Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 572 The New Great Wall
"In the past month," Amin looked at Zhou Sen with a smile and asked broadly, "Has anything major happened in Ming Country that's worth noting?"

"Big deal," Zhou Sen pondered for a moment. "Before I came here, I heard that several eunuchs from Haizhou had arrived. It was rumored that they would be stationed in Liaodong for a long time. Along the way, I've been thinking about getting in touch with them. If I could establish some connections with these eunuchs, perhaps I could open up a way to sell goods to the capital, so that I can purchase supplies for the Great Jin Kingdom."

"Eunuch?" Amin asked, his interest growing. "Another tax collector?" Amin immediately concluded that if the emperor were to send a new eunuch to Liaodong, it would be a boon for the Jin Dynasty.

"They shouldn't be here to mine and collect taxes," Zhou Sen shook his head and said, "The current rumors only say that these eunuchs are here to open bill offices, but they don't say whether they will collect taxes or not. And I haven't heard of them recruiting idle ruffians to do things for them." Zhou Sen is also an old Liao citizen. As soon as he heard Amin's words, he knew that this was an allusion to Gao Huai. The first "big thing" Gao Huai did after coming to Liao was to recruit idle ruffians to be his running dogs.

"What is a ticket exchange number?" Amin asked in confusion.

Amin had never encountered silver notes. His biggest deal to date was trading 2,200 kilograms of ginseng for 18,000 taels of silver at the Fushun tribute market. But even then, no silver notes were used; the buyer simply gave them cash. After receiving the cash, they immediately traded it for other items at the tribute market.

"It's a shop where you can exchange silver for silver notes, and vice versa." Zhou Sen knew this explanation was meaningless, so before Amin could ask any more, he gave an example: "Say you want to give me two hundred taels of silver. I'll take the silver, go to Haizhou, and then deposit it in that shop. After I've deposited the silver, the shop will give me a silver note with two hundred taels of silver written on it. After that, if I need silver again, I can take that note to them and exchange it."

"Tsk," Amin scoffed. "Isn't this just like taking off your pants to fart because you're full? Just store it in your cellar and take it out when you need it."

"If it's just deposits and withdrawals, then that's a waste of time," Zhou Sen explained with a smile. "But if this shop has branches elsewhere, people with silver notes can cash them in elsewhere. For example, if I exchange the two hundred taels of silver you gave me for silver notes, if I go to Beijing to do business one day, I can go there and exchange the notes for cash without bringing any silver."

"Isn't this just because he's full and bored?" Amin still didn't understand. "Why would he have to pass something through his hands when it could just fit in a bag?"

"Two hundred taels of silver is one bag, but what if it's two thousand taels or even twenty thousand taels?" Zhou Sen asked back.

"What's the difference?"

"If it's twenty thousand taels, using cash would require a cart, and if it's a long journey, we'd have to hire escorts to protect us from bandits. But if we convert it into silver notes, one person and one horse would be enough. And if both the buyer and the seller accept the notes, we can even skip the cashing process and just trade directly."

"I see," Amin finally understood. "What if this ticket shop only accepts cash but refuses to honor the payment?"

"Then..." Zhou Sen was stunned for a moment. "There's nothing we can do. We can only take the loss once and not be fooled again. At worst, we can just give up in the future. We are small traders who make money from the cracks in the rocks. We can't go against the imperial court, right?"

"Haha, got it." Amin chuckled, "Anything else?"

"Uh," Zhou Sen thought for a moment, and it felt like something popped up in his mind, but he couldn't think of it for a while. "That should be it."

"Have there been any recent deployments by the Ming army?" Amin looked directly at Zhou Sen. "You must have seen and heard a lot along the way."

"As far as I know," Zhou Sen's eyes flashed, and he subconsciously glanced quickly to the side and back, but he didn't move his body or head, so he only saw the edge of a piece of clothing. "The biggest move in the Ming army right now is that Xiong Manzi brought the army back from Shenyang to Liaoyang."

Amin waited for a while, and seeing that Zhou Sen didn't seem to want to continue, he asked urgently, "Is that all?"

"It is said that a particularly ostentatious triumphal ceremony was held on the day the army arrived in Liaoyang," Zhou Sen said with an embarrassed look, "but I was not in Liaoyang at the time."

"What else?" Amin asked.

"I don't know anything else." Zhou Sen shrank his head and swallowed.

"Yanwei," Amin leaned back a little, crossing his arms over his chest. "You are not being honest!"

"No way, I'm innocent!" Zhou Sen quickly denied it.

"Humph, unfair?" Amin's eyes were fixed on Zhou Sen's. "If I remember correctly, you just said you came down from Longdaogou, right?"

"What's wrong with this?" Zhou Sen felt uneasy when he was looked at.

"Given the current deployment of the Ming army, if you want to reach Kuandian via Longdaogou, you can only enter the mountains from Shennanfengbei, that is, the area around Dongzhoubao and Magendan," Amin said. "If you enter the mountains from that side, you can't possibly be unaware of the Ming army's deployment in that area, right?"

"Of course I know, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get around. But you should know the situation over there better than I do." Zhou Sen already knew that Amin had besieged Fengji not long ago.

"Whether I know about it is my business, and whether you tell me about it is your business. Also, your people buy goods from all over Liaodong. Can't you tell me what they heard and saw?" Amin was still smiling, but his expression gave Zhou Sen a chill. "Or, do you have any concerns?"

"What could I possibly be worried about?" Zhou Sen quickly shook his head, trying his best to maintain a calm demeanor. "I'm just worried about wasting your precious time."

"Didn't I just say I wasn't afraid of you delaying me?" Amin picked up the porcelain cup, only to find the milk tea inside had already been finished. "Someone come!" Amin shouted in Jurchen toward the entrance of the tent, startling Zhou Sen so much that the hairs on his body stood up.

"Second Beile!" Immediately, two Jin soldiers guarding the entrance strode into the tent and waited for orders.

"The milk tea is gone. Go get me a new one." Amin waved the fine porcelain cup in his hand towards the Jin soldiers in the Golden Tent, then smiled at Zhou Sen. "Get him one too."

"Yes." The two Jin soldiers couldn't help but look at each other. Amin had shouted so loudly just now that they thought he was going to do something, but it turned out that he was just adding milk tea. The Jin soldiers split into two groups. One went to Amin and took the empty porcelain cup, while the other went to Zhou Sen.

"Well, I'm going to be so nagging for once." Zhou Sen smiled and handed over the porcelain cup, which was already cold but still had more than half of the porcelain left. Glancing at the patterns on the cups, Zhou Sen inexplicably felt that this set of porcelain cups might be a gift he gave to Amin when he was trading goods.

"Go ahead," Amin nodded with a smile. "Tell me how you got here. What did you see and hear along the way? Be very detailed."

Zhou Sen's eyes flashed. "Could you please give me a map? It might be clearer if I follow the map."

"No need for a map," Amin pointed his head. "I have the map in my head. Just tell me."

"Then I'll start from the beginning." Zhou Sen lowered his head to support his head, his face filled with the expression of difficult thought and labored recollection. "About ten days ago, after the last batch of goods, that is, the fifty pieces of silk cloth, were transferred from Baitapu to the cellar near Magendanbao, we set out under the cover of darkness, carefully heading east, and bypassing the several outposts north of Fengji. Our people found that compared to the last time we came here, there are many more forts and watchtowers between Shen and Feng, as well as the reinforcement base in Shennan. When some of my guys came from there, they found that after the Xiong Manzi reinforcements withdrew to Liaoyang, there were still many garrisons there to strengthen the fortifications."

This time, Zhou Sen spoke in great detail, briefly going over the defenses between Liaoyang, Shenyang, and Fengji. He spoke slowly, especially at the beginning, pausing every two or three sentences to think.

As Amin had said before, he wasn't afraid of delays at all and listened patiently. As he listened, the suspicion on his face seemed to gradually fade, replaced by an increasingly solemn expression.

Zhou Sen's description shows that the Ming army was still firmly implementing the tortoise shell strategy of "holding the fortress firmly and preventing the enemy from advancing an inch," and did not take an aggressive stance just because the offensive from Shenyang was repelled. This was definitely not a good thing for the Jin Dynasty.

A crucial prerequisite for the Ming Dynasty's ability to impose trade blockades on neighboring hostile forces was its unbroken Great Wall. With this wall, the Ming Dynasty could not only block the official market but also effectively curb smuggling among the people. Without it, the trade ban would likely have been limited to the official level.

From the beginning of the Ming-Jin War to the present, the imperial court strictly prohibited the export of goods, but smuggling was rampant. The main reason was that the border wall was breached, and smugglers could take the opportunity to escape in open areas of hundreds of miles, or simply put the smuggled goods in certain areas outside the control of the Ming army and wait for the Jurchen cavalry to take them.

Amin judged that if Zhou Sen's description was true, then Xiong Tingbi's next plan seemed to be to build a new border wall around Liaoning and Shenyang. Once the Liaodong Ming army really built such a border wall, even if it was just a rammed earth wall that could be broken with a single poke, it would further cut off the Jin Kingdom's channels for obtaining necessary supplies such as salt, tea, and cotton from Han Chinese private merchants through smuggling. At that time, various supplies would inevitably become even more scarce.
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"After that, we went south from Longdaogou and entered the territory of the Jin Kingdom." Zhou Sen's story ended.

He exhaled softly and touched his slightly bald forehead. Covering his face with his fingers, Zhou Sen glanced at Amin secretly.

Amin didn't move at all, still staring at the milk tea that he had only taken a sip of after it was delivered, lost in thought.

Zhou Sen didn't dare interrupt or urge them, so he simply took the opportunity to glance back at the three people behind him. All three looked back almost simultaneously, but only Donkey Egg met Zhou Sen's gaze with a smile. Zhou Sen's pupils shrank, and he quickly turned back. Just then, Le Dutai suddenly arrived outside the tent, leading two mules, breaking the somewhat eerie silence.

"Second Prince," Ledutai handed the two mule reins to the Jin soldier guarding the gate, then quickly walked into the tent and knelt on one knee in front of Amin. "The mules you asked for are here!"

Amin's thoughts had drifted far away when he was interrupted and brought back by Ledutai, and immediately a ball of ghost fire appeared.

"You..." Amin slammed the table and leaned forward, only to see Ledutai not only looking fawning but also panting, which naturally cooled his nameless anger by a factor of three. "Where did you go to find the mule, you little dog slave? Why did you take so long to come back?" After saying this with a hint of anger, Amin's anger subsided by a factor of three.

"Didn't you ask me to find a strong mule? But the mules I have are all donkeys, not strong, so I went outside to look for one." Chazhan was startled by Amin's slap, and Ledutai was also frightened by Amin. He shrank his body and smiled apologetically, like an old dog wagging its tail and begging for mercy.

"Can't you be more efficient?" Amin exhaled again, and the nameless anger in his heart was only a little bit hard to get rid of. "Take those two mules and exchange them for Tobo's lame mule!"

"Yes." Le Dutai suddenly felt a little regretful. If he had known that he was going to exchange it for Zhou Sen's lame mule, he wouldn't have made this trip in vain to bring two strong mules. It was a waste to exchange a strong mule for a lame donkey mule.

Amin forced a smile at Zhou Sen. "Yanwei, you should find a helper to go over there too."

"Thank you, Amin Beile," Zhou Sen stood up and bowed to Amin, then turned to look at the clerk who was keeping the manifest. "Go find those two mules, and have someone deliver all the goods we brought to Lord Ledutai."

"Ledutai Niulu Ezhen, thank you so much." Zhou Sen thanked Ledutai with a flattering smile in Jurchen language.

"I was just running errands. You should thank Lord Beile again." For the sake of appearance, Le Dutai did not show any regret or remorse.

"Thank you, Prince Amin." Zhou Sen smiled and did as he was told.

"It's just a small favor, nothing to worry about." Amin has already regulated his breathing.

"Beile Amin, do you have anything else to ask me?" Zhou Sen asked after bowing again.

"I also want to ask you when you can bring me more goods." Amin said with a smile.

"That depends on the situation. I can't give you a definitive answer." Zhou Sen shook his head. "What we've brought here is almost all the stock I have. If you want to bring more, you have to stock up first. But as I said earlier, those leathers, beads, and ginseng can't be turned over quickly. Only the two hundred taels of silver can be used immediately, but with the current prices in Liaodong, this little bit of silver probably won't buy much."

(End of this chapter)