Chapter 291: Fellow Townsmen of Longhe West

Liu Chengzong liked honest people, and he liked honest people who did business even more.

The full title of the Longhe West chieftain was the Longhe West Yutong Ningyuan Pacification Commissioner; the chief held the title Muya Gyelpo, his lineage traceable back to the Yak Kingdom of the Han dynasty. When they submitted in the early Ming, they still had many hesitations, and only sent someone to pledge allegiance after the Ministry of Rites issued a threatening dispatch.

Throughout the Ming dynasty, however, the Longhe West chieftain had always been effective, so the Sichuan local government called them the "Ming Bulwark," distinguishing them from the other barbarian chieftains, and thus they were also called the Mingzheng Chieftain.

In Liu Chengzong's perception, even though the Mingzheng Chieftain had contributed nothing and done nothing, he still felt far better about them than about the Jinchuan Chieftain, who had put up real gold and silver.

That Jinchuan Chieftain spends all day building blockhouses at home — who are you trying to intimidate?

Whether they submit or not, at least the Mingzheng Chieftain acts like someone willing to be friends.

Liu Chengzong decided to invite the Mingzheng Chieftain to meet at Luhuo in winter and discuss the coming developments in the southeast.

Dajianlu was indeed in the Great Ming's southwest, but for Liu Chengzong, that was his southeast. In truth, he also wanted to find out how the tea-horse trade operated around here; if the cost was right, he planned to send men to Dajianlu to buy tea.

Xining did have tea, but to suppress the sea bandits, the Great Ming set a very low tea quota for Xining, nowhere near the volume at the Diaomen Tea-Horse Office. Moreover, transport from north to south was inconvenient. Comparatively, purchasing some Sichuan tea would greatly help boost garrison morale.

The only problem was that Liu Chengzong feared the Mingzheng Chieftain would not dare come to Luhuo. After all, if he were asked to enter Dajianlu rashly... actually, going to Dajianlu would be fine, but if he were asked to go to Jinchuan with its forest of blockhouses, he would definitely have to think twice.

So as he set out, he sent a letter to Luhuo to inform his uncle, asking his uncle to invite the Mingzheng Chieftain to stay temporarily in Luhuo County, so they could meet when he arrived.

As it turned out, he had worried for nothing. By the time the letter reached Luhuo, his uncle Cai Zhongpan had already been out hunting with the Mingzheng Chieftain for several days.

It was a happy accident. Cai Zhongpan had little skill at marching and fighting, but in his early years he had traveled with Shaanxi merchant caravans around Sanyuan and Jingyang in Shaanxi, and was widely experienced.

And the Mingzheng Chieftain was also subjectively leaning closer to Liu the Lion, so it would have been hard for their relationship to go badly.

Of course, the most crucial thing was that both of them spoke Shaanxi dialect.

Because in Dajianlu, there was a group of very powerful merchants from Shaanxi.

When the news arrived, the two were picnicking by the Xianshui River in Luhuo County. Though it was freezing cold, the Lion soldiers and the Dajianlu song-and-dance troupe were singing and dancing around a bonfire, and everyone was having a wonderful time.

An attendant unfolded the letter before him. Cai Zhongpan read it carefully, nodded to the attendant, then, with an unchanged expression, used a small knife to slice the plain-boiled and cooled fragrant pork into thin pieces and placed them in a celadon bowl.

A three-legged tea pot was set up on the grass, with guokui cakes warming beside it. Cai Zhongpan's tableware was all kept in pouches knitted from fine wool yarn, which he carried with him wherever he went.

Now, four celadon bowls were laid out before him, containing in order: guokui, sliced fragrant pork, hot milk tea, and highland barley wine.

Once the guokui was hot, he cut a slit into it with his knife. First a sip of milk tea, then the steaming guokui stuffed with a few slices of the unseasoned fragrant pork — the more he chewed, the more fragrant it became — and finally a sip of highland barley wine.

This was truly the finest extra meal in the wilds.

But at this very moment, held in the Mingzheng Chieftain's hand, this meat-stuffed bread was not the least bit appealing.

He had waited eagerly for ages, only to find that Cai Zhongpan had no intention of discussing the letter with him. He hesitated, his heart itching, and finally could not hold back. He asked, "Brother Zhongpan, has the Grand Marshal sent a letter?"

"Mm, a letter came. Nothing major. Go on with what you were saying." Cai Zhongpan nodded with a beaming smile, turned aside to sip his wine, and said with keen interest, "What's going on in Sichuan? The people of Chengdu want to burn down the Prince of Neijiang's mansion?"

Cai Zhongpan did not want Muya to know that Liu Chengzong was about to arrive in Luhuo.

Because in Liu Chengzong's impression, he thought this Mingzheng Chieftain Muya was an honest and dutiful merchant, but in Cai Zhongpan's understanding, that was not the case.

Muya had only recently succeeded to his title a few years ago, but had already firmly secured the position of Mingzheng Chieftain. His domain was vast and his strength formidable; he had four thousand armored soldiers under his command. If he wanted to go to war, without the Great Ming's help, none of the surrounding chieftains could defeat him.

Moreover, the distance between Dajianlu and Luhuo was eight hundred li round trip. The Lion Army had only six hundred garrison troops in Luhuo, and Liu Chengzong had to travel one thousand two hundred li from Nangqian to get there.

So he planned to tell Muya the news of Liu Chengzong's imminent arrival ten days from now.

By exploiting the time lag, even if Muya had ill intentions, he would not have time to mobilize his forces.

Muya had a premonition that Liu Chengzong's letter must have said something, but if Cai Zhongpan wouldn't say, he had no choice. He could only follow the previous topic of conversation and said with a laugh, "That's perfectly normal. Sichuan people have huge tempers, and there are so many princely estates, often running amok and breaking the law. The officials are busy helping the powerful landlords commit outrages. The common people going off to burn a princely estate — does that even count as news?"

Cai Zhongpan burst out laughing at this. "Listen to the way you talk!"

"Really, old brother. I've been surrounded by Shaanxi people since I was little; we're practically half townsmen. A Shaanxi man doesn't cheat another Shaanxi man."

Muya waved his hand. "Just last year, in Ba County, there was a man named Ni Sihui, a Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing. His son, Ni Tianhe, colluded with the Chongqing prefect Yu Xinmin in all sorts of evil. They said that when Fan Long attacked Chongqing, there were collaborators inside the city, and used the pretext of an investigation to ruin hundreds, even thousands, of good families."

Cai Zhongpan raised his wine bowl for another sip and asked, "Popular outrage boiling over?"

"Of course the popular outrage was boiling over." Muya really did sound like a Shaanxi man; in any case, even if he didn't sound like a Shaanxi man, he absolutely did not sound like a barbarian tribal chief. He waved his hand. "Ba County has another local tyrant, called Wang Yingxi. His older brother is Wang Yingxiong, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites. You don't know Sichuan affairs."

Muya said, "Sichuan, ah, the roads are isolated. Since the Wanli Emperor's time, the localities have been short of officials, and county authority has often been held by commissioners."

"Commissioners" meant appointed personnel.

For example, when Fushi County had no magistrate, vice magistrate, recorder, or warden, the great village worthy Liu Xiangyu submitted a petition requesting the appointment of officials. The Yan'an prefect could not get anyone, so he appointed Liu Xiangyu as the Fushi County Commissioner to administer the county on his behalf.

"During the Longqing Emperor's reign, Grand Coordinator Yan governed Sichuan and deeply detested the powerful clans and brutal underlings. In the end, he was dismissed from office and summoned for investigation. Back then, even a grand coordinator could be forced out, let alone after who knows how many years of military chaos."

"Sichuan has only one good point: even as a tenant farmer, a commoner can survive." Muya spoke as if telling a story, and finally clapped his hands. "A pity, in the end, the Chengdu commoners didn't manage to burn down the princely estate. They were persuaded to leave by Prefect Wang Sunlan."

Cai Zhongpan fixed his gaze on Muya. "Do you want Sichuan to fall into chaos? Or... do you want to enter Sichuan?"

Muya shook his head like a rattle-drum. "Forget it. If you're saying I want Sichuan to go to war again, I do have that thought. But enter Sichuan? I wouldn't dare even dream of it!"

Cai Zhongpan did not believe him. "Why is that?"

Muya shook his head. "Sichuan breeds men!"

Muya truly did want warfare to break out in Sichuan, but this was not out of a love for chaos, but rather a hope that someone could tie down the Sichuan government troops.

The center of the tea-horse trade was not in Dajianlu, but in the hands of the Lengbian and Shenbian chieftains on the east bank of the Dadu River.

The imperial court officially designated Leng and Shen as the southern route tea trade center, restricting tea merchants to buying tea with permits in Yazhou and Lizhou, and then transporting the tea to Leng and Shen in Luding before they could trade.

Furthermore, Tibetan merchants from Tibet, Kham, and other regions who came to buy tea also had to go to Leng and Shen to make their purchases.

What was Muya's chieftain office called? It was called Longhe West. The trade center was in the hands of those two petty chieftains on Longhe East, raking in a fortune daily. His Dajianlu could only do a bit of innkeeping business, providing food and lodging for passing merchants.

On his deathbed, his father had done one thing: he blocked the barbarian merchants west of the Dadu River, forbidding them to cross, and bribed the Han merchants to bypass the east bank and boycott the Leng and Shen markets.

He contacted the Diaomen chieftain, with whom they had long historical ties, to smuggle border tea and sabotage the legal border tea trade market in the Leng and Shen region.

At the same time, he also launched a war, attacking and destroying the two forts of Leng and Shen, directly sending the two chieftains to the afterlife, which resulted in new chieftains succeeding to the titles.

But those two Mongol chieftains had Sichuan officials protecting them. The new Shen Fort chieftain Yu Jingdong and the Lengbian chieftain together blockaded the Dadu River, bringing the court's tea-horse trade to a standstill for three years.

With the Dadu River lying across the way, no one had any other solution. Not even four thousand armored soldiers — even four hundred thousand troops — the Dadu River was still the Dadu River, and if you couldn't cross, you still couldn't cross.

In the end, the Longhe West chieftain had no choice but to capitulate. On the eleventh day of the third month in the forty-fifth year of the Wanli reign, he sent his steward to Shenbian Fort and signed an agreement with the Leng and Shen chieftains, the various tribal headmen, and the merchants from five provinces, re-establishing Leng and Shen as the trade market.

And then Muya's father died of rage.

Muya did not want to run an inn; it was truly forced upon him by life, with no other choice. He could only run an inn; he could not open a market.

As for saying Sichuan breeds men, that was actually just another way of describing the fierce character of the Sichuan people. As an outsider, the Mongol army had entered Sichuan and fought a single war that lasted fifty-two years. Only a brain-damaged fool would think of invading Sichuan.

Sichuan's terrain is a sealed gladiatorial arena — the war won't end until everyone is dead.

What really piqued Muya's curiosity, though, was Cai Zhongpan's question: "You're not planning to enter Sichuan? The Shu lands have a thousand li of fertile fields — royal fields account for seven-tenths, military fields two-tenths, and powerful gentry households one-tenth. Don't you want to enter?"

Cai Zhongpan chuckled and said, "That's for the Marshal's headquarters to decide. It's not my place — don't try to fish words out of me."

But even as he said that, after today's conversation, Cai Zhongpan's mood couldn't have been better. With public resentment in Sichuan running this high, the work Liu Chengzong had assigned him should be very easy to accomplish.

After a moment's thought, he said to Muya with a serious expression, "Let's talk business. Can you introduce me to a merchant — preferably a Shaanxi man, someone who's been trading in Sichuan for a few years, with not too much capital? Is there anyone like that?"

"Not too much capital — how much counts as not too much? One or two thousand taels, or ten or twenty thousand taels?"

Muya thought it over and said, "There's a man from Weinan in Shaanxi. He used to be the manager for the Zhao family of Xiaoyi Town at their shop in Chengdu Prefecture. I heard last year he wanted to strike out on his own. If you want to meet him, I can help you look, but first, I may not be able to find him, and second, even if I do, he may not be willing to meet you."

"Not willing to meet me…" Cai Zhongpan asked, "Why is that?"

Muya held his milk-tea porcelain bowl, blew on the steam, and took a sip with immense satisfaction. He glanced at Cai Zhongpan and said, "Your reputation — it's not exactly good, as far as merchants are concerned."

"Never mind asking a merchant to come running over to meet you — just the fact that the Grand Marshal conquered Beri and his blade's edge reached straight to Luhuo was enough to send over forty merchant houses from the five provinces permanently stationed at Lengbian and Shenbian packing their bedrolls and fleeing. Even the Shaanxi merchants in Chengdu Prefecture left in droves, leaving behind only a manager here, figuring wealth comes from courting danger."

Cai Zhongpan rapped his knuckles against his head in frustration. How to put this — it was an inevitability he had almost completely overlooked.

Because a merchant is never just a merchant. Once they make money, they buy land and have their younger-generation sons and nephews sit the imperial exams, thereby stepping into officialdom. And in the localities, these people are the powerful gentry landlords.

Shaanxi's commercial centers were in places like Sanyuan and Jingyang. Liu Chengzong had never been to those places, but Wang Er, Wang Zuogua, and others had repeatedly raided Weinan and Weibei.

The Sichuanese might not know much about them, but to Shaanxi merchants, the Grand Marshal of Qinghai was synonymous with roving bandits.

"Alright, first find this man for me. If he's willing to come, let him come. If not, tell him not to leave. If it really comes down to it, I'll make a trip to Chengdu Prefecture myself."

"You, go to Chengdu Prefecture?"

Muya's eyes went wide. "In what capacity would you go to Chengdu Prefecture?"

Cai Zhongpan spread his hands and grinned at Muya. "Sent by the Changhexi Pacification Commissioner's Office to Chengdu Prefecture to procure… procure what?"

Muya caught on almost instantly and waved a hand. "No — you're a steward sent by the Mingzheng Chieftain to Brocade City to purchase Shu brocade."

"Right — a steward sent by the Mingzheng Chieftain to Brocade City to purchase Shu brocade…" Cai Zhongpan racked his brains to come up with a name and finally clapped his hands. "Steward Basang!"

"Hey, I've noticed something about you people — why do you all like giving yourselves the fake name Basang?"

Muya was dumbfounded by the name. "That cavalryman who first came to the Mingzheng Chieftain to deliver messages — he couldn't speak the language with my native soldiers, so it was just 'Basang, Basang.' And now you're calling yourself Basang too."

Cai Zhongpan shook his head, smiling cheerfully. He couldn't explain it either, so he simply said, "Anyway, just remember to find that man for me. Best if you can before the new year. I have a huge deal to discuss with him."

"A huge deal?"

Muya had been about to hedge his words, but hearing that phrase struck a chord deep in his DNA. He hurriedly asked, "Will it need smuggling through my territory? Let me tell you — as long as the Grand Marshal is willing to demarcate borders with me and stay out of Mingzheng's affairs, from Mingzheng to Lizhou's Songping Pass, I guarantee a clear path all the way."

He raised a finger and pointed east. "I have just one condition. We're all fellow countrymen here — bypass those two Mongol Tartars east of the Long River. Whatever you do, don't let them earn this money!"

Cai Zhongpan thought to himself: I'm a man from northern Shaanxi, and here I am calling a Western Barbarian chieftain from Dajianlu a fellow countryman — you could say it's utterly surreal.

But that didn't matter. What mattered was that this smuggling route was an entirely unexpected windfall, something he hadn't factored into his plans at all.

The deal he had originally wanted to discuss wasn't about buying and selling goods — it was about investing in a merchant to do business while using the shop as a base to infiltrate Sichuan.

"I'll inform the Grand Marshal of this."

Cai Zhongpan offered it as a guarantee, then added with emphasis, "You must find this man. We can open up a great, great trade route from Xining to Chengdu. We have piles of hides sitting unsold in Xining."