Chapter Ninety-Five: Zhang Miaoke's Magnanimity

“Are you really going to support these tenant farmers?” Chai Shao had already asked the question eight times. By his logic, Yun Hao must have gone mad. When a fire broke out in the fields, it was nothing less than a natural disaster. The Yun family may have had some wealth, but they could hardly be called a great noble house. To take in nearly a hundred people at once, more than half of them old, weak, women, and children—if that was not madness, then what was it?

Yun Hao could not understand it. A little grain and a very modest wage were enough to hire so many hands. Where in the world would one find such a bargain? If the bosses in the Pearl River Delta, forever short of labor, knew of it, who knew how blissful they would be.

“One last time: they are my tenants, and I have the duty to feed them.” Yun Hao waved irritably, as if brushing away a fly. Beside him, Old Liu Six was moved to tears. What a good man! What virtue must he have accumulated in a past life to meet such a landlord? He was far better than those people who swallowed men whole and left not even a bone behind. Yun Hao even saw Old Liu Six sneaking several contemptuous looks at Chai Shao from behind his back.

Chai Shao fell silent. From what he knew of Yun Hao, the boy never made a losing deal. Could it be that he had some way to support so many mouths? Brewing liquor? That would indeed bring in money, but he had no proper license. And he was no noble. One had to remember that although the Sui court kept strict control over alcohol, the titled nobility were exempt. In effect, the court was simply giving the aristocrats a back door.

Ordinary commoners who brewed liquor in private were liable to be punished. Of course, people like Shan Xiongxin were not included among them. He was even privately forging blades and spears; let alone brewing liquor. The local officials had long since become so intimate with him that even sharing the same trousers would seem too loose. Such things had always been so. Everyone was scraping by on the same patch of ground—who was in any position to beg a favor from whom?

“Brewing liquor is against the law. Do you understand that in Jinyang City, besides the Duke of Tang, there are also Wang Wei and Gao Junya? If they decide to pursue it, that alone would be enough to pin a charge on you. By then, even the Duke of Tang would not be able to protect you so openly.” He felt obliged to warn him in advance; otherwise, if Yun Hao really went and made it, the consequences would be severe. Of course, if they cooperated with the Duke of Tang’s residence, that would be different. Though they would have to surrender a slice of the profit, it would also provide a sufficiently sturdy umbrella. Under the great banner of the Duke of Tang, brewing a little liquor would be no problem.

“Who said anything about brewing liquor? Look at them—do they seem like people with much grain to spare? To distill spirits like that takes five or six catties of grain for a single catty of liquor. Even if you steamed every grain of rice in all of Jinyang, how much liquor could you possibly get out of it? And then what would the people of Jinyang do? Send them out of town to buy grain elsewhere?

If you keep buying up grain, then even if you have no thought of rebellion, the present Sovereign will still find you guilty of plotting one. I happen to have heard that the Sovereign had a dream, you know?”

“Hush!” Chai Shao’s face went pale. This was a subject forbidden even within the court. The Li clan was especially careful never to speak of it. How had this boy learned of it? And not only that, he had blurted it out in public. He immediately ordered his guards to drive off Old Liu Six and the others, then seized Yun Hao by the collar and demanded harshly, “Very few people in Chang’an or Luoyang know of this matter. How did you learn it?”

“On the road through Luzhou, I happened to overhear a man called Li Mi talking about it. Don’t look at me like that, as if I were some spirit or demon. I advise you to let go quickly; my wife is coming over. I hear he gets along very well with your betrothed!”

Li Mi... Chai Shao knew the name. He held the title of Duke of Pushan and counted as one of the aristocratic class. But he had heard that the fellow had already resigned his post at court and vanished to parts unknown.

“You saw Li Mi in Luzhou? What did he look like? Do you know him?” Though the questions were sharp enough to sound like an interrogation, Chai Shao nevertheless set Yun Hao down. The boy’s origins were unclear, and no investigation into him had turned up anything of substance. With the vigilance peculiar to the nobility, Chai Shao asked whether Yun Hao had any connection to Li Mi. If he did, then the Li family’s attitude toward him would need to be reconsidered. Among the aristocracy, no petty rot had ever truly ceased. There was no shortage of people willing to trample over another’s corpse to climb higher.

“What are you, interrogating a criminal? I really did see Li Mi. I’m not hiding that from you. But I don’t know him. I only heard him speaking with a man named Wang Bodang in a tavern. At the time, there were only their table and me, the child, in the place. They spoke without much caution.”

“Really?”

“If you don’t believe me, then take it as though I were lying to you.”

Chai Shao had also heard of Wang Bodang. He had never met the man, but it was said that he had once belonged to the camp of the deposed Crown Prince Yang Yong. Still, what Yun Hao said might well be true. Most people would not bother to guard their words in front of a child. But who could say this was really a child? It was a demon in child’s clothing.

“Then how do you intend to support these tenants?” After thinking it over, Chai Shao asked the ninth version of the same question.

Yun Hao turned and walked away at once.

Zhang Miaoke came over, looked from Yun Hao to Chai Shao, then cast a wary glance at Chai Shao before pulling Yun Hao outside and lowering her voice. “What you said was actually right. At the foot of that mountain where the underground fire burns, there really is a great deal of coal. But that stuff is poisonous. People can die from burning it.” She knew winter was coming. Charcoal and coal had always been among the most profitable trades of the season. Even the poorest families needed heat.

Yun Hao felt dizzy for a moment. In these times, every household used braziers, and coal released a great deal of harmful gas when it burned. After spending a whole night exposed to that smoke, not suffering coal-smoke poisoning would have been the normal exception; surviving without being smoked to death was the stroke of luck.

“For this one, you can rest easy. I have a way to make coal burn without choking people to death.” Yun Hao smiled mysteriously. He had once lived at the very bottom of society; he knew how to roll coal balls by hand, and he also knew how to press honeycomb briquettes. A cast-iron stove was absurdly simple to make, let alone a chimney fashioned from thin sheet iron.

“If you really can make coal burn without smoking people, then that would be a fine way to make money. But this matter must involve the Duke of Tang’s residence as well. We alone cannot swallow such enormous profits. You need a great backer. People of noble houses have no real sentiment about loyalty; profit is what matters most to them.

Do not think that because you cured the Duke of Tang and the Second Young Master, you are now their benefactor. This land and this house are simply their way of repaying you. They have repaid you now, and for them the favor is over. If there is profit in Jinyang that they cannot get their hands on, they will still use every means imaginable to seize it by force. Devouring others is the instinct of the nobility; it has always been so.”

Zhang Miaoke had long since seen through Yun Hao’s thoughts. After all, he was still a child, one from a small household. He did not understand the principle of sharing profits. To make money in Jinyang and not bring in the Duke of Tang’s residence—wasn’t that just asking for trouble?

Yun Hao looked at Zhang Miaoke with satisfaction. As expected of a young lady from a great family, she saw the matter of profit so clearly. He had deliberately held his tongue precisely to test her breadth of mind. And now it seemed her breadth of mind—Yun Hao glanced at her chest—was indeed very considerable.