Chapter 165: Dung and Ashes of Those Years

The Beggar Sect's follow-up plan was about feces.

Throughout history, agrarian peoples have always placed extreme importance on feces, with countless records to prove it: "The dung of man and beast, along with stove ash and foot-scraped mud, is useless on its own, but once it enters the fields, it will transform into cloth, silk, beans, and grain."

And the developed plantation industry of the Jiangnan region also gave birth to a primitive urban-rural feces collection system.

As early as the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou already had personnel dedicated to collecting and transporting urban human waste. Hangzhou "had a multitude of households; the homes along the streets and alleys mostly lacked pit latrines and only used chamber pots. Every day, feces collectors would come and cart it away, called 'emptying the foot-bearers'... there were even boats loaded with garbage and fecal soil, moving away in groups to transport it."

... This was only the Song Dynasty, and already there were primitive feces distributors, "feces masters," and a primitive express delivery service, "feces boats."

By the Ming Dynasty, the collection and transport of fecal fertilizer in Hangzhou City had already seen great improvements. "The feces-carrying bearers, every day emptying chamber pots for other families' womenfolk, felt not the slightest disgust, only regretting that the chamber pots held so little cargo," and moreover, along the city roadsides there were feces pits (public latrines). These feces pits were often leased to wealthy farmers from the countryside, who regarded them as a "fundamental affair."

The scheme that Lu Cheng and Zhou Tong had in mind was precisely built on this.

At this current point in time, the spontaneously developed private fecal industry had already evolved to its peak; later on, in the Qing Dynasty, guilds called "Golden Juice Associations" would gradually spring up in the cities.

With guilds came large-scale distributors, a situation that would persist all the way into the Republic of China. The famous fecal factory owner of that time, Yu Deshun, sat on 1,500 mu of fertile land, owned over 100 properties in Beijing, and had deposits in banks across various countries...

When the "Beiping Shit Government" at the time tried to ban the "fecal tyrants," they were surrounded by 1,500 fecal laborers brandishing dung scoops... and the matter was dropped. It wasn't until the founding of New China that these people were smashed by the iron fist of the dictatorship.

The fecal business and the Beggar Sect were such a perfect fit — not only could it settle large numbers of refugees, it could also improve the urban environment and sanitation, providing political achievements for the authorities, and there was profit in it to boot. So much so that the very first moment Lu Cheng finished reorganizing the Beggar Sect, he had already discussed the implementation plan with Zhou Tong.

Now that conditions were ripe, with the "Street Cleaning" operation progressing smoothly, the Beggar Sect once again began mobilizing manpower to push forward this "Comprehensive Fertilizer Utilization" project.

First, as always, came diplomacy, then force.

All the "public latrines" along the streets began to be forcibly acquired, divided up by the various branch halls of the Beggar Sect. Those "Great Pit Masters," and even the "Second Pit Masters" who subcontracted from them, were met with a sound beating at the slightest sign of disobedience.

In fact, the ownership of these public latrines originally belonged to the authorities; what everyone was fighting over was that original "Lease Contract." As for the County Yamen? The Yamen only cared whether the monthly rent had arrived in the accounts; they asked no further questions.

Thus, the various "Pit Masters" with their meager strength could only wipe the blood from the corners of their mouths and, swallowing their hatred, sell the contract papers in their hands to the Beggar Sect.

Next came the "channels."

The true Gentry class would never meddle in such a stench-ridden business. Grain, silk, and cloth — these lofty, high-end businesses were where the Gentry clustered. As for the fecal industry, any official gentleman teased about it by a colleague would die of shame. The businesses the Gentry class meddled in were usually those requiring strong connections and large amounts of liquid capital; pawnbroking, an industry with a somewhat poor reputation but rich profits, was already the Gentry's bottom line.

The existing "fertilizer" purchasing and sales channels within Hangzhou City were scattered and chaotic, utterly without planning. Territories had formed over many years of primitive competition, roughly divided by streets and alleys. And the owners of these channels, just like those brothers of the underworld in later generations who fought in vegetable markets, train stations, and wholesale markets, were, in the 17th century, called local ruffians and bullies, Street Tigers, the Broken Boot Gang.

And now, the biggest bully of them all took the stage.

First, outside the city. At the foot of Phoenix Mountain, there was a patch of wild ground sheltered from the wind, which at some unknown time had been purchased by the Beggar Sect and converted into a fecal yard. On this wild ground stood a collapsed Weituo Temple, so the fecal yard was simply called Weituo Yard.

Recently, all feces boats coming out from inside the city began to be intercepted en masse on the moat — the cargo on board had to be unloaded at Weituo Yard.

Unloading the cargo was only the beginning: these boats that controlled the "fertilizer to the countryside" channels were all vital resources and could not be let go. All the boats were subsequently registered one by one, the boat owners were uniformly reorganized, and gleaming silver shares were stuffed into their hands — this was called forced shareholding.

After investigating the usual activity zones of these boats, the newly established "Fertilizer Company" began assigning each boat a designated area. From then on, these feces boats could only go to fixed areas of Hangzhou City to collect feces, then come to Weituo Yard to unload. Next, the feces boats would receive at Weituo Yard fertilizer that had been fermented using later-generation temperature-control techniques, and then transport it to designated villages for sale.

As for that gang of fecal tyrants inside the city, when the Beggar Sect first let the word out, everyone had been prepared to first observe the wind direction.

However, within a few days, Scholar Li died in a feces pit by the roadside.

This Scholar Li, in his daily affairs, monopolized litigation, engaged in money lending, bought and sold child entertainers, and dominated fecal routes — in short, his business scope was very broad. A member of the Broken Boot Gang, he was considered somewhat famous in the southern part of the city.

When word spread that the Beggar Sect was going to "unify control" over all the fecal routes, Scholar Li, as expected of someone accustomed to fighting lawsuits, instantly had a flash of inspiration. So, in recent days, he had begun secretly running around and making connections, intending to contact a group of "fecal friends" to petition the authorities, aiming to establish a "Fecal Association" before the Beggar Sect could, securing a legal foothold first.

In the end, Scholar Li died, dead in a feces pit not far from his own doorstep.

Scholar Li was in the standard "upside-down planted" posture, vertically inserted into the pit. After the Qiantang County Coroner completed the examination, he declared it a case of "losing one's footing and falling into a pit."

As for how Scholar Li, with an abdominal and back strength surpassing that of Guo Jingjing, shot up like a swimming fish through the air, then turned around and vertically inserted himself into a feces pit only a few dozen centimeters high from the ground — that remains unknown. Perhaps Scholar Li was an enthusiast of the half-meter diving platform, or perhaps he was a hidden inheritor of ancient martial arts; who can say?

In any case, Scholar Li of the southern city died with his grand ambitions unfulfilled, having lost his footing and fallen into a pit. His friends from the Criminal Division during his lifetime also helped authenticate the case, and his family members expressed emotional stability.

After Scholar Li of the southern city came Black Tai Sui of the northern city.

This Black Tai Sui was a tyrant of Wulin Gate in the northern city, keeping twenty or thirty elite, brawny ruffians under his command. His daily business involved running gambling dens and taking a cut, setting up checkpoints to levy water passage fees, and also doing "enforcer" work — in short, all trades that only a true man could handle.

Thus, there were still real men in the world after all. At a time when the various heroes of the northern city had fallen silent and the underworld was utterly subdued, Black Tai Sui, upon learning that these bastards wanted to seize the fecal routes in his territory, immediately mustered his forces that very day, gathered over sixty blooded elite fighters, and charged into Scout Field.

Scout Field was located between the Bao'en and Baohe wards inside Wulin Gate. In earlier years, troops had been stationed there, but now it was long abandoned, overgrown with wild grass everywhere, and served as the shared hall for the Beggar Sect's operations in these two wards.

In Black Tai Sui's calculations, his troop strength held the advantage — the fighting men in a Beggar Sect hall could at most number thirty or forty on a normal day. As for those refugees barely clinging to life on vegetable gruel, they were all combat strength 1 trash; Black Tai Sui did not count such wretches as people at all.

And then Black Tai Sui died.

The combat strength 1 trash, fed three meals a day of animal offal, mixed-grain rice, and boiled radishes, came charging up with a roar, raising their bamboo poles. Black Tai Sui and his men were instantly plunged into the vast ocean of a people's war.

No wonder the overall quality of the Beggar Sect was declining these days: these refugees, accustomed to fighting over water and land in the countryside, had absolutely none of the city folk's sense of restraint when they started fighting. Their quality was too poor — by the time Black Tai Sui was finally fished out, he was no longer recognizable in human form...

Black Tai Sui, the number one true man of Wulin Gate, paid a heavy price for helping the neighborhood empty chamber pots.

The big brothers of the underworld saw it clearly: it seemed there was no choice but to admit defeat now; better to sell the fecal routes for some cash and have peace of mind. There was no helping it — the collusion with officials and various rogue tactics these people usually relied on, effective for bullying ordinary folk, became useless when they ran into the Beggar Sect.

The Beggar Sect now operated like a corporation. In terms of official business within the yamens of one prefecture and two counties, let alone private connections, Zhou Tong was an unprecedented top-tier filial big spender. However the pharmaceutical companies of later generations handled the nurses, head nurses, and hospital directors, that was exactly how Zhou Tong handled officials at every level.

As for those underworld methods, they were not even worth mentioning: Scholar Li and Black Tai Sui never even got to see Group Head Zhou's face before being taken out by two moves, one soft, one hard.

From then on, the Beggar Sect's plan to acquire the entire city's fecal routes unfolded smoothly, and the political achievement projects Zhou Tong had promised the authorities also began implementation shortly after.

After taking over the entire city's fecal channels in one unified move, in fact, anyone from later generations who had done wholesale distribution of commodities like instant noodles or beverages knew very well what to do next: set up distribution points, divide up the areas, and deploy sales representatives to maintain the market.

Lu Cheng, a channel master who had sold Sprite and Master Kang, naturally found this aspect easy and pleasant. Inside the Beggar Clan Headquarters, a massive regional planning map now hung; every single feces pit and the number of chamber pots on every single street were meticulously marked. Whether it was the delivery guys carrying feces buckets on their backs or the area managers rowing feces boats, everyone was now a chess piece on the map.

At the same time, the first batch of fifty dry latrines also rose from the ground. These included renovations of previous open-air feces pits, as well as newly built ones on selected sites — one of the political achievements that a certain Zhou had promised.

The second political achievement was garbage heaps.

Public welfare undertakings including corpse collection, urban garbage disposal, and night watch patrols had originally been contracted out, half-heartedly, to Beggar Sect manpower. Now, under the Transmigrator's guidance, the large numbers of refugees being kept and fed would participate, full of vigor, in the work of urban garbage cleanup.

This is the 17th century; never mind cities like London and Paris, built on piles of dung — in fact, the cities of the northern regions, including Beijing, were much the same as those abroad.

The situation in southern cities like Hangzhou was a bit better, but only marginally so: enormous garbage heaps were visible everywhere in the city, and the authorities' abysmal administrative capacity was the chief culprit behind the frequent outbreaks of plague in various regions.

And this garbage was, in essence, all fertilizer — in the 17th century, there was no non-degradable petroleum or plastic. The garbage heaps in the city contained nothing but soil and organic matter. One must understand, this was an era when firewood and straw cost money to buy, and cloth scraps were used to stitch shoe soles. Garbage heaps, in the Transmigrator's eyes, looked more like fertilizer piles of decomposed soil.

In fact, Weituo Yard outside the city, equipped with temperature probes, was already thirsting with impatience.