Chapter 1009

Smuggling high-quality ironware?

This charge is not light; it is equivalent to trafficking superior weapons to an enemy state.

Those who dare to do this are mostly spies from enemy states.

Qin Mu began to take this matter seriously.

High-quality ironware can circulate unimpeded within Great Qin territory; there is simply no need to smuggle it.

Only those needing to transport it out of the country would resort to smuggling.

But there are exit inspections at every border; how could this high-quality ironware be transported out?

If it cannot be transported out, why would the shopkeeper smuggle it?

Drawing ten thousand people to kneel and worship

There must be something wrong somewhere in this!

At this moment, the Commander of the Imperial Guard, Zhang Xian, arrived.

He was a subordinate general of General Yue Fei; recognizing Qin Mu, he felt a jolt throughout his body. He jumped off his horse, went directly down on one knee, and performed a military salute.

"Greetings, Your Majesty!"

Your Majesty?

The squad of Imperial Guards behind Zhang Xian were all startled and simultaneously knelt on one knee.

"Greetings, Your Majesty!"

This shout was mighty and majestic, its sound shaking half the street.

Consequently, half the street was stunned.

Your Majesty?

Like ripples, the commoners began to kneel and pay homage, one after another, starting from a center point.

The cheers surged like a tide, continuous and unending.

"Greetings, Your Majesty!"

For ordinary commoners, being lucky enough to see the Emperor once is something worth boasting about for a lifetime.

Moreover, the one they saw was Qin Mu, this Emperor of the Ages whose achievements are unparalleled in history!

Excited and thrilled, some even fainted on the spot.

Sounds from further away kept coming, sounding somewhat blurred by now.

"Greet... ings... Your Majesty!"

This momentum moved everyone present; the commoners were touched by their own voices. They had never imagined that the mountain-shaking cheers of ten thousand people could be so heart-stirring!

Qin Mu was also very moved; he heard the adoration these commoners had for him in their cheers.

Facing these subjects who adored him, Qin Mu only said one sentence.

"Great is Great Qin, the Sacred Dao prevails over the world!"

Zhang Xian immediately ordered the Imperial Guards behind him to repeat this sentence in unison three times.

"Great is Great Qin, the Sacred Dao prevails over the world!"

This sentence was Qin Mu's summary of Great Qin.

It told the world that Great Qin walks the path of the Sacred Dao.

The Sacred Dao is like dancing while holding a shield and axe, showing the world a dance of blades and shields, prioritizing virtue while simultaneously maintaining military deterrence!

Tens of thousands of commoners in the West Market followed and roared.

"Great is Great Qin, the Sacred Dao prevails over the world!"

Amidst the giant roars, the crowd was stirred, feeling deeply proud of the current spirit of Great Qin!

Feeling incomparably proud to have such an Emperor!

Qin Mu did not particularly like being overly sentimental; after saying this, he let the commoners turn the voices from the bottom of their hearts toward that shopkeeper.

How could the shopkeeper have known that this person was actually the Emperor traveling incognito?

He was scared out of his wits!

Kneeling on the ground, he kowtowed repeatedly to beg for mercy.

"Your Majesty, this humble subject has a loose tongue; my words just now were offensive. I truly hope Your Majesty will forgive me!" What Qin Mu wanted to ask about was not the offense, but the crimes the shopkeeper had committed in secret.

"I ask you, to which country did you intend to sell the high-quality ironware you hid away?"

"This..."

After it was roared out.

The shopkeeper instinctively did not want to say.

But after hesitating for only a moment, he spoke.

Before the Emperor of Great Qin, feeling the overwhelming pressure rushing toward him, his defenses collapsed instantly: "Replying to Your Majesty, that... high-quality ironware was to be sold to Tianzhu."

"Tianzhu?"

Qin Mu understood immediately.

The land of Tianzhu is vigorously developing agriculture, and the demand for high-quality farm tools is very large; therefore, there might be more loopholes, making it impossible to supervise every single item.

"Transported to Tianzhu, and then brought back to Great Tang through the Great Tang fleet?"

The shopkeeper was already trembling like chaff.

"Your Majesty, please forgive me! This humble subject was only following the arrangements from above, just to transport the high-quality ironware to Tianzhu.

What happened after that has nothing to do with this humble subject!"

Qin Mu already had a rough understanding of this matter.

They wanted to secretly transport Great Qin's high-quality ironware back through the gap of Tianzhu.

However, the Embroidered Uniform Guard in Jiangnan had not reported this matter.

This indicates that these high-quality ironwares were not being sold as farm tools among the commoners in Jiangnan.

Since they were not being sold, the greatest possibility is that they were being transported to a secret location and re-forged into weapons!

"Whose servant are you?"

The shopkeeper was already so scared that his soul had left his body, and he said whatever came to mind.

"Replying to Your Majesty, this humble subject is a person of the Zhangsun family. I have been running a shop in this West Market since the Great Tang era."

Shen Wansan had acquired eight or nine out of ten of the aristocratic shops, and there were still some that refused to sell.

It seems this is one of them.

That old fox Zhangsun Wuji is truly calculating.

He planted such a shop here, and it was finally put to use by him.

....... Begging for flowers... 0

Qin Mu turned his head and gave a faint glance at those few foreigners.

"You, which country are you from? How come you still don't know the laws of Great Qin?"

After arguing for so long, those few foreigners had long since understood.

Being tricked this time, they were not entirely innocent.

"Your Majesty, we are Byzantine merchants. Because of the war, our country is in urgent need of high-quality ironware."

"Seeing that there was high-quality ironware publicly sold in Changancheng this time, we wanted to buy it back to our country to forge into weapons."

"We really did not know the laws of Great Qin!"

This group of foreigners was quite honest and explained things very clearly.

They even mentioned the pressure of the war in their country.

Great Qin is the only one in the world that can smelt high-quality ironware.

Any country would covet such high-quality ironware.

It's just that these foreigners did not know that even if they bought this kind of high-quality ironware, they could not take it back.

"Considering this is your first offense, all goods are confiscated; you may leave."

It was just confiscated like that?