Chapter 46: Selling Glass
The next morning, Feng Shaoping got up from bed, his emotions much calmer. He remembered his drunken antics last night and couldn’t help but feel ashamed.
Fortunately, by the time breakfast came, he had finally managed to act normal again. After drinking the last mouthful of white congee in his bowl and eating a piece of pickled radish, he finally stated the purpose of his trip. “I heard from Zhang Wei and the others that your kiln has fired something good again. Can you show it to me?”
Zhao An also put down his rice bowl. He pondered for a moment, thought of the friendship between Feng Shaoping and Hu Sheng, and nodded in agreement. “Those glassware pieces are in the study upstairs. If you want to see them, come upstairs with me. But I don’t plan to sell these things for now. Just don’t tell anyone else after you’ve seen them.”
Zhao An stood up to go upstairs, but Feng Shaoping remained seated at the table. “Are you really not planning to sell this glassware? I came here to talk business with you. Give me this glassware and a few more jars of wine. I can use the channels Ruyi House used to sell wine before to sell these things in the capital. There will surely be many people who, while reciting ‘Grape wine of beauty in a luminous cup,’ will flock to the wine served in glassware.”
Zhao An sat back down at the table and looked at Feng Shaoping. “But you should know the emperor’s attitude towards me. The last time I grew strawberries, I didn’t think to offer them as a tribute to the Imperial Household Department, and I was accused of having something good but not thinking of the Noble Consort. This time, if they find out I’ve come up with something good again, I’m afraid it won’t just be a verbal reprimand. To be honest, before I returned to Zhaojia Village, I had suffered a lot of physical pain.”
Thinking of the strawberry incident, Zhao An still couldn’t help but grit his teeth in his heart. He had let the people of Zhaojia Village grow strawberries to sell in the prefectural city for money. According to his estimation, the price of strawberries had already been hyped up by Ruyi House at that time, and a strawberry seedling sold in the prefectural city would definitely not be less than one liang of silver.
But when the Imperial Household Department came to procure them, the price they offered was far below Zhao An’s expectations. And because they were in such a hurry, they had to rush to fire the clay pots, which cost another sum of money. There were also the inevitable expenses of dealing with the government. He felt that this deal alone had cost the entire Zhaojia Village over a thousand liang of silver. Even though this amount was only a few liang per villager, it still felt very unpleasant every time he thought about it.
Zhao An also treated Feng Shaoping as a true friend, which was why he had shown such real emotions in front of him. He sighed and spread his hands. “I also know that good things can only be sold at a good price in the capital. But I must find a channel that can hide my existence. I won’t hide it from you. Hu Sheng has already occupied a piece of territory in the Nanyue Kingdom. I plan to transport these things there for a transfer, as foreign goods, and then transport them by sea to the ports of Fuzhou or Jiangsu and Zhejiang to sell to those tea or salt merchants.”
The glassware made by the earthen method was inherently more fragile than the glass made with modern technology. If it were to be transported abroad and then back, the transportation costs would be greatly increased. In addition to the price of purchasing and transporting raw materials, the cost of each piece of glassware was at least thirty liang of silver. If he couldn’t sell it for several times the price, he felt it would be less profitable than selling wine.
It was also because of the cost that Zhao An’s working capital was running out. After firing one more furnace of glass water and using up the remaining raw materials, he would have to stop work.
So he was actually very interested in Feng Shaoping’s proposal. As long as the other party could help him hide his identity, this deal could continue.
However, after a moment of thought, Feng Shaoping shook his head. “The connections I can find are just my father’s classmates from the Imperial Academy, Marquis Yongding, He Boxing, and the seventh young master of the Wang family of Jiangzhou, whom I met when I was roaming the martial world. I can ask them to help sell the goods, and I can also temporarily hide your identity. But the profits from both the wine and the glassware are enough to stir people’s hearts. As long as someone wants to investigate, it will be very easy to trace it back to you.”
Zhao An nodded. He didn’t take the disappointment to heart. Anyway, he already had a plan, and he would just proceed according to the original plan.
But Feng Shaoping said, “The method you mentioned before, of transferring through the sea, is very good. So I’ve decided to make a trip for you, and at the same time, go and see what kind of territory Brother Hu has occupied in the Nanyue Kingdom.”
“Ah~” Zhao An was only surprised for a moment, then he asked, “Can you get away?”
Although the road construction project had ended, and Feng Shaoping had seemed very idle these past few days, with the end of the year approaching, the county yamen must have a lot of things to be busy with.
But unexpectedly, Feng Shaoping rubbed his chin and said, “Didn’t I tell you? Someone has taken a fancy to my good looks, but I’d rather die than submit, so I’ve chosen to run away from the marriage.”
However, the reality was far from as easy as Feng Shaoping had told Zhao An. This marriage was a complete humiliation for Feng Shaoping.
But according to County Magistrate Feng, the woman’s family was the daughter of the great merchant Shen family of the prefectural city, and it was more than enough for his illegitimate son.
What truly made Feng Shaoping’s heart grow cold was the contemptuous expression on County Magistrate Feng’s face when he said this. No matter how much he had done for him, in his father’s eyes, he was ultimately an illegitimate son who could not be presented in public. He couldn’t guard the ancestral hall at home like his eldest brother, or go to the capital to study for the imperial examinations like his second and third brothers. He could only help the family with some business matters and marry a rich wife to add support to the family.
Even someone like County Magistrate Feng, who had come from a tribute student background, looked down on merchants. But in order to obtain financial support, he was willing to let his son marry a merchant’s daughter.
This made Feng Shaoping realize that it was also very necessary to make more money. If he became like those great salt merchants and tea merchants, perhaps he could directly donate for a fourth-rank official position. Although it was without a real post, a seventh-rank county magistrate like County Magistrate Feng would still have to bow to him as a subordinate.
Zhao An didn’t know that Feng Shaoping’s heart was full of ambition to get ahead, but he still agreed to let Feng Shaoping take his newly fired glassware and wine to the Nanyue Kingdom to find Hu Sheng.
At the very least, he had to get the funds flowing so that he would have more money to improve the glass-firing technology. And there was the matter of firing cement to build houses for the people on the mountain, which he had said before, but it still hadn’t been settled.
After settling all the matters, Zhao An took Feng Shaoping upstairs to his study to see the glassware placed in the cabinet.
Among them was a pair of large, double-eared square vases, shaped like ancient bronze vessels, but with a beautiful lake-blue color. Feng Shaoping couldn’t see the bubbles and impurities that were very obvious to Zhao An. He only saw the transparent glass sparkling with a dazzling light in the sunlight.
Besides this pair of one-chi-three-cun tall vases, the rest were some small objects, such as a set of study utensils including a water dropper, a water container, and a brush rest, all small and exquisite, very lovely. More of them were small bottles that could be played with in the hand or used to hold water. And at the very bottom of the box was a layer of round glass beads.
Because some lead had been added during the glass-firing process, Zhao An was worried that it would be harmful to the human body, so he didn’t have anyone make tableware.
This also suited Feng Shaoping’s taste, or rather, the taste of the people of this era, because the price of tableware could never compare to that of playthings. This could be clearly seen from porcelain. An ordinary white porcelain Guanyin ornament would be several times more expensive than a full set of white porcelain tableware.
Feng Shaoping was mesmerized by the glassware and looked at it for a long time before closing the cabinet. After he sent his daughter back, he returned to Zhaojia Village that afternoon, had Zhang Wei go up the mountain to contact a group of people for him, and used straw to pack the porcelain in baskets, wrapping them tightly. He then used the same method to pack the stone jars of wine and set off with more than twenty mules.
The villagers saw the straw baskets carried by the mules coming out of the Zhao family and guessed what good things Zhao An’s family had sold again, but no one felt jealous, because they had long since determined that Zhao An was a capable person, not on the same level as them.
And what they were more concerned about was what each family had prepared for the Laba Festival yesterday. They discussed it tirelessly, with some small boasts and some small joys.
Until the tenth day of the twelfth lunar month, this trend still had not ended. However, another storm broke out on this day.
A dozen or so military men on tall horses came from outside the village and asked for Scholar Zhao’s house.
After hearing this news, Scholar Zhao’s legs trembled with fear. He carefully recalled his recent actions. The last time he had gathered with the scholars in the city, he shouldn’t have written any rebellious poems, and he hadn’t violated any taboos in the recent annual examination.
He really couldn’t figure out what he had done to have these military men come to his house. He could only brace himself and go out, bowing and scraping. “This humble student, Zhao Wenju, greets you, military sirs. May I ask what brings you to my humble abode?”
He usually lived in the countryside and couldn’t help but curse a few times when he spoke, but under the tension, his speech became very literary.
The leader, wearing light armor, was a fifth-rank general. He naturally wouldn’t be polite to this pedantic scholar in front of him. He raised the horsewhip in his hand and pointed at Scholar Zhao. “Are you the clan head of the Zhao family? Zhao Tongming plotted against Her Majesty the Empress and His Highness the Crown Prince. His entire family has been beheaded.”
He put away his horsewhip and cupped his hands to the sky. “His Majesty is magnanimous and will not hold it against you clansmen. But Zhao Tongming’s land and property are all to be confiscated. Take out all the land deeds you have.”
Scholar Zhao’s mind was full of “empress,” “crown prince,” and “entire family beheaded.” He couldn’t think of anything else. Like a puppet on a string, he handed over all the land deeds as the general had instructed. It wasn’t until all the mounted soldiers had left that he came to his senses.
He felt that he had to discuss this matter with someone, and the first person he thought of was Zhao An.
He rode his own little donkey at the fastest speed to the classroom where Zhao An was teaching. Because before the classroom was built, Scholar Zhao had felt that the things Zhao An taught were very unrefined, so after the classroom was built, he had never come here.
Today, not only did he come, but he rushed directly into the classroom, pulled Zhao An outside, and said, “Zhao Tongming has caused trouble! He assassinated the empress and the crown prince and was beheaded. What should we do?”
