“Think about it—your large household, in the dead of winter cooking meals, heating water, warming the stove, you’d have to burn six or seven hundred coins’ worth of firewood and charcoal each month. If you take four hundred coins’ worth of coal briquettes from the warehouse, see if it’s enough to burn for a full month. If it’s not enough, you can come back and spit in my face…”
“If the coal briquettes are enough, from now on take coal briquettes to offset your monthly interest. If they’re not enough, come back next month and not only can you spit in my face to vent your anger, the money shop will also calculate and make up the full interest to you, and that first month’s coal briquettes will be counted as a free gift…”
“Of course, for this interest, whether you choose coal briquettes, money, rice and grain, or even other goods our warehouse has, it’s all fine. We won’t force anything. The reason we calculate interest in coal briquettes, rice and grain, preserved meat, cloth, tea, even wine and medicine is first because our conversion prices are cheaper than what you’d buy on the market—we’re giving you the benefit. Second, it tells our neighbors that our warehouse and money shop collect money to actually do business, actually have methods to make money from money—only then can we pay interest to everyone monthly…”
“We’re all neighbors here. You’ve seen with your own eyes since the beginning of the year what scale and standing our warehouse and money shop have. That we now have the confidence to put out the Third Imperial Prince Linjiang Marquis’s name means this is genuine…”
“If you’re worried about being deceived, you can personally go to Fengxiang Avenue in front of the Linjiang Marquis household to see the notice, then decide whether to invest your money…”
“When you lend money to others, you fear they’ll default. Do you think the Third Imperial Prince would default on you?”
“Think about it again—if you take these ten thousand coins to buy land, could you even get one mu of first-grade paddy field outside the city? Even if you could acquire one mu of paddy field and hand it to tenant farmers to cultivate, how much rent do you plan to collect? Two dan of grain would be quite generous, right? That could be hulled into one dan and two dou of polished rice, couldn’t it? But if you invest ten thousand coins in our money shop, you can directly take the annual interest as polished rice—that’s five dan of polished rice. Calculate for yourself—how much is the difference?”
“Steel your heart and invest one hundred thousand coins. The annual interest would be fifty dan of polished rice. Go ask Mr. Zhou at the front gate—he’s also a proper eighth-rank official. Does the court give him fifty dan of polished rice in annual salary? If you entrust your money to our shop, your household is equivalent to supporting an eighth-rank official’s salary! Where else can you find such a good deal?”
Taking the warehouse’s first courtyard facing Lanting Alley along Zhilan Street, breaking through the street-facing courtyard wall, and obtaining the business permit from the Capital Prefecture’s Market Bureau, the newly established money shop was considered operational.
However, to truly launch with great fanfare, Han Qian had made many preparations in all aspects.
Although Zhilan Street was a street much wider than the alleyways and one of the southern city’s main thoroughfares, it was a dirt road that became muddy every rainy day. Along the street were mostly old-style ward compounds that hadn’t been opened up to form a dense pattern of street shops. The residences deep in the lanes were also all dilapidated, with few large estates. But since the money shop had to be adjacent to the warehouse, Han Qian could only make more efforts with the money shop itself.
On Zhilan Street in front of the money shop, the Left Bureau paid out of pocket to pave a forty to fifty-pace section with hemp stone pavement. They also moved two stone lions from a ruined temple in Taowu Town to decorate the entrance. The rammed earth courtyard wall was replaced with blue brick and white lime walls, adding a granite gateway, glazed tile deep eaves, and copper-clad doors. All at once, the money shop stood out magnificently on Zhilan Street, a crane among chickens.
The money shop clerks selected and trained in certain sales techniques, wearing silk and headbands, all had extraordinary appearances.
Yet this alone was far from enough.
Not counting the garrison troops of the Southern and Northern Courts, although Jinling city’s population was said to be nearly 500,000, official slaves and the slaves of various households alone accounted for at least half.
Deducting further the officials and the officers and their families of the Southern and Northern Courts’ two armies, as well as the eunuchs and palace maids in the palace, the actual number of ordinary citizens in Jinling city was only around 110,000 to 120,000.
Great Chu had been established for only thirteen years, and ten years ago Jinling city was still shrouded in the flames of war. The vast majority of Jinling’s citizens hadn’t forgotten the trauma of war.
Subsequently, to maintain the years of continuous warfare on the northern front, the court’s tax levies on households were extremely harsh. Combined with soaring prices, this made ordinary citizens in Jinling city live very hard lives with little surplus wealth in their hands.
In the three alleys of Lanting, Wuli, and Kaoshan, over 200 households lived densely packed. The money shop’s opening would most immediately affect these three alleys, but the total money gathered from households in these three alleys didn’t even reach 200,000 coins.
Clearly, to raise funds through loans, they still had to focus their efforts on wealthy households, large households, and even official households.
Han Qian and his group belonged to the Third Imperial Prince’s faction. Within Jinling’s power elite circle, they were currently in an isolated state. Han Qian didn’t expect the Wanhong Pavilion to help him promote this matter at this time, which made the roles of Feng Yi and Kong Xirong even more important.
Since Great Chu’s founding twelve or thirteen years ago, even most officials were rushing to acquire estates and residences, had to support servants and slaves, and still didn’t have much surplus wealth in their hands. Even the Han family a year ago was stretched thin supporting twenty household guards and their families, living paycheck to paycheck each month. Any occasional surplus of funds and grain had to be kept for emergencies—they weren’t well-off enough to lend out money for interest.
However, the officials controlling the court’s financial system—the Ministry of Revenue, the Salt and Iron Transport Commission, the Treasury Commission, and the Court of Imperial Treasury managing the imperial household treasury—these four departments’ officials definitely lived much more comfortably than officials in other departments.
Particularly the Salt and Iron Transport Commission—besides setting up checkpoints at strategic mines to collect transit taxes, official salt’s production, collection, storage, transport, and sale were all under its jurisdiction. Except for the Huaidong Salt Fields and Jinling departments, the salt officials dispatched by the Salt and Iron Transport Commission were spread throughout Great Chu’s fifty-one prefectures and over 300 counties.
Han Qian didn’t need Feng Yi and Kong Xirong to encourage very high-ranking officials to fall into the trap. He only needed them to help him spread word of the fundraising loan among these low-level salt officials of merely eighth or ninth rank and their subordinates and families—that would be sufficient.
This was also a circle the Feng family could influence, and these low-level officials wouldn’t be very sensitive to succession struggles.
Although half a month had passed since the trial operation and the money shop had only collected less than 2 million coins—still a great distance from the predetermined goal—Han Qian wasn’t dissatisfied.
After all, this money plus the remaining goods from the first batch transported from Xuzhou and distributed had already approximately covered this month’s deficit.
“Have you ever thought that once the workshops can’t sustain themselves, or if the Third Imperial Prince fails in the succession struggle, these common people you’ve deceived will see their life’s savings turn to nothing? Do you truly have no hesitation or unease in your heart?” In the back hall, Xi Ren saw another neighbor from nearby become swayed by the money shop clerk’s words and pour out half a satchel of copper coins onto the neck-high counter to be counted. Seeing Han Qian’s self-satisfied look, she couldn’t help mocking him.
Xi Ren had recently been helping Zhao Ting’er organize accounts and thoroughly understood the operations within the workshops and Left Bureau. She deeply knew that the Third Imperial Prince’s hope of succession success was actually not great. She secretly sensed that Han Qian had perhaps already placed more hope on operations in Xuzhou—after all, the craftsmen with true potential in the workshops who hadn’t yet received attention had all been sent by Han Qian to Xuzhou with Yang Qin and his group.
Theoretically, the weaving workshop and shipyard would be more suitable to build in Jinling. After all, Jinling’s demand for canvas, sailing ships, and vessels was much higher than Xuzhou’s. And except for timber, obtaining raw materials in Jinling was also more convenient than in Xuzhou.
However, Han Qian had no intention whatsoever of establishing a weaving workshop or shipyard at the Qiuhu Mountain workshops.
This indication seemed obvious enough to Xi Ren. She thought that even seeking refuge in Tanzhou would be a good choice for the Han Daoxun and Han Qian father-son duo when the time came.
However, this way, the money shop here would be completely and thoroughly a fraudulent scheme.
“Call it a fraud if you wish, but some of this fraudulently obtained money is being used to ransom Xi clan members. Can your heart bear it?” Han Qian stared at Xi Ren’s delicate face and asked with a smile.
Once the Third Imperial Prince failed in the succession struggle, the warfare three years later would very likely cause less than one in ten of the million-plus people inside and outside Jinling city to survive. The Jianghuai region would be devastated with corpses everywhere, a scene of utter desolation. Even if Han Qian caused hundreds or thousands of market households to go bankrupt, he wouldn’t feel any guilt.
It could even be said that when he struggled desperately for his own fate, he was also working hard to prevent this ancient famous city beneath his feet from sliding into the nightmare abyss of destruction. But if this outcome ultimately couldn’t be avoided and he had no choice but to retreat to Xuzhou, what could he do about it?
Should he feel guilty for a lifetime over this?
Han Qian didn’t have such spiritual fastidiousness.
If he couldn’t persuade his father, if Tanzhou also didn’t seem to be gaining momentum, if that fellow Ma Xun truly lacked the bearing of a sovereign—he would have secretly pledged allegiance to Tanzhou long ago. Did he really have to hang himself on the crooked tree that was the Third Imperial Prince?
Seeing that Han Qian could actually be so at ease with this, Xi Ren felt very contemptuous in her heart but found it difficult to refute.
In reality, the more vigorously Han Qian arranged operations in Xuzhou, at least in the early stages, the faster he would arrange for Feng Xuan to secretly ransom Xi clan members. This also allowed her to see the opportunity for the Xi clan to revitalize.
Of course, Han Qian offsetting interest with goods from the workshops seemed to Xi Ren a relatively clever approach. At least it could ensure in the short term that the money shop’s fraudulent scheme wouldn’t be exposed, and goods from the workshops and even the fleet transported from Xuzhou could have a direct distribution channel that could continuously expand.
With over four months of preliminary preparation work laid down, in this half month or so the stone dam at the upper source of Peach Stream River was quickly completed. Besides the coal fields continuously building more water-powered coal crushers, the workshops also planned to build three new water-powered mill houses within the manor by year’s end, capable of hulling fifty dan of rice and flour daily, in order to more fully utilize the reservoir that consumed enormous manpower and material resources.
In this era, grain was cheap but rice was expensive—hulling losses were a key reason.
Using treadle hammers, one person couldn’t sustain the effort long before becoming exhausted. Stone rollers and mills weren’t much more efficient either. Using animal power was much better, but keeping mules and horses was still an expense small households couldn’t afford for the time being.
Hulling rice was manageable, but grinding wheat into flour was even more troublesome.
This was a vexing matter even for middle-class households with two or three slaves.
Even mainly supplying rice, flour, and coal briquettes, the warehouse still couldn’t meet demand in the city.
However, the Left Bureau truly had too many people to support, and all had to be supported as elite troops. Whether the workshops or boat gang, even if their scale doubled again, their output would be difficult to sustain such large consumption.
If the money raised through the money shop’s loans were all used to expand workshop production and fleet transport scale, the monthly four fen interest might be more sustainable. But the key was that a considerable portion of this money was being diverted by Han Qian to fill the deficit from supporting people. If this wasn’t a fraudulent scheme, what was it?
“You’re really missing a crucial thread in your brain,” Han Qian said, seeing Xi Ren’s small face still gloomily turned away. He reached out and pinched her cheek. “With your brain, you probably can’t figure it out on your own, but you might consider this—when this fraudulent scheme has tricked enough people onto the pirate ship, who among them would hope to see the Third Imperial Prince fail in the succession struggle and lose everything?”
“Ah…” Xi Ren’s mind suddenly turned this corner. She suddenly realized that in Han Qian’s hands, the money shop was far more than just fraudulently raising money. She looked at Han Qian in shock, even forgetting to swat away the hand with which Han Qian had taken liberties.