Chapter 1792 - The Smelting Shop

The smelting shop functioned much like the furnace rooms of later dynasties, complete with all the same corrupt practices. "Scissors eating silver," applications of oil and wax, tampered weights, artificially inflated fineness, padded weights—such chicanery was so commonplace that merchants and common folk had come to accept it as the cost of doing business. Besides, establishing such an enterprise was no simple matter. It involved money, which meant without considerable capital and powerful backers, no one could open one. Strong appraisal skills were equally essential. Lead-filled yuanbao had a long history, nearly impossible to detect without breaking them open—and one couldn't always cut an ingot apart. Sometimes everything depended on the appraiser's trained eye.

Smelting shops were scarce in Guangzhou City. The one boasting the oldest reputation and brightest signboard was "Jufeng Hao"—an authentic century-old establishment. Legend held that when the Portuguese first came to trade, the cross-stamped silver coins they used for payment had been assayed by the founder's own hand. Not only did the great merchant houses throughout the city bring their silver here for recasting, but the Guangdong Provincial Administration Commissioner entrusted most of its treasury silver to this house as well.

The storefront itself was modest. Even before stepping through the door, one felt the heat pressing against the face. Though the actual melting of gold and silver took place in the workshop behind, the distance between front and back rooms was short—too short to effectively block the furnace's radiant warmth.

The counter stood higher than those in ordinary shops, though not as lofty as a pawnshop's, where customers had to raise their arms to conduct business. Two purposes guided the design: first, to give customers a clear view of the cutting and melting within, preventing disputes; second, to deter robbers from vaulting over to snatch silver. Consequently, the shop hall contained none of the tables and chairs for entertaining guests found in other large establishments.

Presiding over the counter today was Old Manager Shen's son, known as Manager Little Shen. His neck had been slightly crooked since childhood, earning him the nickname "Shen Gongbao." Despite his youth, his appraising eye rivaled his father's. For most silver, he needed only to take it in hand and glance at it to estimate the fineness—accurate eight or nine times out of ten.

Manager Little Shen was busy at the counter. Business at the smelting shop ran brisk as always. Silver got clipped smaller and smaller during circulation, eventually becoming piles of broken pieces with jumbled fineness and weight—a nightmare for both accounting and payment. So periodically, merchants everywhere sent their accumulated broken silver to be recast into proper ingots. The various scattered fragments collected by the yamen similarly required recasting into official ingots.

Seeing the Australian "official constables" arrive, Shen Gongbao hurried forward to welcome them.

"...I didn't know the officers were gracing my humble shop. How might we be of service? Our smelting and assaying are particularly fair..."

Li Ziyu dispensed with pleasantries. "I've come to ask you to identify the origin of a silver ingot and check its fineness while you're at it." He produced the ingot.

Shen Gongbao took it and sensed trouble at first glance. The reason was simple: he didn't recognize the shop mark.

According to established practice, any silver ingot leaving a smelting shop bore the shop's name and the silver's fineness cast into it. This served both as trademark and guarantee of credibility. But the mark stamped on this ten-tael ingot was unfamiliar to him.

Smelting shops were few in number anywhere. Small places with little silver circulation had none at all; only major commercial ports and administrative centers supported such establishments. In all of Guangzhou Prefecture, only the prefectural city and Foshan Town possessed smelting shops—no more than fifteen establishments large and small. Even nationwide, the total remained modest. Consequently, shopkeepers and clerks in the trade could generally identify where a silver ingot was cast simply by reading its shop mark, and knew at a glance how reputable that mark was.

If a mark carried a strong reputation, shops and common folk gladly accepted it. If the reputation was middling or the mark wholly unfamiliar, receiving such an ingot provoked unease, sending people to smelting shops, money houses, or pawnshops for professional appraisal.

Given the importance of shop marks, unscrupulous elements inevitably forged the stamps of famous establishments. Counterfeiting silver ingots was an ancient art. To maintain credibility and facilitate identification among peers, each legitimate stamp contained hidden signs—secret marks invisible to outsiders but immediately recognizable to those in the trade.

The mark on this ingot read "Sanjiang Mao." Little Shen had never encountered it. Within Guangzhou City, apart from ingots cast by local establishments large and small, foreign silver typically came from the two capitals—Beijing and Nanjing—or major commercial ports like Suzhou, Hangzhou, Hankou, and Jiujiang. Manager Little Shen knew the shop marks from all these places. This one alone was a mystery.

Unfamiliar marks often signaled risk, so Manager Little Shen proceeded with caution.

"My humble shop has never seen this shop mark," he reported. "It wasn't cast by any local peer, nor is it a common foreign mark seen hereabouts. It's probably from some new establishment elsewhere."

"How is the fineness?"

Shen Gongbao scrutinized the ingot. The marked fineness was 935, which roughly matched his first impression—this silver was certainly not pure. He weighed it: exactly correct, not a fraction of error.

"Officer, judging by its appearance, the 935 assay seems right." Manager Little Shen paused. "However, something feels off. Might I have your permission to clip this ingot open for a closer examination?"

Li Ziyu had already secured permission and agreed immediately.

Manager Little Shen carried the ingot to the clipping shears—a specialized tool found wherever silver changed hands. The apparatus featured very short blades and very long handles. One handle was fixed to a wide, heavy wooden bench while the other could open and close freely. Shen Gongbao positioned the ingot on the blades with his left hand, braced the movable handle with his right, took careful aim, leaned his body forward, and dropped his full weight onto the handle. With a sharp clang, the ingot split in two.

Manager Little Shen picked up the halves and examined them carefully. No lead filling. The cross-section showed the honeycomb-like faults characteristic of proper silver, and the color looked acceptable.

Yet holding this ingot, Manager Little Shen felt something was m si gei to—not quite right. Call it the intuition of the trade.

Now Shen Gongbao faced a dilemma. If he declared "no problem" and something later proved wrong—leaving aside the consequences of government investigation—the reputation of having "misjudged" would devastate his shop's standing.

But if he said "there is a problem," the officer would naturally ask what problem, exactly. And that he couldn't articulate.

After much deliberation, Shen Gongbao could only summon his father for appraisal. He immediately dispatched an apprentice to fetch the old manager.

Manager Shen had been out visiting customers. Hearing that silver had arrived which even his son dared not assess, he hurried back. Seeing the Australian official constable in the shop, he dealt with the requisite courtesies before drawing aside to hear his son's account.

Manager Shen took the already-split ingot, fit the halves together to study the shop mark, and a strange expression crossed his face. He examined it for a long while before setting it down.

"May I ask the officer—where did this silver ingot come from?"

"It's evidence seized during an investigation," Li Ziyu replied. "I brought it specifically to have you identify its origin and fineness." Observing the expressions on both Shens' faces, he sensed something deeper at work. "What is it? Is the silver counterfeit?"

"Whether it's real or counterfeit, this old man dares not say yet," Manager Shen answered. "But this 'Sanjiang Mao' shop mark—I actually know its origin."

It transpired that Sanjiang Mao had indeed been a smelting shop, though not in the city proper but in Foshan. Foshan was one of the "Four Great Towns of the World," with flourishing industry and commerce and a large population. Silver and currency naturally circulated in great volume. Sanjiang Mao had thrived in this favorable environment, conducting excellent business.

However, decades ago, Sanjiang Mao had suffered a catastrophic fire. The shop burned to the ground. The shopkeeper, his clerks, even his family members—none escaped the flames. The establishment was utterly obliterated, not a trace remaining.

With the shop gone, silver ingots bearing its mark grew steadily rarer until they vanished entirely from circulation. Still, the older generation—particularly common folk in the Foshan area—retained memories of Sanjiang Mao. Old Manager Shen naturally recalled the affair and recognized the stamp.

"...The stamp is genuine. I can tell that much," Manager Shen said. "But whether this ingot was actually produced by Sanjiang Mao—that's another matter entirely."

Silver oxidizes readily. Though the ancients lacked understanding of chemical processes, they knew that silver blackened over time. Manager Shen explained: if Sanjiang Mao ingots were reappearing after decades, either someone had hoarded them unused all this time—possible enough, as storing silver for decades or centuries was hardly rare—but "old ingots" from years past looked entirely different in color from the specimen Li Ziyu had brought.

The second possibility, and the more likely one, was that someone had somehow obtained Sanjiang Mao's original stamp and was casting fresh ingots themselves.

"Is the fineness genuine or false?" Li Ziyu noted the manager's words in his notebook.

Manager Shen said nothing. He picked up the ingot and examined it again, turning it over in his hands for a long while before speaking. "This is Zhuti Silver."

"What silver?" Li Ziyu didn't understand.

"Zhuti Silver." Manager Shen spoke slowly. "It is said to come from the cave barbarians in the Yunnan-Guizhou region. Said to have existed since the Han Dynasty, though it was never abundant. In this dynasty... since the She-An Rebellion in the Ming State, the outflow of Zhuti Silver has been almost entirely cut off. I once accompanied my late father to examine a set of silver ornaments belonging to a cave barbarian tusi noble."

"Manager Shen—this Zhuti Silver... is it actually silver?"

"It's not the silver we use here." Manager Shen chose his words with great care, for jewelry made of Zhuti Silver did circulate in the market. Carelessly cutting off someone's livelihood with a hasty pronouncement would be most inappropriate. "I've only heard that the cave barbarians use several different ores, mixed and smelted together. But exactly which ores, and how they're processed—I don't know. Those are secret methods passed down through generations among the stream-cave local peoples. As a mere merchant in Guangzhou Prefecture, I have neither the interest nor the ability to uncover such mysteries."

End of Chapter