Chapter 158 Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

"Xiaomei, arrange a room for the two of them. Xiaohe will share a room with Lucia from now on. Lucia's Tang language is not very good, so you should help teach her more!"

"What about Wang Lun? Tell him to ready the carriage; I'm heading out this afternoon." Zhen Qian walked into the study, glanced at the neatly stacked documents on the desk, and asked, "Any news over the past few days?"

Xiaomei retrieved a wooden box from the partition of the bookshelf and placed it on the desk. "These are the documents just delivered recently. Oh, by the way, five cartloads of white quartz were shipped back from Donghai County in Haizhou yesterday. Should they be sent to Wolf Lair?"

Donghai County was later known as Lianyungang, a region abundant in quartz since the Han Dynasty. However, prior to the Ming Dynasty, white quartz was never considered valuable; only purely colored quartz was regarded as top-tier ornamentation. The price of bulk white quartz was barely higher than ordinary stone, and Zhen Qian naturally would not let such fine raw materials go to waste.

Making glass requires pure silicon dioxide. While it sounds simple, naturally pure silicon dioxide is exceedingly difficult to find, and separating the impurities is no easy task. Furthermore, the manufacturing process requires auxiliary raw materials such as calcium oxide and aluminum oxide, which are similarly hard to source in high natural purity. How could chemical and physical separation technologies be mastered overnight?

Glassmaking is simple in theory, utilizing quartz sand (silicon dioxide), limestone, feldspar, soda ash, and others. Glass fired directly from natural quartz sand turns out multicolored (mostly greenish, which is also the origin of the earliest colored glaze, commonly found around volcanic craters), making it impossible to predict the exact color of each batch before it leaves the kiln, let alone achieve a desired hue.

During the Tang Dynasty, the technology for firing glass was only preliminarily mastered by the Arab and Western merchants beyond the Western Regions, who frequently used glass to fleece the people of Tang out of their wealth. By the fifteenth century, the Venetians fully mastered glassmaking and sold glass mirrors at exorbitant prices, guarding the secret for centuries. When the technique was introduced to China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, a single mirror the height of a man sold for thousands of taels of silver.

For producing colorless and transparent glass, the finest raw material was undoubtedly white quartz. Purchasing white quartz was much more expensive than ordinary quartz sand, but compared to the price of a mirror, the cost was negligible.

Using white quartz to make colorless glass had already proven entirely viable. The precious glazed mirror presented to Feng Wannian had been crafted from white quartz, which was what prompted Zhen Qian to resolve to use white quartz for producing colorless glass first, intending to make a massive fortune.

"Store the white quartz on the estate for now; someone will come to collect it. Have Wang Lun make preparations—we leave this afternoon!"

***

Zhen Qian took the documents from the wooden box. They contained intelligence gathered from various regions, which Xiaomei had already classified, summarized, and translated. They were no longer unrecognizable secret codes—a routine Xiaomei had long since mastered.

"Xianyu Zhongtong, the Military Commissioner of Jiannan, was defeated by Nanzhao, escaping with his life alone. Yang Guozhong, citing his previous military exploits, recommended him as the Mayor of Jingzhao. Geluofeng, the King of Nanzhao, collected the corpses of the fallen to construct a victory monument, and subsequently submitted to Tubo in the north."

"On the Jiaoshen day of the twelfth month, Shi Siming, the Military Commissioner of Pinglu, was concurrently appointed as the Prefect of Beiping and the Military Commissioner of Lulong."

"On the Dingyou day of the twelfth month, Feng Changqing, the Army Secretary of Anxi, was appointed as the Military Commissioner of the Four Garrisons of Anxi."

"Prince Di of Yan had two concubines who were vying for his favor. One of them employed a shaman to write a talisman and placed it inside the Prince's shoes to win his affection. Prince Di had a rift with the palace eunuch in charge of the residence, and the eunuch, discovering the plot, secretly memorialized to the Emperor that the Prince was casting spells against him. The Emperor sent men to seize the shoes and discovered the talisman, flying into a great rage. The Prince kowtowed in apology, saying, 'Your subject truly knew nothing of the talisman.' The Emperor ordered an investigation, which proved it was indeed the deed of the concubine. Still suspecting the Prince was aware of it, the Emperor imprisoned him in the hawk and hound quarters, barred him from court audiences, and the Prince died of grief and indignation."

Zhen Qian frowned, his gaze lingering on a particular sentence: "The Emperor granted an audience to the Japanese Envoy and intended to dispatch Daoist priests to accompany the Japanese mission, but was refused, causing great displeasure and fury..."

So that was it! The doubt in Zhen Qian's heart was finally resolved. Whenever the Japanese envoys arrived in the Tang Empire, the imperial court invariably received and farewelled them with the highest protocol. This time, however, there was a stark difference—not a single welcoming or farewell envoy had been dispatched. Coupled with Li Cui's lukewarm attitude toward Fujiwara no Kiyokawa, the Japanese mission had actually rejected the Daoist priests heading to Japan. The Li Tang dynasty regarded Daoism as the state religion; Buddhist monks were permitted to go to Japan, but Daoists were barred. Where was Emperor Xuanzong to save face after such a rebuff? Not executing the Japanese envoys already showed great restraint, let alone expecting special honors—what a pipe dream!

Zhen Qian felt a throbbing headache. If he agreed to accompany Fujiwara no Kiyokawa to Japan at this moment, wouldn't it be walking right into the line of fire? The Japanese mission had undermined Emperor Xuanzong's dignity, and Xuanzong must be furious right now! Why was he so unlucky?

He had merely wanted to find a place to take refuge until the storm blew over. What did it matter if An Lushan refused to let him go? As the saying goes, a clever rabbit has three burrows; Xiantai Village and Luquan County were merely facades. He certainly wasn't going to foolishly wait around to be cornered inside a house.

With this thought, he no longer worried about Emperor Xuanzong or An Lushan. They could never dream of his plans. Following the Japanese mission to Japan—could Emperor Xuanzong possibly pursue him across the ocean?

Human psychology is such that once one lets go of fear, one becomes fearless. If anyone in the Tang Empire could be said to hold imperial authority in contempt, he might not dare claim first place, but second place should certainly be within his grasp.

***

"Hmm... grain prices in Yangzhou have dropped again!"

High grain prices harm farmers, but low grain prices harm them just as much. On the surface, falling grain prices appear to be a good thing, but in reality, they are not. First, the farmers' motivation to cultivate crops disappears—otherwise, why would later generations establish minimum support prices for grain? Second, falling grain prices directly reduce farmers' incomes, leaving them with no surplus cash while taxes remain unyielding. Consequently, the selling of land increases, and land annexation intensifies until the land falls under the control of powerful magnates. Eventually, grain prices are bound to rebound, and the ones who suffer in the end are still the farmers, triggering a series of vicious reactions.

A trace of mockery appeared at the corner of Zhen Qian's mouth. The Chinese obsession with land was not limited to the Tang Dynasty alone; the imperial court's suppression of commercial activities inevitably drove massive amounts of capital into land investment. In history, only the Song Dynasty successfully resolved this issue, and the Song was also the only dynasty that did not strictly control land annexation. The reason was the extreme vibrancy of its commerce. According to the laws of capital flow, the most profitable industry attracts the most surplus funds—much like the financial sector in later eras.

The only person likely to benefit from the falling grain prices was Zhen Qian himself. Even those merchants desperately hoarding grain would find their fortunes ruined and families destroyed in the impending An Lushan Rebellion.

"My lord is back!"

Xiaozhu rushed into the study full of vigor. A single day apart felt like three autumns; though less than ten days had passed, Xiaozhu was already looking at him with infatuated, watery eyes. "There's no need for this...! We're old married folks by now. Come here... let me give you a hug!"

Xiaomei, standing nearby, burst out laughing. "This girl has been calling out your name in her sleep these past few days; she was driving me crazy!"

Xiaozhu blushed and jumped up. "Who are you talking about? Who was the one talking about going to the county town to catch an adulterer..."

"Stop right there! The more you speak, the more outrageous it gets. Spare the rod and spoil the child—it seems your skin is itching for a beating. I'll properly deal with the two of you in a couple of days!"