Taiheiki

Chapter 171 Yunnan Horse
“Young Master Zhao!” Wen Shuai carefully considered his words and smiled, “You should have seen it along the way. There are thieves everywhere, and even the waterways are not necessarily safe. How about this, I’ll take all your salt at your price. You’ll save the effort of selling salt and have more time to do other things. I’ll also make a little money. What do you say?”

"This—" Zhao Po looked troubled: "It's not that I'm unwilling to agree, but as you just heard, I'm just a scout. I'm not here just to sell salt. If I go back like this, I won't be able to explain it to my superiors!"

"Unable to explain? What do you mean by that?"

"Selling salt is a minor matter; finding out the trade routes is the real issue. From what I've heard from above, they want to open up more trade routes through salt, which is why they've fixed the price. If I just take the money back like this, I'm afraid I'll be punished!"

"I see!" Wen Shuai nodded. "Then may I ask, who is this person you're referring to as 'the one above'?"

"Huang Ping, the young master, is the chief clerk in the Wei pacification headquarters!"

Wen Shuai was startled, realizing that force wouldn't work. He laughed and said, "So Brother Zhao is from Wei Tao Ni's mansion. No wonder! Men, quickly fill Brother Zhao's wine cup. We must drink a lot tonight and not leave until we're drunk!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the maid next to Zhao Po hurriedly filled his cup with wine. Wen Shuai offered him several cups in succession, and Zhao Po could not refuse, so he had to drink them all. The maid next to him filled his cup every time. Before long, Zhao Po could not hold on any longer, collapsed to the ground, and died drunk.

"Brother Zhao, Brother Zhao!" Wen Shuai called out twice, and found that Zhao Po's snoring was getting louder and louder, obviously he was really drunk. So he waved to his men to help him to the backyard to rest, and returned to the table to savor the remaining wine in his cup.

A dark-faced man, panting heavily, came up from below the platform. He was wearing leather armor and had a bow and arrow quiver hanging from his waist. He said, "Brother! Everything is ready!"

Wen Shuai put down his wine glass and sighed, "Dismiss all the men!"

"Dismiss them?" The dark-faced man was taken aback. "Brother, we're not going to do anything? That fellow has a lot of salt on his ship. If we let him sell it, what will happen to the salt stored in our granary?"

"Let's sell them together tomorrow!"

"Then at what price will it be sold?"

"One thousand coins per shi!"

"What? A thousand coins?" The dark-faced man almost jumped up. "Wouldn't that be a huge loss? Salt is two thousand coins now! Half gone all at once, how can that be?"

"Why not?" Wen Shuai poured himself a glass of wine and gave the dark-faced man a cold look. "They said that the price of salt in Guangxin is 700 coins per shi, and Shian will add half that, making it 1,050 coins per shi. I've already seen their salt, and it's much better than ours. If you don't lower the price, will you be able to sell it?"

"These out-of-towners dare to steal my business!" The dark-faced man kicked aside a wine jar and turned to rush down to the hall, but Wen Shuai shouted, "What are you doing?"

"Kill these bastards who stole our business!" the dark-faced man roared.

"No! Come back and sit down!" Wen Shuai pointed to the table beside him: "Have a drink with me!"

The dark-faced man paused, then obediently returned to the hall and sat down in front of Wen Shuai. Wen Shuai poured him a cup of wine: "I know what you're thinking. Kill Zhao Po, seize the salt, and Shian will forever be the Wen family's domain, right?"

“Brother, Shi’an has always belonged to our Wen family!” the dark-faced man said angrily. “From our great-grandfather onwards, every generation of our Wen family has had someone serving as a chief clerk, merit officer, or other high-ranking official in the county. This time, the Wuling barbarians rebelled, the roads were cut off, the Lingling prefect’s office was besieged, and the county magistrate was shot and killed by the bandits. If it weren’t for you, brother, gathering the people to defend the county, Shi’an County would have been gone long ago.”

"So what?" Wen Shuai smiled. "This empire will ultimately belong to the Liu family. As long as I haven't been granted the title of Marquis, Shian will not be our Wen family's fiefdom, and it will not be ours. The day the imperial court sends a magistrate, I will have no choice but to abdicate and hand over the position to a more worthy successor!"

"Brother—!"

"Let's not talk about this anymore!" Wen Shuai sighed. "To tell you the truth, Zhao Po isn't just one person or one boat. He has many more boats and many more people behind him. What's the point of killing him?"

"We'll just kill them one by one when they come. What's there to be afraid of? The mountains are high and the emperor is far away. Even if Zhao Po has someone backing him and can send troops, we can only retreat to the mountains at most. How long can those soldiers stay?"

"Can't you use your brain a little more?" Wen Shuai poked the dark-faced man's forehead. "Would retreating into the mountains be of any use? If they can transport salt, they can collude with those mountain barbarians. We are not afraid to send troops into the mountains, but if those mountain barbarians are willing to side with them, how can we keep our heads?"

This time, the dark-faced man was finally speechless. He knew very well that to the barbarians in the mountains, neither the government nor the Han people were trustworthy enemies. The only ones who could gain the trust of these suspicious mountain people were merchants who could bring them all kinds of necessities, especially salt. Without salt, they would become weak and sickly, causing the tribe to decline and eventually perish.

Attacking merchants willing to venture into the mountains to bring them salt would be tantamount to slow suicide, making them the common enemy of all the mountain people. A major reason why the Wen family was able to persist and grow in Shian County was their ability to bring a certain amount of salt to the surrounding mountain people. If Zhao Po's backers could provide a stable supply of salt, those mountain people would certainly be willing to kill a few people for him.

"Then, brother, what should we do?"

"Let's wait and see!" Wen Shuai smiled. "If what Zhao Po said is true, and Wei Taoni can obtain a large amount of cheap salt by using the sun and wind, it may not be a bad thing for us. At least the trade route will be open, and Shian will no longer be a dead end!"

The dark-faced man's eyes lit up: "That's true. With salt, the trade routes will open. Once the trade routes are open, the benefits just for the docks will far exceed what we have now. Brother, you've thought things through!"

"Alright, you can stay with Zhao Po tomorrow! Don't cause any trouble!" Wen Shuai laughed, "Since we've decided to be good people, let's see it through to the end. Let's not waste our energy and end up with nothing!"

"Here!"

----------------------

Give me two jin!

Give me five jin!

"Move aside, move aside, you're stepping on my foot!" Zhao Po massaged his temples with his thumb. Even though he didn't wake up until almost noon, the hangover from last night still made his head throb. Coupled with the noise outside, he felt as if two drumsticks were constantly pounding on the back of his head.

"Make way, make way, line up! You bastard, didn't you just come to buy some? Why are you coming back to buy some again? Didn't you see the sign? Each person can only buy a maximum of five jin! Drag him to the side and give him three lashes!"

Wen Jiang's gruff roar came from outside. To maintain order, Wen Gongcao had sent his younger brother, along with more than twenty men armed with sticks. Zhao was extremely grateful for this; it was the first time he had ever seen hundreds of people scrambling to buy salt. If it weren't for Wen Jiang's efforts in maintaining order, his stall would probably have been overturned.

The screams of pain from being whipped calmed the crowds who were scrambling to buy salt. Zhao Po let out a long breath, took a big gulp of cold soup, and felt much better. He stood up and went to the outer room. He saw that the people had formed a long queue, with men holding sticks maintaining order. Although there were still occasional disputes in the queue, it was much better than before.

"Thank you for your hard work, Brother Wen!" Zhao Po clasped his hands in a fist salute.

"It's alright, my brother has already given instructions, so I will naturally do my best!" Wen Jiang smiled somewhat reluctantly. Although he really wanted to stab the guy in the stomach, he still knew what was important: "I heard you drank quite a bit last night. Why don't you go inside and rest for a bit? I'll keep an eye on things here, nothing will happen!"

"This—" Zhao Po was about to say something when suddenly the crowd became noisy, and many people were pushed to the ground, screams and curses filling the air. Zhao Po didn't care about anything else and hurriedly shouted, "What's going on? Don't fight!"

Wen Jiang acted much faster. He used his scabbard to drive away the people blocking his way and rushed over with a roar. Zhao Po hurriedly followed. Suddenly, Wen Jiang stopped. In his haste, Zhao Po almost bumped into him and quickly stopped.

"Is this your salt?" The man who spoke had a strange accent, as if his tongue was shorter than half its length, with a peculiar ending sound. He was about seven feet tall, with sallow skin, a high forehead, prominent cheekbones, and a cone-shaped topknot. He wore a gold necklace. At this moment, Zhao Po realized that the person he was talking to was not a Han Chinese, but a barbarian.

"Did you buy this salt from you?" the man asked again. Only then did Zhao Po notice that although the man's hairstyle was different from that of the Han people, his clothes were no different from those of the Han people. There were four dark-skinned warriors standing beside him, who seemed to be his guards and held high positions.

“Not bad!” Zhao Po glanced at the pocket in the man’s hand; it was snow-white and crystalline, and it was indeed the salt he had brought.

“Very good!” The man nodded in satisfaction. “This salt is excellent, top-quality. I’ll take it all!” As he spoke, his guards brought over a black earthenware jar. When the lid was opened, it was revealed to contain gold dust.

"This, this probably won't work!" Zhao struggled to look away from the pottery jar.

"No?" The man frowned. "That's top-grade gold dust inside! Aren't you Han Chinese merchants most fond of gold? Isn't that enough?"

"No, no, no!" Zhao Po hurriedly waved his hands repeatedly: "This gold sand is enough! But my superior has said that this salt must be distributed to the people, not just sold to one person!" At this point, he pointed to Wen Jiang beside him: "Otherwise, I would have sold all the salt on this ship to his elder brother, Wen Gongcao, last night!"

"What do you mean by this?" The man's face darkened with anger. "You open your shop to do business, and I offer gold to buy it. Why won't you sell it to me? Is it because I'm not Han Chinese that you look down on me? Hmm? Although I am not Han Chinese, my father was the governor of the ancient state of Gou-ting (an ancient state in Yunnan Province, located roughly at the junction of present-day Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou provinces). How dare you despise me?" With that, his right hand was already on the hilt of his sword.

Seeing this, Wen Jiang quickly spread her arms to shield Zhao Po behind her and said with a smile, "Young master, please don't be angry. This Brother Zhao didn't explain clearly just now. You want to buy salt, don't you? Another boat will come in a few days, and that whole boat will be yours. How about it?"

"really?"

"Really!" Zhao Po nodded repeatedly in relief. Although he didn't know what the Kingdom of Juting and the Grand Minister were, it was clear that the man in front of him was of high status. If he were killed here, he would have died in vain.

"That's good!" The man pointed to the earthenware jar: "Take this gold dust as a deposit, but the ship salt can't be sold to anyone else!"

Zhao Po refused, saying, "Young master, please rest assured. Since I have promised you, this second shipment of salt will definitely be yours. Moreover, our superiors said that if possible, we should not exchange gold for salt, but rather use other goods for the transaction!"

"Oh?" the man asked with interest, "You don't want gold sand but something else? This is the first time I've heard of this. When did you Han people change your ways!"

"The main reason is that my lord doesn't lack gold sand for the time being!"

"Oh? What is he lacking?"

"We have plenty, but we're most lacking livestock, like horses! If we don't have horses, donkeys, mules, and oxen will do!" Zhao Po said, following Huang Ping's instructions from memory. "If we're trading horses for salt, we can even offer a discount!"

"You want livestock, horses, right?" The man revealed a meaningful smile: "Alright, I brought some horses with me this time. How about this? I'll trade thirty horses for this boatload of salt, how about that?"

————————————————————————————

Panyu, Wei Cong's headquarters.

"Young master, young master!" Huang Ping rushed in and saw Wei Cong talking to Kong Gui. He quickly stopped and bowed to Kong Gui, saying, "Lord Kong, you're here too!"

"Does Chief Secretary Huang have something to report?" Kong Gui stood up with a smile. "Then I won't disturb you any longer. I'll take my leave now!"

"It's alright!" Wei Cong called out to Kong Gui, "Master Kong is family, there's no need to stand aside. What's the matter?"

Huang Ping responded, "It was a messenger from Guangxin, a salt merchant sent from there. In Shian, he encountered a barbarian caravan. The caravan leader claimed to be the son of the Grand Minister of the Gou-ting Kingdom. He was very interested in our salt and was willing to buy it with gold dust. When the merchant, as instructed, said it would be best to exchange it for various livestock, especially horses, the barbarian leader agreed and brought out thirty horses!"

"Oh? This is a good thing!" Wei Cong immediately became interested. Both the army and the large-scale wheeled heavy plow he wanted to develop required a lot of animal power, and Jiaozhou was currently lacking all kinds of pack animals. Naturally, the more the better, since it was a good thing to be able to exchange salt with unlimited future production capacity for horses.

"That's a good thing!" Huang Ping gave a wry smile. "However, the horses aren't tall enough. The tallest one is only five feet (about 115 centimeters). Although they have good stamina and can traverse mountainous terrain, they probably can't be used as warhorses!"

(End of this chapter)