The grand spectacle thus came to an end.
The soldiers took control of the ships, counted the silver, and reported back:
"Young Master Zhu! A total of one million six hundred and thirty-six thousand taels of silver! Also, three chests of silk and two boxes of calligraphy and paintings! Nothing else of value remains!"
"Mm, well done!"
Zhu Mo smiled, then turned to the officials, saying:
"Gentlemen! You have all worked hard today. Fortunately, it was not in vain, and we have successfully seized a boatload of silver… I, Zhu, will report this to the imperial court. Everyone present here today will be rewarded! Haha…"
Hoo-ah!
The officials, now understanding the full story, and seeing how the Yan family's retainers had truly brought honor to the Grand Secretary, were all beaming with smiles—
"Young Master Zhu is too kind!"
"It is our duty…"
"The people from Grand Secretary Yan's household truly have good family conduct!"
"Indeed! Returning lost property! Truly commendable!"
"I heard Grand Secretary Yan is most strict in managing his household…"
"Naturally, the retainers trained by Grand Secretary Yan are exemplary in their courage and righteousness!"
"…"
Among those present, only Zheng Bichang knew the Yan family best—
What good family conduct did his Yan family have? The Yan family retainers were notorious for their wickedness; who in the two capitals and thirteen provinces didn't know this…?
Therefore,
He couldn't help but ponder—
Where did this silver come from? Which of the bandit gangs on the Grand Canal would dare to undertake such a large operation? With so much silver, there should have been some prior intel…
Where did it originate?
Whose was it?
At this moment,
Seeing that familiar, sly smile playing on Zhu Mo's lips, a terrifying thought suddenly struck him—
A conspiracy? It must be!
Could it be? This boatload of silver belonged to him…?!
Yes!
Yan Maoqing! It must be this boat!
It definitely is…
Damn it!
What the hell!
This time, it's over~~
Yan Shifan is going to kill me! What a fool I am! Why did I come to be his witness? It's clearly this villain Zhu Mo who's causing trouble! He must have robbed Yan Maoqing of the silver, and now he's making us whitewash it for him?
He walks away with the silver, but it's me who will bear the Grand Secretary's wrath!
Damn it!
How malicious!
Thinking this, Zheng Bichang felt compelled to speak.
He deliberately asked loudly, "Hmm? Young Master Zhu! I have a question… Where did all this silver come from? It's not as if a million taels of silver just appeared out of nowhere in this world, is it?"
He said this intentionally to draw everyone's attention, hoping to shift the focus to the origin of the silver… At the very least, if Yan Shifan were to blame him later, Zheng Bichang would have at least contested it.
Upon hearing this,
The officials' doubts were quickly aroused—
Indeed,
Where did this silver come from?
There were no markings on the ingots indicating it was imperial silver, so it must have been circulating in the populace… But how could so much silver suddenly appear in circulation? Moreover, wasn't most of the silver in the Jiangnan region deposited in Zhu Mo's own textile bank?
…
Zhu Mo had anticipated their question and replied nonchalantly:
"Gentlemen, you heard it just now! This boatload of silver was obtained by someone impersonating members of the Yan family. As for how they obtained it, no one knows! In my opinion, the Governor's office should issue a notice… inviting anyone who has lost silver to come to the office to claim it… Three days! Let's set a three-day limit, shall we, Master Zheng?"
"Good, good, good…"
"That is most excellent~~"
All the officials were in agreement, and so they returned to their respective yamen.
The next day,
Zheng Bichang, on behalf of the Governor's office, issued a notice for unclaimed property.
…
Meanwhile, Zhu Mo, accompanied by Xiao Xiao Sheng and Zhu Qi, returned to the Xiangshan Salt Fields.
This time,
The craftsmen presented the first batch of fine sea salt.
Zhu Mo held it in his hand, feeling it was very close to the refined table salt he was familiar with. This indicated that the apatite had indeed played its role, impeding the crystallization process, preventing the formation of large crystals, and resulting in uniformly small grains…
With such quality, even the finest rock salt could not compare.
Xiao Xiao Sheng, a man of extensive experience, tasted it repeatedly and exclaimed, "Young Master, this salt is truly fine! It's even more uniform than the rock salt that the Azure Immortal of Chaotian Temple consumes himself…"
Zhu Qi was also filled with awe, saying, "Yes, this salt, when I was serving in the Eastern Depot, even the salt sent to the palace was coarser than this… It's incredible! Young Master Zhu, you are truly divine!"
Heh,
Zhu Mo smiled calmly and said, "What is this? You don't know that rock salt's nutritional content is inferior to sea salt! How much do you think my sea salt should sell for?"
"I think it can sell for three fen of silver per catty!"
Xiao Xiao Sheng stated with certainty.
Zhu Qi nodded and added, "If it were sold to high officials and wealthy families in the capital, it wouldn't be unusual to sell it for one tael of silver per catty…"
Mm-hmm
On the matter of high-end goods, Zhu Qi's thoughts aligned with Zhu Mo's—
One hundred times higher!
Because it's a luxury item!
However, on the matter of low-end refined salt, there was something they both overlooked—
How can coarse salt be compared to refined salt?
In the Great Ming dynasty, a person needs to consume 50 catties of coarse salt annually to get enough salt. But with refined salt, perhaps only 5 catties are needed! Therefore, the calculations are not done in this way at all!
Zhu Mo chuckled, "My common salt will sell for one qian per catty. And the superior grade, sold exclusively to the wealthy, will be one tael per catty."
Ah?
One qian?
That's five times the market price! Who would buy it then? Wealthy people aside, who could afford it among the poor?
Seeing their bewildered expressions, Zhu Mo didn't bother to explain and continued:
"Just you wait and see! Zhu Qi, when we return to the capital, I'll open several salt shops. Find me some people to help! I intend to capture half of the Great Ming's salt market within a year!"
He wasn't boasting, but rather deeply understood market principles; capturing market share was the first priority. And capturing market share relied on cost-effectiveness. On the surface, refined salt was much more expensive, but when calculated practically, it was entirely different—
For consuming coarse salt, each person needs one tael of silver annually, 50 catties * 2 fen;
Calculated with refined salt, each person only needs 5 catties of refined salt annually. If the expenditure remains the same, then it should be 2 qian per catty. And I, Zhu, sell it for only 1 qian per catty, isn't that half the price?!
With such high cost-effectiveness, if the output can keep up, within a year or eighteen months, I, Zhu Mo, will be the number one salt merchant in the Great Ming! I will surely control half of the market share!
And calculating the cost, even selling it at 1 qian per catty still yields a profit of two to three fen, which shows how exploitative the Great Ming's salt market is!
Once this was understood, there was no need for surprise.
Zhu Mo did not want to waste further words and directly rolled up his trouser legs to inspect the brine pools.
After nearly two hours, the three had completed their inspection.
Suddenly, they noticed that in just over ten days, many of the workshops had been built, more than twenty very large brine pools had been dug, the workshops were piled high with fir planks… Nearly a hundred workers were busy, eating, drinking, and sleeping on site…
Zhu Mo made a rough calculation: at this scale, the first year would produce twenty thousand catties per month. Once fully completed, it would produce at least two hundred thousand catties per month… In a few years, if several more salt fields were opened, say ten, the production could reach one million catties. Calculated, by next year, my monthly income would exceed ten thousand taels…
If the Great Ming had a Forbes list, I would surely be on it. Because Yang Jin had mentioned that Shen Yishi only had tens of thousands of taels in monthly income. And that was income, not necessarily profit!
Moreover, dealing in essential consumer goods, what a business opportunity that was! What merchant of essential goods in any dynasty was not among the wealthiest!
Before leaving,
Zhu Mo had Zhu Qi take away three hundred catties of samples and instructed the supervisor to prepare goods, ready for continuous supply once the capital market was opened.
…
It was three days later when they returned to Hangzhou.
As expected, no one came to claim the silver.
One could imagine, how would the Yan family dare to claim it? Would Yan Maoqing dare? If he claimed it, wouldn't that be admitting his own embezzlement of one million taels?
Yan Maoqing was destined to swallow this bitter pill! And as for others, who would dare to offend the Yan family? No one in the world dared to falsely claim the Yan family's silver.
Zheng Bichang knew this clearly, and his teeth itched with hatred, but he could only watch as Zhu Mo registered the silver, categorizing it as—
Unclaimed Silver!
Because, this silver was said to belong to Yan Maoqing, but the problem was that Yan Maoqing himself did not admit it at all!
Just yesterday, soldiers had already rescued Yan Maoqing. When the Magistrate of Lin'an inquired about the case, Yan Maoqing personally wrote a statement saying that he was merely a passenger on the ship and had no knowledge of what was being transported.
This meant: Yan Maoqing was feigning ignorance! He was very foolish and naive, completely unaware of what had happened in the world! If Yan Maoqing didn't admit it, then the boatmen and escorts would know even less!
Therefore,
This silver could not be confiscated as illicit gains and turned over to the public treasury. It could only be registered as unclaimed silver. And since it was Zhu Mo who led the team to recover it that day, according to the laws of the Great Ming, he had the right to decide whether to hand it over? Or to intercept and use it?
This was akin to a local official suddenly obtaining a batch of unclaimed property within his jurisdiction. As long as it was not state-owned, he could naturally intercept it for local use. One couldn't say that all unclaimed property in the world belonged to the imperial court! There was no such logic in the world!
If it were ordinary citizens, it would be whoever occupied it, whoever owned it! But for officials, it would naturally be the highest-ranking official present who had the right to dispose of it.
Therefore, the final say was entirely in Zhu Mo's hands. And Zhu Mo had explicitly told the officials that this silver was to be used for disaster relief. Disaster relief funds, and what kind of place was the Jiangnan officialdom? Everyone knew the score. If it was called disaster relief funds, why wouldn't it be transferred to the Jiangnan treasury?
Thus, starting from yesterday, a rumor had begun to quietly circulate in official circles—
This silver was what Zhu Mo wanted!
He registered it as disaster relief funds merely to cover his tracks; in reality, he intended to transport it back to the capital to buy houses and take concubines! Everyone said that Yan Maoqing's cooked duck had been snatched away by someone!
In this case, what would Yan Shifan think? A large sum of money was thus claimed by this brat Zhu Mo for his own use!
No matter how easily it came, it was still money painstakingly squeezed from the populace by the Yan family's cronies! How many curses did they bear? How many people did they trick to get this money?
How embarrassing would that be? That Yan Shifan fellow would fly into a rage if anyone damaged his reputation! Yan Maoqing, though cunning, had already feigned illness and retreated home… Therefore, the blame naturally fell upon him, Zheng Bichang.
The thought of Yan Shifan's fury made Zheng Bichang's legs tremble uncontrollably…
Even more terrifyingly,
Zhu Mo wanted Zheng Bichang to write the official report, to forcibly whitewash Zhu Mo's embezzlement of funds!
This was the most crucial and deadly part!