Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 571 Trade Blockade and Bargaining

"How is that possible? These are all top-notch items! How could I not like them? I'm just worried that the pearls will be covered in dust," Zhou Sen said with regret.

"You know, I only have a few wives, all aged and withered, who are unworthy of these fine pearls. Using them to make jewelry and wear on their heads is a waste of money. In the past, when I got pearls, I always tried to use them as gifts to curry favor with the Khan and the other princes, currying favor with those corrupt officials. But now, this bear barbarian is truly abominable. He's been investigating everything, arresting and killing people at the drop of a hat. As a result, the officials below have tucked their tails between their legs and pretended to be gentlemen. The more conspicuous the good stuff, the fewer people dare to accept it."

Zhou Sen's words were so comprehensive that Amin couldn't find any flaws. "Then sell it."

"Selling it cheap for money would be a waste of precious gems. I can't bear to part with such a good thing." Zhou Sen's face was filled with regret, without any trace of greed. "Besides, it's not easy to give it away, so how can I give it away?" Zhou Sen quickly stopped talking and lowered his head as if ashamed of his gaffe.

Amin snorted. "I gave it away. You can't give it back to me, right?"

"I can't do that either," Zhou Sen shook his head solemnly, "I dare not refuse the gift from your Excellency."

"Then just keep it. I don't have anything else to give you anyway." Amin was a little disappointed. He had originally planned to gain some bargaining advantage with this small box of pearls.

"How could that be possible?" Zhou Sen took the small box of pearls from Le Dutai's hands and said with a smile, "Good things are always good things. I'll keep them at home and when they are useful, I'll take them out and serve the Khan and the other beiles."

"Sly guy," Amin said with a smile, "Tell me, what practical things did you bring with you, you sly guy?"

Zhou Sen closed the lid of the small box and handed it to Donkey Egg. He then waved to another clerk. The clerk nodded silently, then pulled out a bilingual manifest from his pocket and handed it to Zhou Sen.

Zhou Sen took the manifest, glanced at it, and handed it to Ledutai. "Thank you," he thanked him in Jurchen, then switched to Chinese and said, "This time, my six mules, three horses, and my men have brought you 1500 rolls of cotton cloth, 50 rolls of silk cloth, 2,000 kilograms of salt, 1,000 kilograms of sugar, and 1,500 kilograms of brick tea."

"There are quite a lot of things," Amin nodded. "So what do you want?"

"I'll take whatever you can give me," Zhou Sen said.

"I take whatever you give me," Amin said, leaning on the table with his head in his hands. He asked with a smile, "Then I'll trade you a horse. Will you take it?"

Jirgalang, who was sitting next to Amin, couldn't help but change his expression when he heard this Chinese sentence. Although Khan Nurhaci did not prohibit the beile ministers from trading privately with the Han people, the export of horses, a strategic material that could strengthen the enemy and weaken the self, was strictly prohibited.

Zhou Sen's eyes trembled slightly. "Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't dare take it. The imperial court has completely banned private horse trading. Livestock trading is restricted to the government. Not only horses, but even mules aren't allowed to be bought and sold privately. If I were to take dozens or even hundreds of horses to Haizhou, how would I explain where they came from? I wouldn't end up losing everything, not only my money, but my head as well." Zhou Sen patted his head again.

"Is it as serious as you say?" Amin scratched his chin.

"This is all minor," Zhou Sen nodded heavily, his face full of difficulty. "The imperial court's crackdown on smuggling is tightening its grip. That official surnamed Zhang in Haizhou is a stubborn and stubborn person. Many of my colleagues have fallen into his hands recently, and..."

Amin waved his hand to interrupt him: "Look at you, there you go again. After you finish what you said, I'm afraid you're going to tell me about the price increase again, right?"

"How dare I play such a trick on you," Zhou Sen said with a bitter face, "Now the way to import goods into the capital has been almost cut off by this corrupt official surnamed Zhang. If you don't believe what I say, you can ask someone else."

"What are the ways in Beijing? Tell me in detail." Amin's eyes flashed with obvious curiosity.

"Do you know about the case in Guangning?" Zhou Sen asked first. "It's about that bastard official named Yang who arrested hundreds of people in Yizhou."

"I've heard of it." Amin nodded lightly.

Zhou Sen's face showed a look of grief. "I recently heard that it's not just those people in Guangning. Many people in Beijing who have been dealing in goods in and around the border have gone bankrupt because of this. And this series of cases is caused by that stinky stone named Zhang who filed a lawsuit in Beijing. Even..." Zhou Sen hurriedly stopped talking.

"Even what?" Amin asked immediately.

Zhou Sen initially wanted to mention the news of the Ministry of Finance's shock and the shipping route change, but he quickly realized that this news wasn't necessarily good news for smuggling. The shipping route change meant lower grain prices, and lower grain prices inevitably led to lower prices for all goods, which in turn reduced his purchasing costs.

Zhou Sen wasn't sure if Amin would suddenly come up with this idea, but it was clearly unwise to reveal information that would be detrimental to bargaining. So he lowered his voice and said, "Even many well-known barons and dukes have been arrested by the imperial guards. Everyone in our line of work has connections in the capital, and I'm really worried the court will follow this all the way to me."

"Who was arrested?" Amin asked curiously.

Zhou Sen shook his head. "That's all I know about this incident. I need to find out more about the details."

Amin then asked, "Since the imperial court is tightening its grip on the market, how come you were able to get so much goods for me? There were even more last time."

Zhou Sen had a plan in mind: "Although things on the market have always been expensive, it's not difficult to buy them. After all, the government hasn't banned private transactions. The real difficulty lies in the trade between the two sides. For example, this time, I took three days longer than usual to avoid the checkpoints and piers set up by the court and walk out of the old border wall from Longdaogou. After that, I had to go back the same way." Zhou Sen took a sip of the slightly cold milk tea and then continued to complain:
"Taking a detour and avoiding the customs is already considered good. What's more difficult is to move the goods of the Great Jin Kingdom out. Before, when there was still support from the capital, I could get the goods from the Great Jin and hand them over to the people they sent. After exchanging enough silver and other goods, I could do the second round of business soon, but now... Alas!" Zhou Sen ended this sentence with a long sigh.

"Oh!" Amin rolled his eyes at Zhou Sen. "So, you mean leather and ginseng can't be sold now?"

"Of course I can sell it, but it's still much more troublesome than before. In the past, when things were still peaceful, even if I couldn't directly resell the goods from the Great Jin in large quantities to those who placed orders in Beijing, I could still sell them in batches at the Liaodong market. Although the price was lower, the turnover was still fast." Zhou Sen said with a bitter face and shook his head.

"But now, not only is it impossible to ship large quantities of goods into the interior, even in the Liaodong market, if there's any extra leather or ginseng, the government will come and question the source. If you can't explain it clearly, they'll arrest you. They'll beat you up first, then interrogate you. If they still can't prove anything, they'll arrest your entire family. Many people have fallen into the government's trap this way." Zhou Sen hesitated for a moment, then decided to give an example: "Li Quezi, you should know him too, right?"

"Are you talking about Li Jingda?" Amin frowned.

Li Jingda had extensive trade relations with the Jurchen tribes before Nurhaci founded his own kingdom and proclaimed himself Khan. After the Ming-Jin War broke out and the Ming Dynasty imposed a trade blockade on the Jin Dynasty, Li Jingda smoothly became involved in smuggling.

"It's Li Jingda," Zhou Sen's face couldn't help but show a hint of fear. He subconsciously wanted to look back, but in the end, he consciously restrained himself. "It must have been a while since he last came to Dajin to sell goods?" "What happened to him?" Amin asked. "Was he arrested?"

"He's dead," Zhou Sen explained. "His men were caught by soldiers while they were selling goods at the market gate of Anshan Post. The authorities followed Li Quezi's men and arrested him and his entire family. He died in prison shortly thereafter."

Amin was stunned. "You silenced him?"

"Really not," Zhou Sen shook his head. "I did intend to bribe the jailer to kill him and silence him, but he died before I could do it. He said it was suicide, but I think he must have been killed by someone else."

"Since the matter is so serious, why do you dare to come?" Amin looked at Zhou Sen and the three guys standing behind him.

Zhou Sen put on a calm demeanor. "To be honest, if it weren't for the friendship between you and the Great Khan, I wouldn't have been willing to come. The channels in Beijing won't be restored anytime soon, and the government at all levels in Liaodong is tightening the screws. Even if I got the best goods from you, I'd have to sell them slowly, in small batches, to the registered hunters. The last time I brought back goods, more than half of them are still hidden in the cellar and haven't been sold."

"I'm sorry to say that." Amin lowered his head, his fingertips gently stroking the edge of the fine porcelain cup. "Sable fur, miscellaneous fur, beads, ginseng. These are all I have. How would you like to exchange them? Make an offer."

"Alas," Zhou Sen said with a wry smile, "Beile Amin, we've been dealing with each other for so many years, don't you know me well? I'm not asking for anything too high."

"Yeah. I know." Amin pursed his lips and nodded. "Just give me the price."

"Based on the last price comparison, how about raising the price by 40%?" Zhou Sen asked with an embarrassed smile.

"Forty percent! Why don't you just go and rob it?" Before Amin could even speak, Jirgalang became anxious.

boom.

Amin knocked lightly on the table in front of him and said in Jurchen, "I didn't ask you to speak."

"But second brother, our products are already sold at a low price. If he raises the price by another 40%, the ginseng will become a radish." Jirgalang insisted.

"Shut up," Amin turned and glared at Jirgalang. "It's not your turn to speak here."

Only after Jirgalang lowered his head in defiance did Amin turn back to Zhou Sen. "Yanwei, I understand your difficult situation. But you're asking for a 40% increase right away. Isn't that too much? How about a 10% increase?"

As he turned around, Amin glanced at Le Dutai. Zhou Sen had brought about 20% more goods this time than last time. If the current exchange rate increased by another 40%, he would have to take away all the extra goods he had.

"Hmm," Zhou Sen frowned, seeming lost in thought. "How about this, I've brought back so much leather, ginseng, and pearls, it's really hard to sell them right now. If you could give me gold and silver for all of them, I'd only raise the price by 10%."

"Haha," Amin chuckled. "Yanwei, you really know how to joke. The tribute market has been suspended for so long. How can I have so much gold and silver to give you? To be honest, I only have two hundred taels of silver here."

The Jurchen tribes did not produce gold and silver, and what they did have was either acquired through tribute trade in earlier years or looted from places like Fuqing Kaitie at the beginning of the war. After more than two years of trade blockade, those stocks had long been depleted and little remained.

Zhou Sen took a deep breath, as if making a crucial decision. "Since you're so honest, I won't beat around the bush. I'll give you my base price. Give me the full two hundred taels of silver. If you're calculating with that much silver, I won't raise the price by even half. If you're calculating with the actual goods, I'll raise the price by at least 25%. Also, I'd like to ask you to replace my two mules for the cart. This journey has been treacherous, and two of my mules seem to have twisted their legs. They're fine on foot, but if they're pulling a cart, they'll probably break along the way."

"What are you exchanging for? I'll give you two!" Amin waved his hand generously. "No! I'm not stingy here. I'll give you two horses and two mules!"

"No, no, no," Zhou Sen quickly waved his hand in defiance. "I appreciate Prince Amin's kindness. The court is incredibly strict about livestock. Every household must report how many horses, cows, and mules they own. They also report if there are fewer dead animals, and they report if there are more calves. If I had four extra adult animals, I wouldn't be able to explain it. So, please just give me two healthy ones instead."

"Then let's change." Amin looked at Ledutai and said in Jurchen: "Go. Bring two strong mules here."

"Mule?" Ledutai was stunned, not quite understanding why Amin suddenly asked him to lead the mule.

"Ah."

"Okay." Ledutai didn't ask any more questions. After confirming that Amin really wanted a mule, he turned around and left the tent.

"Beile Amin," Zhou Sen confirmed, "Is the deal settled?"

"Do we have to go to Liaoyang to get the deed from the government?" Amin asked with a smile.

"Haha," Zhou Sen laughed and stood up. "Then I'll go inspect the goods and take delivery."

"Are you in such a hurry to leave?" Amin waved his hand down, motioning Zhou Sen to sit down.

"I don't want to waste your time." Zhou Sen said.

"Don't delay," Amin pointed at the cushion under Zhou Sen's butt. "I want to ask you something else."

"You can speak freely, I will tell you everything I know." Zhou Sen had no choice but to sit down.

(End of this chapter)