After seeing off Qiao Jin, Zhao Hanzhang began summoning Zhao Ming and other court officials to discuss the next major matter.
She wanted to open mountains and marshlands to the people.
In theory, all the mountains, waters, and mineral resources of this world belonged to the state. Private individuals couldn’t mine minerals, hunt, fish, or do many other things.
Of course, these prohibitions currently had little practical use. Everyone who should go into the mountains did so, those who should enter the water did so, and there were quite a few mining operations in secret.
But lifting the prohibitions would still make some difference. This was a signal that common people could profit from mountains and marshlands to gain the means to survive.
Zhao Hanzhang had robbed the rich to help the poor—ahem, that is, used the wealthy to support the poor—collecting vast sums of money and wealth. She herself hadn’t expected there to be so many wealthy people in Yu Province with such abundant assets. It seemed Yu Province had developed well these past few years.
After Zu Ti and Beigong Chun successively sent batches of money to Chen County, Zhao Hanzhang ordered all regions not to send collected property assessment taxes to Chen County or Luoyang anymore, but to seal them in their treasuries for local government expenditures.
As the order went out, large batches of grain from Jing Province and Yang Province successively arrived in Chen County. Zhao Hanzhang immediately began distributing grain to various regions—one batch to You Province, one batch to Bing Province, one batch to Ji Province. Qing Province and Guang Province also got some. Yong Province had suffered disasters these past years, with cannibalism never ceasing, so they especially needed grain sent to them.
The grain that had just arrived was distributed by Zhao Hanzhang in less than a day. Not a single grain of rice remained in Yu Province. Even so, it was still a drop in the bucket, so Zhao Hanzhang continued urging Wang Siniang and Yuan Li to procure grain while also giving Zhao Hu a push.
Zhao Hu’s merchant caravans were already collecting grain throughout the Jiangnan countryside. They’d originally wanted to deal directly with grain merchants, but apart from a scattered few, most grain merchants they approached claimed to have no grain.
The caravan stewards had no choice but to go to the countryside and seek out individual households. This was slower, but the results were good. By offering a bit more than grain merchants, they could buy grain.
Small farmers liked selling grain to them. In their eyes, there was no difference between local grain merchants and northern grain merchants—whoever paid more got the sale.
Thus the Zhao family stewards discovered a secret: going to the countryside to purchase grain in small quantities was indeed scattered and laborious, but prices were low, and it saved much effort.
In the city, dealing with grain merchants required not only flying banners and making connections through wining and dining, but also paying high prices. Costs were extremely high. Of course, compared to current northern grain prices, it was still very low, but going to the countryside now was even cheaper!
So the steward became absorbed in rural grain purchasing. He simply told his subordinate assistants: “I’m entrusting this matter to you. Whatever price you purchase at, I’ll record it as 240 coins per shi for wheat and 280 coins per shi for unhusked grain.”
The assistants’ eyes lit up. This meant if they could purchase wheat and unhusked grain at lower prices, they could pocket the difference. Currently, local Jiangnan grain merchants were paying small farmers between 180 and 200 coins for wheat, and between 220 and 250 coins for unhusked grain.
As long as they offered prices slightly higher than local grain merchants while keeping them below the steward’s purchase price, they could make money.
So the assistants quickly calculated and each took money to go out.
Of course, they didn’t dare go out alone to purchase. They all formed teams of several or a dozen people. Otherwise, if they encountered bandits and weren’t locals, that would truly be a case of appeals to heaven going unanswered and appeals to earth finding no response.
But village small farmers didn’t have much surplus grain to sell either. They always had to keep enough for the family’s food supply and pay grain taxes—only the remainder could be converted to copper coins.
So three days later, after the steward inventoried one batch of grain for shipment and wanted to purchase more, he found he could no longer collect grain from nearby villages. His gaze then fell on the gentry landlords.
But having tasted the benefits of eliminating middlemen, he was quite unwilling to pay high costs to purchase grain again. So he had a private conversation with the remaining assistants and immediately sent them off.
A Chun was a seventeen-year-old youth from Sanjiang Village. Wearing straw sandals, he quickly crossed the field ridge and ran home, excitedly telling his parents: “Father, Mother, those grain buyers from the north have come again.”
His father frowned, his face expressionless as he said: “Our family has no more grain to sell.”
“I know. I want to go with them to collect grain.” A Chun said: “They said as long as I help transport and move goods, they’ll give me ten coins a day. If I can introduce households to sell them grain, they’ll give me two more coins for every shi collected. Father, I want to go with them.”
The man frowned and said nothing.
A Chun’s mother worried: “Could this be a scam?”
A Chun felt anxious and said urgently: “I only have one life—what could they scam us for? Father, let me go. Big Brother just married, and we don’t lack people to work the fields at home. I’m useless staying home. I, I don’t want to end up like Uncle Twelve at the village end.”
Uncle Twelve at the village end, being the youngest child, was already twenty-three by the time his older brothers finished marrying. The family couldn’t produce money for his marriage, plus the brothers wanted to divide the household, so he was finally separated and given land at the village end. Because he was poor, he never married and lived alone his whole life, having very hard days.
A Chun had this feeling. He was seventeen, but the family couldn’t produce money for matchmaking.
Moreover, as the saying goes, a good man doesn’t eat division-of-household rice. He wanted to venture out on his own and not depend on his parents and older brother for support.
A Chun’s father remained silent for a long time but finally nodded in agreement. He turned to A Chun’s mother and said: “Make him some cakes to take along.”
A Chun became happy and couldn’t help giving a low cheer.
A Chun’s father said: “Now all the villages except landlord households have no surplus grain to sell. If you want to find grain, go to the landlord households’ stewards.”
A Chun understood. They often worked for nearby landlords and were familiar with their stewards. He was even acquainted with several masters.
These small landlords liked hoarding some grain. When selling grain, they also preferred dealing with local grain merchants. However, they didn’t sell everything at once either. After all, grain prices dropped after autumn harvest. They generally sold in batches, with some even keeping grain until the following March or April to sell to grain merchants during the lean season for a better price.
A Chun led the Zhao family assistants to seek out such small landlords.
Some stewards, seeing the price, gave them some grain. Others refused no matter what, but the assistants didn’t panic and raised Zhao Hanzhang’s banner.
For the sake of Zhao Hanzhang and the court, quite a few small landlords were willing to sell grain to them. Some even hoped the Zhao family assistants could introduce them to the Zhao family stewards.
Zhao Hanzhang—she was currently Jin’s foremost powerful minister. Being able to establish connections with their stewards… they could laugh in their dreams about that.
A Chun led them from village to village, becoming increasingly familiar. By the time they collected the third batch of grain, he decided to follow the Zhao family assistants to Yu Province to have a look. Many local young people shared his thinking. Oh, they were all found by the Zhao family assistants to guide them.
Young and strong, doing much work for low wages—a dozen people’s monthly wages combined didn’t cost as much as treating one city grain shop steward to a meal. The Zhao family assistants were very satisfied with this. The Zhao family steward was also very satisfied. A Chun and the others, having made money and found a better path forward, were also very happy.