Losers have no rights whatsoever—this is certain in the imperial family. The Yun family is different. Yun Huan ambitiously wanted to extend his family’s reach into Liaodong, but the merchant caravans he sent out suffered terribly unfortunate fates.
As an old hand who had conducted business in Liaodong for many years, Old Cui in Yuezhou strongly supported his master Yun Huan’s plan to enter Liaodong once again. Ever since Li Er’s campaign against Goguryeo, the Yun family had withdrawn all their forces from Liaodong to avoid suspicion, withdrawing very cleanly. Since then, they had never sent another merchant caravan there.
Now that the war had subsided and after these years of recuperation in Liaodong, people’s livelihoods were slowly beginning to recover. After all, what the empire needed was land with production, not an uninhabited zone.
Ginseng, sable fur, and wula grass—these three treasures were very important to the Yun family. Many shops in Yuezhou needed to use them, especially wula grass, which was the best filling material. The Yun family’s furniture store had extremely high demand for this item every year.
Old Cui understood that entering Liaodong now would certainly be very difficult, so he had no plans to get involved with ginseng and sable fur, which had extraordinarily high profits. He only wanted to open a shop to purchase wula grass, process the wula grass locally, then transport it back to Chang’an or Yuezhou for secondary processing, allowing the cheap wula grass to fulfill its true function.
As soon as the shop opened, it was squeezed out by everyone. No matter how Old Cui used merchants’ methods to lower his posture and tried to integrate into the local commercial system, the result was no effect whatsoever.
The shop failed to acquire even a bit of wula grass in autumn, and they couldn’t even gather enough shop assistants. Old Cui was not anxious, believing this was others squeezing him out, giving him a bit of a warning. After the New Year passed, things would improve.
After the year passed, the situation indeed changed. The necessary personnel were recruited, and agreements were established with many rural farmers to purchase wula grass in autumn. As long as they waited until autumn, everything would fall into place naturally, and the Yun family’s first shop in Liaodong would take root. Business had to be built up slowly—entering Liaodong on a large scale would frighten the local merchants.
Just when Old Cui received the first batch of goods and was producing on a large scale, the wind changed direction. A nighttime fire burned every single blade of the hundreds of thousands of loads of dry grass the Yun family had stockpiled in the grassland, leaving not a strand remaining.
This was a man-made disaster. Old Cui, who had conducted smooth and successful business for so many years, could no longer suppress his rage. He went to the Gewu Province Governor’s Office to demand answers, requesting they apprehend the culprit and compensate the Yun family for their losses.
The Gewu Province Governor’s Office was indeed swift and decisive. Within ten days they caught the culprits—three Mohe people. After the Mohe people confessed their crimes in front of Old Cui, they were beheaded on the spot by the Gewu Province Governor’s Office, which counted as avenging the Yun family. As for the proposed compensation, if the Yun family was willing, they could take over all the property of these three Mohe people, including their wives and children.
Old Cui trembled with anger but could find no fault with the authorities. The culprits the authorities wanted were caught, the compensation the authorities wanted was given. As for Old Cui looking down on those few dark-skinned savages, that was Old Cui’s business and had nothing to do with the authorities.
Having seen great storms and waves, Old Cui understood what was happening. So he simply tore off the facade and warned all merchants and those overt and covert forces—this one time, no more examples. If there was a next time, it would be impossible for three or five savages to come forward and take the blame to dissipate the Yun family’s anger. At that time, even if they wanted to reconcile, they wouldn’t have such an opportunity.
Very quickly, the Yun family’s fodder piles gathered together again. The entire workshop for pounding wula grass was already working in an orderly manner. The first batch of pounded wula grass had already been packed hard, loaded onto ships, and sent down the Liao River. After entering the sea, they would finally land at Dengzhou, be transported to Zhuozhou, and finally arrive in Chang’an. After secondary processing in Chang’an, they would ultimately be sent to Yuezhou.
When Yun Ye first learned that the Yun family wanted to transport grass from Liaodong to Yuezhou, he was extremely shocked. However, after repeatedly weighing his son’s intelligence, he believed he wouldn’t have fathered an idiot, so he didn’t interfere. He let Yun Huan go ahead and tinker, just wanting to see what exactly his son intended to do.
What happened next was even more shocking—the Yun family’s fleet was robbed on the Liao River. This time it wasn’t just the wula grass; even the ships were set ablaze by the bandits.
The only good thing was that the assistants on the ships were unharmed. After being thoroughly searched and stripped clean by the robbers, they were driven ashore. After experiencing countless hardships, they finally returned to the Liaodong main store to report the entire course of events to Old Cui.
After Old Cui flew into a thunderous rage, he returned to the rear hall and wrote a letter to his master Yun Huan with a face full of smiles, reporting everything that had happened here. Originally, Old Cui had planned to set fire to his own family’s fodder and ships himself, but now outsiders had done it for him. This situation was truly too wonderful.
Thus, the Yun family’s second young master, carrying thunderous fury, planned to personally make a trip to Liaodong to personally ask the local officials why they governed Liaodong in such a way that bandits were everywhere, leaving law-abiding merchants with no way to survive.
When passing through Chang’an, he made a special trip to pay respects to his grandfather and parents. Huahua also came back with him, but the child was now quite clumsy with her large pregnant belly. Originally all smiles, Xinyue, upon seeing this sight, didn’t wait for Yun Huan to kowtow to her before she gave Yun Huan a thorough scolding. How dare he bring a woman six months pregnant through the Jinniu Road?
Yun Ye drank tea while looking at his son and sighed, “Your actions still lack grandeur. You should have burned down the main store. Although the Yun family doesn’t like to use their own family members as sacrificial pawns, losing some property is still acceptable.”
Yun Huan felt a bit embarrassed as he massaged his father’s shoulders while saying, “Liaodong is only one place. Your son now wants to extend our family’s reach into western Liao. Although it’s wilderness there, the furs and ginseng there are the best. These two commodities have great profit margins, and your son is somewhat reluctant to give them up.”
While enjoying his son’s attentiveness, Yun Ye pointed at the map of Liaodong and said to him, “This is exactly why I say you lack grandeur. Our family doesn’t operate pharmacies or fur businesses. The reason these two things are valuable is precisely because they’re rare! Rare things cannot form a grand scene. At most you can earn some money, but you can’t form a certain scale. Without forming scale, your influence in the locality is insufficient. Clever merchants now pursue the right to speak—that is to say, they pursue their right to speak in a certain place in a certain trade, working hard to make themselves rule-makers. Only by becoming such a merchant can you possibly become a formidable merchant. Otherwise, you’re just earning some money.”
“Your father has always been puzzled why the Liaodong iron mines haven’t developed over all these years. What’s the reason? Huan’er, when you go to Liaodong to make your show of force, actually investigate what caused the decline of the iron mines. These years, the smoke from the steel smelting at Chang’an’s iron foundries has never stopped, yet steel is still in short supply, and prices remain high. Meanwhile, Liaodong guards such a huge iron mine yet does nothing. The most remarkable thing there is they also have coal mines. As long as there’s iron and coal, building a huge iron foundry there is no problem. If you have the ability to establish an iron foundry there, you won’t need to borrow your old man’s prestige to live decently. The face you earn yourself is what truly belongs to you. Right now, you’re nothing but a wastrel.”
Yun Huan stopped massaging his father’s shoulders and said, “The Zhangsun family used to run an iron foundry back in the day. Their family went bankrupt—can others really succeed? That thing doesn’t make money!”
Yun Ye looked up and laughed heartily. He laughed for quite a while before stopping, causing Xinyue and Huahua to poke their heads out from the rear hall to peek. Seeing the father and son conversing happily, they withdrew their heads.
“What business does Zhangsun Wuji know how to do? He opened an iron foundry and only knew to use steel and iron to forge weapons. As long as the military didn’t need so many weapons, and武研院 monopolized the remaining military equipment manufacturing, his family’s iron foundry could only go manufacture farm tools, kitchen knives, and iron pots. Expecting to make money from these things that any blacksmith shop can make—their heads must have been kicked by a donkey. It was inevitable that the iron foundry would close.”
“Doing business requires strong innovation ability. Clinging to the old and broken is waiting for death. They failed to find an outlet for their own steel—they deserved to close their doors. Son, remember this: steel is a good thing at any time. Slowly you’ll discover that it’s like grain and salt—an indispensable necessity. Especially now in the Great Tang, the demand for steel simply cannot be satisfied by the few iron foundries in Chang’an.”
“Everyone says the Ten-Mile Iron Foundry already produces enough steel for the entire world to use, but that’s not true! Son, when in the future all vehicles and ships are made of steel, do you think they can still supply enough?”
Yun Ye had mentioned some of his ideas to his son before, and they had also learned about the prospects of ships from Li Tai. Now, hearing his father bring up the old topic again, Yun Huan half-closed his eyes and thought for a moment before saying, “Father, do you really think the steel business is very profitable? What if we lose money?”
Yun Ye laughed again, patting his son’s shoulder and saying, “If you plan to do it, then do it. What the Yun family worries about now is having too much wealth, not too little. In your mother’s treasury, many silver coins are starting to turn black again. If the Yun family doesn’t produce a spendthrift and only produces elite figures, the Emperor won’t feel at ease. So son, go ahead and squander boldly. Your father is Chang’an city’s famous spendthrift. Back in the day, your grandfather worried endlessly about your father’s spendthrift behavior. Now who dares say your father is a spendthrift?”
“Your son feels Father is still a great spendthrift right now…”
“Ha ha ha ha…”
The father and son’s conversation was warm. Xinyue and Huahua tilted their heads listening to their father and son’s conversation. When they heard their father-in-law wanting his own husband to become a spendthrift, Huahua couldn’t help but become very anxious. She stood up wanting to reason with her father-in-law. Others feared their father-in-law, but Huahua did not. At worst, she’d get a scolding for saying something wrong. Looking down at her protruding belly, she felt even more confident.
Xinyue indulgently patted the back of Huahua’s head and said, “Silly child, when has your father-in-law ever done anything wrong?”