Chapter 46: Tongluo Granary
As the Lu Clan’s key grain and fodder stronghold, the Tongluo Granary was garrisoned by two thousand retainers guarding it day and night, with unnecessary people not allowed to approach.
Thus, Lu Yun also did not dare approach the granary city and could only rent a small boat, quietly waiting on the Luo River. After waiting nearly an hour, he saw Manager Chai’s large ship slowly sailing out from the Tongluo Granary water gate. The ship’s hull was clearly much lower than before, evidently due to being loaded full of grain and fodder.
Watching the ship enter the Luo River from the canal and head toward Luoyang, Lu Yun rowed his boat, following far behind. With ships coming and going on the Luo River, there was no worry of attracting the other’s attention.
Once Manager Chai’s ship entered the city, it stopped at the easternmost Changtong Wharf on the south bank. On the dock, two carriages bearing the Lu Clan emblem were already waiting there. The Lu Clan’s house servants unloaded the grain from the ship, loaded the two carriages full of grain, and then headed to various Lu Clan congee kitchens in South of the Luo River to distribute it. Manager Chai, however, did not disembark but continued onward with the ship.
During the first stakeout, Lu Yun had thought Manager Chai would continue unloading cargo at another dock in the city, because from the change in the ship’s waterline, it was clear that at most a tenth of the grain in the cabin had been unloaded, with nine tenths still remaining.
But what he had not expected was that Manager Chai’s ship did not stop again at all, but passed straight through the city and stopped at a small wharf over ten li outside the city.
The small wharf was deserted with few people around, with only one cargo ship docked there and several men looking like merchants on board, waiting eagerly with a group of shop assistants.
As soon as Manager Chai’s ship arrived, the merchants hurriedly instructed to bring the ships alongside. The sailors used ropes to securely tie the two ships together, laid down planks, and began transferring the grain from Manager Chai’s ship to the cargo ship.
At this point, Lu Yun fully understood—nine tenths of the grain had been resold by this fellow!
Afraid of attracting attention, Lu Yun could not linger and had to continue onward. As he passed alongside the two ships, he kept his gaze straight ahead but gathered his true qi in his ears, hearing the conversations on the ship clearly.
“What’s there to count?” This was Manager Chai, with a Guangzhong accent. “Two hundred forty bags, one hundred twenty shi—it’s always like this every day.”
“It’s not that we don’t trust you, Manager,” a merchant said with a fawning smile. “Rice is more expensive than money now. We’re afraid of having a few extra bags and shorting you—that would be a sin!”
“Hahaha, well said!” Manager Chai laughed and said, “Grain prices in the east are jumping every day. We should raise the price again too!”
“No, please!” The merchants, seeing him raise the price on the spot, hurriedly complained incessantly. “We’re just running errands for you. After throwing in some expenses, we can’t even earn a hundred or ten cash per shi of rice…”
“Nonsense…” Manager Chai did not believe it at all.
Lu Yun could no longer hear the conversations further back.
.
After following Manager Chai for two days straight, Lu Yun had already figured out many things. For instance, he used the same ship to transport grain every day, and there were only six or seven people on board. Clearly, to avoid loose lips from too many people, Manager Chai only dared to bring his trusted men on the ship.
Moreover, among these six or seven people, five were needed to handle the ship, meaning that besides Manager Chai, only one or two could move freely on the ship… This gave Lu Yun a bold idea: tomorrow, he would sneak onto the ship!
Still, the same point: the risk was not to personal safety, but that once detected, the entire plan would likely fall apart!
To be cautious, Lu Yun sneaked into the Lu Clan Pier in North of the Luo River in the middle of the night, avoided the guards, and stealthily boarded the ship. There were sailors sleeping on the ship, but as long as Lu Yun wished, he would not make a single footstep sound, not even a breathing sound…
Lu Yun moved like a wandering spirit to the three sailors, struck their sleep acupoints, and their snoring sounds immediately rose and fell, clearly audible even from the dock.
“Damn, sleeping so soundly!” A Lu Clan house servant on duty at the dock listened with extreme annoyance.
Amid the thunderous snoring, Lu Yun circled the empty cabin and selected a spot. He bent down, pressed his hand on the floor, exerted a little force, and a wooden wedge in the floor was silently pulled out.
Once the eight-chi-long, one-chi-wide ship plank was lifted, the keel at the ship’s bottom was revealed. There was less than a chi-high gap between the keel and the ship plank, so even if water seeped into the bottom, it would not wet the grain above. Lu Yun did not mind the damp narrowness, hid his entire body inside, then covered it with the ship plank, sitting motionless like an old monk in meditation as time passed.
At dawn, Manager Chai and three subordinates arrived as scheduled and woke the three still soundly sleeping sailors. “Damn, can they really sleep?!”
The three sailors rubbed their bleary eyes and got up, all feeling they had slept the best sleep of their lives. After a moment, the ship slowly departed the dock. No one discovered that one plank on the ground was missing its wooden wedge, let alone Lu Yun hiding beneath it.
Under the ship plank, Lu Yun focused his hearing, taking in all the sounds on the ship.
He heard a subordinate in the cabin say to Manager Chai, “The Young Master urged again yesterday. Can we gather the money within a month?”
“I’m anxious too, but damn it, we’ve already sold nine tenths of the grain. We can’t have the congee kitchens boil plain water, can we?” Manager Chai said irritably. “Damn it, we still need those surnamed Hou and others to raise the price, or we’ll sell to someone else!”
“Sigh, no choice…” The subordinate muttered. “Such a huge hole for us to fill, and urging so urgently! Doesn’t the Young Master think that if something goes wrong, can he escape?”
“If something really goes wrong,” Manager Chai said with a desolate tone, “of course it’s us vermin making trouble, and it has nothing to do with the Young Master.”
“Ah!” The subordinate said in shock. “You’re willing to take this black pot?”
“What else?” Manager Chai said in a low voice. “This time buying land in the east led to a total loss. If we don’t fill the hole, when the accounts are checked mid-year, we won’t escape death either.” He paused, then gave a bitter smile. “The Young Master has made it clear: if something really happens, we have to take the black pot. If he gets implicated, our entire families, old and young, will die…”
“The problem is, can we bear it?” The subordinate said with indignation.
“Whether we can bear it or not, we have to,” Manager Chai saw it clearly and gave a bitter smile. “If it really blows up, can the Master watch his son take the fall? He’ll definitely make a big issue small, kill us, and call it even.”
“Sigh, we shouldn’t have listened to the Young Master’s nonsense and gotten involved!” The subordinate said with a crying tone. “Something about buying land to plant mulberry seedlings, reselling for ten times profit… Now it’s great, total loss and we have to risk our lives too!”
“Enough, don’t be so spineless!” Though Manager Chai said this, his tone grew even more dejected. “Who could predict the newly built river embankment would collapse the next year? It’s all fate…” Realizing he needed to boost the morale of his subordinate, he hurriedly perked up. “Besides, it’s not very likely something will happen! With the Young Master watching over there, as soon as the people sent from above cross the river, we immediately add rice to the pot—what can they see?”
“True,” the subordinate perked up a bit. “The sold grain is all counted as going into the disaster victims’ stomachs. As long as we’re not caught in the act, no one can find the problem!”
The two did not want to continue this heavy topic and turned the conversation to romantic matters. The subordinate mentioned a new brothel by the Luo River that was not bad and suggested going that night to drown in wine and women.
Manager Chai initially refused, feeling that the Young Master’s orders were to not go out recently. But the subordinate said not knowing when they might be beheaded, better to seize the day. Manager Chai thought for a moment and agreed.
While talking, the ship reached the Tongluo Granary, so they stopped and went out of the granary to deal with the guards.
Next came entering the city to load the ship. For two months, this had repeated once every day, and everyone was familiar with it, with no unnecessary words.
As usual, the large ship loaded full of grain sailed away from the Tongluo Granary, unloaded two cartloads of rice at Changtong Wharf, then passed through the city and headed to the small wharf outside.
On the dock was still yesterday’s cargo ship and yesterday’s merchants—everything was exactly the same as yesterday. When transferring the grain, Manager Chai brought up raising the price again, this time with an extremely firm attitude, finally forcing the other side to give two hundred fifty cash per shi of rice. The other side was extremely pained, but Manager Chai was not satisfied at all. However, he knew such things could not be rushed and still needed to grind it out slowly with them…
On the return ship to the city, Manager Chai had the subordinate bring over the low table, then kneeling sat in the cabin full of rice grains, took out an account book and a brush.
