Chapter 35 Fish Market

Chapter 35 Fish Market

Chapter 35 Fish Market
"Aunt, where did you get such a big herring today?"

"Some time ago, your aunt's family asked me to help them open a fish stall in the fish market. Yesterday, they heard that you won the first place in the provincial examination, so they specially sent a big fish this morning." Li Dianshi explained for Zhou.

This fish came at the right time.

Xu Qing practiced martial arts and was a young boy, so he consumed a huge amount of meat.

Since Xu Qing won the first place in the provincial examination, the couple were very happy and gave him a gift of money as a reward, so the family was temporarily in financial difficulty.

After all, it was only a provincial examination, not an academy examination. The fame had not been obtained yet, and no banquet had been held, so naturally there was no income.

However, Li Dianshi received spices from the court every month as a deduction from his salary, which was just right for seasoning the fish.

Xu Qing: "Aunt, remember to thank them for me."

Zhou smiled and said, "What is there to thank? Because it was your uncle who intervened and the fish market even confiscated their protection fees."

Xu Qing's heart moved, and he asked Li Dianshi: "Is the protection fee of the fish market high?"

Li Dianshi stroked his beard and said, "It's not much. Most of it has to be used to manage the government offices. What I get every month is only five taels of silver."

Xu Qing knew that his uncle was too honest. He estimated that the clerks had taken more than five taels of silver.

Xu Qing knew that Zhou was taking care of the household affairs and was worried about money recently. The chicken farm was making too little money, so he needed to make some other income in the next few months.

He got some inspiration from this incident and thought he could make a small fortune. Xu Qing continued, "Uncle, doesn't the government have a task of distributing official salt every year? How is it?"

Li Dianshi: "The master is worried about this. Although the salt industry has huge profits, the sales of official salt have not been very good. At most, there is still a shortage of 10,000 kilograms of salt this year."

Xu Qing smiled secretly. In this era, everyone knew the quality of official salt. How could private salt be sold at a price only 30% to 40% of official salt and of better quality?

The imperial court was well aware of the drawbacks of the salt industry and even granted permission to landless civilians in the southeastern coastal areas to sell private salt to supplement their household income.

This is actually related to the maritime ban policy that was abolished from time to time during the Qing Dynasty.

Because the ban on sea trade would inevitably require the people living along the coast to move to places 100 to 200 miles away from the coast. However, the people could not rely on the sea for food, and they could not get much land, which would inevitably affect their livelihoods, so they were allowed to sell private salt.

Otherwise, they won’t be able to survive and will rebel anyway.

Of course, this kind of acquiescence has its limits. Once it exceeds the tolerance limit of the court, it will naturally turn against itself.

Moreover, over time, many salt merchants colluded with local officials and let their subordinates pretend to be such ordinary people and sell private salt openly.

This has resulted in the market share of official salt becoming increasingly smaller.

There is no way, the profit of private salt is too high and it is easy to sell!

But the imperial court didn't care about that. The sales share of official salt was fixed every year, with no room for easing. So it had to be apportioned in the end.

The gap of 10,000 kilograms in County Magistrate Wu's supply was not without reason.

Because the share of 10,000 kilograms of official salt originally belonged to the Zhao family, but now the Zhao family refuses to accept the share.

County Magistrate Wu did not want this incident to affect his promotion and was worried about it.

Xu Qing: "Uncle, you can tell the county magistrate that you will be responsible for the 10,000 kilograms of official salt."

Li Dianshi: "How can I have this ability?"

Xu Qing: "This matter must be resolved by my uncle. Uncle, think about it. The Zhao family's affairs are related to our family after all. Now that the Zhao family has hindered the county lord's career, the county lord will definitely have a thorn in his heart towards you. If my uncle resolves it, the county lord will naturally feel relieved and will trust you more."

After Li Dianshi realized the pros and cons, he naturally couldn't refuse anymore, "Qing'er, you must have a solution, what should we do?"

Xu Qing: "Uncle, do you know how much salt the fish market consumes in a day?"

Li Dianshi shook his head.

Zhou: "I heard from my nephew that at least 600 kilograms of salt can be sold in the fish market every day."

Li Dianshi was surprised: "So many?"

Zhou rolled her eyes at him and said, "You are far away from the kitchen, so of course you don't know. This fish will die and stink soon after leaving the water. Of course it has to be treated with salt to facilitate storage and transportation. Especially in the summer, more salt is needed."

Xu Qing: "Aunt, do you know where the fish stall usually buys salt and how much is it?"

Zhou: "They said that you can only buy it at the fish market. If you sell 100 kilograms of fish, you have to buy 4 kilograms of salt at the fish market. The price is the same as the official salt, but they all said that it must be private salt, but you have to buy it."

Xu Qing: "Uncle, 600 kilograms a day, that's 18,000 kilograms a month. That's how much the government salt distribution will be."

Li Dianshi was overjoyed: "Should I ask the county magistrate for more official salt? Ten thousand catties is too little." Xu Qing shook his head and thought: "Uncle, if you sell real official salt, how can we make money?"

He said, "Official salt is always hard to sell, so uncle only needs to take 8,000 kilograms a month. We can buy the remaining 10,000 kilograms directly from the salt field, but when we sell it, it will all be considered official salt."

Xu Qing said he was going to the salt field to buy goods, but in fact he was buying private salt. Don't think that the official salt is not mixed with private salt now. There is no way, the official salt has low production and poor quality.

If you don’t add some salt, the quality will be even worse.

And adding private salt will lower the cost!
Besides, Xu Qing wouldn't do it himself.

Here, Li Dianshi went to find the county magistrate to share his worries.

Xu Qing found Xu Fu, told him his plan, and asked him to find Mi San and act according to the plan.

Mi San is in charge of a group of beggars, who are responsible for purchasing goods. Mi San is Xu Qing's white glove, responsible for underwriting official salt.

After all this operation.

Xu Fu calculated the accounts and found that he could earn an extra sixty taels of net profit every month.

And it is continuous and endless.

As for those who lost their private salt business in the fish market, they did not dare to make a fuss.

The county's official secretary is behind him and he sells genuine official salt. What else can you do?
Coincidentally, the person behind the private salt business in the fish market was Zhao Bao.

...

...

“My money.”

"Li Gongpu, Xu Qing, I will never forgive you!"

Lying on the bed, Zhao Bao heard the report from his men in a sharp and fierce voice.

At this moment, the lower body seemed to be bleeding again.

...

...

Half a month passed in a blink of an eye, and all the candidates in Jiangning Prefecture knew about an official document that had just been issued by the court.

"Starting this year, the college entrance examinations in Nanzhili will be conducted in a pilot program with anonymous names."

When Li Dianshi was at home, he talked about this with Xu Qing.

"From what the master said, the reformists dominated the college entrance examination and provincial examination in Nanzhili, which made the conservatives very dissatisfied, so they deliberately issued a pilot decree to cover the names of the college entrance examination in Nanzhili. The master said that this is also a major bad policy of the dynasty, and there have been calls for covering the names of the college entrance examination for a long time."

Xu Qing nodded slightly and said, "This document was sent at the right time. It came so suddenly that I guess Zhou Tixue only found out about it not long ago."

The importance of county examinations and prefectural examinations is far less than that of academy examinations.

Because the college examination directly determines who will receive the title of scholar, and the governor of education has the power to expel a scholar from school, which means that the title of scholar can be given or taken back at will. If the name is not obscured, the influence on the scholars in the province will be too great.

However, the bad policies of the dynasty are far more than these. Whether or not to change them depends on whether struggle is necessary.

This matter is quite beneficial to Xu Qing. After his name is covered, his test paper will at least not arouse Zhou Tixue's preconceived dislike at the first sight.

"I have to take advantage of the remaining half month to improve my Bagua body skills to perfection as soon as possible. This way, I will have a deeper understanding of the Book of Changes, which will be beneficial to my performance in the college entrance examination." Xu Qing thought to himself.

It is a good place to practice in the Six Gates.

All that is needed for cultivation is money, friends, Dharma and land.

If it weren't for his uncle, Xu Qing's cultivation wouldn't have been so fast and smooth.

But my uncle’s public office is not as useful as my own.

Besides, my uncle’s power and position have reached the limit of what he can achieve.

"Little historian in the world, you have done your best." Xu Qing thought leisurely, then said goodbye to his uncle, returned to the east courtyard, stepped on the edge of the big water vat, and made progress together with the old sycamore tree.

(End of this chapter)