Chapter 35 Opening up the Transport Line

“Shouzhe, where on earth did you get 50,000 to 60,000 quintals of food from?” Gongsun Qiang took a deep breath and said in near disbelief.

The Gongsun Clan of Shanyang could be considered powerful, and had 10,000 to 20,000 acres of fertile land. Even so, the annual grain production of a season could not reach 50,000 to 60,000 quintals! Moreover, the noble clans had to give the tenant farmers a portion of the yield, as well as pay taxes per acre per year. In addition, there were grain preserved for seeding, pesticide powder, and other consumptions.

From this, it could be seen just how astronomical the 50,000 to 60,000 quintals of food was. Even under ordinary circumstances, it would be extremely difficult to get so much food at one go, let alone in the present world.

“I bought it from the Qian’s Trading Company through my friend,” said Wang Shouzhe. “Eldest Uncle, there’s no time to lose. We’ll head to the Fortune Gathering Villa first, and the carriage will follow soon after.” As the Gongsun Clan’s horse carriages were for transporting minerals, the cargo cabins were specially reinforced. The horses used to pull the carriages were also selected for sturdy physiques and strong endurance. They were heavy-duty horses from the Northland. Every carriage used four to five horses, and could easily pull tens of thousands of catties.

Purchased through a friend?

Gongsun Qiang’s eyelids twitched. ‘Where did this kind of friend come from? Why don’t you give me a dozen?’ Filled with envy, jealousy, and a little disbelief, he took the lead and followed Wang Shouzhe to the Fortune Gathering Villa.

The Fortune Gathering Villa was one of the Qian Clan’s assets, and it was specially used to stock up on various large goods. Many large goods were usually in quantities such as tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of quintals, and it was entirely unnecessary to transport them inside Changning Wei City.

As for being afraid of being attacked and robbed, that was a joke.

Never mind the fact that the armed forces in this Fortune Gathering Villa were extraordinary, no one would dare to have any nefarious thoughts when it was titled under the prestigious Qian Clan of Longzuo.

After requesting a meeting through the doorman of the Fortune Gathering Villa, not long after, Qian Xue’an came out with a dark face, looking as if he was not going to receive Wang Shouzhe with any courtesy. Subsequently, he made a handover on behalf of the Qian Clan. Both parties drafted a new contract. The Qian Clan “bought back” the insecticide powder contract from Wang Shouzhe. This price was very reasonable: 10,000 gold in cash and 60,000 quintals of aged grain from storage. After the original 5,000 bags of insecticide powder were repurchased, the Qian Clan could sell them for at least 15,000 to 20,000 gold. Naturally, they would not suffer a loss. The manager of the Changning Branch of Qian’s Trading Company did not even want to show his face for such a “disgraceful” matter, and entrusted everything to Qian Xue’an to handle. The manager who had never shown his face had clearly already planned to push all the blame for the mistake onto the steward, Qian Xue’an.

Hence, as Qian Xue’an helped Wang Shouzhe with the procedures, his face was already so “cloudy” that it looked like water could drip from it. He did not want to say a single word to Wang Shouzhe from the beginning to the end.

After everything was settled, he tossed Wang Shouzhe a huge stack of gold bills and a permission slip for 60,000 quintals of grain before storming off.

Wang Shouzhe was also stunned by Qian Xue’an’s realistic acting. He lamented in his heart that once Qian Xue’an successfully advanced to the Spirit Tower Realm, he would definitely become an outstanding figure in the future.

After completing the procedures, Wang Shouzhe found Gongsun Qiang, who was waiting outside. “Eldest Uncle, the formalities for accepting 60,000 quintals of aged grain have been completed. When your people arrive, let’s begin transporting the food.”

Gongsun Qiang’s body shook violently, dumbfounded. He had really “bought” 60,000 quintals of food. This nephew of his was too incredible.

Soon, the convoy of Gongsun Qiang’s 20 carriages drove over slowly, bringing along 80 physically fit mining workers. In the abundantly filled granaries, the aged grain was all stored in rice bags. A bag of rice was exactly 100 catties for one quintal. However, those mining workers easily carried three or four bags and began to load the car.

“Eldest Uncle, how much can one cart hold?” Wang Shouzhe had never seen so much food in his two lifetimes. Although he had already made an estimation in his heart, the volume and quantity were still far beyond his imagination.

“Load. Load as much as you can. Load them on a hundred quintals. Our carriages are specially reinforced. The heavy-duty horses from the Northland can handle it.” Gongsun Qiang’s eyes were already beginning to turn green. Naturally, he had never seen so much food piled together in his entire life, either.

As powerful as the Gongsun Clan of Shanyang was, stocking up 20,000 quintals of food year round was already enough, and sufficient for a year’s consumption by thousands of strong workers. The tenant farmers and mining workers of the Gongsun Clan of Shanyang, together with their clansmen and so on, only numbered in the thousands at most.

Hundreds of quintals? Those were tens of thousands of catties of food…

Wang Shouzhe was slightly taken aback and somewhat surprised. This was indeed a fantasy world. Not only were ordinary people much stronger, even the heavy-duty Northland horses were so powerful as well. Moreover, these were not spirit beast-level warhorses. Otherwise, they would be even more powerful.

Those mining workers were clearly also used to heavy work. Four of them were assigned to a carriage, but they loaded it up after only six or seven trips. The special mining carriages were overloaded with food.

But even so, that was only 2,000 quintals.

Following this pattern, wouldn’t they have to make 30 trips? Never mind, they could take their time. After all, he hadn’t expected to transport this batch of food in a short period of time.

Fortunately, at this moment, Qian Xue’an appeared again. He still had a cold expression on his face as he said, “Our Qian’s Trading Company emphasizes on reputation the most. We definitely won’t make things difficult for our customers. You can rent our heavy cargo carriages, including the coachmen, for 20 large coppers a day. The cost already includes the meals of the coachmen and the feed of the heavy-duty horses. You will be responsible for the loading and unloading yourself.”

Clearly, Qian Xue’an had taken the risk to come and assist.

However, Eldest Uncle Gongsun Qiang almost spat out a mouthful of blood. Although the price offered by the other party was reasonable, it also diminished his own hard work, right?

Initially, Gongsun Qiang had wanted to use this opportunity to shamelessly ask his eldest nephew to share some of the food with him.

“Thank you, Steward Qian,” Wang Shouzhe said with rejoice. “Let’s rent another 30 carriages then.”

The number of horse carriages owned by the Qian’s Trading Company far exceeded that of the Gongsun Clan. Moreover, their business was distributed throughout Longzuo. The cargo capacity of the horse carriages was naturally very high, not at all inferior to the Gongsun Clan’s horse carriages. After all 50 carriages were fully loaded, they were driven out of the Fortune Gathering Villa.

The Fortune Gathering Villa was less than ten miles away from Changning Crossing. Under normal circumstances, the horse carriages would arrive in less than two hours. However, there were many people of mixed affiliations at the Changning Crossing. For the time being, Wang Shouzhe did not want to make a big scene, so to avoid unnecessary trouble.

After the carriage passed the three-way intersection, it took the path to Shanyang. After another two or three miles, it took a turn in the direction of the An River and arrived at the entrance of a dense forest. From here, the carriage could no longer enter. However, after walking for about a hundred steps in the dense forest, there was a vertical cliff that was 50 to 60 feet tall. There was a natural bay of water about 200 to 300 feet wide at the base of the cliff.

At this moment, Sixth Uncle Wang Dinghai had long received the notice from the clan guards. He led the fishing fleet to wait here and set up a temporary trestle path at a slanted angle. Those boats included both fishing boats and ferries. In short, they had brought all the boats that could be spared in the clan.

Although this method of transportation was strenuous, it was very stealthy.

The journey from the carriages, to the forest, to the cliff and then the boats took about 250 steps. Wang Shouzhe got the mining workers and clan guards to stand in position. Each person took three steps to transport the food through relay.

After adapting for a while, everyone discovered the benefits of such a simple human transportation line. It was stable, orderly, and efficiency gradually increased. Eventually, the speed of loading the boats could actually reach one or two breaths per quintal, and it saved a lot of time and physical strength from having to run back and forth.

In just over two hours, they had miraculously finished loading and unloading all the food in the 50 carriages. Then, the convoy of carriages returned to the Fortune Gathering Villa to ferry the next batch. Meanwhile, Wang Shouzhe followed the fleet and crossed the An River, traveling all the way to the “Bountiful Gate”.

There were even more people at the Bountiful Farm. There were a total of 200 tenant farmers, and it was easy to take 150 strong laborers out of them. They used the same method to transport the grain through the Bountiful Gate and temporarily stored them in the Bountiful Farm.

There were not enough boats in the inland river, only five or six of them. The cargo had to be transported slowly on this last line. The transportation line was successfully opened with great difficulty. This allowed Wang Shouzhe to relax. At the same time, he also felt a strong dissatisfaction towards the transportation line of his own clan.

Firstly, it was over-reliant on public crossings and lacked small-scale, concealed docks that were privately established. Secondly, it was inconvenient to travel to the inland river of the An River. As the water levels on both sides were inconsistent, a single gate could not be opened for a long period of time, or it would cause inland flooding. Regarding this point, they had to think of a way to build a canal lock that could accommodate ships.

Moreover, the clan had obvious shortcomings when it came to transporting boats and horse carriages. Perhaps considering the Wang Clan’s current scale, this shortcoming was not obvious, but as the clan continued to grow, this shortcoming would severely impede the clan’s development.

It seemed that establishing a transportation channel that belonged to themselves was imminent.