17. A Fortune of Furniture Truly Signifies Wealth

Three hundred thousand hu.

It truly is a considerable number, yet to Zhang Xun’s ears, it was nothing more than trivial. After all, one had to prepare in advance, ensuring supplies of grain for Boyan and Ashu’s two hundred thousand troops for half a month, even up to a month. They also needed to provide for the entire county’s six hundred thousand residents with thin porridge for half a year.

Thirty thousand hu was not only sufficient; with the rice from the autumn harvest added, it might even be questionable if it was enough.

He climbed up to inspect the granary. The capacity of these granaries was uncertain—some large ones could hold two or three hundred shi of grain, while the smaller ones only held twenty or thirty shi. It wasn’t because the Zhang family lacked talent to manage or build, but these charity granaries had been constructed over a century in batches.

Initially, the Zhang family were ordinary landlords, but after producing a prime minister, they began to annex land. When the prime minister was sent far away to guard the border in Sichuan, the annexations halted. Over generations, with ups and downs, land would be lost here and gained there. The land accumulated slowly, and naturally, the granary facilities were built gradually as well.

Hmm, the storage of the summer wheat harvest was quite good, Zhang Xun nodded slightly.

Even heirs of public offices like Jia Zhen had to deal with village heads; naturally, Zhang Xun, the son of a public office family, had to inspect the granaries himself. Understanding matters firsthand was the only way to avoid being deceived by subordinates. Zhang Xun’s mother, while she still had some energy, handed over the steward’s duties to him—not without the intention of testing his abilities.

If Zhang Xun were deceived, she could still correct and guide him. Responsibilities passed down from one generation to the next, family wealth had to be preserved.

After inspecting the grain storage, Zhang Xun had to check his own family’s treasury. Surrender to avoid death was one thing, but he couldn’t expect Boyan and the Yuan army to truly be without fault; handing over three or five thousand bolts of silk was the bare minimum, and likely they would disdain such ordinary gifts.

He vaguely remembered a historical incident where a certain person surrendered and sent two young maidens from the Zhao family to Boyan. Boyan was furious, declaring he came to obey the mandate of Heaven, not to enjoy singing and dancing girls. Not only did he scold the surrendering official, but he also sent the two Zhao girls back home.

This demonstrated that Boyan cared mainly about his reputation, wanting to win great merit by destroying the Song family, aiming for eternal fame in history. Once victorious, there would always be those who would embellish his legacy.

Fine, disregarding the fact that Zhang Xun no longer had a sister, even if he did, there was no need to give her to Boyan as a concubine.

At least in his heart, his acceptance of surrender and self-persuasion had risen a notch. Spending money to avert disaster was just a matter of money—as long as Changzhou remained in the Zhang family’s hands, they could keep earning it.

Regarding Zhang Xun’s request to inspect the family treasury, his mother neither agreed nor refused. After a moment’s thought, she retrieved the full set of keys and handed them to him.

Fortunately, Zhang Xun had been doing good deeds every day recently, improving his personal image; otherwise, his mother might have been reluctant to let him see.

The family treasury was divided into left and right vaults. The left stored miscellaneous utensils, ceremonial items, flags, drums, and household goods; the right held gold, silver, money, bills, and silk.

To put it plainly, the left vault stored fixed assets, and the right vault held liquid capital.

Zhang Xun showed no interest in the ancestral flags, drums, chariot frames, saddles, or the priceless beds and mother-of-pearl cabinets. His focus was mainly on the cash. Boyan was neither greedy nor lustful, but the generals under him were surely both.

Accompanying Zhang Xun was his mother’s longtime maid, who, despite being over fifty, was still nimble, introducing everything to him in detail. The right vault was divided into five racks. The first held copper and iron coins and bills—everyday currency occupying the largest space.

At the bottom lay copper coins whose strings had rotted away, a testament to how long they had been stored. According to the maid, there were no fewer than a million strings.

No matter how hard the court minted coins, they would never catch up with landlords like them, who buried money in pits.

The second rack contained silk. In the Song dynasty, as in the previous Tang dynasty, silk was a common medium of exchange. Contrary to popular belief, ordinary white silk was not particularly valuable; its worth was based on weight, which indicated density. At its most expensive, a bolt of silk could be worth over a thousand coins; at its cheapest, five or six hundred coins would suffice.

Valuable were the colored silks and those embroidered or dyed in layers, which were not common mediums of exchange. The standard medium was white silk.

The family had over fifty thousand bolts of white silk, with little colored silk stored separately in Zhang Xun’s mother’s quarters. Just the white silk alone was enough to fully buy off Ashu, maybe even bring along Ali Hai, and possibly Zhang Hongfan as well.

The third rack held gold, silver, and celadon wares. Aside from the daily-use gold and silver vessels of Zhang Xun and others, other gold and silver items, as well as white gold, purple gold, patterned gold, and Japanese silver wares, were included.

Zhang Xun was puzzled by the presence of celadon cups here. The maid seemed to notice his confusion and said frankly that this entire set of celadon cups was even more valuable than all the gold and silver combined. “Second young master, you truly don’t know.”

Wow, impressive, impressive. He wondered if Ashu had an eye for quality—would he be pleased to receive a set of celadon cups?

The fourth and fifth racks were simpler, containing gold ingots and silver ingots. Not many: only a few thousand taels of gold and about thirty thousand taels of silver, all cast into long bar or ingot shapes, each sealed and stored in boxes.

After completing the inspection, night had fallen. As they lit lamps and prepared to eat, Zhang Xun asked his mother: if both vaults were counted, how much was the family’s vast treasury worth?

Holding a silver cup of cool drink, his mother did not reply immediately. After the maid had sent everyone away, she leisurely answered Zhang Xun:

Ten million.

Wow! His family really was wealthy. Not counting land and property, just furniture, antiques, and cash, the total reached ten million. If only he had been born in the Qian Dao or Chun Xi eras—he could have lived luxuriously as a government official’s son, enjoying fifty years of indulgence before dying without worries.

“If there is truly going to be war, a mere ten million is only enough for two to three years’ expenses for twenty or thirty thousand soldiers,” his mother said calmly, still holding the silver cup.

A soldier’s yearly expenses for food, clothing, salary, and rewards amounted to at least fifty strings of coins. Twenty thousand soldiers would consume one million strings a year. Additional costs for armor, weapons, horses, fodder, rewards, even straw sandals and leg bindings, would require two to three million strings annually.

That was under normal circumstances. If there were continuous fierce battles, with replenishments, pensions, and increased equipment, five million a year would be considered minimal.

For an individual, ten million strings was astronomical. For an army, ten million was just a drop in the bucket. Of course, this was an estimate because few courts or generals could truly supply all military expenses. Otherwise, why would Song soldiers need to ask their commanders for money just to shoot three arrows? The commanders usually withheld funds.

A more typical case was the Ming army: dissatisfied with their pay, they could not defeat the enemy. If one sought full pay, the place to look was beyond the border, at Huang Taiji.