The serfs of White Bear Territory were unwilling to mine, and Lynn had no desire to use them as miners either.
Over the past few days, he had come to understand that using serfs skilled in farming as miners was nothing short of the most shameful waste.
The Northern Kingdom was about to descend into chaos. Any merchant with even a little sense would surely have begun stockpiling grain.
The lords of various lands would no longer sell grain so readily either.
Grain prices were bound to soar.
By winter, it would be perfectly normal for grain prices to double or triple.
If the war dragged on even longer, then by next year or the year after, grain prices might rise seven- or eightfold.
Rye would become more valuable than salt.
There might even be money with no grain to buy.
Only because the war had yet to officially begin could Lynn barely purchase some grain through Leon's channels.
Iron was also an important strategic resource, but the price of iron ingots would not rise much because of the war.
The iron ingots of this era were sponge iron produced through the bloomery process.
The production process was simple, and the quality was quite ordinary.
According to the intelligence Leon had provided, in Mirror Iron Territory, which possessed several high-quality iron mines, four skilled ironworkers could produce three or four tons of iron ingots in a year.
To forge such low-quality ingots into qualified weapons required repeated hammering, consuming far more time and manpower than smelting the iron itself.
That was why ironware had always been expensive, rather than iron ingots.
Lynn estimated that ingot prices would rise only slightly at most.
Those most affected by war were always the common people in war-torn regions.
War not only drove grain