Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 38 - Merchant Association (1)
Chapter 38 – Merchant Association (1)
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Myeong-gyeong looked displeased. That was because I had finally, absolutely gone and founded a merchant company.
Even so, at least he wasn’t throwing himself onto the ground and flailing his limbs like before, so in that sense things might have improved a little.
“Junior Brother.”
“Yes.”
“I still don’t think founding a merchant company is a good thing. You’re a martial artist, and you should focus on martial arts.”
“I will make sure not to neglect my martial arts.”
“I won’t tell Master about this. Partly because I promised, yes, but also because you showed true knightly conduct, so I’m letting it pass.”
Myeong-gyeong said that in an extremely magnanimous tone. I let it pass with a smile, but inwardly it stung a little. Knightly conduct? All I had done was pull a trick to gain inner qi. It was true that a great many people had ended up being saved as a result, but still.
Even so, good was good. Since even Myeong-gyeong had accepted the merchant company, there was no longer anything left that could stop me.
“But now that you’ve founded a merchant company, are you going to start selling goods?”
“Of course. Though there are things to do first.”
“Things to do?”
I moved so fast that Myeong-gyeong grew dazed trying to keep up. Since I was starting from nothing, there were indeed a lot of things to do.
First of all, I needed to buy land and a building. With only five hundred nyang of silver, it was hard to buy a truly respectable site and structure. And since I also had to leave money aside to purchase goods for sale, the constraints were even tighter.
When I founded my merchant company in my previous life, I spent an entire day looking over land and buildings, and even considered geomancy. But now I knew all that was meaningless.
Merchant companies spoke in numbers. If superstition had lowered a price, then that simply meant the place was undervalued and should be bought. So I bought a plot and building on the outskirts of Wuhan at a low price because of rumors that ghosts came out there.
“You’re really going to buy this land?”
“I told you I am.”
“Then don’t come back saying something different later.”
“That won’t happen.”
It was the kind of land and building that normally would have cost at least a thousand nyang of silver, but I bought it cheaply for three hundred. The price had dropped heavily because it was said to have bad geomancy and there were rumors of ghosts.
Compared to the successes I’d experienced later, it was a meager beginning, but even so, it was far better than the very first beginning of my previous life. Back then, there had been too many things I was doing for the first time, so I got cheated constantly and stumbled about like a fool.
I quickly laid down the foundation of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company. I hired laborers and had the abandoned houses converted into warehouses.
The work proceeded with astonishing smoothness, without a single snag. That was because they were all things I had already done once before, and so there was no unfamiliarity or hesitation.
At how quickly everything was being handled, Myeong-gyeong looked bewildered. From his point of view, a few sheets of paper passed from hand to hand and suddenly a plot of land appeared out of nowhere, while buildings began transforming themselves.
“So this is how a merchant company gets built.”
Even Myeong-gyeong showed some curiosity as he watched the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company gradually take shape.
It wasn’t easy to stand at someone’s side and watch an entire merchant company come into being from the very beginning. If Myeong-gyeong had ever become a merchant, this would’ve been an extremely valuable experience for him.
Now the foundations had all been laid. In my previous life, it had taken half a year just to set that much up, but now fifteen days were enough. It was an incredible saving of time.
“So is it finished now?”
“The most important part still remains.”
“Again? When are we going back to the sect?”
When Myeong-gyeong whined, I reached out and patted his head. He immediately shook it off and protested.
“You keep patting my head. That’s disrespectful to your senior brother.”
“Ah, yes. My apologies.”
“What’s with that half-hearted apology?”
So before it had been fine, but now it wasn’t. Children really were the sort of existence that changed from yesterday to today to tomorrow. His pride must have taken a hit all of a sudden.
At any rate, what remained now were only the truly important things for the merchant company. It was time to buy goods to fill the converted warehouses.
“Senior Brother.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think trade is?”
“It’s a pig-like business where you beat down the price of goods when you buy them, then sell them off high.”
“…”
Sometimes children displayed insights closer to the root of things than grown adults. But not this time. Some petty, inferior merchant might have nodded along with those words, but I was different.
“It’s similar, but not the same. More accurately, it’s about gaining large profit with small cost.”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
“That’s only true in the case of goods. That’s a very minor part of trade. The cost I’m talking about includes human fatigue, anger, sorrow, time, worn-down relationships, and even conscience. Profit, on the other hand, includes emotions like happiness and fulfillment, as well as new relationships, values, philosophy, and experience.”
Myeong-gyeong stared at me intently. He seemed to be trying to interpret what I’d said. I continued.
“The reason I said your answer was similar is because, in the medium of goods, part of those intangible assets gets projected and contained within them.”
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about?”
So he simply hadn’t understood a word of it. I explained it more plainly.
“For example, if you compare making two hundred nyang in profit by selling illegal salt that can’t be traded under national law and making one hundred nyang in profit by selling grain to a region suffering famine, the latter is more profitable.”
“Why? Merchants only care about money.”
“That’s only true of foolish merchants. That profit includes not just money, but values, reputation, experience, philosophy, and the people who come to support me. Following the right path like that is what eventually lets one become great. It’s rather like how learning pure orthodox martial arts is slow, but it makes you steadily stronger. In that sense, the martial way and the merchant’s code aren’t all that different.”
Myeong-gyeong rolled his eyes while rubbing the chin that had not a single whisker on it. This time he truly did seem to be thinking.
“That grain doesn’t hold only the simple value of grain. It contains a father’s desire to feed his family and tens of thousands of possibilities, including the future of a child who might one day become someone great. That’s what I mean by intangible value being projected into it.”
“I think I get it.”
“Really?”
“You said it was similar to the martial way. Even with the same single swing, a thoughtless swing and a swing made with insight are worlds apart.”
“Exactly. You’re clever.”
“I’m your senior brother, after all.”
Myeong-gyeong’s lower lip jutted out. At any rate, he seemed to have accepted the general idea. What I had to decide now was the first goods the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company would sell.
“So what exactly are you trying to say?”
“I’m going to fill the warehouse with goods, and I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be something you disliked.”
“…What is it?”
Myeong-gyeong suddenly looked anxious. I smiled brightly.
***
At this point in time, I had a rough idea of which goods would rise in price later and which would fall. It was a more fraudulent ability than any talent I could buy from the Martial Talent Shop.
So the goods I’d chosen now were goods that would later skyrocket in value and be sold for a great deal.
“This is unacceptable.”
“I told you it isn’t.”
“Even if dirt gets into my eyes, I won’t allow it.”
“Don’t you get dirt in your eyes all the time during sparring? Where in the world did you even pick up an expression like that?”
Myeong-gyeong was staging a protest right in front of the warehouse. The laborers had already arrived carrying the goods to the warehouse entrance, so the only thing left for me to do was persuade him.
“Your words sounded so pretty before, but what now? You’re selling unorthodox martial arts? Get lost!”
“It’s a practical combat manual.”
“Don’t talk nonsense! And what’s written in this book, then?”
“It says Green Forest Twelve Forms.”
“Then it’s a bandit’s martial art! You crazy… Junior Brother!”
Since Myeong-gyeong was kind, even in rage he still couldn’t quite get all the way to bastard. Just from that, I could see hope in this negotiation.
“I already explained why this follows the merchant’s code.”
It wasn’t as though I was selling the Green Forest Twelve Forms for no reason. In truth, the Green Forest Twelve Forms were one of the martial manuals in the markets that were most readily usable in actual situations.
That was because their moves weren’t limited only to swords and sabers, but had been designed so that they could also be used with scythes and pickaxes, the tools most commonly held by peasants. Since the foundation of the Green Forest was made up of peasants who had no way to feed themselves, that was only natural.
In that sense, setting aside the roots of the martial art itself, the Green Forest Twelve Forms were a martial text widely sold to commoners who wanted at least a minimum means of self-defense.
“If commoners want to save their own lives, then they need to buy books like this. Great orthodox sects don’t hand out martial manuals for the common people, do they?”
“Instead, the orthodox sects protect them.”
“They’re very good at closing the stable door after the horse has been stolen. Both the government and the martial world.”
At my cynical tone, Myeong-gyeong’s mouth shut. I took advantage of the silence and continued explaining.
“Soon several Green Forest strongholds will collapse, and the bandits will come pouring down from the mountains. At that point the common people will look for the Green Forest Twelve Forms. Since it’s the enemy’s martial art, it helps to know it, and they can learn martial skills too, so it’s two birds with one stone.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I have my ways. Have you ever seen me be wrong?”
To be precise, I didn’t know exactly why those Green Forest strongholds had collapsed. All I had heard was a rumor that the Chief of the Green Forest had disbanded several strongholds that didn’t belong to the Seventy-Two Strongholds. Those Green Forest men would soon turn into brigands, and because they would swarm all across the Central Plains, it would become a social problem for several years. As a result, paradoxically enough, the Green Forest Twelve Forms would become wildly popular among the common people.
Knowing that future, I intended to have the Green Forest Twelve Forms currently out on the market carved into woodblocks, printed in bulk, and stacked throughout my warehouse.
“A person of the orthodox sects profiting by selling unorthodox martial arts. This isn’t right.”
“It’s a means for commoners to save themselves. Does it truly matter so much whether it’s orthodox martial arts or unorthodox martial arts? That isn’t the sort of righteous chivalry the orthodox sects are supposed to uphold.”
Even if Myeong-gyeong was my senior brother, he couldn’t beat me in an argument. At least not when my tongue had been hardened like callus by decades in the field.
“…I don’t know anymore. Do whatever you want.”
In the end, Myeong-gyeong declared surrender. No matter how he thought about it, there had been no way for him to beat me on logic.
After filling the warehouse like that, I moved on to another important task. That task was finding people who would work for the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.
No matter how great a merchant I might have become, it was impossible to do all the work alone. It was inefficient too.
And since, for the time being, I would still be bound to Wudang, people were absolutely necessary.
Just as there were labor markets for hiring laborers, there were separate places for recruiting people to work in merchant companies. Those places were merchant associations.
Wherever a place had grown to a certain scale, it naturally had a merchant association that represented the region. Asking around, I found the Wuhan Merchant Association.
“Oh. That’s a huge building.”
“It really is.”
“It doesn’t even compare to that abandoned house.”
“Did you really have to compare them?”
The moment we stood before the Wuhan Merchant Association, Myeong-gyeong looked overwhelmed. In truth, the building and manor of the Wuhan Merchant Association did look as though a lot of money had been poured into them. Of course, they still didn’t compare to the estate the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company would later possess, but still.
There were even two guard escorts posted in front of the main gate of the Wuhan Merchant Association.
I walked up to them first.
“Good day.”
“Do you have a prior appointment?”
“Pardon?”
The martial men seemed to prefer economical conversation.
Well, if that was what they wanted, I could match them. I pulled out the wooden token from inside my robes.
“I am the Company Lord of a merchant company called Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.”
“Radiant Crystal Merchant Company?”
The two martial men looked at each other. I had no doubt they would let me through.
Normally, any merchant association would want as many merchant companies under it as possible, no matter the scale. The number of merchant companies it held under itself was the measure of its power.
“Radiant Crystal Merchant Company, is it?”
“Yes. You probably haven’t heard of it. It’s newly…”
“No, I have heard of it.”
“Eh? Really?”
“Our Association Master gave orders that if you ever showed up, we were to beat you black and blue and throw you out.”
“Pardon?”
The martial men suddenly rolled up their sleeves and began walking toward me.
What kind of situation was this?