Chapter 74: Commercial Zhou? Last Week's!

The Later Zhao had stood for many years, scraping the people's fat and marrow every moment.

Apart from the annual bestowals and what was used for diplomacy, the vast majority of this wealth was concentrated in Ye City.

The only pity was that Shi Hu was ruthless enough.

Within Ye City, multiple granaries and storehouses caught fire; who knows how many rare treasures were burned away.

Wang Meng, deeply aware that Lin Dao attached great importance to this matter, personally supervised the rescue and collection of the rare treasures.

He led a large group of armored soldiers and scribes, moving among the various storehouses.

Fighting fires, saving goods, sealing off, inspecting, tallying, and sealing away — extremely busy.

Seeing Lin Dao come in person, he hurried forward to pay his respects.

"Lord~~~"

Lin Dao waved his hand, his expression quite urgent. "Any harvest?"

"There is a harvest." Wang Meng appeared somewhat troubled. "It's just not as satisfactory as one would wish."

"Most of the grain and fodder in the city has been burned and destroyed."

"Salt, iron, spices, alcohol, and the like — all were thrown into wells and rivers."

"The stored hemp, kudzu, silk, and gauze — all were given to the flames."

"Timber and medicinal herbs — damaged in great numbers."

Grain, cloth, timber, and medicinal herbs are all flammable materials.

Once a fire is lit, it quickly spreads, causing large-scale losses.

Shi Hu truly is a ruthless man.

His own things — even if he must destroy them — he is unwilling to leave to the enemy.

"Gold, silver, pearls, jewels, antiques, jade materials — these are relatively better preserved."

These things are more fire-resistant; moreover, among the Qianghu who carried out the arson, quite a few stole and hid things for themselves.

Even because of this, fierce firefights broke out, resulting in many places where the fire failed to catch.

Especially the vast palace complexes — most of the buildings were preserved.

As for those Qianghu who stole and hid treasures, they did not fare well either.

Almost all of them were caught by the Qihuo Army, which combed the mountains and searched the seas.

Not only did they get nothing, but their hidden wealth became the war spoils of the Qihuo Army's military households.

"Lord."

Wang Meng looked at Lin Dao.

"This subordinate has a suggestion, and hopes the Lord will consent."

Lin Dao nodded. "Speak."

"Use canned grain, sugar, lard, eggs, and the captured Hu women to exchange for gold, silver, and such from the military households' hands."

In ancient warfare, there are many unwritten rules.

One of them is that during war, the spoils the soldiers privately obtain belong to themselves.

Of course, things like banners, armor, strong crossbows, documents, seals, and registers — those must be handed over.

Soldiers risk their lives fighting; not giving them benefits afterward is impossible.

Even massacring a city is essentially to let them vent, to let them make a windfall.

An army with strict discipline like the Yue Family Army —

In thousands of years, how many can there be?

"The military households have obtained gold, silver, and wealth, but it has little use for them."

Wang Meng left his words unfinished. "They cannot spend it either."

"If the Lord produces sufficient supplies, he will surely be able to exchange for quite a few good things."

The economy here in Later Zhao has long since collapsed.

After all, in Ye City one dou of rice could sell for the price of two gold cakes — with that, what economy can this nation still speak of?

The Qihuo Army's military households, even if their pockets are stuffed with gold, silver, and jewels, have no place to spend it.

Better to hand it to the Lord and exchange for food, drink, and utensils to improve their lives.

Lin Dao pondered a moment, then nodded. "Very well."

Piles of gold cakes, baskets of silver ingots, heaps of pearls and jewelry, heavy antiques and jade materials stacked like mountains.

"This thing." Lin Dao spotted a massive bronze ding at a glance.

He stepped forward and stroked it lightly; that heavy feel in the hand was full of the breath of history.

"Lord."

Wang Meng followed over. "This object should be from the Commercial Zhou; I wonder if the Lord has any use for it?"

Xie Daoyun held the Heirloom Jade Seal with both hands, as if cradling a peerless treasure.

Such a national treasure — she could actually hold it herself?!

Lin Dao had already risen and left Xianyang Hall; he was going to tally his own harvest.

Since the Guangzong County annotation began, he had always been spending more than he took in.

So many people eating his, wearing his, using his, living in his.

Every single thing costs money!

As a time-space trader, Lin Dao earned a bit of money and invested it all.

He himself — let alone planes, yachts, and grand villas — didn't even buy a three-bedroom apartment or a car for transport.

Invested for this long; now it should be the time to see the return, to enjoy a little.

"Shang-Zhou's? If I take them away, they become last week's."

Lacking nearly two thousand years of time's sedimentation, any antique Lin Dao takes back has an inexplicable fatal flaw in this regard.

"You say this is Shang-Zhou's?"

"How do you explain an appraisal result off by nearly two thousand years?"

"If you say it's Song-Yuan's, you're taking people for fools."

"Does Song-Yuan have this thing? Is this the style? It's completely goods not matching the road."

"Besides, this kind of thing isn't allowed to be traded in the Modern World."

"Going the black market means asking for trouble."

"If only this were made of gold."

Lin Dao patted the thick great cauldron, his eyes full of regret.

If this great cauldron were made of gold, it could still be melted into gold bars.

But bronze, once melted, isn't worth anything.

Lin Dao, his mood somewhat gloomy, turned and saw a pile of various gold vessels.

His good mood came immediately, and a smile appeared on his face.

"As expected, what I like most is still gold."

There is a large quantity of gold here, and many types.

Besides traditional gold cakes, horse-hoof gold, and qilin-toe gold, there are also large quantities of various gold vessels.

Such as gold beads, gold earrings, gold bubbles, gold circles, gold jewelry, etc.

The quantity is quite considerable.

"Jinglue." Lin Dao instructed Wang Meng, "Melt all these gold vessels and gold cakes down with craftsmen, cast them into gold bars, I want to take them away."

Wang Meng responded repeatedly, then signaled to the large pile of silver vessels beside him, "Master Lang, and these too."

Glancing at those silver vessels, Lin Dao simply shook his head, "Useless, too cheap."

"Oh~~~"

Wang Meng looked thoughtful.

Lin Dao continued examining the other valuable items.

There were still some ling luo luo duan, but he looked for a while and stopped paying attention.

Precious medicine was even scarcer, most couldn't fetch a good price.

There was one Ye Shan Shen that wasn't bad, looking longer than a palm, but quite a few rootlets were scorched.

With this appearance, it must be heavily discounted.

In a large basket beside, there were many jewels.

Such as garnet, crystal, carnelian, agate, amber, beryl, pearl, white jade, etc.

"Hmm?"

Lin Dao reached into the basket and took out an object the size of a palm, with a slightly strange shape and even some mixed colors.

He looked left and right, feeling somewhat familiar, but couldn't quite determine.

He simply stood up and handed it to Wang Meng, "What is this?"

"Oh." Wang Meng just glanced at it, "It's liuli."

"'Liu'..." Lin Dao couldn't help but raise his head, "Glass."

Taking this to the Modern World, it would truly be worth not a single wen.

"Earlier a palace maiden confessed to finding Shi Hu's collected treasures." Wang Meng kept adding the knife, "I thought it was some rare treasure."

"Unexpectedly, it's actually a yellow peach canned fruit bottle."

"It's said that Shi Hu loved it very much."

Lin Dao smiled and casually threw away the strangely shaped liuli in his hand.

He squatted down and continued searching for good things in the basket.

Soon he turned up a huge pearl.

Holding it in his palm, feeling its slightly heavy weight, Lin Dao exclaimed in amazement, "There's actually such a big pearl?"

In the Modern World, artificially farmed pearls are very cheap.

This also made Lin Dao feel that although the pearl is very large, its price probably isn't high.

There are many types of jewels in the basket, and he isn't very clear about specific prices.

Lin Dao simply stood up and took a large piece of silk lining.

Then he selected some jewels from the basket and wrapped them in silk lining.

He selected some good-quality pieces of almost every type of jewel.

Of course, all liuli products were thrown away.

If he wanted this kind of thing, they were sold by the cartload, and all kinds of shapes were available.

He tied up the silk lining bundle and slung it behind his back.

Lin Dao stood up and instructed Wang Meng, "I have business to go out."

"You must keep up the work pace on your side; all supplies can be allocated and used by you."

"The city must be stabilized as soon as possible."

"The various Hu must be cleared out as soon as possible."

Wang Meng immediately bowed and saluted.

"Meng will surely not fail Master Lang's heavy trust!"

Modern World, Hai Gang Cheng.

Lin Dao, wearing a backpack, got out of the taxi and raised his head to scan the storefront in front of him.

"Fuli Clock Jewelry Store".

Different materials must be sold to different shops.

Here in Hai Gang Cheng, jewelry recycling is mainly handled by these clock and jewelry stores.

In order to sell jewelry, Lin Dao registered quite a few qualifications under the company's name.

He tightened his backpack straps, and Lin Dao stepped into the store.

A few minutes later, he was sitting on the sofa in the jewelry store's reception room.

"Mr. Lin."

The store manager enthusiastically greeted him: "Your company does gold mine business, so you should have heard — there's now a regulation requiring registered Class A and B personnel."

"Mm."

Lin Dao nodded: "In that regard, our company has already registered."

Hai Gang Cheng has issued a new regulation: precious metal and gemstone transactions must possess corresponding registered personnel qualifications.

Without them, you can't process it through company accounts.

If it's a private sale, you can only go to a pawnshop.

The corresponding risks and price factors need no further elaboration.

Most importantly, you can't use company accounts — you can only settle in cash.

And the biggest advantage of company accounts is that they're clean.

Fortunately, Lin Dao had purchased a waste gold mine in South Africa and registered a corresponding company.

At this time, applying for registered personnel qualifications would be very convenient.

If he still followed the previous one-man solo operation route, it would be troublesome now.

Lin Dao unzipped his backpack, grabbed a handful of gems, and placed them on the tea table.

"Our company acts as agent for sales of various jewelry in South Africa — please help take a look at these samples."

"Good, good." The manager beamed and called over the master appraiser to authenticate.

Amber prices are very cheap.

Average quality is only a few dozen yuan per gram; better quality is only a few hundred yuan.

The amber Lin Dao brought was quite okay; the jewelry master appraised it at three to five hundred yuan per gram.

Agate prices don't differ much from amber.

Ordinary brown agate is only a few dozen yuan per gram.

Color-saturated red agate runs a few hundred yuan per gram.

The jewelry master's appraisal result: agate at roughly three to four hundred yuan per gram.

Of course, these are all natural gemstones.

Lin Dao reached out again and grabbed another handful of jewelry from his backpack.

When a pearl the size of a ping-pong ball was placed on the tea table, the manager and the jewelry master both changed expression in unison.

(End of Chapter)