novelAbuy Chapter 308 Distribution and Preparation
Chapter 308 Distribution and Preparation
Throughout the first ten days of October, boats and oxcarts constantly traveled to and from Huangtian Port. Every day, a large group of people would come carrying loads on shoulder poles, rushing over for no other reason than that Brother Cao Luo, famous throughout Jiangyin, had ordered the "distributors" to bring back the salt they needed to sell in the winter and twelfth lunar months before the full moon of October. This was to prevent a shortage of salt in the market later on. Of course, at this time, everyone overlooked the government.
The money for the salt can be paid in part, depending on each person's financial situation. It can even be put on credit first. In short, the salt should be transported away first, and the remaining expenses can be paid in installments after the sales revenue is received.
In this way, within ten days, nearly 80,000 catties of salt were transported away by distributors in various towns and villages of Jiangyin Prefecture, and more than 600 ingots of cash were received, which was less than 30%. On the tenth day, Yu Yuan personally supervised and mobilized four ships, including Huang Jia, to deliver 200,000 catties of salt to Mo Tianyou in Wuxi, which was the largest shipment in recent times.
Old Mo was also a little anxious, and even personally sent his nephew, Mo Daqing, to urge Shao Shuyi to distribute the salt as soon as possible.
"Yu She, you don't know, there's not much salt left from the last shipment," Mo Daqing said. "It can only be sold until the beginning of next month at most. But by the end of October, the Prince of Zhennan might come, which would be very inconvenient. My third uncle said that to avoid any unforeseen problems, we should ship the salt over first. The required amount of money is 5,200 ingots, which I have brought with me. Don't worry, all the counterfeit money has been removed; it won't harm you."
Yu Yuan ignored him, only waving his hand at Yan Zhong. The latter, with a sword at his waist, personally directed a group of porters to take the money to the signing room and lock it up. Inside the signing room, Lu Chaoen, along with Wang Xing and Jiang Cheng, nervously counted the banknotes.
The other two were fine, but Lu Chaoen sighed frequently while taking inventory. It was nothing more than a matter for Shengye Trading Company, yet he, as the accountant of Huangtian Trading Company, was being seconded to do the work, which would interfere with his studies and exams.
"Yu She, Yu She," Mo Daqing called out twice more.
"The salt is already being loaded onto the ship, so please be patient." Yu Yuan glanced at him helplessly and said, "Another 200,000 catties will be sent over a few days before the Lunar New Year, so you won't be shortchanged."
Upon hearing this, Mo Daqing felt somewhat relieved. It wasn't that he was being long-winded; it was just that his third uncle was too frightening, and even as his nephew, he was afraid of him.
If they couldn't get things done, they'd hang him up and beat him in public, showing no respect whatsoever—it wasn't that Mo Daqing was afraid of the pain, but he simply couldn't bear the humiliation. Thinking of this, Mo Daqing suddenly remembered he had brought gifts, so he beckoned to his attendant to bring him several bolts of silk—more precisely, a type of "shuai" produced in Wuxi, mainly used for making handkerchiefs or kerchiefs; it wasn't cheap and was a local specialty of Wuxi.
"Yu She, this is just a small gift, nothing special," Mo Daqing said with a smile.
Yu Yuan was startled when he saw this, and quickly waved his hand, saying, "Take it back, I don't need these."
"Yu She was busy running around, working very hard. I saw it all."
"Take it." Yu Yuan looked at Mo Daqing and said seriously, "If you are interested, why don't you tell me about the situation in Wuxi?"
Mo Daqing was taken aback and subconsciously asked, "What does Yu She want to know?"
"I heard that the Prince of Zhennan has arrived in Changzhou Road. Is there any news from Wuxi?" Yu Yuan asked.
"My third uncle left Zhuzhi Lane and went back to his hometown. I don't know anything else about him," Mo Daqing said after thinking for a moment.
"What about the government?"
Mo Daqing shook his head and said, "I don't know."
"Doesn't Mo Laohu have any dealings with the government?"
"It's not that we haven't had any contact, but I haven't heard anything about it. I only know that after Wuxi Prefecture escorted Bi Si and the others to Hangzhou, they were commended, so no one should touch them anymore."
Seeing that he couldn't get any more information, Yu Yuan stopped talking and focused on supervising the transfer of another batch of smuggled salt.
That was destined for Yixing Prefecture.
Liu Xing led more than twenty men to the other side, along with Liu Kai and Dai Ping's thirty men, and "stirred up trouble" in Yixing Prefecture. They killed two local bullies to establish their authority, and then won over a group of local wandering knights and ruffians, and openly started selling salt.
The first batch of 50,000 jin was shipped via the Xicheng Canal, the Grand Canal, and Taihu Lake.
Actually, this is to be expected.
Yixing Prefecture originally had few bandits. During the Zhu-Chen era, it was basically controlled by four or five families who secretly sold Zhejiang salt. Now that Zhu and Chen are dead, three families have lost their salt supply, and the other two, for some reason, have colluded with the remaining forces of Zhu and Chen and are still able to obtain salt from the Liangzhe Salt Transport Office. Therefore, they are unwilling to submit to the Zhu-Chen regime.
Liu Xing and his group joined forces with three other companies to eliminate the two companies and gain initial control of the private salt market in Yixing Prefecture.
This is a scattered prefecture with more than 60,000 households on paper. The imperial court allocates more than 6300 yin (252 million catties) of salt every year. Even if only 20% of the allocation is embezzled, it is still 500,000 catties a year, which is quite a lot.
Now, the supply of smuggled salt is becoming somewhat insufficient. Yu Yuan had reported this matter to Shao Shuyi, who replied that they were already trying to find a solution.
He didn't specify the method, but Yu Yuan could guess: They would find a way to supply the four salt fields in Songjiang Prefecture to Shanghai, Huating, Changzhou, and Wu counties. If there was any surplus Zhejiang salt, they would find a way to transport some to Huangtian Port and distribute it to Jiangyin, Wuxi, and Yixing prefectures. Another approach was to explore new sources. Tongzhou Prefecture in Yangzhou Prefecture governs Jinghai and Haimen counties, and has numerous salt fields within its borders. The next step was to find a way to obtain more salt from there.
While thinking about these things, Yu Yuan quickly arranged the ships.
The four ships, including Huangjia, were already on missions, so they had to temporarily rent other ships to go to Yixing.
While Yu Yuan sent people to find boats, he also issued a transfer order, ordering Ding Ren to lead a group of boatmen to escort the boats south.
After finishing that matter, guests from Fushan Port came to visit. They had been waiting for two days because Wang Bai (Wang Kerou) from Taizhou had obtained too little salt, not enough for distribution in Changshu Prefecture...
Yu Yuan was busy like this until evening before he finally had time to sit down and eat something.
Shao Shuyi, who had just returned from Ma Tuo Sha, came over again. He sat in the kitchen and greeted us from afar, saying with a smile, "Come and sit down quickly. I had the kitchen reheat the food; we're just waiting for you."
"Why don't you eat first, brother?" Yu Yuan asked in surprise as he sat down.
"I've let Wang Xing and Lu Chaoen eat first," Shao Shuyi said. "Anyway, I'm not hungry, so I'll meet with Fan Ting, the clerk of the prefectural government, and wait for you while I'm at it."
Yu Yuan was somewhat moved and said, "Brother shouldn't have done that."
"We're brothers, what's there to be right or wrong about?" Shao Shuyi said with a smile.
The food was served quickly, but it was a large bowl of sunflower soup. Although it was called sunflower soup, it actually contained pepper, scallions, mushrooms, sheep tripe, and sheep lungs (these two were cut into long strips like chicken feet and coated with batter), also known as "chicken feet noodles".
The two sat together, holding their bowls and eating heartily, as if they had returned to that night when they ate lamb ribs together.
"You must be exhausted from being away all this time?" After Shao Shuyi finished eating, he waited a while until Yu Yuan finished eating as well. Then he took the bowl from Yu Yuan's hand and filled it with a large bowl of sunflower soup.
Yu Yuan accepted it with both hands and sat down.
"Would you like some vinegar?" Shao Shuyi asked, shaking the porcelain bottle in his hand.
Yu Yuan shook his head.
Shao Shuyi poured some into his bowl and said, "You handled it very well. With that, I can travel west with peace of mind next February."
Yu Yuan swallowed the mushroom in his mouth and said, "I can handle ordinary matters, but I got nervous after hearing that the Prince of Zhennan was coming to Jiangyin and that some people were getting restless."
Shao Shuyi nodded. He could handle routine matters, but his ability to deal with emergencies was lacking—or rather, not lacking, but rather he had never encountered a prince of Boluobuhua's caliber before, and he was instinctively nervous.
"Actually, it might not be anything serious," Shao Shuyi said. "I reckon the Prince of Zhennan doesn't want things to get too ugly. Fan Ting listed the battles the court is currently fighting for me, and it's truly astonishing what I found out."
It has been six years since the Jurchen rebellion. One tribe is suppressed, another rises up, one after another. This April, a commander of ten thousand died in battle to suppress the Jurchens.
In May, bandits ran rampant in Xiangzhou, and the government was unable to control them. The Yellow River also breached its banks.
In June, Luo Tianlin and Chen Jiwan, residents of Liancheng County in Tingzhou, launched an uprising and captured Changting County. Also in that month, the Dongman people in Yunnan launched an uprising.
The imperial court was simultaneously dispatching troops to suppress the rebellion and offering amnesty, a truly chaotic situation. Oh, and bandits are appearing everywhere in Dadu (Beijing), how strange indeed! Given all this, what is there to fear?
Yu Yuan was somewhat surprised to hear this.
He thought about it carefully and said, "Compared to last year, there are more thieves and more people starting uprisings."
"That's right." Shao Shuyi gave him an approving look and said, "They're increasing year by year. Even the Yellow River is breaching its banks more often. By next year, thieves won't just be appearing sporadically, but will be popping up everywhere."
The "thieves" he refers to here are not petty thieves, but rather bandits of a dozen, several dozen, or even a hundred people, like Bi Si's gang, who have the ability to commit crimes in various places and whose power the government cannot suppress in a short period of time.
The imperial court lowered its standards year by year, offering amnesty as soon as possible and only resorting to military conquest if the people refused.
The Yuan Dynasty is now like a terminally ill person clinging to life, trying to conserve its vitality and maintain a "low-power" mode as much as possible, only resorting to imperial resources for suppression when absolutely necessary.
As for the effect of the suppression, it's hard to say. In any case, this year's Huashan bandits made the Jiangnan Garrison Army lose face, while the Jurchen tribes caused the death of a 10,000-household commander in the northern government army.
"Brother, you still shouldn't be careless," Yu Yuan said. "What if the Prince of Zhennan is arrogant and insists on doing something? Even if you regret it in the end, you'll be in a bind and will have no choice but to keep fighting. If that happens, all your years of hard work will be destroyed. It's not worth it." "Alright, Yu She," Shao Shuyi laughed. "You never used to consider a person's temperament, but now you're actually thinking about it. Congratulations!" Yu Yuan lowered his head, seemingly a little embarrassed, but no longer blushing as much as before.
"I have a foolproof plan to deal with any possible questions from the Prince of Zhennan," Shao Shuyi said.
Yu Yuan raised his head and asked with his eyes.
"When dealing with Mongolians and Semu officials, it's generally the right thing to do to send gifts when in doubt," Shao Shuyi laughed heartily. "We can start preparing now."