That is, that coal mine does exist, about eighty miles away from Kunyang, and it is an open-pit coal mine that is extremely easy to mine.
According to the survey and speculation of the few people sent by Su Xun, the coal mine seems to have a lot of reserves, and the underground area with a radius of one kilometer is full of coal.
Hearing the good news, Li Ke almost burst into excitement.
Then he told Su Xun to immediately send people to mine the coal mine.
As for transportation, now that he has a thousand war horses, he can form a huge fleet of horse-drawn carriages to transport coal.
After making up his mind, Li Ke began to discuss the details of coal mining with Su Xun.
Two days later, under the escort of more than 500 soldiers, a huge mining team consisting of thousands of hired miners, more than 200 horses and more than 50 carriages set out from Kunyang.
In fact, according to Li Ke's vision, a city will be built where the coal mine is located in the near future.
After all, mining miners and transportation convoys usually require a large amount of supplies. If they rely entirely on transportation, the cost will be extremely high.
If a small city can be built there, the families of the miners can be brought directly there, and some cultivated land can be reclaimed nearby. In this way, the problem of supplies will be solved.
However, building a city cannot be completed overnight, and the coal mines have not yet been mined, so we can only do it in the future.
Now that there is coal, Li Ke can naturally put his previous idea of making fertilizer into practice.
And when the coking coal is available, it can also solve the problem of insufficient charcoal in the city.
And the matter of steelmaking must be put on the agenda.
Steel is the basis of all industries. As long as we can refine steel as soon as possible, our development in other directions can also be accelerated smoothly.
Just as Li Ke was thinking about all this, he suddenly heard the urgent voice of a personal eunuch coming from outside the door.
"Your Highness is not well, something happened!"
Hearing this, Li Ke and Su Xun's nerves immediately became tense.
The two of them thought almost at the same time whether the Khitans were coming to kill them again.
"What's wrong?" Li Ke asked nervously.
The young eunuch hurriedly said: "Your Highness, news just came from the direction of the city gate that a large number of refugees suddenly arrived outside the city, numbering in the hundreds."
"The gatekeepers were afraid that there were Khitan spies among them, so they quickly blocked the city gate and came to ask how to solve it."
"Refugees?" Li Ke couldn't help frowning, "Where did they come from?"
The little eunuch shook his head for a while.
Li Ke looked at Su Xun, and then the two of them stood up in unison and walked outside without saying a word.
Soon, the two arrived at the south gate of Kunyang. Li Ke was surprised to find that he had arrived, and Qi Rusong had also arrived, bringing more than a hundred soldiers with him.
"Your Highness, have you heard about the refugees?" Qi Rusong asked first.
Li Ke nodded, and then asked: "Why do so many refugees suddenly come out? Does Commander Qi know the reason?"
Qi Rusong shook his head slightly, and then followed Li Ke towards a house at the gate of the city, where there were more than a dozen refugees who had been let in.
Seeing those dozen refugees, Li Ke couldn't help but frown slightly.
Because he suddenly discovered that these dozen refugees seemed to be different from the refugees in his impression, because they were not sallow, skinny, hungry, or poorly clothed.
On the contrary, each of them was extremely clean and even carried large and small baggage.
They don't seem to be in distress, but more like they are here to visit relatives.
"Are you refugees?" Li Ke suddenly asked in surprise.
A young man in his twenties nodded quickly: "Sir, we are refugees."
"Where are you from?" Li Ke asked again.
"Yunzhou, sir, we are from Yunzhou."
"Yunzhou? Is there a famine in Yunzhou?" Li Ke asked in surprise.
The man's expression remained unchanged, and he even uttered a few words with some fear on his face: "No, it's Yunzhou City, which was captured by the Khitans!"
