Chapter 598: The Qingjiang Great Market

Before Zhao Jin could keep the conversation going, Li Ziyou opened up on his own, his face tinged with sorrow and his voice sinking low: "There's no law out on the grasslands, and the Jurchen don't treat Han people as human. When you set out with your goods, your wife and kids back home cry their hearts out — nobody knows if you'll ever come back. Everyone sees the ones who return with a fortune, but those who freeze to death, those fed to the wolves — who still remembers them..."

Shanxi merchants — the phrase flashed through Zhao Jin's mind. He was hardly ignorant about Shanxi merchants. The cattle and horse trader Wang Ziyang passed through Xuzhou every year, crossing Henan and Shanxi to go beyond the passes into the grasslands. Even if he never went all the way east past the Great Wall into Jurchen territory, he had seen and heard plenty. And everyone knew Zhao Jin loved listening to such tales and anecdotes, so they made a point of telling him.

Shipping supplies to an enemy state — that was aiding the enemy, or even outright espionage. Zhao Jin had deliberately steered the conversation wide open, hoping to draw out the other man's justification. Of course, a real spy would keep his mouth tightly shut, but traces would still leak through.

Yet this Li Ziyou before him clearly had nothing to do with collaborating with the enemy or espionage. He spoke with complete candor, utterly unaware of the consequences of his family's trade. To them, enduring countless hardships to open a trade route across the grasslands and earning rich profits was only right and proper — nothing wrong with it at all.

But the supplies they transported steadily strengthened the Jianzhou Jurchen, who then used that strength to attack the Great Ming, slaughtering and butchering. From that perspective, the silver in these merchants' hands was stained with the blood of the soldiers and civilians of Liaodong.

Thoughts aside, Zhao Jin himself turned the topic back, smiling as he asked, "After all this idle chatter, what business does Steward Li actually have? We've gotten completely sidetracked!"

Li Ziyou laughed in spite of himself. Zhao Jin's teasing had drawn the two of them considerably closer. Clearing his throat, Li Ziyou said, "The Jianzhou Jurchen have taken Fushun City in Liaodong. From now on, the Jianzhou Jurchen are no longer a vassal of the Great Ming but an enemy state. I fear my humble firm's northern goods and local specialties may become somewhat... inconvenient."

At this, Li Ziyou gave a cold laugh and lowered his voice. "Look around you, Master Jin. Everyone here is all smiles and harmony, but there are plenty of schemes in their bellies. Once word of that Liaodong defeat spreads, someone will surely sneak off to the yamen and denounce me for secretly trading with an enemy state. Then they'll seal and seize my goods and swallow up my business in the process."

"A Liaodong defeat?" Zhao Jin asked reflexively. The official gazette had yet to publish the news across the realm, and the word of the defeat there had come by Wang Youshan's private express courier. How did a merchant here in Qingjiangpu already know?

"Master Jin hasn't heard? It's already spread all over Qingjiangpu. Everyone knows northern goods are going to rise in price — everyone connected to that trade is hoarding and stocking up," Li Ziyou said, somewhat surprised.

Zhao Jin laughed a couple of times, and Li Ziyou returned to the main subject. "What I ask of Master Jin is very simple. If such rotten luck does come knocking, I ask Master Jin to step in and hold it off for a few days. With Master Jin's fearsome reputation in Qingjiangpu, if you step forward, even the officials won't dare act rashly."

That one great battle in Qingjiangpu — over a hundred lives lost, nearly a hundred households dragged to the Weedy Flats to "repay their debts" — the Prefect's yamen, the County Magistrate's yamen, the Shanyang Garrison Command, every official in Qingjiangpu great and small, not a single one dared make a move. That proved just how terrifyingly formidable the Zhao Character Camp truly was.

"Holding them off is simple enough. But what then? Your Chengbei Firm is one of the notable merchant houses in Qingjiangpu — do you plan to just hang your sign under Cloud Mountain Trading Company?" Zhao Jin asked with a smile.

"That won't be necessary. Hold them off for a few days, and I can work the connections. When official runners come knocking, it's nothing more than a matter of silver and favors — either they want some for themselves, or they've been paid by someone else. I'm hardly a stranger here without friends or ties," Li Ziyou said plainly.

Zhao Jin shook his head, smiling. Chatting with this Li Ziyou was genuinely pleasant, and he couldn't resist teasing him. "I help hold them off — aren't you worried I might swallow you up myself?"

Li Ziyou froze for a moment, then broke into a helpless laugh. "If Master Jin were that sort of man, would all the worthies of Qingjiangpu have invited you to open this great market?"

"What do you think will become of the Jianzhou Jurchen? Can Liaodong hold them off?" Zhao Jin asked, as if idly. Finding someone in Qingjiangpu who actually knew something about Liaodong and the Jurchen was rare indeed. There were things he simply couldn't discuss with his comrades.

Zhao Jin's straightforward agreement to provide protection, followed by such knowledgeable talk of Liaodong and Jurchen affairs, made Li Ziyou feel their rapport had grown considerably closer than before. Hearing Zhao Jin's question, he couldn't help but answer with a laugh: "Liaodong looks impressive from the outside, but inside it's long since rotted through. How could it possibly hold back those Jurchen savages?"

A fair assessment, Zhao Jin nodded. Li Ziyou went on: "But those Jurchen savages are courting their own destruction too. Our Great Ming has millions upon millions of people, such a vast territory — how many people do the Jianzhou Jurchen have, how much land? A few prefectures' worth at most. They might get the upper hand for a moment, but a great loss is coming for them next!"

Zhao Jin paused, then shook his head with a faint smile. Those who knew nothing of Liaodong and the Jurchen said this, and those who understood Liaodong and the Jianzhou Jurchen said it too. It seemed everyone under Heaven thought the same way — no one realized what this truly meant.

"So the more brazen the Jianzhou Jurchen become, the better business is for my humble firm. But it's only during this stretch of brazenness — I have to move fast," Li Ziyou said.

After a few more idle words, Li Ziyou went off to talk with others. A wealthy merchant of his stature had his own backers and methods. Currying favor with Zhao Jin was mainly for emergencies — there was no need to overdo it.

After Li Ziyou left, Zhao Jin closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he walked over to Liu Yong and said in a low voice, "That merchant I was just talking with is named Li Ziyou. His firm is Chengbei. We need to plant eyes inside it — buying shares would be best. They'll be useful to us."

Liu Yong looked over without any change of expression and gave a slight nod.

The banquet began, and every kind of rare delicacy was laid upon the tables. On such occasions, yellow wine was the rule, for its mild potency — drinking it wouldn't interfere with serious matters.

Zhao Jin and Sun Jia shared the head table. The seat to Zhao Jin's right had originally been meant for Chen Sheng, but after Sun Jia whispered a few words to him, Chen Sheng took the second seat on the right instead.

Once everyone began offering toasts, the reason for leaving that seat empty became clear. Every wealthy merchant who came up to toast would sit in that spot for a while, speaking quietly with Zhao Jin. Leaving it open was indeed convenient.

Back when Zhao Jin first took control of Qingjiangpu's underworld, these wealthy merchants hadn't regarded him at all, dismissing him as a mere outlaw. But with him overseeing the construction of the great market, he was now a magnate on equal footing with any of them. The only thing that still made them uncomfortable was how young Zhao Jin was.

Asking Zhao Jin to smooth things along in the future, or sharing their own thoughts on the great market, and discussing how the official dividends from building the market should be distributed — that was what the wealthy merchants and official representatives talked about.

But even more merchants were saying that if it suited Zhao Jin, they could rotate silver funds between them going forward. If nothing else, the Zhao Character Camp's recent purchases of supplies, acquisitions of land, and construction of residences and buildings — every payment made in full — had amply demonstrated how much ready silver they held. Add to that the Cloud Mountain Winery opening here as well, and the merchants, inclined to investigate, knew the Zhao Character Camp was surely sitting on a considerable stockpile of cash.

Here in Qingjiangpu, colossal volumes of goods flowed in and out, yet silver was in short supply. It was laughable, really — Qingjiangpu, one of the Great Ming's commercial centers, suffering from a shortage of silver. But there was nothing strange about it. The entire Great Ming was starved of coin and silver, with many places still bartering goods directly. It was only the flourishing maritime trade since the Jiajing reign that had brought massive inflows of silver, beginning to ease the situation. But the Great Ming was simply too vast — even with silver pouring in in great quantities, it could only be described as a gradual improvement.

To all this, Zhao Jin readily agreed. Such matters were nothing more than business dealings — one transaction, one profit. Additionally, both the Huai'an Prefectural Yamen and the Shanyang County Yamen hoped to convert their dividends into cash payments, while the Shanyang Garrison Command wished to jointly open shops and run businesses. This divergence was only natural — the civil officials in the prefectural and county yamens would leave after one or two terms, whereas the Shanyang Garrison Command was there to stay.

Whether it was Zhao Jin's side or every quarter of Qingjiangpu, all were extremely satisfied with this banquet. Nothing drew people closer than joining hands to grow rich.

The next day, the matters discussed at the banquet spread throughout Qingjiangpu. Anyone with a merchant's eye could see the enormous business opportunities within, could deduce that this great market would be a great treasure bowl, a great mountain of gold. The whole of Qingjiangpu surged with feverish excitement — everyone wanted a share of the profits.

People of that era valued native ties above all, yet an outsider like Zhao Jin coming to Qingjiangpu to oversee such a grand undertaking provoked no backlash whatsoever. At most, a few muttered sourly in private, "So now that gang of paupers from Xuzhou has struck it rich in our Qingjiangpu."

The reason was simple enough, as that Vice Director overseeing the Ministry of Revenue branch office saw so clearly: "Qingjiangpu has no master. Huai'an Prefecture and Shanyang County cannot govern it directly, and the Revenue branch office has no jurisdiction over civil affairs. The common people do as they please, and outlaws run rampant. It looks prosperous, but everywhere is chaos. Everyone has been longing for a strongman to take charge — that Zhao Jin from Xuzhou has simply risen with the times."

Those words hit the nail on the head, though most people couldn't see that deeply. They simply felt that Zhao Jin taking charge was no bad thing. And precisely because of this, the Zhao Character Camp — which had not even been in Qingjiangpu half a year, had started with a bloody massacre, and had bluntly confronted the officials and government troops — was swiftly accepted by the local populace.

By now, no one dwelled on the Zhao Character Camp's ferocity anymore. Their attention was fixed on the movements of Cloud Mountain Trading Company and the Sun Family Trading Company. Where exactly would the great market be built? What would the rules be? Could they get a shop inside?

Some things couldn't be kept secret. For instance, Zhao Jin and some of Qingjiangpu's biggest merchants, escorted by local official runners, had gone "wandering" along the canal, roughly circling a certain area. The world has no shortage of clever people, and some immediately deduced: these important figures wouldn't wander for no reason. That area had to be significant — it was very likely the site of the great market. Anyone who could buy a shop there was sure to make a fortune.

Thanks to "Immovable as a Mountain, User Happy Pig, User simon3721, Yuan Heng Li Zhen" and several other old and new friends for their tips, and thank you all for your subscriptions and monthly tickets.