Chapter 54: The Trade Agreement

The headman led the team to an open space outside the village and told them to rest there. This Li stockade was completely different from the Li villages seen in the various folk tourism spots in Hainan that people from later generations had visited. Firstly, it had no stockade walls. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary, slightly larger village. It was surrounded by a dense growth of thorny shrubs, intertwined with all sorts of vines and bamboo, so thick that not even a rabbit could get through. It was the first time the group had seen such a wall.

Secondly, the iconic boat-shaped houses of the Li people, which everyone had learned about from folk villages—with people living on the upper level and livestock below, giving a very “ethnic” impression—were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the village had pyramid-shaped thatched houses with walls made of woven bamboo lattice plastered with mud, which looked very distinctive. This Nanan Village was the “capital” of this dong.

The so-called Li dong of Hainan were generally divided by natural terrain and usually consisted of several villages. The chieftains (dongzhu) were all recognized by the government, held hereditary positions, and were issued credentials like official seals and bronze plaques. The duties of these Li native officials, such as chieftains and tushe, were, one, to control the Li people and maintain local security and social order; and two, to complete the various levies assigned by the government on time each year. This included official taxes as well as the private “auspicious money” for the officials. Of course, their own income was not forgotten—the government did not pay salaries to native officials, big or small, so they had to collect their own revenue. In other words, as long as you paid all the official and private “dues” on time every year, the native official could do whatever he wanted in his own territory, basically acting as a local emperor.

The people who remained outside the village were managed by Zhang Bolin. They maintained a relaxed exterior but a vigilant interior, taking the opportunity to rest. Lu Rong, Wen Desi, and Mu Min were led by the headman into the stockade to meet the chieftain.

Inside and outside the village, many curious Li people pointed and watched from the roadside. Wen Desi saw a few old women sitting on rocks by the road, weaving rattanware. Their faces were densely tattooed with black patterns, and when they opened their mouths, they were completely black inside, which was truly terrifying. He thought to himself, this must be the “old ladies look like monsters” from the Eighteen Oddities of Hainan. Seeing it in person was indeed more impactful than just hearing about it. With a little more observation, he noticed that almost all the women had facial tattoos, except for the prepubescent children. This completely shattered everyone’s fantasies about ethnic minority women.

“This custom must be revolutionized,” Wei Aiwen muttered. In his original plan, recruiting Li soldiers was just the first step. Next, he would take control of the troops by serving as their commander—the most crucial part being to marry the daughter of a Li chieftain. His image of a Li maiden was based on movie portrayals. However, the scene before him severely shook his plan.

If a chieftain really offered his daughter to him, should he accept? It was a real headache. And the women here got their faces tattooed as soon as they came of age… He began to worry needlessly about this castle in the air.

At this moment, let alone a chieftain’s daughter, not even an ordinary Li maiden would have taken a fancy to him. To the common Li people, this was a terrifying group. They had heard that the “powder guns” in these people’s hands were powerful, capable of continuous fire and killing people from a great distance. The escapees said they only heard continuous gunfire, and people died in droves.

Lu Rong’s party was led into a large house in the center of the village. This house was taller and larger than the average dwelling, built on a platform. Inside, apart from a central corridor, three sides were lined with woven bamboo beds for sitting and lying. The fire pit was against the back wall, with a bamboo raft hanging above it for smoking food. There were windows on the side of the roof, but the lighting was still poor. Upon entering, it was pitch black, and it took a moment for their eyes to adjust.

The chieftain was an old man with white hair and a poor complexion—they later learned he was just over fifty, but by 17th-century standards, he was considered an old man anywhere. Lu Rong presented the specially prepared gifts: a bottle of Red Star Erguotou, a packet of rock sugar, and two folding knives.

Of the three items, the Erguotou in the glass bottle attracted his attention the most. White liquor was already common in the Ming Dynasty, but liquor packaged in a clean, colorless glass flask had a strong visual impact on anyone from this era. Clearly, the glass bottle, which was just packaging in the modern world, was far more valuable in his eyes than the liquor itself.

As for the two folding knives, the chieftain played with them for a while, carved a few marks on a wooden board, and his eyes showed a look of admiration.

“Such a good knife, you can’t even buy one like this in the county seat,” the chieftain said, looking up at them with great surprise. “Where are you from? Qiongshan?”

Wen Desi once again trotted out his story about being an Australian sea merchant. He had told this story so many times that he was very practiced. The chieftain knew little about the outside world; the only Han area he had ever been to was Lingao county town. The “great official” in Qiongzhou Prefecture—the prefect—was the biggest official in his eyes. However, hearing that they were not Ming people but Han people from overseas, he visibly relaxed and ordered someone to bring wine to serve the guests—a rice wine brewed from the shanlan glutinous rice grown by the Li people. In later times, this wine would develop into a famous local specialty, “Shanlan Yuye.”

The shanlan wine was a simple fermented glutinous rice wine with a brewing period of only seven days. Its alcohol content was negligible, similar to the fermented rice drinks of later times. The three of them each drank a bowl.

With the wine as a lubricant, discussing matters became much easier, and they also took the opportunity to learn a lot about the local situation. The chieftain’s surname was Zhu, but this Zhu had no relation to Zhu Yuanzhang. His family were the so-called “children of the banana tree” and had been the headmen of this village for generations. During the Mashi Rebellion in the Wanli era, many of the Li dong in Lingao were involved. His family was the only one that did not participate. After the matter subsided, the neighboring villages were merged into one dong, and he was made the chieftain. The entire dong consisted of seven villages with a population of over two thousand men, women, and children, making it a very large dong in Lingao.

Mu Min inquired about the Li population in Lingao, but Chieftain Zhu himself couldn’t say for sure. Besides his own dong, there were more than ten other dong of “Shu Li” (Sinicized Li) in Lingao, some registered in the census maps, some not. The smaller ones had a few hundred people, the larger ones one or two thousand. South of Fanbao Mountain was the territory of the “Sheng Li” (unassimilated Li). Besides them, there were also Li dong called the Jiamo Li nearby. In short, the Li people themselves were quite complex. Due to differences in language and customs, there was little interaction, and even intermarriage was rare.

As for the government, Chieftain Zhu said that the last two county magistrates had been easy to talk to and didn’t demand much. As long as the customary annual payment was delivered, they wouldn’t bother them. It was just that in recent years, the roads had not been safe, and the number of Han peddlers coming to the Li district had decreased significantly. Salt was already expensive, and now the price was even higher. If the sea merchants could transport salt, they would take as much as they could get, willing to trade hides, red and white rattan, betel nuts, and cattle for it. Then, the Headman Fu, whom they had bribed, suggested that it would be best if they could also sell some ironware, as there was a great shortage of farm tools and knives.

These conditions were all within expectations, and Lu Rong agreed to them all. Salt and iron could not yet be manufactured, but production was imminent, so supply would not be a problem. In comparison, the Li district could provide many useful things: timber, cotton cloth, animal hides, rattan, and pigs and cattle, all of which they urgently needed.

Regarding the price, Wen Desi decided not to adopt a high-price exploitation model. Doing business like the peddlers who carried their goods on shoulder poles or pushed them in carts could indeed yield huge profits, but the result was that very few goods could be sold. Of course, in ancient times, with low productivity, poor transportation, and risks on the road, a high-profit model was understandable. But for the transmigrators, who had mastered large-scale industrial production, it was not suitable. If the price of salt was too high, the profit would be great, but the people would reduce their salt consumption to the minimum survival level, and in the end, not much salt would be sold. Once the price was lowered, the people’s consumption of salt would immediately rise.

The salt price he quoted satisfied both Chieftain Zhu and the headman. It was only one-third of the peddlers’ price, but even at this price, Wen Desi felt he was being quite the profiteer. For the time being, the official dou (a unit of volume) was used as the unit of measurement for salt. Wen Desi decided to make a batch of weighing instruments immediately upon his return to promote the transmigrators’ system of weights and measures through trade as quickly as possible. As for the price of ironware, he was not yet clear on the market price of pig iron in the Ming Dynasty, so he only promised that it would certainly be lower than the peddlers’.

After some bargaining, they finally reached the first trade agreement since their arrival in this time and space with the Nanan dong, historically known as the “Nanan Village Trade Agreement.” The agreement stipulated that the transmigrators could sell all kinds of goods to the Nanan dong, but each trade must include a certain amount of salt and ironware. The Nanan dong would exchange any items the transmigrators needed, but this did not include people.

The 80 kilograms of salt they brought this time were exchanged for more than seventy cow, deer, and wild boar hides, forty bolts of Qiong cloth, and one water buffalo. The pile of goods in the open space made everyone feel like they were shameless profiteers. They didn’t yet know that the peddlers who specialized in the Li district trade could get a pig of twenty to thirty catties for just one jin (an old unit of weight, about 594 grams) of coarse salt.

The Li people, on their part, also felt they had benefited. Hides were plentiful in every village and were considered easily obtainable in their eyes. The Qiong cloth was spun and used by the women themselves and wasn’t worth much.

The chieftain also gave them twelve bolts of kudzu cloth as an extra gift. Kudzu cloth was a famous product of Hainan in the Ming Dynasty. Because it absorbed moisture and dissipated heat, it was a high-grade fabric for summer clothing. Each of the returned prisoners’ families also gifted a pig as a thank-you for their release. All parties were overjoyed. Chieftain Zhu sent word for the Aoya of all the villages to come and drink. At the banquet, he took out two arrows. He first had someone read the contents of the agreement aloud, then he made nine cuts on one arrow and handed the other arrow to Lu Rong.

“You should also make nine cuts,” Mu Min told him. This was the “arrow-cutting” ceremony, signifying that both sides must abide by their agreement. If the agreement was violated, the penalty would be ninety head of cattle and ninety taels of silver.

After the arrow-cutting, they drank a few more bowls of rice wine. Both sides also designated a contact person: Lu Rong for the transmigrators, and Fu Dayou, the Aoya of this village, for the Nanan dong. Wen Desi took the opportunity to propose that they would like to stay in the Nanan dong for a few more days to see what local products they might need. If there were any, these products could be used to offset the cost of salt and iron in the future. This request was readily granted.