Swarm Drones for Debt Collection-Ever Heard of Them?

Over the next stretch of time, Fufeng County grew busy as well.

The most important projects were cement production and railway construction. After Ji Qingyan gathered the craftsmen and they received the blueprints Lin Ze had given them, they began studying and understanding them, then set about copying the designs to produce the finished goods.

During that time, Lin Ze returned to Fengping County and selected thirty adolescent boys from among the families and clans of his personal guards. He put them in the factories as apprentices, where they learned and mastered the techniques alongside the craftsmen.

Once they had successfully replicated the designs, they would recruit more workers and begin large-scale production.

None of this was especially difficult. After all, firing cement and building basic railways and steam trains were not particularly demanding tasks. But achieving their goals would still take plenty of time.

Meanwhile, as the Cement Factory and Railway Company began preparations, a trading market was set up outside South Gate Pass in Fufeng County.

The market bought all kinds of mountain delicacies, furs, and ores produced in the Hengduan Mountains. It also sold daily necessities such as grain, salt, and cloth. Everything was traded at market prices; they didn't take advantage of the mountain folk's meager output to jack up prices and bleed them dry.

Just like the grassland trade market at North Sea Pass, its main purpose was to attract the mountain folk down from the hills.

At first, naturally, no one came to the market.

The mountain folk of the Hengduan Mountains and the Great Zhou Dynasty had been enemies for years. The trust between them was practically nonexistent.

But Ji Qingyan played a clever move that struck at the root of the problem. First, she cut off the merchant caravans that had previously traded in the mountains, forbidding them from secretly bringing supplies there. Then she sent people to inform the mountain folk that they could trade goods outside South Gate Pass from then on.

The Hengduan Mountains were already poor in resources. Without merchant caravans coming up to buy their mountain delicacies and furs and bring them the supplies they needed, their already impoverished lives would only grow more difficult over time.

By contrast, if they came down to trade, they would at least have a way to survive—as long as the other side kept its word.

The choice was obvious.

So, the bolder ones began testing the waters, bringing the mountain delicacies and furs they had stored at home to trade at the market outside South Gate Pass.

Then they were surprised to find that although the Great Zhou soldiers patrolled around the market to keep order, they weren't killing them.

On top of that, they sold their mountain delicacies and furs for several times what they had gotten in the past, while the supplies they bought cost several times less. The difference meant huge profits.

Even after factoring in the extra labor costs of making the long journey, they still came out ahead.

Only then did the mountain folk of the Hengduan Mountains realize just how much money those merchants—whom they had once praised for helping them live better lives—had been making off them.

Some quick-witted people began returning to the mountains to buy goods from other, less well-informed mountain folk, then carrying them out to sell.

But that didn't last long. Word of the market spread among the many mountain communities throughout the Hengduan Mountains. People stopped foolishly selling their surplus goods to middlemen and instead chose to come down and sell them at the market themselves.

Under those circumstances, the market outside South Gate Pass suddenly became bustling.

Taking advantage of the moment, Ji Qingyan began the second step of her plan. She had her stewards get to work recruiting the mountain folk to build the railway.

The rails, concrete materials, and trains needed for the railway weren't ready yet, but they could get started on some preliminary work, like leveling the ground.

On the wall of South Gate Pass, Lin Ze and Ji Qingyan stood side by side, looking down at the bustling market below the pass.

The mountain folk had brought their families and carried the furs and mountain delicacies they had accumulated over the years. They weighed and sold their goods to the Princess Manor's stewards, then used the money to buy necessities such as rice, flour, and salt.

And so, the profits rolled in.

"Money really does flow like water."

At that moment, Ji Qingyan sighed.

The market could bring in quite a bit of money too. Since it was a monopoly, it earned a steady three thousand taels of silver each day.

But the investment was just as staggering.

The Cement Factory and Railway Company were burning through funds at a furious pace. Though the market was profitable, for now it was also tying up a lot of their working capital. Nearly all of Ji Qingyan's liquid funds had gone into it, leaving her with only the silver she needed for her daily cultivation.

In fact, if fertilizer hadn't increased grain yields and made it possible to feed the additional population in the Hengduan Mountains, even a market like this—one that could earn nearly a hundred thousand taels of silver a month—would have been impossible for Ji Qingyan to keep running.

"I'll lend you ten billion coins. The interest will be just five percent a year, payable in gold and silver after one year."

"I'll fund the railway into the Hengduan Mountains myself for now, but after a while, when you accept your imperial brother's railway contract, building railways across the country will require enormous startup capital. You can't do it without money."

At that moment, Lin Ze naturally spoke up to drum up business for himself.

Ten billion coins amounted to ten million taels of silver.

Lin Ze's Copper Coins Factory had been running for more than four months now, producing coins at a rate of 120 million a day. To date, its total output had exceeded fifteen billion.

Although Lin Ze had been putting the coins into the Great Zhou Dynasty's markets by paying employees in his enterprises and exchanging them at Gold Banks, he still had plenty left. If Ji Qingyan wanted to borrow money, he could hand over those coins immediately.

And Ji Qingyan was an excellent client, too. Her status as a princess guaranteed her credit, so there was no need to worry that she would borrow the money and then flee without paying it back. Besides, once the businesses she ran with Lin Ze got going, her funds would grow rapidly.

Her ability to repay was practically guaranteed.

Of course, most importantly, Lin Ze wasn't afraid she wouldn't pay him back.

How about using Swarm Drones for debt collection?

"Fine."

Ji Qingyan glanced at Lin Ze and nodded.

Lin Ze was charging only five percent annual interest. Compared with the Nine Out of Thirteen Return loans, that was extraordinarily reasonable. Under normal circumstances, Ji Qingyan couldn't borrow money at such a low rate; it would be at least ten percent a year.

She did need the money. With this enormous pool of startup capital, she could earn far more in return, even if she had to pay five hundred thousand taels of silver in interest after a year.

"Mm. Here's the proof. Go to Fengping County and withdraw it yourself."

Lin Ze took out a stack of exchange certificates from Zhi Yuan Gold Bank: one hundred certificates, each worth one hundred million coins.

Of course, Lin Ze could have had the money delivered straight to Ji Qingyan, but he couldn't be bothered.

Opening a Gate to Heavens and sending ten billion coins—fifty thousand tons of them—to Fufeng County wouldn't be difficult. It would cost only a little fortune and the spiritual energy needed to transport the coins with his Personal Space. Moving the coins over from the Main World would incur those same costs anyway.

But once the money arrived, there would be another problem: counting it.

That would be a huge hassle. Even weighing the coins would take a great deal of time and effort.

So Lin Ze chose to send the coins to his treasury in Fengping County and leave the trouble to his subordinates.

"Is the Truth Sect secretly minting coins?"

At that moment, Ji Qingyan took the exchange certificates and wrote Lin Ze a promissory note, stamping it with her seal. Then she asked the question that was really on her mind.

According to the Great Zhou Dynasty Law, private citizens weren't allowed to mint currency.

In fact, the main reason the Great Zhou Dynasty used gold and silver as currency was the shortage of copper coins. If they added up all the copper coins minted by the Great Zhou Dynasty over the years and those minted by the many dynasties before it, then subtracted the damaged coins, only about five hundred billion would remain.

And many of those coins had been buried by landlords, powerful clans, and prominent families. In reality, there might not even be a trillion coins circulating in the market.

Lin Ze casually handed over hundreds of billions of coins at a time. Ji Qingyan remembered that the one hundred million coins she had received from him last time had all been brand-new, so she immediately guessed he was secretly minting currency.

"Mm. Gold and silver are important industrial materials. They're scarce, and they're difficult to mine, while copper is relatively abundant. Although minting copper coins won't make a profit by itself, it lets me scoop up all the gold and silver in the world."

"The reason I'm lending you a hundred billion copper coins this time, rather than ten million taels of silver, and thereby revealing that I can mint coins, is that I want to use this opportunity to reach an agreement with the Great Zhou Imperial Family."

"I hope that in the future, you'll buy all the copper coins I produce at a rate of one thousand coins per tael of silver and ten thousand coins per tael of gold."

"This agreement has two benefits. First, the Great Zhou Imperial Family can save on the costs of minting currency. That alone should save tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of taels of silver a year. Second, having more money circulating in the market will make it easier for you to collect taxes."

"Collecting taxes in grain, cloth, and things like that is a hassle. It would be easier to collect money directly. And when it comes to labor levies, head taxes, and the like, people with money on hand can simply pay their taxes outright."

"Maybe next year, the Great Zhou's fiscal revenue could increase by tens of millions of taels of silver."

Lin Ze readily admitted it. There was no way to hide something like this; pretending otherwise would only insult her intelligence.

In the past, Lin Ze would have put on an act, letting only small amounts of his coins trickle into the market through petty transactions.

But ever since he had mastered Within Reach Horizon and become fully capable of protecting himself, he couldn't be bothered to pretend.

Once he was safe from harm, he no longer feared them using force against him. At that point, proposing a partnership that benefited both sides could further ease their resentment at having their interests infringed upon and prevent possible disputes.

In these circumstances, he could stride forward without hesitation, letting his growth snowball.

Ji Qingyan took a moment to digest Lin Ze's words, then asked to confirm, "We can exchange coins for gold and silver at a fixed rate? And they'll all be the same quality as the coins I got from you before?"

Lin Ze nodded.

His coins were even more genuine than the real thing. They were completely pure.

All he had done was use efficient industrial production to lower costs, then profit from the difference in the gold and silver exchange rates. The Great Zhou Dynasty suffered no real loss.

That was why Ji Qingyan had asked, "Are you secretly minting coins?" instead of, "Are you minting counterfeit money?"

"Saving on minting costs and increasing the money in circulation would let us collect more taxes. The only price we'd have to pay is that gold and silver, with their high denominations, aren't very convenient for everyday transactions."

"If this continued for a long time, all the gold and silver on the market would disappear. But by then, apart from the slight inconvenience of making gold and silver jewelry, it doesn't seem like there'd be any other downside."

Ji Qingyan thought it over from every angle but couldn't find any drawbacks.

Unlike paper money, copper coins had value in and of themselves. The copper they contained guaranteed their basic worth. They could still be used after a change of dynasty; it wasn't as if they became worthless without official backing.

"I'll bring this up with my imperial brother," Ji Qingyan said at last. She didn't agree outright, since she didn't have the authority to make that decision.

Lin Ze didn't mind.

If Ji Yuan agreed to the partnership, Lin Ze could drain the gold and silver from World No. 2 and bring it back to the Main World even faster. If he didn't, it would merely take a little longer.

Either way, Lin Ze was going to do it. Trading gold and silver between the two worlds was currently the most profitable business he had.

Their conversation ended there. Ji Qingyan went to report the matter to her brother.

Lin Ze began cultivating.

After repeated tests, Lin Ze had confirmed that the Zhou Tian Divine Skill he had learned from the siblings Ji Kan and Ji Qingyan had no problems at all.

Now, Lin Ze began formally cultivating this peerless divine art.

Holding his sword, he took up a stance and began practicing according to the manual.

After practicing for only a short while, Lin Ze noticed how different this peerless divine art was from the techniques he had cultivated before.

Inner Breath surged rapidly through his meridians and acupoints. Every muscle, bone, and organ in his body was stirred into action, and his qi and blood coursed through him from head to toe.

Lin Ze could clearly feel the food in his stomach being digested at a rapid pace. His body kept growing stronger, and the Inner Breath in his meridians and acupoints refined essence into qi at a visibly faster rate, storing up even more power.

"Externally, it speeds up the digestion of food and improves my ability to draw energy from the world around me. Internally, it efficiently mobilizes my qi and blood throughout my body, strengthening my foundation."

"This complete peerless divine art is incredibly fast to cultivate—more than ten times faster than Superior Martial Arts. If I keep cultivating at this pace, I should reach the Spirit Accumulation realm before long."

Lin Ze sensed his own condition, his heart filling with astonishment.

Just as Lin Ze was about to redouble his efforts, he suddenly sensed something was wrong.

"Hm?"