Chapter 91: Section Nineteen

In early June, Fang Zhenru handed Huang Shi a sum of silver. The thirty soldiers he had brought were all temporarily issued military pay... the sailors were also counted as soldiers by him, and in addition there were temporary servants and guides — in the end he counted fifty troops. Each soldier received one tael and four qian, the Company Commander got two taels, and Huang Shi also had a monthly salary of five taels; besides that, everyone received one shi of grain. This made him very much regret not bringing more troops, and even more regret not giving Yang Zhiyuan and He Baodao higher military ranks.

"My thanks to Lord Fang." Huang Shi made an elaborate bow. Although the man before him had an air of righteous integrity — a deathly, corpse-like air — he still asked cautiously: "Could this military pay perhaps not be distributed for the time being?"

"Huang Shi, withholding military pay is a grave crime." The corpse-face appeared.

"This humble officer understands."

Fang the Corpse drew a breath, as if he had not finished speaking. Was he afraid that Huang Shi would dare disobey military orders at a time like this?

"Delayed military pay causing soldiers to raise an uproar has happened more than once or twice..."

So as long as there is no mutiny, it is not a grave crime?

"...If such a thing truly happens, this official may not necessarily be able to protect you." The corpse-face grew even more lifeless.

Even if a mutiny occurred, there was still a "not necessarily" — so that was how it was.

"This humble officer thanks Lord Fang for his instruction."

There could be no complaints among Huang Shi's men; after all, everyone was going to return to Changsheng Island. There, Huang Shi was a local emperor, deciding life and death, reward and punishment with a single word.

The other soldiers on the island received no pay at all. One does not worry about scarcity but about inequality. While those others had been working desperately on the island these days, a group accompanying their commander on holiday would instead get silver — nowhere under heaven does such reasoning hold.

Besides, what would they do with silver once they reached the island? Could they buy grain or wine and meat with it? Surely they wouldn't use it to skip stones on the water?

Huang Shi did not intend to distribute the grain either. With so much, a single soldier could not eat it all. Since they had no families, they might as well keep eating from the communal mess. The surplus grain would be sold off; grain here at Shanhai Pass was very expensive — ten shi of grain could be exchanged for over five taels of silver.

The enormous amounts of silver the imperial court supplied daily to the Nine Frontier Garrisons had already caused inflation in the border regions. Officers and soldiers swept up all consumer goods like salt, cloth, and non-staple foods, making life unbearably bitter for the local commoners.

After Zhang Juzheng instituted the Single Whip Law, all agricultural taxes and corvée labor south of the Yangtze were converted into a little over one million taels of silver. Yet the over seventy thousand troops at Shanhai Pass, with ordinary soldiers receiving one tael and four qian, amounted to more than one hundred thousand taels of silver a month — a year... Huang Shi could not be bothered to calculate it precisely.

Such colossal amounts of silver poured like a tidal wave into these impoverished, cash-poor borderlands. In an ancient era without supermarkets or chain stores, without chemical fertilizers and under the impact of the Little Ice Age in the late Ming, the common people of Shanhai Pass surely could not afford eggs or salt. The civilians in nearby market towns perhaps could not even afford grain, nor clothes; a year's income might not cover a month's expenses, and in winter they could not even afford charcoal to burn...

Well, such a miserable scene did not actually occur, because the Great Ming court was not stupid:

"Hemp cloth, sturdy hemp cloth, one bolt for only twelve qian of silver!"

"Shandong flour, one shi for one tael of silver!"

"Nanzhili rice, one tael for one and a half shi!"

Huang Shi threaded through the eager cries of the peddlers. Now that he had a windfall in hand, he also planned to buy some clothes, wine, and meat for his subordinates, and today he had called on the guide to go purchasing.

"The silver price of rice here is already double that in the capital," said the guide — the same one assigned last time. He explained: "This is only because of strict orders from the Liaodong Provincial Governor's office: all merchants are forbidden from hoarding and driving up prices, and must deliver sufficient goods from afar."

The Great Ming's Liaodong Provincial Governor's office, of course, had no fools.

"But we still have the Shanxi merchants to thank, right?" Several dozen Shanxi merchant houses transported supplies from Zhangjiakou, building a vast trading caravan network to carry all kinds of goods to the Nine Frontier garrison towns. Salt certificates and travel permits were the magic tools the court used to threaten the Shanxi merchants into compliance; if supplies fell short, they would be punished.

The travel permits and salt certificates brought the merchant houses enormous profits. However, ever since Jianzhou rose, the court had immediately and astutely realized the vital importance of trade to the Later Jin regime and imposed a trade ban on the northeast, preferring to sacrifice merchant profits rather than national interests — a very wise measure. Although, some Shanxi merchant firms had already gone bankrupt.

"General Huang, they've doubled the grain price!" the guide said indignantly.

"On the road, mules and horses need to eat grass, and men need to eat too. Not to mention these peddlers also need to take their own cut." Let alone the tribute payments to the government offices, the cost of maintaining shops, and the hired hands in each garrison town.

"Our soldiers' money is earned with bloodshed. Aren't these people making black-hearted money?" The guide grew agitated. This General Huang was no fool — so why was he siding with outsiders?

As a senior officer, Huang Shi enjoyed privileges. He did not haggle with the peddlers but was led directly by the guide into a large shop, where the manager in charge immediately hurried out to pay his respects.

Huang Shi inquired about the types and prices of goods. All the usual military supplies were available, and there were even sheepskin gloves for sale. Although travel permits to the northeast were no longer issued, the Shanxi merchants still went beyond the passes to trade with the Mongols, exchanging salt and cloth for meat and furs.

The prices were very cheap. Officers, according to their rank, could obtain something akin to "discount vouchers." Huang Shi had also obtained one from Fang Zhenru; using it, one could buy discounted military supplies, and merchants were required to sell at the prices set by the Provincial Governor's office.

"Please take a seat, Mobile Corps Commander Huang." After examining the discount slip, the manager immediately called for a shop assistant to serve tea.

Huang Shi settled on a batch of supplies, matching the amounts on the Mobile Corps Commander discount slip to the last qian. The manager, with a pained expression, hinted several times that he hoped to bribe Huang Shi with a kickback to cut him a little slack, but met with shameful failure each time.

Since it was irreversible, the manager could only offer a professional smile. An assistant came over holding an account book, allowing the manager to record everything in detail.

"The goods General Huang has taken from our humble shop are as follows..." The manager read through the list with a swaying head. "Please sign, General."

During this, Huang Shi observed the manager for a long time. Very clear eyes, and nothing amiss in his speech. These receipts to be signed could prove they had fulfilled the tasks assigned by the court. Huang Shi tried to recall the shop sign at the entrance, wanting to confirm whether it was one of the Eight Great Shanxi Merchant Houses... he failed. Huang Shi had forgotten what all the Eight Great Houses were called, or rather, he had never known in the first place.

"How many troops does the General command?"

The manager's question after the signing struck Huang Shi's ears like a thunderclap.

Was that not a military secret? In the twenty-first century.

"Two Company Commanders, fifty soldiers."

The guide had spoken. Was he an idiot?

"Where is the General's garrison?"

Another thunderbolt.

That was also a military secret, wasn't it? In modern society.

"At..." The idiot guide was about to leak secrets again.

"Shut up!" Huang Shi leapt to his feet, making the manager jump in fright.

Huang Shi fixed his gaze dead on the manager's eyes, his stern interrogation laced with threads of murderous intent: "Why do you ask these things? Who exactly put you up to this, you scoundrel?"

The account book fell from the manager's hands to the floor. He stared at Huang Shi, tongue-tied, his face full of innocence and terror.

"General Huang, please calm down..." That idiot guide opened his mouth again; he still seemed completely unaware of the gravity of the situation.

The roar that met him face-on choked the second half of the guide's sentence in his throat.

"Are you a stupid pig? Why did you tell him that?"

The merchant would deliver the goods to the military camp — this was also a kind of corvée labor imposed on merchants. Asking the number of soldiers was to prepare troop-welfare items, nothing more than wine, bedding, and the like, which was also another form of tax levy imposed on merchants in disguise.

The great idiot Huang Shi had made a fool of himself. He slunk away from the merchant house in disgrace, feeling that the looks cast his way by the manager, the assistant, and the guide were as if they were looking at a moron.

In the afternoon, the merchant's men delivered the goods to the military camp. Huang Shi refused to let them enter, instead ordering his own soldiers to come out and carry the goods themselves. This drew another wave of astonished gazes... and not only from the group hired by the merchant house.

Huang Shi felt he needed to establish something akin to a modern quartermaster system. But the quartermaster officer was a thorny problem; the system needed time to be tested and perfected. And during this period, the quartermaster officer had to be a shrewd person — yet in that case, Huang Shi worried about the situation of harming the public good to fatten private pockets. How did that saying go? The world does not suffer from a lack of thousand-li horses, but from a lack of a Bole — but right now, there wasn't even a single donkey. In short, Huang Shi felt he had no suitable candidate in his pocket.

One hundred taels of silver came to offer Huang Shi a suggestion: "The soldiers have been at Shanhai Pass for over twenty days. Has my lord considered the matter of women?"

"Prostitutes?"

"Yes."

"About how much would it cost?" One Hundred Taels seemed to be a meticulous man, quite thorough in his thinking.

"Two qian of silver per session, six qian per night."

"That expensive? For fifty men that would be six taels and four qian — unacceptable! Go talk to the house and see if we can get a wholesale price." This Hundred-Tael clerk is really quite meticulous.

"What do you mean by 'wholesale price'?"

Huang Shi explained it.

"I'm afraid that won't work. They've just been paid, so those brothels are only willing to do 'retail'... yes, that's the term my lord just used — this subordinate finds it very apt."

"Then wait a while before speaking to them again. Let the soldiers endure for a few days first." Hundred-Tael handles affairs with great care — truly trustworthy.

"This subordinate obeys. This subordinate believes that if we wait another five or six days, it should be possible. This subordinate estimates we can then bring it down to five taels for fifty men, and if the girls come to the barracks, we can keep it within fifteen taels..."

"Mm, then I'll leave the hard work to you." Hundred-Tael is indeed meticulous... to a somewhat peculiar degree.

"My lord, rest assured — this subordinate will certainly argue vigorously for every point." Hundred-Tael thumped his chest in assurance to Huang Shi.

These words sounded somewhat familiar to Huang Shi; this impassioned demeanor seemed... seemed like something he had seen before.

Yang Zhiyuan worked very diligently. A few days later he had selected one establishment and even negotiated for an entire night. When he came to report to Huang Shi in the morning, he still looked utterly haggard — he apparently had not slept well the night before.

Could a sleep-deprived Yang Zhiyuan have gotten the worse end of the bargaining? Huang Shi worried he had not handled the errand properly, or had negotiated a price of six or seven taels. Still, Huang Shi was prepared to accept it, as long as it was not too terribly excessive — after all, he owed Yang Zhiyuan a great deal.

"Reporting to my lord." The listless Hundred-Tael cupped his hands weakly. He truly looked exhausted — he must have negotiated with more than one person.

"Fifty soldiers — four taels and eight qian. If the girls come to the barracks, it will require thirteen taels."