Sweden itself is rich in copper, these mines are likely to be copper mines excavated privately.

Before the beginning of the Age of Discovery, the whole of Europe has been in a dangerous deflation, and because of this reason, people in Europe often can only barter.

Even for most lords, the currency in hand will never be enough, and the taxes collected from the people in the territory are basically various kinds of goods instead of currency.

The important reason for monetary tightening is that Europe traditionally prefers to use gold and silver to make money. After the fall of the Roman Empire, only a few places used copper or copper alloys to make money.

However, among these very few places is Sweden in Northern Europe. Because Sweden is located in remote Northern Europe and lacks easy-to-obtain gold and silver mines, it was unable to mine these precious metals by itself before the industrial age, nor could it be obtained through trade.

Fortunately, this area is rich in copper mines, so the Swedish kings of all dynasties have the tradition of minting copper coins as auxiliary coins. Naturally, in this way, the copper mines are under strict control.

But when copper is money, all kinds of private minting behaviors emerge in endlessly. For example, small copper mines like this kind of small copper mine that the government cannot know at all provide sufficient raw materials for this kind of counterfeiting.

As the excavation progressed step by step, Liang En and Joan of Arc discovered that after peeling off a layer of stone on the surface of this quarry, there was a small copper mine underneath.

Considering the topography of this place and the reserves of copper mines, anyone who mines this place will lose money if they want to mine on a large scale, but the nearby residents can make some money by doing small-scale excavations.

After spending more than an hour clearing out a mine entrance, Liang En found that it was a very small mine, only enough for one person to crawl in.

And this is a characteristic of many private mines in that era, that is, after the other party finds the vein, they will only dig a dangerous but not large mine along the vein.

"This doesn't seem to be what we're looking for—" Joan of Arc shook her head looking at the mine, because there were only traces of copper mining in this mine, and no other traces.

Although the caves they spent time clearing out were not related to hiding treasures, it also allowed them to determine the characteristics of these local copper mines, so Liang En and his next work was much faster.

For most of the caves, they only need to open a small hole to observe to determine whether the cave is the original mine or not.

"This cave is a bit different." Just as it was getting dark, Joan dug a new cave, but it was different from the previous caves. The sharp-eyed Joan found that the cave wall was carved with A cross like no other.

They had also seen many crosses engraved on the cave walls in those mines before. Considering that digging in such simple caves is obviously a high-risk behavior, the miners would naturally choose a method similar to carving crosses. Get spiritual comfort.

It's just that under normal circumstances, the crosses carved by the miners are basically Latin crosses, which is the most common vertical cross used by churches today.

But the cross carved on the wall of this cave is a Knights Templar cross, that is, a cross with four arms of equal length, and a short line perpendicular to the arm at the top of each arm.

"It seems that this should be what we are looking for." After seeing the cross, Liang En showed a smile on his face, and then cleaned out the cave together with Joan of Arc.

It was already dark when they finished cleaning, but this did not dampen their enthusiasm, but they were a little disappointed after carefully observing the cave with a flashlight.

The reason for my disappointment is that the entire cave is very shallow, less than two meters deep at most, but the entrance of the cave is very large, with a width of 1m5 and a height of 2 meters. It is more like an alcove than a cave.

"It's a pity that this alcove is empty." Joan of Arc sighed standing at the entrance of the cleaned cave. Because the cave is so small, the situation inside can be seen at a glance.

"No, there are very valuable things in this cave." After taking a picture of the cave with a flashlight, Liang En showed a smile on his face.Then he pointed to a place at the bottom of the cave and said:
"Do you see that the groove on the ground basically fits the base of the cross we saw in the Masonic Museum in Edinburgh?"

"The base of the cross—yes, these two things are indeed the same size." Joan of Arc looked carefully at the traces on the ground with a flashlight and nodded.

Here I have to say that the Liang En card is a bit of a nerve knife. For example, after using the cross, it guides the place where the stone of the cross was excavated, not the place where the cross was placed before.

"But what's the value if we found the place where the cross was placed before? Could it be that this is what made the group of Freemasons so excited." Jeanne looked at the empty cave and said inexplicably.

"There should be some instructions here." Liang En looked at the cave and said, "Let's go in and look for it. I see a lot of moss on the walls of the cave. Maybe these things covered up those words."

Just as Liang En had guessed before, there were indeed some texts left in the cave, and they were also written in runes like those in the church, and the desired text could only be found after a few letters.

"The location of the instruction - what does this mean?" Liang En looked at the translated text on the phone with a puzzled expression, because he didn't find anything related to the instruction here.

"Could it be related to the previous cross?" Joan of Arc suddenly thought of something at this moment, so she said.

"Yes, it should be like this." Liang En immediately realized what Joan said. "If you guessed right, that's why the group of Freemasons were so excited, because they found the key."

However, the next task is not very simple. Even if we know that the stone cross before is the key to solving this mystery, it is not easy to understand the truth before others tell the key to it.

Fortunately, the logical thinking ability strengthened by the card made Liang En quickly recall the abnormalities on the previous cross, so he took out his mobile phone and called up the photo of the front of the cross, and then placed it in front of his eyes to imitate the cross Still in the situation.

"I think I know where that thing should be hidden." After staring at the photo and the cave for a minute, Liang En said suddenly. "I found the key point."

(End of this chapter)