Nirvana stone does not actually need to be mined from Taiyuan.
Taiyuan is 500 kilometers away from Yunzhong County. Although the nirvana stone can be dug out and used at almost no cost, if it is transported from Taiyuan, it will take more than ten days at least, and the transportation manpower and cost are also not small.
More importantly, if Shen Bing transports nirvana stones from Taiyuan for a long time and on a large scale, it will not take long before it attracts the attention of Zhao Gao and Li Si, who will naturally investigate and cause more trouble.
This may result in Shen Bing being unable to keep the secret.
The solution is simple. More than a hundred kilometers south from Yunzhong County is Hequ Village.
The reason why Hequ Village is called Hequ Village is because the Yellow River almost makes a semicircle here and then continues along its original trend.
Shen Bing remembered that this was the northernmost tip of the famous Hedong coalfield in Shanxi.
In other words, there must be coal below. The first disadvantage is that it is generally quite deep, with more than ten steps above the ground.
But this is not a shortcoming. For Shen Bing, it is just a matter of having more people digging layer by layer, and he can dig out the coal seam in a few days.
In this way, the transportation time is shortened to two or three days.
Fusu was quite surprised by this and asked:
"How does the general know that there is nirvana here?"
Shen Bing’s answer is:
"I heard from people before that Nirvana stones were plowed in this area during farming."
"It's just luck for me to find the nirvana now."
Fusu was dubious, but there was no other reasonable explanation besides Shen Bing's statement, so he had no choice but to believe it.
Another shortcoming is that this place already belongs to Yanmen County. If Shen Bing, the northern general, takes any action here, it will be overstepping his authority.
This is not difficult to solve.
Shen Bing only needs to find an excuse to inform the Yanmen County Sheriff...
"Hequ Village is an important supply area for Yunzhong County."
"Because we are worried about sneak attacks and intrusions by the Huns cavalry, we have stationed three thousand troops here to prevent any unexpected events!"
This excuse is reasonable and reasonable, and the governor of Yanmen County has no reason to disagree.
At the same time, these three thousand soldiers stationed here to build the walled city will not arouse suspicion from others.
It's just that the walled city was not built to protect against the Xiongnu, but to collect nirvana inside.
Shen Bing used the Daliang Army, and all of them were soldiers from the original Wei State.
The reason why he chose the former Wei State to surrender his troops was because Shen Bing wanted to guard against Li Si, Zhao Gao and others.
And Wei Bing was all selected by Shen Bing and Wei Wei, and it is unlikely that they would be bribed by Li Si and Zhao Gao.
But Shen Bing also knew that it would be difficult to hide this matter... If a third person knew it, it would no longer be a secret, not to mention that it would require thousands of people to mine it.
Therefore, Shen Bing had another hand prepared to cover up: the nirvana stone was widely used as a fuel for making fires and heating by soldiers and civilians.
If Zhao Gao and Li Si notice something unusual one day and inquire about it, their first thought will be... Shen Bing collects nirvana just to meet his cooking and heating needs.
This is quite normal, because the area around Yunzhong County is mostly composed of desert and grassland terrain, with fewer trees.
If the trees are to be used to make equipment and city walls, then the nirvana stone will naturally be used to make fires and keep warm.
As a result, the sky above Yunzhong County was immediately filled with the strong smell of burning coal, both day and night... Make fires for cooking during the day and keep warm at night.
Shen Bing, who was not used to this smell, was so dizzy that he could hardly breathe.
However, we can only endure it for the sake of future development.
Especially at this time, the Xiongnu already seemed to be taking action...
As soon as Shen Bing gave up his trap and reached Jiuyuan, the Xiongnu immediately followed up and pressed the border line all the way to Yunzhong County.
Of course the Xiongnu did not attack the city. The Xiongnu was not good at attacking the city.
Not to mention the Warring States Period, even at the peak of the Mongolian cavalry nomads they were still not good at attacking cities.
In terms of grand strategy, the Mongols used rudimentary tactics that utilized the mobility of their cavalry in large depths.
To put it simply, every time when the grain harvest comes, they cross the enemy's city to plunder, take away what can be taken away, burn what cannot be taken away, and even break into the enemy's defense line to "fight to support war". One lap and then return with a full load.
Maybe the loss can be tolerated once or twice like this.
But year after year, day after day... the crops there have been planted but not harvested over the years, and the people farming outside the city are still unprotected and being burned, killed and plundered by enemy cavalry. How can the people bear it?
So the people had no choice but to keep moving out in order to survive, and within a few years the city became empty.
In the mid-to-late period, Mongolia did not need to do this, because after occupying a large area of the Song Dynasty and controlling many Han people, they could use the Han people to form slave armies and let them attack the city... The Battle of Yashan, which marked the demise of the Song Dynasty, was fought by the Han Zhang Hongfan.
At this time, the Xiongnu's strategy was similar to that of the early Mongols.
They also used cavalry to cross the city and penetrate into the Central Plains to plunder.
This may not be called "strategy", but the predatory nature of the nomads... At this time, they don't even know what "strategy" is.
Fortunately the Huns were very cautious and simply sent small groups of cavalry across to plunder and quickly return.
This was partly because they had been ambushed by Li Mu many times before, so they were worried that they would be ambushed and lose the battle again.
On the other hand, it was not yet the grain harvest season, so even if they went south to plunder, they would not gain much.
Therefore, Shen Bing also had some time to prepare.
Shen Bing left the iron smelting matter to Ben and Qian.
Bian was an iron officer in Shouchun. Shen Bing saw that he had some abilities, so he took him with him... With Shen Bing's status at this time, it was not difficult to get a few people.
Both Ben and Qi had their own strengths: Ben was better at smelting iron and Qi was better at casting. In addition, Ben brought a group of apprentices from Shouchun, so the smelting and production of iron tools was not a problem.
As for the iron ore, Shen Bing no longer has to hide it like the nirvana mine. He can make requests to Ying Zheng openly and openly.
For example, the Northland lacks agricultural tools and needs to smelt iron to develop agriculture.
Another example is the need for ore to solve the problem of Yunzhong County guarding the city...
These are all normal, just like Xiang Yan also asked Ruyin and Chengfu to produce their own equipment when he was guarding the Rushui defense line.
This is especially true for arrows, which are powerful weapons for city defense and consume a huge amount of money. Tens of thousands of defenders will shoot out tens of thousands of arrows in a single salvo. If we only rely on transportation, it will increase the logistical burden exponentially and easily cause damage to the defenders. The city is in danger...
What if the arrows are used up and the logistics are not delivered?
Or maybe the transportation line was cut off by the enemy or the arrows were stolen by the enemy?
Therefore, Ying Zheng had no reason not to agree to Shen Bing's request, and immediately sent people to continuously transport iron, copper, tin and other ores to Yunzhong County.
Farther away areas do not even transport ore, but refined iron, copper, and tin... The geographical location is far away and transportation is inconvenient, so transporting ore is a waste of transportation capacity.