Chapter 162: The General Store

In early July, the first General Store opened at Mazi Erdun in Weihai, selling grain, ready-made clothing, salt, ironware, tobacco, and tea. Its interior layout resembled a supply-and-marketing co-op from the 1980s — one person per counter, plus a shopkeeper and two cashiers. The shopkeeper was Li Ranzhu, who in a very short time had sorted out the chaotic preparations and essentially met Liu Minyou's requirements.

People had great trust in this semi-official store. All goods were clearly priced, and a fairness scale was placed at the entrance so buyers could verify for themselves without fear of being cheated. As a result, business was extremely brisk on opening day, while sales at other similar shops plummeted.

The General Store's grain prices were the same as those at the two other grain shops in the fortified village, and salt was bought directly from some of the settlement households at almost no profit. Making money from salt on the coast was very difficult — private salt was everywhere along the Shandong coast. After the mid-Ming period, the court had tried switching from the salt-certificate system to a salt-ticket system in remote and coastal areas, reducing procedures and selling salt directly by ticket, including in some parts of Wendeng. But unlike the interior, this place was surrounded by sea on three sides; private salt prices were very low, and many people boiled their own salt for personal use, so the reform had little effect. Many settlement households in Weihai boiled their own salt. After some consideration, the two men decided not to try to make money on salt at Mazi Dun for the time being, selling it at basically the same price as private salt, purely to attract customers and get them to buy other things while they were there.

Tobacco sales were also nothing to worry about. Quite a few people in the Wendeng area grew tobacco, and even more smoked it — men and women, young and old alike — all because it was widely believed to dispel cold and dampness. Combined with tobacco's addictive nature, it spread extremely fast in the north. Liu Minyou had even seen toddlers holding pipes and smoking.

In the south, places like Fujian processed tobacco into shredded tobacco, which was more convenient to smoke in a pipe. Northern craftsmanship was cruder, and most still used tobacco leaves made into broken chunks, so southern shredded tobacco was somewhat more expensive. Liu Minyou's current supply was also bought from Dengzhou. Although he opposed smoking, he could not convince anyone else. In the end, he could only set a rule that no one under ten could smoke. As for how effective it would be, he was not very optimistic.

Mazi Erdun also had a number of other shops open, mostly businesses belonging to various local bosses in Weihai, as well as some officials and gentry from Ninghai Department, and the same was true over at the Wendeng Camp. After Zhou Hongmo left, Chen Xin sent men to take over several official shops, but the two shops run by Zhou Hongmo's relatives were kept, because Chen Xin still needed Zhou Hongmo's help looking after his shops in Linqing.

Once the General Store opened, these other shops all grew somewhat nervous. Those dealing in the same products were on tenterhooks. Chen Xin was currently riding high, having just performed great merit in the imperial relief expedition, and no one wanted to offend him over business. They sent people everywhere to inquire about his intentions.

To those who came asking, Liu Minyou made it clear that they would only sell these few types of goods and would not engage in a price war with the other shops. This put most shop owners at ease, and there was no wave of closures.

Liu Minyou was full of confidence in the General Store's competitiveness. The consumer base at Mazi Erdun consisted mainly of three groups. First, the military, including part of the army and all the sailors. Second, the workshops and the counterfeit-coin workshop — these people all had decent incomes. The third group was the farming households. The earliest batch of farming households at Mazi Erdun had already been allocated land, twenty mu per household. Families with fewer members had a surplus beyond their own consumption. When they needed to buy goods, they had to convert their grain into silver to spend. Ordinarily, they would be fleeced twice: first, the grain shops all used rigged scales when buying, blatantly skimming off a portion; then, when paying, the silver used was often very debased. According to Huang Anshou from the counterfeit-coin workshop, there were over forty named types of fake silver. Unless one was an expert at an assay shop, the average person simply could not tell so many apart.

Therefore, Liu Minyou believed the most critical factor was trustworthiness. The General Store was officially run by Wendeng Camp, so its credibility would at least be far higher than that of ordinary shops. Farming households could exchange grain for money here and then immediately spend it at the General Store, reducing exploitation. Even from a purely profit-driven perspective, the farming households would certainly choose this place.

This model could both prevent grain from flowing out and stimulate other consumer goods. Once the farming households grew accustomed to this exchange model, they could then issue an internal currency through the General Store. The farming households could save it; this currency could be used to buy things at the General Store or exchanged for an equivalent amount of silver at the store. In that way, other shops would also accept this currency.

When the time came, they would switch the wages of the army and the workshops to this currency. Through this method, they would realize a preliminary internal financial framework. After expanding it to a certain degree, they would then launch savings services and spin off that financial function from the General Store.

For these farming households and craftsmen who never traveled far, all they dealt with were the land and daily necessity shops. As long as the General Store's credit was sufficient, even paper money could be issued.

On the military side, the second batch of troops returning from Tianjin arrived in Weihai, mainly the training unit and one thousand trackers. These men had already undergone basic training in Tianjin. Before Zhu Daichun could even catch his breath, Chen Xin immediately assigned him new tasks, the most important being new recruit recruitment. This included the corresponding regulations for organizing the farmer-soldiers. Chen Xin's requirement was to simplify flag commands and drum signals. Company command was to rely mainly on verbal orders and marching drums. At the same time, he had the workshop make a different kind of brass bugle that could sound several overtones, which, when combined, could form many different commands.

Apart from the farmer-soldiers, a new round of recruit conscription for the combat battalions began. Wendeng Camp currently had two thousand officers and men, and over a hundred officers and men would also be transferred into the farmer-soldier system. Chen Xin planned to bring the number of regular troops at Wendeng Camp to four thousand, leaving a shortfall of two thousand.

After the battle of the four cities, Liu Minyou's support for the military increased. The civil affairs system formulated corresponding policies: soldiers who were not bachelors would have their families given priority in land allocation. Wendeng Camp was renowned throughout the land, with handsome uniforms and generous pay and benefits. It was already the dream of the young men in the settlements. Spurred by the land policy, nearly all able-bodied young men signed up to participate in the selection.

The original Wendeng Camp and the settlement households at Mazi Erdun already numbered nearly ten thousand people. Excluding the one thousand trackers recruited in Tianjin, there was only a shortfall of one thousand men, so competition would be extremely fierce.

Chen Xin also signed the officer promotion orders. The merit evaluation for Wendeng Camp had already been completed in Tianjin. Apart from some personnel transferred to the training unit and the farmer-soldier system, the rest were basically confirmed based on the commanding officer's assessment. A large number of non-commissioned officers and outstanding soldiers were promoted. Because of the large number of new recruits, the training unit temporarily drew many more junior officers. They would lead the training and then be directly assigned to their respective company commander's unit.

The organizational structure of the Wendeng combat battalions remained largely unchanged, except that the two companies in each battalion were changed to three companies, the cavalry was increased to four hundred men, and other units were slightly expanded.

The military academy was currently basically an empty shell. Chen Xin first adopted the model of the pre-WWII Soviet Union, adding a deputy commander for every unit above the banner level to serve as a reserve of officers for future army expansion. With one reserve officer per level, plus the farmer-soldier system, Chen Xin gained an invisible army that could be rapidly mobilized.

Some personnel in Tianjin had not yet returned, and the various adjustments at Wendeng Camp had not been fully implemented. Personnel were split up everywhere — some transferred to the training unit to lead new recruits, some participating in the farmer-soldier experiments, and one firearms detachment was loaned to the workshop to help test flintlock rifles. The artillerymen were following the two experts, Tang Kun and his colleague, learning the operating procedures for cannons.

On the tenth day of the seventh month, all substantive officers of Assistant Guard Commander rank and above from the three Guards were summoned to Weihai for a meeting. Chen Xin invited them to observe a Wendeng Camp exercise. A company of combat troops demonstrated marching, deployment, attack, and pursuit. Chen Xin had learned this move from Qi Jiguang. The great commander Qi had conducted a military exercise involving tens of thousands of men in Jizhen and had invited various Mongol tribes to send representatives to observe, just like the observers invited to modern exercises. He put on a display of muscle, and the Mongol tribes were so terrified they fell silent as winter cicadas — a highly successful strategic deterrent.

The moment the group of Guard officers arrived, they were awed by the volley fire of over a hundred firearms troops, and then equally cowed into obsequiousness by the fierce, murderous spirit of the assault troops.

After displaying the big stick, Chen Xin then led them to the meeting room for a conference, presided over by Song Wenxian. Liu Minyou also attended the meeting so that the men from each Guard would recognize him. They clearly defined the new performance evaluation metrics, the most important being the clearing of abandoned fields, and also required each of them to provide a suitable harbor. As for the benefits they had swallowed, not much was touched. Hidden fields were not investigated, military households kept in servitude were not cleared out, and shops were not forced to be relinquished — the status quo was basically maintained.

After the meeting adjourned that day, Chen Xin returned home. In the afternoon, the commanders and vice commanders from each Guard came one after another to pledge their loyalty, all bringing some gifts. Chen Xin accompanied them drinking tea in his study all afternoon and gained several hundred taels of silver, as well as shops in every Guard city and several hundred mu of cultivated fields. Yang Yunong was the most straightforward, giving Chen Xin all the fields east of the Qincun River at Mazi Dun. Some poorer Guard officers also wanted to marry their daughters to Chen Xin as concubines, but he politely declined each one.

By the time the commander of Jinghai Guard left, Chen Xin figured that should be all of them. Only then did he leisurely head out. Nie Hong and Hai Gouzi immediately fell in behind him. Chen Xin smiled and waved his hand, saying, "I'm just going next door to Mr. Liu's place. Why follow me?"

The two had no choice but to keep their distance. Only after Chen Xin entered Liu Minyou's courtyard did they go back to stand guard at the gate like door gods. The elderly military household guard led Chen Xin to the study, where Liu Minyou sat inside, looking utterly haggard.

Chen Xin laughed heartily. "Brother Liu has also been drinking tea all afternoon?"

Liu Minyou looked up at Chen Xin's radiant expression and complained, "What's the point of dealing with these people? They insist on giving gifts whether you want them or not, and then it's all nauseating flattery, beating around the bush to air their grievances. It's nothing more than trying to make me too embarrassed to touch their interests. Just listening to it exhausts me. Only you can enjoy it day after day as if it were the sweetest nectar."

Chen Xin glanced around and asked, "How many gifts did you receive? If you don't want them, just give them to me. They can serve as your travel expenses to Jiangnan."

Liu Minyou shook his head. "I don't even know. There are some pearls and jade, and I can't tell good from bad."

"Just give them to your concubine to use. Hasn't she returned yet?"

"She's busy at the shop. Can you believe she even has to work overtime now? Today I'll have to mooch dinner at your place again."

Chen Xin grinned. "You've taken this concubine for nothing. Have you two moved in together yet?"

Liu Minyou shot him a glance and changed the subject. "When are we leaving for Jiangnan?"

"The day after tomorrow. So you really can't wait to visit the brothels." (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, welcome to come to ( ) to cast recommendation votes and monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation.)