"Where's Li Fu?" Zhou She said nothing, but one of the lackeys under him jumped out and shouted.
"Get lost!" Hearing the commotion in the courtyard, Wang Huadu darted out at once, eyeing the five newcomers askance, his hand already unconsciously straying to his waist.
"It's you again?" Ignoring Wang Huadu, Zhou She fixed his eyes on Shao Shuyi, his look partly hostile, partly surprised.
"May I ask what brings Zhou She here?" Shao Shuyi said with a bow.
"To find Li Fu, of course. It's none of your business." Zhou She glanced instinctively at the zuanfeng boat moored along the Lou River.
"Li Fu lost his wife not long ago and is in no state to receive guests," Shao Shuyi said. "Zhou She, please go back."
"I don't care whether it's his parents who died or his wife and children." Displeased, Zhou She turned to the four men who had come with him and ordered, "You lot — two of you go inside. Even if Li Fu has only one breath left in him, drag him out here and ask him whether he still means to sell that boat."
"Yes." The two answered and started toward the courtyard gate.
"Get lost! The boat's already been bought." Wang Huadu whipped out a short blade, slashed it through the air twice, and sneered. "My elder brother already found a guarantor, drew up a deed, and bought this zuanfeng haiqiu. Even the yamen has issued an official certificate for it. You want to seize it?"
As he spoke, Kong Tie and Yu Yuan came out as well — the former gripping a carrying pole, the latter having grabbed up a kitchen cleaver.
The two lackeys were the sort to throw their weight around on borrowed authority; they were fine when it came to bullying honest commoners, but the moment they faced fierce men willing to fight them to the death, they wavered. Daggers and the like hung at their waists, yet they simply didn't dare draw them.
Wang Huadu gave them a contemptuous look. "Ever killed a man? Ever seen blood? You know how far it sprays when you punch a hole in someone's neck?"
Yu Yuan instinctively glanced at Shao Shuyi, thinking to himself: It really does spray high — terrifying. Brother really is something, cutting off a man's head without so much as changing expression.
Yu Chu, standing some distance off, had meant to keep out of it, but seeing his younger brother drawn in, he could no longer hold back. He cleared his throat, stepped forward, and bowed. "Zhou She, it's been a long time. How have you been?"
Zhou She was on the verge of losing his temper, but the voice sounded faintly familiar. He looked over instinctively, hesitated a moment, and asked, "Are you the Transport Office's Clerk-Translator Yu?"
"Clerk-interpreter," Yu Chu corrected him with a smile, then added, "I came here today to deliver the official certificate to Accountant Shao."
"What? So it's true?" Zhou She was taken aback. "Why have I heard nothing of this from the prefectural yamen?"
"Zhou She, both the buyer and the seller here are boat households, and what's being sold is a boat — such transactions have always had their certificates issued by the Transport Office," Yu Chu said, cupping his hands in salute.
"That shouldn't be the case!" Zhou She said irritably. "Doesn't the Transport Office answer to the branch secretariat?"
"Let me set the record straight for you, Zhou She: the Transport Office has always been under the direct administration of the Central Secretariat," Yu Chu went on. "Because it sits in Jiangnan, the Jiangzhe Branch Secretariat — the 'branch secretariat,' or 'province' for short — may also exercise limited jurisdiction over it, and only in three matters. The first is deciding on the grain transport; the second, disbursing the freight money; and the third, directing the sea transport. Beyond that, only the Censorate and the Surveillance Office may supervise the Transport Office. Is that clear enough for you, Zhou She?"
Zhou She's expression darkened.
Shao Shuyi watched him, laughing inwardly.
If he had to draw an analogy, the Transport Office was like a state-owned enterprise of fairly high administrative rank, directly subordinate to the State Council. Transporting grain was its core business, and the boat households were its employees.
In practice, the Transport Office answered to a dual leadership — the Central Secretariat and the Jiangzhe branch secretariat.
With the former, there was a working relationship: its direct counterpart was the Sea Transport Section, under the Grain Office of the Left Bureau of the Central Secretariat. There was also a political tie — the Central Secretariat decided the appointment and removal of the Transport Office's mid- and senior-ranking officials.
When it came to the grain transport, the Jiangzhe branch secretariat's job was to collect the tax grain to be shipped, store it in the various granaries under the Transport Office, and decide when to begin shipping it the following year.
When shipping began, the Jiangzhe branch secretariat would appoint a senior official as Sea Transport Supervisor to direct the operation, and would set aside a portion of the branch's tax revenue to be disbursed to the Transport Office as freight money.
To put it simply: the officials of the Central Secretariat's Sea Transport Section in Dadu drew up the grain transport plans, the Jiangzhe branch secretariat supplied the money and the grain, the Transport Office carried out the shipping, and the Censorate and the Surveillance Office kept watch over it all.
On the surface, each had its own clearly defined role. But the Transport Office stood on Jiangzhe soil after all, and its ties with the local authorities were a tangled knot that couldn't be cut or combed straight — complicated indeed. To give the simplest example, Kunshan Zhou had jurisdiction over the various categories of registered households within its borders, and boat households were among them. It was just that with the Transport Office looming over them, governing them was never so convenient.
Zhou She had probably grown used to Pingjiang Circuit and Kunshan Zhou being the ones to manage the boat households, and hadn't expected that, in theory, the Transport Office held jurisdiction over them as well. As instruments of transport, the buying and selling of boats had always had their certificates issued by the Transport Office.
Someone had beaten him to it!
"If Zhou She finds that improper —" Yu Chu shifted tack, "well, the deed is already drawn and the sale is done. There's nothing to stop you from going to the prefectural yamen to obtain a certificate of your own."
"Hmph!" Zhou She's face turned cold. "It's only a boat. I never even had eyes on it. This broken-down piece of junk — keep it yourselves."
With that, he gave a grand sweep of his hand and stalked off in a huff.
"Spineless dogs!" Wang Huadu roared with laughter, brandishing his gleaming short blade at the group.
Kong Tie caught hold of him. "They're already gone. Why go provoking them further?"
"I just can't stand the sight of him," Wang Huadu said loudly. "When Zhang Neng hired killers to murder a man back then — who's to say he wasn't in on it?"
"All right, all right," Shao Shuyi said with a light cough.
Wang Huadu gradually simmered down and turned back to busy himself in the little courtyard.
"Thank you for speaking up for what was right, Master Yu." Shao Shuyi turned to Yu Chu and bowed.
Yu Chu returned the bow. "It was no more than my duty."
Even as he said it, he sighed inwardly. When their father had passed away the year before, he had taken Yu Chu's hand and made him promise to look after his younger brother. What choice did Yu Chu have? His third brother had gotten in too deep with this crowd — shouting couldn't pull him back now.
After thanking Yu Chu, Shao Shuyi drew Kong Tie aside, counted out a ding of paper money for him, and said in a low voice, "Find some men you know well and have them haul this boat over to the Qian family boatyard."
"It won't take this much," Kong Tie said.
"And stand the boatyard's craftsmen to a meal too. We'll likely be dealing with them often enough in the future," Shao Shuyi said.
"All right." Kong Tie said no more and took the money.
Then Shao Shuyi walked over to Yu Yuan and handed him all the money that was left. "I borrowed money from you before — I can't even recall how much. Here, it's all yours now. Use it as you see fit; whatever any household is short of, buy it. We're all brothers here — I won't have any of us going without. Once you're done here, hurry back to the shop."
With that, he dusted off his clean hands and said, "Let's be off."
He had gone only a couple of steps when he turned back, plucked a one-guan baochao note from Yu Yuan's hand, and said with a grin, "Almost didn't have the fare to ride the boat."
Yu Yuan laughed too.
Yu Chu, for his part, watched Shao Shuyi and thought that he seemed a bit of a slacker, yet was public-spirited and righteous, generous and open-handed. No wonder his third brother trailed after him all day long, "brother" this and "brother" that.
And as he walked along the road, the several boat households he passed greeted him and offered a word or two of praise — clearly he had made something of a name for himself already.
Interesting fellow.
* * *
Meanwhile, at the other end of things, Zhou She had returned home in a foul temper. He was just about to go find a concubine to work off his anger when word came that Sun Chuan had arrived.
So he straightened his clothes and cap and strode into the main hall.
"What's got you so worked up?" Sun Chuan asked with a sidelong glance.
"Don't ask." Zhou She sat down and recounted what had just happened.
"What a pity," Sun Chuan said, shaking his head. "These days, building a new zuanfeng boat would cost far more than five hundred ding. A boat that was already in your hands has flown off — ah, you've no luck at all."
"It's no matter," Zhou She said, craning his neck stubbornly and waving a hand. "Maybe in a few days another boat will turn up somewhere."
Sun Chuan gave a soft laugh and said no more.
This Zhou Ziliang came from a line of riverside strongmen; he controlled a good number of fishing households, and his sources were better informed than Sun Chuan's own. The moment any boat household could no longer hold on, word reached him quickly, and he would either turn up at their door to lend them money or buy up their boats and bondservants — handling it all more deftly than Sun Chuan could.
"Got more goods to move?" Zhou She asked, once he'd settled himself.
"I do," Sun Chuan said with a nod. "A batch of goods has just come into Taizhou, and its origins aren't quite clean. Find some reliable men and move it out under cover of night."
"Move it where?" Zhou She asked, unconcerned.
Sun Chuan's goods were sometimes perfectly fine and sometimes of a provenance no one could account for; he often came to Zhou She to move them, and Zhou She had long since grown used to it.
"You'll have to pick it up in Shanghai," Sun Chuan said. "I'll have a man of mine go aboard with it. Haul it to Jiangning in Jiqing Circuit, ask nothing along the way, and just bring the boat back empty. For freight money, I can advance you fifty ding, and there'll be another fifty when you return."
"Fine." Zhou She had no objection.
What others wouldn't dare to do, he would — how else was a man to make his money? Moving stolen goods was nothing to him; a small matter.
But then something suddenly struck him, and he asked, "Are these Cai Luantou's goods?"
"Hm?" Sun Chuan shot him a look of displeasure.
Zhou She's heart gave a lurch, but he refused to show any weakness. Affecting an air of disdain, he said, "Never mind, never mind. You'd think I was dying to know."
Sun Chuan's brow smoothed out. As if to console him, he went on, "That Shao Shuyi you mentioned just now, scurrying about making trouble — he really is a nuisance. If you've the nerve for it, I can put a few salt households your way. They're all from Jiangbei, safer to use than the servants and fishing households of your own establishment, and the authorities will have a hard time tracing them."
Zhou She's eyes shifted slightly, and he countered, "Shao Shuyi brought down Wang Sheng. Don't you hate him for it?"
Sun Chuan shook his head. "There are plenty in Taicang and Liujiagang who've crossed me. Am I to take revenge on every last one? He's nothing but a posturing clown — not worth my trouble."
Zhou She, however, was not entirely convinced.
While Wang Sheng was still there, Sun Chuan had probably made several hundred ding a year off the Zheng Firm's celadon shop. It was no great fortune, perhaps, but it was a steady trickle of income, and Zhou She didn't for a moment believe Sun Chuan wasn't stung by the loss — the man was no saint.
"That clown's leaping about so high. If you keep sitting there unmoved, one of these days you'll come to grief at his hands," Zhou She said sourly.
Chapter 50