Chapter 91 Chapter 91 Making money.
They walked for more than ten days. Although they stayed overnight at small inns and village pavilions along the way, these were places that mainly received public officials. The place was small and understaffed, and they did not provide hot water for washing for the people.
Che Fu, a man of his stripes, went into the stream to wash himself with his bare chest, and even invited Ji Xu to join him.
She could only lie and say that she was afraid of the cold, and the men laughed at her for that. She thought that a grown man was afraid of the cold.
So he arrived at the inn in Pengcheng, covered in dust. The first thing Ji Xu did after checking in was to ask the innkeeper for hot water.
Soon the two boys brought up a large steaming bathtub. The three sisters took off their clothes and got in. They rubbed the mud off each other's bodies and even washed their heads with a ladle.
When I woke up, the water was muddy and yellow. I was so extravagant that I spent money to order a second round of water, and then I came out feeling refreshed.
"I feel like I've lost two pounds." Ji Feng said with emotion.
"Sister, give me a hug, do you think it's too much?"
Ji Xu hugged her and teased her for a while, then sat on the couch by the window and twisted her hair with a handkerchief.
When it was half dry, Ji Feng wringed it for her. Now that the weather was hot, she blew it towards the window and it dried quickly.
All I could see was the hazy mist and rain. In the Si River, an iron chain was used to retrieve the tripod. The men held one end of the iron chain and swam into the water.
However, the rain was getting heavier, and after several ups and downs, the iron chain was not tied to the tripod. The people who stopped on the shore were pointing and talking anxiously.
Ji Xu wrapped his hair with a scarf again, tied a cloth strip around his chest, changed into men's clothes, and told his sister not to leave the guest house.
She carried the bag of bronze mirrors from Wu County, held an umbrella and went out. Because the ground was wet from the rain, she changed her cloth shoes into wooden clogs, which made a clattering sound when she walked.
"Look, this bronze mirror from Wu. My lord, would you like to buy one? This mirror of mine can reflect everything. It brings good luck."
"You said this mirror can reflect everything. If it can even reflect the dragon under the water, I will buy it from you."
The noble man in gauze clothes on the shore said.
They had all heard that a dragon had emerged from the water and broken the ropes that tied the tripod, so they came from all directions to the banks of the Si River to watch the excitement.
"I heard that a real dragon can be over ten feet long, able to soar through the clouds and dive into the sea for thousands of miles. My mirror is only the size of a palm, so I'm afraid it can't hold its true form. However, this mirror can reflect evidence that it has truly been here."
Ji Xu's words were so miraculous that the common people and even the nobleman held their breath as they listened.
"What evidence?"
"Hurry up and tell me."
"Hurry up and tell me!"
"Just when everything was fine, the weather suddenly changed. Isn't it the Yellow Dragon who is calling the wind and rain? Look at the rain, it hasn't stopped yet. What is that falling on my mirror?"
She held up the bronze mirror, and what was reflected in it were raindrops.
"Yes, the rain is still falling, which means the dragon under the water is still there."
The people agreed, saying that Ji Xu only said this to sound nice, so that people would feel that their long wait was not in vain.
Now that they were in a good mood, they could sell their bronze mirrors, and people came to buy her bronze mirrors.
A faint sneer came from a carriage on the shore. Ji Xu looked up and saw that the carriage had a black canopy on all four sides and vermilion flags on both sides. Nowadays, only officials with a salary of 600 dan could paint the left flag vermilion.
The banners on both sides of the carriage were painted red, indicating that it belonged to an official with a rank of more than 2,000 stones. The wheel hubs were also painted red, indicating that there was a nobleman inside.
Ji Xu had learned to identify people by looking at cars during these days of going out. She couldn't afford to offend this person, so she pretended not to hear the laughter and continued to hawk along the river for a while.
"A bronze mirror from Wu, a bronze mirror of great fortune!"
There was a river market on the river bank, and hundreds of people were wandering along the shore, probably attracted by the fishing tripod.
Even the city officials were no exception. A bunch of them were clinging to the top of the city tower, looking sideways towards the river. No one came to drive Ji Xu away for a while, because otherwise, as she came from another place and was not registered as a city clerk, she would definitely not be sold.
Ji Xu took advantage of this opportunity to actively promote the bronze mirror.
"This bronze mirror is lovely. Is it really from Wu?"
Many people held them to play with and look at them, but they were soon sold.
The total purchase price of her bronze mirror was ten taels, and she sold it for five hundred coins each, which is half a string of coins.
Most of the buyers were wealthy men and women. Some gave her silver, some gave her gold, and some gave her half a string of five-zhu coins.
The legal tender recognized by the government today is divided into two categories: gold and copper.
Among them, gold was the upper currency; copper coins, which are the Wuzhu coins in circulation today, were the lower currency; silver was not legal tender at that time, but it was also circulated in the market and the people did not reject it.
Gold was mostly cast into round cakes with thick edges and concave centers. One gold coin was equivalent to one jin of gold. At that time, one jin was equal to sixteen taels. As one gold coin was not needed for daily expenses, it was usually cut into pieces for easier use.
Ordinary families rarely have direct access to complete gold ingots, so they use broken gold, silver, and copper coins.
Because the bronze mirror was sold to a wealthy family, Ji Xu brought a copper scale to weigh the gold and silver coins he collected.
According to the current conversion rate, one tael of silver is worth one thousand coins, and one tael of gold is worth four taels of silver.
Ji Xu asked passersby about the nearby "Zi Qian Family", a wealthy businessman who specialized in lending money. He exchanged the money he had collected for silver, which was easy to carry, a total of 25 taels, and paid an additional 800 coins for water.
All in all, he earned 14 taels and 200 coins from transporting the bronze mirror to Pengcheng. Adding the remaining money he had on him, the total was about 30 taels.
I brought twenty-five taels of silver when I came here, and now I have more than I need, which makes me feel more at ease.
Ji Xu thought that he could continue to do business along the way in Xingyang, but he would have to take the water route to get from Pengcheng to Xingyang.
She went to the Jindukou to inquire about the ships departing for Xingyang in the near future, and what goods they would take along with them. She would then go to the city to take a look around and make a decision.
"We can't leave! Look at how heavy the rain is! It's going to rain for days, and our boat is small and can't handle it! Go up to the ship's office and ask if there's any official boat that can leave!"
In the heavy rain, a boatman wearing a straw raincoat, busy lowering the anchor, said to Ji Xu.
Private boats like theirs are mostly used by merchants to transport goods. The boats are small and have little load capacity, so they cannot withstand wind and rain, so they all stay at the ferry and do not move forward.
Some of them temporarily docked in Pengcheng due to heavy rain. There was a row of merchant ships at the Jindu Ferry. I asked several of them, but they all waved goodbye and refused to leave.
The old boatman was kind-hearted. Seeing that Ji Xu was soaked, he pointed her to another way.
Ji Xu thanked the man and asked for directions to the official office on the tower ship.
This is an official office specializing in shipbuilding and water transport. It is usually located on rivers and seas and is funded by the government. Most of them are tower ships with a carrying capacity of tens of thousands of hu, which are much larger than ordinary merchant ships.
Local grain, lacquerware, gold and silver wares, silk fabrics, etc. were all transported to Chang'an via the government's warships to supply the court nobles. Of course, these local handicrafts, including the warship officials, were all under the control of the Shaofu, one of the Nine Ministers.
Ji Xu asked, but he said he would not leave and wanted to wait until the rain stopped.
"I don't know when the rain will stop. Every extra day we stay costs money!"
When he came out, he heard someone complaining about the sky. Ji Xu thought the same thing. A room in the inn would cost from six hundred coins to two taels of silver for one day.
There were also large dormitories in small inns or guesthouses where more than a dozen people could sleep together, costing a few dozen coins a day.
However, unless it was absolutely necessary, Ji Xu still didn't want to live in such a place. There were too many people and she always had to go out to buy things and make inquiries. How could she feel at ease leaving her two younger sisters in the big bunk bed? Even the luggage would be difficult to take care of.
Therefore, there was no way to stay in the small single room that cost 600 coins. The weather factors were unavoidable. Fortunately, I had just earned some money.
Ji Xu went for a stroll in the river market. There was an abundance of fish there, including the precious ones such as mackerel, flounder, catfish and abalone.
However, all the money she had on her body was not enough to buy two. No wonder it was said that "a thousand catties of mackerel and bream, a thousand stones of carp, and a thousand hooks of abalone are worth a thousand chariots." Anyone who could raise several thousand catties of these fish would be as rich as a prince.
There are also relatively cheap carp, crucian carp and bream, but how could the fresh fish survive the journey to Xingyang? So she planned to buy some dried fish and take them to Xingyang to sell. However, since she was staying here for a few days, she was not in a hurry to buy any more and would buy them before leaving.
When she returned to the inn, the innkeeper saw her and said:
"Young man, why don't you take your ox to the Sishui Bridge? I heard the government is recruiting strong oxen to retrieve the tripod. They'll pay a hundred coins for each trip. If you can retrieve it and touch the Zhou tripod, it will be a great blessing!"
Ji Xu saw that it was raining heavily outside and felt sorry for the ox at home that was soaked. Besides, there were too many people on the bridge and it would be more troublesome if people were trampled and injured, so she did not go.
"Sister, you are really amazing. You really taught me how to sell them all." Ji Feng was happy to see her return empty-handed, and she found a dry underwear for her to change into. She saw that the clothes that the three of them had just changed after taking a bath were all washed by Ji Feng and hung on a rope by the window.
"We have been looking for our sister by the window." Ji Zhu said. They were still young and were afraid that she would get lost if they went out with her. Besides, they needed to look after her luggage, so they stayed in the hotel and waited for her to come back.
They ordered three servings of fresh mandarin fish, lotus root and white soup for dinner. After eating and drinking their fill, the three sisters closed the doors and windows, and had a good sleep accompanied by the sound of rain outside the window.
It was raining outside continuously until the fourth day. She took advantage of these few days to buy some new supplies and stayed in the room with her sister to watch the people fishing outside.
While mending the hole on Ji Zhu's clothes, which was scratched by a tree branch, if she didn't buy a new one now, she would be noticed if she wore it too well on the road, so she patched it up and it could still be worn.
"Sister, look, she looks more like the aunt from the eldest wife's house!" Ji Feng said.
On the gravel road downstairs, Jin was drenched in rain, covering her head with her sleeves, waving and urging her two daughters.
Ji Yuan and Ji Zhi were carrying heavy bags and had just gotten off a bamboo raft. Their hair was wet and stuck to their cheeks. They huddled together, looking around, avoiding carriages and horses, and entered the inn just after Jin.
"You are clearly bullying customers because of your size! This is outrageous. 700 coins a day for a stay, why don't you just rob people on the street!" Jin shouted at the counter when she heard this.
"It's been raining for four or five days straight, and the price is still this high. If you go to the Jin Ferry, you'll see merchant ships docked there and everywhere is crowded with people. Only my shop is big enough and has one empty room. If you don't want to stay here, you can go ask somewhere else." The shop boy said angrily.
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