Chapter 765

The scene pulled back to the hidden study of the Xiazhou Governor's Office, which was brightly lit with candles; Zhang Wenqian was sitting in front of a small mountain of account books and bamboo slips, his fingers rubbing his eyebrows, which were sore from staying up all night, with force.

On the long yellow pear wood desk in front of him, a top-secret proposal for establishing the Xiazhou official trade fair merchant house was spread out, the paper densely written with various preliminary strategies for price regulation.

Chen Yan had taken off the dark robe he wore in the hall during the day and changed into a set of moon-white soft casual clothing; he carried a cup of hot, thick tea and walked leisurely to the side of the giant northern military sand table in front of Zhang Wenqian.

He used his fingertips to slowly outline an invisible trade barrier line on the fine sand of the sand table, dividing the entire Great Zhou border corridor into two distinct areas of interest extraction, and then laid out his grand economic map that far exceeded this era.

Zhang Wenqian put down the wolf-hair brush in his hand, looked up at the complex lines on the sand table, cupped his hands in salute, his tone revealing an instinctive conservatism and worry about unknown risks.

"Pillar of State, if we completely abandon the merchant exchanges of the people and forcibly implement a state-monopolized trade, I fear it will provoke a joint boycott by the merchants of the world. If they cut off the supply of southern silk and tea bricks, wouldn't our Xiazhou trade fair become a source without water?"

Chen Yan listened to this worry that was stuck in traditional merchant thinking, smiled, placed the cup of thick tea on the wooden frame at the edge of the sand table, and the porcelain bottom colliding with the wood emitted a dull "da-da" sound.

"Old Zhang, you think too highly of the backbone of those profit-seeking merchants. Merchants value profit and care little for parting; as long as there is enough profit in this trade fair to make them crazy, even if there is a mountain of knives and a sea of fire ahead, they will sharpen their heads and drill into it."

He bent down and picked up a wooden block carved into the shape of a copper coin from the bamboo basket on the ground, threw it at the sand pile representing the grassland tribes at will, and the wooden block smashed a shallow depression on the sand surface.

"I will teach you an unheard-of way to make money today. This is called a scissors differential. As long as our Xiazhou official merchant house tightly holds the export power of strategic materials that the grassland barbarians rely on for survival, such as pig iron, table salt, and tea, and forcibly raises the price ten times to sell to them."

Chen Yan grabbed another handful of scattered yellow earth and slowly sprinkled it from between his fingers around the wooden coin, demonstrating the absolute control of the Great Zhou border to the other party in such a concrete way.

"Those barbarians will buy these life-saving materials even if they have to smash pots and sell iron to keep from freezing or starving to death in winter, or to keep their weapons from turning into scrap iron. They have no qualification to bargain at all."

He patted the dust on his hands, supported his hands on the desk, and in those abyss-like eyes flickered financial predatory wisdom that made people's hair stand on end.

"At the same time, we use the advantage of the only legal acquisition channel of the official government to extremely lower the price of acquiring those grassland warhorses, cattle, and sheep fur. By eating from both ends with one high and one low, we can crazily drain and squeeze out the wealth accumulated by the grassland tribes for hundreds of years without shedding a drop of blood."

Zhang Wenqian's breathing gradually became heavy as he heard this; his brain, which was proficient in calculation, operated rapidly for a few laps before finally understanding the power of this terrifying predatory means, and he supported himself on the desk to barely stabilize his swaying body.

"This method is simply pulling the firewood from under the cauldron. Not only can it fill the Xiazhou treasury, but it can also trap those barbarians in this mud pit of poverty and weakness for generations, unable to turn over."

Chen Yan picked up the tea cup again and took a sip; the hot tea flowed down his throat, stirring up the ambition in his chest to include the entire world in his game.

"To ensure that this extremely unequal predatory trade can be carried out without interference, add a death law to this proposal for me, and set up ten execution platforms specifically for skinning and stuffing with straw in the square outside the merchant house."

He turned around, with his back to the jumping candlelight, his tall body casting a broad, dark shadow on the wall that was irresistible like a killing god.

"Any private merchant team that dares to bypass the official merchant house to conduct private contraband trade must not only have their goods confiscated and turned over to the state, but the leading merchants and guards must be executed on the street, and their corpses air-dried and hung on the execution platform for people of the world to observe."

Zhang Wenqian nodded forcefully, hurriedly grabbed the brush, dipped it in thick ink, and filled in this ban full of bloody smell on the blank space of the top-secret proposal word for word.

Chen Yan did not stop there; he walked to a sandalwood box beside the bookshelf, lifted the lid, and took out a brand-new copper coin trial-struck by the Xiazhou mint workshop.

He flicked the copper coin in front of Zhang Wenqian, the copper coin spinning on the desktop for several laps before slowly stopping, revealing the four traditional characters "Great Zhou Universal Currency" engraved on it.

"Just earning that little price difference is not enough to fill the stomachs of our Xiazhou's tens of thousands of troops. You draft another proclamation, requiring all merchants entering the Xiazhou trade fair, whether buying or selling, to use this kind of currency cast by our official government for transactions."

Chen Yan pointed to the copper coin with an unusual luster on its surface, not hiding his own insidious calculation of eating people without spitting out bones, and put the final fatal noose on this economic battle.

"This copper coin is mixed with 30% inferior gold and lead blocks used to make up the numbers. As long as the exchange ratio with pure gold is forcibly stipulated, we can collect a terrifying seigniorage tax in this invisible way, and the wealth of the world's merchants will continuously flow into my pockets through this copper coin."

Hearing this poisonous scheme that completely subverted the traditional cognition of gold and silver transactions, the wolf-hair brush in Zhang Wenqian's hand could no longer be held, and it fell onto the carpet with a "pop" and rolled far away.

His brain was completely washed by this kind of financial harvesting means that had never been seen before, and he was shocked to realize that this kind of calculation without swords and shadows was even more vicious than Lu Ming leading the iron cavalry to launch a slaughter on the grasslands ten thousand times over.

Once this dimensionality-reduction economic battle was fully unfolded, the treasury of the entire Xiazhou Governor's Office would be filled to a terrifying degree that would make any enemy state tremble within just half a year, enough to support all the military actions Chen Yan conceived on the Central Plains land next.

Zhang Wenqian knelt on the ground in excitement, performed a highest-standard grand ceremony to Chen Yan, shouted that this plan of the Pillar of State was a kingly divine art that had never been seen before or since, and then rolled up the proposal with trembling hands and covered it with the red seal of top-secret.

At the same moment that the Xiazhou economic web was completely woven in the study, a few rhythmic light knocks on the door frame came from outside the study.

A confidant of the Mingjing Si who was exuding cold air pushed the door and entered, knelt on one knee, and held high a secret report just urgently sent by carrier pigeon by the Embroidered Attire Envoys on the Fengshen Pass side.

Chen Yan took the secret report and unfolded it; when his dark gaze swept over the real buyer information of the smuggled goods written on it, a violent killing intent that wanted to swallow the other party alive instantly rolled up in the depths of his eyes.

He looked at the prominent clan name located in Lingzhou on the secret report, which was familiar to the point of gnashing teeth and had repeatedly opposed him in the court, and clenched the note into a ball.

Chen Yan walked to the fire basin, sneered, and threw the secret report into the jumping fire charcoal, watching the handwriting full of evidence of crime turn into ashes in the firelight.

"Since this group of old immortals in Lingzhou have washed their necks so clean and rushed to send themselves to death, if I don't fulfill them, it will make our Xiazhou Governor's Office look like it doesn't know how to treat guests."

He looked at the rising black smoke, the mocking smile at the corner of his mouth becoming increasingly cold and stern, his voice carrying the crisp sound of breaking bones.

"Then don't blame me for using the heads of you fools and the blood of your whole family being executed to sacrifice for the grand opening of our Xiazhou official merchant house."