Clot Territory lay on the Empire's eastern coast, across the sea from Francis. Its capital, Clot City, was a commercial city that mainly traded with countries such as Francis through its port, while also conducting a certain amount of financial business.
Well, frankly, concealing a sum of money like this would not be difficult for Clot City.
What Li Wei was more curious about, however, was this: if the lord of Clot was behind all of this, what was his goal?
Of course, an ordinary swindler would simply be after the money. But if the lord of Clot was involved, things would not be so simple. First, this was a huge sum, and it was not paper currency. Whether it was kept in a bank or a vault, it would be hard to keep secret. Even if some clever trick was used to disguise it, as long as it appeared in a bank's accounts, it could be traced.
After all, this was not an age that relied solely on paper records. Thanks to the invention of the Difference Engine, banks in this era had a long-distance data transmission system similar to a network. Through connections made with large steam pipelines, their systems could link up with those of other banks to read and modify data.
Although this could not yet be done across the ocean, it certainly worked on land.
Li Wei had seen that transmission system himself. It was somewhat like the oil and gas pipelines in his own world: an enormous, thick metal pipe large enough for an adult to walk upright inside. These pipes were generally laid underground, then extended all the way to the subterranean data centers of banks in other cities.
Inside the pipes were, naturally, all sorts of gears and bearings. Of course, if