A Losing Deal

To Chu Mu, who was absorbed in the book, the afternoon seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.

The patrolmen who had come to take over the shift had already arrived, and the patrolmen who had stood guard all day called out to one another as they left.

Chu Mu silently tucked the book into his robes and looked up at the dim sky. A gust of evening wind blew past, and he could not help tightening the armor on his body.

"The weather's probably about to change..."

Chu Mu pressed his lips together. The way this era divided the seasons was no different from his previous life.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter—the four seasons turned in cycle.

The season now was already late autumn. Bitter winter was coming, the sun was about to set, and the evening wind already carried a trace more chill.

Chu Mu glanced at the Forced Laborers still working not far away. Each of them was in ragged clothes, still wearing the thin garments of summer.

With just that one glance, Chu Mu withdrew his gaze. He straightened his clothes, then followed the patrolmen going off duty and walked out of the mine.

Nanshan Town lay at the foot of the mountain. After leaving Mine A, one only needed to follow the mountain path straight down, then pass the Iron Refinery halfway up the slope, to arrive at Nanshan Town.

It was dusk now. On the mountain path, aside from patrolmen going off duty and those patrolling or standing guard, there were only Forced Laborers carrying baskets on their backs as they went back and forth between the Mine and the Iron Refinery.

The Iron Refinery was located halfway up the mountain, between Mine A and Mine B. Even from a great distance, one could clearly see the billowing black smoke rising from the Iron Refinery.

The Iron Refinery was not far away, and Chu Mu's steps also slowed.

Having only just arrived, Chu Mu had too many things about this era that he did not understand, and the Iron Refinery before him was the one that puzzled him the most.

If everything were normal, a mine with several thousand people, plus an Iron Refinery, would undoubtedly drive the development of a large surrounding area.

If nothing else, as the location of a mine and smelting works, even the most basic iron tools should have been much cheaper than in other places, to say nothing of all the other aspects that would be stimulated by the mine and ironworks.

But in Nanshan Town, as Chu Mu saw it, things seemed to be completely the opposite.

Nanshan Iron Mine, as well as the Iron Refinery before him, not only failed to benefit the surrounding common people, but instead pressed down on the people of Qinghe County like two great mountains, becoming an almost unbearable burden.

The reason was also very simple.

The mine was government-run. That was all.

Because the mine was government-run, Qinghe County conscripted Forced Laborers to excavate the ore, and the Iron Refinery smelted the ore. As far as Chu Mu knew, in the Iron Refinery, aside from a very small number of craftsmen hired by Qinghe County Yamen, the vast majority were also Forced Laborers.

It was not hard to see that this was almost entirely a business without cost.

Qinghe County Yamen paid almost nothing, yet took everything into its own pocket. The price of all this had almost entirely been shifted onto the people of Qinghe County through a single order conscripting Forced Laborers.

If it were only this, it would not be hard to understand. It was nothing more than oppression and the oppressed.

This sort of thing had already played out for several thousand years in the world of Chu Mu's previous life! But the problem lay precisely here. In this process, Qinghe County Yamen—or rather, the "authorities"—seemed to be completely pulling a white wolf out of thin air with empty hands, taking all the profits.

But as far as Chu Mu knew... in these links, Qinghe County Yamen was only one link among them.

All the ore mined from the mountain was transported to this Iron Refinery to be smelted into pig iron, then stored in the warehouses of Nanshan Town.

Every three months, Qinghe County would send patrolmen to escort it to the Prefecture.

And Chu Mu's confusion lay precisely in this.

Supply and demand, supply and demand. Only when there was supply would there be demand; likewise, only when there was demand would there be supply.

Qinghe County mined ore, then smelted it into pig iron. This was the supplier. Every three months, the stored pig iron was transported to Prefecture City. This was the demander.

But the problem was... Prefecture City's need for mineral materials was nothing more than demands like forging military equipment and tools.

Yet Prefecture City was at least several hundred li from Qinghe County. With the transport conditions of this era, the process of transporting the mineral materials alone would consume who knew how much manpower and resources.

Since that was the case, why not generate the demand directly in Qinghe County? The mine extracted the ore, the Iron Refinery smelted and processed it, and then the finished products in demand were transported directly. Wouldn't that be far better than this present, deformed supply-and-demand relationship? Chu Mu knew that every time mineral materials were transported to Prefecture City, Qinghe County had to mobilize on a large scale, expending countless manpower and resources!

Chu Mu estimated that if calculated in money, the manpower and resources spent transporting the mineral materials to Prefecture City would absolutely be far greater than the value of the mineral materials themselves, to say nothing of the terrifying costs of mining and smelting.

If one sorted it out link by link, it seemed that everyone involved was doing a losing deal!

The people of Qinghe County bore an unbearable burden of Forced Labor, received almost nothing in return, and even stood a great chance of paying with their lives.

Qinghe County Yamen likewise struggled to maintain order through all of this, suppressing the boiling resentment of the people, yet in the end the mineral materials that were mined and smelted had not the slightest thing to do with Qinghe County.

As for Prefecture City, it mobilized countless manpower and resources solely to obtain mineral materials that, the moment they were in hand, were certain to make them lose everything down to their blood?

Even if there were benefits Chu Mu could not yet see in this, no matter how Chu Mu looked at it, those hidden benefits could not possibly compare to the countless manpower and resources expended in the open! Chu Mu stopped where he was and stared for quite a while before slowly withdrawing his gaze.

Perhaps... it was also possible that he was simply ignorant and ill-informed.

After all, because of his withdrawn personality and his age, Original Owner's understanding of this era had been confined to a very small area. In fact, if Original Owner's father had not been transferred from Qinghe County Seat to Nanshan Town for his post, Original Owner probably would have found it difficult to leave Qinghe County Seat even once.

And Chu Mu's own understanding of this era largely came only from Original Owner's memories.

The understanding of this era that truly belonged to himself had not even accumulated to half a month.

Chu Mu let out a long breath. As always, he once again pressed the confusion down into the bottom of his heart, took a step forward, and followed the mountain road down toward Nanshan Town.

The afterglow of the setting sun still lingered when Chu Mu stepped into Nanshan Town. Perhaps because Forced Laborers had been conscripted several times in succession, the streets were clearly much emptier, but it did not seem to have affected Nanshan Town's liveliness.

After all, Nanshan Patrol Bureau alone had more than five hundred patrolmen. Counting the patrolmen's families, that made at least a thousand permanent residents.

Moreover, according to the County's standards for conscripting Forced Laborers, relatives of patrolmen could be exempted from Forced Labor. The condition for exemption was merely paying some money.

Compared with being conscripted as a Forced Laborer, with no guarantee of seeing tomorrow and even danger to one's life, some money was clearly rather insignificant.

In his memories, the year Original Owner had just turned fourteen, he had once been conscripted for Forced Labor as well. It was only that Original Owner's father had spent money to ward off the calamity.

Later, the Original Owner's father had even gone around pulling strings everywhere, trying to get the Original Owner an official status to keep him safe. Only, he had never managed to make it happen.

Who could have imagined that, in the end, this official status would fall onto the Original Owner through the Original Owner's father dying in the line of duty?

But in the end, it had actually benefited him, a man from a Different Time-Space.

"To keep him safe, huh..."

Chu Mu touched the Patrol Inspector armor on his body and murmured to himself...