Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
When the Shatu were kicked out of the east gate, Yan Liqiang was in a gentle warm bath indulging in softness…
In the steamy bath, Yan Liqiang laid on the smooth stone chair and enjoyed the hot water as well as the service of the beautiful woman next to him.
Zhong Ruolan, who wore a thin silky layer, knelt behind Yan Liqiang. Her hands softly massaged Yan Liqiang’s shoulders. Her actions were soft and light. Yan Liqiang closed his eyes in comfort.
“Since you and the Prefectural Governor decided to kick the Shatu people out from Pingxi Prefecture, where should they settle? You’re not going to kill them all are you?”
Yan Liqiang didn’t open his eyes and said casually, “There’s no need to kill them all. If we really do that then it would cause a huge outburst. We’ll be on the passive side. We killed all those who deserve to be killed in the city. As for the remaining ones, the Prefectural Governor gave them five days of food. The majority of them will be escorted out of White Stone Pass by the army; they’ll make them go back to where they came from. When they leave White Stone Pass, whether they live or die has nothing to do with us. There won’t be any domineering Shatu people in Pingxi City anymore!”
“The majority? So that means the minority will be staying?” Zhong Ruolan immediately caught on.
“Mhm, that’s right!”
“How will that minority be arranged?” Zhong Ruolan’s hands had moved onto Yan Liqiang’s head. Her soft long fingers lightly rubbed Yan Liqiang’s temples.
“You’re very smart — you can guess!” Yan Liqiang smiled. Zhong Ruolan’s hands made him feel as though he was in the clouds. He was completely relaxed; this bathroom was too comfortable. He never expected the Zhong family to have such a place for leisure. Normally, places with hot water baths were hot springs, but the Zhong family showed Yan Liqiang what was elite enjoyment. The bath tiles were made with quartz, and the hot water was drawn in from outside. There was no hot spring here. The hot water was heated up in a room outside and then inserted with copper pipes. While enjoying the bath here, there would be quite some people working on the other side. This place could even control the temperature of the water. You could even let people pour in some nourishing herbs into the water. If you wanted to change the water temperature or add herbs, there were a few ropes on the side. You just needed to pull it and the people responsible would know what to do. The elite really knew how to enjoy themselves; this was so lavish.
Zhong Ruolan’s hands didn’t stop — she slowed down as though in thought, but moments later, her voice sounded again. “If I were the Pingxi Prefectural Governor, I would send all the remaining Shatu people to Yingwei County. In the future, commercial trade between the Shatu and Pingxi Prefecture would be in Yingwei County!”
“Oh, tell me your reasoning!”
“It’s simple. We already have a border trading post at Yingwei County. Our trade with the Shatu people is most suited to be conducted at the border trading post. But in the recent decades, the empire has been too lenient on the Shatu Seven Tribes. This allowed them to enter the northwest prefectures as if no one was there. Quite a few have taken parts of cities with force and settled there, causing some problems. Now that you and the Prefectural Governor made a move and cleared those people out of Pingxi City, the rest would be easy to deal with. Yingwei County already has a border trading post that deals with the races and Mount Jade Dragon people. The trades are growing bigger and bigger. Thus, if we set up another border trading post at Yingwei County, we can deal with those Shatu people. There are three benefits to doing this: one is to lower the negative influence of kicking the Shatu people away out of Pingxi City so that people can’t point their fingers at this incident. Second, we can control the number of Shatu at the trading post and not completely cut connections with the Shatu people. We can still do business with them. I believe the merchants with connections to Shatu wouldn’t object to this. Third, we’d make Shatu people and the Mount Jade Dragon people balance each other out!”
“Smart!” Yan Liqiang finally opened his eyes and looked at Zhong Ruolan, “The Zhong family really chose the right person to come to Pingxi Prefecture!”
“No matter how smart I am I can’t guess why you are willing to pay such a price: two million taels of silver to take over the mess the Shatu left behind. Even if you wanted to buy the land, I think it was worth at most one million or so!” Zhong Ruolan rolled her eyes in a cute manner at Yan Liqiang. “Other merchants conspire with officials to get wealth and benefits, but you conspire to lose money. The east city has pretty much been burnt to the ground. It would cost more to clean up that. It’s not worth it to spend a few million taels of silver to buy half a Yan City!”
Yan Liqiang smiled “You can’t finish earning all the money in this world. Sometimes, it’s not completely about money, but more about making yourself happy. If I don’t spend this money, Wang Jianbei and Lei Sitong might not be willing to make the decision to kick away these Shatu people. I feel very uncomfortable looking at those Shatu people. Now that they’ve been kicked away, I feel much more satisfied. It’s like a burden has been lifted off me. Some things women just don’t understand!”
“If you tell me, I will understand!”
“Haha, you’re thinking about how to do business and earn money. Then I’ll tell you something about that. I have a deal here. It’s best that you do this in the city. If you want to surpass the Zhong family then it’ll depend on if you handle this deal well!”
Zhong Ruolan’s eyes lit up immediately “What deal is it? Salt?”
“Not salt, it’s insurance!”
“Insurance?” Zhong Ruolan’s eyes frowned. She thought for a while but she realized she had never heard of such a thing. She laughed in embarrassment, “Ruolan is uneducated. What do you mean by insurance?”
“It’s no wonder you don’t know because there probably is no insurance in this world. We’ll be the first to do it. If you do insurance well, you only need a few years to surpass the Zhong family!” Yan Liqiang said with confidence.
“Oh, what deal is it? It’s that powerful?”
“I’ll give you an example. Last night, the Shatu district was on fire. It burned away quite a lot of Shatu merchant cargos. If a Shatu person had a storage unit that had 10,000 taels of silver, then before the fire went up and the cargo were put in storage, he only needed to give me 300 taels of silver and I would sign a contract with him. if his cargo was burned away due to an accident within a year, then I will compensate the 10,000 taels of silver. This is insurance. Take money and insure other people’s things!”
“But you only take a few hundred taels of silver that way and need to compensate for 10,000 taels of silver. How do you make a profit?”
“Are you only doing one person’s business? If there are a thousand storages like this and you do a thousand of these deals, then each year you take 300,000 taels of silver. Even if two or three burn in fire, you only pay 20,000 or 30,000 taels of silver. How much do you have left? For those merchants, they’re scared of accidents. Spending a few hundred each year isn’t much, but if an accident occurs, they can use this money to get back on their feet and avoid most of the loss. Merchants care about stability. If you do this business, how many people would be willing to pay insurance? Of course, cargo is just a small part. We can do life insurance. For example, a guard can pay us insurance. If some accident occurs to him we can compensate his family with some silver…”
Zhong Ruolan was dumbfounded. She couldn’t help but stop her hands. Yan Liqiang’s words seemed to have opened the doors of a new world to her…