Zhu Gang was greedy.

When they realized that Japan had a large number of silver mines, their first thought was naturally to take them all for themselves.

It was impossible to keep it all to himself, and Zhu Gang also understood that the news would be exposed sooner or later, but he could take advantage of this time to fill his own bag first.

"Give the order, don't kill these Japanese slaves yet, gather them all together and mine for me."

Zhu Gang gave the order immediately.

Although this is an open-air silver mine, it still needs to be dug deep. However, compared with the Ming Dynasty, such excavation is much simpler.

But something like mining cannot be done by just dozens or even hundreds of people.

If this open-air silver mine was in the Ming Dynasty, the capital would have been alerted long ago, and tens of thousands of people would have been dispatched to dig it. A large garrison would have certainly been built around the silver mine to protect it.

The Ming Dynasty was far superior to Japan in terms of technology and tools for mining. The use of gunpowder alone could save a lot of manpower.

In Japan, I'm afraid we can only use the most stupid method, which is extremely lacking in technical skills.

The progress will definitely be slow.

Apart from anything else, just providing every Japanese slave with a hoe for digging is a very difficult task at present.

Without the right tools, the efficiency of mining silver would definitely be very low, but there was no way around it.

"Your Highness, I think there must be quite a few silver mines in Japan. The one we found must be the largest one so far."

"We don't have enough people here. Your Majesty, do you want to call on the brothers to capture more Japanese slaves?"

A captain came close to Zhu Gang and said with shining eyes.

When the prince eats meat, of course, the thousand households like them can also drink a bowl of meat soup.

Zhu Gang also had this plan, but he understood what Qian Hu meant. This meant that the entire army should be mobilized, not a small-scale march like now.

After thinking for a while, Zhu Gang nodded and said, "Okay, let the brothers pass the message back, and leave a few hundred people to guard the city, and the rest of you all come out."

Having hundreds of people guarding a city is somewhat risky in the Ming Dynasty, or in the Central Plains.

There is absolutely no problem in Japan.

The so-called countries in Japan are basically pitifully small, and even have no combat effectiveness at all, not to mention regular soldiers.

The so-called national wars in some small places were just fights between a few hundred people, with few casualties. This was far worse than the battles in some villages in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, when Zhu Gang led his troops to fight in Japan, since there was no shogun to lead the country, it would not be an exaggeration to say that he destroyed an entire country in one day.

The city walls of Jincheng have been specially renovated. They are no longer the original low walls of Japan. The garrison of several hundred people is enough to hold out for a long time.

Zhu Gang needs miners, a lot of miners.

The miners can only be from Japan. As for transporting them from the Ming Dynasty, it is completely impossible.

Not to mention anything else, the cost alone is not something Zhu Gang can afford.

Even in the Ming Dynasty, few good family men were willing to do this job. Landslides in mines were extremely common. Usually, prisoners did this, and some of them just couldn't afford to eat.

There are currently a lot of construction projects in the Ming Dynasty, and the number of people is very limited. According to the current laws of the Ming Dynasty, it can be said that the death penalty is about to be abolished and all labor will be implemented.

After all, labor service only requires meals, which is the best option.

Zhu Gang's advance was not aimed at Japan's Honshu Island and Shikoku Island, but was a sweep of Kyushu Island.

Jincheng was the former Hizen Castle of Japan, close to Tsushima Island, and to the south is Yancheng where Zhu Gaochi was located.

In fact, in terms of geographical area, King Qi's Higo was the largest, Zhu Gang's Hizen was the second largest, and Chikugo where Zhu Gaochi was located was the smallest.

However, the port that belonged to Hizen was redivided by Zhu Ying to Chikugo, which is Yancheng.

The place Zhu Gang wanted to sweep was in the direction of Chikuzen and Buzen.

The news of the Jincheng army's dispatch soon alarmed Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and the Japanese royal family on Honshu Island.

But at this critical juncture, when the Ming Dynasty had not yet conducted the interrogation, they could only worry and had no idea what to do.

If we raise another large army, it would be too wasteful to deal with only the King of Jin. If we leave it alone, there will be another wave of huge losses.

The key point is that now all the daimyos have returned to their own territories, and the time just for fundraising seems long.

Mobilizing a large army is not that easy, and if the direct troops are directly mobilized, the scale cannot be well controlled and it is more likely to trigger a full-scale confrontation on the Ming side.

The King of Jin obviously wanted to take this opportunity to plunder the areas around him.

Because of Zhu Gang's control of the information, the Japanese side is still unaware that an open-air silver mine has been discovered.

Apart from sending a message to the guardian daimyo of Chikuzen to make more preparations, there was no plan to mobilize too many troops. The only thing was that the process of sending Kurosawa Daimyo to the Ming capital had to be accelerated.

There has to be a result soon, no matter what it is.

However, the news about the open-pit silver mine soon reached Zhu Ying.

Don't forget that in Jincheng where Zhu Gang is, there are many people left over from the previous Qun Ying Chamber of Commerce.

If Zhu Gang wanted to get the silver mine out, he could only rely on them.

There was no way such a thing could be hidden when a smelting plant was being planned to be built in the city.

…

When the Ming Dynasty received the news, more than a month had passed since Zhu Gang discovered the silver mine.

"Your eldest grandson is right. Japan really has a lot of silver mines. We have never seen what an open-air silver mine looks like."

"It's silver on the ground, all we have to do is pick it up."

In the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Yuanzhang laughed and said, feeling extremely happy.

The development of mineral resources in the Central Plains region began a long time ago, and it can be said that it has been a thousand years since the technology matured.

When the Ming Dynasty was founded, there were no obvious open-pit mines as they had all been mined long ago.

Even though it is said that only an open-pit silver mine has been discovered, this also indicates that there must be many more in other places in Japan.

The mineral resources in the vast Central Plains are generally abundant, but there are more poor mines than rich mines, and most of them are small and medium-sized, but very few are large or extra-large.

Common minerals such as copper, iron, and gold were once extremely scarce in the Ming Dynasty.

The reason why there was an abundance of silver in the Central Plains in later generations was not because it was produced by the Central Plains, but because of the massive influx of silver due to surplus trade and commercial activities.

The Central Plains itself, especially the current Ming Dynasty, has a very low output.

Gold and silver are hard currencies of a global nature. Even though the Ming Dynasty is very powerful now, due to the current transportation restrictions, no one will recognize Ming treasure notes once they leave the Ming Dynasty.

"Grandpa, it is said that the criminals sent from Japan will arrive in the capital in less than half a month."

Zhu Ying couldn't help but say this.

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "After you come, just lock him up first. It's not a big deal for the fourth child, right? Don't worry too much."

"The third brother is only concerned about his own business. I guess the news about the open-pit silver mine is still on the way."

"It's hard to do some things with Gao Chi. After all, he's still young and not ruthless enough."

"Regarding the open-pit silver mine, write a letter to Lao Qi and ask him to look for it as well to see if he can find more."

The discovery of silver mines has completely changed the concept in Japan, as it means a huge amount of wealth.

Who would complain about having too much money, especially someone like Zhu Yuanzhang who was used to living a hard life?

Besides, this is not a small amount of money, this is a silver mine.

"Grandpa, we probably need to mobilize a group of people from the Ministry of Industry."

"Whether it's exploration or excavation in Japan, the technology and tools are very scarce. This can also speed up the development of Japan's mineral deposits."

“By then, there may not only be silver mines, but there must be other mineral deposits to be discovered.”

"It seems that we need to build more ships for transportation. After the products are refined over there, they can be directly transported to our treasury."

Zhu Ying suggested.

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded.

At present, Zhu Yuanzhang has been relatively restrained in expanding the navy.

Now that we have a silver mine, we can expand to a greater extent.

For matters like these, basically it is enough for the grandfather and grandson to reach an agreement on them, and there is no need to bring them to the court for discussion.

As time went by, the shipbuilding industry in Ming Dynasty began to develop more.

With the support of the government, private shipbuilding industry gradually emerged.

Everyone knows that wealth comes quickly at sea, and basically you can earn a lot of money by just one trip to the sea.

As land was gradually reclaimed by the government, many new and old forces were forced to find a new way to make money, and now maritime trade is right before their eyes.

The Ming Navy was originally the army with the most warships in the world. Now that the government and the people have developed together, shipbuilding and maritime trade have become the hottest things at the moment.

With the emergence of a large number of factories, the costs of various commodities have been continuously decreasing, and Zhu Ying began to provide soft guidance on the technological development of some factories in the official newspapers very early on.

For example, similar to a matchlock gun, the parts are made separately.

The increase in factory output also means that commodity prices will become lower and lower.

This provides greater profit margins in maritime trade.

The products of the Ming Dynasty are the best-selling ones in the world. As long as they can be exported, there is no need to worry about not finding buyers.

As the Ming Dynasty began to become more prosperous, the demand for some rare items from overseas also began to grow stronger.

This two-way market involves a huge amount of money transactions, and can also provide huge tax revenues to the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of Revenue.

Not to mention last year, just halfway through this year, the tax revenue generated by maritime trade has already exceeded 10 million treasure notes.

And this is just the beginning. It is foreseeable that in the future, this number will only increase with the development of maritime trade.

Similarly, the social structure of the Ming Dynasty is undergoing a subtle change.

Land resources began to gather in the hands of government officials. Compared with landlords, many local governments now gave tenants more preferential treatment in accordance with the Ming Dynasty's continuously improved tax laws.

In addition, under the leadership of Zhu Su, the Agricultural School has not only expanded its college, but Zhu Ying is also willing to invest in this regard.

All the staff members of the Agricultural College are already treated very highly in all aspects.

Among them, those who have real talents and hard work, or have made some achievements, enjoy salaries and benefits that are no worse than those of officials of the sixth rank.

Science and education make the country strong.

Zhu Ying did not shout out this slogan, but his actual actions were in this direction.

The Agricultural School has made a great contribution to the current agricultural development, and Zhu Ying himself also provided some general guidance.

It briefly described some concepts about hybrid rice, but he didn't understand the details, so he could only let Zhu Su and some agricultural students study it on their own.

Fertilizer is a more complicated thing, but Zhu Su and others have been exploring ways to increase soil fertility.

It may be difficult to find chemical fertilizers now, but at least a seed has been left behind.

Zhu Ying has already begun to plant the seeds of industry in various industries, which requires a large number of talents to slowly explore and discover.

The gradual stabilization of the Ming Dynasty also heralded the advent of an era of great opening up to the outside world.

…

When the news of the silver mine reached Zhu Gui, Japan was already beginning to fall into chaos.

"You are such a good brother, you actually hid such a good thing from me, your younger brother."

"Fortunately, I have more places to conquer here. It's only a month or two, so there's still enough time."

"Order the three armies, move out in full force!"

Zhu Yu's eyes were almost red.

In Zhu Gui's view, the previous Qi City was completely meaningless. Restricted by the alliance, he was just looking for excuses to plunder the surrounding areas to fill the population.

Now with the silver mines, it’s completely different.

My father has already explained in the letter that he will soon summon a large number of craftsmen from the Ming Dynasty and build a large number of sea vessels for transportation.

In fact, Zhu Gui didn't have much idea about how much money he had. He was not a businessman. He had been living a life of luxury since childhood and had never had any concept of money.

What he likes more is the recognition and attention of his father.

In fact, thoughts like Zhu Gui’s may be the inner thoughts of most princes.

My father was the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which was an enormous achievement. Now a grandson has appeared, whose abilities in all aspects are like those of a banished immortal. There is no comparison at all.

From an emotional point of view, most of the princes and grandchildren felt somewhat lonely in their hearts.

And for the royal children, gaining recognition is the most crucial point.

Now that there is a silver mine here, plus the personal letter from my father, it means that I will be valued by my father.

This alone made Zhu Yu have a strong desire.

Besides, who wouldn’t like to have elite soldiers and generals under his command?

Elite soldiers and strong generals can only be raised with a lot of money.