Chapter 35: Opening Transport Line_1
Translator: 549690339 |
“Shouzhe, where on earth did you get fifty to sixty thousand dan of grain from?” Gongsun Qiang gasped, speaking in an almost disbelieving tone.
The Gongsun Clan of Shanyang is considered powerful, possessing tens of thousands of acres of fertile land. However, even so, the production of gram for a season does not reach fifty to sixty thousand dan! Moreover, the gram produced by a prominent family’s fertile lands must be shared with tenant farmers and annual taxes must be paid per acre. Additionally, there are also reserves for grain seeds and consumptions like insecticide powder.
From this, you can see what an astronomical figure fifty to sixty thousand dan of grain is. Even under normal circumstances, it would be extremely difficult to gather that much grain all at once, let alone under the current situation.
“I bought it from Qian’s Merchant House through a friend’s connection,” Wang Shouzhe said, “Uncle, we should not delay any longer and set off to Jucui Manor first. The carriage will follow.”
The carriages of the Gongsun Clan were specially reinforced for the transportation of minerals. The horses chosen to pull the carriages were robust and highly enduring heavy draught horses from the North. Each carriage was pulled by four to five of these horses, capable of carrying weights amounting to thousands to tens of thousands of jin.
Bought it through a friend’s connection?
Gongsun Qiang’s eyelids twitched uncontrollably, wondering where this kind of friend came from. Could he have one too? Filled with envy, jealousy, and a slight disbelief, he followed Wang Shouzhe to Jucui Manor.
Jucui Manor is one of Qian’s properties, specially designated for the storage of various bulk goods. Many bulk goods range from tens to hundreds of thousands of dan; there is absolutely no need to transport these to Changning Weicheng.
As for the fear of being attacked and robbed, that’s simply a joke.
Not to mention the considerable armed force within Jucui Manor, but also the reputation of the Qian clan in Longzuo; no one would dare to harbor evil thoughts.
After seeking a meeting through the doors of Jucui Manor, Qian Xuean, principal officer of Qian, came out with a gloomy face. He seemed unwilling to give Wang Shouzhe a pleasant look.
Then, he represented the Qian family in handling the transfer. Both parties redrafted a contract, where the Qian family “repurchased” the contract of the insecticide powder from Wang Shouzhe.
The price was quite reasonable: ten thousand Qian gold in cash and sixty thousand dan of aged grain in stock. After repurchasing the original 5,000 bags of insecticide powder, the Qian family could sell them for at least 15,000 to 20,000 Qian gold, naturally, there would be no loss.
About such “disgraceful” matters, the shopkeeper of Qian’s Changning Branch didn’t want to show his face, so he entrusted everything to Qian Xuean. The invisible shopkeeper had obviously planned to shift all the blame for the mistakes onto Qian Xuean.
Therefore, Qian Xuean was so gloomy as to almost drip water during all the procedures. From beginning to end, he didn’t want to say a word to Wang Shouzhe.
After all procedures were taken care of, he angrily handed Wang Shouzhe a large stack of gold notes and a road pass for sixty thousand dan of grain, then left with his sleeves flouncing.
Such fraudulent acting left Wang Shouzhe astounded. He couldn’t help thinking that once Qian Xuean successfully ascended to the Spirit Platform Realm, he would undoubtedly become a prominent figure.
After everything was settled, Wang Shouzhe found Gongsun Qiang who was waiting outside, “Uncle, the procedures for obtaining sixty thousand dan of aged grain have been completed. Once your people arrive, we can start transporting the grain.”
Gongsun Qiang’s body trembled, his mouth agape in shock. It was real, the nephew had really “bought” a total of sixty thousand dan of grain. He was just astonishingly unbelievable.
Soon, Gongsun Qiang’s twenty-carriage convoy slowly arrived, accompanied by eighty robust miners.
In the grain silos piled up like a mountain, the aged grain was packed in rice bags, with one bag weighing exactly one hundred jin or equivalent to one dan. However, those miners easily carried three to four bags at once and started to load the carriages.
“Uncle, how much can one carriage hold?” Wang Shouzhe, who had lived for two lifetimes, had never seen such an abundance of grain. Even though he had estimated in his mind, the volume and quantity still far exceeded his imagination.
“Load, just load, stack it up till a hundred dan, our carriages have been specially reinforced, and the North heavy draught horses are no vegetarians, they can pull it.” Gongsun Qiang’s eyes were also turning red. He had lived a lifetime and had never seen so much grain piled up together.
The powerful Gongsun Clan of Shanyang usually stores about twenty thousand dan of grain, which is enough to feed thousands of laborers for a year. The tenant farmers and miners of the Gongsun Clan in Shanyang, including their families, add up to at most several thousand people.
A hundred dan? That’s ten thousand jin of grain…
Wang Shouzhe was slightly taken aback, somewhat beyond his expectation, this is indeed a mysterious magical world, not only do ordinary people have much greater strength, but even such northern heavy-type draft horses are so powerful. More so if they were spirit beast level war horses, they would be even more formidable.
The miners obviously were accustomed to heavy labor, every four people were assigned a wagon, and after six or seven rounds, the cart was loaded. One by one, the special ore-pulling wagons were overloaded with grains.
But even so, it was only about two thousand loads.
According to this mode, wouldn’t they have to make thirty trips? Forget about it, they might as well take their time, after all, they didn’t expect to transport this batch of grain in a short time.
Fortunately, at this time, Qian Xuean appeared again. Still with a cold face, he said, “Our Qian’s business prioritizes reputation, and we will never embarrass our customers. You can rent our heavy-duty cargo wagons, twenty copper coins a day for the wagon, the driver’s salary, and feed for the heavy-duty draft horses is included. You have to take care of the loading and unloading.”
Obviously, Qian Xuean bravely decided to join in for assistance. However, Gongsun Qiang, who was standing by, almost spat out old blood. Although the price offered by the other party was reasonable, it also undermined his hard work, didn’t it?
Originally, Gongsun Qiang wanted to take this opportunity to help and with a thick face ask his older nephew Christian to give him some grain.
“In that case, thank you, Middleman Qian,” said Wang Shouzhe happily, “we will rent another thirty wagons.”
The number of wagons owned by the Qian merchant group far exceeded that of the Gongsun clan, and their business spread across Longzuo, therefore, the load of their wagons was naturally extremely high, not inferior to the wagons of the Gongsun clan by any means.
After fifty wagons were fully loaded, they drove out of Jucui Manor one after another.
jucui Manor is only ten miles away from the Changning ferry crossing. Under normal circumstances, the wagon should be able to arrive in less than two hours. However, the Changning ferry crossing was crowded and Wang Shouzhe didn’t want to make a big noise just yet, in case something unexpected would happen.
After the wagons passed the three-way junction, they took the road to Shanyang, but after two or three miles, it turned in the direction of Peace River and arrived at a dense forest entrance. From here, the wagons could no longer enter. However, just a hundred steps or so into the dense forest, there was a vertical cliff five or six zhang high, and there was a natural water bay twenty or thirty zhang wide under the cliff.
By this time, Sixth Uncle Wang Dinghai had already received notice from the head of household and had led his team to wait here with the boats, including fishing boats and ferries, basically, all the usable boats from home were brought here.
This kind of transportation is laborious but very covert.
From the wagons to the dense forest, then to the cliff and onto the boat, it requires about two hundred and fifty steps. Wang Shouzhe let the miners and the head of household all stand in position, every three steps one person, passing the grain in a relay manner.
After everyone adapted a little, they realized the benefits of this simple manual transportation line – it was steady, orderly and efficiency gradually increased. The speed of loading the boats could reach one load in one or two breaths, while also greatly saving the time and physical strength of running back and forth.
in just over two hours, all the grain from the fifty wagons was unloaded remarkably. Afterwards, the wagon team returned to Jucui Manor to fetch the next batch. While Wang Shouzhe followed the boats across the Peace River all the way to the Fenggu Sluice.
There were even more people at Fenggu Farm, with a total of two hundred tenant farming households. Providing one hundred and fifty strong laborers was a piece of cake. Using the same method, the grain was transported across the Fenggu Sluice and temporarily stored in Fenggu Farm.
The boats on the inland river were not enough, there were only about five or six of them, and they had to slowly transport on this last line.
The successful opening of the difficult transportation line allowed Wang Shouzhe to relax, while also making him greatly dissatisfied with his own transportation line.
The first thing was the excessive dependence on public ferry crossings and the lack of privately constructed secretive small docks.
The next was the inconvenience from Peace River to the inland rivers as the water levels on both sides were inconsistent. The single sluice gate couldn’t be opened at will for a long time otherwise it would cause flooding. About this point, he must figure out a way to construct a ship lock that will allow ships to pass.
Furthermore, the family was noticeably lacking in shipping and wagon transportation. Maybe with the current scale of the Wang family, this shortcoming was not very obvious, but as the family continues to grow and expand, this shortcoming would seriously impede the family’s development. It appears that establishing a complete transportation channel of their own is an urgent matter.