Endless Winter: My Camp Infinite Upgrades

Chapter 595 Coal Merchants and Xiang Yan, the Heavily Guarded Summer Palace

The 10th day of the sixth month in the 13th year of the Great Xia Dynasty
As dawn broke, pedestrians began to return home.

The bustling city of Xia gradually fell silent, and more and more rooftop chimneys began to emit thick white smoke. It was obvious that the open flames inside the houses had been replaced with coal stoves.

The people in Xiacheng would switch to burning coal stoves at dawn for three reasons:
First, it is necessary to ensure the temperature. The temperature is even lower after dawn, and ordinary fire sources do not provide enough heat. Only burning coal can ensure the indoor temperature.
Secondly, people need to go to sleep after dawn, so no household needs to use open flames anymore;

Thirdly, it was for safety reasons. After all, both the Frost Beasts and the Strange Monsters are creatures that chase the light. Of course, this reason is no longer valid. Xia City has not been attacked by Strange Monsters or Frost Beasts for many years, and given the current rate of development, it is unlikely to be for many years to come.

However, this only describes the situation in the outer city!

The most important reason why the vast majority of residents in the outer city switched to burning coal stoves after dawn was to save money.

Coal, as a basic commodity, is not priced too high. The problem is that it is a necessity for every household, used not only for heating, but also for melting water, cooking, forging tools, and even planting. With so many applications, its consumption is naturally extremely high.

The Daxia Military Supply Department had already compiled statistics. Taking the residents of Xiacheng as an example, when there was Shengding heating, the average coal consumption per person was about 30 jin per day. When there was no Shengding heating, it tripled to about 100 jin.

In the early years, when everything was priced based on contribution value, the price of coal was basically maintained at around 100 jin for 1 contribution value. The Operations and Demand Department would make slight adjustments based on the coal inventory and changes in the city's population, but the fluctuation would not exceed 20 jin.
Later, as silver mines were discovered, contribution points were linked to silver, with 10 contribution points equaling 1 tael of silver. The price of coal was equivalent to 1 tael of silver equaling 1000 catties.
Then at the beginning of this year, the Logistics Department officially began to implement the silver monetization throughout the Great Xia territory. Except for all members of the Military Department, the top team members of the Hunting Department, and all those who were granted titles, whose contribution points were retained, the contribution points of all other Xia people were converted into silver or materials.

In other words, the contribution value system of the Great Xia will only continue to operate within a certain group of high-ranking officials and military personnel, and will essentially become history for the vast majority of other Xia people.

1000 catties of coal only cost 1 tael of silver. This price is certainly not a great burden for the residents of Xia City. However, coal is only one of the necessities. The Great Xia now has a wide variety of resources, from clothing, food, housing and transportation to all kinds of ironware such as bows, crossbows and weapons that are essential for going out, as well as refined salt, spirit wine, pills and other resources needed for cultivation. If one person is full and the whole family is not hungry, it is not a big deal. But if there are many people in the family, and one or two people with good aptitude and ambition, then the consumption will be astonishing.

Therefore, every little bit saved counts. For example, a normal family of three consumes about 9000 catties of coal per month, which is equivalent to 9 taels of silver. If they save just 1 tael, they can buy 20 catties of meat.

Moreover, due to the lack of heating from Shengding in the past six months, the Department of Operations and Demand has continuously raised the price of coal. At the end of last year, one tael of silver could buy 1100 jin, but by June of this year, one tael of silver could only buy more than 800 jin.

The impact isn't too significant, but for some frugal families, it has indirectly added a bit of burden.

Therefore, ordinary residents in the outer city would try to use wood and coal to light a fire at night to save money, and would only use coal for heating at dawn.

The inner city is a different story!
Since the beginning of the year, when the five northern towns were destroyed and the capital was established in the southern foothills, the population of Xiadu has experienced a surge, with the total population of the capital exceeding five million. However, even so, the population restrictions in the inner city have not been relaxed, and so far, the city only has a population of more than 200,000.

It should be noted that the total population of Great Xia is over 1600 million. Families who can live in the inner city must be either rich or noble, so a little coal is naturally nothing to them.

Moreover, the inner city is the central hub of the Great Xia Dynasty. The most important buildings of the Great Xia Dynasty, such as the Lord's Sleeping Palace, the Summer Palace, the Ancestral Temple, the Three Pavilions, and the Eight Departments' General Hall, are all located within it. Its importance is self-evident. Putting aside other matters, all the surplus resources of the Great Xia Dynasty each year are stored in the underground vault under the main hall of the Ministry of Supplies.

Furthermore, the Great Xia territory is vast, and the eight ministries have countless affairs to handle. People from various jurisdictions come to handle matters every day, and the eight ministries also frequently send people out to handle affairs. In order to meet these needs and facilitate the passage of pedestrians, the main streets of the inner city are lit with coal lamps all day long, so there is no distinction between day and night.

"The Summer Palace hasn't lit the Sacred Cauldron for almost half a year, which has never happened before. Can you guess why?"

Deep within the inner city, in the Summer Palace's inner treasury, Xiang Yan, having just finished unloading a cartload of coal, turned to look at the Star-Picking Hall in the sky behind him. His eyes first showed longing, and then he couldn't help but ask the people around him a question out of curiosity.

There were five people next to him, all about ten years older than him, middle-aged, and with unusually honest faces.

Upon hearing his question, the five men exchanged glances, then one of them said respectfully, "Even our master doesn't know about this, how could we possibly know? However..."

The man paused, then smiled and continued, "The boss should be happy. Coal prices have been rising steadily over the past six months, and our coal business is making more and more money, isn't it?"

Upon hearing this, a smile immediately appeared on the young Xiang Yan's face.

It has been more than four years since the martial arts competition in August of the ninth year of the Great Xia Dynasty. He is now 22 years old. Two years ago, he reached the limit of reshaping his skin membrane and realized that he could not break through the 10 jin mark no matter what. Although he was unwilling, under the persuasion of his elder brother Xiang Liang, he still broke through with the aptitude of a medium-level combat body.

Let alone his intermediate combat physique, even his elder brother Xiang Liang's superior combat physique is not enough in the current Great Xia. So from the moment he chose to break through two years ago, Xiang Yan knew that it was basically impossible for him to stand out in the Great Xia by relying on his strength.

Therefore, he chose to take a different path, which was to go into business!

Since the opening of Hongmen in the seventh year of the Great Xia Dynasty, the Department of Supply and Marketing has outsourced some of its supplies to interested Xia people. As the business model of Hongmen City has matured over the past few years, a new group called Xia merchants has emerged.

Especially at the beginning of this year, the Department of Supply and Marketing officially implemented the monetization of silver. Coupled with contact with Cai Qiu, the demand for trade in Da Xia has expanded rapidly. In the past, the Department of Supply and Marketing only released basic necessities such as clothing, food, housing and transportation. As of this month, refined salt, low-grade beast meat and beast blood, and even relatively low-grade elixirs such as Beast Essence Pills have all been released one after another.

Currently, the Xia and Shang dynasties can be roughly divided into two types:

The first type is self-employment. For example, some people are quite capable and hunt and gather outside, selling the surplus after paying taxes. Others are skilled or have mastered unique recipes and can also do their own business. These people are collectively called private merchants. They only need to pay 10% of their turnover to the business tax department regularly. They account for more than 80% of the entire Xia merchant group, which is the vast majority.

The second type is merchants directly under the Ministry of Supply and Marketing. They first spend a lot of money to bid for the operating rights of a certain type of goods from the Ministry of Supply and Marketing for a certain number of years. Then, within this period, they can obtain the goods from the Ministry of Supply and Marketing at a lower price and sell them. These people are collectively known as official merchants. Although official merchants have a higher burden and have to pay 30% commercial tax, even so, they are still fiercely sought after by everyone.

It's easy to understand. The Logistics Department is essentially a financial institution that controls all the resources in the Great Xia. By handing over the management rights of some of the supplies, it is actually a way of recruiting a group of people to do things for them. This ensures the normal supply of supplies to the Xia people while maximizing the circulation of silver. Only in this way can resources and wealth be created continuously, which in turn supports the camp's continuous development.

Anyone with a brain can see the enormous profits involved. Take silk, for example. The summer clothing workshop now produces many kinds of silk, one of which is a high-grade silk called Snow Jade Silk. Its main raw material is snow bamboo silk from the Arrow Bamboo Forest. The summer clothing workshop produces only 500 bolts each year. 100 bolts are used for the summer palace, 200 bolts are sent to the treasury for storage, and the Ministry of Supplies keeps 100 bolts to make garments for its own use. In the end, only 100 bolts can be circulated.

How can it be circulated?
That is through officials and businessmen!

The Snow Jade Silk garments produced by the Department of Supply can be sold for 500 taels each. A bolt of cloth is 100 meters long and can make about 30 garments. Including some scraps, not counting costs and labor, a bolt of Snow Jade Silk can be exchanged for 17000 taels of silver.

The prices of goods in the Great Xia Dynasty are based on the Ministry of Supply. The prices in the Ministry of Supply are so high that the price of one hundred bolts of Snow Jade Silk that are circulated outside has been directly inflated to 200 taels per meter, which means that it would cost 20000 taels to buy one bolt.

This is just the raw materials. After the garments are made and sold, even with a 30% commercial tax, the profit margin is still extremely high.

Snow Jade Silk is just one of the many high-grade silks produced by the Summer Clothing Workshop; there are many that are even more advanced than Snow Jade Silk.

And this is just silk; what about the others?

In the seventh year of the Great Xia Dynasty, Hongmen was opened as a port. For the first time, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry publicly auctioned the operating rights of shops in Hongmen City. This marked the beginning of the relationship between officials and merchants. At that time, many people were still observing and felt that it might not be profitable.

Looking back now, almost all of the people who spent a lot of money to buy the operating rights of Hongmen shops have accumulated a lot of wealth. In recent years, the Department of Supply and Marketing has successively opened up the operating rights of various materials. The people from Hongmen City have the most wealth, and naturally, they have also won a lot.

Xiang Yan is now a businessman-official!
He was able to become a merchant-official because of his elder brother, Xiang Liang.

His elder brother, Xiang Liang, is no longer just the Chief Executioner of Hongmen. At the beginning of this year, after the Northern Expedition ended and rewards were distributed, he was promoted from the ninth-rank Xuanling Viscount to the eighth-rank Chixiao Viscount based on his military achievements in Changqing Valley. He is definitely one of the noble families in the inner city.

Upon learning of his business aspirations, his elder brother Xiang Liang directly allocated a batch of contribution points from his own account, converted them all into silver, and handed them over to him. Then, he approached his colleague, Li Longkai, the military commander of the Hongmen Camp Supply Division. Through various maneuvers, he successfully won the coal monopoly rights in the southern sixth district of the outer city of Xiadu.

In the outer city of the Great Xia Dynasty, the population of District 1 is at least 100,000. It consumes more than 10 million catties of coal every day. At the current price of 1 tael for more than 800 catties, his daily turnover is at least 10,000 taels. The key is that it is not just retail. Blacksmith shops, restaurants and other big customers also need a lot. His actual daily turnover is about 18000 taels or more, and sometimes it is a little more. It can reach more than 600,000 taels per month.

The unit price of coal he gets from the supply department is 1 tael and 1200 catties. After deducting all costs and 30% commercial tax, he can earn about 20,000 taels per month.

If this were converted into previous contribution points, it would be 20 points!

This income is undeniably substantial, even surpassing that of his elder brother, Xiang Liang.

Of course, from the moment the Logistics Department abolished the contribution value system on a large scale at the beginning of the year, and only continued to use it at the high level and in the military, the silver was no longer linked to the contribution value.

It's obvious to anyone with eyes that those who can continue to use the contribution value system are the true core personnel of the Great Xia Dynasty. In the future, advanced cultivation resources, and even some extremely precious materials, will definitely only be obtainable through contribution values.

There's a popular saying in Xia City right now: it used to take 10 contribution points to exchange for 1 tael of silver. Now, let alone 10 taels of silver for 1 contribution point, even 100 taels for 1 point would probably be acceptable to many people.

"Of course, I can't compare to my older brother. Although his monthly salary isn't much, the year-end assessment is the real highlight. The reward he receives is enough for me to earn for a year. Moreover, he can attend the Cold Origin Banquet every year and has the right to meet the lord. Any reward the lord gives him is of a value I can't even imagine."

The key is, if my brother wants to make money, there are countless ways. Those high-level cultivation resources in the supply department can only be bought with contribution points. Once he buys them, he can easily resell them and make money I could never have imagined..."

Thinking of this, Xiang Yan suddenly lost interest.

He now owns a coal business, making a good living from coal and stone, but he still can't compare to his older brother Xiang Liang.

So, in the end, the Ice Abyss still depends on strength!

He sighed slightly, watching as the five laborers pushed the cart toward the gate of the Summer Palace, and hurriedly followed.

He came to the Summer Palace today to deliver coal.

The Ministry of Supply and Marketing stipulated that the coal merchants of the seventy-two districts outside the Xia capital would take turns transporting coal to the Xia Palace every five days, which was considered their responsibility in addition to the 30% commercial tax.

Even so, all 72 districts were vying to do the job, afraid of losing it.

Thinking about it, that makes sense. With so many people in the Great Xia, not everyone is qualified to enter the inner city. Even someone like Xiang Yan, who already lives in the inner city, has never been to the Xia Palace.

Although it was just a storeroom on the side of the main gate, it was definitely worth it to have the opportunity to come in and see the Summer Palace!

"Sir, we are from Dayan Coal Company. Could you please open a side door for us?"

The six of them quickly arrived at the entrance of the Summer Palace. Xiang Yan walked straight up, took out an entry token issued by the Guardian of the Sixth Southern District, and spoke to the soldiers on duty.

In March of this year, after the martial arts, alchemy, and weapon-forging pavilions were all moved out of the Summer Palace, a city wall more than ten meters high was built around the palace. Since then, the Summer Palace has been extremely heavily guarded. Ordinary people cannot enter without a token. Even after entering, there are imperial guards watching from high places. People cannot wander around at will. If they are discovered, they will be punished with caning at best, and at worst, they will be taken directly to the prison department for torture and trial. There are precedents for this. Xiang Yan has heard about them and naturally dares not be careless.

(End of this chapter)