There is a bonus that lets you earn money much faster after reincarnating, especially after reincarnating a few times. I'd recommend reincarnating as soon as you can, crafting and selling gun powder to raise funds, and then dumping what you earn into research until you can afford the explorer drill set. From there, you should be able to get back to where you were pretty quickly. As you need more money, it's pretty quick to build up and sell a lot of bronze once you can hire some forge workers.