Chapter 987 - 826: Salt Permit

At dusk, a carriage stopped in front of Qi Shui Pavilion.

Manager Ji got out of the carriage and walked into the pavilion alone.

He went to the gazebo first, but Yao An was not there today. He then headed for the main house, but just as he reached the doorway, he suddenly stopped.

The door of the main house was left open. The afterglow of the setting sun was blocked by the eaves, leaving only a sliver of light at the threshold; deeper inside, it was a solid wall of darkness.

From within that dim house, Manager Ji heard a sticky, wet chewing sound, accompanied now and then by a woman’s painful moans, as if something were tearing at her internal organs.

He tensed, instinctively retreating two steps, staring into the house in bewildered alarm.

A moment later, the chewing stopped. Yao An, draped in a long robe, walked out of the darkness and stood just inside the threshold, in the shadow, his expression half a smile, half not: "You come and don’t even call out?"

Manager Ji hurriedly cupped his hands and said, "I was afraid of disturbing Lord Di Ting."

Yao An instead asked, "The task I gave you—how did it go?"

Manager Ji bent his body and replied, "I did as you said and had the contents of that page printed, but after the printing, no one has come looking for us. There were people making inquiries about the Jinling Evening News, but tracing them back, they were all fellow merchants, not the Marquis Wu Xiang you are seeking."

Yao An gave a soft "eh": "My junior is the type to repay every slight and exterminate to the last. This time I laid my cards on the table for him in the Jinling Evening News, and he actually ignores it?"

Manager Ji said nothing. He heard footsteps coming from behind Yao An—that was the sound of bare feet on the floorboards.

He quietly lifted his gaze to look. A beautiful woman was standing expressionlessly behind Yao An. It was the Old Courtyard leader he had sent here last night, Dong Zhe.

Manager Ji looked Dong Zhe up and down, but could not see any injuries on her, and had no idea what the painful cries just now were about.

Yao An chuckled and drew Ji back from his thoughts: "That junior of mine is a single-track, mulish sort—his mind can’t hold two things at once. He has to finish one before he can start the next. If he’s ignoring me now, that means he has something more important on his hands. Tell me, what unusual movements have there been in Jinling City these days?"

Manager Ji pondered for a moment: "If we speak of unusual movements, then it’s that someone arrived at Chaotian Palace—Zhang Ning, second disciple of the Huangshan Dao Court. He said he was acting under the Supreme Lord’s decree and wanted our assistance in locating seventeen people. In addition, it’s said the Huangshan Dao Court intends to expel Zhang Li from the sect. Zhang Li can no longer be seen in Chaotian Palace now."

"Oh?" Yao An grew interested. "It must be over the Ten Thousand Gods’ Residence that’s drifted among the common folk. Zhang Li really enraged the Dao Court with that trick: the senior disciple expelled, the second disciple willing to skip officiating even the Universal Sacrifice just to come to Jinling and reclaim the Ten Thousand Gods’ Residence... Seventeen people—how many have they found?"

Manager Ji answered, "These people are not hard to find. Zhang Ning gave a list, specifying names one by one. I don’t know how the Court came to know these people’s names and their birth dates and hours. By yesterday, nine had been found, and the Dao Court has already silenced them all."

Yao An smiled as he explained, "The Ten Thousand Gods’ Residence uses the birth characters and blood from the brow to invite the Supreme of the Forty-nine Heavens down to the mortal world. Once the Supremes have been summoned, of course they know who called them. Only fools would touch that Ten Thousand Gods’ Residence—anyone with sense won’t even brush past it... Help the Dao Court settle this quickly. We need to see them off before we get to our real business. If they linger in Jinling until May, that will be another nuisance."

Manager Ji inclined his body. "Understood."

Yao An asked again, "Anything else?"

Manager Ji thought carefully. "The rest are minor matters. For example, a few lunatics jumped into the Qinhuai River the other day and swam ashore... Right, Chen Yu, Chen Xu, Jin Zhu, Heavenly Horse and the others have vanished. No one knows where they are hiding."

Yao An mused, "Jin Zhu has always kept close to that junior of mine. Right now he may well be secretly helping him scheme something... Any unusual movements from the Zhang Family?"

Manager Ji shook his head. "The Zhang Family is shut up inside the Xu Family Mansion. The informants in the Xu Family Mansion report that the Zhang Family spends all day in the house playing bridge, not attending to any proper business."

Yao An laughed aloud. "If I had that junior of mine aiding me, I too could relax and play bridge. Aside from that, any other unusual movements in Jinling City?"

Manager Ji mulled it over for a long time. "Nothing else—or perhaps I simply haven’t noticed."

Just then, a servant came quickly into Qi Shui Pavilion and called out loudly, "Store Manager, someone from the government office is here for you."

Manager Ji was taken aback. "Here from the government office? What is it about?"

The servant replied, "The man didn’t say. He only said you’re to go to the government office at once—Mr. Hu has summoned you on urgent business."

Yao An clicked his tongue in surprise. "The Xu Family has fallen, and now the Hu Family has come to Jiangnan and set themselves up as local emperors. Let that man in—I have questions for him."

A moment later, the servant led a man in. The man strode in like a dragon and tiger, clearly looking like he’d come up through the ranks of the army. He saw Manager Ji of the Ji Family and Yao An and didn’t salute, just slanted a glance at the two of them: "Hurry and come with me to the government office, don’t dawdle."

Yao An didn’t take it to heart. Standing before the main room, he asked with a smile: "Good sir, at least let us know what has happened, so we can be prepared."

The man was silent for two breaths: "These past days someone has been secretly buying up Huguang Salt Tokens. By now they’ve already taken more than forty thousand. In just a few days, they’ve forced the price of a salt permit up from two taels of silver to four taels."

Yao An clapped his hands in admiration: "I knew he wouldn’t sit idle. Store Manager, go quickly and discuss a countermeasure with everyone."

Manager Ji of the Ji Family cupped his hands and took his leave: "Yes."

...

...

The Ji Family carriage rushed toward the government office. When they reached the gate, the man led him inside. From afar, Manager Ji could already see that this time, the Wang, Fu, Liu, and Gu Families had not sent their store managers, but their Landlords.

Just as he stepped into the main hall, he heard Hu Junye reclining in the Taishi Chair, sneering: "People only get anxious when the fire’s burning their own backside. When Dinghai Port and Songjiang Port were taken, only Boss Wang came to my government office. Now that someone wants to seize the Lianghuai salt trade, suddenly three of you turn up at once. What did I say before? I, Hu, did not come to Jiangnan so you could help the Hu Family; the Hu Family is here to help you get through this calamity."

The Eight Great Merchants looked at one another, none willing to pick up the line.

Hu Junye stopped mocking them, leaned back in the Taishi Chair, and said lazily: "Tell me, how many salt permits do they have in their hands now?"

Wang Dequan cupped his hands: "Over these years the court has issued sixty-two thousand Huguang Salt Tokens. The Xu Family has twelve thousand in hand, and they’ve quietly gathered another forty-seven thousand..."

The Fu Family’s master, who had been silent all this time, spoke: "Not just that. It should be sixty-two thousand."

Hu Junye mused: "That Qing Family that does small business?"

Fu Mingcheng explained: "To report to Mr. Hu, what the Qing Family does is no small business. For years now, all the grain and fodder shipped to the border army has been handled by them—Guyuan, Chongli Pass, Datong, Jizhou... The Kaizhong Salt Policy of exchanging grain for permits has in effect become a dead letter; only they still send grain to the border army to trade for permits, then sell them on to us at a knock-down price. As far as I know, they should still have fifteen thousand permits."

Hu Junye nodded: "So they already hold eighteen thousand permits. How many are still scattered in the market?"

Gu’s Master spoke in a muffled voice: "At least twenty-five thousand."

Hu Junye frowned: "How can there be so many? If you don’t hold the permits, how do you control the Lianghuai salt trade?"

Gu’s Master kept silent, clearly unwilling to say more.

Hu Junye turned his gaze to the Store Manager of the Qian Family: "Your salt is being squeezed so hard you can barely keep trading. You speak."

The Store Manager of the Qian Family rose unhurriedly: "To report to Mr. Hu, you don’t need to hold the permits to control the salt trade—what matters is a firm grip on the salt fields. But in recent years the output of the salt fields has declined year after year; permits no longer bring out salt. Every family’s stock of salt permits piled higher and higher. These are all silver; you can’t just let them sit dead in your hand. So when doing business, whenever they ran into small merchants with no patron to back them, they paid the goods with salt permits instead, each permit reckoned out at four taels. The small merchants then sold them at two taels or even lower. Everyone was doing business this way, and over time they just accumulated more and more."

Hu Junye let out a short laugh, raised his hand and pointed at them all: "You lot have long been used to grabbing what you like. You slowly paid your permits out, and now they’ve become a Daozi cutting into your own flesh."

At this moment, the Store Manager of the Qian Family suddenly said: "Mr. Hu, even if that Zhang Family fellow buys permits, he can forget about redeeming so much as a single jin of salt from the salt fields. The North salt fields aren’t even enough to supply the North itself, much less Hu-Guang, so there’s no need to worry."

Wang Dequan snorted: "Your salt can’t do business anymore so you want to muddy the waters? It’s plain the Zhang Family has the Salt Gang in their grip. They can sun-dry and refine salt themselves; never mind coarse salt, they can even produce fine salt. A few days ago a batch of fine salt came into Jinling; I had my servants buy some to taste. It’s even more delicate than what the Gu Family makes."

The Store Manager of the Qian Family smiled, then sat back slowly in his chair: "Take your time discussing, gentlemen. My Qian Family is in no hurry."

Wang Dequan turned to look at Hu Junye: "Mr. Hu, we’ve come today to ask the Central Army Commander’s Mansion to move against and encircle the Salt Gang. As long as the Salt Gang is suppressed, the Zhang Family’s permits will naturally be useless... If this can be done, we will each donate two hundred thousand taels of silver to the court."

Gu’s Master chimed in: "Competing with the Zhang Family to buy up the permits on the market would cost eighty to ninety ten thousand taels of silver. Better that silver go to the court than be taken by the Zhang Family. And it will let Mr. Hu make a good accounting to the court."

The Store Manager of the Qian Family joked: "Mr. Hu, don’t let them scare you. One million four hundred thousand taels sounds a lot, but the Salt Gang has been cutting into their salt business quite severely of late—two tenths in the prosperous areas, eight tenths out in the countryside. Let the Salt Gang keep trading a few more years and these families will lose two million taels of silver a year. If you ask me, the seven families should each donate eight hundred thousand taels—that’d be more like it."

Gu’s Master glared round-eyed: "You’re damn well not done yet, are you?"

The Store Manager of the Qian Family lifted the teacup at his hand and slowly blew away the froth: "Back when you lot were poaching the Qian Family’s business, if you’d shown even a slightly better face at the table, Mr. Qian wouldn’t be forcing you like this today... You only remember that the Central Army Commander’s Mansion can suppress bandits, but forget that if the Salt Gang sells salt under the banner of the Anti-Japanese Army, what then? You haven’t been to the teahouses lately, have you? The talk there is all about the Salt Gang and Cao Guild helping resist the Wokou. Righteousness is no longer in your hands—it’s resting across your throats."