"Heh, even buying a pretty virgin from a brothel only costs thirty taels.
"With famine these days, and war on top of it, twenty taels will buy a pretty little slave girl.
"You only have a little over three thousand people, and around a thousand of them are old, weak, sick, or disabled. They're all dead weight. Nobody wants to buy them.
"If I bought them, I'd also have to provide their food, clothing, lodging, and daily necessities.
"Take away those thousand people, and that leaves two thousand. That works out to fifteen hundred taels apiece to buy their freedom of person.
"With that money, I could buy tens of thousands of servants. Why don't you two gentlemen find someone else?
"I don't have the means to buy them." Tang Wen shook his head and smiled.
These two fellows were taking him for a sucker.
"But they come with several thousand qing of land. Doesn't land cost money?" Wan Hansong said.
"I see..." Tang Wen replied, feigning hesitation.
"Well? That land alone is worth over a million taels.
"In fact, you'd only be paying a little over a million taels.
"But what you'd be buying is a group of educated, reasonable, knowledgeable people, not fools who can't read a single word," Wan Hansong said.
"I can't come up with three million taels." Tang Wen shook his head.
"We owe you a million. Deduct that, and you only need to pay two million," Xiao Senguо said.
"I can't come up with two million either." Tang Wen shook his head.
"We'll credit you with merit points too! Once everything is reckoned, as a count, you'll have my recommendation to become Deputy Tuanlian Commissioner of Linghai," Xiao Senguо said.
"Sir, the Deputy Tuanlian Commissioner of Linghai holds the Principal Fourth Rank," Wan Hansong