"But—but, 'Bloody Sheet' Wen...!" the man said.
"Doesn't hurt those who readily accede to his demands," Fengzi said, exasperation dripping from the words. "And what he demands is to trade with you. What part of this do you not understand?"
"And please, call me The Notorious Wen if you refer to me at all."
"Whatever you say, sir." The man sat up. "You wanted pork, you said. What do you have to offer in trade?"
"Well," Wen said carefully, hoping it wouldn't come to this, "there's cash, of course."
"Too much of that draws attention from the governor," the man said. "We don't actually have too much we can spend money on, here." Wen felt his shoulders lighten.
"Fair enough," he said. "We also have some old sword-blades you might be able to use for chopping. Oh," he added, "and there's always the dried, salted fish."
"You've got fish?"
"Well, yes," Wen said. "Rather a lot of it, actually. But, um, isn't this a fishing village?"
"Very observant of you, sir. But that's my point, really."
"What is?"
"Our taxes to the government, sir, are paid in fish. We have to render up two hundred taels' worth of dried fish every year, and until we've done that we can only keep for ourselves whatever we can sneak from under the nose of the government tax inspector."
"Hey!" called a voice from the temple.
"You might want to keep your voice down when you talk about things like that," Fengzi told the man.
"Oh, hell," the man said. "It's not as if it's any great secret. Nobody wants to starve, after all. And nobody wants us fisher-folk to starve, either, or the imperial garrisons would starve in their turn. But it's still a hard life, and if you really do have dried salted fish to trade, and you don't mind an exchange that's absurdly in our favor, we'd be happy to take the fish off your hands and give you some really nice fresh pork and vegetables and steamed wheat buns in exchange."
As some of the crew had begun drooling, Wen decided that this was a trade that ought to be made. As the crew were hauling the last of the refreshed pork barrels back aboard the Jade Maiden, Wen wrapped his arm around the man—who, on the evidence, was likely to win appointment as new headman on the basis of his coup today—and told him, "I'd appreciate it very much, you know, if you'd pass the word along the coast that Wen Xia and the Jade Maiden are no enemies of the villages hereabouts."
"What about the Green Turbans?" the man asked. "We were visited by them last year and it wasn't pretty. And they were in a ship called the Jade Maiden."
"That was then," Wen said. "There's a new captain on the Maiden, and a new goal." Which is to make myself rich so that I can stop worrying about my poor idiot father, but I don't have to tell you that. "What I want from the coastal villages is nothing more than neutrality, and the opportunity to trade from time to time. Do you think that'll be considered acceptable?"
"I'm pretty sure you'll have people lined up to trade with you," the man said. His smile revealed a number of very interesting gaps in his teeth. "But you'll always think of Xīn Gǎngkǒu first, won't you, Notorious Wen sir?"
"You can count on that, my fishing friend," Wen said.
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