Ling Zhang and Yuwen Tong spent four days in the manor. On the last day of their stay, he enjoyed roast meat Yuwen Tong personally made for him, along with fish soup.
Early the next morning, Ling Zhang carrying Whitie the fox returned to the city with Yuwen Tong. This was the day of the grand opening of his drugstore and he had to be present.
Yuwen Tong wanted to go with him, but Ling Zhang disagreed, saying that it would be like using a sledge-hammer on a gnat if Yuwen Tong went there, that Yuwen Tong who was of such high status shouldn’t degrade himself.
But Yuwen Tong insisted and accompanied him to the trading center in the west of the city.
News about the opening of Ling Zhang’s drugstore had reached the ears of not only people in the trading center but also those in all other parts of the city. This place had always been crowded with people, and on this particular day, the uproariousness was unprecedented.
The front doors of the drugstore had been very festively decorated. There was even a band playing music. Wang Qing was standing at the doorway with store assistants behind him, all of whom were well trained and politely receiving guests coming to offer their congratulations. Almost all invitees had arrived. There were also many people looking on outside. Some foreigners, whose facial characteristics were different from those of subjects of the Great Yue, had also come along for the ride out of curiosity.
Ling Zhang’s horse-drawn carriage instantly arrested everybody’s attention as it parked in front of the store.
To their surprise, the first one to get out of it was not Ling Zhang but…
“Marshal Yuwen!”
“That’s Marshal Yuwen!”
The whole crowd was amazed by the sudden appearance of Yuwen Tong. Soon their amazement turned into a mixture of delight and excitement.
After Ling Zhang got out of the carriage, Yuwen Tong walked him onto the stone steps at the doorway of the drugstore, Whitie the fox crouching on Ling Zhang’s shoulder, its beady black eyes curiously glancing around.
Almost everybody present was aware of the relations between the owner of this drugstore and Yuwen Tong, but they still hadn’t expected that they would be able to see Yuwen Tong on the day of the grand opening. How much the owner of this drugstore meant to Yuwen Tong went beyond their imagination once again.
Most of the guests present had had some direct or indirect dealings with Ling Zhang recently, but there were also some who’d come because of Yuwen Tong’s respectability. At the sight of Yuwen Tong, they all walked up to him and rapturously greeted him, smile on their faces.
In fact Yuwen Tong didn’t really have much acquaintance with these merchants. What he knew well about was the forces behind them. These people were strangers to him, so his reaction to their enthusiasm was rather lukewarm — merely a brief nod. After all, there were very few people in the whole city to whom he’d show an expression different than that when meeting them.
But these merchants didn’t mind Yuwen Tong’s bland reaction. As a matter of fact, they felt greatly honored when Yuwen Tong nodded at them.
These people’s rapturousness at the sight of Yuwen Tong didn’t strike Ling Zhang as surprising. He saw the general storekeeper of the Jiang’s Drugstore Chain, beside whom stood a gorgeously clothed man around thirty years old. If his guess was right, this man was probably the proprietor of the Jiang’s Drugstore Chain. He walked up to the man.
“Childe Ling.” The general storekeeper, seeing Ling Zhang walking over, introduced the man beside him with a beam on his face. “This is my boss.”
Ling Zhang folded his hands in front and smiled, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Jiang. The general storekeeper and the Jiang’s Drugstore Chain have been offering me a lot of help lately, and your corporeal presence in my humble drugstore highly graced me.”
Jiang Hong also folded his hands. “You’re being too polite, Childe Ling. Ling family and the Jiang’s Drugstore Chain have been in cooperation for many years, and the partnership between us is very deep. Helping with the opening of your drugstore was the least I could do.”
As the owner of the Jiang’s Drugstore Chain, Jiang Hong naturally knew very well about the dealings between the general storekeeper and Ling Zhang. It could be said that he’d offered the general storekeeper his full support. Ling Zhang’s relatively young age didn’t make Jiang Hong think any less of him. He had heard about what Ling Zhang had achieved in Tanyang, and his deeds after his arrival in the capital city had indicated that he was a quite able man. Also, Jiang Hong could tell that Ling Zhang’s relationship with Yuwen Tong was very solid, so he was willing to lend Ling Zhang a hand, and he was looking forward to Ling Zhang’s future performance.
As soon as Ling Zhang walked away, Yuwen Tong noticed and naturally followed him.
Jiang Hong hurriedly bowed at the sight of Yuwen Tong walking over. “It’s a great honor to meet you, Marshal.”
Yuwen Tong, who had merely given an inclination of his head with a bland face in response to the others’ greetings, reached out a hand to support Jiang Hong’s arm as a token gesture, a mild expression on his face. “There’s no need for formalities.”
Although he’d just lightly touched Jiang Hong’s arm, his attitude towards Jiang Hong had been made clear. It was obvious that his attitude towards the general storekeeper and Jiang Hong was different from his attitude towards the others.
Jiang Hong felt overwhelmingly flattered and hurriedly straightened himself, overjoyed. Yuwen Tong’s remembering them was definitely something worthy of celebration for them. Though most of Yuwen Tong’s power was limited to the military, he was the Supreme Commander of Armed Forces of the Great Yue, who was in direct charge of the Northwestern Army and had hundreds of thousands of troops at his command. Leaving everything else aside, the medication supply alone could be an enormous order for him! Though Yuwen Tong had Ling Zhang now, Jiang family had other businesses apart from medications. Even a tiny portion of the orders from the military would bring Jiang family huge profits. This was only the first step, but as long as Yuwen Tong remembered their favor, the rest of it wouldn’t be far away!
Others also could tell that Yuwen Tong was treating Jiang Hong and the general storekeeper differently. All those who had made some inquiries about Ling Zhang and the Jiang’s Drugstore Chain were aware that Jiang family was an upstart who had just gained a foothold in the capital city not long ago. Unlike these merchants who had solid business foundations and wide networks of distributors, Jiang family was still a green hand, but on this occasion, Jiang Hong clearly had gained an edge over them by being the first one to make Yuwen Tong’s acquaintance, and the reason for it was that the Jiang’s Drugstore Chain had offered Ling Zhang much help in his preparations for the opening of this drugstore.
As the only army that never ran short of provisions and funds these years, the North-western Army was a big, fat target for numerous merchants, all of whom dreamed about doing business with it. However, none of them had managed to scrape acquaintance with Yuwen Tong — even their masters were unable to do that, let alone themselves. They had almost given up trying, but now it turned out that Jiang family had succeeded. How could they not be alarmed?
Ling Zhang perceived the subtle changes of the look in these people’s eyes when they were looking at him. If a while ago these people had been polite to him, then now they were eyeing him like a piece of free meat.
He was somewhat bemused, unaware of how these people’s attitude had come to change so drastically.
Next, Ling Zhang hosted a series of ceremonies concerning the opening of his drugstore and declared that the Ling’s Drugstore officially opened for business.
After the ceremonies were finished, many of the guests stated that they’d be purchasers of medicinal herbs from the Ling’s Drugstore, expressing their intentions of cooperating with Ling Zhang.
Immediately, Ling Zhang became too occupied to think about anything else, bustling around with Wang Qing.
Yuwen Tong didn’t leave and sat on the second floor, waiting for Ling Zhang to finish his business.
As Yuwen Tong stayed, many guests naturally were unwilling to take their leave, so nearly all seats on the second floor had been taken.
It was only when almost all medicinal herbs the trade caravan had transported to the capital city were ordered that Ling Zhang had everything sorted out. He also found that Yuwen Tong’s influence was of far greater help than he’d previously expected. Originally he had thought that he’d have to consider himself lucky as long as there were a couple of orders on the first day, but unexpectedly, all his medicinal herbs had been ordered shortly after the grand opening.
Fortunately Wang Qing had made some preparations beforehand. Apart from the trade caravan of their own, there had also been another two trade caravans which had departed from Tanyang to the capital city afterwards. Wang Qing figured out a way and managed to have them spare one third of their herbs for him, which would be delivered to the warehouse of the Ling’s Drugstore early the next morning.
The reason why there had been so many orders on this day was because of Yuwen Tong’s presence in the drugstore. From the next day on there would be far less orders, and the stock would be last until the arrival of the next trade caravan.
“Tell my uncle he’s free to expand the load of the trade caravan,” said Ling Zhang.
Apart from this, Ling Zhang had also made contact with some trade caravans of the Luohai Kindom and the Fangcun Kingdom. Wang Qing and Li Sicai had negotiated with them and the two sides had basically agreed on the terms of the cooperation agreement. Soon medicinal herbs from the Luohai Kindom and the Fangcun Kingdom would be transported into the warehouse of the Ling’s Drugstore.
Ling Zhang had found out about a matter of considerable significance during his dealings with a trade caravan of the Fangcun Kingdom. There was a kind of very special medicinal herb in the Fangcun Kingdom which were miraculously effective in staunching blood, but it was very rare and highly expensive. Common trade caravans typically carried only small amounts of it and didn’t even dare tell others about it. They only traded this kind of herbs in private for fear that they might be robbed if others got wind of it.
Xie Shi had told Ling Zhang that the North-western Army was in dire need of this kind of medicinal herbs, that it would be best if he could purchase as many as possible.
Previously medication supplies for the North-western Army had been in the sole charge of the imperial court, but on one occasion, after the whole army was subjected to the risk of being wiped out due to shortage of provisions, Yuwen Tong had intervened and covertly taken charge of one fourth of the medication supplies for the North-western Army. These matters had been delegated to the Shadow Battalion, but even so, some scarce medicinal herbs were still very difficult to come by. This kind of herbs specific to the Fangcun Kingdom, for example, were sold to only a fixed list of customers, and most of them were ordered by dignitaries before getting ashore. Since they were very rare and the army could only get a small number of them at a time, military surgeons had to use them very sparingly and their hearts ached every time they did it.
Ling Zhang knew what Xie Shi meant, so he’d been proactively making contact with this trade caravan from the Fangcun Kingdom.
…
By dusk, all guests had left. After checking the orders his drugstore had received this day, inventorying the stock and handling some other petty matters, Ling Zhang heaved a sigh of relief. Wang Qing took some men and hastened to have a meeting with heads of the two trade caravans that had agreed to transport medicinal herbs to this drugstore the next morning.
Overall, though it had been a hectic day and everything had not been going in an orderly way, Ling Zhang had learned a lot. There were many things that Ling Zhang had come to know about on this particular day when he’d started managing his own drugstore. In all likelihood, he would have to stay in the drugstore for a few days to put things on the right track.
After returning to the Ling Mansion with Yuwen Tong and taking a bath, Ling Zhang, tired as he was, didn’t go to bed immediately. Instead, he sat in his study for quite some time, thinking back to all the matters that had happened this day. He gave each and every one of them some thought and figured out which ones were of urgency, what needed to be improved, and what preparations he had to make…
Although one fourth of the medications supply for the North-western Army was covertly in the charge of Yuwen Tong, he was not the one that had been personally handling it. It was his subordinates that had been dealing with these things, so there had also been some matters that he’d been as much in the dark about as Ling Zhang had been until this day. Seeing Ling Zhang was deep in thought, Yuwen Tong didn’t disturb him, but he was not willing to leave either. He sat down in the study with him, reading reports and files from various places that he needed to go over.
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