Longevity starts with learning

Chapter 15
For Chu Mu who was concentrating on the book, the afternoon seemed to be fleeting.

The inspectors who came to change shifts have arrived, and the inspectors who have been guarding for a day are yelling and leaving.

Chu Mu silently put the book into his arms, and looked up at the dim sky. A gust of evening wind blew by, but he couldn't help tightening his armor.

"It should be about to change..."

Chu Mu pursed his lips. The division of seasons in this era is no different from the previous life.

Spring, summer, autumn and winter, four seasons reincarnation.

The current season is the end of autumn, the cold winter is approaching, the sun is about to set, and the evening wind is already a bit chillier.

Chu Mu glanced at the corvees who were still working not far away, all of them were dressed in rags, and they were all thin summer clothes.

With just one glance, Chu Mu withdrew his gaze, tidied up his clothes, and followed the patrol of his subordinates, and walked out of the mine.

Nanshan Town is located at the foot of the mountain. From the No. A Mine, you only need to go straight down the mountain road and pass the ironworks on the mountainside to reach Nanshan Town.

It was dusk at this time, and on the mountain road, apart from the patrolling and patrolling guards, there were only corvees carrying baskets back and forth between the mine and the ironworks.

The ironworks is located on the mountainside between the two mines, A and B. They are separated by a long distance, and the billowing black smoke from the ironworks can be clearly seen.

The ironworks was not far away, and Chu Mu also slowed down.

As a newcomer, Chu Mu has too many puzzles about this era, and the ironworks in front of him is the one that puzzles Chu Mu the most.

If it is normal, a mine with thousands of people, plus an ironworks, will undoubtedly drive the development of a large area around it.

Not to mention, as the location of the mine and smelting, the most basic iron tools will definitely be much cheaper than other places, not to mention other aspects driven by the mine and iron factory.

But in Nanshan Town, in Chu Mu's view, it seems to be the exact opposite.

The Nanshan Iron Mine and the iron smelting plant in front of them not only failed to benefit the surrounding people, but instead suppressed them like two big mountains on the people of Qinghe County, becoming an almost unbearable burden.

The reason is also very simple.

The mine is government run, nothing more.

The mine was run by the government, and Qinghe County expropriated corvee to mine the ore, and the ironworks smelted the ore. As far as Chu Mu knew, except for a very small number of craftsmen employed by the Qinghe County Government in the ironworks, most of the rest were also corvée.

It is not difficult to see that this is almost a completely costless transaction.

The Qinghe county government paid almost nothing, and took everything into its pocket, and almost all of the price was passed on to the people of Qinghe county with a single order to levy corvee.

If this is the case, it is not difficult to understand, it is nothing more than oppression and being oppressed.

This kind of thing has happened for thousands of years in the world of Chu Mu's previous life!
But the problem also lies in this. Among them, the Qinghe county government, or "officials", seems to be a completely empty-handed white wolf, occupying all the interests.

But as far as Chu Mu knew... Among these links, the Qinghe County Government Office was just one of them.

All the ore mined in the mine was transported to this ironworks to be smelted into crude iron, and then stored in the warehouse in Nanshan Town.

Every three months, Qinghe County sent inspection escorts to the county.

And Chu Mu's doubts lie precisely in this.

Supply and demand supply and demand, there is supply, there is demand, and in the same way, there is demand, there will be supply.

Qinghe County mines ore, and then smelts it into crude iron. This is the supply side. Every three months, the stored crude iron is transported to the county, which is the demand side.

But the problem is... The county city needs mineral materials, nothing more than forging ordnance, tools and other needs.

But the county city is at least hundreds of miles away from Qinghe County. With the transportation conditions of this era, the process of transporting mineral materials alone does not know how much manpower and material resources will be consumed.

That being the case, why not directly generate demand in Qinghe County?
Mine mining ore, iron smelting plant smelting, processing, and direct delivery of demanded finished products are much stronger than today's deformed supply and demand relationship?
Chu Mu knew that Qinghe County had to make a big move every time it transported mineral materials to the county, which cost countless manpower and material resources!

Chu Mu reckoned that if calculated in terms of money and silver, the manpower and material resources required to transport the mineral materials to the county would definitely be much higher than the value of the mineral materials themselves, not to mention the terrible costs of mining and smelting.

If you go through each link one by one, it seems that all the people involved are doing business at a loss!

The people in Qinghe County bear the unbearable burden of corvee, with almost no return, and there is a high possibility of paying the price with their lives.

The Qinghe County Government also struggled to maintain the order and suppress the boiling public grievances, but the minerals mined and smelted in the end had nothing to do with Qinghe County.

On the county side, countless manpower and material resources were mobilized, just to obtain mineral materials that would inevitably lose everything?

Even though there are benefits that Chu Mu can't see now, no matter how Chu Mu sees it, the hidden benefits cannot compare to the countless manpower and material resources spent on the surface!
Chu Mu stopped where he was, stared at it for a while, and then slowly withdrew his gaze.

Maybe... Maybe it's because he's ignorant.

After all, the original owner's knowledge of this era was limited to a very small area because of his withdrawn nature and age. Even if the original owner's father hadn't been transferred from Qinghe County to work in Nanshan Town, the original owner probably wouldn't even be able to get to Qinghe County once.

And his own cognition of this era, to a large extent, is only from the memory of the original owner.

It has been less than half a month since his own understanding of this era really belongs to him.

Chu Mu let out a long breath, and as usual, once again suppressed the doubts in his heart, took a step forward, and walked down the mountain road towards Nanshan Town.

The afterglow of the setting sun was still there, and Chu Mu had already stepped into Nanshan Town. Perhaps it was because of the successive collection of corvee, the streets were obviously empty, but it didn't seem to affect the popularity of Nanshan Town.

After all, there are more than 500 inspectors at the Nanshan Inspection Office alone. Counting the family members of the inspectors, this is at least a thousand permanent residents.

Moreover, according to the county's standards for expropriating corvee, inspecting relatives can be exempted from corvee, and the condition for exemption is only to pay some money.

Compared to being conscripted to work as corvee, where life is at stake, and even life is in danger, some money is obviously insignificant.

In his memory, when the original owner just turned fourteen, he was conscripted into corvee, but the original owner's father spent money to avoid the disaster.

Later, the original owner's father also went around to make connections, trying to get an official status for the original owner to keep him safe, but he never succeeded.

Who would have thought that this official status would eventually fall on the original owner in the way of the death of the original owner's father.

But in the end, he, a person from another time and space, was taken advantage of.

"Stay safe..."

Chu Mu touched the patrol armor on his body, muttering to himself...

……

(End of this chapter)