Chapter 396: A Deal Worth Hundreds of Millions

After all, he was one of the greatest merchants under heaven. Wu Shiluo did not show surprise at Heifu's mention of a "deal worth hundreds of millions," merely smiling faintly and remaining noncommittal. After observing the grand cattle-and-horse competition in Wushi County, he invited Heifu back home for a banquet — clearly, Wu Shiluo did not wish to discuss the matter outside.

Heifu had merely tossed out a hook; if he pressed on eagerly now, it would only make him seem like the one asking for a favor.

So the two men, by tacit understanding, avoided the topic and instead chatted idly along the way, riding together in the same carriage until they reached the foot of Mount Jitou.

Wu Shiluo enthusiastically pointed at the rolling mountain range and introduced it to Heifu: "Because the rock of the mountain here shows a dark red, like clusters of burning flames, people call it Firestone. It also resembles the crown atop a rooster's head, hence the name Mount Jitou."

His home lay on the plain below Mount Jitou, a fortress built of fiery red stone, its towering brick walls covered in creeping vines. Armed riders patrolled the perimeter — likely Wu Shiluo's retainers.

After returning to his residence, Wu Shiluo no longer needed to follow the ordinance that "merchants may not wear patterned silks and embroideries" as he did outside. He went into the inner chamber, and when he emerged, he had changed into a loose, fiery red silk robe that made his figure appear even more bloated — a stark contrast to his lean, capable younger brother.

Heifu also noticed that every one of Wu Shiluo's fingers glittered with gems, and even the household slaves, without exception, wore silver collars around their necks — though rumor outside had it they were gold.

Wu Shiluo caught Heifu's gaze and laughed: "The borderlands are not like the Central Plains, where wealth is kept hidden. Here in Wushi, if you do not bring out your riches to show a visiting guest, you risk being looked down upon."

"Indeed."

Heifu nodded: "Before I set out, colleagues in the commandery all urged me to bring as many men as possible to serve as an honor guard. If I brought too few, they said, the Rong people would think me, the Commandant, lacking in power and might grow contemptuous."

Wu Shiluo flaunted his wealth; Heifu, for his part, needed to flaunt his authority.

The banquet soon began. Inside the magnificent hall, the air was thick with the fragrance of spices — Sichuan pepper, ginger, dogwood, fúliú vine, cassia branch — while lamp oil burned without cease. An endless stream of delicious meats was carried in; the most extravagant was a whole roasted young camel...

"This is the tuó camel, common in the lands of the Xiongnu and Yuezhi, near the deserts." Wu Shiyan, seated to the side as company, made a point of introducing it, lest Heifu and Chen Ping be unfamiliar.

Chen Ping looked on with curiosity, but Heifu showed no particular reaction, merely examining it closely to see whether it was a one-humped or two-humped camel.

After they had discussed the food and caught up on Heifu's recent observations in the Northern Lands, the conversation stalled again. Heifu glanced at Chen Ping, signaling that he could begin.

Chen Ping therefore rose solemnly and addressed Wu Shiluo, who was unhurriedly slicing meat with his knife: "I, Ping, am from Dang Commandery. In the regions of Dang, Sanchuan, and Yingchuan, the custom is to manage industries and devote oneself to crafts and trade, so there are many merchants. Since childhood, I have heard the names of the great merchants of the Central Plains over the past three hundred years — men like Zigong, Tao Zhu, and Bai Gui. But the one who remains freshest in memory is none other than Yidun. It is said that, like you, Lord Wu, he built his fortune through animal husbandry..."

"Oh?"

Hearing of someone who, like himself, had grown rich through animal husbandry, Wu Shiluo's interest was piqued.

The brothers were of Rong origin; though they had seen much traveling through foreign lands, their knowledge of Central Xia culture was limited. Yidun, who had lived over two hundred years ago, had once been immensely wealthy, but his fortune and fame had long since scattered to the wind. The Wu brothers did not know of him, so they asked Chen Ping to tell them more.

"That Yidun was originally from the state of Lu — what is now Xue Commandery. He was destitute; when he tilled, he often went hungry; when he raised silkworms, he often went cold."

Wu Shiluo nodded as he listened, fingering the glittering gemstone rings on his fingers. This was much like the brothers' own youth.

"But Yidun refused to accept poverty and low station. Hearing that Lord Tao Zhu was conducting business in Dingtao, managing property, accumulating goods, and racing with the times — amassing a thousand gold pieces three times in nineteen years — he was filled with envy. He took the opportunity when Lord Tao Zhu was recruiting retainers to go and seek his advice."

Lord Tao Zhu, Fan Li, was too famous — Wu Shiluo had heard of him. But what people envied most was how the Tao Zhu household sat upon colossal wealth and yet managed to preserve their family fortune for a hundred years without end.

For a merchant, a sudden windfall is not hard; what is hard is making it last.

Chen Ping continued: "After Lord Tao Zhu conversed with Yidun, he considered the commodity prices of the time and taught him a shortcut, saying: 'If you wish to grow rich quickly, you must raise the five kinds of female livestock!'"

Hearing this, Wu Shiluo could not help but laugh: "That method is exactly the same as the one my brother and I used in our early years to raise livestock!"

"Mǔ" is male, "pìn" is female. Taming cows and mares, letting them mate with bulls and stallions, so that the offspring gradually multiply and flourish until, over time, wealth is achieved — this was Wu Shiluo's early accumulated experience. Suddenly hearing that Lord Tao Zhu had thought the same way gave him the feeling of meeting a kindred spirit.

Heifu clapped his hands in praise: "The wise and resourceful under heaven all think alike."

"Indeed. A pity I could not have been born three hundred years earlier to meet Lord Tao Zhu."

Wu Shiluo was quite regretful: "I truly envy that Yidun. He had a famous master to guide him, while I had to figure everything out on my own. I wonder how his later business ventures fared?"

Chen Ping said: "Yidun heeded Lord Tao Zhu's words and traveled a thousand li to the land of Jin, settling in Yishi County, where the water and pastures were lush. He raised cattle and sheep on a large scale, and after ten years, had amassed a fortune of a thousand gold pieces. Because he built his fortune from Yishi, he took the name Yidun and gained some renown in Jin and Lu. However..."

Wu Shiluo was still marveling at the wonder of fate — that before him, there had already been a tycoon who took the livestock route, one he had never known of because he dwelt in the remote borderlands of the Rong and Di. Hearing that Chen Ping had more to say, he pressed: "However what?"

Chen Ping reached out, picked up the salt pot from the low table, and sprinkled pure white green salt over the camel meat before him: "However, after ten years of animal husbandry, Yidun said that a merchant cannot rely on a single trade to achieve lasting wealth. So, alongside his livestock business, he began trading in gǔ salt. When selling cattle and sheep, he would conveniently use the animals to carry some pond salt and sell it together with the livestock..."

"As expected, Yidun's worry was not unfounded. Within a few years, the head of the Zhao clan, Zhao Wuxu, devised the destruction of the state of Dai and opened up the Hu lands. The Zhao clan thus had many cattle and horses, and Yidun's livestock became hard to sell."

Wu Shiluo fell silent, but inwardly he thought: "Yidun and I are truly too alike..."

Their Wu clan had also started out relying on livestock. Wu Shiyan had been content with a modest fortune of a hundred gold pieces. But Wu Shiluo believed that the marketplace was as unpredictable as the weather — business might be good today, but tomorrow it could fail. So he began engaging in transit trade, conducting silk-for-horse exchanges between the interior and the Rong tribes, later gradually adding grain, brown sugar, salt, and other goods. To use a later era's phrasing, increasing product diversity was the way to hedge against risk.

Yet even so, as the Emperor resolved to push forward the policy of western expansion, targeting precisely Wu Shiluo's trading partners — the Xiongnu and Yuezhi — he understood that his family's business was about to enter a bitter winter.

With Qin seizing the Hexi, Henan, and Hetao regions, three great pastures would be added, and a flood of cattle, sheep, and horses would pour into the interior. The price of his Wu clan's livestock was certain to plummet. Moreover, the Qin dynasty was a winner-takes-all power; once it had wiped out all surrounding independent regimes, the transit trade his family also ran would reach its end...

Wu Shiluo himself was racking his brains over this. He also wanted to know how Yidun, whose circumstances so closely mirrored his own, had solved this dilemma.

For the first time, Wu Shiluo took the initiative to ask. Chen Ping and Heifu exchanged a glance, and then Chen Ping cleared his throat and said:

"Taking advantage of the division among the Four Ministers and the decline of the ducal house, when the Xie Pond was without an owner, Yidun spent a great sum to bribe the Zhi Bo, the ruling minister of Jin, and obtained the right to operate the pond salt of Hedong..."

"Relying on the abundance of the salt pond, Yidun's wealth rivaled that of princes and dukes, and his fame spread throughout the realm. It was only after his death that the state of Wei reclaimed the salt pond."

"He grew rich by operating a salt pond?"

The light in Wu Shiluo's eyes dimmed, because Yidun's method was one he could not emulate — for no other reason than that their national circumstances were different!

In the Three Jin states, the development of the mountains, forests, rivers, and marshes' resources was not directly managed by the government. Instead, "magnates" like Yidun, Bai Gui, and Guo Zong were allowed to operate and develop them, with the government extracting a certain heavy tax.

But Qin, unlike the six states that practiced a market economy, followed the path of a large state, big government, and planned economy. Not to mention state interests like salt and iron, the government would have liked to monopolize even wine, meat, and cloth. Guan Zhong's proposal of "managing the mountains and seas" was thoroughly implemented by Qin, the state farthest from him.

Thus, although Wu Shiluo's status rivaled that of enfeoffed lords, he was still merely a dog of the government, unqualified to meddle in the interior salt industry.

If the interior was out of the question, what about the salt beyond the frontier? Wu Shiluo was, in fact, already secretly dealing in it.

The salt supply of Beidi Commandery mainly depended on the "Huama Pond," located two hundred li beyond the Great Wall (between present-day Yanchi County in Ningxia and Dingbian County in Shaanxi). Huama Pond was rich in brine, its water bitter, its surface glittering like a mirror, the whole pond a vast expanse of white. It produced a considerable amount of salt each year. The local Xuyan Rong tribe had established themselves on this basis, and the Xiongnu regarded them as their "salt slaves."

Every year, the Wu clan's trade caravans took two routes. The western route went to the Huangzhong region of the Yuezhi. The eastern route first went to the Xiongnu grazing lands at the eastern foot of the Helan Mountains, where Central Plains goods were exchanged for cattle and horses. Then, driving the cattle and horses, they would travel east to Huama Pond. The horses and cattle would be loaded with the local green salt and then driven further east to Shang Commandery, and from there south to Xianyang. Xianyang had no shortage of salt; after the cattle and horses were disposed of, the remaining horses would haul the salt back to Beidi, yielding considerable profit.

This was also one reason Wu Shiluo did not wish for Qin to go to war against the Xiongnu and Xuyan. Having been a dog for the First Emperor for so many years, did he not know the nature of the Qin government? When the time came, they would certainly send officials directly into Huama Pond and implement that set of imperial monopoly practices.

Wu Shiluo thought to himself: "The Widow Qing of Ba's family originally had the right to develop the well salt of Ba and Shu, but ever since the Widow Qing was relocated to Xianyang, that right was also revoked by His Majesty. The salt of Ba and Shu now entirely belongs to the commanderies and counties for extraction and monopoly."

A colleague had met with misfortune. While Wu Shiluo felt a degree of schadenfreude, he could not help but also feel the grief of the fox at the hare's death.

He could sense that, unlike during the conquest of the six states, when the financial power of the Wu and Ba clans had been needed, after unifying the realm, the First Emperor now possessed all within the seas and no longer needed great merchants like them.

Policies were tightening. The government had not yet intruded, but the profitable enterprises left to the two families were few. After losing the salt business, the Widow Qing of Ba's son, Ba Zhong, could only expand the human trafficking of Bo slaves. Using slaves bought from Dian and Bo, he planted sugarcane in places like Jiangyang and Fuguan in Shu, attempting to imitate Anlu in Nan Commandery and produce brown sugar for sale.

"But where does my family's way out lie?"

Thinking of this, Wu Shiluo glanced at Heifu. Brown sugar was something this young man's family had concocted; the name "Lady Sugar" was already known in the south and in Xianyang. Add to that the "Heifu paper" he had overseen the production of, which had already spread through many commanderies and counties and become a new source of revenue for the government.

"No wonder my brother said that if Heifu came to do business, his wealth would be no less than the Wu clan's. He may indeed have something of a merchant's mind."

He also understood that Chen Ping's lengthy talk of Yidun today was merely tossing out a brick — ultimately, it was to make him clearly understand his own predicament, and then draw out the "jade" in Heifu's hand.

By this point, Wu Shiluo was impatient to know just what this "deal worth hundreds of millions" Heifu had spoken of really was! Perhaps it truly held some novel idea that could bring his family back from the dead!

Wu Shiluo no longer cared about face either. He rose abruptly, moved his mat before Heifu, and bowed to him with clasped hands.

"This old man is dull-witted. I beg the Commandant to instruct me!"

Heifu knew that Chen Ping's performance was over, and it was now his turn to take the stage for the finale.

He swallowed his roast meat and said with a smile, "The enormous profits I speak of involve two ventures — one far, one near. I wonder which Lord Wu would like to hear first?"

"The far one!" Wu Shiluo did not play by the usual rules.

In that case, Heifu began with the far one:

"There is a common saying in the Central Plains: a single leaf before the eye blocks out Mount Tai. Lord Wu, all these years, have you never been curious — the silks sold to the Yuezhi and the Xiongnu, do they keep them for their own wear? Or do they continue westward, selling them at ten times the price to the foreign kingdoms on the other side of the shifting sands?"

On the twenty-eighth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, in the twenty-eighth year of Qin Shi Huang's reign, guided by Heifu's prescient "conjecture," a trade route that later generations would call the "Silk-Sugar Road" took shape in Wu Shiluo's mind...

PS: I'll fix the punctuation later, don't rush to claim a spot.

(End of chapter)