Gu Yanxi loved watching A’Zhi like this — so confident that she seemed to glow from within, making everything feel a little less impossible, even when he knew how very difficult it truly was.
“What is the second part?”
“The greater burden must still come from the nation.” Hua Zhi spoke as she gathered her thoughts. “The seven daily necessities — firewood, rice, cooking oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea — the most important of these are rice, salt, and tea. Let’s start with tea. Tea prices have always stayed high, and there are entire nomadic peoples who cannot live without it. At the black market near Yinshan Pass, tea bricks fetch a price comparable to gold. You would know better than I how many tea bricks are transported to the steppe each year. If we could seal off that channel entirely and take hold of that line ourselves, the silver to be gained would be considerable. That is one channel of revenue. And then there is my own tea — you’ve tasted it, so you know it would find a market. This would be a trade catering only to the wealthy, and the sums flowing in and out would not be small.”
She took a sip of tea and continued. “Then there is salt. Salt is actually a business with quite low costs, yet official salt sells for eighty cash per catty — at its peak it reached as high as one hundred and twenty. Private salt trades around fifty, so naturally the common people will buy what is cheaper. I’ve never looked into how much salt tax the court collects per year, but I imagine it is not a great deal. Go and investigate any official overseeing salt administration at random, and you’ll find them swimming in wealth — because private salt is theirs. Selling public salt for private profit is standard practice.”
Gu Yanxi nodded in silence. The Seven-Lodge Division had personally intervened to regulate this before, but it was impossible to stamp out for good. At most there was some improvement for the period of their crackdown — but the Seven-Lodge Division could not stand watch over this one matter forever, and in the end the matter was simply allowed to run its course.
“You have a solution, A’Zhi?”
“I have a method for producing salt — far more efficient than the current boiling method. With output high enough, half the problem is solved and the price comes down on its own. As for the other half…” Hua Zhi tapped the table with her knuckles. “Suppress private salt entirely.”
“How?”
“If the court were to open a new salt production site — one that yields more than all private salt sources combined, and at a low price, say ten cash per catty — what room would private salt have left to breathe?”
Gu Yanxi frowned. “Is ten not too low?”
“It’s not low at all. A common laborer makes roughly ten cash for a full day’s work. One catty of salt costs them a day’s wages. Where is the allowance for that? Salt is a consumable — it must be eaten every single day. If we could funnel all of that revenue into the court’s hands, the figure would be staggering.”
“And if someone learns your method of producing salt and also sells at a low price?”
Hua Zhi smiled. “Make an example of them, and the rest will fall in line. They are newcomers to this method. To compete for market share they won’t coordinate with one another, so they’ll move at different times. Let them see the court’s resolve, and they’ll understand on their own whether their head or their silver matters more.”
Gu Yanxi had fully followed A’Zhi’s line of thinking by now. He turned it through from beginning to end in his mind and gave a slow nod. “It is workable.”
“The people running the salt operation will need to be chosen carefully.”
“The Seven-Lodge Division will take charge of it.”
Hua Zhi raised an eyebrow. “The Seven-Lodge Division can take on that kind of work?”
“I expect the Emperor would agree readily enough.”
True enough — as long as the canal funds were accumulating, he would open every door. Hua Zhi gave a short, contemptuous laugh. Old but not dying — that was what they called someone like the Emperor.
“Then there is grain. Whether Great Qing, the Chaoli tribe, or any of the smaller kingdoms — all of them are perpetually short on grain. Only the Yan Kingdom has grain to spare for trade, and that is entirely because of their geographic advantage — they can grow three harvests in a year.”
“Yes, only they can. The late Emperor attempted to learn from them — conducted trials specifically on the estates near the capital — and not even two harvests could be managed, let alone three.”
“The location was wrong. The capital is not where to try. It should be in the south — Jiao Prefecture, Jing Prefecture, or Yang Prefecture could also be attempted. The cold comes late there; the ground doesn’t freeze as hard, and the thaw comes earlier in the spring.” Hua Zhi tapped the table with a bent finger. “Find a way to bring some of their farmers over — by persuasion or otherwise. They have the experience, and they’ll know what to do.”
“Excellent.” The tension in Gu Yanxi’s face had eased somewhat for the first time. “With sufficient grain, there is much more we can do.”
“Yes. The border soldiers would be fed enough to train properly and raise their swords against the enemy. And the laborers digging the canal would not go hungry.” Hua Zhi glanced toward the window. “A pity it’s too late for this year.”
“Just right,” Gu Yanxi said quietly. “I think it is just right.”
Hua Zhi thought about it — and indeed it was just right. They needed time to gather the manpower too. Come next year, everything would be ready to use.
“And then there is water transport and land transport. Not long ago I shipped a load of fresh seafood from Zhenyang to the capital, and by the time it passed through every checkpoint the cost came to nearly eighty taels. A normal run would not exceed ten. That means seventy taels out of every eighty simply vanished. As for land transport, the toll stops are even more numerous — which is why everyone would rather swallow their complaints and take the water route. Even with the fees, a single trip carries more cargo, and that at least makes it worthwhile.”
Gu Yanxi had heard something of this but not realized the scale of it. His brow furrowed sharply. “If a shipload of goods is only worth a hundred taels in total, must seventy still be handed over?”
“Not quite — they charge according to the goods. The more valuable the cargo, the higher the levy. A boat of oranges from Yangzhou to the capital would only run about ten taels or so.” Hua Zhi thought of toll roads in later times — billions collected in a single year. Was it not the same principle here? Only here it was far easier to pocket what should go to the state. If there were an effective system to keep those officials in check, the money would flow into the Ministry of Finance instead, and would the treasury not be full?
Her head was beginning to ache dully. She paused and lowered her gaze to her tea. She had not run out of ideas — there were many more paths — and if pursued under official backing, things would move even more smoothly. The logistics trade was one example. But a meal must be taken one bite at a time, and a road must be walked one step at a time. She also could not reveal all her cards at once — if the Emperor thought the matter was easy, he would take her contributions for granted and then find new ways to make things difficult.
One thing at a time. Gu Yanxi had already formed a clear picture of where to start. But one more difficult problem remained, more pressing than all the rest. “If there is hope for the funding, what about the manpower? Money can be earned. But there are only so many people — you can’t conjure more from thin air.”
“For now I can only think of using silver to recruit willing workers.” This was still the question troubling Hua Zhi most. She could produce money; she truly could not produce people. “What about having the local authorities drive the convicts out to the work site from across all the prefectures?”
“Workable, but still far too few.” Gu Yanxi pushed his tea over to A’Zhi and held out his empty cup to Shao Yao. She obediently got up to have Liu Xiang pour a fresh one.
“If we make use of black powder, the shortage of manpower could be compensated for.”
Hua Zhi paused, instinctively wanting to refuse — but under the present circumstances this genuinely might be the only option.
Gu Yanxi took her hand. “I know you have never been comfortable with this. But A’Zhi, you know it cannot be avoided. It is already in use at Yinshan Pass. We need it to protect ourselves.”
“I just fear the day when our own descendants get beaten into the ground by the very thing we ourselves created.”
But it had to be done. Hua Zhi felt the full weight of that helplessness — she needed to keep herself alive first before she could spare any thought for descendants yet to come.