Chapter 1015

The other two cabinet masters also looked calm and nodded: "It's indeed a dereliction of duty!"

"Now is not the time to hold the responsibility accountable, Father."

The prince looked at Emperor Zhaoming behind the desk and frowned: "The memorial only says that the iron ore was smuggled into the Construction Department, but did not say why the bandits did this.

They selfishly mined iron ore, concealed and did not report it, and boldly abducted the people to mine, causing countless casualties and injuries.

The ore they mined for so much effort finally flowed into the Ministry of Works of the Court...

Isn’t this too strange?”

The prince looked at the three cabinet masters again and said in a deep voice: "Is the purpose of the bandits just to add more ore to the court, so he can do so much trouble?"

Master Wen Ge shook his head: "The prince was joking, how is this possible?"

"Since it is impossible, why do they do this? What are the benefits for them to secretly transport the ore to the Construction Department?" the prince asked back.

The three cabinet masters were silent for a moment.

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Zhan Beihan didn't say anything either.

Xiao Lingyue hesitated for a moment and said, "Your Majesty, I have an idea."

Everyone looked at her.

Emperor Zhaoming said, "Come and listen."

Xiao Lingyue said: "A few days ago, when my daughter and King Yi explored Hulang Mountain, they visited the entire village and found that there was nothing unusual in the village, just an ordinary village.

The location of the iron ore is a mountain separated from the mountain village and must be reached through a secret passage.

After arriving at the iron ore, my daughter did not find any smelting objects on the mine.

In other words, those bandits plundered the people and just mined the ore, but could not melt the ore into iron tools."

Ores need deep processing to be trained into iron.

Otherwise it's just a stone.

This is well known.

Emperor Zhaoming frowned and said, "What do you mean is that those bandits smuggled the ore into the Construction Division, just want to use the furnace in the Construction Division to refine the ore into iron tools and then find a way to transport it out?"

Xiao Lingyue nodded: "This is the most likely. After all, besides the Construction Department, Beiqin cannot find a second place where it can smel ore in large quantities."

To smelify ores, a special furnace and coal are required, and the iron juice can be produced after repeated smelting.

After the iron juice cools down, it becomes a block of iron.

Only such iron blocks can be made into weapons, armor and other things.

The bandit villages only have ore. They have neither furnace nor coal, so it is impossible to process the ore into iron blocks.

So they have to think of something else.

In the entire Northern Qin territory, only the Construction Department of the Ministry of Industry is the only place where there is a condition to melt a large amount of ore.

"When the daughter and King Yi were on the mine, they captured the leader of the bandit village alive. According to his own words, he and the people in the bandit village were only responsible for mining, transporting ore, and smelting iron tools, all of which were responsible for the Nanyan people."

Xiao Lingyue said: "Iron ore itself is extremely heavy and has difficulty in transportation. Even if the bandits excavated a large amount of iron-containing ore, it is impossible to travel thousands of miles across the Northern Qin and Wei Kingdoms and send it to Nanyan - this process is too difficult and may be discovered at any time."

“That’s why.”

Zhan Bei continued coldly: "The bandits want to keep their business secrets, and Nanyan wants to obtain new iron stably. There is only one way, which is to melt the iron ore on site, turn it into pure iron, and then find a way to transport it out!"

A huge piece of iron ore, after being melted at high temperature, may be the size of a fist.

This pure iron can not only directly create weapons, but also transport them very conveniently, which is much simpler than smuggling ore.

When the prince heard this, his eyes turned cold: "Is this why they want to open up the inside of the court, collusion between officials and bandits, and mix private ores into the Ministry of Industry?!"

"Apart from this, I can't think of any other reason." Zhan Beihan said.
Chapter completed!