Going to Beijing to save his father, all the powerful officials in the city are vying to be his fath

The emperor asked in surprise, "Doing business with the Wu Kingdom? The ruler of the Wu Kingdom is not stupid. That's ore. Will they agree to sell it to us?"

Marquis Wuning thought that their ruler might not be the ruler anymore, and someone was already plotting to cause civil unrest among them.

But he didn't say this. Instead, he said, "Whether they agree to sell us the ore depends on what they buy it with. As long as what we give them is attractive enough, they will definitely be willing to sell it. Moreover, the ore is valuable only in our hands. In their hands, even if they know what it is, it can only be regarded as an ordinary stone."

Emperor: "What do you think can impress them? I heard they are short of food. Can we trade them with food? But we don't have enough food here either. We can only sell a limited amount of food. How much ore can we get in return?"

Marquis Wuning said: "Instead of grain, we can trade them with ironware and copperware. They give us the ore, and we return some of the refined iron and copper to them. This is a zero-cost business for us. We only need to provide some blacksmiths to refine the iron, and we can get high-purity ironware and copperware."

Upon hearing this, the emperor immediately retorted, "That won't do. If we provide Wu with ironware, wouldn't that be the same as providing them with weapons?

They are already a fierce people, and we cannot defeat them. If we provide them with weapons, wouldn't that just embolden them? Once they have enough strength, if they attack us, how will we resist? "

Marquis Wuning: "Your Majesty, I have considered the problem you mentioned. I have carefully observed the people of Wu. They are still a slave country. Everything is very backward. There are no talented blacksmiths. We provide them with ordinary iron tools for daily use. They will not melt them down and recast them into weapons.

Even if some of them learned how to forge iron and make weapons, they would not be able to attack us.

They have a small population, only a few hundred thousand in total. Even if everyone were to become a soldier, there would only be a few hundred thousand troops. As long as we have enough weapons and food, we can support hundreds of thousands more troops. By then, hundreds of thousands of troops will be deployed on the border with Wu. I don't believe Wu has the courage to challenge us.

Their soldiers are only good at fighting in mountainous areas. Most of them can only use bows and arrows and close combat. They are not good at coordinated combat on the plains. As long as they dare to step out of the mountains of Wu and attack our plains, they will completely lose their advantage and will be no match for us.

Throughout the dynasties, it was not only us who wanted to annex Ukraine, they also wanted to occupy our vast plains, but they never took a step out of that mountainous area.

We cannot invade the mountains and they cannot set foot on the plains, so we have been able to confront each other for so many years. Even if they have enough iron tools in the future, we will have more weapons and we will still be in a state of confrontation.

It is still a state of confrontation, but we have more iron and copper mines, which can not only make more weapons, but also more farm tools and other supplies. Not only can we support more soldiers, but also improve the lives of the people. It is beneficial to us in every way.

So, Your Majesty, there is no need to worry about the problem you mentioned."

The emperor fell into deep thought after hearing this. After a moment, he asked, "Why didn't you mention this matter in front of the ministers today, or in the court?"

Marquis Wuning: "Your Majesty, this matter cannot be known to too many people.

First, because we have many Ukrainian businessmen here now, if too many people know about it, there is no guarantee that someone will leak the news and the Ukrainians will know about it. What should we do then if they rely on their ore and become arrogant and ask for an exorbitant price? We must send people to negotiate directly when Ukraine is not on guard at all. Then they will have no time to discuss and we can gain the upper hand.

Secondly, whenever something is brought to the court for discussion, the officials will start arguing with each other. As a result, the matter will be delayed and may even not be accomplished.

In fact, Your Majesty, you are the ruler of a country. You don’t have to be restricted by the court officials in doing what you want to do. You can make your own decisions without them. Before, doing business with me and raising troops in Chanzhou were your own decisions. Facts have proved that the decisions you made were very correct, otherwise you would not have been able to quell the Liang Wang Rebellion so quickly.

Your Majesty, please consider this matter yourself. If you think you can do it, send someone you trust to negotiate with the State of Wu, and then privately dispatch a group of iron smelters to secretly smelt iron. When there are enough weapons, Your Majesty can recruit more soldiers. These soldiers will be like the Chanzhou soldiers led by Jingde. They are Your Majesty's private soldiers and only obey Your Majesty.

Your Majesty can also trade the excess ironware with other countries, and all the profits will be counted in your private treasury. In this way, Your Majesty will have both soldiers and money, and you will never have to worry about not having people to serve you. Even if a traitor like King Liang appears again, Your Majesty will be able to quickly suppress him."

Marquis Wuning's words touched the emperor's heart. Ever since the incident with Prince Liang, he has always worried that other people would plot a rebellion like Prince Liang. Even if they did not rebel, he could not accept the ministers forming cliques and sidelining him.

That's why he wanted to take the ministers' daughters into the palace and win over more court officials as soon as possible, for fear that the court officials would not be on the same page with him. However, this also had hidden dangers. When the concubines had no children, these ministers could still assist him wholeheartedly, but once their daughters had children, those officials would definitely want to assist the princes of their own blood, thinking of satisfying the desire to be the father-in-law of the emperor, or even control the young prince and use the emperor to command the princes.

The emperor knew all these drawbacks, but he was in urgent need of controlling the entire court and could not think of a better way, so he could only do this. As for the future, we would talk about it later. Moreover, the daughters of Su Jijing and Xu Chunshan were chosen for him because they were not from aristocratic families, had no roots, and no clans. Even if their daughters had children in the future, they would not have the ability to support princes of their own blood.

That's why he was so angry when he found out that Su Qin and the others didn't want to enter the palace. It completely disrupted his plans and made him not know what to do.

But now the idea that Marquis Wuning is talking about is much more perfect than taking the minister's daughter into the palace.

He had enough money and weapons to support enough soldiers, and these soldiers would obey his orders completely. Even if something like the King of Liang happened again in the future, he would not be afraid. If someone rebelled, he would just have to destroy them. He didn't have to look at the faces of any ministers at all.

Moreover, he had money and weapons, so he could not only support an army, but also hire secret guards to protect himself and spies to monitor all the ministers. The whole world was under his control, so why would he be afraid of rebellion? At that time, he would probably be hoping for rebellion so that he could show his strength and destroy them directly.

The emperor was still young after all, and when he thought of himself full of vigor and ambition and able to make plans, he actually got excited.

Marquis Wuning saw that the emperor's face was getting redder and redder, and he didn't know what he was thinking. He didn't dare to ask and could only stand aside.

After a long while, the emperor came back to his senses and asked, "Who do you think is suitable to negotiate this matter?"