Black Gold 1983

Chapter 24 Benevolence and Righteousness

The turmoil in the ward had not yet subsided, but the situation in the family compound was quite different.

Renye, who had stayed up all night writing the "Mining Plan for the West Second Mining Area," looked dejectedly at Ren Shouyi, who sat silently in the old rattan chair.

Ever since her father became lame, the burden of the family has fallen entirely on her mother's shoulders, and Ren Shouyi has always been so quiet and taciturn, like an old stone whose edges have been smoothed by the years.

In the entire Hongxing family compound, who doesn't know the glory days of Ren Shouyi?

The older generation often says that Ren Shouyi was a well-known good young man in the surrounding villages when he was young.

Standing at 1.8 meters tall with thick eyebrows and big eyes, he exuded an imposing presence. In his youth, he was the main forward for the mine's basketball team, and his playing style could make the female workers on the sidelines blush and their hearts race.

Not only was he handsome, but he was also very intelligent. Among the miners of that generation, he was one of the few who had actually attended high school. He had a solid cultural foundation and was just as good as those cadres with formal training when it came to writing reports, reading blueprints, and doing accounting.

If it weren't for that roof collapse accident, he might have already made it into the mine's leadership team.

No wonder people in the hospital often say, "A good man has no good wife," referring to Ren Shouyi, such a good man, who unfortunately married Li Yue'e, a "shrew."

Of course, these words could only be whispered behind her back; anyone who dared to say them to Li Yue'e's face would truly have a death wish.

"You went to the West Second Mining Area?" Ren Shouyi suddenly asked.

Renye was slightly taken aback: "Dad, how did you know?"

"I've spent my whole life dealing with coal mines. The layer of mud you brought back yesterday was rock debris and mine dust that only exists underground. I recognized it at a glance."

Renye suddenly realized that he had momentarily forgotten that his ability to identify coal and mineral deposits and to analyze mountain formations was something he had learned from his father since childhood.

Ren Shouyi has spent most of his life working in the mines, from underground to above ground, from coal mining to geology. What hasn't he seen? What secrets hasn't he explored?

My little tricks are no match for the old man.

After a brief silence, Ren Shouyi's tone suddenly turned serious, cutting straight to the point: "Do you want to become a mining rat?"

Renye's heart skipped a beat, and he waved his hands repeatedly, "Dad, what are you saying! What mine rat! Do you think I'm that kind of person?"

"Then what were you doing in the West Second Mining Area?" Ren Shouyi stared straight at him, relentless. "If you want our Ren family line to end, go ahead and do it, I won't stop you. But if you implicate that girl, Sui'er, I'll be the first to not forgive you!"

This conjecture is undeniably insightful, almost a deduction based on Ren Ye's actions: wanting to make money, running to abandoned mining areas, covered in dirt—in Ren Shouyi's eyes, these clues all point to only one answer—this kid wants to steal coal!

"Dad!" Renye straightened his expression and said seriously, "I really do want to mine the coal in the West Second Mining Area."

Ren Shouyi's eyes sharpened.

"But not as a mining spree operator. It's about mining legally and compliantly."

Ren Shouyi didn't speak, but his brows furrowed.

Renye knew that the old man wouldn't believe him based on just one sentence.

He took a deep breath, went over the conversation he had with the Ma brothers the day before, and told it to Ren Shouyi.

As Ren Shouyi listened, the expression on his face changed from a frown to silence, and then from silence to thoughtfulness.

After Renye finished speaking, he looked into Renshouyi's eyes and added, "Dad, please don't ask me where I heard about this national policy, or why there's a layer of coking coal underneath."

The fire in the stove was burning brightly, and the kettle on the stove was steaming. The steam fogged up the windows.

Jinye assumed that Jinshouyi would continue to press for answers.

But he was not righteous or virtuous.

He slowly stood up from the wicker chair, walked to the window, reached out and wiped the glass, revealing the gray sky outside.

"Actually," Ren Shouyi paused, seemingly lost in thought, "I already knew about the layer of coking coal beneath the West Second Mining Area."

Renye suddenly raised his head, his eyes wide open: "Dad, you know? How could you possibly know?"

This layer of coking coal was only accurately delineated in the 1990s using 3D seismic exploration.

The precision of 2D seismic data from the early 1980s was simply insufficient to penetrate the strong reflective interface of that layer of siderite sandstone.

Moreover, in a normal coal seam sequence, the deeper the burial and the older the age, the higher the degree of coalification.

The degree of coalification of coal, from low to high, is roughly as follows: lignite → long-flame coal → gas coal → fat coal → coking coal → lean coal → poor coal → anthracite.

Therefore, the situation where "coking coal" is listed below "lean coal" is a special case.

It was precisely because of this unusual situation that the experienced workers in the geological department of Hongxing Mine, relying solely on their experience, made a mistake out of their own cleverness and failed to discover that there was a layer of coking coal hidden underneath.

Unless you dig shovel by shovel and break through the rock layer to see it with your own eyes, it's impossible to know!

Ren Shouyi didn't turn around. With his back to Ren Ye, he looked at the gray sky outside the window and murmured, "Because coking coal has its own oiliness."

Renye paused for a moment.

Of course he knew.

Having been in the coal mining business for so many years in his previous life, he still possessed these basic geological knowledge.

Coking coal has a moderate degree of coalification and contains a relatively large amount of bituminous and resinous organic matter.

These components give the surface of coal a smooth, oily texture at room temperature, and you can clearly feel the slippery oiliness when you touch it.

Moreover, the stronger the oiliness, the better the coking coal's caking properties, and the greater its ability to play a role in coking.

"North of the West Second Mining Area, there used to be a natural ditch. The water in that ditch seeped out from deep underground, soaked through the coal seams underground, and had an oily taste. Every summer when the water level was high, a thin layer of oil would float on the surface of the water, which looked colorful under the sun."

He turned around and looked at Renye.

"I felt something was wrong at the time. Ordinary coal seam outcrops don't have that oily feel. Only coking coal, after a long period of weathering and leaching, will have volatiles in the coal body slowly precipitate out and form that oil film on the water surface."

Renye opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but for a moment he didn't know what to say.

"Later, when the mine's geology department came to the West No. 2 mining area to conduct exploration, I talked to their technicians about this. They said that although there are many oily components in coking coal, they are tightly bound to the coal structure and cannot be dissolved or washed out by water to form an oil film. Even if a small amount of tiny organic particles enter the underground river, they will be diluted and carried away by the water flow and will not accumulate and float up as oil."

"But they overlooked one situation."

"What's going on?" Renye asked suspiciously.

"Spontaneous combustion of underground coal seams," Ren Shouyi concluded. "When underground coal seams spontaneously combust, the organic matter in the coking coal decomposes into volatile oils. These substances seep to the surface with groundwater and enter underground rivers, potentially forming a thin layer of oil on the water surface."

Renye was completely shocked.

In my previous life, when mining the West Second Mining Area, I did discover a large area of ​​"burnt rock" below.

"Burnt metamorphic rocks" are generally formed when the surrounding rocks are baked and metamorphosed by high temperatures after the coal seam spontaneously combusts.

This means that Dad's speculation back then was correct; spontaneous combustion of coal seams did indeed occur there.