Chapter Eleven: Fortune Favors the Bold, Starvation Claims the Timid

The meeting lasted most of the day, and as dusk approached, Mrs. Zhu finally emerged from the official courier station with her son.

“Xiao Hao, it’s one thing that he lent us money, but why did he give us extra as well?”

Zhu Hao replied, “Given our current situation, do you think it’s possible to borrow money locally in Anlu by mortgaging our house deeds?”

Mrs. Zhu thought for a moment and shook her head decisively.

“He’s the only one who would lend to us... If I’m not mistaken, he must have suffered losses at grandmother’s place before. Now that he knows we need money, he’s eager to hand it over quickly,” Zhu Hao said with a smile.

“Why would that be?”

Mrs. Zhu still looked puzzled.

“When the time comes, if we repay the loan and get grandmother under control, he’ll have his revenge in his heart; if we can’t repay, the farmland will be his, and he’ll feel even more satisfied... Either way, he doesn’t lose out. A shrewd man like him wouldn’t miscalculate, right?”

Mrs. Zhu was speechless.

She wanted to say more but glanced around. The street was busy, and Yu San was trailing behind them with a bundle holding over two hundred taels of silver. She could only hurry back to the shop.

When the mother and son returned, Aunt Li noticed Mrs. Zhu’s troubled expression and felt a pang in her heart. After seeing Yu San off, she hastily closed the door and softly asked, “Madam, did the business deal not go through?”

Zhu Hao nodded, “It’s settled.”

Aunt Li exclaimed with surprise, “Then you should be happy, madam...”

Mrs. Zhu didn’t answer but instead scrutinized Zhu Hao, “Xiao Hao, what you discussed with Manager Su on the way was risky. Borrowing money is one thing, but talking about separating the salt permits—that’s smuggling salt, punishable by law if caught by the authorities.”

Aunt Li was taken aback.

Here they were, dealing with the younger brother-in-law of the Huguang Left Provincial Governor, who managed official salt trade, and it ended with a deal that could be considered smuggling?

If you’re trading official salt but don’t even understand how serious the crime of smuggling is, you might as well stop now.

This was a reckless business, akin to putting your head in a noose. Ignorance of the law while trying to sell salt—how many lives do you have?

The Ming Code stated: “Merchants engaging in trade must not separate salt from its permit; violators shall be punished as salt smugglers. Those who do not return the permit within five days after sale shall receive sixty lashes. Using old permits to sell unaccounted-for salt is treated as smuggling. Forging permits leads to death. Those buying or consuming smuggled salt are punished one degree less severely, but sellers are executed.”

The phrase “separating salt from its permit” meant that during the sale of official salt, the salt and its permit must always be kept together and returned to the authorities within five days after the transaction.

“Old permits used to vouch for unknown salt”—that meant using permits from already sold official salt to sell other salt, which was tantamount to smuggling.

“Mother, we aren’t smuggling. You probably didn’t catch the details of what I discussed with Manager Su... He’s so shrewd, would he knowingly break the law by receiving smuggled salt? He’s more clever than anyone,” Zhu Hao said with a reassuring smile.

Mrs. Zhu frowned, still confused. Aunt Li quickly asked, “Madam, young master, what exactly is going on?”

Zhu Hao explained, “It means that Manager Su is giving us his official salt along with the permits, so we can refine the crude salt into fine salt and then sell it back to him, but when we sell it back, we don’t return the permits.”

“Ah? That... probably won’t work, right? Young master Hao, as madam said, if we don’t return the permits, we’re smuggling salt. If the authorities catch us... we’ll lose our heads.”

Although Aunt Li didn’t fully grasp the specifics of the Ming salt laws, she felt that Zhu Hao’s dealings with Su Xigui were skating on thin ice.

Then, she raised another question out of curiosity, “We dry our salt ourselves and hand over both the salt and the permit to Mr. Su. Why keep the permits separately?”

Neither Aunt Li nor Mrs. Zhu understood this.

Mrs. Zhu looked at her son, hoping for a reasonable explanation.

Zhu Hao said, “The price we agreed with Manager Su is basically at cost. We buy official salt from him at ten wen per jin and sell it at sixteen wen.”

Aunt Li thought for a moment and nodded, “We can make six wen profit per jin. That’s not bad, right?”

“Not really,” Zhu Hao shook his head. “After deducting labor and site costs, plus the impurities removed during refining and the losses from drying and leakage, making a profit of one wen per jin is already good. We have to pay forty taels to the family every month—how much will we really keep? We’re probably running at a loss, just making a show of it!”

Aunt Li asked in confusion, “Weren’t we doing well before?”

Zhu Hao said, “Auntie, that was during an extraordinary time. Circumstances forced us to dump salt into the backyard pond, purely out of necessity... But normally, buying official salt, dissolving it, and drying it to sell is just not worth it. Official salt contains many impurities, sometimes intentionally added by salt merchants. Sometimes there’s as much as two liang of sand per jin of salt. Imagine how much loss there is after refining.”

Mrs. Zhu said, “Then we should just sell the official salt wholesale from Manager Su as before... This batch he gave us is even slightly cheaper than the salt we got from other big city merchants.”

Zhu Hao shook his head, “After last night’s incident, we’ve offended both the Anlu Prefecture and Changshou County offices. Our customers probably won’t come back. Besides, Manager Su’s continued business with us depends on selling snowflake salt to him. If we don’t sell, why would he sell official salt to us at such a low price?”

“Well... then...” Mrs. Zhu and Aunt Li were speechless.

They had thought that Zhu Hao would refine the official salt himself after buying it, but now they realized that path was blocked.

Zhu Hao placed his hands firmly on their shoulders. “Mother, don’t ask. Just listen.”

“We don’t actually need official salt to refine. There are many salt pools locally in Anlu specifically for livestock salt. We can buy brine from there and dry it ourselves, which works just as well as official salt. We can even hire people near the salt pools to dry salt for us. This way, we neither sell salt ourselves nor produce it, just act as middlemen to earn the margin. Neither end will trace back to us.”

Zhu Hao knew that Hubei’s salt resources were particularly rich. In later times, it became a major rock salt production area. Around Anlu Prefecture, there were large rock salt deposits and underground brine pools called salt pits. These pools were widespread but contained many minerals and impurities, so the salt produced wasn’t suitable for direct human consumption.

Zhu Hao had a special “salt washing” method to extract refined salt from the brine, so there was no need to purchase official salt for dissolving and refining snowflake salt, which greatly reduced costs.

Mrs. Zhu was shocked by Zhu Hao’s plan. “Xiao Hao, our local salt pits often cause problems even for livestock. How can it be safe for people...?”

Zhu Hao said, “Mother, think about it—the salt we previously dumped in the backyard pond was no better than salt from those pits. Didn’t it also become white snowflake salt?”

Mrs. Zhu was stunned.

Her son was aiming for the sky—he could produce white snowflake salt from bitter brine in the salt pits? Unbelievable.

Aunt Li said, “Even if that’s true, that salt would be smuggled salt. We don’t have permits.”

“Who says we don’t?” Zhu Hao said. “Don’t we have the permits from Manager Su? Every transaction with him comes with permits. The local officials can’t touch us.”

“Once the deal is done and with permits in hand, we can even resell the official salt we buy from Manager Su. His prices are one or two wen lower per jin than usual wholesale prices—easy to sell.”

Mrs. Zhu was at a loss. She sensed something was off in her son’s words but couldn’t pinpoint the problem.

After a long pause, she frowned, “But the salt we give Manager Su has no permits. What... will he do?”

Zhu Hao smiled, “He’s well connected—you think he’s afraid? He ships more than a dozen boats of salt at a time, and as the brother-in-law of the Provincial Governor, who would dare check his permits?”

“Besides, even if they check, he’s not worried. Those involved in official salt trade always have extra permits. Corruption is rampant. Manager Su probably has more unused permits than used ones. And nowadays, salt produced by salt-boiling households is no longer considered smuggled salt. We’re giving him a chance to redeem permits.”

“Otherwise, why would he buy our high-quality snowflake salt at sixteen wen per jin? When transported to the provincial capital or the two imperial capitals, the price would be at least ten times higher. He knows this trade well!”

Zhu Hao was well aware of the quirks of Ming salt policy.

Before the Chenghua era, such methods would have meant certain death.

But in the second year of the Hongzhi reign, the court realized that salt merchants held many permits that could not be redeemed, while salt boilers lacked motivation to produce salt, often resulting in permits without salt supply. Therefore, they stipulated: “If merchants lack salt supply, they may buy salt from diligent salt boilers. This marks the beginning of surplus salt.”

From then on, merchants could buy salt directly from salt boilers. After paying the official quota, boilers could sell excess salt to merchants holding permits but unable to redeem salt through official channels. This was the origin of salt privatization.

During the Hongzhi era, powerful eunuchs and imperial relatives acquired millions of salt permits through unofficial means.

After the Zhengde Emperor ascended the throne, rampant corruption monopolized salt markets, and many permits existed without corresponding salt. This marked the collapse of the Ming salt administration.

Against this historical backdrop, Zhu Hao’s business with Su Xigui could be a win-win.

Su Xigui seemed to lose on paper, unable to reclaim issued permits, but he actually had plenty of permits, could buy snowflake salt at fair prices, and resell it profitably to the capital and beyond—making a huge gain.

That was why Su Xigui readily accepted Zhu Hao’s terms.

Mrs. Zhu and Aunt Li took a long time to digest this, never quite grasping the details.

Mainly, they didn’t understand the era or Ming policies. As small merchants, they instinctively believed honesty was the foundation of business, unaware that in these times the honest were the most vulnerable.

In the jungle law, the first to be eliminated are those who cling rigidly to rules.

Aunt Li comforted, “Madam, why not trust young master? We really have no other way, do we? If we don’t do this, how can we keep the estate the master left us?”

Mrs. Zhu nodded helplessly.

She knew her own predicament well—her family had almost cornered her with no way out. If she didn’t take a risk now, she might as well wait to die.

“Mother, before we sold official salt and followed the rules, didn’t we still get into trouble and almost go bankrupt? There are no true rules in this world; you need power to make rules,” Zhu Hao declared firmly, wanting to bolster their confidence.

“And this time, mother, we won’t appear publicly. We’ll find someone to act as our agent, take the lead in all dealings. Manager Su’s official salt will go down the Han River without touching land. After the handover, we’ll directly resell the salt to merchants outside.”

“We’ll hire Yu San to transport the salt. Officially, he’s employed by Manager Su. Even if officials investigate the salt drying sites and find our snowflake salt, we can produce the permits and say we bought official salt from Manager Su to refine it. It may seem unreasonable, but it’s legal.”

“As long as we keep a low profile, we probably won’t have problems for years. The salt won’t be sold locally, so we don’t threaten local merchants’ interests. Besides, Manager Su’s network is strong. His brother-in-law Huang Fantai will become a key political figure. We don’t need to worry about his downfall or political retaliation.”

Zhu Hao’s confidence in partnering with Su Xigui also stemmed from the future prospects of Huang Zan, who would gain great merit in suppressing the Ning King’s rebellion and earn the title “First-Rank Commoner” by the Jiajing era.

With such a bright partner, doing business felt much more secure.