Chapter 80: Business License

In this parallel timeline, history had not changed before the transmigrators appeared. So if you push the clock back forty-five years from 167, a major event in Japanese history still happened on schedule.

The Honnoji Incident — on the first day of the sixth month of 158, Oda Nobunaga, at the height of his power, was betrayed and ambushed by his subordinate Akechi Mitsuhide and forced to commit suicide at Honnoji in Kyoto.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, the future founder of the Edo Shogunate, who was in Sakai Town at the time with only a small retinue arranging the purchase of firearms, swiftly received word of this. Note: the intelligence was provided to Ieyasu by a powerful Kyoto merchant named Chaya Shirojiro Kiyonobu.

Ieyasu faced the greatest crisis of his life: the "Iga Crossing." News of the Honnoji Incident had already spread throughout Iga, and order had collapsed into utter chaos. Desperate to return to Mikawa Okazaki Castle, Tokugawa Ieyasu had no choice but to risk the Iga mountain paths, which swarmed with bandits thick as ox hairs. Yet the wealthy merchant Chaya Shirojiro Kiyonobu accompanied him the entire way, using lavish gifts and generous payments to plead along the route, telling the fleeing samurai: "Grant Lord Ieyasu safe passage." In the end, Ieyasu reached Ise Shirako Beach safely and boarded a ship back to Okazaki Castle.

In a sense, Kiyonobu was Ieyasu's savior. The moment Ieyasu stepped onto that boat, the fusion of Edo's Lü Buwei and the Shogunate's Shanxi merchant was born.

From then on, Chaya Kiyonobu served as the Shogunate's agent in Kyoto, wielding immense intelligence and financial power.

His descendants, serving as Shogun retainers, saw their influence only grow.

The third-generation Chaya Shirojiro Kiyotsugu was the first to receive Ieyasu's Red Seal Ship trade license, becoming the vanguard of Japan's internationalization in the early Edo period.

Later, Kiyotsugu also obtained privileges under the Shogunate's "Silk Allocation Policy" — a Japanese version of unified silk purchase and sale. The Chaya Family served as both referee and player: they controlled the unified purchasing, and they controlled the unified selling. They made money with insane greed.

Throughout the sixty-plus years of the Edo Shogunate, the Chaya Family rose and fell together with the Tokugawa Family, truly sharing in the nation's fortunes.

The horse-faced samurai Dongye Shangche, who was publicly humiliated by Cai Feiming, is a retainer of Chaya Docho, the current Family Head of the Kyoto Chaya Family. He is a Red Seal Ship captain and a professional Factory Manager.

Four hours had passed since the Japanese village was broken into. Dongye Shangche stood at the entrance of the Governor's Office in Dayuan, watching the idiot pirates bustling in and out. He could only lower his head slightly now, concealing the hatred in his eyes.

Dongye Shangche knew that he did not have many days left before his seppuku.

The Ming Nation pirates sent slaves and laborers, who emptied the village of all goods and silver yesterday. The Japanese now have nothing; only some rice remains in the deserted village.

Early this morning, the pirates made a show of summoning Dongye and the other cargo owners to the Shang Hall. A chubby pirate clerk led them through an inventory of the goods, then used a peculiar scale to weigh all the silver bars.

After issuing a cargo manifest, the fat pirate told them with a beaming smile: from now on, all Japanese trade in Dayuan will use advanced "receipt-based" transactions. Therefore, for the silver bars in the Warehouse, the pirates will exchange them for equivalent paper currency for their owners based on the silver content. As the first group of merchants to enjoy this convenient policy, Dongye and the other cargo owners can all receive trade qualifications issued by the pirates and obtain a Business License (free of processing fees).

As for that paper currency, the fat pirate told them with some embarrassment: the currency is still on its way to Dayuan. Since the Japanese aren't in a hurry to leave anyway, he will first issue everyone a White Slip as a receipt.

Dongye and the others were now at the entrance of the Governor's Office, waiting for Wang Liguo to issue them their White Slips. None of them were carrying weapons — firearms, tanto, and short blades like daggers had all been confiscated yesterday. The remaining long-handled samurai swords were not permitted by the pirates to be brought into the Shang Hall.

Dongye Shangche, whose understanding of the Ming Nation far surpassed that of the transmigrators, now saw clearly what game the Transmigration Company was playing: they would ship in a lot of Ming Nation Treasure Notes, then enact some seemingly legal rules, and silently turn the silver bars the merchants brought into their own.

Dongye had long since given up hope on those silver bars. All he wanted now was to get his Red Seal Ship back, salvage as much deerskin as possible from these lying, greedy, and cunning pirates, and then return to Kyoto in disgrace. After reporting everything before his Family Head, that would be the moment to wash away his shame — how he wished some noble lord would serve as his kaishaku.

Just as the horse-faced samurai was lost in his fantasy of the exquisite Thirteen Forms of Seppuku he had designed, Cai Feiming walked out and ushered these Japanese merchants into the official residence.

Inside the residence, several Company higher-ups were already standing in a fairly formal manner. Wang Liguo stepped forward first to issue the Japanese merchants their White Slips on behalf of the Company — the Company's current reserves consisted only of some A4 paper, with nothing else in terms of printing, so only White Slips were available, stamped with the personal seals of Xia Xianze and Wang Liguo.

Then came the issuing of Temporary Business Licenses: squares cut from white corrugated cardboard boxes, with the license holder's name written on them in colored marker, along with permission for that person to conduct trade in Dayuan for the 167–168 period. This one bore an additional personal seal of Cai Feiming.

Next, Cai Feiming, representing the Company, announced several business regulations that had been discussed yesterday: including the future unified purchase and sale of deerskin, the mandatory exchange of precious metals, and the taxation of all goods currently held by the Japanese.

Hearing this, the several Japanese merchants turned ashen-faced.

Of course, there was also good news. Cai Feiming announced with a beaming smile: after deliberation, the lords have decided to waive punishment for the Japanese having previously secretly harbored retainers (sheltering Bandanese and fishermen); additionally, all taxes evaded by the Japanese in Dayuan before 167 are also forgiven.

The Japanese remained ashen-faced.

The carefully prepared scene was a bit awkward. Frowning, Cai Feiming walked up to Dongye, jabbed his chest out of habit, and demanded: "You bastard, with terms this good, why do you still look like your father just died?"

"Please stop mocking the merchants, Cai-san! Though I did not wish to step forward, no one would be happy with these trade terms."

Cai Feiming tapped the corrugated cardboard in Dongye's hand with his finger: "You have no idea how valuable this thing is?"

"Hai, perhaps I was careless. I will store it properly!"

Cai Feiming, his eyes full of doubt, stared at Dongye, whose face was full of resentment and grievance and who clearly did not take the Business License in his hand seriously, and began to ponder.

The next moment, Cai Feiming whipped his head around and stared at a person behind him, asking: "Director, when you took inventory today, didn't you take the Japanese to see our own Storehouse?"

Wang Liguo blinked his eyes, trying hard to recall: "Oh, it seems someone mentioned it to me yesterday. Heh heh, I was busy with the accounts this morning and forgot."

Cai Feiming slapped his forehead twice with his palm, silently cursed "dog officials" twice, then half-pushed, half-shoved the group of Japanese merchants to the door of the Company's own Storehouse.

While waiting for the storekeeper to open the door, Cai Feiming gently pulled the White Slip from Dongye's hand and shook it wildly back and forth in front of him: "Everything inside can be exchanged with this piece of paper. You idiot samurai, what kind of lowlife scum do you take the lords of the Ming Nation for?"

Ten minutes later, Dongye Shangche burst out of the Storehouse and prostrated himself before Cai-san: "Please show no mercy, punish Dongye ruthlessly, Cai-san! I beg you!"