Chapter 337: Even the Bitter Herbs Are Sweet as Malt Sugar

When the servant came in to report the outcome of the case, Mai Hui was sampling the jünü freshly made in his own workshop.

Jünü is a sweet pastry — malt sugar and wheat flour are mixed, rolled into thin strips, gathered into bundles, twisted into rings, and fried in oil in a cauldron. Crisp, fragrant, and sweet, it is, like honey cakes, a favorite snack among the Guanzhong nobility.

After biting into a jünü, the forty-something Left Chief of the Masses Mai Hui wiped the fine crumbs from the corner of his mouth and said with satisfaction:

"The blending of things must include the sweet, the sour, the bitter, the acrid, and the salty. Saltiness is a necessity for all, and the people of Qi, the Eastern Sea, and Hedong are especially fond of heavy salt. As for sour, bitter, and acrid, some in the world may dislike them. South of the Yangtze, where it is low and hot, they eat rice and take fish in broth, and favor sourness. Ba and Shu have plenty of ginger, pepper, and prickly ash, and favor acridity. Bitterness, however, has few devotees."

"But from the infant child to the decrepit elder, there is no one who does not love the sweet taste! And nowhere more so than in Guanzhong!"

The sweet taste always evokes a sense of delight, and the Guanzhong people's tradition of craving sweets has a long history. A thousand years ago, when the Zhou people migrated to the Zhou Plain, they voiced this praise: "How fertile is the Zhou Plain, even the bitter herbs are sweet as malt sugar." The meaning is that the land of the Zhou Plain is so rich that even bitter herbs like jintu grow as sweet as sugar...

The reason for this is that wheat came from the west, and Guanzhong was the earliest and most extensive wheat-growing region in the realm, so they learned very early on to use malted grain to make malt sugar.

And at present, the house of Left Chief of the Masses Mai is the largest malt sugar supplier in all of Guanzhong. He has seventy-four qing of land distributed along the Zhengguo Canal, nearly all of it planted with wheat. Wheat, which requires more water than millet or broomcorn millet, grows lush and green under the ditch irrigation, and every year at the start of summer it yields a boundless harvest of golden wheat.

Steamed wheat rice is hard to chew and difficult to digest once eaten. The nobility eat a little of it, reluctantly, mainly out of the tradition of "tasting the new wheat." Common folk also generally eat it only as famine relief when the old crop is exhausted and the new not yet in. In the Guanzhong dialect, "wheat rice and vegetable fare" and "wheat rice and bean gruel" are both used to describe a life of hardship.

Yet the Left Chief of the Masses Mai house does not take wheat as its food. With singular vision, they use the great quantities of wheat they grow entirely to make malt sugar!

The production of malt sugar is rather complex. First, the soaked wheat grains must be allowed to sprout. Then the pounded malt is mixed with steamed glutinous rice, fermented, and filtered. Only after many steps can a sugar liquid be produced, which is then repeatedly stirred, boiled down, and pressed to form malt sugar.

Malt sugar, with its faint, delicate sweetness, became the only sweet food people could eat, apart from precious honey...

"The rich eat honey; the middling eat malt sugar." This has been an unchanging tradition for a thousand years. Thus the Mai house, together with the Shi house, which specializes in gathering honey from Mount Zhongnan, monopolized the sweet foods market in Xianyang's South Market. Without their supply, those dozen-odd peddlers could not have survived a single day.

Honey and sugar were only minor trades, less profitable than the officially monopolized wine, meat, salt, and iron, and also less than textiles, lacquerware, and pottery, but they still brought in several hundred thousand cash a year.

This equilibrium, however, was shattered by that group of merchants who came from Nan Commandery...

From the moment brown sugar appeared on the Xianyang market, Mai Hui sensed something strange about it. The brown sugar came in hard, hoof-shaped lumps, utterly unlike the softness of malt sugar, yet once in the mouth it was as sweet as honey, and the market folk had already given it the name "stone honey."

What was even more alarming was that those Nan Commandery merchants brought out a full two thousand jin of brown sugar to sell at one go, and at a price lower than malt sugar. Everyone likes things that are both fine and cheap, and the wealthy households of Xianyang flocked to it like ducks to water.

Shocked, Mai Hui sent his subordinate merchants to inquire about the method for making this brown sugar, but the Nan Commandery merchants were deeply secretive. Even when Mai Hui had someone approach them, offering tens of thousands of cash to buy the secret, they guarded it closely.

Seeing that few customers remained to buy malt sugar in the shops his house controlled, Mai Hui lost patience. He decided to teach these reckless Nan Commandery merchants a lesson. After conferring with the Shi house, he had the merchants denounce the brown sugar shop.

Xianyang has a large population and many legal cases. To facilitate administration, the Prefect of Xianyang established a prison officer in each of the three districts of Zhangtai, North Palace, and South Market, each with several clerks under them, specifically responsible for adjudicating trivial minor cases.

The South Market Prison Officer, Sima Xin, though always cautious and unwilling to accept bribes directly, was a flexible man and had often opened the door of convenience for the Mai house and other nobles. The clerks under him, to a man, had all received honey, sugar, and jünü as gifts.

So Mai Hui reasoned that by finding a loophole in the shop rental and having a physician testify that brown sugar was harmful to health, even if they could not put that Nan Commandery merchant in jail, they could at least put him out of business!

If he could not have it, then he would destroy it! The Mai house planned to drive the competitor out of the South Market, ruin the reputation of brown sugar, and preserve their own monopoly.

"Let them also learn who decides matters in the honey and sugar trade!"

Sima Xin was quite prompt; the case began its hearing that very day. Mai Hui also held an official post, but it was merely an idle sinecure. Because of his status, it would not do for him to appear in court in person. Those Nan Commandery merchants could be dealt with by his subordinate market men.

Yet the lawsuit, which he had thought a sure win, ended in a crushing defeat for his own side!

Just as Mai Hui was preparing for his meal, the servant, with a mournful face, reported: "Master, I do not know what came over that Sima Xin. On ordinary days he met us with a genial smile, but today his face was stern. First he refused the benefits we secretly passed to him, then he discoursed at length in public on the way of the official and the strictness of the laws and ordinances. After that, he personally supervised the clerks in laying out the evidence and refuted the testimony point by point."

"In the end, that Nan Commandery merchant was released without charge and may continue selling sugar in the South Market. Meanwhile, the dozen-odd merchants who brought the accusation and gave testimony were all convicted of the crime of false accusation and perversion of justice, and sentenced in turn to penal labor!"

After hearing the servant's account, Mai Hui's eyes widened. The other side was completely unharmed, while his own side was utterly wiped out? How could this be!

Furious beyond measure, he slammed the armrest table and cursed: "What is the meaning of this, Sima Xin? Does he think that because my title of Left Chief of the Masses is merely a rank passed down from my fathers, I hold no substantive power?"

His rage unspent, Mai Hui rose at once, intending to go to his in-laws, the Shi house. Though neither family held high office or key posts, they had no lack of connections. If they set their minds to it and pulled some strings, it was not impossible to have Sima Xin stripped of his post.

But just as the Mai and Shi houses were about to escalate the matter further, they were stopped by an unexpected visitor...

When the visitor, in veiled terms, told the two men who stood behind those Nan Commandery merchants selling brown sugar, Mai Hui and his in-law of the Shi house could not help but draw a sharp breath!

"We tried to gather honey, but poked a hornet's nest instead!"

The three-day great wine-feast celebrating the founding of the empire was not yet over, and every part of Xianyang was still immersed in revelry. In the small courtyard where Heifu lived, cups and goblets were also passed back and forth — Heifu had specially laid out a feast to calm the nerves of his cousin Yan, who had been cleared of the charges.

Yan's face was flushed from drink as he raised a toast to Heifu, saying: "Though I was taken away by the authorities and the shop was confiscated, I was not worried in the slightest, because I knew, brother, that the Left Chief of the Masses would surely protect me!"

Heifu smiled without answering, saying that between brothers there was no need for ceremony, and then turned to toast Ba Zhong:

"The art of war says, know the enemy and know yourself, and you will win a hundred battles. Thanks to Brother Ba's information, I would not even have known that behind those merchants were the Mai and Shi houses backing them, and this matter could not have been resolved so swiftly."

Ba Zhong spoke polite words, but inwardly he felt great regret.

He had thought this was a chance to make Heifu owe his family a favor, and so had proposed to him: "The Mai and Shi houses, disregarding the laws of the land and disrupting the market, are truly detestable. But given your position, it is not convenient for you to intervene in this matter directly. Xianyang is not Nan Commandery, and the Chief of the Inner Gentlemen of the Palace Gates is newly arrived and unfamiliar with many places. Why not let me handle this matter on your behalf? I will certainly restore Yan's innocence."

Heifu, however, politely declined his kind offer. He casually wrote a letter and had his subordinate Dong Yi deliver it on his behalf to the South Market Prison Officer, Sima Xin. And with that, the matter was resolved. Resolved...

"I am not the only one who wishes to curry favor with Heifu."

Ba Zhong was quite helpless. After all, Heifu was now a close attendant of the Emperor, with a boundless future ahead of him. Who would not want to ingratiate themselves?

It was just a pity that Heifu would rather seek help from Dong Yi and Sima Xin than owe Ba Zhong a favor.

Heifu had his own calculations in mind: "The Yidao rebellion three years ago was official business, but today's matter is private. I am now one of the Emperor's Gentlemen Guards — the higher one stands, the harder one may fall. Although the First Emperor favors the Widow Qing of Ba, when I interact with these great magnates, I must also be mindful of the distance..."

Private friendship is permissible, but where interests are involved, one must be cautious.

Besides, for a matter that could be settled with a single letter, why use a butcher's ox-cleaver to kill a chicken?

Yan had little tolerance for wine and was soon drunk. Heifu had the servants help him to the guest room to settle down, leaving only him and Ba Zhong at the table, continuing their desultory chat.

Just as Ba Zhong was hesitating, wondering whether to voice the proposal in his heart, Sangmu came in holding a visiting card to report that three people had come to call outside.

"Three people?"

Heifu assumed it was Dong Yi, Sima Xin, and Li Liang, but upon looking at the card, he found it prominently bore the names Mai Hui and Shi Gong, along with an inconspicuous "Market Man Yan."

"Well, well."

He laughed: "So these two have finally found out who stands behind Yan."

Sangmu said the three spoke with great humility and had brought gifts; they had probably come to admit fault and apologize.

Though it is said that enemies should be reconciled rather than kept, Heifu was no longer a minor pawn to be pushed around at will. He had reached this step by solid military merit. As the Chief of the Inner Gentlemen of the Palace Gates beside the Emperor, and a partisan secretly supported by Li Si, even the Interior Minister Teng, who governed Xianyang and Guanzhong, was his old superior.

Two mere powerless Left Chief of the Masses and Fifth Grand Master — he did not take them to heart at all!

So he had no intention of reconciling with those two houses just like that, and said: "Tell them I am drunk and cannot receive guests!"

Ba Zhong, at his side, glanced at the third name on the visiting card, and his expression changed slightly. Out of friendly concern, he urged Heifu: "Chief of the Inner Gentlemen of the Palace Gates, though the Mai and Shi houses are not worth mentioning, you would do well not to refuse the third person outside his due face!"

"Oh?" Heifu then re-examined the visiting card. The third person called himself "Market Man Yan."

"Who is this man?"

"Shi Renyan is his humble self-appellation."

Ba Zhong laughed and said, "His full name is Wushi Yan — he is the younger brother of Wushi Luo!"

"Wushi Luo!?"

A truly famous name. Heifu stifled a laugh and thought to himself, "What is going on today? The mine boss's son is still at the table, and now here comes the livestock magnate's younger brother!"

PS: Off to eat, second chapter in the evening.

(End of chapter)