Chapter 139: Everything in Readiness

Zhao San and his wife both came from small backwaters and were terribly shallow-minded. The moment they heard he could get better without taking medicine or seeing a doctor, they half-believingly, half-doubtfully accepted it. Zhao San had always been robust, and after resting for a couple of days, he recovered on his own.

Once the illness was gone, however, Zhao San and his wife credited it entirely to the Maitreya Buddha and the Eternal Venerable Mother. The person who had persuaded them then told them their lot was a bitter one, and that only by devoutly worshipping the gods and praying to the Buddhas could they live a good life and be reborn into a wealthy, noble family in the next life.

After all this talk, Zhao San's household invited a deity statue into their home, burning incense and making offerings every day, and going out once every two days to attend some sort of incense gathering.

In just six short days, not only was the money that had originally been meant for doctors and medicine spent, but even the meager savings the couple had managed to accumulate only after coming to the Zhao household were handed over.

It was in the afternoon, when He Cuihua was idly tidying up the courtyard, that she caught the scent of incense wafting from Zhao San's room. Knowing it wasn't cheap, and also knowing Zhao San's household had no ancestral tablets or anything of the sort to enshrine, she went in to look and discovered the deity statue and such. The result was a furious outburst.

"The Smelling Incense Sect?" Zhao Jin said, startled. He Cuihua nodded in irritation and answered, "That's the one, that depraved heresy. Your mother here has seen plenty of these since I was a girl. First they have you burn incense and worship gods, then they make you offer up your family property, and in time they'll want you to follow them out to stir up trouble, dragging you in until your family is ruined and your home destroyed."

Zhao Jin nodded. No wonder his own parents treated Mu Shulan quite well, yet were so cold, even hostile, toward Mr. Mu.

Just then, Zhao Zhentang also returned from the yamen. Seeing the scene in the courtyard, he hurriedly demanded an explanation. Once he understood what had happened, he said, crisp and decisive, "If I ever find out you two are tangled up with the Smelling Incense Sect again, you'll be driven out of the Zhao household!"

He Cuihua had been talking all afternoon, and Zhao San and his wife had only been frightened. But this one sentence from Zhao Zhentang sent the couple straight to their knees, kowtowing and repeatedly swearing they would never dare again.

Only then did the matter come to a close for the time being. He Cuihua, still huffing with anger, shouted for Zhao San's wife to go cook dinner, while Zhao Zhentang and Zhao Jin waited in the main room for the meal.

"The Smelling Incense Sect must have sent new people to take charge. Several lawsuits have already broken out in the city over this," Zhao Zhentang said.

Nowadays, Zhao Zhentang treated Zhao Jin as an adult, and would proactively share much of this information with him.

"Aren't the people from Xiaolan's family managing it?" Zhao Jin asked in puzzled retort. Mu Shulan's second uncle had come to clean up the chaos, so he had instinctively assumed it should be the Mu family's people managing things here.

"They probably went back to Shandong long ago. If the Mu family's people were really in charge, how could there be so much trouble?" Zhao Zhentang said.

Although the Smelling Incense Sect's activities were secretive, to a constable born of a local power-holding family, their movements could still be tracked. Besides, preaching and burning incense inevitably required activity in the marketplace, and once there was activity, there were traces.

No one gets out of bed early without profit. When the Smelling Incense Sect preached, they might help the poor and provide mutual aid, but their goal was always to fleece people of money and expand their power. It was nothing more than tricking people into joining the sect, and then seizing their family property.

According to Zhao Zhentang, that Mr. Mu from before had conducted himself with great restraint, merely preaching doctrine and having the congregation help one another. Mr. Mu himself only took enough to cover his basic living expenses, which was why Mu Shulan never looked particularly wealthy either. It was only later, as time passed and some wealthy households and local tyrants joined the sect and spent lavishly, that Mr. Mu and his daughter's circumstances gradually became more comfortable.

This newly arrived sect leader, however, was nowhere near as restrained. Recently, inside and outside Xuzhou city, several cases had cropped up — some people, utterly ruined, went to the yamen to report and seek help; others, unable to swallow such humiliation, hanged themselves. The uproar was widespread.

Still, there was one thing this new sect leader did quite well: his whereabouts remained hidden at all times, and the core figures of the Smelling Incense Sect in Xuzhou were all very cautious and prudent, making it difficult for the authorities to cause them trouble.

Only after all this was said did dinner arrive. It was a hastily prepared meal, so it was quite simple. After a few bites, Zhao Jin said, "Dad, I'm planning to open a distillery in the south of the city. I've already hired the people."

Both Zhao Zhentang and He Cuihua were taken aback. He Cuihua blurted out, "At your young age, what distillery are you opening? Do you even have the capital..."

She stopped herself mid-sentence and muttered, "No wonder you were drinking those days."

Zhao Zhentang glanced at her and said with a smile, "This precious son of yours has plenty of money. How could he lack capital?"

After saying this, Zhao Zhentang frowned and said, "A distillery? There's only that one left in the south of the city now, isn't there? And even that one probably can't hold on much longer. Aren't you afraid of losing money on this?"

"I won't lose money!" Zhao Jin answered with a grin.

Zhao Zhentang and He Cuihua exchanged a glance, both shaking their heads in resignation. Neither said anything more.

The preliminary preparations for setting up the distillery went very smoothly. There were already abandoned distilleries in the south of the city, and Lu Xiangjiu and Su Da picked one with a well in the courtyard.

These few establishments in the south of the city had been closed for quite some time, and much of the distilling equipment inside, like the overhead cauldrons, was damaged. But Lu Xiangjiu and Su Da had ample silver in hand and worked with high enthusiasm. Running around inside and outside the city several times, they actually managed to piece together all these items from various other distilleries.

Zhao Jin had long considered the distillery's workers. When he had previously recruited household guards, many young men had come to apply, and these people were all suitable apprentice laborers, perfect for the job. The wages just needed to be twenty percent higher than the market rate. Once word of this spread, not only were those young men willing to come, but even craftsmen who had previously worked in distilleries came to apply.

What Lu Xiangjiu and Su Da found strange, however, was that when Zhao Jin recruited these people, he only considered those whose families had lived within Xuzhou city for three generations and were fully intact. Only such candidates would be hired.

The sorghum needed as the brewing ingredient was also quickly gathered to the required quantity. In the Great Ming nowadays, the problem wasn't that money couldn't buy grain, but that there was no ready cash. Zhao Jin had no shortage of silver and copper coins, and what he was buying was that low-grade coarse grain, sorghum, so it was very easy to purchase the needed amount. Moreover, everyone knew it was "Master Jin" buying grain, so the grain peddlers and grain shops all provided the best quality goods they had.

On the fifth day after purchasing that abandoned distillery, Lu Xiangjiu and Su Da, very excited, invited Zhao Jin to come over.

The distillery's name could still be vaguely made out from the mottled signboard: "Fragrant Breeze Distillery." The name was terribly tacky, the walls were badly damaged, and weeds covered everything.

"Boss, the overhead cauldrons, the floor cauldrons, and the floor vats inside this distillery have all been taken away, and all the wooden equipment in the airing rooms is gone too. But Boss, don't you worry, these things are very easy to replace. There are intact ones elsewhere; we just need to bring them over, scrub them clean, and they'll be ready to use."

Listening to the two of them explain, Zhao Jin smiled. The Fragrant Breeze Distillery before him was indeed dilapidated beyond recognition. Aside from the buildings being barely intact and usable with some repairs, it looked practically like a garbage dump. The weeds in the courtyard reached knee-high, and all sorts of junk was strewn everywhere.

Lu Xiangjiu and Su Da had already cleared a path through here. As they walked, they said, "When this distillery shut down, they must have still been thinking of reopening. That well in the back was sealed very tightly with several large bluestone slabs and hasn't been touched since, which saves us the trouble of digging a new well. Boss, look over there — that drainage ditch, though it's silted up, can still be used once it's cleaned out."

The distillery building was very tall and spacious, but inside it was just as filthy and chaotic, with some pungent odors. Su Da explained, "A few beggars were living here before, but they've already been chased away."

Since this was choosing a distillery for Zhao Jin, Chen Ergou and Butcher Li both treated it as a major undertaking and assigned their men to come along and assist. Naturally, all the riffraff had been thoroughly cleared out.

Filthy and messy as the place was, this distillery was roughly the size of a goods yard, and acquiring it had cost only ten taels of silver in total. At such a cheap price, one naturally couldn't expect to buy something too orderly.

Patiently, Zhao Jin followed the two men to a certain spot. Here, for some reason, there were quite a few mounds of earth. A couple of the mounds looked as if they had been dug into, while the rest were covered in grass, appearing untouched for years.

"Boss, after looking at several abandoned distilleries, this one is the most worthwhile. Under these earth mounds are the wine cellars," Lu Xiangjiu said, somewhat excitedly.

"When this place closed down back then, they must have still intended to start up again. The two most critical things were both very well protected. The well was sealed shut, and the wine cellars were covered with bluestone slabs, the seams sealed with mortar, and then earth piled on top. They could be reopened at any time. Who would have thought the market would get worse year by year..." Lu Xiangjiu had also started out running a distillery back in the day, and as he spoke, a touch of melancholy crept into his voice.

"Digging and nurturing a wine cellar takes at least three years, no matter what. I had been hoping to find a place with a mature cellar like this. Thanks to your good fortune, Boss, we actually found one." Su Da was clearly trying to claim credit with these words.

Lu Xiangjiu shot a glance at Su Da and rushed to say, "Boss, I went down to take a look. It's built with bluestone blocks, and there's still a faint aroma of distiller's grains. Not too many households have lived around that well, so the well water should be good too. With cellars like these and water like this, if we use rice or wheat, we can definitely make even better liquor. Boss, let's not use sorghum after all."

Zhao Jin replied with a smile, firm and resolute, "We must use sorghum."

The distillery was very large. Shi Manqiang's father, after inspecting it, said it would take a great deal of labor to clean it up properly. And labor was the one thing Zhao Jin had in greatest supply.

The day after everything was decided, Zhao Jin brought over his hundred household guards. Combined with those young men who had applied to be distillery workers, there were over a hundred and fifty people in total — more than enough. They immediately set to work with roaring enthusiasm.

The march of Zhao Jin's household guards from the goods yard to the distillery in the south of the city caused quite a stir along the way. Everyone knew Zhao Jin was training household guards at the goods yard, and many idlers had even gone there to watch the spectacle. Back then, they had only thought everyone was clumsy and awkward, a source of endless mockery.

Yet in less than a month's time, these men had undergone a complete transformation. Every one of them wore identical clothes, marched with identical strides, and walked down the street in a perfectly ordered formation.

Many passersby stopped in their tracks to watch, people from the shops and residences lining the street peered out curiously, and the idlers all came running to see the excitement.

Everyone had originally come just to see something novel, but once they actually saw this troop, those thoughts were all put away. The timid ones even shrank back, peering out through door cracks. The idlers no longer dared to comment loudly, stepping aside in awe. The passersby all pressed themselves as close to the sides as possible, clearing a path for the troop to pass.