The Most Powerful Young Master of the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 32: The Situation Looks Promising

Over the past few days, Ma Jinsi had never treated Wang Bang as a child; he considered Wang Bang a prodigy. However, Old Ma couldn’t understand why—even though even an uneducated man like him could figure out that thirteen guan plus fourteen guan equals twenty-seven guan—Wang Bang still felt the need to pull out that ridiculous abacus to calculate it? Tick-tock, tick-tock. Wang Bang fiddled with the abacus and arrived at the answer: over the past two days, they had collected a total of twenty-seven guan in protection money. So now they were settling the accounts. “Lately, things have been looking great—not just a little good,” Ma Jinsi chuckled. “Think back to how shabby things were in the beginning. I’d lead my brothers into a fight, but we’d only make a few guan. Now we hardly ever fight anymore, yet our income keeps growing. Today it’s even gone up to fifteen guan. If this keeps up, it’ll be something else. I never thought people like us could make big money by following the young master.” “It’s still not enough,” Wang Bang said. “It would be pathetic to be satisfied with this now. Let me tell you, this is just the beginning. We must take action—patrol the streets, provide after-sales service, and make sure they feel they’re getting their money’s worth. Then the money will keep rolling in.” Ma Jinsi said, “But Young Master, you told us not to bully people. Those who actually come to pay protection money are mostly small vendors. The big merchants won’t bother with us—the Egg Gang is the exception. So our clients don’t have much money; it’s already hard enough for them to scrape together a few copper coins. If we charge more, resentment will grow, so it looks like we’ve already hit the ceiling. Actually, it’s not bad at all—over ten guan in revenue every day, which adds up to several hundred guan a month.” “You wouldn’t understand even if I explained it. Just do your job well, and little by little, the earnings will keep growing. Your so-called ‘a few hundred guan a month’ is nothing—there’ll come a time when we’ll make that much in a single day. Just remember my instructions,” said Wang Bang. “That much in a single day!” The whole gang of thugs was stunned; their math skills were suddenly looking a bit shaky… As for the money, Wang Bang still left it in the care of Ma Jinsi and the others; he didn’t take charge of it himself—as long as the accounts were in order, that was enough. Little Wang Bang wasn’t stupid—if he took the money home, he’d have nowhere to hide it, and his demon-king father would surely beat him senseless before confiscating it. There was no other possible outcome. As long as it remained in Old Ma and his men’s hands, on the surface, it was their money. Besides, even Sima Shengren didn’t dare accuse Ma Jinsi and the others of breaking the law, so Wang Anshi wouldn’t confiscate their money either. There’s no fear they’ll abscond with the funds either—anyone daring to do so would be betraying trust. If they did, a letter summoning his feisty wife back would be enough to have her chase them down across a thousand li in no time to teach them a lesson. Heh heh. On the way back from the market today, Wang Bang bought a palm-sized piece of lamb. He intended to give it to Erya, but saw that she was napping—there even seemed to be traces of tears on her face. Who knows what that little brat was dreaming about. In any case, it certainly wasn’t a good dream. So Wang Bang, who had originally intended to let her sleep a little longer, placed the piece of lamb in her mouth. Smelling the aroma, Wang Xiaoya woke up, rubbed her eyes, and said, “I dreamed it was raining heavily, and that dog was protecting a little kitten in the corner of the wall, sheltering it from the wind and rain. That was so strange.” “There’s nothing strange about it. What you think about during the day is what you dream about at night. The rivalry between dogs and cats is just like the rivalry between you and me in the past—but now I’m the one protecting you. You’re finding that strange, so that’s what you dreamed about.” Wang Xiaoya’s face flushed slightly, then she began to eat the lamb. It was so delicious—it felt like the New Year all over again. Wang Bang thought to himself, Actually, my dream was even stranger—a female mouse spent the whole day chasing a cat around and fighting with it. Isn’t that even more of a headache? “Bro, are you that dog protecting the little kitten?” the little girl asked as she ate. Wang Bang smacked her on the back of the head. “I’m the Big Bad Wolf—and a pretty sleazy one at that.” Just as he was playing the role of the Big Bad Wolf, he felt his pants being tugged at the back. He turned around to see the donkey Xiaobao biting and pulling at his pants. It was clearly asking, “Da Bang, did you bring any booze back?” Wang Bang had no intention of turning it into an alcoholic, so he slapped the donkey on the head and said, “Go, go, go.” “Oink, oink, oink…” This donkey rarely brayed, but now it began braying in clear displeasure. However, even if it brayed itself hoarse, no one paid it any mind. But in the blink of an eye, they heard the old lady say from somewhere, “What’s wrong with Wangjia? Will someone go check on it?” So Wang Bang stepped in to calm things down, covering the donkey’s mouth. The little girl said, “Don’t pick on Wangjia—it’s so cute, and it helps me grind a lot of feed every day.” Lately, no one has come to the Wang household to keep tabs on them. However, Sima Guang’s underhanded tactics were truly beyond the pale. After realizing that ordering someone to tail Wang Bang was useless, he shifted his focus to the marketplace instead. Sima Guang wasn’t a fool; he now realized that going after the Wang family as a whole wouldn’t work. But eliminating Ma Jinsi and his cronies was feasible. Unless he crushed this faction, Sima Guang’s faction would become increasingly difficult to lead and would lose more and more credibility. Sima Guang understood this logic. So now he was desperate to find any missteps by Ma Jinsi and his associates—in other words, waiting for them to commit a crime so he could deal them a severe blow and force them to implicate Wang Bang as the “mastermind behind the scenes.” After that, things would be simple: Sima Guang would dare to take Wang Bang’s incriminating evidence to the capital and impeach Wang Anshi as well. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. He’d been keeping a close eye on Ma Jinsi and the others for days, but they hadn’t done anything wrong—they just patrolled the streets every day. For example, if they saw a petty thug eating without paying, they’d slap him a few times until he fell, then drag him to the county office. No matter how wild Sima Guang’s imagination might be, he wouldn’t dare say they were in the wrong. Furthermore, Ma Jinsi and his crew were simply collecting money—taking it whenever the opportunity arose. For some reason, the common folk paid up willingly and didn’t seem to resent Ma Jinsi’s gang of thugs—at least not on the surface. So every time Ma Jinsi and his crew collected a payment, it made Sima Shengren’s heart ache with frustration. Sima always considered it nothing short of robbery. However, Wang Bang claimed it was a security service. On this point, Sima Guang could not outargue Wang Bang. The most incredible thing was that, despite keeping a close watch on them for days, not a single trace of wrongdoing could be found. Moreover, the commercial tax figures reported by his subordinates were rising, increasing day by day. There were some changes in tax payments from large merchants, but they were minor. However, data from the three official markets in Shuzhou showed that small vendors’ enthusiasm for paying taxes—and the amounts they were paying—were increasing dramatically. To Sima Guang, this seemed utterly surreal—something he’d never heard of, yet it was actually happening? As a result, Old Master Sima had been in a daze these past few days, muttering to himself as if he were somewhat out of his mind. Yet his subordinates had no idea what he was mumbling about. Finally, one day at noon, Sima Guang could no longer contain himself and invited Wang Bang over for tea once again…