Chapter 31 Black Shop 1
◎Jinjiang exclusive◎
Baili Town was sixty miles away from Taohua Village where they lived. If they walked there, it would take more than three hours, and it would be afternoon by the time they got there. How could they do business or shop? So, Zhou Ruiquan and his group planned to go there by ox cart.
Yesterday Zhou Ruiquan had already agreed with Li Gui to accompany them. After they had breakfast and were ready, Li Gui changed into clean clothes and arrived. As they were far away from the town, everyone did not dare to delay any longer. When they saw Li Gui arrive, they hurriedly set off.
The nearest official road from Taohua Village is about ten miles away, and it takes half an hour to walk there. Because there are no ox carts in the entire Taohua Village, everyone can only walk to the official road first, then take an ox cart there, and then walk for nearly two hours to reach Baili Town.
That is to say, even if you take a car to go to Baili Town, it will take nearly five hours to go there and back just for the time spent on the road.
Alas! This ancient backward transportation! Zhou Jin followed the crowd and complained in his heart, but there was nothing he could do. Fortunately, everyone was used to walking during their exile, so they didn't feel it was hard.
Because the time spent on the road was so long, Li Gui told them almost everything he knew during the conversation with everyone, which made everyone understand a lot about Bailitun where they now belonged.
It turns out that the reason why Bailitun is called Bailitun is because it covers an area of a hundred miles, which is one of the largest military settlements in the entire Liaodong Guard.
The Taohua Village where they live now is not actually a real village. The name Taohua Village was just given by Li Gui and his friends to distinguish themselves from the other branches of Bailitun. It is not officially recognized.
In the official archives, theirs was just a small branch of the entire Bailitun. There were dozens of such branches in the entire Bailitun, some large and some small. The largest Bailitun branch was located in the south of Bailitun, consisting of more than a hundred households, and the smallest Bailitun branch was their Taohua Village, located in the northwest corner of the entire Bailitun. It had poor transportation and barren land. Including Zhou Jin and others who had just been assigned there, there were only sixteen households and eighty-one people in total.
Bailitun covers such a large area, and there are almost 2,000 military households and more than 10,000 people in the entire village. It is certainly impossible for so many people to be managed by the village chief alone.
The chief of Bailitun is the highest official in the entire Bailitun, also known as the chief of a thousand households. He has ten chiefs of a hundred households under him, and each of these chiefs of a hundred households manages a hundred or so military households under Bailitun.
Each captain also has several subordinates who help him manage the recruitment, grain collection, settlement, disputes, accounts, etc. of the military households under his command.
According to Li Gui, the captain in charge of Zhou Jin and his men was surnamed Han, and was considered one of the lesser-known among the many captains in Bailitun. Therefore, the military households assigned to him were mostly poor military households from remote areas like theirs, none of which were wealthy, so naturally they could not make much money on a normal basis.
When Zhou Jin and his companions arrived, Captain Han was bored and polishing his silver spear in his room. When his subordinates came to report that more than 20 prisoners exiled from the capital were assigned to settle here, his eyes suddenly lit up, thinking that an opportunity to make money had come.
When Zhou Ruiquan and his companions arrived, they heard Li Gui talk about the rules here. They knew that if they wanted to settle down smoothly and live a stable life here, they had to curry favor with the centurion in charge of them.
Therefore, they had made preparations before they came. Each family contributed six taels of silver. Zhou Ruifeng, being the only one there, contributed two taels, making a total of twenty taels. Zhou Ruiquan, as the representative, carefully handed the money to Han Baihu when he finally came out after much anticipation.
To be honest, Captain Han hadn't seen such a huge sum of money as twenty taels of silver for a long time. The poor military households under his jurisdiction usually paid him dozens of coins when they came to him for help, and a hundred coins were considered good. Compared with other captains who lived a life of luxury, he really lived like a beggar!
There was nothing he could do, because he had no one above him! Although he had won the rank of centurion based on his military merits, he had no money to curry favor with his superiors, and he was not good at flattery, so how could he compete with those smooth colleagues?
Therefore, the military households allocated to him can be regarded as the poorest branches in the entire Bailitun. The military fields allocated to him are mostly wasteland, which needs to be reclaimed by himself. After paying the military rations every year, it is good enough to ensure that the military households do not starve to death. Where else can he get the benefits?
So, when he saw Zhou Ruiquan putting the twenty taels in his hand, Captain Han's airs relaxed, his stern face smiled, and he happily asked his subordinates to handle the settlement procedures for them. When his subordinates asked him how to enclose land for several families, he generously said that the wasteland they lived in was within ten miles, and each person could enclose ten acres of land by themselves!
It’s all wasteland anyway, and there’s plenty of it, so any circle is a circle!
No one expected Captain Han to be so easy to talk to, and they were all very happy to hear it. Captain Han was also very happy to get a large sum of silver. Thinking that after a month, when the boys from these families reported to the military camp, they would also be under his charge, and he would be able to make some money then, Captain Han felt even better. After his men had completed the household registration of several families, he happily took out his captain's seal and stamped them, and then he couldn't wait to go to the Fenfang Pavilion in the town to find his old lover with twenty taels of silver. Because he was short of money, he hadn't been there for almost a month.
Because the settlement procedures were completed extremely quickly, it took less than two quarters of an hour from the time they entered to the time they left. It was not yet noon when everyone came out of the Hundred Households Office.
Because Zhou Ruiquan was old and it was not convenient for him to let Li Gui run around with the other families to buy things, he found a small restaurant and took Li Gui to eat while waiting for them, and discussed the matter of building houses for the other families.
Zhou Ruifeng also entrusted the things he was going to buy to Zhou Jin, and went to the pharmacy in the town to inquire about the price of the herbs. Before coming, he and Zhou Yu had discussed that if the price of the herbs was reasonable, they planned to go to the mountains to pick some herbs to sell in the future.
The remaining Zhou Zesheng and Zhou Zemao took Zhou Dai, Zhou Po and Zhou Li to go shopping.
Because Zhou Zelin has not been in good health, he did not come this time, but asked his eldest son Zhou Po and cousin Zhou Li to come.
Because Zhou Jin also wanted to go to the pawnshop to sell the small mirror in her arms, she found an excuse that her mother asked her to pawn a few clothes. She made an appointment with Zhou Wangsheng and others to meet at the small restaurant where Zhou Ruiquan was staying. Then she went to the pawnshop alone with a bag on her back.
Of course, before he came, Zheng did ask him to pawn several silk clothes at home in exchange for some cotton cloth and cotton to make winter clothes, so his excuse was not a lie.
Zhou Jin went around the three pawnshops in Baili Town and chose the largest one to go in. He waited until the three customers in front of him had finished pawning their items and left before he walked to the counter of the pawnshop. Sitting inside was an old man in his fifties with a goatee. Zhou Jin had already learned from the people in front of him that this old man was the owner of the pawnshop, whose surname was Chen.
When the shopkeeper Chen saw him, he asked him, "You want to pawn your things? Do you want to pawn them alive or dead?"
Zhou Jin replied that it doesn't matter whether he lives or dies, it depends on the price you offer.
Shopkeeper Chen was a little disapproving after hearing this, thinking to himself, you kid have become a pawnshop owner, and you still dare to be picky here, what treasures can a person like you have?
Seeing Zhou Jin carrying a bag on his back, he thought it was just some nice clothes and cloaks, no matter how expensive they were, how much could they be worth? So he said perfunctorily:
"Let's take the things out and have a look first."
Unexpectedly, the young man in front of him did not open the bag he was carrying, but first took out a palm-sized glass mirror from his arms.
When Shopkeeper Chen took the mirror and looked at it, his eyes suddenly lit up. He saw that the outer frame of the glass mirror was made of some unknown material. It seemed to be silver, but it was much brighter and harder than silver. The entire frame of the glass mirror was carved into the shape of a round-faced kitten the size of a palm. Two cat ears were specially carved on the mirror, and the base underneath was carved into cat feet and a tail. The cat face in the middle was inlaid with a crystal clear glass lens. It was so exquisite!
If this were to be sent to Jiangnan or the capital, it would probably be worth at least five or six hundred taels of silver!
Shopkeeper Chen seemed to be very happy in his heart, but he did not show it on his face. He had been the shopkeeper of this pawnshop for many years, and of course he knew not to show it on his face when he saw something good. So he suppressed his excitement in his heart, but put on a look of disgust on his face, and said casually to Zhou Jin:
"Look at this mirror of yours. The frame is neither gold nor silver, and there's not even a single gemstone on it. The glass in the middle looks okay, but it's too small. I'm afraid it's not worth much! Tell me, how much silver do you plan to pawn this glass mirror for? We won't take more than that."
Zhou Jin thought to himself, if you don't like it, why are you clenching your hands so tightly? Your fingers are turning white, okay!
But he didn't explain it clearly, and pretended to be a fool, saying:
"My father said this mirror was brought back from overseas by my grandfather when he was young. It's our family's most valuable treasure. Now we're so poor we've lost everything, so he's counting on pawning it so I can marry a wife. It won't be worth less! It has to be at least three hundred taels!"
As he spoke, he took advantage of the old man's inattention and snatched the mirror back from his hand, holding it again, as if he would not give him the mirror unless he paid.
"Huh?!" Shopkeeper Chen was startled at first, then furious. "What? How much? Three hundred taels? How dare you ask for it?!"
Although the mirror was worth three hundred taels, their pawnshop had always been used to picking up bargains, especially after the Dazi who occupied Liaodong in recent years were completely driven out by General Lan Ting, the court gradually relocated many inland farmers to Liaodong to open up wasteland, and many exiles were exiled here to serve as military households.
Therefore, in the past few years, more and more people have been pawning things, including some good things. Some of those poor people can't even afford to eat, so they just pawn the things for some money, no matter what they are. They are used to taking advantage of the pawnshops, and now, if they are asked to pay the original price, they can't bear it.
Besides, Shopkeeper Chen also had his own plans. He thought that if he could buy the glass mirror at a low price, he could add an extra hundred or eighty taels when reporting it to his boss. As long as the accounts were done well and his brothers were well taken care of, their boss should not be able to tell.
Therefore, when Shopkeeper Chen heard the price Zhou Jin asked for, he was immediately shocked. It was far beyond his expectations. He had not intended to accept so much money.
"Your mirror is only worth twenty or thirty taels. Considering your young age, I'll be flexible and give you fifty taels, pawn it for free! How's that? This price is already the highest this pawnshop can offer! If I didn't see that your young age is not easy, I definitely wouldn't give you so much!"
Seeing that Zhou Jin was just a silly boy of about ten years old, Shopkeeper Chen deceived him.
The author has something to say:
This article is just a fictional piece. All the ancient systems are fabricated by the author through Baidu. Please make do with it! Passing little angels, please leave a comment! Still asking for collections! Please comment! Please spread flowers! Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated nutrient solution between 2022-06-18 08:08:41 and 2022-06-19 06:28:24~
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