Using the key he got from the room, Yan Liqiang easily opened a small door on the side of the warehouse reserved for inspectors to enter, and entered the warehouse.
Although it was not the first time that Yan Liqiang had seen those things piled up in the warehouse, he was still amazed when he saw them again.
In this warehouse, all kinds of expensive furs are piled up like mountains, including bear skin, tiger skin, leopard skin, and sable skin. Many of them are furs of exotic animals. Among those furs, the most precious one is the cloud antelope. The fur of the cloud antelope is soft and light, and it will not get wet even when snow falls. A coat made of the cloud antelope's fur can be fit through a ring. It is said that a cloud antelope skin is equivalent to the same weight of gold. In this warehouse, there are hundreds of cloud antelope skins piled up.
In addition to furs, the warehouse also contains various medicinal herbs and several types of precious woods.
These furs, medicinal herbs, and several kinds of expensive wood were all obtained by the Shatu people from the Qiyun Mountains and the Gulang Grassland. These things are also major items of the Shatu people's foreign trade.
All kinds of things were piled up in the warehouse.
Originally, what kind of business the Shatu people did had nothing to do with ordinary people. However, in recent years, the Shatu people have become more and more overbearing and arrogant in Pingxi City. As long as it is a business they run, they will not allow others to do it, especially the timber and fur businesses. In the past, in addition to these Shatu people, there were also some Chinese shops and businesses engaged in timber and fur businesses in Pingxi City, but in the end they were all smashed and looted by the Shatu people. The government used the "Huai'en Order" as an excuse to not deal with the Shatu people who were causing trouble, and condoned their evil. Gradually, the timber and fur businesses in the entire Pingxi City were almost completely monopolized by the Shatu people.
The Shatu people cannot completely monopolize the medicinal materials business because they themselves have only a superficial understanding of medical skills. The variety of medicinal materials produced in Qiyun Mountain and Gulang Grassland is also limited and cannot fully meet the needs of the city. Moreover, this is also related to the livelihood of the people in Pingxi City. There are also many people running medicinal materials businesses in the entire Pingxi County. Among them, several large families and large merchant groups are relatively powerful and are not afraid of the Shatu people. After the Shatu people made trouble several times and found that they did not gain any advantage, they stopped.
Yan Liqiang moved around the warehouse with familiarity, and in just a short while, he arrived at an area at the back of the warehouse.
Yan Liqiang pushed away a pile of wooden boards, sacks and other debris on the ground. Just underneath the pile of wooden boards and debris, an iron ring was exposed. When he pulled up the iron ring, an entrance to an underground passage appeared in front of Yan Liqiang.
In the entire Pingxi city, almost no Chinese people knew that the Shatu people had quietly dug out a huge underground warehouse beneath this warehouse full of goods.
Inside this underground warehouse, there were weapons, armor, swords, spears, bows and arrows everywhere, in rows, piles and bundles, stacked full and neatly. The inventory was probably not much less than that in the armory of the Governor's Mansion in Pingxi City, and it could easily arm tens of thousands of people.
Yan Liqiang casually picked up a long sword beside him. On the handle of the sword, he could vaguely see a special mark.
The mark and imprint were somewhat smoothed out, but one could still vaguely distinguish the mark and imprint, which was the Chinese character "Gan", representing that this thing came from Ganzhou's craftsman camp and was an official product. Originally, these weapons were used to arm the Han Empire's army in Ganzhou, but for some reason, they fell into the hands of these Shatu people and were quietly stockpiled here.
This is not only the case on long swords, but also on other weapons, most of them still have some traces of wear and tear.
Although he already knew what was piled here, Yan Liqiang couldn't help but feel a little chilled when he saw these things. He also knew what this meant.
The last time, when the matter of the Shatu people transporting weapons into the city was exposed, in the end, the matter was quietly dropped without any follow-up, as if it had never happened. The person who colluded with and protected these Shatu people was not just Ye Tiancheng, the prefect of Pingxi County, but involved many important figures in the Ganzhou army and officialdom of the Han Empire. These important figures were in high positions and had great power, but they were probably already corrupt.
Yan Liqiang shuttled among the piles of weapons, and in a blink of an eye, he came to a row of bow racks with military longbows hanging on them.
There were hundreds of longbows hanging on those bow racks, and those longbows were also military weapons made by the Ganzhou Artisan Camp.
Among those longbows, the weight ranges from one stone to four stones. The strongest longbow is only four stones. For a soldier who can use a longbow, being able to pull a four-stone longbow is already considered a great person.
Yan Liqiang chose a four-stone longbow and two full quivers and put them on his back, then came to the back of the underground warehouse.
At the back of the warehouse, the ground was filled with large pottery jars that were good for hundreds of bees. Seeing these pottery jars, Yan Liqiang took a pottery jar in each hand without saying a word, and then quickly walked from the underground to the warehouse above.
Yan Liqiang came to the front of the warehouse and broke the seal of the pottery jar with his hand. Immediately, a strange, slightly pine-like pungent smell wafted into the air.
The pottery jar contains pine oil!
This is the most strictly controlled military material in the Han Empire. In the Han Empire, except for the military, civilians are not allowed to own pine oil. This is because the function of pine oil is to set fires. It will ignite at a touch and is difficult to extinguish. Except for the military, ordinary people cannot use it. Moreover, pine oil is expensive and difficult to make. All pine oil workshops are controlled by the military and it is not sold on the market.
Looking at this pine oil, who would believe that the Shatu people use it for barbecue and heating in winter
Anyway, Yan Liqiang didn't believe it.
After opening the pine oil, Yan Liqiang poured the two cans of pine oil all over the goods and the ground in the warehouse like he was celebrating the Water-Splashing Festival, and the oil was scattered everywhere.
After pouring two cans of pine oil, it was not enough. Yan Liqiang quickly ran to the bottom of the warehouse, brought up two more cans of pine oil, opened them again, and continued to pour everywhere.
Yan Liqiang went back and forth for more than twenty minutes, carrying more than thirty cans of pine oil up and pouring it all over the warehouse. The last time, he broke all the pine oil cans in the underground warehouse and let all the pine oil in the underground warehouse flow out. He carried a can of pine oil and walked backwards out of the underground warehouse while pouring it, so that all the pine oil spilled on the ground became one piece.
At this time, the smell of pine oil in the entire warehouse was almost choking the mice.
Yan Liqiang retreated back to the side door of the warehouse, smashed the pine oil can in his hand, then took out the tinder he had with him, opened the tinder, and threw it onto the floor of the warehouse. In just a moment, a tongue of fire quickly shot up from the ground. In just a few seconds, the tongue of fire ran dozens of meters away, like a domino, setting the entire floor of the warehouse on fire...
Looking at the burning warehouse floor, Yan Liqiang turned around and rushed to the courtyard wall. Like a night owl, he climbed over the wall in the blink of an eye and disappeared into the darkness.
Yan Liqiang moved quickly in the alley. In just two minutes, he was far away from the warehouse. He looked back and saw that the warehouse was completely on fire with red light illuminating the sky.
There was a big house in front, and there were several lush camphor trees on the street not far outside the house. Yan Liqiang rushed to the tree, and like a monkey, he instantly stepped on the tree trunk and rushed into a pile of branches and leaves of the camphor tree, hiding himself.
Finally, after just a moment, the flames that shot up into the sky were visible to the entire Pingxi City. The entire gathering of Shatu people instantly became noisy, and the long-lost and dense sound of gongs and drums began to sound in the quiet night...
(End of this chapter)