An Enemy Worth Bargaining With
After Jegal Hwa had left, Namgung Cheon spent long hours in his chamber reading and rereading the records concerning the Baicheon Trading Company. The sun climbed to its zenith, tilted westward, and sank, until darkness had settled deep into the room. And the moment he closed the book—
'This will not be easy.'
For the first time, a sense of being cornered washed over him.
The Nambyeok Trading Company—and behind it, braced like a wall, the Four Black Alliance. They had never once pressed the Baicheon Trading Company by force. Instead, they had applied the logic of the merchant world at its most cunning and intelligent, tightening the noose slowly, patiently.
When Namgung Jin poured out capital to lower prices, they matched him with prices even lower. When Namgung Jin threatened to bring martial might to bear, they reached into the bureaucracy and bound the Namgung Clan's hands with the very name of law.
'How was that possible?'
The Namgung Clan's wealth was not the greatest under heaven, yet it paled before no rival's. 'And still they ran a price war strong enough to neutralize that capital.' If it was not a matter of money, then was it a matter of force? 'No—the Namgung Clan's influence over the officials is considerable.'
And yet, uniquely, in Jiangnan—precisely in Jiangxi and Fujian, where the Nambyeok Trading Company had sunk its roots into the commercial world—the clan's influence had proven utterly useless. 'Which means, in effect, we have lost our standing in Jiangnan entirely.'
His gaze returned to the book. 'In the end, their way proved superior.' The strategies of the Nambyeok Trading Company, jotted throughout the records—recalling them now, Namgung Cheon could do nothing but sigh.
'Maritime trade goods, and the Blue Cloud Pact.'
Unlike other trading companies, the Nambyeok Trading Company had turned its eyes to the sea early. Through the sea they had acquired exclusive trade goods, and on them they had built staggering wealth—a profit structure no inland merchant house could hope to match. And on top of that, the backing of the Four Black Alliance. 'No wonder their coffers run deep.'
But they had not spent that money merely on swelling their own power. The Blue Cloud Pact—a private organization that secretly sponsored poor scholars of talent in the regions. The scholars who received their patronage rose into the officialdom, and those officials in turn became the company's unshakable shield. A perfect cycle, spinning endlessly.
'A monopoly on revenue, and an investment in the future.'
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of Namgung Cheon's mouth. The shadow war of the merchant world was no arena where the sword and the fist spoke. It was a battle of an entirely different kind—one in which the logic of power, the thing he had lived by all his life and trusted most, simply stopped working.
He was sunk deep in these thoughts when a familiar presence stirred outside his chamber. Mujin. Namgung Cheon set the book down on the table and went to receive him.
“……?”
Mujin, stepping through the door, blinked at the stiffness of Namgung Cheon's expression. “Something happen? You don't look too pleased.”
Namgung Cheon shook his head. “It's fine. It's mine to resolve. More importantly—how's the guest room?”
Mujin looked briefly baffled by the non sequitur, then shrugged and grinned. “Ah, that? It's good. Finer than anything has a right to be, considering it used to be a firewood shed.” He added, clearly satisfied, “Your Namgung carpenters know their trade. Turned it around in just a few days.”
But even at his jesting, Namgung Cheon's expression did not soften. Watching him, the amusement drained from Mujin's face. His eyes drifted, unbidden, to the book lying on the table at Namgung Cheon's side.
“Truly all right? Looks to me like that's the cause.”
Namgung Cheon hesitated a moment, then handed the book over. “Read it.”
Mujin took it and read through its contents with deliberate calm. An hour passed.
Then Mujin spoke, with the air of a man stating the obvious. “……Isn't this a trading company that's already lost its foundations?”
Namgung Cheon nodded.
“And yet the clan wants you to save it?”
He nodded again. Mujin gave a hollow laugh. “Honestly, this is a straight-up dead stone.” He tossed the book onto the table and went on. “In the wanderers' world, a man who sticks his neck into something like this gets called by exactly two characters.”
Mujin drew a finger across his throat. “Coffin-bearer.”
Even at that blunt warning, nothing in Namgung Cheon's face changed. Instead, he drew out the map tucked into the book's final page and spread it wide across the table. Across it, in red ink, the trade routes south of the Yangtze that the Nambyeok Trading Company had seized lay drawn like a spider's web.
Namgung Cheon tapped the crimson web with a fingertip and asked again, “And if I must do it anyway?”
“……Then it's madness.” Mujin burst into a disbelieving laugh. “Young master, this is not a problem force can solve. They've already woven the entire underbelly of Jiangnan together with money and connections, tight as a spider's web. Marching head-on into the Nambyeok Trading Company is nothing but a butterfly throwing itself into that web.”
“I have no intention of meeting them head-on.”
“Then what in the world do you intend? The way I see it, the enemy called the Nambyeok Trading Company has to come down before we can breathe again—”
In that instant, Namgung Cheon's eyes narrowed. Something in Mujin's words had struck a discordant note. “Say that again.”
Mujin made a puzzled face. “……Why, what's the matter? You're frightening me.”
“No, nothing like that. What did you just say?”
Tilting his head, Mujin repeated himself. “I said the enemy called the Nambyeok Trading Company has to come down before we can breathe.”
!
Namgung Cheon's gaze shook violently. The discord he had felt in Mujin's words—it was this.
'Enemy.' A foe that must be destroyed. A nemesis. 'Right—if this were a matter of the martial world, of course you cut down the enemy. You kill them.' In a swordsman's terms, it would be shattering their dantian and severing their limbs. But—
'This is not the martial world.'
In that instant, the long-shuttered door of his thinking flew wide open.
'A place where, if profit demands it, they will gladly take the hand of even a blood-sworn enemy.' Was that not precisely the world of commerce?
Namgung Cheon's eyes gleamed.
Late that evening, the Geumokru.
At the sudden visit of Namgung Cheon and Mujin, the guards at the entrance went white as ash. They scrambled inside to report, and moments later Baek Duguang came sprinting out at full speed.
“Young master! What brings you here! If you'd only sent word ahead—”
Watching the man bow and fidget in frantic deference, Mujin clicked his tongue inwardly. This was hardly the bearing of a man said to command the shadow side of Anhui's capital.
“Come to the master's study first. I have a most precious tea from Yunnan.” With a sly grin, Baek Duguang ushered the two of them inside.
Soon they arrived at the study. No sooner had Namgung Cheon taken his seat than he asked, “Master Baek—you're from Jiangxi, if I recall?”
At the abrupt question, Baek Duguang's hand stopped dead above the brass brazier where he had been heating water. The teapot trembled faintly in his grip.
“……That's all in the past. My home is Hefei, here, now.” He forced a composed smile, but it was awkward beyond words.
Namgung Cheon did not know the particulars, but from the man's reaction it was plain that whatever had happened in Jiangxi had left a wound. And Namgung Cheon had no intention of prodding at it.
“When I came last time, you let something slip—'money is made by opening sea routes,' wasn't it?”
Baek Duguang nodded with a strained expression. “Yes, yes, but that was just idle talk. Water transport is nothing you can attempt without deep capital, and with things as they are—”
“Did you ever work in water transport, back in Jiangxi?”
“……”
A complicated expression crossed Baek Duguang's face. A brief silence passed before he nodded and answered. “I did. It was a long time ago.” He let his words trail off. “…I once served as a hall master in the Black Dragon Lair, the bandit stronghold that ruled the Yangtze waterways of Jiangnan.”
“Hmm.” Namgung Cheon nodded slowly, then drew from his robe the book on the Baicheon Trading Company. He opened it to the section listing the Nambyeok Trading Company's principal trade goods. “These goods here—do you know any of them?”
Baek Duguang set down the hand that had been heating the water and shot an urgent gesture at Naeng Cheolsan, who had been standing beside him like a folding screen. Once Naeng Cheolsan had silently taken over the teapot, Baek Duguang dusted off his hands and came over. He read through the list of goods, then answered in a voice brimming with confidence. “Naturally.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. Southern sea silk and western region spices—those command whatever price you name in Jiangnan. People fight over them when there aren't enough to sell.”
For a long while after that, Baek Duguang held forth on the goods with unrestrained enthusiasm. “…Which is to say, every one of these items is money itself.”
“I see.” Having heard the full explanation, Namgung Cheon pondered a moment, then asked quietly, “And in the markets north of the river?”
“North of the river, you say?” Baek Duguang tilted his head. “Of course they're treated as priceless treasures… but the sea routes are so long and treacherous that the volume is vanishingly small. They do travel up the Grand Canal, but even then, most are presented as tribute to the imperial household, or traded in secret only among the powerful. Ordinary trading companies can scarce lay eyes on them.”
At those words, Namgung Cheon smiled for the first time that day. “Good.”
Bewilderment flickered across Baek Duguang's face at that single word. Namgung Cheon went on. “If we could put the Nambyeok Trading Company's goods into the lands north of the river on a steady footing, the profit would be beyond imagining.”
“……!”
Only then grasping Namgung Cheon's intent, Baek Duguang's eyes flooded with shock and excitement. But the excitement did not last. Practical concern soon clouded his face. “However, young master—there is one great problem with that plan.”
Namgung Cheon nodded. “The Four Black Alliance?”
“Yes. The Nambyeok Trading Company is the Four Black Alliance's money artery. To take their goods and sell them, we would ultimately need the Alliance's leave.”
It was a worry spoken in earnest. But the smile still lingered at the corner of Namgung Cheon's mouth. Gazing out at the moon beyond the window, he murmured as if to himself.
“Do not worry.”
A face rose in Namgung Cheon's memory—someone with whom he had once held a surprisingly reasonable conversation. “Even in that snake pit, there was one man who knew how to talk.”