In the half-month that followed, Pei Shaojin entered the palace daily to play chess with the Emperor — four or five games each half-day, until the fingers pinching his pieces had nearly grown calluses.

The Emperor had ordered him not to throw games, and so the Emperor would deliberate carefully before placing a piece, only to pick it back up a moment later on a whim.

It could only be described as “raising one’s hand and reversing.”

This made the Emperor miss his chess days with Pei Boyuan all the more — evenly matched, neither willing to yield.

The ruler and his subject chatted idly as they played. The Emperor said, “That old stubborn Chen Gongda has now told me five separate times to transfer you to the Ministry of War, Zhongya. What are your thoughts on the matter?”

Minister of War Chen had his eye on Pei Shaojin — that was nothing new, and Shaojin himself had heard the rumors.

Years upon years of his teacher’s instruction had taught Pei Shaojin that a man who only theorizes about warfare from books may flourish briefly but cannot endure for long. If he truly intended to walk the path of military affairs, he ought first to go out and gain practical experience before entering the Ministry of War.

Only then would his footing be sound.

Pei Shaojin replied accordingly, “Having never witnessed the perils of a frontier pass or garrison, how would this subject dare speak rashly of military matters?”

The Emperor smiled upon hearing this, thoroughly gratified.

He did not pursue the topic further, and instead said teasingly, “We have heard that these past days, when you enter the palace, your carriage and horses thunder through the streets with quite a commotion.”

Pei Shaojin answered plainly, “My elder brother is in peril, and this younger brother lacks the ability to help. I can only use the occasion of playing chess to borrow Your Majesty’s imperial authority on his behalf, to ease some of the pressure on him.”

“Are you blaming Us for not exonerating Boyuan?”

“This subject would not dare.” Pei Shaojin’s expression was composed and respectful, yet the words from his mouth were: “My elder brother has done nothing wrong to begin with — how would Your Majesty exonerate him for that?”

“You are even bolder than your elder brother,” the Emperor remarked.

These two brothers of the Pei family seemed vastly different in temperament on the surface, yet beneath it all, they bore a certain resemblance.

Pei Shaojin’s piece landed at the same moment the Emperor finished speaking — one decisive move that encircled a cluster of white. The Emperor hurriedly snatched up the black pieces and tossed them back into Pei Shaojin’s bowl, muttering, “How did you manage to play a move while we were talking serious matters? That doesn’t count, it doesn’t count.”

Outside Qianqing Palace, a number of officials had come to request an audience, and could only stand together waiting in the courtyard with no other recourse.

No matter who arrived, Chief Eunuch Xiao would smile pleasantly and say, “His Majesty and Secretariat Drafter Pei are presently discussing matters of importance. Please await your summons outside the hall.”

In the cotton weaving workshops of Hejian Prefecture, new cotton gleamed white as snow; fluffed cotton was soft as cloud; the weavers bustled busily, and the clatter of looms filled the air.

Powered by water, enormous spinning machines twisted out coil after coil of fine thread; powered by human hands, flying shuttles wove the cloth, yard accumulating into bolt.

In former times, a single bolt was difficult to produce even in two days; now it took but half a day — the output spoke for itself.

Pei Ruozhu and her husband, worried about delaying her younger brother’s great undertaking, had made a special journey out of the capital to Hejian Prefecture to personally assess the progress.

Batch after batch of undyed cloth was sent to the dyeing workshops, emerging the color of azure sky against pale moonlit white, or the pink of spring peach blossoms; the drying yard fluttered with cotton cloth of all colors moving in the breeze.

When Pei Ruozhu saw the storehouses nearly filled to the brim with bolts of every color, she finally felt at ease, and instructed, “Send word to the Lin household — inform Elder Brother-in-law Lin that the fleet may now set out to collect the goods.”

A full hundred thousand bolts of newly woven cotton cloth needed to reach Shuang’an Prefecture before October — not a moment’s delay could be permitted.

Ever since the weaving workshop’s cotton cloth had made a name for itself, over the past two years, more and more Shanxi and Huizhou merchants had traveled great distances to place orders, and however much was woven could be sold. This year, to reserve a full hundred thousand bolts for her younger brother, Pei Ruozhu had politely declined all other orders, devoting her entire effort to weaving cotton cloth for Pei Shaohuai.

She told the cloth merchants to come back after July — before June, there would be no cloth to sell.

In the sixth month, melon vines grow long; in the height of summer, lotus flowers bloom fragrant. In the sixth month of the northern lands, the south wind blows strong and the north wind is scarce, so large ships traveling south along the Grand Canal often had to wait a considerable time before catching a northerly wind — far more time-consuming than in winter.

In the city of Hejian Prefecture, outside the Grand Canal ferry crossing, dozens of flat-headed large ships were moored along the embankment, making the broad river seem somewhat crowded.

Flying from tall poles aboard the ships was none other than the Lin family’s banner.

Bolts of cloth were loaded onto the ships in an endless stream, pressing the vessels deeper and deeper into the water. A hundred thousand bolts of cotton cloth, dozens of large ships — this was by any measure a grand undertaking, but Pei Ruozhu and Lin Yuan had chosen to load the cargo in Hejian Prefecture, keeping a low profile, and scarcely anyone in the capital took notice.

In the evening, when a northerly breeze finally came after much waiting, ten ships set off first from the crossing, sailing southward along the Grand Canal.

The remaining vessels would have to wait a few more days for the next northerly wind before departing.

This was something Pei Shaohuai had specifically instructed in his letter.

At the same time, in Shuang’an Prefecture, the moment had ripened — and it was now Pei Shaohuai’s turn to take command of the situation.

The news of the pirate chief Xu Wu’s capture needed no deliberate dissemination; word had already spread through every back alley, until all of southern Fujian knew. There was no need to fabricate stories either — what the common people composed themselves was far more vivid.

In the city of Quanzhou Prefecture, the townsfolk were fiercely supportive of their own prefect, attributing the credit to Xie Jia, and the exaggerated tales spread from person to person, growing more elaborate with each retelling — which suited Pei Shaohuai perfectly.

Out on Xun Island, a band of greedy thieves and base wretches who had lost their leader needed no great expectations placed upon them for any show of “chivalrous courage.” First came word that they would marshal the entire island’s forces to attack Jiahe Garrison and rescue their chieftain — yet those scattered pirate vessels had barely made their way into Shuang’an Bay before catching sight of Jiahe Garrison’s dark-tailed warships, and promptly turned and fled without a trace.

Then came word that they would seize the Prefect of Quanzhou and demand a reckoning — yet the island’s second-in-command, third-in-command, and fourth-in-command each harbored their own schemes, leading their respective “brothers” into a factional brawl.

The entire Xun Island collapsed into chaos from within, without a single attack.

At the moment, Pei Shaohuai was occupied with the grain situation and had no time to mount an assault on Xun Island, so he simply left them to bite and tear at each other until they crumbled into disarray.

This interval was also to be considered an opportunity for the bandits on the island to “turn back from the wrong path” — once Pei Shaohuai freed up his hands, that opportunity to “return home” would be gone.

Shuang’an Bay, at the site chosen for the harbor.

A vast stretch of open ground had been cleared and leveled, but not a single brick or tile had yet been laid — it stood empty and bare. In the summer heat, wild grass grew rampant, and with no one tending to it these past few days, the site had begun to show signs of desolation once more.

On shore: untamed grass, sprawling and wild. At sea: wind and waves, vast and boundless.

In the fifth and sixth months, when the southerly winds began to blow, the first vessels to sail into Shuang’an Bay were not the merchant ships of the Qi, Bao, or Chen families — they were the grain merchants’ boats from Chaozhou Prefecture, large and small alike, carrying varying amounts of grain.

All of them had come chasing silver.

Pei Shaohuai had not suppressed the price of rice; throughout southern Fujian, rice prices stood four times higher than in other regions. Under such generous profit, even through a thousand obstacles and ten thousand hardships, merchants would take the risk to transport grain.

In the marketplace, the only force that could stop a merchant in his tracks was the absence of profit.

With the grain transported by the Chaozhou merchants, the panic and unrest in the various prefectures and counties eased considerably, and rice prices began to fall — from four times the normal rate down to twice.

Even so, though the prices had dropped, a doubled rate was still beyond the reach of impoverished households; left with no other choice, they could only spend the price of a bowl of rice to purchase the grain for a bowl of porridge instead.

Fortunately, Shuang’an Prefecture’s merchant fleet returned at this very time.

Free from the harassment of Japanese pirates and the interception of sea bandits, and aided by Jiahe Garrison’s warships providing an escort, the fleet’s homeward journey at sea was remarkably smooth — no dangers encountered at all — and they returned with holds full of grain.

In the bay, the waves lay calm; the homecoming ships were like herons returning to their nests, berthing in an orderly and timely fashion.

In the holds, burlap sacks were stacked one atop another; the moment they were opened, a musty grain smell wafted out, making one want to sneeze. Porters worked through the night, hauling the grain off the ships, then loading it onto ox-carts and horse-carts to be transported back to the city.

The people, seeing these cartload after cartload of grain, found their hearts at ease.

The clan elders finally understood why, before the fleet had set sail the previous year, Pei Zhizhou had repeatedly urged them — bring back grain, every last ship carrying nothing but grain.

As expected, the Prefect had foreseen all of this, planning a full year in advance, divining the enemy’s moves before they were made.

The following day, the grain shops in Tong’an City and Nan’an City opened their storehouses to sell rice. Prices stood only ten percent above the previous year’s — fair and honest, earning only the wages of hard labor.

Common folk from the surrounding counties and prefectures streamed into Shuang’an Prefecture to buy rice.

Unscrupulous merchants attempted to hoard goods and drive up rice prices once more.

Little did they know, Pei Shaohuai not only refrained from intervening to stop them — he actually instructed the Qi, Bao, and Chen families to continue releasing grain in ever-greater quantities, as if to say: “You dare buy it, and I dare sell it.”

Outside the Shuang’an Prefecture harbor, ships returned in an unceasing stream, each one carrying a full load of grain. No one could guess how many more such vessels remained. No one knew how much grain Pei Shaohuai held in his control.

The more aggressively Pei Shaohuai released the grain, the more uncertain the opposing side grew — for once autumn harvest arrived in a certain month, last year’s rice would become aged grain, worth nothing.

Stockpiled in the storehouses, it would only bring losses.

In less than half a month, grain shops throughout southern Fujian stopped sitting on their rice and refusing to sell, and rice prices gradually settled back to their ordinary levels.

After all, southern Fujian had not been short of grain — someone had deliberately sat on their grain stocks to manufacture the shortage. As long as grain kept flowing in, the scheme naturally fell apart on its own.

Though rice prices had fallen, the scheme was not yet entirely undone, and Pei Shaohuai could not afford to let his guard down.

Rice prices were but one ring in the opposing side’s nine-linked chain.

That day, Pei Shaohuai dressed in plain ordinary robes and deliberately walked the streets to gauge the mood of the people, the better to prepare his response.

Pei Shaohuai remembered that the previous year at this time, the “opening of Shuang’an Bay to fishing” had already drawn swarms of inland merchants pouring into Tong’an City. They had come bearing porcelain, silk skeins, paper, tea, and other sought-after goods, hoping to negotiate favorable prices, and the entire city had been bustling and lively.

At night, lanterns burned bright as day, and the clamor continued without cease.

This year, however, the great families had erected blockades to cut off the waterways, bridges, and mountain roads, leaving inland merchants with no route to travel — trapped in their inland towns with no way out — and goods had ceased to flow.

And so, where last year crowds of merchants had thronged the streets of Tong’an City, this year only empty inns were to be seen — quiet and desolate, none of the prosperity of the year before.

On the main streets, far fewer people stood in line to buy rice. Previously, it had been a matter of no rice to buy; now it was a matter of no money to buy rice with.

Pei Shaohuai saw that people were bringing the Taide money exchange’s paper notes to buy rice, yet a single string of notes could only purchase a few pecks of grain. Some grain shops had even hung signs outright declaring they would only accept copper coins, silver coins, and silver ingots — paper currency and bank notes were refused.

Once a money exchange lost its credibility, what followed was a swift collapse in the value of its notes — yet it was the common people who bore the consequences.

Pei Shaohuai walked on. He saw a grain shop’s back door receiving several large cartloads of freshly delivered grain, with shop workers preparing to spend money to hire porters to unload the rice sacks and carry them inside.

In ordinary times, this kind of unloading work was short in duration and modest in pay, and few people were willing to take it. Those who sold their labor preferred to seek work at the docks, where they could work a full day at a stretch.

Yet today, a group of darkly tanned men sat on the blue stone steps along the street, crouching half-idle in conversation. When they saw the grain cart approaching, their chatter ceased abruptly. They sprang to their feet, and before the cart had even come to a stop, they had already surged forward, scrambling to take the job.

These men were not tall, nor were they particularly strong — some even looked rather thin, wearing nothing but a coarse hemp vest on their upper bodies, clearly men who made their living by physical labor.

In this city, there was now too much labor and too little work.

The shop worker had a cunning thought. He called out: “Whoever quotes me the lowest price, that’s who I’ll hire.”

After a scramble of competing bids, a short man at the outer edge raised his hand and jumped up shouting: “I’ll take just seven coins!”

Not even a tenth of the usual going rate.

The others turned to glare at him. Competing for work was one thing, but a fellow laborer undercutting the price this severely — what livelihood would any of them who sold their strength have left?

The short man’s eyes shifted away, knowing he had acted without decency. He bowed his head and said quietly, “Brothers, please let this one go to me — my old mother at home is still waiting to buy medicine…”

The others shook their heads and dispersed, settling back down on the stone steps along the road, watching as the short man exerted every ounce of strength to unload the rice sacks one by one and carry them into the grain shop.

And yet, even if he did get this job — what of it? Seven coins to unload a cartload of rice wasn’t even enough to pay for a meal, let alone buy medicine.

After this one job, would he perhaps take the next one for six coins?

Doing work at such rates would kill a man.

If things had been like previous years, with goods flowing in continuously from all regions into the coastal areas of southern Fujian, with constant unloading and loading, one would have struggled to find enough porters — how could there ever have been a day when porters couldn’t find work?

And in the places Pei Shaohuai could not see — the common people who had lost their livelihoods, how many more were there beyond these few porters before him?