Chapter 856 - Expanding the Team
Zhao Yingong looked at the dozen or so children of various ages standing or sitting in the courtyard before the entrance hall. Every one of them was disheveled and emaciated. Some looked reasonably healthy; others had barely managed to walk in before collapsing on the ground, unable to rise again.
His heart ached for them, yet at the same time his whole body itched. A few days ago, when he had brought the girl back, he had also brought back her fleas and lice. That night, they had bitten him all over, raising red bumps and welts. He had been forced to get up, bathe, change clothes, and spray insecticide. Looking at these children before him now, he did not need to imagine what parasites lurked under their ragged clothes, eyeing his flesh.
"Everyone kneel and kowtow. Pay respects to the Master," Cai Shi shouted.
Some knelt. Others swayed and collapsed directly to the ground. Zhao Yingong's heart ached. He said: "No need to bow." Looking them over carefully, he saw they were mostly boys, with a few girls. The youngest were no more than four or five years old; the oldest around thirteen or fourteen. But Zhao Yingong knew that children of the poor were often malnourished and developmentally delayed—their actual ages were probably older than they appeared.
"Are they all orphans?" Zhao Yingong asked. "Confirmed to have willingly pledged themselves as servants in my household?"
"Indeed they are," Cai Shi quickly replied, then shouted at the children: "Speak up yourselves!"
"Willingly pledged..." The responses were scattered, slow, and drawn out.
"Gentlemen, you see..." Cai Shi turned to a thin, dried-up clerk beside him—this was a clerk from the Household Office of Renhe County, specially invited today to witness and register the indentures. Generally speaking, such matters did not necessarily require official involvement, but during training they had been warned that in areas beyond the transmigrator collective's power, one should be very cautious when taking in people. There were criminals who made their living from such schemes, and it was easy to be left penniless. Intelligence agents operating alone could not afford direct conflicts with strangers.
"All right, all right, I've seen everything," Clerk Zhu pocketed a substantial red envelope and was in good spirits. He certainly was not going to nitpick. "Let's draw up the contracts and put thumbprints on them."
Cai Shi energetically directed the children to press their thumbprints on the sale contracts, then had them all taken away to have their heads shaved, be bathed, and change clothes. Zhao Yingong had renovated a few rooms in the abandoned garden to serve temporarily as dormitories. He also hired a doctor to treat the children's illnesses. The complete "purification" procedure was applied according to protocol. He assigned staff to look after them. The dozen or so attendants he had brought were all from the purification camps and were familiar with this system—it was simply a smaller version. Once the orphans' bodies recovered somewhat, he led them in clearing out a space in the abandoned garden to serve as an exercise ground. Every day, they did calisthenics and ran to strengthen their bodies. They also grew vegetables and raised chickens in the abandoned garden—both exercising and supplementing their diet. Zhao Yingong had Fenghua serve as their literacy teacher, conducting basic education according to C-grade diploma requirements.
Zhao Yingong knew that making a significant contribution to collecting and educating population would be very difficult at present, especially given the shortage of manpower. So he paid special attention to the older children—those aged thirteen or fourteen and above—focusing on cultivating their character and knowledge. In the future, they would be the basic cadre material that the Hangzhou Station could quickly deploy. As for children under ten, they would gradually be transferred back to Lingao for schooling.
Only the little girl he had rescued from the bridge would he keep by his side to personally educate. He named her Hening. He also named all the other children. The six oldest, aged twelve and above, he named: Donghua, Xihua, Funing, Furong, Lizheng, and Yanhe. These names, like Fenghua and Hening, were all names of Song Dynasty palaces.
The older children lived in a separate dormitory. Every day, Zhao Yingong set aside time to personally teach them. Though older children had more mature minds, those who had spent long periods wandering and begging usually possessed twisted personalities and had picked up various bad habits. Lingao had a complete set of methods for managing and educating refugees, and everyone could be put to use. But here he had to be more careful. So when collecting children, he specifically instructed Cai Shi not to take those vagrant beggars who looked healthy and spoke glibly. For now, he would only take in children who were on the verge of starvation or had been abandoned.
Given all this, he felt his current staff was still too few. He instructed Cai Shi and Sun Wangcai that anyone from a reliable background willing to sell themselves into service should be kept—all with "permanent contracts."
Besides collecting children and expanding his servant staff, Zhao Yingong spent several days personally surveying Hangzhou's main markets and the prices of various goods. He gained a general understanding of Hangzhou's trade situation. It seemed the easiest industries in which to make money remained silk and tea.
Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, Jiangnan had been famous for growing mulberry and raising silkworms. This was especially developed in the Ming Dynasty, particularly in the lower reaches of Lake Tai: Suzhou, Huzhou, Songjiang, Jiaxing, and the Hangzhou area were all important silk-producing regions, producing vast quantities of raw silk and satins every year. As an important transportation hub, Hangzhou not only handled the circulation of goods from all of Zhejiang Province, but silk products from Suzhou and Huzhou in South Zhili also gathered and traded here.
As for tea, Zhejiang was itself a major tea-producing province. Neighboring southern Anhui was also an important tea-producing area. Every year, large quantities of Anhui tea were transported to Hangzhou via the ancient Huizhou-Hangzhou road, processed locally, and distributed from there.
Both silk and tea were important commodities in overseas trade, and were also popular bulk commodities in domestic trade. If he could control one silk or one tea operation in Hangzhou, the profits would be no less than Leizhou's sugar.
However, how to enter these two industries was something Zhao Yingong could not yet decide. He was unfamiliar with both the sericulture industry and the tea industry, let alone their 17th-century particularities.
After much thought, he concluded he still needed to find someone familiar with the industry to guide him. Just then, Cai Shi brought in another household—a family surnamed Shen who were willing to pledge themselves as servants.
"They're willing to pledge the entire family," Cai Shi said, presenting a card listing the full names, ages, and genders of this household.
Zhao Yingong examined the card. The new household consisted of a married couple around thirty, with three children. The oldest was thirteen, the youngest only five.
The total sale price was just ten taels. Unbelievably cheap—setting aside everything else, just their thirteen-year-old daughter could fetch at least twenty taels if sold through a human broker. Zhao Yingong hesitated. What was this family's background that they would sell themselves so cheaply?
Cai Shi explained that this family were silkworm farmers from Renhe County. They had originally owned a few mu of mulberry fields. Last year during silkworm season, there was a shortage of mulberry leaves, and they had borrowed at high interest. The compound interest had rolled up until their entire home and land were seized by creditors. Now with nowhere to turn, they were willing to sell themselves into bondage—but requested that the contract include two conditions: "The family must not be separated" and "If the master relocates away from Hangzhou, they may redeem themselves."
No wonder they were only asking for ten taels, Zhao Yingong thought. There was a catch after all. He had heard that people from Zhejiang were shrewd and capable—it seemed this was a tradition of long standing.
"Master, they were originally silkworm farmers. Raising silkworms, growing mulberry, reeling silk—they're experts in all of it. If the Master were to buy a few mu of mulberry fields and entrust them to manage it, you'd certainly profit a hundred taels or so each year..."
Cai Shi spoke enthusiastically—he had noticed recently that the Master often paid attention to matters concerning silk and raw thread, and believed the Master must be interested. So he added this pitch.
Zhao Yingong nodded with satisfaction: "Not bad. Keep them."
"Shall I bring them in to kowtow to the Master?"
"Of course. Have them come."
Shortly, Cai Shi brought them over. The whole family crowded at the foot of the steps to kowtow to Zhao Yingong. He looked them over. Though they were country farmers who worked the land, they were reasonably presentable. The wife especially, around twenty-eight or twenty-nine, was petite and delicate, with refined features—very much the look of a Jiangnan water-country woman. The eldest daughter, not yet developed, was also quite comely. And both mother and daughter had natural feet—Zhao Yingong was quite pleased.
"First allocate a room in the servants' quarters for them," Zhao Yingong instructed Cai Shi. "Follow the standard procedures. Provide them with the clothing and food they're entitled to according to the rules. Nothing must be skimped."
"Yes, this servant understands." Cai Shi bowed. Then he barked: "Why aren't you thanking the Master?"
The family quickly knelt and kowtowed again. Zhao Yingong asked: "You're silkworm farmers?"
"Yes, this humble one formerly made a living from growing mulberry and raising silkworms..." the man quickly replied.
"So you're quite experienced with silkworm-raising?"
"This humble one and family formerly made our living from this." The man continued: "This humble one grew mulberry; the wife and daughter raised silkworms and reeled silk. We sold the silk to silk merchants and lived on that."
"Hmm. Then tell me about how the local silkworm business works. Explain it in detail."
"Yes, Master!" The man, newly pledged into service, had been anxious. Now hearing that the master wanted him to discuss mulberry cultivation and silkworm raising, he realized the master might have use for him. He gathered his spirits and began explaining at length.
He spoke in Hangzhou dialect, and as a country person who rarely interacted with outsiders, his speech was poorly organized and somewhat muddled. Fortunately, Cai Shi was there to translate and explain, allowing Zhao Yingong to grasp the general picture.
To raise silkworms, first you needed mulberry leaves. So those who raised silkworms invariably had at least a few mu of land planted with mulberry for leaf harvesting. If their own land was insufficient or their mulberry leaves ran short, they had to pre-lease or purchase from others. Thus specialized "leaf markets" for trading mulberry leaves had long existed. The former method involved paying a deposit in advance and harvesting when the time came; the latter was buying at market prices. After silkworms entered their third dormancy, leaf consumption increased dramatically. If one's land was small and mulberry prices were high, silkworm farmers often had to borrow at usurious interest.
But the returns from silkworm-raising were substantial. If that year's dried cocoon and raw silk prices were reasonable, after repaying principal and interest, the remaining income was not only enough to pay taxes but could cover the family's expenses for an entire year. In terms of profit, it was far better than growing rice or cotton. But if cocoon prices happened to be bad that year, farmers could be forced to sell land, house, and even children to pay off their debts.