Chapter 22: The Deal (Part 1)

“No! It’s even more troublesome than that!” It was Jiang Linyang, his father-in-law, who spoke. “Ayu, we’ve never seen so much money in our lives, yet we can’t even get our hands on it. It’s infuriating!”
“What exactly is going on?” Liu Yu still didn’t understand. “Dad, take your time and explain.”
Jiang Linyang gave Liu Yu a meaningful look before taking out a handwritten list. “This is the result of our inspection of the storage warehouses.”
Jiang Linyang’s eyes were red, clearly indicating he hadn’t slept well the previous night. The list detailed everything in Haiyang.
“100,000 dan of rice, 3,000 dan of polished rice…” As soon as Liu Yu saw these first two items, he knew things were serious. “21,000 copper ingots, each weighing about six jin and eight liang; 7,000 zinc ingots, each weighing about five jin and eight liang…”
“800 dan of salt, 90 barrels of raw lacquer…” Liu Yu thought it was already troublesome enough, but then he saw something that brought him some excitement: “26 taels of gold, 1,600 silver coins, 840 taels of silver, 1,600 copper coins, 460,000 lead coins…”
Troublesome! Extremely troublesome!
Liu Yu felt his scalp tingling—this wasn’t just ordinary trouble.
Haiyang was indeed the capital of a major province, with an abundance of supplies. Even a significant portion of the 300,000 taels of silver in customs duties collected annually by the coastal customs was transferred to Haiyang. Yet Vietnamese officials never thought to make proper use of these resources.
The problem was that Liu Yu’s army consisted of just over 200 people. Although they could requisition some mules and horses in Haiyang City and take away tens of thousands of bullets from Deng Cunyu, there wasn’t much remaining capacity for transportation.
100,000 dan of rice, tens of thousands of copper ingots, thousands of lead ingots, along with countless other massive amounts of supplies—all piled up in the warehouses. But Liu Yu’s army could only drool at them; they simply couldn’t take them away.
Remember, the French would definitely come to Haiyang for revenge in ten days or half a month. Could they just let all these valuable supplies rot in the warehouses?
No, this was his first pot of gold!
But the only things Liu Yu was confident he could take away were some highly valuable heavy coins, like gold, silver, and opium. Yet all such items in the warehouses were worth only a few thousand taels of silver. Even the heavy copper coins totaled only about 1,000 pieces.
The real bulk of the value lay in those 460,000 lead coins—a terrifying figure!
Lead coins were actually zinc coins, a type of currency unique to Vietnam. Their characteristic was their heavy weight and extremely low value. Even at the official exchange rate, three lead coins could only be exchanged for one copper coin.
One lead coin weighed almost two kilograms, so 460,000 lead coins represented an astronomical amount of weight. Yet even that wouldn’t be enough to exchange for 100,000 taels of silver.
This was a deliberately created worst kind of counterfeit currency. Emperor Minh Mang of the Nguyen dynasty once proudly declared, “With lead coins, the wealthy dare not hoard them privately, and foreign merchants dare not take them back. The circulation of these coins benefits not only the people but also the country—it’s a natural advantage!”
What a waste!
It was like a bank robber who went through great hardships to break into a vault, only to find it filled with small coins. Liu Yu was so frustrated he felt like vomiting. He still asked his father-in-law, “How much is it all worth?”

“It’s worth two hundred thousand taels of silver.” Jiang Linyang, Sima Tai, and Liu Suiyun were all frustrated at not being able to seize the plunder: “A rough estimate is two hundred thousand taels of silver. Governor Fan is very cooperative.”
Two hundred thousand taels of silver was right in front of them, but all they could swallow was a few thousand taels. There was nothing more humiliating in this world.
Jiang Linyang continued, “Governor Fan agreed to fetch more silver and opium for us, but I reckon he won’t be able to get much.”
He had done a lot of work in these negotiations, scaring Fan Fushu to death, fearing they would join Li Yangcai’s camp.
But Fan Fushu was just a scholar—how could he compete with Jiang Linyang? He was utterly defeated, almost ready to throw out his wife’s foot-binding cloth.
Yet no matter what, he still couldn’t produce silver or gold.
“Why not burn it all down?” Liu Yu was determined.
The loss of Haiyang came after Hanoi and Nanning; it could be considered France’s fourth key stronghold in Vietnam, providing continuous military funds and troops for them. The Qing and Vietnamese armies had attacked the city many times but failed each time.
Since they couldn’t get it, they couldn’t afford to let the French gain an advantage later. Liu Yu was resolute this time: “Let’s pick out the most valuable items first, huh?”
His eye fell on Deng Cunyu and Lian Jincheng sitting over there. Suddenly inspired, he shouted at Boss Deng, “Boss Deng, there’s a highly profitable deal—would you be willing to take it on?”
Deng Cunyu hadn’t spoken earlier but had his ears perked up. Hearing a few words, his eyes reddened as he waited to counter Liu Yu fiercely. Unexpectedly, Liu Yu stole the initiative, leaving him deeply regretful: “Ah! If I had spoken first, I would’ve gained the upper hand. What a pity!”
Though he said it regretfully, he just smiled and said, “I usually do small-scale business, but if there’s some profit, I’m willing to take a risk.”
Liu Yu was straightforward too: “You can pick any goods from the warehouse. I’ll give you 30% of the value and cover the shipping to the port.”
This deal was definitely deadly—it would anger both the Vietnamese and the French to the extreme.
But selling so much arms to Liu Yu already angered the Vietnamese and French to death. Yet this single deal would last for ten years. Deng Cunyu already had plans: after this deal, he would retire for a while and take his money to Hong Kong to engage in speculative business.
No matter how long the French and Vietnamese reached, they couldn’t reach Hong Kong!
He wasn’t afraid of adding another deadly deal—afterward, he could just hide in Hong Kong. After all, his arms business was already deadly.
Businesses were done for profit, no matter where. Deng Cunyu immediately agreed: “Deal! I’ll pay for the ship. 30%, settled!”
He added, “I’ll also take 30% of the coins minted!”
Although the Annamite officials were incompetent, they had good judgment. Rice, grain, and salt were all valuable goods, but even more valuable were copper and zinc ingots—Haiyang had an official mint with ready-made molds.
In the world of business, nothing was more profitable than coin minting.
This time, Boss Deng was betting big.