Chapter 513 — Among the People
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 6
Corde, a great merchant of the Carol region, came from a family that had traded for generations. In his youth he had gone out into the world alone and made a name for himself in the northern Southern Marches. Sharp-eyed, bold in action yet never reckless, he was a model merchant who seized every profit while keeping scrupulously to the spirit of a contract. His family's trade spanned furs, spices, and potions, and thanks to his wide circle of friends he had channels in both the Holy Spirit Plain and the Eastern Marches.
Pal was Corde's eldest son—barring mishap, this young man of considerable commercial talent would inherit his father's enterprise.
Gaoyang looked at the great merchant of Carol before him and matched him against the files in his mind—this was the first time he had met Corde in person, but he knew a good deal about the man, and two things about him had left a deep impression.
The first was the reorganization of the Carol merchants' association. After the War of Southern Unification ended, the government hall took over the Carol region; the local merchants' loose alliance was restructured and placed under the government hall's administration. The first great merchant to put his signature to it was none other than this Mr. Corde, and afterward he had actively pushed forward the rectification of the whole region's commercial order—which brought him into the local governor's sight and earned him a place in the government hall.
The second was earlier still—after Cecil's alchemical potions rose to prominence, cheap industrially made potions swiftly blanketed the entire Southern Marches, and nearly every merchant with a hand in the potion trade felt the shock, Corde's family included. Yet while the other merchants fled, changed trades, or threw themselves on Count Horsman's protection, this Mr. Corde did something astonishing: without a moment's hesitation he abandoned his family's entire trade in finished potions and went into the business of herbal raw materials and wholesale alchemical potions, becoming one of Cecil's earliest suppliers of raw materials and wholesalers of alchemical potions...
An excellent businessman.
"Sit, no need for ceremony," said Gaoyang. He had chosen to receive this merchant and his son in the study, and naturally would not put on lofty airs. "Betty—tea and refreshments, brought to the study."
There were chairs and a table in the study for receiving guests. Corde and Pal steadied their somewhat nervous feelings and sat down with as much composure as they could muster—to sit face to face with a noble of such rank was an encounter almost unimaginable for merchants of common birth like them, and even a man of Corde's resolve could scarcely keep his heart calm; yet the great merchant had not lost his basic judgment—he had noticed that this was the study, and that was undoubtedly a good sign.
The parlor was the most common place for receiving guests, but the study was more private; what could be discussed in a study often could not be brought out into the parlor.
Today there was a great deal of business to discuss.
Gaoyang observed the reactions of Corde and Pal and smiled slightly. "Don't be nervous. What we discuss today falls in your area of expertise—Patrick recommended you to me. Mr. Corde, from what I hear, your trade routes run far and wide."
"All of it is a living scraped together," said Corde, weighing every word with care. "In your presence it amounts to nothing."
"No false modesty. A merchant's worth matters a great deal to the duchy—Mr. Corde, I hear you even have business in the Eastern Marches?"
Corde's heart lurched. For a moment he did not know how to answer, and sweat slowly gathered at the back of his neck.
The Eastern Marches were at war with the Royalist army... Though the Southern Marches had not been drawn into this civil war, merchants with wide trade routes had more or less been affected.