Book 14: Chapter 28: Want to Cry
Book 14: Chapter 28: Want to Cry
“Has Auspicious Virtue gone mad?”
“Shopkeeper, these news are absolutely true! It isn’t just South Tomb, South Order and South Face, these three provinces, even Qiantang, Xiangshui, these two provinces’ Auspicious Virtue stores’ rice can be purchased through debt.”
“…”
While listening to what this accountant said, Liu Jing’s hands continuously shook uncontrollably, to the extent where he couldn’t even hold onto the small purple sand pot in his hands, his mouth continuously muttering to himself.
This grizzled haired elder was all the way in River Province’s Iris City, Riceflower Company’s shopkeeper. Meanwhile, Riceflower Company was precisely one of the seventeen allied merchant companies who joined together when they sensed Auspicious Virtue’s threat, when Auspicious Virtue first began to get into the rice business in Sunset Roost Province.
When Auspicious Virtue established large amounts of farmland in Jadewater and Heavenfall Provinces, the seventeen allied merchant companies could already no longer compete against Auspicious Virtue. This was especially the case after Auspicious Virtue’s arrangements in Jadewater and Heavenfall Provinces were revealed and the southern expedition began. There were seven families who found it even harder to have a footing, completely transferred to Auspicious Virtue. Most of the remaining rice shops either looked for other business paths, or they were just like Riceflower Company, their own production not affected much by the war.
Right now, the only ones who could compete against Auspicious Virtue were Yunqin’s three major grain companies.
However, after the three major grain companies’ Revival Friend Company’s fleet was attacked in Jadewater Province, none of the remaining three great rice companies could suppress Auspicious Virtue’s growth. That was why Auspicious Virtue’s rise became more and more unstoppable.
The viewpoints of all of the merchant companies, not just those in the rice business, were miraculously the same. After this autumn and winter, after next year’s harvest, Auspicious Virtue would completely become a leviathan among Yunqin’s merchant companies. Meanwhile, the other great merchant companies who were originally extremely wealthy and could even look down on the three great rice companies with disdain, were also doomed for a crushing defeat.
As for the exact reason, even if the south’s most fertile provinces had practically no grain for harvest, the rice in the various grain depots could still hold on for now. By next year, with Auspicious Virtue’s income this year, together with autumn and winter’s land clearing, by next year, Auspicious Virtue’s rice production in Jadewater and Heavenfall, these two provinces, would become extremely terrifying.
At that time, not only would Auspicious Virtue have rice to sell, even if new rice and these rice companies’ old rice were sold at the same price, under far lower production costs, the profits from every single carriage of rice would be far greater than the other rice companies’ profit.
If this was some small-scale business, using a bit of an exaggerated comparison, a thousand jin or so of rice, even if every single jin earned just a single extra tael of silver, then that would be an extra thousand taels of silver earned.
However, this was a business spanning across all of Yunqin Empire. Every single Yunqin resident needed to eat rice. After one year, the silvers Auspicious Virtue earned would be enough to crush all of its competitors.
Moreover, the battles still continued.
The unrest continued.
Jadewater and Heavenfall Provinces were actually extremely peaceful… Jadewater and Heavenfall Provinces already became a giant granary for Auspicious Virtue.
That was why Auspicious Virtue was destined to become Yunqin’s most miraculous, most flourishing merchant company.
However now, Auspicious Virtue actually let the three south provinces, as well as Qiantang and Xiangshui provinces’ shops sell with debt?!
What kind of concept was this?
During the past larger half of a year, Yunqin and Great Mang’s war not only made it so that South Tomb Province’s common people were destitute and homeless, almost all of the fields had become abandoned. Moreover, for the sake of winning Meteor City’s decisive battle, Yunqin’s royal court even more so transported away all of Qiantang and Xiangshui’s grain.
Yunqin’s common people could return to their homes after news of victory, clear away wild areas for cultivation with hungry bellies and sow seeds, but for a long time, most of them were absolutely penniless.
This was exactly the same as those years ravaged by disasters.
If they were allowed to purchase through debt… how long would it take to earn this back?!
Just how many people in these five provinces needed to eat?
Auspicious Virtue’s wealth, no matter how robust it was, even if their other businesses could still earn large amounts of silver, even if they began to tighten down on their account book a bit, how could they possibly support so many mouths?
Liu Jing was only an extremely ordinary shop owner, his ability wasn’t all that outstanding, there was no way he could know Auspicious Virtue’s exact account book either, he had no way of knowing how much liquid assets Auspicious Virtue had. However, even someone like him was sure that Auspicious Virtue definitely couldn’t continue this for long. He was even certain that if Auspicious Virtue did this, then it was complete suicide.
A company like Auspicious Virtue who was clearly already destined to become Yunqin history’s biggest and richest company since the empire’s history, instead gave up on these prospects, allowing itself to instantly come crashing down.
Why was this?
Liu Jing couldn’t understand it at all.
After a massive giant like Auspicious Virtue fell, the days of stores like Riceflower Company would definitely be a bit better. However, right now, this grizzled haired ordinary shopkeeper instead didn’t feel any joy.
He only felt like Auspicious Virtue went mad, as if that deity-like Auspicious Virtue Great Shopkeeper went crazy, the air around him went crazy, that even he himself went crazy.
At the same time, a mysterious reverence and unprecedented admiration surged from his chest, and then made his chest feel empty again.
He also really wanted to cry.
…
“Do you know how to kill?” Nangong Weiyang looked at Xu Shengmo standing on the rock beside her, asking this simply and seriously.
Xu Shengmo looked at Nangong Weiyang whose hair was in two pigtails, dressed in a set of ordinary green robes, appearance still extremely young, feeling like Nangong Weiyang’s words were extremely stupid, really wishing to curse.
Even though he didn’t know what kind of relationship the academy and this rebel army had, since he was secretly sent over to assist this rebel army, as well as the fifty thousand Great Mang ruined army it sheltered, then he naturally didn’t come for a stroll to look around. However, this girl who looked like she still stunk of her mother’s milk actually asked him if he knew how to kill.
“Are you actually an idiot? Please, even though I am only doing this because of some agreements with Vice Principal Xia, only wearing Green Luan Academy lecturer’s black robes, in the end, I still came from Green Luan Academy, I am still a Sacred Expert, okay? Could my arrival here really be just to join in your migration trip? You are actually asking me if I will kill? Tell me, are you idiotic to the point where even I now look like an idiot?”
He really wanted to cuss out Nangong Weiyang like this.
However, when he thought about how the other party was also a Sacred Expert, moreover, when he knew that Nangong Weiyang, this person who looked like an ordinary little girl from the outside, was someone with an extremely eccentric temperament, mysteriously able to even face Wenren Cangyue that day in Jadefall City, he refrained from doing so. If they fought here, moreover, considering his own injuries, he might not even necessarily be able to defeat her.
Furthermore, there were two to three thousand fiendish bandits behind her… Even though these bandits looked a bit repulsive in his eyes, the various weapons in their hands and the armor they wore on their arms, legs, and feet even more so left him with an absurd and humorous feeling, yet he couldn’t laugh at all.
These bandits looked like they had just looted a Yunqin Military Research Warehouse, every one of them equipping themselves the very best equipment they could bring out.
For example, there was a bandit with a small deer head and large red-like eyes wearing a set of flexible steel heavy armor, there was even a piece of cloud patterned steel mirror armor hanging around his chest.
On the other side, there was a short chinese squash-like bandit holding two non-standard continuous fire crossbows who could fire many crossbow bolts in one go.
In his line of sight, even the most exaggerated small leader had seven continuous fire crossbows, one on each arm, and then five hanging from his body, weighing down on his body to the point where he couldn’t even straighten his waist, even his tongue couldn’t be stuck out.
However, exaggeration was exaggeration, Xu Shengmo knew that this rebel small leader definitely possessed extremely great destructive capabilities against ordinary light armored soldiers.
Apart from these things… Xu Shengmo didn’t have too much time to curse people out either.
It was because in his line of sight, there was a large shadow currently surging over with astonishing speed from not far away.
The thunder-like sounds and crazy winds were currently sweeping over.
This was an army of Wenren Cangyue’s that flooded his view, and most of them were light armored cavalry dressed in light armor.
“I obviously know how to kill.”
That was why Xu Shengmo only returned this sentence with an extremely ugly expression. Then, he wanted to ask Nangong Weiyang how many people she had killed.
However, Nangong Weiyang’s next sentence almost made him fall straight off of that rock.
“If you know how to kill, then go with me to kill… Also, next time, when you talk to me, don’t stand so high up on a rock.” Nangong Weiyang looked at him, saying in an extremely ordinary and serious manner, “It looks stupid, and raising my head to talk to you makes my neck sore.”
“If you kill these people, then all of you can go back, drink and eat meat. If you all cannot kill these people, then all of you can die.”
Nangong Weiyang’s method of giving military orders and boosting morale before a battle was extremely simple.
All of the bandits released all different types of sounds, starting to charge towards the exceptionally somber Great Mang army before them.
Then, Xu Shengmo could only unleash slaughter together with Nangong Weiyang.
Regardless, he felt like as a senior, he couldn’t be looked down on by a little girl like this, he couldn’t kill less than a tender faced little girl like her.
However, soon afterwards, Xu Shengmo also really wanted to cry.
His flying sword’s speed of killing was extremely fast.
Nangong Weiyang’s flying sword also killed extremely fast.
However, the ones he killed were the enemy.
Nangong Weiyang killed her own people.
The ones who Nangong Weiyang killed were all those who were bluffing among the bandits, those who were too scared to fight, pretending to be dead, those who deliberately hid towards the back.
Xu Shengmo had seen many people who killed faster than him, however, those all killed the enemy, while Nangong Weiyang killed their own people. He had never seen anyone kill their own people as fast as Nangong Weiyang, as if she really wanted to just completely massacre all of her own people.
How was he supposed to compare to this?
That was why Xu Shengmo really wanted to cry.
Meanwhile, what made Xu Shengmo want to cry even more was that the rebel army that originally seemed extremely repulsive in his eyes, under Nangong Weiyang’s flying sword, all of them screamed even louder than slaughtered pigs, all of them becoming even more valiant than Yunqin’s elite border army soldiers. When facing this Great Mang army… those Great Mang army’s expressions… also seemed like they were slaughtered to the point where they wanted to cry.