Warring States Survival Guide-Chapter 194 - 133 Wanjin People_2

At this point, Ah Qi pointed ahead and said, "Big Brother Bodhisattva, this is the place. Your buddies love coming here the most."

Stone Bodhisattva looked out and saw a whole bunch of small stalls, most of them selling food and drinks. Even though it was fairly cold right now, the various snack stalls were about seventy or eighty percent full, almost all short-haired, uniformed soldiers on leave.

Stone Bodhisattva was a bit baffled. Meals at the camp didn’t cost anything, you could eat as much as you wanted, so why bother coming out here to eat and drink? Isn’t that stupid? He asked Ah Qi, puzzled, "They like coming here? Just for the food?"

"Yeah, to eat and drink!" Ah Qi said, pointing at a particular shop. "That one’s the most famous. I heard Lord Nozawa Saburou wrote the sign himself, and even Lord Ah Man drops by once in a while."

Stone Bodhisattva was instantly filled with respect and took a closer look at the sign, but he didn’t recognize the characters, so he couldn’t tell what the place was called. What he did notice was that business was booming—the place was packed. This was the very first privately run shop in Wanjin. The owner had just been promoted from the labor team to worker at the workshop, but then stumbled across a business opportunity: in summer, he secretly picked plums, used his wages to quietly buy rice, made his own yeast, and secretly brewed rice wine in bamboo tubes, selling it to his coworkers.

Because the workers at the workshop always had a little cash left after meals, and back then there was nowhere in Wanjin to spend money—everyone ate from communal pots—his lightly brewed wine became very popular and was a smash hit for a while.

Then he was caught by the newly appointed East Factory Director, Ah Man. In the report, she labeled him "habitually lazy and disruptive to production," and sent him right back to the labor team, banishing him to Iron Field to play in the mud. She confiscated all his homemade booze, stashed it in her own room, and when she had nothing to do, she’d sneak a drink or two herself from those bamboo tubes.

Later, after being reported—by Ah Qing, Yayoi, sometimes openly, sometimes in secret—Harano followed the trail and discovered this talented guy. He hurried to haul the "speculator bootleg genius" back from the fields, lent him some money, gave him a three-year tax exemption and a property to use rent-free for three years, so he could open Wanjin’s first "bar." That’s how the first entertainment spot appeared in Wanjin. Harano himself didn’t like alcohol, but being an adult, he didn’t force his own preferences on others. So as long as someone wanted to sell booze, paid taxes, and kept it safe to drink, he wouldn’t ban drinking in his territory.

And ever since that first shop opened, more and more people started applying to run restaurants, trying to earn the workers’ copper coins. After the first wave of immigrants were kidnapped and brought in, Wanjin really started to come alive. With this shop as the center, the whole area gradually grew into a small food vendor district: stalls selling soy sauce wontons, soy sauce buckwheat noodles, grilled fish and shellfish, sticky rice cakes with pickled rice—you name it, they had it. Whenever the locals wanted to eat a bit better, or have a small drink to relax, this was where they’d go. It was becoming a way of life.

But most of the businesses didn’t dare go into debt—even though Harano didn’t ask for interest, they still wouldn’t borrow—so for now, most were still old-fashioned street stalls, pretty primitive. If you wanted to buy or move into a proper shop, fat chance for now. It might take a while before this becomes a real "food street."

Of course, some people tried less savory methods. Seeing that Harano had eased up on personal restrictions and allowed small business, someone realized there were a lot of bachelors in Wanjin, and certain "services" had serious money-making potential. He planned to rope in some newly arrived immigrant women for a certain kind of business, claiming all you had to do was lie down and you’d get rich fast.

For people like this, Harano didn’t go easy. He had Ah Man arrest him right away, sent him off to Iron Field to play in the mud and get some "advanced re-education," and stayed up late to hammer out a "Market Management Regulation." He broadly divided up the types of businesses: which had to be government-run, which could be private, and which ones would get you killed if you tried them, just to prevent crap like this from happening again.

All this work Harano was doing to promote circulation, recover currency, ease the pressure of resettlement, and increase future government income—all that, Stone Bodhisattva had no clue about, and probably wouldn’t understand even if he did. He just had the vague idea to try out a place that had been certified by "Lord Nozawa Saburou" himself, but he didn’t want to spend money on a drink, so he gave up. When Ah Qi saw he didn’t want a drink, she thought a moment and took him to another street nearby.

It was less crowded here, but still had quite a few stalls. Some people, just at a glance, clearly weren’t from Wanjin—when Wanjin first started, ninety-nine percent of the people were dirt poor, and some could barely cover their butts. So Harano issued everyone clothing: men and women all got a two-piece set of tops and pants. He even suggested the men cut their hair short—whoever was willing got a free pair of big shorts on top. So these days, you could spot a Wanjin local from an outsider at a glance.

Most of these outsiders were traveling merchants, selling little things Wanjin couldn’t produce yet. Now that there were more households, people needed all kinds of strange knickknacks that the authorities just couldn’t manage, so everyone was left to buy what they needed themselves. These merchants were penned in, only allowed to sell here, not wander the streets, which wasn’t too convenient. And every merchant had to register with Ah Man for a business license—this did catch a few random spies, but it didn’t really matter, since important places were off-limits anyway.

Lots of islanders came too. After interacting for a long time, not a single one got grabbed to be a laborer. Some bold ones had even started retailing fresh fish here to earn extra cash, and also bought sewing supplies and other bits and bobs; they had the same rights as the Wanjin folks, didn’t get robbed or squeezed, and if a merchant cheated them, they could even file a complaint.

The official Wanjin "general store" was also located here, selling everything from rice, wheat, and cloth, to lamp oil, wooden buckets, and pottery. But most of the cargo capacity was still for the workshops, so apart from food, most goods just kept prices stable and often ran out of stock. Buyers would have to wait until enough was gathered for a bulk purchase.

Ah Qi was still a child and loved the little trinkets sold here. Seeing that Stone Bodhisattva was only glancing around without much interest, she enthusiastically suggested, "Big Brother Bodhisattva, some of your fellow soldiers also come here to pick out things for their families. Want to look around too?"

Stone Bodhisattva immediately shook his head and grinned sheepishly, "My whole family’s been dead a long time."

Ah Qi wasn’t surprised. Stone Bodhisattva was obviously a true-blood Wanjin local, and most Wanjin veterans were single men—totally normal. Thinking for a bit, she warmly offered, "Then how about we head up north? There are lots of variety performers, puppet masters, and theater folk up there. I heard they’re from Atsuta Port and borrowed a place from Lord Nozawa Saburou—they’re performing right through New Year’s."

Stone Bodhisattva shook his head. He wasn’t interested in that stuff either. After their shows, those performers would ask for money, or charge you before you could watch; he didn’t care for that. But just wandering around with nothing to do didn’t feel right, so after thinking a moment, he said, "Why don’t we get a bowl of buckwheat noodles? I haven’t had buckwheat noodles in ages."

Back in those days, you usually only ate buckwheat noodles at New Year’s. Now that he was out and about during the holiday, getting a bowl sounded like a worthwhile trip.

"Buckwheat noodles?" Ah Qi hesitated, looked up at the sky, and said to him, "Big Brother Bodhisattva, want to have them at my place? My mom knows how to make buckwheat noodles—she’s even said before she wanted to thank you. If you come, she’ll be really happy!"

"Your mom?" Stone Bodhisattva was instantly interested. "All right, let’s go right now!"