Chapter 664: Debts Unpaid, Yet Borrowing Again

Let's Go, Demand Our Money from the Emperor! The first year of Hongxing of the Great Ming, early autumn, Yulin City.

This famous city of northern Shaanxi was not only a strategic military hub overlooking the Hetao to the north and shielding the Three Qin to the south, but also a major commercial center connecting the interior of Shaanxi with the Hetao grasslands, and even with the lands south, north, and west of the Gobi. After the Prince of Dai moved his headquarters to Yulin and the Ming and Qing concluded their five-year pact, this city, which had fallen into deathly silence from years of war and Qing massacres, quickly revived. Furs and livestock from the Mongol tribes, tea, ironware, silk, and cotton cloth from Huguang and the southeast, salt from the Huamachi salt lakes of Ningxia — all converged here, right inside the walls of Yulin Garrison City!

The Ming officials who had previously guarded Yulin Town had cautiously placed the border market beneath the Zhenbeitai fortress about ten li north of Yulin City. But the Prince of Dai's household that now ruled Yulin was far bolder, not in the least worried that the Mongol Ih Ju League beyond the Great Wall would use the market as an opportunity to plunder or seize Yulin City.

In fact, in the summer of the first year of Hongxing, the Prince of Dai's household, facing grain shortages due to drought, had sent troops into the Hetao and fought a battle against the six banners of the Ih Ju League. The Ih Ju League, which had enjoyed peace for many years, was no match for the Dai army that had fought its way out of Datong Prefecture and the Lüliang Mountains. They collapsed at the first clash. All six nomadic Mongol banners were smashed by the Dai army, and the Mongol princes of the Ih Ju League were forced to submit to the Prince of Dai's household and pay tribute, barely saving their lives.

So the Mongols now trading in Yulin City were all extremely well-behaved. Though they wore knives at their waists and quivers on their shoulders, not one of them dared draw a blade within Yulin Garrison City.

The household guards of the Prince of Dai patrolling Yulin City were called the Datong Deathsworn — ferocious killers who had fought the Manchus at Datong for three years and fought their way out alive!

They might not be able to beat the Mongols of Genghis Khan's generation who believed in the Eternal Blue Sky, but how could the present-day Mongols who believed in Tibetan lamas be any match for them?

Although Yulin City was full of Ming soldiers as fierce as demons, the Mongol lords of the Ih Ju League were still willing to send their stewards with horses, cattle, sheep, and furs to trade. For one simple reason: the "goods" in Yulin City were simply too complete.

Not only could one buy high-grade iron that had once been strictly controlled, and even finished cold weapons, but one could even buy firearms, gunpowder, and armor — weapons and equipment that even the Great Qing strictly controlled and was unwilling to export to the grasslands...

Of course, to get such fine goods from Yulin, the Ih Ju League merchants also had to offer their own fine goods — top-quality Hequ horses and Mongol horses!

For a considerable time to come, the Ih Ju League merchants would buy good horses from other tribes on the grasslands, even from the Oirat Mongols, and sell them to the profiteers of Yulin City. Then they would buy advanced firearms from them and resell them to the Khalkha Mongols and the Oirat Mongols — and a considerable portion of those firearms would be resold to the Dzungar tribe, whom even Zhu Cilang greatly feared...

And this "gun-and-horse trade" would also stimulate local arms production in Yulin!

Many gunpowder mills and firearm workshops funded by Shaanxi and Shanxi merchants would spring up like bamboo shoots after rain in Yulin, Yan'an, Suide, Mizhi, and other places.

But in the autumn of the first year of Hongxing, the Shaanxi and Shanxi merchants in Yulin City had not yet planned to invest heavily in "industry." Their interest was not even in the highly profitable trade with the Mongols.

The one business that truly interested them now was the lofty and grand world of finance.

Well, to put it plainly: usury.

The Prince of Dai's household had posted "debt repayment notices" in every bustling part of Yulin City, declaring that it had received an imperial edict and would lead all the creditors to Wuchang Prefecture to have an audience with the Emperor and discuss the matter of repaying the debts...

By the look of it, the Hongxing Emperor was preparing to repay the debts on behalf of his own brother, His Highness the Prince of Dai!

This was truly wonderful news!

So from the beginning of the seventh month, the "good creditors" of the Great Ming flocked to the Prince of Dai's household to register, preparing to go together to Wuchang to collect their debts...

To demand payment from the Emperor of the Great Ming!

Of course, even if they failed to collect, the trip would not be wasted.

The creditors had all stocked up on furs and horses bought from the Mongols, preparing to make a killing while traveling south on this debt-collecting mission!

"Shopkeeper Jia, you're going to Wuchang Prefecture to collect debts too?"

Inside the Duke of Jin's residence in Xi'an, Wu Sangui, who was preparing to go to court, also met a major creditor — none other than Jia Busi, Shopkeeper Jia, one of the nine great imperial merchants of the Great Qing.

"How could I not go and collect?" Jia Busi had now changed into Han attire — square cap and Daoist robe — though his forehead was still bare, and the little queue at the back of his head was hidden inside the square cap.

In that getup, going to Wuchang... well, of course it wasn't impossible.

Now that the Ming and Qing had concluded a five-year peace, Qing merchants were naturally permitted to set foot on Ming soil to trade.

In Yulin City in northern Shaanxi one could see Shanxi merchants registered under the Bordered Green Banner. Once Dorgon's Bordered Green Banner enrollment scheme came out, the situation in Shanxi immediately stabilized. Many Shanxi merchants who had not followed to Yulin paid five hundred shi of flour to join the banner, obtaining banner status. It made becoming an official easier and doing business more convenient — killing two birds with one stone!

Of course, those five hundred shi of flour were only the "banner enrollment fee." Afterward they still had to pay a military service exemption fee — bannermen paid no grain tax, performed no corvée, and were subject to no household levies, but they did have to serve in the military. The new Bordered Green Banner was full of old Shanxi swindlers who did business; sending them to the battlefield would just be sending them to their deaths. So Dorgon simply let them pay to be exempted from service. One Bordered Green Banner soldier paid twelve shi of flour a year to be exempted from military service.

The Bordered Green Banner recruited about thirteen thousand banner soldiers, which meant 156,000 shi of flour in exemption fees fell into Dorgon's pocket every year.

In addition, the Qing court also allowed Bordered Green Banner soldiers to purchase official posts... that was yet another source of income!

So these "shaven-headed merchants" were doing quite well over in the Great Qing.

But however well they were doing, that was over in the Great Qing. Once they came to the Great Ming, they were still second- and third-class merchants, "one rank lower as merchants." How would they dare follow Wu Sangui to demand payment from the Ming Emperor?

"Several hundred thousand taels!" Jia Busi sucked in a breath and lowered his voice. "And Prince Yu has a secret stake in it... Once Prince Yu returns from fighting the Mongols, if I can't fill this hole, Jia Le Shi is finished — maybe even my head will have to move house!"

"What? Prince Yu... Dodo?" Wu Sangui was stunned again and again — Dodo had lent money to him to oppose the Qing, and now he wanted to collect the debt from the Ming Emperor...

"Wait, you said Dodo has gone to fight the Mongols?" Wu Sangui suddenly turned his attention back to military affairs.

"That's right!" Jia Busi nodded. "He took thirty thousand men to deal with Tengjis and Tengjite of the Sunid tribe. Most of the Khalkha Mongol tribes will probably side with the Sunid tribe as well..."

At the same time Dorgon made peace with the Ming, he began deploying for a punitive campaign against the Khalkha Mongols, and the commander of the expedition into Mongolia was his most formidable brother, Dodo.

"Can he win?" Wu Sangui asked.

"Prince Yu is full of confidence — says victory is certain!" Jia Busi said. "Otherwise I wouldn't be in such a hurry to collect. Duke, you can't deny the debt! If you deny it, I'm a dead man!"

Wu Sangui waved a hand. "Old Jia, what are you saying? We're thick as thieves, you and I! Rest assured, as long as I can get money from the Emperor, I'll settle your account first!"

Wu Sangui was still a man of his word, and Jia Busi was a profiteer who had helped him greatly. He couldn't be so ungrateful as to watch the man get beheaded by Dodo, could he?

But he wasn't sure whether he could get silver out of Zhu Cilang.

His Imperial Majesty Zhu wouldn't be so easy to deal with, would he?

At that thought, he sighed again. "Old Jia, you should also be prepared... If we can't collect the debt, what will you do?"

Jia Busi sighed. "If it really comes to that, I'll give up Jia Le Shi... and come join you, Duke!"

"Good! It's settled then!" Wu Sangui slapped his chest boldly. "If we can't get the money, I won't be this King of the Northwest either. I'll go to Nanjing and be a wealthy Duke, and then we'll go into business together!"