Chapter 206: An Inch of Silk, an Inch of Gold

The next day.

Every izakaya and restaurant was packed with Dutchmen selling delivery vouchers.

In the first few days, the market still had sentiment to support it, and with the Shimazu and Matsuura houses stepping in to absorb supply, voucher prices held steady and even rose somewhat. But as the Dutch only sold and never bought, panic began to spread through Hirado, and many, fearing their vouchers would find no buyers, joined the selling frenzy. That very day, voucher prices fell.

Three days later, prices were cut in half, dropping to 30 taels per dan, and the next day they fell to 25 taels per dan.

Inside the Portuguese trading house in Hirado.

The three senior members of the Great Ming Treasure Fleet were comparing maps, scouting a site for their own trading house.

"What about this spot—the waterfront district of the castle town?"

Lü Zhou said, pointing toward the Hirado docks.

"It's close to the harbor, commerce is thriving, unloading and shipping are convenient, and it'll make it easy for us to take over Li Dan's holdings."

Bai Qing shook his head. "This place is too small, and too close to the commercial hub—no room to spread out. The helmsman said we need a site with plenty of open ground, easy to defend, not too remote, and preferably with a harbor."

Lü Zhou pointed to the southeastern corner of Hirado Harbor. "Then there's only one place—the area around Tōmi-no-hana. Mountains behind, sea in front, and a deep-water harbor. Unfortunately, that's where the Dutch trading house stands."

Bai Qing said, "Why don't we report this to the helmsman and wait until the Dutch are driven out before building our trading house?"

Lü Zhou sighed. "I hear the Dutch have been dumping vouchers lately and made a killing. Driving them out won't be easy. Old He, what do you say?"

He Sai sat by the window, gazing at the rain-soaked city of Hirado, and said, "This is just a panic-driven correction. Prices will definitely rise again." Bai and Lü exchanged a glance, both wearing helpless expressions.

He Sai said bitterly, "Madam Bai, I know the helmsman said we're not allowed to touch the vouchers, but they're this cheap right now—if we don't buy, we're just handing the Dutch a gift!

In my view, we should size up the situation and adapt to circumstances. As the saying goes, 'When the general is in the field, he may decline the sovereign's orders!'"

Lü Zhou laughed. "You use that allusion better than I do—you sound more Ming than I do."

Bai Qing shook his head. "The helmsman strictly forbade us from trading in these vouchers. He must have a special reason—it's not simply about silver.

I can report the situation to the helmsman, but until he gives the word, no one is to buy or sell!"

"Fine." He Sai sighed. "The Eagle Ship takes half a month round trip—by then the opportunity will have passed...

Hey! Raw silk prices haven't dropped—only voucher prices have. That makes no sense! They're bound to rise again, and this time they'll surge violently!"

Amid He Sai's muttering, Bai Qing wrote up a report covering the trading house site selection, the Dutch dumping, and the voucher price crash, and sent it off with his men aboard the Eagle Ship. Seven days later, just as He Sai had predicted, the Dutch bought up vouchers in massive quantities at the market low.

Voucher prices reversed and shot upward, rocketing from 20 taels per dan to 32 taels per dan that very day, and reaching 54 taels per dan the day after.

The speed of the rise was simply beyond belief.

Using the 120,000 taels they'd earned from selling two thousand dan of vouchers, the Dutch bought back over three thousand dan.

Their assets had directly reached 162,000 taels.

In just a few days, their assets had grown by 35%, and were still climbing.

The Dutch were astonished to discover that this made money far faster than maritime trade!

Of course, where there are winners there are losers—what the Dutch gained this time was exactly what the daimyo and Hirado merchants had lost.

When the market was in turmoil, these people had all chosen to sell, and the Dutch scooped everything up at rock-bottom prices.

By the time they figured it out, the Dutch had already made a fortune—but in the process, they'd earned the resentment of every stratum of Japanese society.

Fortunately, after its fluctuation, the voucher market continued to climb, and confidence soared.

As long as everyone could keep making money, no one went looking for trouble with the Dutch.

The Nabeshima house of Hizen Domain, the Hosokawa of Kumamoto Domain, the Kuroda of Fukuoka Domain, and others all sent merchants to set up in Hirado, bringing over fifty thousand taels of capital. Hirado's raw silk voucher market grew ever more prosperous.

In the General's Headquarters on Nan'ao Island.

Lin Qian was reviewing official documents, his brows deeply furrowed.

On the desk lay a copy of the Capital Gazette and a battle report sent back by the Eagle Ship—both reporting the same matter.

In the sixth month of the fifth year of Tianqi, Ma Shilong fell for Hong Taiji's ruse to lure the enemy out, leading his troops on a reckless advance toward Yaozhou. East of the Liu River, he walked straight into an ambush.

Two thousand Ming soldiers were wiped out to the last man, and Ma Shilong died in battle.

At the same time, Hong Taiji ordered ships scuttled to block the mouth of the Liu River, trapping the Juehua Island naval forces—who had been assisting Ma Shilong's troops in crossing the river—inside the river, where they ultimately surrendered to a man.

This was broadly consistent with history, yet completely different in the details.

Clearly, after suffering two major defeats at Zhenjiang and Fuzhou, the Jianzhou barbarians had learned their lesson and focused their efforts on countering naval forces.

At the same time, with Amin dead and Manggūltai fallen from power, Hong Taiji's say had grown enormously—he could now influence Jianzhou strategy and tactics, changing the pattern of Nurhaci's late years, when blunder followed blunder.

On the Ming side, by contrast, the eunuch faction's endless impeachments, combined with the pressure of Xiong Tingbi's head displayed at Shanhai Pass,

had forced Ma Shilong into a reckless advance, producing a defeat even more disastrous than in history.

He recalled the days defending Fudu River, when Ma Shilong's forces and the Nan'ao navy had coordinated with each other.

And the victory feast beneath Shanhai Pass, where everyone had laughed freely and sung at the top of their lungs—what a joyful time that had been.

A pity...

Lin Qian couldn't help but sigh.

The Eagle Ship's battle report also said that after the Liu River disaster, Sun Chengzong had begged to return home, and the post of Supreme Commander of Ji-Liao had been given to Yan Mingtai.

That man was a eunuch faction member through and through. No sooner had he taken office than he halted all construction of the Guan-Ning defenses, using the silver saved to build a living shrine to Wei Zhongxian in western Liaoning.

There was no doubt that at this point in time, Wei Zhongxian's power was far greater than in history, and his methods of purging opponents were far more brutal. The sycophancy of local officials was likewise even more overwhelming.

By the time Ma Chenglie first took office, there were already two living shrines to Wei Zhongxian in all of Fujian Province.

That might not sound like many, but the cost of a living shrine was staggering—calling it building a palace would not be an exaggeration.

The two shrines in Fujian had cost no less than fifty thousand taels of silver, which by national standards counted as the low end.

Lin Qian ordered the two Fujian shrines demolished. At the same time, under Ma Chenglie's authority and Zhou Qiyuan's oversight, Fujian's officialdom was cleansed anew. The practice of building living shrines vanished completely from Fujian.

In neighboring provinces like Guangdong and Zhejiang, however, not only were shrines multiplying, but a competition of extravagance was emerging.

At this rate, there might be no need to wait for Chongzhen to take the throne—the Tianqi Emperor would have to hang himself from Coal Hill on his own.

To prepare for the coming catastrophe, Lin Qian needed more silver!

With maritime trade in hand, for him silver was food, was weapons, was the hearts of men!

The current public accounts held only one hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver.

To an ordinary person, that was an astronomical sum.

But to a separatist regime, it was a drop in the bucket!

Even one million five hundred thousand taels would be far from enough.

This was why the Hirado trade mission was so crucial.

Lin Qian had drawn up projections: the revenue from this trip to Hirado might reach around one million taels, with profits of roughly six hundred thousand taels.

The sharp rise in both revenue and profit was due to increased sales volume.

However, because they were simultaneously using delivery vouchers to counter the Dutch, the raw silk that made up the bulk of these goods would likely not be converted to cash until summer. Lin Qian had already ordered three whale ships, escorted by the Tianyuan, to anchor at Jiaozhou Harbor.

Once the winter monsoon arrived, they could use the northwest wind to sail downwind to Hirado.

On Lin Qian's desk also lay an official dispatch that Bai Qing had sent back from Hirado.

In his reply, Lin Qian approved the idea of seizing Dutch territory to build a trading post.

He relaxed the restrictions on the number of delivery vouchers that could be issued.

He also reiterated the principle that the merchant fleet was forbidden from participating in the buying and selling of delivery vouchers.

He Sai's judgment on the price trend of delivery vouchers had been correct, but Lin Qian had more sophisticated means of draining the silver of both the Japanese and the Dutch. There was no need at all to personally speculate in delivery vouchers and invite resentment.

After finishing his reply, Lin Qian called Ran Qiu over to send it to Hirado.

Ran Qiu was just about to leave when Lin Qian called him back: "What is the finest silk in the Great Ming?"

Ran Qiu answered without hesitation: "That would have to be yunjin brocade. It's a tribute item — I've heard even the dragon robes are woven from yunjin."

Lin Qian asked: "Is there any way to buy a bolt of it?"

The eighteenth day of the seventh month.

A violent typhoon swept through Hirado.

The wind and rain raged for three full days. The docks lost ten sections of trestle bridge, over a hundred houses were blown down, and more than thirty people were killed or injured.

During those three days, delivery voucher trading ground to a halt.

After the typhoon passed, contrary to everyone's expectations, delivery vouchers did not fall — they actually rose somewhat.

Every izakaya and restaurant was packed with Dutchmen buying up delivery vouchers.

The logic behind it was very simple.

East Asia had now entered typhoon season. For the next three months, virtually no merchant ships would be able to call at port.

That meant raw silk supply would hold steady at zero, while total demand remained unchanged or even rose — so the market price of raw silk would climb further.

Which in turn would drive delivery vouchers even higher.

The Dutch were pouring more and more capital into delivery vouchers. Not only did they inject all the trading post's existing funds into the market, they also mortgaged their trading post and warships to borrow money from the Matsuura clan to invest.

After the delivery voucher fluctuations in early July, the Dutch had discovered a startling truth: as long as one had enough capital to become the house in the game, one could manipulate the delivery voucher market price at will through buying and selling, and thereby harvest the other players.

The twenty-ninth day of the seventh month.

The Dutch had accumulated nearly three thousand piculs of delivery vouchers, and the market price had reached 61 taels per picul.

Chaya Jiro urgently came to consult with Bai Qing and the others — he had no idea just how many delivery vouchers the Dutch had hoarded.

But he had a vague feeling that the delivery voucher game seemed to have gotten out of hand.

If the Dutch fully established themselves as the house, that would be tantamount to handing them the scythe handle, letting them harvest Japanese silver at will.

Yet Chaya Jiro also dared not petition the shogunate to abolish the delivery vouchers — after all, a large number of vouchers were still held in the hands of Hirado's commoners, merchants, and the daimyo of Kyushu.

If they were abolished, the fury of the people and the daimyo would be enough to swallow the entire Chaya family whole.

That night, Chaya Jiro hurried to the Portuguese trading post and found Bai Qing and the other two, to discuss countermeasures.

After hearing Chaya Jiro's analysis, He Sai said: "That's simple. Just use the same method as the itowappu monopoly system — manage the delivery vouchers that way. Use the shogunate's silver to smooth out the voucher prices. Wouldn't that stabilize prices?"

Chaya Jiro was nearly in tears, and said hurriedly: "This matter has already drawn the shogunate's attention. I can't get any more entangled with the delivery vouchers — otherwise my head will be on the chopping block sooner or later."

He Sai stroked his chin: "Then this is hard to handle."

"Master He, please have some tea." Chaya Jiro, quick to read the room, poured him tea.

Bai Qing and Lü Zhou were also present, but they only had a superficial understanding of delivery vouchers, so they said nothing and quietly drank tea as company.

Chaya Jiro probed: "Would it be possible to ask your merchant fleet to step in and support the market?"

"No!"

"Absolutely not!"

He Sai and Bai Qing said in unison.

Bai Qing said with a stern face: "The fleet only issues delivery vouchers — it does not participate in buying and selling. That is an iron rule set by the Helmsman, and no one may violate it!" He Sai explained: "The Helmsman's righteousness reaches the clouds. The delivery vouchers were originally meant as a subsidy for your country's merchants. If we participated in the trading and profited from it, what would that make us?"

Chaya Jiro said: "Yes, yes, the Helmsman's intentions are excellent — even Lord Matsuura holds him in great esteem. But if good intentions lead to bad outcomes, I'm afraid this might…

Bai Qing narrowed his eyes: "Are you threatening us?"

Chaya Jiro quickly waved his hands: "How would I dare? How would I dare?"

He offered no further explanation, and the threat in his manner was unmistakable.

He Sai said: "Enough. I do have a solution!"

Chaya Jiro sat up straight, looking as if he were all ears.

"Issue new delivery vouchers!"

Chaya Jiro was about to interject but was stopped by He Sai's gesture.

"The Dutch have already established their position as the house. Why not enlarge the board and dilute the proportion of vouchers the Dutch hold?

At the same time, the monopoly warehouse can step forward and issue delivery vouchers in large quantities, cooling the market at price peaks and weakening the profits the Dutch could reap from dumping to crash the market. Then, the monopoly warehouse can use the profits from issuing vouchers to support the market at low prices.

That way prices won't fall too sharply, the market stabilizes, and after another round of fluctuations, the Dutch will find it hard to keep playing the house. Doesn't that resolve both dilemmas at once?" Bai Qing had raised his teacup to his lips but forgot to drink, utterly stunned by what he heard. Coming back to his senses, he nudged Lü Zhou with his elbow and whispered: "Old Lü, what did he mean by all that?"

Lü Zhou whispered back: "I have no idea either…"

"Yoshi, yoshi, yoshi!" Chaya Jiro's eyes gleamed with a thief's light as he praised endlessly, "This—this, this truly is a brilliant scheme!"

But then a worried look crept onto his face: "But the Dutch are about to dump theirs. Even if you brought delivery vouchers from the Great Ming now, it would be too late." He Sai shot Bai Qing a look.

Bai Qing understood at once and hurriedly said, "A few days ago an eagle ship docked, and it happened to deliver another four thousand dan of delivery vouchers."

He Sai said in a fluster, "What four thousand? Only two thousand!"

Chaya Jiro's face was full of joy: "Yoshi! With only six thousand dan of vouchers on the market now, injecting another four thousand will definitely drive the price down—perhaps even make the Dutch lose a hefty sum."

He Sai said, "You misheard. It's only two thousand."

Chaya Jiro: "I'll take all four thousand dan. Twenty taels of silver per dan—how about it?"

"There really are only two thousand."

"Twenty-five taels per dan. We're old friends—let's skip the haggling."

Now it was He Sai's turn to speak with a tearful voice: "We can't issue that many! If we do, when it comes time to take delivery next year, we're bound to lose money! Chaya-san, aren't you bullying an honest man?"

Chaya Jiro said, "Thirty taels! I can't go any higher. This is your caravan's contribution to the shogunate—the shōgun will remember you." There was a threatening edge to his words.

He Sai reluctantly conceded.

That very night, Chaya Jiro immediately brought over the silver to settle the transaction.

By this point, through issuing delivery vouchers, Lin Qian had accumulated a net profit of 241,000 taels.

After Chaya Jiro had left hauling two cartloads of paper, Bai Qing gazed at the silver chests filling the Portuguese trading post to the brim and said with emotion, "Over ten thousand sheets of paper, exchanged for over two hundred thousand taels of silver—have the wokou gone mad, or have the red barbarians gone mad… or have I gone mad?"

He Sai laughed: "Counting this batch, we've already issued ten thousand dan of delivery vouchers. At current prices, this paper is worth a full 610,000 taels of silver!" "This—" Bai Qing was speechless, choked with emotion. "I don't understand…"

Lü Zhou keenly spotted the problem: "Wait! The caravan only has nine thousand dan of raw silk… how can you issue ten thousand dan of delivery vouchers?"

He Sai's smile was inscrutable: "This is where the helmsman's brilliance lies. These vouchers were worthless paper to begin with. Never mind issuing ten thousand dan—what if we issued a hundred thousand? No one will ever come to redeem them!"

Bai Qing's head was spinning as he sighed, "No wonder the helmsman made you deputy caravan master. You really do have your uses!"

He Sai said indignantly, "What kind of talk is that! I've done plenty of bargaining for the caravan—how else do you think I learned all these idioms?" Two days later.

Chaya Jiro began dumping delivery vouchers. The first few days he was quite restrained—until the Dutch noticed something amiss and stopped buying.

The price of delivery vouchers had already fallen rapidly, and then the Dutch also began dumping in large quantities.

The price fell from its peak of 68 taels per dan, to 60 taels per dan, and then to 48 taels per dan—all within just three days.

Naturally, there were plenty of people who had borrowed to speculate, buying at the high and selling at the low.

But after the last fluctuation, all the players had learned to be shrewd.

Everyone realized that the market price of raw silk was still rising steadily, so the value of delivery vouchers tied to raw silk couldn't fall too far—there was bound to be a day when they would rise again.

Thus the market's trough turned out to be higher than both the Dutch and Chaya Jiro had anticipated.

It held at 45 taels per dan, refusing to fall further—in fact, showing signs of rising.

The price low point was precisely the best time for the big money to enter the market.

All the izakayas and restaurants were abuzz with rumors that a new daimyo had entered the game!

No one knew who the new daimyo was.

In fact, Shimazu, Matsuura, and all the other daimyo had joined the game through layers of proxies.

The flooding of Hirado delivery vouchers had already drawn the attention of Tokugawa Iemitsu—a man who was the third shōgun of the shogunate, ruling with an extremely hard-line style, sparing no effort to suppress rival daimyo and strengthen central authority.

The daimyo dared not stick their heads out, yet were unwilling to miss the chance to make money and grow stronger, so they went to great lengths to hide their identities, conducting their trades as if in a "dark forest."

At the same time, this rule of hidden identity gave new room for rumors to breed.

Every day the izakayas carried news of a new daimyo entering the market—by the total count of rumors, there weren't enough daimyo in all of Japan combined to cover them. The fifteenth of the eighth month.

An eagle ship arrived at Hirado harbor.

The yunjin brocade that Lin Qian had painstakingly acquired through layer upon layer of connections had finally arrived in port!

That bolt of yunjin was woven from top-grade lake silk, with gold thread twisted into it—under the sunlight it gleamed resplendently.

The yunjin was sapphire blue, adorned with cranes and cloud patterns, its colors shifting with extraordinary richness and complexity—dozens of hues in all.

The patterns were so intricate and exquisite that even fine-brush painting could not reproduce them. Had one not seen it with one's own eyes, no one would believe such a treasure existed in this world. Before such a marvel, even Kyoto's "Nishijin brocade" paled in comparison.

On the day the yunjin arrived in port, Hirado city was practically emptied of its people—within ten li of the harbor, the crowds were packed so tight not a breath of air could pass through.

Looking at the yunjin's radiance reflected on people's faces, all one saw was the same fervor.

After a full day of bidding, the yunjin was auctioned off at the high price of three thousand taels of silver.

Three thousand taels of silver converted into gold would weigh far more than that single bolt of yunjin.

To describe it as "an inch of brocade worth an inch of gold" had actually become an understatement.

This price exceeded the yunjin's intrinsic value by a hundredfold—the Hirado merchants were no longer paying for the yunjin itself, but for the bubble. Also arriving on the same eagle ship were six bolts of zhangrong velvet.

This silk was also a fine grade, though not quite top-tier—commonly used by wealthy merchants and scholar-officials of the southeast.

In Hirado, where silk fever had already ignited, even six bolts of zhangrong sold for astronomical prices.

When Bai Qing and Lü Zhou learned of this, they found it utterly beyond belief.

That evening, Hirado's Mid-Autumn festivities were held with extraordinary pomp—on a scale far surpassing Nan'ao Island, and even exceeding Nanjing city.

The delicacies, fine wines, beauties of the entire island of Kyushu… all manner of goods, every conceivable luxury, came surging toward Hirado.

From the harbor piers to the tenshukaku, from the toenails of the townsfolk to the strands of Matsuura Takanobu's hair.

Every pore of the entire city exuded decadent extravagance!

Inside the Portuguese trading post, He Sai trembled slightly with excitement.

Bai Qing called him over to eat mooncakes.

He Sai sat at the table and said to the two of them with great solemnity, "The Dutch are no match for the helmsman!"

Bai Qing laughed: "Of course not. These days the Dutch go out of their way to avoid our fleet."

He Sai slowly shook his head and pointed out the window: "I'm talking about that—this is a power far more terrifying than strong ships and sharp cannons!"

Bai Qing followed his pointing finger and saw only a full round moon hanging in the sky.

"Enough talk of power and might—let's eat mooncakes!"

Lü Zhou picked up a mooncake, clinked it against Bai Qing's, and laughed: "Cheers!"

The next day.

After the Yun Jin's arrival at port, the delivery voucher price hit a new high—75 taels per dan.

This sum was nearly exceeding the difference between the raw silk market price and one hundred eighty taels.

This meant the delivery vouchers had almost fully become asset-backed.

Rationally speaking, the players buying delivery vouchers were betting on raw silk's potential for continued appreciation.

But emotionally speaking, no one cared about the raw silk market price anymore—as long as the vouchers kept rising, this game could go on forever. Even Lin Qian, far away in Nan'ao, felt a secret unease upon learning of Hirado's frenzy.

The delivery vouchers were far more popular, and far more impactful, than Lin Qian had anticipated.

He had overestimated the caution and wariness of the Dutch and the Japanese, and underestimated human greed.

Lin Qian's original intention was to punish the Dutch, not to destroy Japan's commodity economy.

If the bubble were allowed to expand malignantly unchecked, it would inevitably explode like an atomic bomb!

Lin Qian could hardly send men to Japan to mine silver—if Sino-Japanese trade were blown apart and interrupted, there would truly be no winners left.

He had to pull back as quickly as possible!

Lin Qian signed a new order: "At dawn on the first day of the tenth month, three whale ships set sail for Japan!"

This order would be delivered by two eagle ships—one to Bailangzai in Jiaozhou, and one to Bai Qing in Hirado.

According to the latest intelligence relayed back, the delivery voucher price in the Hirado market had risen to 75 taels per dan, for a total value of 750,000 taels.

Lin Qian estimated that when the bubble burst, the total value of the delivery voucher market might reach one million taels, with total capital volume possibly between 700,000 and 900,000 taels. As a zero-sum game, this money would be distributed among the players—the daimyo, the merchants, the common folk, and the Dutch.

The losers would be doomed beyond redemption, but the winners wouldn't enjoy their glory for long either.

Because no matter who the final winner was, in the game at a higher level, Lin Qian was the only banker and the only winner.

In the end, all this money would flow into Lin Qian's pockets.

The jackpot was still accumulating...

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen