Peach Garden Town had Lin Xuejin as its tall pillar of support, and now they even dared to open a bank in Qingjiang Prefecture.
To ensure the smooth implementation of the financial plan, to conduct banking operations properly, and to bring convenience to merchants across the land, Zhao Baihui spent money commissioning the system to produce the fifth denomination in the currency series.
A banknote jet-black from edge to edge, translucent when held to light, like the night sky itself.
Face value: 10,000 yuan!
Yes, four zeros. Ten thousand yuan.
Designed specifically for large transactions.
The currency was exceptionally durable — fireproof material, impossible to tear by hand; you needed a knife or scissors if you wanted to destroy it.
This single ten-thousand-yuan note, at the current exchange rate, was worth a hundred taels of silver. Even the production cost charged by the system alone came to ten yuan per note.
Unfortunately, the branch office in the prefecture city received a cold reception — people simply couldn't bring themselves to accept this new currency.
But that was all right. It was only temporary. Zhao Baihui wasn't in any hurry, and Jinxiu had come here only to lay the framework of the bank. Once the prefecture city branch was established, the plan was to set up sub-branches in every county seat within the prefecture, then expand further into every township and market town.
Sooner or later, it would be accepted.
Just look at Peach Garden Town now — wasn't everyone using the new currency? You could hardly find a silver tael or copper coin in sight.
Except among newcomers from out of town.
But even they, once they arrived, wouldn't take long to grow accustomed to the new currency.
Environment shapes people in ways that cannot be overstated.
…
"Are you gentlemen looking at rooms?" The young salesperson could tell at a glance that the people before him had come from elsewhere.
"That's right. The old woman at the town entrance said to come here if we wanted to rent."
"Do you have identity cards?"
"We haven't gotten around to that yet. We thought we'd find a place to stay first."
"How long are you planning to stay?"
"A while, most likely. Somewhere between three and five months, at a rough guess."
"Understood. How large a place are you looking for? We have everything from small single rooms for one person to standard two-, three-, and four-bedroom units. We also have detached courtyard houses and small townhouses if you'd prefer something more private."
"What are the townhouses going for?"
The salesperson's heart leapt — these were serious customers.
"The townhouses are mostly along either side of the commercial street, so they run a little higher. Somewhere between fifty and a hundred yuan a month, sleeping six to ten people."
Naturally, the closer to the street, the steeper the rent.
"Take us to see some."
The salesperson walked them through several townhouses. They settled on one almost immediately, signed the contract on the spot — two months' deposit, one month's rent in advance — and with that single transaction the salesperson earned more than several days' wages in one go.
In Peach Garden Town, all houses and shops were available only for rent, never for sale, so the sales office always had steady business.
…
On the main street, a shop hung a sign bearing three characters: Mahjong Hall.
The place was packed. More than twenty tables filled the hall, nearly every seat taken, each player with a small pile of chips at hand.
The chips came in three denominations: yuan, jiao, and fen.
The highest was one yuan; the lowest, one fen.
Actual money was not permitted at the tables, because Peach Garden Town had banned gambling and vice.
Beyond that, the rules required mahjong halls to cap stakes at one yuan.
The aim was to protect compulsive gamblers from losing everything and throwing themselves into the river. Some things cannot be stamped out entirely no matter how many prohibitions you impose; the best you can do is limit the damage.
Those of modest means, or those who had simply wandered in for a bit of amusement, could sit at a one-fen table, where a whole day's losses or winnings would barely reach a yuan at the very most.
Players exchanged their money for chips at the door and cashed the chips back in when they were done.
The house took no cut from the pots. Instead, every player paid a seat fee — nothing extravagant, just one jiao for an entire morning or afternoon session.
Tea and light snacks were also on offer, priced just a hair above market rate, nothing unreasonable.
Private rooms were available toward the back, at a slightly higher charge.
The hall was divided by folding screens into two sections: one for women only, one mixed. There was no men-only section — men weren't so particular. If you wanted to play, you went to the mixed section; you got your mahjong and a view of the ladies besides. What was there to complain about? If you truly had some peculiarity about you, there were always the private rooms.
From the moment the mahjong halls opened, they caught on like wildfire. In no time at all, new branches were opening one after another all over town.
Each hall needed only two or three staff and a cashier to manage the money. Daily revenue ran to several dozen yuan — the equivalent of several dozen workers' wages rolled into one.
Rent a shop, set yourself up as proprietor, pull in eight hundred to a thousand yuan a month, and play mahjong for free into the bargain. What was not to like?
Well — you couldn't, actually. The mahjong halls were an exclusive operation run by the town, sold under the pretext of making it easier to strictly control the sums players wagered, preventing anyone from playing too deep and going bankrupt.
The town government had announced, however, that the trade would be opened to private operators in a year's time.
…
A shop front displayed a sign reading: Bathhouse.
It too drew a healthy crowd.
In the men's section, a mass of bare-skinned bodies stood beneath rows of wooden shower heads that streamed warm water in a steady spray, pleasantly warm where it landed.
A wooden handle allowed each bather to adjust the temperature. The odd individual, angling to get as much hot water as possible, would crank the heat up to full — and then let out a scalded shriek amid the billowing steam, like a pig being dunked in boiling water to strip its bristles.
Such cases were mercifully rare.
After washing, bathers moved through to several large connected soaking pools, where many liked to lower themselves in and lie still for a while, letting the heat seep into their bones.
Along one side, a row of narrow cots had been set out on an open area. Men lay on them — some on their backs, some face-down — while attendants in shorts worked over their bodies with coarse cloth towels in long, firm strokes.
"Ahhh — heaven. Feel like I've shed ten jin off my bones." One man pulled himself upright, then stepped back under a shower head for a final rinse.
"Used to go a whole year without a proper bath. Now if I go ten days without a good scrub-down, my whole body feels wrong."
"A wash and a full scrub for five jiao. Can't argue with that."
"I'm heading upstairs for a cup of tea. Rest a bit."
The man dried off the water at the door, wrapped a towel around his waist, and climbed to the second floor.
That was the men's side. The women's side need not be described in detail.
The only real difference was that a man's scrub-down covered two sides; a woman's covered four, with somewhat different technique.
The bathhouse rates were low enough that an ordinary person could treat themselves on occasion. The wealthy gentlemen who had come in from out of town took a particular liking to the whole experience — many came every single day.
The manager eventually had to approach them and negotiate: could they perhaps come every other day? Bathing this often really wasn't entirely good for one.
This too was one of Master Zhao's enterprises, and word had it that in due course this trade as well would be opened to ordinary folk, with full instruction on how to run one.
…
Not far from the bathhouse stood a restaurant by the name of The People's Table.
From the doorway, you could see an array of brilliantly colored dishes set out on display.
A small bowl of coarse-grain rice, two jiao; refined grain, five jiao. Vegetable dishes, two to three jiao; meat dishes, five to eight jiao. Every item had its price clearly posted.
A proper meal with dishes came to somewhere between four jiao and one yuan.
That was beyond most ordinary residents' means for everyday dining, but much of the clientele in this part of the street was made up of wealthy visitors from outside town, and to them the price seemed perfectly reasonable — a decent enough meal at a modest price, they thought.
The food was genuinely excellent, and many regulars had fallen into the habit of coming every day.
The gentlemen, of course, ordered four or five dishes at a sitting, with attendants hovering at their elbows.
That was usually only the newcomers.
Because leaving food on the plate without a particular justification would earn you a fine.
So the regulars had learned to manage: they still ordered four or eight dishes as a matter of course, but whatever remained, they had packed into paper boxes to take back for their servants.
The gulf between rich and poor in this era was extreme. The destitute split a single coin in two before spending it; the wealthy thought nothing of a whole silver tael. Peach Garden Town was working to close that distance, and it had made some progress — but the road ahead was long.