They had struck it rich.
Throughout October, that was the heartfelt sentiment of almost everyone who had accompanied Liu Cheng on this journey through the South of the Yangtze.
At first, they had earnestly calculated and discussed losses in transport and how to store the wealth they had just received, but they soon realized that none of that was the most pressing concern. They needed manpower to help them receive, transport, and make purchases.
No armored soldier could race back and forth across the South of the Yangtze carrying money and silk that would theoretically take him fifty years to earn, especially when he could not let go of the armor and long spear earning him that money.
Sixty thousand coins-that was what a deserter-slave soldier dragged out of Changgan Lane should theoretically receive by the time he went home before the New Year. Had they been told at the outset that they were being arrested so they could receive sixty thousand coins within three months, they would have crawled from Changgan Lane to the Commandant of Archers' Unit's barracks, kowtowing with every step, without the slightest pretense.
As for the original officers and soldiers of the Commandant of Archers' Unit, they had already gone numb. They were almost losing their very conception of money and silk.
At this point, realizing the danger, Liu Cheng swiftly contacted Shen Jin. Offering him the manor he had originally exchanged for South Garden as payment, he asked Shen Jin to spare no effort in helping with transport, purchasing, exchange, and storage.
Yes, Shen Jin discovered to his astonishment that the dowry he had used to entice Liu Cheng a few years earlier had come back.
As for why an entire manor had come back rather than some twenty-twenty-sixty split, that was because Master