Poking a Hole Through the Sky

On the top shelf of that cabinet, what appeared before Zhang Tie's eyes were banknotes—golden, gleaming banknotes. The entire shelf was filled with them, neatly arranged in banknote folders.

Zhang Tie took out one banknote folder and looked through it. Every note inside had a denomination of 1,000 gold coins, and each folder contained thirty such notes.

He'd struck it rich. Zhang Tie finally understood why some people liked being bandits. Money came far too quickly from this line of work, and there were always surprises waiting that you never knew about.

There were eight banknote folders on the cabinet's first shelf. Five held 1,000-gold-coin notes, totaling 150,000 gold coins. Of the remaining folders, two contained 5,000-gold-coin notes—forty-two notes in all, totaling 210,000 gold coins. The last folder held twenty-six 10,000-gold-coin notes, totaling 260,000 gold coins. The combined face value of all the banknotes came to 620,000 gold coins.

This was the first time Zhang Tie had ever seen so many banknotes stored in folders. When the Long Wind Merchant Group had loaned him money to build Castle of Black Iron, none of that money had passed through his hands.

Suppressing his excitement, Zhang Tie transferred all the banknote folders into Castle of Black Iron.

The cabinet's second shelf held a large number of bonds and stock certificates. Zhang Tie took them out and examined them, discovering that the bonds were three-year Huaiyuan Prefecture investment bonds issued by Long Wind Bank, with an annual interest rate of 5.8 percent. Thick stacks of bonds filled more than half the second shelf.

Zhang Tie did not count the bonds at that moment. He simply transferred them all into Castle of Black Iron, intending to inspect them properly later.

The stocks were bearer stock subscription certificates publicly issued through the Yiyang City Securities