Chapter 93: Scorpion Poop
After the meeting ended.
Lin Qian walked out of the Officer’s Restaurant and glanced at the sky. He saw that it was already late, with a crescent moon hanging obliquely on the horizon, yet Nan’ao City was still a scene of bustling activity.
Nan’ao City has no curfew and no taxes. Islanders earn quite a bit of silver through labor.
Moreover, due to insufficient productivity, prices on the island are much higher than on the shore.
This causes Chaozhou merchants to flock to Nan’ao like seagulls spotting bloody fish meat.
Just a while ago, the merchants would arrive by boat after dawn and return by boat before dark.
Gradually, some merchants realized that at night fellow merchants all returned to the shore, but islanders still went out for strolls. During this time without competition, they could make a big profit.
Thus, more and more merchants began returning to the shore every two days, or even every three or four days.
This model of overnight operations gave Nan’ao City’s night market its initial form.
Ever since coming to Nan’ao Island, Lin Qian had been swamped day and night and had never had time to properly take a look around.
Just right, he needed to buy some materials to break open the water gate and also needed some labor. He might as well take this opportunity to stroll around.
Lin Qian led Bai Langzai off the boat and walked to the street.
He saw that the shops on both sides of the main road were still somewhat sparse, but the vendors setting up stalls along the street were crowded together.
At hotspots like crossroads, vendors were even more crowded, and road occupation for business was extremely common.
As early as the design of Nan’ao City, Lin Qian had made the roads extremely wide, even reserving space for sidewalk trees and street lamps.
Plus, there were no carriages or horses on the island now and everyone was on foot, so these vendors occupying the road did not hinder traffic.
Moreover, the island now only had a militia guard team of just over two hundred people, mainly responsible for surveillance of pirate captives at work.
There were no police or urban management offices, so even if these vendors blocked the road, no one would care.
This state of order and chaos coexisting really had a bit of the atmosphere of a pirate republic.
However, the chaos on Nan’ao Island was only temporary. Once Lin Qian finished the Huangyan Lin Clan matters and had sufficient silver, he would address the order issues on the island.
Lin Qian and his companion walked south along the main road. Along the way, they saw the most fish stalls, as well as other staples and side dishes, drinks and desserts, fruits and dried fruits, cloth and clothing, household sundries—everything one could imagine.
One could see the prosperity of the Great Ming commodity economy.
What shocked Lin Qian the most was that there was actually a book stall on the island.
Selling books on this island with per capita illiteracy was really one of a kind, like scorpion poop.
Lin Qian became interested and stepped forward to browse those books.
Seeing business arrive, the stall owner immediately pulled out a fire starter, lit it, and eagerly lit the lantern nearby.
By the lantern light, Lin Qian flipped through those books with keen interest.
He saw that most were romance novels, such as 《The Golden Lotus》, 《The Oil Peddler Wins the Courtesan》, 《Zhao Wuniang Sacrifices Herself to Save Her Husband》, 《The Liu Mansion Carriage Incident》, and so on.
Flipping through casually, he saw the books were woodblock printed, exquisitely so, even with illustrations—and quite a few of them.
Now Lin Qian understood why there was a book stall on the island.
The stall owner showed a knowing smile all men understand: “If the customer is not satisfied, I have some with even more pictures.”
Lin Qian put down the book: “Do you have charcoal pencils?”
The stall owner was stunned and pulled out a cloth pouch: “Yes, top-quality graphite.”
In the Great Ming, charcoal pencils were mainly used by carpenters for marking work.
This stall owner had heard from others that Nan’ao Island was undergoing major construction and figured there would be great demand for pencils, so he brought over thirty of them. Unexpectedly, the picture books sold far better than the pencils.
A charcoal pencil was a graphite stick wrapped in coarse cloth, its form not much different from later pencils.
Lin Qian took the pencil, held it to the lamplight to inspect, confirmed it was pure graphite, put it down, and said: “I’ll take all the pencils.”
Bai Langzai took out silver to pay. The stall owner happily accepted, thinking that doing business at night was indeed the right choice—if he had gone back early, he would have missed this big order for nothing.
Lin Qian said to the stall owner again: “How many of these graphite pencils do you have?”
The stall owner was stunned: “How many does the customer want?”
“Bring twenty catties first; find more if not enough,” Lin Qian said calmly.
Now it was the stall owner’s turn to be shocked.
To forestall any doubt, Lin Qian had Bai Langzai pay half the deposit upfront.
The stall owner patted his chest in guarantee: tomorrow, even if every girl in Chaozhou had no eyebrow pencils, he would procure the graphite pencils Lin Qian wanted.
Seeing this man was somewhat shrewd, Lin Qian took the chance to probe: “You’re not afraid of the county finding out about coming to the island to do business?”
The stall owner looked puzzled: “The county has always known. We keep the yamen runners in constant respects, so no one investigates.”
“Doesn’t the county magistrate care?”
A puzzled expression appeared on the stall owner’s face: “Which county’s county magistrate do you mean? The three coastal counties of Chaozhou Prefecture haven’t had county magistrates for over ten years.”
Lin Qian was quite surprised and pressed for details.
The stall owner shook his head: “I don’t know about the other two counties, but Chenghai County’s last county magistrate stepped down in Wanli 35…
Maybe Wanli 36? Can’t remember.
Anyway, there hasn’t been a county magistrate since then.
It’s not just our Chaozhou Prefecture—even neighboring Zhangzhou Prefecture is the same, I hear.
Luckily the seas have been peaceful these past few years. Without a county magistrate, it’s no big deal; life goes on as usual.
Lin Qian chatted more with the stall owner and gradually pieced it together.
It turned out to be the Wanli Emperor’s neglect of duties: he shelved every memorial, leaving local vacancies unfilled.
Fortunately, there was no power vacuum. Local clerks and clan notables gradually divided up the county magistrate’s authority, sustaining things through institutional momentum.
In this semi-anarchic state, ordinary folk coming to the island for business naturally faced no restrictions.
Just as he was about to leave, Lin Qian noticed a sheet of paper by the stall owner’s hand, covered in densely stencil-printed text.
Looking closely, the top left of the paper said Official Gazette.
Lin Qian took an interest and picked it up. This Official Gazette was issued about half a month earlier, with content like the new emperor’s accession amnesty edict.
Before he could read it closely, the stall owner saw his interest and said: “There’s only one Official Gazette. If the customer wants it, it’s yours.”
Lin Qian asked curiously: “Where did this Official Gazette come from?”
The stall owner said: “Bought from big shops, naturally.”
After the stall owner’s explanation, Lin Qian understood: Ming Official Gazettes were printed by the Grand Secretariat and issued to the provinces—usually printed locally for officials.
But southeast commoners were passionate about current events and highly literate, so provinces would woodblock-print Official Gazettes for distribution to bookstores, which then printed and sold them to the public.
They were really no different from later newspapers—one could see the flourishing of late Ming Jiangnan culture.
Lin Qian had Bai Langzai give him a tael of silver.
The stall owner waved it off: “The Official Gazette is a gift for the customer; I can’t take that.”
Lin Qian said: “Send every issue of the Official Gazette to the island from now on. This is for your trouble delivering them.”
Hearing this, the stall owner accepted the silver and promised repeatedly.
After Lin Qian left, he carefully folded the Official Gazette and tucked it inside his clothes.
He then headed to Qingmei Workshop and bought a catty of red lead—this thing was commonly called “red lead” in the Great Ming, a standard medicine for treating boils.
On the way, he passed a cloth stall and bought a bolt of cotton cloth.
Lin Qian had Bai Langzai carry them and headed toward the captive camp.
The further south in Nan’ao City, the more desolate it became. After walking several li outside the city, one reached a scene of dense woods and rugged terrain.
Over ten simple shacks stood at the edge of the woods, with messy straw bedding inside.
Sea bandit captives were grouped in tens, feet chained together in strings of shackles, lying in the shacks.
These people had only just finished a day’s hard labor and were preparing to rest.
Around the straw shacks was a separate shed where dozens of militiamen sat with long spears, keeping watch.
Lin Qian found the militia team leader, took out the prepared items, and said: “Get the captives up. Time to work.”
