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"I've disturbed my lord's rest..." Cui Hou blinked his small eyes, appearing somewhat uneasy.
Jia Qu had barely left when Cui Hou arrived. It did not seem to be mere coincidence; rather, it appeared he had been waiting outside for quite some time. Seeing that the banquet had concluded, he came bustling over to request an audience.
"No matter," Fei Qian said with a smile, instructing the serving maids to prepare some stronger tea broth to help keep him alert. As a leader, one must necessarily possess this awareness—especially with a situation like the present, which was only just beginning to take shape. If all one knew was to indulge in pleasure day in and day out, issuing an order and then tossing the matter aside to play the god of sleep—as if in some game, immune to all negative status effects—then chaos was bound to erupt sooner or later.
For some reason, despite Fei Qian clearly being younger than himself, he seemed to possess keen insight into every matter, as though no problem could ever stump him. Gazing at Fei Qian's gentle smile, Cui Hou's perpetually anxious heart settled somewhat. He organized his thoughts and then said, "My lord, I intend to set out first thing tomorrow for Hedong to make purchases. However, there is one matter... The repayment for our first batch of loans is coming due."
Originally, Cui Hou's personal net worth had been around three to four hundred million in cash. He had leveraged and borrowed an additional four hundred million or so, and then, through further installment payments, effectively borrowed another three to four hundred million. Now, in about ten days' time, the leveraged loans and some follow-up payments for goods would begin coming due one after another.
"Mm. How much do we currently have on hand?" Fei Qian asked.
Cui Hou drew out a piece of fine silk covered in writing from his sleeve and passed it over. Fei Qian unfolded it and looked it over. His heart gave a lurch. In that instant, he felt exactly as he had in later ages, checking his bank account balance at the ATM at the end of every month—even in the height of the dog days of summer, he could perceive that chill crawling up from the base of his spine. This money... it simply vanished far too quickly. He had never imagined he would join the moonlight clan here in the Han dynasty as well.
The total sum, including loans, had originally exceeded a billion in cash. Due to the incident at Shanjin in Hedong, trade routes had been severed, and a considerable amount of goods had been directly lost. Consequently, they had not, in fact, achieved Fei Qian's originally envisioned goal of doubling their capital. Relying solely on the price differential in grain and fodder, they had earned a profit of approximately four hundred million. However, during this period, the cost of recruiting troops and waging campaigns, converted into coin, had also reached over three hundred million. In other words, the money they had earned had essentially been spent all over again. The greater half of it had gone to grain and fodder—already eaten, already excreted, and now gone.
At present, although a large stockpile of leather and other materials remained on hand, construction had commenced simultaneously in three locations: Beiqu, Pingyang, and the Peach Mountain Academy. Grain was indisputably a hard currency, but this hard currency was cyclical in nature. Apart from the harvest season, its value was in a constant state of decay.
A regular soldier consumed one shi and eight dou of grain per month. There were one thousand four hundred in Beiqu, over five thousand here in Pingyang, and one thousand in Yong'an—each month, over thirteen thousand shi of grain were required for the regular troops alone. Auxiliary troops consumed one shi per month: one thousand in Beiqu, three thousand in Pingyang—including the military farming troops—and eight hundred in Yong'an, totaling over five thousand shi needed per month. Among the common people, there were over eleven thousand in Yong'an and nearly twenty thousand here in Pingyang. Although the common people would not normally need to be supplied with grain, none of these people currently had any reserves stored up.
This meant that until the harvest arrived, Fei Qian would still need to provide them with food rations. Furthermore, the construction work on Pingyang and the academy required various laborers, who also had to be paid in grain for their wages. Thus, an additional expenditure of roughly eight thousand to ten thousand shi was required each month. In other words, the equivalent of twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand shi of grain was being consumed every single month, converting to over ten million in cash. And this was just for food.
Moreover, he had not even factored in the subsequent skyrocketing prices and inflation. Inflation was more ferocious than a tiger. During a period of inflation, needless to say the common people of the Han dynasty—even ordinary folk in later ages did not necessarily understand how to invest and grow their wealth. The savings they accumulated through blood and sweat were mostly hidden away like a groundhog digging a burrow. Yet as prices soared, these commoners could only watch helplessly as their savings slowly withered. And whenever inflation struck, it was the moment of plunder for the upper echelons of the wealthy. In chaotic times, a human life was worth less than that of a dog in peacetime; human life treated as worthless as grass became an unremarkable, everyday norm.
While the serving maid brought up the strong tea broth, Fei Qian sipped it slowly, his eyes half-narrowed, racking his brain to recall any of those time-travel novels he had read, hoping they might offer some spark of inspiration. The result of his search...
Absolutely nothing.
Everything seemed to be in an overly simplified mode. For instance:
"Mm, from this perspective, we are no longer short on grain and fodder... Using work as relief, moving money from the left pocket to the right—like that, we won't be short on funds anymore... This year we can harvest twenty million shi, and then our military provisions will all be ready..."
What the hell? Twenty million shi was equivalent to the yield of nearly seven million "large mu." And an area of seven million large mu—calculating with the Han-dynasty standard of two hundred and forty paces per side for one mu, one large mu was approximately 465 square meters. Seven million large mu would therefore be close to three thousand square kilometers—roughly twice the total area of the imperial capital in later ages. And not all land could be used to grow crops. For instance, the farmland Fei Qian had currently reclaimed in Pingyang amounted to, at most, one hundred twenty to one hundred thirty thousand large mu. There was certainly still some room for expansion, but even if it were all cultivated to the maximum, it would at best reach seven to eight hundred thousand large mu.
So, short on grain and short on money—what was to be done?
Fei Qian himself now possessed nothing, so he had no choice but to carry the strategy of catching sparrows with a sieve, profiting at others' expense, through to the bitter end. Since he could find no answers in those later-age time-travel novels, he could only rely on what he himself knew and go harvest a crop of leeks.
"Yongyuan, hold onto those leather hides for now. Without deep processing, they aren't worth much... Yes, that's the idea. Let's take a portion of our money first and pay off the first batch of loans. And we must do it with great fanfare..." Fei Qian set down his tea bowl, paused for a moment, and then continued, "...And then, after paying them back, we can borrow again! Quietly borrow it right back..."
Cui Hou blinked his small green-bean eyes. Repay with great fanfare and then borrow again? "My lord, do you mean to put up a false show of strength?"
"That's part of it, but not entirely. If we don't repay, people will think we're out of money. So we must repay with great fanfare to let everyone know that we have money," Fei Qian tapped lightly on the desk and said, "...However, at present, we genuinely don't have money, so we still need to borrow more..."
Cui Hou nodded and said, "Making a show of repaying money—that's not difficult. But as for borrowing..." The gentry clans' money did not fall from the sky, either; without sufficient benefit, no one would loosen their grip easily. Last time, the glass trade had been the pretext. This time, that excuse would probably not work so well.
"We must not hold onto Wuzhu coins. Right now, we must convert as much of this currency as possible into goods and materials... Borrow, yes, but borrow grain, borrow materials—do not borrow coin. And most crucially, remember to stipulate in the agreements that the repayment will be a specified quantity of coin in the future..." Fei Qian was preparing to take advantage of this transitional phase, when great chaos was brewing but had yet to fully erupt, to dig ruthlessly once again at the cornerstones of these wealthy magnates.
Cui Hou began to grasp the idea. His small eyes flickered with a bright, golden-yellow gleam as he probed, "My lord, do you mean that the price of grain will rise even further?"
"You could say that... Not a word of this matter must leak out..." Fei Qian had no desire to explain too much, because when it came to this particular game, not even all the people of the Han dynasty combined knew more about it than he did now.
Cui Hou nodded his head like a chick pecking at millet and said, "Rest assured, my lord, rest assured! In that case, what should I... well, what reasoning or justification should I use to borrow?"
Fei Qian nodded, signaling for Cui Hou to wait a moment. He then instructed his personal guard to go fetch a certain item and place it within the hall. When Cui Hou saw it, he could not help but pale slightly.