Chapter 10: Act, Keep On Acting!

Throwing him into the river was impossible, and those armed household servants of the Wang family couldn’t catch Yang Xin either.

The Elder Steward turned a blind eye to this.

He certainly wasn’t worried about Yang Xin trying to woo their young lady. After all, the difference in their status was so vast that it would block any improper connection. Besides, the young lady probably also had a playful temper at home, since her father was a disciple of the Great Ming Dynasty’s most unorthodox thinker…

Truly unorthodox.

He could be called a rebel against the feudal dynasty and a despiser of Confucianism.

The Wang family’s customs wouldn’t be too rigid anyway.

Moreover, the Elder Steward didn’t have time for this.

Huang Zhen was fully playing the role of a lackey. He quickly hired a sedan chair, a donkey cart, and even a large human-pulled cart at the dock. Then, he loaded all the luggage unloaded from the boat onto the carts. The maids and older female servants got onto the donkey cart. The Elder Steward hired a donkey to ride. Miss Wang got into the sedan chair. It was over forty li from Zhangjiawan to Beijing. They had to go to Tongzhou first, then turn west, crossing the Bali Bridge. If they hurried, they could enter through the Chaoyang Gate before dark. The Wang family’s mansion in Beijing was located in the Mingshi Quarter…

The Ming Dynasty had a curfew.

Therefore, cities everywhere were divided into walled wards or quarters. This was actually a step backward compared to the Song Dynasty.

Actually, the Song Dynasty also had a curfew.

But the Song Dynasty’s curfew started at the third watch. By that time, whether there was a curfew or not was pretty meaningless. Anyone daring to roam around at that hour was definitely not a law-abiding citizen. Moreover, the curfew lifted at the fifth watch. You could say the curfew period was so short it was almost non-existent. However, starting from the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the curfew returned to the first watch, and this practice continued from then on…

It continued until the Xinhai Revolution.

So, when you see those period dramas with queues where handsome men and beautiful women stroll the streets at midnight, just chuckle.

If you dared to go out after 8 PM without first getting a night pass from the local neighborhood head, you risked being arrested and given fifty strokes of the cane. As for visiting night markets, that was even more unthinkable. Unless it was the Lantern Festival, everywhere, even Beijing, was dead silent at night. Similarly, the Wang family party also had to reach Beijing, enter the city, and get into their quarter before the curfew started around the first watch. So, the two families quickly parted ways. Miss Wang even specially invited Huang Ying to her home. Casually, she glanced at her life-saving benefactor again, then snorted and stepped into the sedan chair. Under the protection of the armed household servants, they hurried towards Tongzhou for lunch.

After seeing them off, Huang Zhen finally began to attend to their own business.

Their rapeseed oil had a dedicated buyer in Zhangjiawan. They just needed to unload it from the boat and transport it directly to the buyer’s warehouse. Yang Xin and the sailors acted as porters, each using a carrying pole to shoulder the oil barrels to the warehouse in Zhangjiawan town. Of course, they could have hired porters directly, but for a small business, saving money wherever possible was key.

However, Yang Xin didn’t know how to use a carrying pole.

Who knew how to use this thing? It wasn’t as simple as carrying loads on both ends. If you couldn’t balance it properly, you wouldn’t even be able to walk. To everyone’s astonishment, he simply picked up one oil barrel in each hand.

The shopkeeper receiving the oil was speechless and gave him a handcart.

Then, he didn’t know how to push that either.

This kind of handcart wasn’t like a modern pallet truck.

First, it had wooden wheels. The axle, worn thin from years of use, caused the cart to wobble and twist when moving, not run smoothly. Second, the load was divided onto two sides. Pushing the cart required not just strength to move forward, but also effort to maintain balance. In theory, two barrels on each side were the same weight, but in reality, there were always slight differences. Especially since the oil inside the barrels was liquid, meaning the weight distribution was constantly shifting. So, he had to maintain balance between two sides with constantly changing weight distribution, all while pushing the cart forward on a wobbly pivot point.

Push a cart?

Pushing a cart required skill too!

Yang Xin’s current body probably knew how originally, but the problem was, he didn’t!

“Bring me one of those!”

Yang Xin said indignantly.

He was pointing at a large two-wheeled cart pulled by a person.

“Uncle He?”

Huang Ying looked at the oil-receiving shopkeeper beside them.

The shopkeeper smiled, gestured towards the back, and one of his clerks immediately ran to a familiar nearby shop. He soon returned pulling one of these two-wheeled carts. Yang Xin tested it and was quite satisfied. This one had two wheels, so he didn’t need to control left-right balance. He just needed to put the rope harness over his shoulders at the front and place his hands on the shafts to control the front-back balance. If it wasn’t for going up or down slopes, it was no big problem. Slopes were a tragedy, especially going downhill, as it could easily tip him backward.

“Load it up!”

He said, holding the shafts to keep his balance.

Huang Ying picked up oil barrels and loaded them for him. Soon, eight barrels were neatly arranged on the bottom layer.

“Add another layer!”

Yang Xin said.

“Stop messing around!”

Huang Ying said, exasperated.

Beside them, Huang Zhen laughed and started loading more barrels onto Yang Xin’s cart. Soon, another layer of six barrels was added, making the total weight over seven hundred jin.

“Can we load even more?”

Yang Xin said.

“Sure! Load more for him. Load up to one thousand jin!”

Shopkeeper He said.

The clerk and Huang Zhen together lifted four more barrels, adding a final two on the very top, making the stack stand like a pyramid. Gasps of amazement rose from the onlookers. Huang Zhen quickly tied everything firmly with rope.

“One thousand jin. If you pull this to the city, I’ll treat you to meat!”

Shopkeeper He said.

Yang Xin smiled with a look of simple honesty on his face, then stepped forward. Amidst the continued gasps from both sides, he strode confidently along the stone-paved street. The four-tiered pyramid behind him moved forward with his steps…

“This doesn’t earn much either!”

Sitting on the low wall of the garden in Shopkeeper He’s family courtyard, Yang Xin held the lamb leg he’d won from his bet in one hand and a stick in the other. He was calculating their earnings from this trip on the ground.

“What are these weird scribbles?”

Huang Ying asked, puzzled.

Arabic numerals had entered China during the Mongol Yuan period, but hardly anyone used them. Chinese people were more accustomed to counting rods and Chinese characters. As for those ten accounting numerals, they were said to have been invented by Empress Wu Zetian and promoted by Zhu Yuanzhang to prevent officials from falsifying accounts. Look at the wisdom of the Great Ming’s Taizu. So what if he was illiterate and came from a beggar background? He could still come up with tricks that stump modern accountants. But at least among the common folk of the current Great Ming, it was very rare to see Arabic numerals. Probably some scholars knew them, but expecting Huang Ying to understand was impossible.

Moreover, Yang Xin was even doing vertical calculation.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. This is zero. One plus zero is ten. Add two zeros is a hundred. Three zeros is a thousand. Four zeros is ten thousand. Adding a zero means moving to the next place value. Adding one of the first nine numbers makes numbers like eleven, twelve… These are symbols for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. When you don’t have an abacus, you can calculate with this. If you wash my clothes for me in the future, I’ll personally teach you!”

Yang Xin said with a mischievous grin.

“Pah! Wash them yourself!”

Huang Ying said.

“But our earnings from this trip aren’t much either. In the end, it’s not even as much as that pouch Miss Fang threw at me!”

Yang Xin said, looking at the result.

Miss Fang was rich and powerful. Of course, she might also have been furious. That money pouch she threw at him contained not just a few Spanish eight-real coins, but also a one-hundred-tael silver note, making Yang Xin suddenly quite wealthy. It had to be said, daughters of rich families were different. Even when hitting someone, they could use silver notes. Next time, he must visit her house to see if she could throw another pouch at him.

They had transported a total of twenty thousand jin of rapeseed oil this time. The current supply price for this stuff was only a little over 0.01 taels per jin, not even reaching 0.02 taels. Twenty thousand jin amounted to just over three hundred taels. Even the retail price was only a bit over 0.02 taels. Prices during the late Wanli period were simply outrageous. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, a man from Guangdong lamented that the prosperous era of Wanli was gone forever. In the 47th Year of Wanli, which was this very year, one dou of rice at his home cost less than twenty wen. During the reign of the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong Emperor, one sheng of rice cost ten wen, which if calculated per dou, would be five times the price of the 47th Year of Wanli. Even calculated using the capital’s rice prices, it was significantly higher, because at this time, the retail price of rice was still around zero-point-something taels per dan.

Huang Zhen’s entire boatload of oil was worth just over three hundred taels.

And that was the value of the goods, not the profit. Even if the profit margin was one hundred percent, they would only earn a little over one hundred taels.

But a one hundred percent profit was impossible.

Their oil was transported from Hejian. Huang Ying’s home was in Wuguandian, which was north of Renqiu, east of Baiyangdian Lake, at the border of Hejian Prefecture and Baoding Prefecture.

The distance wasn’t far.

Over such a short distance, there couldn’t be very high profits. If one could easily get a one hundred percent profit, a crowd of merchants would swarm in. Over this short distance, there was no information gap. You could even row a small sampan from Wuguandian via the Hun River (also known as the Lugou River) all the way to Beijing. However, this time, thanks to the Elder Steward’s help, they avoided the fees for passing the Customs Checkpoint at Hexiwu and for hiring trackers. Also, the tax at Zhangjiawan was waived. After all, those tax officials didn’t know their real relationship. Giving face to the Elder Steward meant giving face to the Vice Minister. This saved Huang Zhen a significant amount. But overall, the profit was still meager. Remember, this kind of business could only be done a few times a year, with only a nine-month navigation period in total. Just this round trip alone took over a month.

His trip was a special case. If he hadn’t been traveling with the Wang family’s boat, he would have had to wait in line for who knows how many days just at the Hexiwu Customs Checkpoint.

Similarly, at Zhangjiawan, he wouldn’t know when he could dock at the pier.

And before setting out, he needed time to prepare the cargo.

His goods were his own.

He had to collect enough oil from merchants who specialized in buying oil from villagers to fill a boat.

He also had to pay wages to the several sailors. A total of six sailors were essential. He had various expenses along the way, had to pay taxes at Yuanjiakou, and also faced harassment and extortion from local officials everywhere.

Calculating everything properly, he probably only earned a few dozen taels.

And there were risks involved.

Because there were definitely robbers along the way. Sanjiaodian was a vast expanse of water. Its east-west length alone was roughly equivalent to the distance from the modern Northern Canal to Shengfang, with a circumference of over two hundred li. Apart from water, it was mostly marshes. Such a place couldn’t possibly be without water bandits. This network of waterways and marshes stretched all the way to Baiyangdian Lake. Hundreds of li of rivers connected numerous large and small lakes and marshes. Apart from water, there were only reed marshes. It would be strange if such an environment didn’t breed water bandits. Even during the Anti-Japanese War, Japanese forces were helpless against the guerrillas operating in these areas, let alone the soldiers of the Great Ming Dynasty. No wonder Huang Zhen had a stash of weapons hidden in his boat’s cabin.

This business wasn’t easy either!

At least, this legitimate business was hard to do.

“You think making money is easy? Besides, a few dozen taels isn’t a small amount. It’s enough to buy a house in this capital city.”

Huang Ying said, annoyed.

“You mean I could actually afford to buy a house in Beijing?”

Yang Xin weighed the money pouch Miss Fang had thrown at him, his face full of shock.