บท 313: Chapter 290: The Medicinal Field, The Tenant Farmer_1

Commoners are not permitted to mine for iron.

This is an ironclad law of the empire.

Of course, Huang An would not mine under his own name or that of his senior sister.

He needed to learn from his master, just like the great families in Youzhou City, to overlay this iron mine with the cloak of officialdom.

Within a month of his master taking office as the head of the Bureau of Firearms, the master had received some mines gifted by families within the city.

Throughout Youzhou, and even the whole Daming Empire, the mines within the empire are nominally the property of the court.

But the actual holders are mostly private individuals.

The profits from the mines, apart from a small portion given to the court, mostly enter the pockets of private individuals or powers.

This situation is most evident in frontier regions like Youzhou.

It's almost an unwritten rule.

Getting rich by being an official is not merely lip service.