Upon hearing this, Lin Hai knew a sexual drama was about to begin, and his expression straightened. He bowed and replied, "Since Big Brother Xin trusts me, I'll tell you the truth. As for gold, silver, and other valuables, there's no shortage of them in the stronghold. All of us brothers have worked hard over the years, but we couldn't spend the gold and silver we robbed, so we've saved it all here. As for food, given the distance between us and the kingdom, there are bandits guarding the roads. Well, it's not that we don't want food, but it's simply too far and too troublesome. And even if we get it, we probably won't be able to transport it back."
Xin Yue's eyelids twitched at this. "Hard work!" Come on, you're bandits, you're just robbing people, okay? Although this was the first time he'd encountered bandits with plenty of money, under the blockade of several major powers, having money to spend was a real problem if they didn't have connections. So Xin Yue suddenly asked, "What does King Zhentian mean?"
"My king means that he still wants food. No one would complain about having too much food, but we need to open up transportation lines first. If that doesn't work, we can even buy it. Everyone knows that the Khmer Kingdom has vast fertile land and four harvests a year, so there's more food than can be eaten. I hope Brother Xin will give us a good price when the time comes. Of course, medicine is also important, especially ready-made medicines. We can hardly make them ourselves, so we really can only rely on imports from outside."
"Hahahaha, sure, sure," Xin Yue agreed readily. Food and medicine were powerful tools for bribing a mountain king, so he wasn't surprised by the other party's request. "But," Xin Yue thought for a moment and continued, "wouldn't your king like to have some armor, weapons, arrows, and crossbows?"
Lin Hai noticed that Xin Yuetu didn't say "buy some" but "give some," indicating that weapons and equipment were actually on their foreign aid list. He said, "Brother Xin, to be honest, we are definitely short of weapons right now. But didn't I just say that as long as we take over the Qinghe Iron Mine, we will have no shortage of weapons and armor in the future?"
"This..." Xin Yuetu had indeed not thought of this in advance. Generally speaking, bandits would definitely need weapons, but he did not expect to meet one who had none here.
However, Xin Yuetu immediately thought of a more important point. The entire Khmer Kingdom was short of iron. There was only one iron mine in the whole country, which led to a severe shortage of iron armor for the Khmer army. In every battle, the Khmer soldiers wearing leather armor would be hacked to pieces by the enemy's armored infantry. If this stronghold could provide weapons and armor for the Khmer, no, as long as it could provide iron materials, then the significance of their existence would increase dramatically, and his own contribution would far exceed that of others.
For a moment, Xin Yue was suddenly grateful for his own honesty. It was his honesty that earned him the other party's friendship and allowed him to share such important information with him. It seemed that God would still bless honest people.
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