The National Machine Roared to Life!

There were certain resources on this island.

Hearing Kurogane Taimei say that, Segawa Takeshi froze.

Resources?

What did he mean?

But Segawa Takeshi quickly realized what he might be getting at and turned sharply to Kurogane Taimei.

"Chief Cabinet Secretary, do you mean that Aonan Island has some rare mineral resources?"

"Exactly."

Kurogane Taimei nodded firmly.

"It could be gold, manganese, chromium, iron, or it could be oil, natural gas, or coal."

"Or, however slim the chance, uranium ore!"

As Chief Cabinet Secretary, responsible for coordinating Niphon's day-to-day affairs, Kurogane Taimei was a well-rounded generalist. He also had some knowledge of geology.

As far as he knew,

it was difficult for an island to accumulate abundant mineral resources. Many resource-rich islands were actually close in size to what people thought of as a landmass.

Take the well-known Sakhalin Island, for example. It had abundant natural gas resources, but its total area exceeded seventy thousand square kilometers.

For comparison,

China's Treasure Island covered only a little over thirty thousand square kilometers.

Aonan Island, on the other hand, was only about three square kilometers. It was not just tiny compared to Sakhalin Island; it was ten thousand times smaller than China's Treasure Island.

On the other hand,

while the odds of a small island having resources were low, they were not close to zero.

The history of human exploration had seen small but resource-rich islands discovered more than once. These islands had usually experienced volcanic eruptions or tectonic activity, leaving them with abundant resources originating deep in the mantle.

A typical example was Diavik Island, home to one of the world's largest diamond mines. Even in Xu Yun's later era, the tiny island still generated an annual output worth one hundred million dollars.

So, it wasn't hard to accept that some mineral