Selling White Sugar
Shen Jingchuan walked halfway down Groceries Street, picked a shop with a respectable storefront and a fairly complete selection on its shelves, and stepped inside.
The shop was packed with oil, salt, sauces, vinegar, dried fruit, and other dried goods. The smells of soy sauce, Sichuan peppercorns, and candied fruit mingled in the air.
A middle-aged shopkeeper with a goatee stood behind the counter, working an abacus. Hearing someone enter, he looked up and spotted Shen Jingchuan at once.
The man's fitted blue satin clothes were made of fine material. He had a fair, clean face and a composed bearing, but his hair was curiously short, unlike the tied-up hair of an ordinary scholar. There was no telling where he came from.
The shopkeeper turned it over in his mind, then promptly put on a broad smile and came out from behind the counter to greet him:
"Please come in, young master. What can I get you? Our little shop has dried goods from north and south, as well as oil, salt, sugar, and sauces of every kind."
"I'm not buying." Shen Jingchuan glanced over the shelves and came straight to the point. "I'm here to sell some goods."
The shopkeeper paused and looked him up and down again. His clothing and bearing were unlike those of a peddler who went from street to street, so the shopkeeper smiled and said:
"If you're looking to pawn something, young master, walk a hundred paces or so west from here. There's a Gathering Treasures Pawnshop, the fairest in the prefectural city..."
Before he could finish, Shen Jingchuan raised a hand to stop him.
"I'm not pawning anything. I'm a traveling merchant from the south, and I've brought some rare goods. I'm looking for a reliable shop to take the whole lot. If you're interested, shopkeeper, shall we find somewhere quiet to talk?"
Rare goods from the south?
The shopkeeper's eyes darted about as he immediately caught the scent of an opportunity. The man's bearing was extraordinary; perhaps he was someone from an aristocratic clan selling goods on the side. If they really were good, he could make a fortune reselling them.
His smile grew warmer at once, and he stepped aside to usher Shen Jingchuan in.
"Yes, yes, of course! Please come inside, young master. The accounting room is quiet; we can discuss it there!"
He led Shen Jingchuan into the small accounting room in the back, then hurried to bring him a chair and pour him tea, attending to him with care:
"Please sit, young master, and have some tea to wet your throat. What goods have you brought?"
Shen Jingchuan didn't waste words.
He set his backpack on the table and reached inside. With a slight thought, a bag of white sugar landed in his palm, and he casually pushed it in front of the shopkeeper.
The shopkeeper looked closely. First, he thought the bag itself was no ordinary thing. Then he looked at its contents and froze.
The bag was translucent, as thin as a layer of ice silk, smooth to the touch and very tough. Its opening was neither tied with string nor sealed with wax. Only a pair of interlocking ridged strips were pressed tightly together. It looked extraordinarily strange.
Through the bag, he could see the contents: snowy white, with fine, even grains and not the slightest trace of another color. Could it be white sugar?
The packaging alone had an air of novelty about it.
"This... this bag is quite ingenious." The shopkeeper pinched the opening and turned it over and over. He picked at the two strips with his fingertips, then tried tugging them gently apart, but they didn't budge.
He didn't dare tear at it by force, afraid he would damage the bag, spill the sugar, and offend his customer for nothing. He pinched the opening and puzzled over it for a long time, but still couldn't find a way to open it. The tips of his ears grew a little hot, and he looked up sheepishly.
"Forgive me, young master. These old eyes of mine aren't what they used to be. I really can't see how this opening... opens?"
Shen Jingchuan laughed inwardly, though his face gave nothing away. He just liked seeing these ancient people looking so awkward.
He reached out and took the bag.
"This is a new kind of sealed bag from overseas. It has a little mechanism."
He pressed his thumb against one end of the strips and rubbed it lightly with his fingertip, then ran his fingers down the seam. The two tightly fastened strips parted at once, and the bag opened with ease. A fresh, delicate sweetness instantly wafted out.
"Whoa!" the shopkeeper exclaimed softly, his eyes lighting up. "So that's the secret! Clever, truly clever! No string or thread, just press it shut and run your fingers along it to open it. What a rare contraption!"
Still marveling, he leaned closer. The contents were as white and fine as frost and snow, dazzlingly white. It really was white sugar, several shades whiter than the best refined sugar in his shop.
The shopkeeper carefully fetched a clean little porcelain dish from nearby. Once Shen Jingchuan nodded his permission, he slowly poured out a small pinch.
He dabbed a little on his fingertip and put it in his mouth. Sweetness melted over his tongue at once, pure and mellow, without the slightest burnt, bitter, or other unwanted taste. It was even a little sweeter than the best refined sugar he had ever sold.
Stormy waves were already surging in the shopkeeper's heart.
Top quality! Absolutely top quality!
But a merchant knew that buyers praised and criticized, while idle spectators cheered. However much he coveted it, he couldn't let it show on his face.
He slowly pushed the porcelain dish aside and said with studied indifference:
"Hmm, the goods are quite good, finer than ordinary refined sugar. But, young master, sugar prices in our prefectural city have always been steady. No matter how good the sugar is, it won't fetch a high price."
Shen Jingchuan had just visited two other shops in the same trade, so he already had a good idea of the market. It wasn't that white sugar wasn't sold here, but most of it was crudely made and poorly bleached, with a cloudy color and sugar dregs. Its quality was far inferior to his batch, yet it cost fifty or sixty wen a jin. His was genuine snow-white sugar, white as frost, fine and soft, with no dregs. It was only reasonable to charge a little more.
He quickly did the sums in his head. Going by the market price, asking one tael of silver for ten jin shouldn't be a problem. Converted at modern rates, gold and silver in the other world exchanged at ten to one. A tael of gold was fifty grams, so a tael of silver was equivalent to five grams of gold. Even if its purity was a little lower, one tael of silver was still worth three or four thousand yuan today. Ten jin of sugar could fetch goods worth three or four thousand yuan; that was a hundredfold profit, a considerable sum.
At that thought, he couldn't help grumbling inwardly. In those brainless transmigration novels he'd read before, white sugar was always selling for several taels or even dozens of taels of silver a jin. It was sheer nonsense that cheated readers.
If white sugar really was that expensive, were ancient people fools? Wouldn't they rather buy honey? Artificial beekeeping had existed since the Eastern Han dynasty, and by the late Ming it was already widespread among farming households. He had just seen honey for sale at only thirty-odd wen a jin. Why would anyone go mad scrambling for white sugar?
The trouble was that this stuff took up too much room. He couldn't bring much in one trip, and dealing in it took time and effort. Besides, if he really started trading several thousand or tens of thousands of jin, he might well stir up unnecessary trouble.
If he could find a less troublesome business, there would be no need to keep doing this.
Ah, no use thinking that far ahead. I'll sell this batch first.
He reached into his backpack again with one large hand and placed the remaining nine bags of white sugar on the table, neatly lining them up. The ten bags of snow-white sugar stood out in the dim accounting room.
"Ten bags in all. That's the lot; I'm testing the waters. One fixed price: one tael of silver, and you take everything. If you want them, we exchange money and goods on the spot. If you think it's not worth it, I'll turn around and ask another shop."
"(This is worrying me to death. Every day people call me an idiot and leave bad reviews because of the price of white sugar. Let me do the actual sums for you, so you won't be fooled by those brainless novels with their sky-high sugar prices. What I'm writing isn't a brainless novel, it isn't, it isn't... Brothers and sisters who write books, I'm begging you, please stop poisoning people's minds.
-----In the early Chongzhen era, one tael of silver exchanged for one thousand copper wen. Going by rice prices, one shi of rice, about 184 jin, cost one tael of silver. At today's market price of three yuan a jin, one wen was worth about 0.55 yuan, and one tael of silver was worth five or six hundred yuan. If you compare incomes, however, a restaurant waiter earned only a few hundred wen a month with food and lodging provided, while a modern waiter with food and lodging provided earns around four or five thousand yuan. A shopkeeper earned around ten taels a year, much like a store manager earning over a hundred thousand yuan a year today. By that calculation, one wen was equivalent to ten modern yuan, and one tael of silver to ten thousand modern yuan.
The Miscellaneous Records of Wanshu clearly records that during the Wanli era, refined snow-white sugar in Beijing, bleached with yellow clay to a purity close to that of modern granulated white sugar, cost only forty wen a jin. In the north during the late Ming, even allowing for transport losses, it was only fifty or sixty wen a jin. A two-jin bag for a hundred wen is entirely normal market price, not cheap in the least.
Some people say to sell it to the rich. I don't understand: artificial beekeeping existed as far back as the Eastern Han, and by the late Ming, keeping bees was already widespread among northern farming households. Ordinary honey cost only thirty-odd wen a jin. If white sugar really were outrageously expensive, wouldn't rich people rather buy honey? Why would they scramble for white sugar?)"
One tael of silver for ten bags wasn't expensive. Sugar of this quality could be sold by the bag to the city's wealthy households and restaurants for well over a hundred wen each. He could earn at least half a string of cash and then some on the ten bags. It wasn't much of a deal; he was just after the novelty.
"Done!" The shopkeeper slapped his thigh and made his decision on the spot. "One tael of silver it is! I'll take all ten bags!"
He turned and opened the money chest in the corner, weighed out a small ingot of full-purity silver, and pushed it in front of Shen Jingchuan with both hands.
"Take a look, young master. Full-purity fine silver, exactly one tael."
Shen Jingchuan picked it up, weighed it in his hand, and casually stuffed it into his backpack.
"Count the goods carefully."
"Yes, all right, all right!"
The shopkeeper placed the ten bags of sugar on the shelves one by one. When he looked at Shen Jingchuan again, his smile covered his face in wrinkles.
"Young master, if you have more good goods like these in the future, you must think of me first! This is far too little. Bring me more and we can discuss the price; I certainly won't let you lose out!"