The Kingdom That Never Sleeps CH 017 The First To Eat Crabs
The end of the first lunar month, cold snap during the spring.
There was rarely such severe cold weather in the south. The cold wind blew cruelly on the face, like cutting the skin with a knife. The air was so cold that everything looked deathly pale. The sky became overcast, and soon snowflakes began to fall. The snow was not heavy, and it quickly melted when it fell on the ground. Disappearing with each step from pedestrians.
It happened to begin snowing as soon as Tang Shen and Yao San went out. Aunt Yao handed umbrellas to the two of them.
Yao San: "Little boss, I heard that there are many refugees in the west of the city, and they are all surrounding the city gate so how about we go through the north gate."
Tang Shen said: "Okay, my teacher just happened to be coming back from the north."
Yes, Tang Shen was going out of the city to pick up Liang Song today.
Since leaving Gusu City in the twelfth lunar month, Liang Bowen had not been back for a whole month. He even spent the New Year outside. Yesterday, the steward of the Liang Manor came to Tang Shen and said that Liang daru would be back today. Tang Shen hadn't seen his teacher for many days. It happened that the weather was too cold so Ziyang Academy canceled classes, allowing him to come to pick up his teacher.
Tang Shen wore two thick cotton coats and waited in the cold wind with an umbrella, but he was still freezing.
After waiting for an hour, he saw Liang Song's carriage in the distance. Tang Shen and Yao San walked over. Liang Song raised the curtain and asked in surprise: "Why are you here?"
Tang Shen: "To pick up sir. Teacher hasn't been back for a month, so of course this student has to come to greet you."
Liang Song: "Come in first."
Tang Shen bent at the waist as got into the carriage. Inside the carriage it was much warmer, and Liang Song put the small hand held heater he had been holding into Tang Shen's hands. Tang Shen held the heater for a long time and finally warmed his hands. "Why has sir been away for so long and only returned to Gusu City after a month?"
Liang Song: "Deal with some personal things. Why didn't you go to the academy to study today?"
"The weather is too bad so the academy canceled classes."
Liang Song was silent then said, "I came back for this reason." As he said that, he lifted the curtain of the carriage and said, "Go to the west gate to have a look."
They did not enter the city, but made a detour to the west gate.
Before he even saw the city gate, Tang Shen saw many refugees walking along the road. They took the official road, which was muddy because of the snow. Normally no one would be walking around in such bad weather, but there were too many refugees. They were dressed in rags, covered in purple-red frostbites, walking along the official road towards the west gate of Gusu City.
Tang Shen lifted the curtains to take a look, then couldn't bear to see any longer.
Liang Song had been looking at these refugees quietly. He said: "I heard that these people came from Chuzhou and Wuzhou. The snow has fallen too heavy this year, and the four southern provinces are in dire straits. The imperial court has also allocated money to provide disaster relief, but it has little effect.”
It didn’t take long before they saw several soup kitchens.
Liang Song was not in Gusu City, but it was not that there was no one to manage the affairs of Gusu City. Three days ago, the officials set up a soup kitchen outside the city to provide relief to the victims every day. In addition, wealthy merchants in the city also donated generously and opened some private soup kitchens. Madam Tang was one of them.
However, these were far from enough.
The weather was freezing and these refugees were barely clothed. The food stock in the soup kitchen was getting less and less, but more and more refugees were coming to Gusu from all directions.
Tang Shen asked, "What do you want to do, sir?"
Liang Song: "What to do? Although Gusu City is rich, it can't help so many refugees. The weather won't be cold for long. Spring will start in a month, and everything should be much better as long as they survive this month. It is said that auspicious snow heralds a good harvest, but it is a pity that the snow is so heavy that the soil has become frozen. I don’t know if these refugees will have a good harvest in the coming year after they return home, otherwise the court will have another bad debt.”
Tang Shen: "Can they survive a month? Sir, I'm just afraid they will freeze to death outside the city before then."
How could Liang Song not know that it was already a blessing if even half of these refugees survived? Not starving to death, but literally freezing to death instead. Even if the officials set up tents and provided them with a place to stay warm, there were too many refugees, and there was a limit to what Gusu City could do. And even if they survive, they may have to experience a famine when they return to their hometown next year.
Liang Song let out a long sigh.
"Natural disasters are more cruel than man-made disasters. Let's get out of the carriage and take a look."
The two got out of the carriage together.
The number of refugees was far greater than Tang Shen thought. They huddled under the city wall, trying hard to cover their bodies with anything they could find. Not for shame, but for survival. Covering themselves with grass roots, tree bark, and even soil as much as possible.
There was no need to worry about a plague when the weather was cold, as it was difficult to spread. But for such cold weather, there was nothing anyone could do about it.
People who came to the soup kitchen to receive porridge one day may not be seen again the next day. After all, it was only treating the symptoms but not the root cause.
Tang Shen followed Liang Song, and witnessing this shocking scene, his heart was severely shaken.
Born in modern society, although his family was not wealthy, he was still considered well-off and had never suffered from hunger or cold since he was a child. He had never seen so many wailing people, nor so many emaciated people. Even if he traveled through time, he arrived directly to the prosperous Gusu Prefecture. He had never seen such a hellish scene.
Gusu Prefecture was rich, but Gusu Prefecture could not support thousands of refugees. No matter how kind-hearted the merchants were, there were still only a limited number of refugees they could help.
Liang Song: "Let's go!" After a while, he found that his student didn't move. "Tang Shen?"
The handsome boy turned around with a thoughtful expression on his face. After a while, Tang Shen said: "Sir, I have an idea, I don't know if it will work or not. But this method may be able to save a lot of refugees, and I need your help, sir."
Liang Song: "Tell me about it."
Tang Shen said seriously: "I want to hire them!"
In the Zhenbao Pavilion of the Tang family, scented soaps and essential oils were sold very well. Even if they hadn't started selling regular soap yet, Tang Shen still had a huge amount of dividends in his hands. He had been inspecting some of the most prosperous commercial streets in Gusu City for several days before, but he still couldn't find anything suitable to sell.
In the current era, the most profitable businesses were salt and wine, but these two items were firmly controlled by the imperial court. So what else could he do?
Tang Shen: "Logistics!"
Yao San was stunned and didn't understand: "Little boss, I have never heard of what logistics is."
Tang Shen: "Brother Yao, let me ask you, which is the best restaurant in Gusu City?"
"Of course it's Qianqiu Restaurant on Suijin Street."
"Yes, Qianqiu Restaurant is the best restaurant in Gusu City. You should have also heard that Qianqiu Restaurant can provide home cooking. Sun Yue's family, a classmate of mine, invited Qianqiu Restaurant to make their New Year's Eve banquet last month. The chef came over specially and cooked a banquet of delicious dishes."
Yao San: "There is actually such a thing."
Tang Shen: "Of course. People in Gusu City are very rich. Why do you think Gusu City is richer than Jinling? The richest man in Jiangnan is from Jinling, but Gusu City is richer than Jinling because everyone in Gusu City is better off! It’s never one person or a few people who are rich in Gusu City. Yes, there may not be as many wealthy merchants in Gusu City as there are in Jinling, and they are not as rich as Jinling merchants, but the people in Gusu City are all happy and well-off with more than enough to spend every year. So for them..."
Yao San: "What?"
Tang Shen smiled slightly: "For them, it's really too expensive to invite the chef from Qianqiu Restaurant to cook at home. They can't afford it. But they can ask people to run errands for them and send and receive express delivery. Towards this bit of money, all the people of Gusu City can afford it!”
That's right, Tang Shen wanted to be the first person to eat crabs in Gusu City. (TN: expression meaning to try something others have never done before, usually with a profitable result)
From the beginning, he had been caught in a vicious cycle: Gusu City had no shortage of anything! Merchants from all over the world gathered here through the Grand Canal. Jewelry, brocade and silk, treasures and delicacies... every industry that could be imagined could be found in Gusu City. Since it was difficult to have a slice of the pie in these industries, why not just serve these industries directly?
Tang Shen: "Brother Yao, go to the western part of the city and buy a courtyard. It doesn't have to be very nice, but it should be big enough to house at least a hundred people. Then go outside the city and pick out fifty refugees first. You be the judge and choose those who look honest, both men and women."
Yao San had unconditional trust in Tang Shen: "Okay!"
Tang Shen quickly went to Liang Manor again.
He had already told Liang Song about his idea of doing logistics. Liang Song thought about it for a long time, and when Tang Shen came over again, he asked straight to the point: "Do you know that you may not get any benefit at all from doing this, with such a large upfront investment, it’s very likely that you’ll lose everything!”
Tang Shen smiled and said: "Sir, it's not like you don't know that the most popular scented soaps and Golden Wisp in Gusu City are sold by the Tang family. Even if I suffer a loss now, I won't starve to death on the streets." What was more, the regular soap had not yet been released on the market.
Liang Song: "Fine, if you want to do it, then do it. It is better to teach people to fish than to directly give them fish. It will be difficult for those refugees to survive after they go back. It will be a good thing if they can use this new job to settle down in Gusu City. Whatever you need, just let the steward know.”
"No need to go to so much trouble. I just need ten smart bailiffs and a word from sir."
"Oh, what word?"
"If a refugee commits any crime in Gusu City, no matter how big or small the case is, they will be expelled from the city and no soup kitchen will be allowed to provide them with food!"
Yao San settled the refugees in a large courtyard that had been empty for a long time. Most of these refugees were strong men, only their physique was a little weak at the moment. Yao San didn't know Tang Shen's intention, but he thought that since his boss wanted to hire people, the stronger the better, so he specially selected those who looked stronger.
Tang Shen came to the yard to see these fifty people, and then gave them food, hot water and clothes.
These refugees were immediately dumbfounded and called Tang Shen the reincarnation of the living Bodhisattva. They devoured the food, took hot baths, put on new clothes, and finally looked like decent individuals. Tang Shen did not have them work directly, but asked Yao San to familiarize them with the streets of Gusu City.
Three days later, these refugees were already familiar with the streets of Gusu City.
Tang Shen asked Yao San to post notices on several streets with the most people in Gusu City, and asked Accountant Lin to post notices in several neighborhoods where civilians lived in the city. After a while, many people gathered to look at what was on the notice, and the literate people read out the words written on it.
"Tang's Logistics… eh, what is logistics?"
After the man finished reading the words above, someone asked: "Brother, what does this mean?"
"It says that from the 28th of the first lunar month, which is tomorrow, Tang's Logistics will deliver goods for free for one day. All the people wearing red linen jackets on the street are employees of Tang's Logistics. Just call them and they will come over. You can ask them to help deliver things, help buy things, or ask them to carry letters. As long as it is in Gusu City, they can deliver anywhere."
"There is such a thing?"
"That's right, what a strange thing."
In the courtyard of the Tang family, Accountant Lin calculated the recent accounts and said with a frown: "Little boss, we have spent a lot of money to feed and clothe those fifty refugees. Your logistics are actually free of charge. Will we be able to recover the cost?”
Yao San: "I believe in the little boss."
Tang Shen said, "I don't even believe in myself this time."
"Ah? Could it be that no one will use our employees tomorrow?"
Tang Shen: "You said tomorrow?"
Yao San: "Yes, tomorrow."
"Definitely no customers tomorrow."
"..."
Yao San panicked: "Little boss, this..."
Tang Shen narrowed his eyes and said with a smile: "There will definitely be no customers tomorrow, but whether there will be customers in the future depends on how rich the people in Gusu are and how stable their lives are. How can you do business without taking risks? There is no guaranteed profit, but several certain seniors of the industry, Mr. Shun, Mr. Yuan, and Mr. Shen told me that this business... is feasible!”
AN: Little Tang Lang: Today I am going to start eating crabs!