Chapter 91 Ironworks
The refined iron made by the government is different from the iron used by the people. It is mainly used by the army, and the swords and guns made of it are extremely sharp and very durable. The iron used by the people is ordinary pig iron, which is only suitable for making iron tools.
If the official iron was secretly circulated among the people, it would be a serious crime, let alone giving it directly to the Jin people. This is not only treason, but also an attempt to destroy Daqi. The person is worthy of death!
Liu Yanzi said, "I plan to personally explore the backyard of Baixiang Tower tonight."
"I'll go with you."
Liu Yanzi waved her hand and said, "You stay outside to meet me. I'll go in and take a look and then come out. Don't alarm these people for now."
Bai Yizhou nodded. He knew that the emperor was planning to uproot these people, so he specially sent Liu Yanzi to help.
"That yard is heavily guarded. You must be careful."
Liu Yanzi shook out her fan and said, "Are you still unsure of my Qinggong?"
Bai Yizhou was amused by his cocky look and said, "Thank you, Brother Liu, for taking the trip."
The two waited in the grocery store until dark. Baixianglou closes at 4 p.m. every night, but now it was still brightly lit inside, with many customers eating and drinking inside.
Liu Yanzi changed into a light night suit, went out from the back door, took a breath, and flew to the roof silently.
Bai Yizhou sighed from below: "What a swallow."
"Chen Wei, go and inform the brothers in the city to gather here. If something happens to Commander Liu, we will wipe out Baixianglou!"
"Yes!" Chen Wei was the owner of the grocery store. He had changed his clothes and ran out quickly.
Only three hundred people were left in the city, but it was enough to deal with those Jin men. If Bai Yizhou had not been ordered by his superiors not to act rashly, he would have killed those Jin dogs long ago.
Soon all the men in the city gathered around the grocery store. Although they were wearing different clothes and dressed up as Bai, they all had knives hidden on their waists, waiting for Bai Yizhou's order to rush in.
*
On the other side, Liu Yanzi came alone to the stable in the backyard of Baixiang Tower. He lay on the tiles and quietly watched the movements inside.
There were four or five golden men sitting together in the yard, drinking and eating meat, speaking in an incomprehensible golden language.
The yard was empty. Apart from the curtain and the sculpture, there was nothing else. Where did they hide the fine iron?
Several thousand stones of refined iron is not small in size. It is impossible to hide it in the house. Could it have disappeared?
After a while, a man walked out of the building and caught Liu Yanzi's attention.
This person was also dressed much more exquisitely than the others, with emerald green gems hanging on his ears.
Liu Yanzi rubbed his earlobe in deep thought. He remembered hearing somewhere that only the royal family of the Jin Dynasty could wear emeralds. He didn't know whether it was true or not. He would go back and ask Bai Xiaochuan. He had been stationed at the border for many years and perhaps he knew.
After eating and drinking, these people returned to the building. Seeing that there was no one in the yard, Liu Yanzi jumped down from the eaves lightly and began to search for the whereabouts of the fine iron.
The fine iron seemed to have evaporated into thin air. I searched everywhere in the yard but couldn't find it. It seemed that the time was almost up. If I didn't go to Bai Yizhou now, it would be time to take action.
Liu Yanzi could only jump out of the courtyard wall, but returned empty-handed.
At the corner of the street, Bai Yizhou and his subordinates had been waiting for a long time. Seeing that Liu Yanzi didn't come out, they almost attacked.
"I'm back." Liu Yanzi squatted on the wall and greeted them.
"Brother Liu!" Bai Yizhou quickly put away his knife, waved to his subordinates, and asked them to retreat.
The two chatted as they walked, "What's going on in the backyard of Baixiang Tower? Have you found the refined iron?"
Liu Yanzi shook her head and said, "I didn't find anything. The whole yard was empty. I didn't see a piece of iron."
"Didn't you see it? Where could they hide so much iron?"
Both of them were confused, but the caravan should come to deliver iron in a few days, and then Liu Yanzi could go and see what was going on quietly.
Walking to the door of the grocery store, Liu Yanzi said, "Although I didn't find the fine iron, I did find something else. Is it true that only the heirs of the Jin Dynasty are allowed to wear emeralds?"
Bai Yizhou nodded.
"That's right. The mastermind behind Baixiang Tower must be the heir to the throne of the Jin Kingdom."
Bai Yizhou's eyes widened: "They are so brave! I will immediately draft another letter and send it back to Shangjing."
"With such huge benefits, it's understandable that one would be bold." Liu Yanzi yawned. He had been running around for the past few days and hadn't had a full night's sleep on the road. Now he was so sleepy that he couldn't even open his eyes.
"You should go and rest. There is a guest room upstairs. It has all the bedding and a heater."
*
In Shangjing, Song Yuzhu also yawned and came out of the map.
He just entered the map and went to Longxi to check it out, and happened to meet Liu Yanzi and Bai Yizhou who were discussing a night visit to Baixiang Tower, so he followed Liu Yanzi for a walk.
There is no refined iron in the yard. Several thousand stones of refined iron is equivalent to more than 500 tons. Where did they hide the iron?
"Axiao, wake up." Song Yuzhu pushed the person next to him.
Zhao Xiao opened his eyes dazedly and asked, "Huh? What's wrong?"
"I just used the system to explore the backyard of Baixiang Tower and found that all the refined iron in the yard was gone. Where do you think they could be hiding?"
Zhao Xiao thought for a moment and said, "It may have been shipped out of the border."
"Bai Yizhou and Chai Rong are stationed at the border. It is impossible for them to let the Jin people take the refined iron out."
Zhao Xiao shook his head: "We definitely can't get out openly, I'm afraid the guards will be bribed."
Song Yuzhu sighed. If these fine irons fell into the hands of the Jin people, there would be endless troubles. He could only hope that the Ministry of Military Industry would quickly produce more artillery so that he could directly blow away the Jin people in the future.
Seeing that he was worried, Zhao Xiao put his arm around his shoulders and comforted him: "Even if the refined iron is sent to the Kingdom of Jin, it won't be turned into a weapon in a short time. We still have time to plan. It's getting late, go to bed."
"Um."
*
In a blink of an eye, it was the end of the year, and Zhao Xiao had made some progress in his investigation of the fine iron case.
There are only two places that can produce so much official iron. One is the Chang'an Steel Plant in Zhongzhou, and the other is the Guangxing Steel Plant in Jizhou. Zhao Xiao sent people to check one by one and finally found the clue.
The steel production of Guangxing Steel Plant has been unstable in the past few months, sometimes high and sometimes low. The low period happened to be the period before Baixianglou received the iron.
He arrested all the managers of the ironworks and interrogated them one by one. At first, no one admitted it, but finally someone couldn't stand it anymore and revealed the clue.
The person who was interrogated was named Xu Da, who was the manager of the logistics department of the steel plant. He held an eighth-rank official position and was in charge of personnel transfers in the steel plant.
Some time ago, his cousin suddenly brought him a lot of money, saying that he wanted to buy the private iron in the factory.
His cousin, Fang Shu, is his aunt’s son. He made some money doing business in the south a few years ago and unexpectedly set his sights on the iron factory.
Xu Da didn't have the guts to do that. He was so scared that he quickly pushed the silver back and said, "Xiao Shu, don't harm me. The daily output of the factory is limited. If you are caught selling it secretly, my official position will be in jeopardy!"
"Such a large steel mill would produce hundreds of tons of scraps every day. How could it be so easy to find out if you secretly transported some of them out?"
"No, no." Xu Da refused.
"I was originally an accountant. I was promoted to an official position by my superiors and I should be loyal to my duties. I must not do such a thing. Don't you want to say anything?"
Fang Shu was disdainful in his heart. He was just a small manager. His monthly salary was not enough for him to have a meal, yet he really thought of himself as an official.
However, he did not show it on his face as he could not offend his cousin for the time being. If he could complete the tasks assigned by the Lin family, he could earn tens of thousands of taels of silver next year.
"Brother, you are too timid. I can't give you this much silver for a stone of fine iron." The cousin held up three fingers. "If you can get a little, you won't have to worry about food and clothing for half your life."
Xu Da asked in confusion, "What do you want so much refined iron for?" Spending so much money just to buy some scraps? If you really want to resell the iron, you might as well spend money to buy it from the public.
"Don't ask me about that. It's not a bad thing anyway. Just get the iron out and I'm sure you'll get the silver."
Xu Da: "I can't figure it out, you should find someone else." Then he sent the guest away.
Fang Shu was so angry that he cursed at the door: "You useless piece of shit! You can't even make money if I give you money!"
Xu Da was angry, but thinking that his aunt didn't hold it against him in the end, the matter was left unresolved.
Not long after, he discovered that something was wrong with the steel plant's iron production, as the amount of waste suddenly increased a lot.
However, these matters were not his responsibility. Although Xu Da felt that something was wrong, he did not investigate it in detail. Later, the government suddenly sent people to question him.
The matter was of great importance, so Xu Da did not dare to hide anything and told everyone everything he knew, including the increase in waste materials.
Zhao Xiao immediately detained the manager in charge of production, whose name was Gao Yingming. He denied it at first, but after the officers and soldiers found thousands of taels of silver bills in his house, he was so scared that he collapsed and confessed everything he knew.
As expected, he was Xu Da's cousin. Since this person failed to bribe Xu Da, he used Xu Da's name to get to know Gao Yingming.
At first, they just treated him to a meal, but when they got to know each other better, they began to give him gifts. Silks and satins shipped from Jiangnan, seafood shipped from Dongzhou, and ginseng from Goguryeo all made Gao Yingming dizzy.
As the saying goes, one should be grateful to the person who helped him, and one should be grateful to the person who helped him, so after a banquet, Fang Shu proposed to resell the private iron from the factory and took out five hundred taels of silver as a deposit.
Gao Yingming was drunk and his eyes were wide open when he saw the white silver. He didn't care about anything else and agreed immediately.
Although he felt a little regretful after he sobered up the next day, he gritted his teeth and started reselling government iron after looking at the silver.
He increased the daily waste by three layers, from more than one hundred stones to four hundred to five hundred stones.
These waste materials were previously processed directly, and there were many iron workshops near the iron factory, where they were sold to them at low prices.
Now Gao Yingming directly sold these "scrap iron" to Fang Shu, and only handed over a small portion of the money he got in exchange, and pocketed the rest. In just two months, he sold seven or eight thousand stones of fine iron and earned tens of thousands of taels of silver.
After the matter was investigated, Gao Yingming was beheaded in public according to the imperial decree. Zhao Xiao sent people to arrest Fang Shu, but he was already dead when they found him. And his death was very tragic. He was beaten to death!
Fang Shu's family didn't know what he had done, and the clues ended here.
*
On the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month, the caravan arrived at Longxiguan City again. When entering the city, they still paid bribes to the gatekeepers and then went to Baixiang Tower with several carts of fine iron.
Old Qiu was still in charge of delivering the goods. This time he brought another letter saying that the matter of the fine iron had alarmed the court. This was the last trip and they would think of other ways later.
When Wanyan Xun heard his subordinates read the letter, his face changed. He waved his hand and ordered his men to kill the witnesses to silence them.
The drivers were so scared that they knelt on the ground and kowtowed for mercy, but Wanyan Xun ignored them. Several Jin men drew out long swords and chopped off their heads like cutting melons and vegetables.
Until their death they did not understand why the Jin people wanted to kill them since they were delivering iron to them.
Liu Yanzi lay on the roof with a cold look in his eyes. He wanted to see how the Jin people would clean up these corpses in broad daylight.
And where did all the fine iron go?
(End of this chapter)
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