Over the next few days, Tang Xiaobei took Yuan Caiwei sightseeing among mountains and rivers.
In secret, however, the Zhongming team worked at full stretch, investigating every grain merchant in Baling Commandery.
Unfortunately, after several days of effort, they still uncovered nothing substantial.
The Two-Lakes Plain in Jiangnan, also known as the Yunmeng Plain or Yunmeng Marsh, had been formed by silt carried down by the Yangtze and its tributaries.
The soil was fertile, the climate mild, and rivers and lakes abounded, making both irrigation and drainage remarkably convenient. It was another of the realm’s major granaries.
Yet precisely because of this abundance, land consolidation here was exceptionally severe.
The gap between rich and poor was staggering.
Jiangnan’s wealth and splendour had little to do with ordinary people.
Landlords feasted daily on fish and meat, surrounded by swarms of servants.
Poor peasants survived on chaff and wild herbs, barely staving off hunger.
In years of bad harvest, even coarse chaff and weeds became unattainable.
With so much water in Jiangnan, those who could no longer survive simply turned to banditry on the lakes and rivers.
The waters around Dongting Lake harboured no fewer bandits than the mountains of Sichuan-Shu.
When Great Kang was founded, many commoners had received land, but over centuries there were always years of famine.
Grain yields in feudal times were low to begin with. In disaster years, a family’s stores often ran out by spring.
Old grain gone, new grain not yet ripe, this period was called “the hungry gap between green and yellow”.
People had no choice but to borrow grain from wealthy gentry and powerful clans to survive.
Borrowing from such families, however, came with a string of conditions.
Grain was measured out in small pecks yet repaid in large ones, the most basic trick, known as “big peck in, small peck out”.
Worse still, the interest on borrowed grain was astronomically high, beyond anything a modern person could imagine.
A few pecks borrowed in spring to save lives might, by autumn harvest, require every last kernel the family possessed, and still the debt would remain.
Because they had pressed their thumbprints on the contract, they could not win in court. Their only options were to sell children, daughters, or the last scrap of land they owned.
This was merely the commonest method the gentry used to swallow farmland. To strip peasants of their fields, they would stoop to anything.
Many great houses kept large numbers of household slaves and thugs whose sole job was to devise ways to ruin commoners and then carry them out.
Over centuries, land had gradually concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority.
Those powerful clans had become great landlords.
Industry in Great Kang was backward and jobs pitifully scarce. Peasants who lost their land could only become exploited tenants, tilling for the landlords the very fields that had once been theirs.
After a year of back-breaking toil, they still faced cold and hunger when winter came.
It was not that the land failed to produce, nor that the people were lazy. Rather, almost everything they grew was taken by landlords and local officials under countless pretexts.
These grain merchants were simply the white-gloved agents of the great landlord clans, tasked with shipping the grain squeezed from the peasantry northward in exchange for silver and other resources.
Behind every grain merchant stood one of the local aristocratic families.
“These great families spout benevolence and righteousness in public, yet every one of them is greedier and more despicable than the last!”
In a riverside pavilion, Tang Xiaobei set down the dossier and asked, “Has word from the capital arrived yet?”
Though Jiangnan was prosperous, it was still less important than the capital.
Few people here knew about luxury items like crystal glass beads.
The reason Tang Xiaobei had waited several days was precisely to let news of the capital auction reach them.
Only then could the value of the beads be driven up and exchanged for more grain.
“Yesterday two caravans returned from the capital. Our hidden informants overheard them discussing crystal beads at the freight yard; they mentioned the auction house too, but the listeners were too far away to hear clearly. Since we could not confirm, I did not report it to you,” Yuan Caiwei replied.
“By my reckoning, the news should be here by now. Tell the Zhongming team to begin operations.”
Tang Xiaobei thought for a moment, then added, “And do not stop the investigation. I still believe someone is deliberately orchestrating the slander against the gentleman.”
“Yes, madam!” Yuan Caiwei acknowledged and turned to leave.
Tang Xiaobei picked up the register again and continued reading with a frown, completely unaware that on a large vessel slowly docking some dozens of metres away, a young man was staring at her in utter disbelief.
“Young master, the ship has reached the shore!” the old steward reminded him.
The young man withdrew his gaze and limped down the gangplank.
If Tang Xiaobei had seen him, she would certainly have recognised him.
This was none other than an old acquaintance of hers and Jin Feng’s, Zhou Wenyuan of the Zhou family.
Back then, Young Master Wenyuan had gone to Guangyuan to sell soap, grown greedy, kidnapped Tang Xiaobei, and been hunted by Jin Feng for hundreds of li.
Though he eventually escaped, an arrow in his leg had not been properly treated, leaving him lame for life.
The Zhou family had also paid dearly for his killing of city guards; their political enemies had extorted them heavily before the matter was settled.
In a fury, the Zhou patriarch had banished Zhou Wenyuan’s entire branch to Jiangnan.
Ostensibly it was to represent the patriarch and manage the family’s many affairs across the Jiangnan provinces, a promotion with greater authority.
But anyone with eyes could see it was exile in all but name. Once removed from the capital, the centre of power, Zhou Wenyuan’s line would only decline further, eventually fading into just another minor branch, forgotten by the main family, exactly like the Guangyuan Zhous before them.
Because of this, the marriage arranged for him had fallen through.
Being jilted was, for a man of Great Kang, a humiliation beyond words.
Before he even left the capital, Zhou Wenyuan had become a laughing-stock among the young nobles.
He had thought Jiangnan would at least let him live comfortably, only to discover that the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce had opened shops here too.
The Zhou and Qing families had already reached an agreement; Zhou Wenyuan dared not touch Jinchuan interests in the capital, but in Jiangnan he felt no such restraint.
The rumours of disaster in Sichuan-Shu, that the master behind the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce was Jin Feng, and that Jin Feng planned to profiteer from the coming calamity, all these had been spread on Zhou Wenyuan’s orders.
What he had never expected was that Tang Xiaobei herself would appear in Baling Commandery.
Before boarding his carriage, Zhou Wenyuan glanced back once more at Tang Xiaobei, a sinister glint flashing in his eyes.
