"If you want to negotiate peace, you must pay a tribute of 50 million taels of silver at a time, otherwise, as soon as he arrives, he will call you the monarch and minister of Shengguo and turn into ashes!"

"Whew-"

As soon as these words came out, the sound of cold air suddenly sounded in the hall.

More than a dozen envoys of the Shengguo were all shocked.

Fifty million taels?

Even a year ago, when the country was in its heyday, it would take seven or eight years to gather enough silver!

Such a huge sum of silver, it is not said that there is one!

With Shengguo's current financial resources, how can it be obtained?

10 million taels is already the limit, and if 50 million taels are used, I'm afraid the nobles will have to be emptied!

The envoys of Sheng Guo have all heard that after the Blue Dragon Legion broke through the Imperial City of the Cave Country, they looted the treasury of the Cave Country, and together with all the nobles, they raided their homes, and looted a total of 140 million taels of silver, do they think that the Sheng Kingdom can also take so much?

You must know that the situation in Shengguo is a little different from that in Dongguo.

First, during the two wars, the treasury of Shengguo was basically emptied.

Second, there is a division in the Sheng country, and the families of those royal families and nobles have huge gold and silver treasures, but after all, they are private property, and even if they are the emperor of the Sheng Kingdom, they have no right to allocate them.

"Your Majesty, my Shengguo has spent a lot of money year after year, and there is really no extra silver in the treasury, do you see if you can use other ......?"

Min Shanyi pleaded with a sad face, although he knew that there was little hope, but as the envoy in charge of the peace talks, he still had to tell the real situation, so as not to tell the truth.

"Yes."

Well, yes...... Hmm, yes?!

Min Shanyi was already thinking about what to do after being rejected, but he didn't expect that as soon as Emperor Cangguo opened his mouth, he agreed to his request.

Emperor Cangguo, don't want silver?

Is there anything more important than silver?

Mowing the land?

In an instant, countless thoughts flashed in Min Shanyi's mind, there is indeed this possibility, the border peace talks of various countries have always been either land ceding or compensation, and with the advantage that Cangguo now occupies, it is not too much to ask for land cession.

If it had been three months ago, Sheng Guo had ceded more than a dozen cities.

But now, the Shengguo border has been built on a large scale of fortifications, invested a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, no matter which city is ceded, it is equivalent to the door of the Shengguo is wide open, in case the Cangguo attacks again, the border pass will no longer have the power to resist.

The rest of the Sheng envoys next to him also had strange faces, this time there were thousands of Sheng Guo envoys, except for the subordinates, the rest of the people were the core figures of the various government offices in the court, especially these dozen people.

The reason why they entered the palace to negotiate together was to be able to gain some leeway for Sheng Guo as much as possible, but judging from the current situation, Sheng Guo has no room for bargaining at all, and even if he really can't afford the price, he has to rely on the other party to take the initiative to make concessions.

What could be more of a failure than that?

The envoys of the Sheng Kingdom were all concentrated, waiting for Yang Mu's next sentence.

"You Sheng Guo can't take out so much silver, so you can use the rest of the goods to offset it." Yang Mu said lightly.

Goods?

Everyone was stunned, and then their hearts relaxed.

What is cargo?

It can't be land anyway.

No compensation, no land cession, the rest is whatever!

"Please also make it clear to Your Majesty." Min Shanyi bowed his hand and bowed.

"I have heard for a long time that Shengguo is rich in minerals and has a lot of iron and stone, so it is better to use iron and stone to offset the compensation, how about it? This is my biggest concession, if you Sheng Guo even refuses this, Hugh blames me for turning my face and being ruthless. ”

Stone?

Min Shanyi's face was cloudy and sunny for a while, and his heart sank suddenly.

As the crown prince of a country, he has been cultivated as a prince since he was a child, and of course he understands what iron and stone represent.

In a sense, although the pig iron extracted from iron and stone is not as precious as silver, it is undeniable that the output of iron and stone represents the iron productivity of a country, and the most direct is weapons.

It seems to be a good deal to stand up with iron and stone against silver, but if you carefully ponder the cat behind it, you won't think so.

Why?

That's tens of millions of taels of silver!

Even if it was only a thousand taels of silver, the amount was terrifying.

Cangguo wants so much iron and stone at once, what is the purpose?

Expand!

There is no other reason to need so many weapons at one time than to expand the army.

You know, iron and stone are difficult to store, even after refining into pig iron, it is easy to rust, and it will become a team of rotten things in a few years, which is unbearable to use.

And as we all know, Cangguo has a special refining method, the weapons cast are not easy to rust, each piece is a hundred refining soldiers, at present, except for Ruan Guo can buy some as allies, the rest of the countries are only greedy.

Obviously, the reason why Cangguo made such a request was because the domestic iron and stone were in short supply, and it was a long way and expensive to buy from abroad, so he hit Sheng Guo with the idea.

Once Cangguo expands its army, a large number of troops will be formed, and it will definitely be used to deal with Sheng Guo in the future.

At the beginning, Sheng Guo was the same for Dong Guo, why was Sheng Guo able to take the lead in the war against Dong Guo at the beginning?

It is because the iron and stone production of Sheng Guo is much higher than that of Dong Guo, at the beginning of the expansion of military strength, Sheng Guo let the soldiers upgrade their weapons, change the spear with less iron to Ge, and equip the grassroots officers and non-commissioned officers with more knives, which made the combat effectiveness of the Sheng Guo army have been greatly improved, and it took the lead and struck first at the beginning.

Cangguo wants to expand its army, and its thoughts are fully revealed.

Sheng Guo's acceptance of this condition is tantamount to drinking water to quench his thirst.

However, under the current situation, does Shengguo have the conditions to refuse?

After the destruction of the Dong Kingdom, the Cang Kingdom has blocked the Sheng Kingdom from the west and the south, and the north is a vast Jin State, and the east is the vast sea......

For example, once Cangguo blocks the Shengguo caravan, then Shengguo will be locked up and unable to communicate with the outside world normally.

This is similar to the beginning, when Shengguo relied on geography and brutally cut off the trade routes of Cangguo!

Min Shanyi weighed in his heart, it was impossible to refuse, on the one hand, Sheng Guo did not have so much silver, and on the other hand, the Emperor Cangguo must have made up his mind to ask for iron ore, and he was not allowed to refuse at all.

The only thing to consider is, if you use iron and stone to offset it, how much should it be offset?

At what price?

How is Ironstone delivered?

What date?

In addition, how much silver does Sheng Guo have to pay?

These problems must be taken into account, and it can be said that as long as any of them are not taken into account, they may sow disaster for Shengguo, teach truth, and put Shengguo in a disadvantageous position.