Chapter 596: Commercial Affairs at Qingjiangpu

The people in the room sank into thought. Wang Zhaojing smiled and spoke first: "There's no rush on my end. My family hasn't pressed me either. That's the advantage of the scholarly examination path."

His words sounded reasonable, but in truth they were absurd. Scholars married late because the vast majority of them were poor and no one thought highly of them. Only after passing the examinations and earning official rank—even the lowest xiucai degree came with government support and the right to address officials as equals—did they have no worries about marriage, to say nothing of juren or jinshi graduates.

Someone like Wang Zhaojing had been a hot commodity since childhood. In Xuzhou, his family was a top-tier pure and prestigious household; in the capital, they were a promising family of upright officials. Far too many people wanted to arrange marriages with his family. It was only because Wang Youshan refused to let outside matters distract his son that he had declined all requests. Once Wang Zhaojing returned to Xuzhou and Wang Youshan left for the capital, such matters became even harder to interfere with. Though a child's marriage was supposedly decided by parental command, in the Wang household, Wang Zhaojing was effectively the one in charge.

And it wasn't just Wang Zhaojing—Zhao Jin and his companions were the same. Young as they were, their current circumstances had long since surpassed anything their fathers' generation could understand or control. When it came to marriage, their families and parents could only offer suggestions; they had no power to decide anything.

In truth, the elders of each family had no intention of deciding anything. They felt it was better to let Zhao Jin make the call—he saw things more clearly than they did, and he wouldn't let their children be shortchanged.

No one at Qingjiangpu would have guessed that the core members of the Zhao Character Battalion were actually discussing their own marriages. All they knew was that the people who could make decisions for the Zhao Character Battalion had finally arrived.

Riverside Pavilion was the largest and finest restaurant in Qingjiangpu. It was built right on the edge of the canal, on land worth its weight in gold. The restaurant hadn't even been built to make money—it existed solely to give the wealthy merchants of Qingjiangpu a place to gather and confer. Because of this, everything about it was the best Qingjiangpu had to offer, and not just anyone could eat there. The restaurant was often closed to the public, open only for the private banquets and gatherings of those wealthy merchants themselves.

Today, Riverside Pavilion was likewise closed to the public. Idle busybodies watched from outside, trying to see what kind of honored guests had arrived. By the end, they were left gaping. It turned out that every person of consequence in Qingjiangpu had either come in person or sent a representative. The ones who sent representatives were all civil officials and military officers—the vice director of the branch office, the granary commissioner, the prefect of Huai'an, the vice prefect, the magistrate of Shanyang, the Shanyang garrison commander, and so on. In other words, aside from the officials for whom it was inconvenient to appear in person, every other wealthy merchant of any standing had come personally.

Merchants of this caliber numbered no more than forty-five in all of vast Qingjiangpu. Even counting the envoys sent by the officials, the first floor wasn't full. Seated in the center were Zhao Jin and his companions, along with Sun Jia of the Sun Family Trading Company.

The riffraff of Qingjiangpu had long since learned to fear and respect these young men not yet twenty years old. But the titan merchants and magnates of Qingjiangpu were not accustomed to dealing with such young "big shots." For everyone's convenience, they had no choice but to invite Sun Jia, the proprietor of the Sun Family Trading Company, to lend some weight to the occasion.

Thanks to managing Han Well Famous Liquor, overseeing the business of exchanging tribute grain for liquor, and having the vast enterprise of the Zhao Character Battalion backing him, Sun Jia had become one of the renowned major figures in the commercial world north of the Yangtze. Liquor, grain, livestock, all manner of goods, and large sums of ready silver—the Sun Family Trading Company could provide them all at any time. Now, all along the canal and even in the major prefectures of Jiangnan, the Sun family had business everywhere. A man like this commanded respect even from the tycoons of Qingjiangpu.

Having a major merchant like Sun Jia appear on their behalf was tantamount to a guarantee for Zhao Jin and the others. Everyone could now negotiate with peace of mind.

No matter what river-lake dragon head or local power broker, they all had to bow their heads before these wealthy merchants. The true masters of Qingjiangpu were these merchants with fortunes of ten thousand strings of cash. Just as the salt merchants controlled Yangzhou, the granary commissioner Lian Ping'an was counted among their number.

None of these wealthy merchants were self-made. Even if they came from humble origins, by the time they reached this level, they had already latched onto sufficient backing—otherwise their family businesses would have been swallowed whole long ago. The river-lake men who had opposed the Zhao Character Battalion could only look up at these several dozen tycoons and magnates, or take their money and sell their lives working for them.

The wealthy merchants of Qingjiangpu were also extremely well-informed. They certainly knew that the Zhao Character Battalion had crushed the local river-lake forces and begun moving into Qingjiangpu, even securing a major business in tribute grain on the canal. But they didn't care, because it had little to do with them. They were very confident: if this Zhao Character Battalion from Xuzhou ever encroached on their business, they could absolutely crush them completely.

Business is done to seek wealth, not to make enemies. The merchants understood this perfectly. As long as no one hindered everyone's profits, why nurse grudges like river-lake men? That said, the reason the river-lake men had fought the Zhao Character Battalion so fiercely was precisely because their sources of income were at risk.

For the shrewd wealthy merchants of Qingjiangpu, the arrival of the Xuzhou Zhao Character Battalion did not provoke hostility. On the contrary, it let them see an opportunity—they discovered a new path to wealth.

They had long heard of the salt market and several trading markets around Hejiazhuang in Xuzhou, which connected east, west, north, and south. Once the Zhao Character Battalion entered Qingjiangpu, many immediately realized: for a force as large as the Zhao Character Battalion to emerge from a mere backwater like Xuzhou, the liquor was a source of wealth, but the support provided by that salt market and those trading markets was likely no small thing either.

If that market was so profitable, why couldn't Qingjiangpu set one up too? Xuzhou was a land transport hub connecting the three provinces of Henan, Shandong, and South Zhili, where people, wealth, and goods converged. But Qingjiangpu was the hub of the entire realm's canal transport, where merchants and goods from north and south gathered. If one were established here, wouldn't it flourish even more than the one in Xuzhou?

Right now, merchants and goods came from north and south, but couldn't find many buyers. They could only deal with old contacts or find a firm nearby—usually one close to the canal docks. Doing business this way, sellers might not earn much and might not come next time. It also led to chaotic pricing, causing trouble for everyone else.

Buyers faced the same problem. With so many merchants coming from south and north, they couldn't clearly know what goods each merchant carried. They could only choose from a very narrow range, often ending up with inferior goods at high prices, while quality goods at fair prices might be on the very next boat.

Because of this lack of information between buyers and sellers, only a few black-hearted, daring middlemen got fat. Ordinary merchants took losses, and even the top-tier great merchants found it troublesome.

For tycoons of this level, playing tricks in a place like Qingjiangpu no longer held much meaning—they couldn't shake each other. All of them had climbed up through the slaughter and annexation of the commercial battlefield. What they needed was simply a relatively fair venue for buying and selling, a place that would let the commercial goods converging on Qingjiangpu from all under heaven truly circulate, making the fullest use of Qingjiangpu's environment.

The wealthy merchants wanted this, and ordinary merchants also felt it would be greatly beneficial. Moreover, each wealthy merchant was often the leader and representative of a particular trade or a particular group of merchants. It was rare for Qingjiangpu to have something so universally desired, so they all had to step forward and make it happen.

Since everyone thought this way, it was time to discuss the details. Everyone knew that once this market was built, it would immediately become a treasure bowl—and an incomparably vast one at that. Put in one coin, and it truly would multiply tenfold or a hundredfold. Faced with such enormous profit, no one could trust anyone else.

The wealthy merchants of Qingjiangpu were all equals, dealing with one another politely and courteously. But if an opportunity arose to swindle and swallow a rival, none of them would let it pass.

Under these circumstances, how could these tycoons dare trust one another? If any one of them presided over the grand market, favoritism was likely. If any one of them presided, they might swell in power and swallow the rest.

There was another, seemingly best method: since no one trusted anyone else, let everyone preside together and decide matters through joint deliberation. But the merchants who had risen to this level, wary as they were of one another, were no fools. They knew that if they truly let everyone deliberate jointly, nothing would ever get done. Each person would argue for their own interests, and on top of that, there were old grudges between them. With all that entanglement and wrangling, there would only be endless deliberation, and no decision would ever be reached.

Since they couldn't have one of their own preside, bringing in an outsider—someone with rich experience in running markets and enough strength to suppress any unrest—was the most suitable choice. That candidate was, of course, the Zhao Character Battalion.

Not to mention anything else: once a market of this scale was established, petty thieves and pickpockets from all over Qingjiangpu, beggars who demanded money by force, even child-snatchers, swindlers who staged accidents, and con artists running every kind of scheme would all swarm in. Although the merchants could command river-lake men and government runners, those very river-lake men and runners were the backers of all these petty criminals. Why would they ever investigate seriously? By then, who knew how chaotic it would become.

The government itself was also a problem. If a market this big were built, the authorities would very likely send officials to administer it exclusively. Whether business got done or not would be one thing; the daily nuisance of dealing with extortion would be vexing beyond endurance. Hadn't Qingjiangpu's present prosperity come precisely because Huai'an Prefecture and Shanyang County couldn't directly govern it?

All things considered, the Zhao Character Battalion was the most suitable choice. First, the Zhao Character Battalion had strict and clear discipline. In the few months since arriving in Qingjiangpu, they had indeed bloodied their hands at the start, but afterward, they hadn't relied on their power to run amok. Even when garrisoned at several martial training halls in Qingjiangpu, they paid for supplies at market price, and with real silver and copper coins. Not to mention Han Well Famous Liquor—by all rights, since the goods were profitable and the Zhao Character Battalion had the prestige of a great victory, they could have set a high price and everyone would still have bought it. They wouldn't have lost out, and any discontent could have been swallowed with a grimace.

Yet the Zhao Character Battalion acted with complete fairness. The Han Well Famous Liquor they shipped over was actually priced considerably lower than before. This was because there were no more middlemen adding markups and taking cuts. They were following the rules of the marketplace, and were the kind of businessmen with a real conscience.

Thanks to old friend "Yuan Heng Li Zhen" for the tip. Thank you all for your subscriptions and monthly tickets. Tossing and turning, unable to sleep—I uploaded this chapter's scheduled update at past two in the morning.