Chapter 784.2: Scam Me Once, Shame On Me! Scam Me Twice, Shame On Me! SCAM ME THRICE?

That said, it really was strange. Cloth prices had never been this outrageous before. A kilogram of cotton normally cost only 10 to 15 Xilande coins. Processing it into cotton cloth would at most double the price. It could then be sold to merchants from Port Gallon for 16 to 24 gallons, with Silver occasionally used for settlement instead.

In other words, a kilogram of cotton cloth normally cost 1.6 to 2.4 Silver.

Textiles had been the first industry to spread from Port Gallon into Tiger State, and Tiger State’s cheap, high-quality cotton cloth had supported half the prosperity of Port Gallon’s export trade.

Yet recently, for reasons no one could explain, a huge crowd of merchants had suddenly rushed over from Port Gallon, stuffing sack after sack of Xilande currency into his boss’s hands. Not only had they bought out the textile mills’ entire inventories, they had even booked orders for next year.

Those people were acting like lunatics, as though the money in their hands wasn’t actually theirs, but something they had obtained for next to nothing.

Although the survivors of Tiger State had always regarded the merchants of Port Gallon as filthy rich, even they had never been this crazy before.

There was an unofficial but universally accepted exchange rate between Gallons and Xilande currency. Generally, Gallons could be exchanged for Xilande currency at a ratio of 4:5.

Those merchants had obtained their Xilande currency by exchanging gallons as well, unless, of course, they had somehow gotten a cheaper exchange rate from the banks or somewhere else.

He was merely a clerk, so naturally he had no idea where those merchants had gotten so many Xilande coins. All he had heard was that the money was indeed genuinely issued by the royal court!

Afraid that the sellers might refuse to accept it, those traveling merchants had even brought certificates issued by the lending banks. Every piece of documentation, inside and out, was sufficient to prove that the money was clean and legitimate.

Strange as it was, no one was going to turn away business that came knocking on their door. And so, the inventories of textile mills throughout Tiger State had been completely bought out.

Normally speaking, the cloth flowing from textile mills into the cloth market consisted mostly of loose stock rejected by garment factories. This time, however, the flood of Xilande currency had squeezed every last drop out of the major textile mills. Naturally, the price of cloth circulating on the market could only rise along with it.

The people gathered in front of the stall argued and shoved for a while, but in the end, no one dared cause trouble on a warlord’s turf. They could only swallow their anger and accept their fate.

Some servants tasked with buying fabric for their masters paid up without hesitation. It wasn’t their own money they were spending, after all, and their masters certainly weren’t short of cash.

Some small shop owners counted on their fingers and realized that if they bought materials at that price, they would lose money no matter how much they charged for the finished clothes. Cursing under their breath, they left.

Others heard that cloth prices were going to rise even further and figured there was an opportunity for speculation, so they hurriedly pulled out the money they had and bought whatever they could first.

Even more residents passing through the market began discussing whether something major had happened in Mammoth City again. Some even frantically spread rumors that Alyang had suffered a defeat, claiming the front line was running short on burial shrouds and bandages, which was why cloth prices had shot through the roof.

Yet that explanation seemed too narrow. After all, it wasn’t only cloth prices that were soaring. Sugarcane, white sugar, soybeans, corn, and all sorts of other miscellaneous goods were shooting up in price as well.

Some began cursing the Moon Clan, believing their unclean blood had cursed the Xilande Empire’s national fortune and that only by drawing a grand formation with their blood could the curse be broken. Others cursed the traveling merchants of Port Gallon. After all, those opportunistic bastards really were rather unscrupulous, and the source of all those Xilande currency had to be shady.

A few better-informed people somehow even managed to direct their curses toward Chu Guang, the New Alliance’s administrator, who was far away commanding operations on the front line in the Ocean Edge Province.

They were considered “better-informed” because anyone who hadn’t read at least a few secondhand newspapers might not even know the New Alliance administrator’s name.

That was precisely the bitterness of living inside an information cocoon. When people lacked access to reliable information, sometimes they got slapped and could see only the palm, without knowing where the blow had landed. In fact, they might not even know where the slap had come from.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of White Tiger City, hundreds of pedal-powered sewing machines were crammed inside a factory complex spanning more than ten acres. The relentless brrr of their mechanisms echoed throughout the workshops.

This garment factory, named “Farhan,” had been established by a merchant named Farhan. Not only was it the largest garment factory in White Tiger City, it was also the earliest factory established in all of Tiger State.

Two months earlier, Jeha, the general of the Fierce Tiger Army, had spent a modest sum to purchase the factory. He then invested another 10,000,000 Gallons, purchasing a batch of equipment from Port Gallon and expanding the factory’s production capacity.

The factory had not disappointed General Jeha’s expectations. Today, one-fifth of the towels, curtains, bedding, and shirts used by Port Gallon’s residents came from the factory.

The merchant who had sold the factory back then was probably regretting it so badly his guts had turned green.

The entire factory was practically a money-printing machine, continuously supplying the Fierce Tiger Army with cash. So much so that the Fierce Tiger Army, like Port Gallon’s garrison, had now switched over to the distinctly New Alliance-flavored LD-47. Their equipment was leagues better than that of the Gray Wolf Army.

While the long-term laborers worked their sewing machines so furiously they practically wished they could make them fly, the accountant responsible for the books was pressing his calculator just as rapidly, meticulously working through the ledger. Although the goods exported from Tiger State to Port Gallon entered in Gallons, in other words, foreign currency, those Gallons could not be directly spent inside Tiger State. Whether it was Dinars, Silver, or Gallons, all foreign currency first had to undergo foreign-exchange settlement before it could truly be deposited into the factory’s account at a White Tiger City money house. Or what other people would call a bank.

After all, the Xilande Empire was not the Southern Seas New Alliance, whose domestic currency had collapsed. Legally speaking, neither Gallons nor Silver were permitted to circulate directly within the Xilande Empire. At most, some people used them privately.

The factory could use its foreign-currency balance to purchase equipment from Port Gallon, but it had to exchange Gallons for Xilande currency if it wanted to purchase raw materials within the Empire or pay its workers’ wages.

As a result, one of the accountant’s routine monthly tasks was to compare the bank’s remittance records and determine which portion of the factory’s gallons should be converted through foreign-exchange settlement, and which portion should be retained for purchasing equipment or paying the expenses of externally hired technical personnel.

White Tiger City’s banks were relatively lax when it came to managing foreign currency. The main reason was that the warlords didn’t really understand this stuff either, so they generally tossed the matter to their subordinates and let them handle it.

The people under them didn’t understand it either, so they simply copied Port Gallon’s model. Whatever the ones who had gotten rich first were doing, they did the same.

That was precisely why ordinary business owners could generally decide for themselves when to settle their foreign exchange and how much to convert, saving them the trouble of filing a report with the bank every time they needed Silver.

This month, however, things had become exceedingly strange. First, the garment factory’s incoming payments had been forcibly converted into Xilande currency at last month’s exchange rate. Then the profits recorded in the ledger went from more than 10,000,000 Xilande coins at the beginning of the month to negative 2,000,000.

That gave the old accountant quite a fright.

The first issue actually wasn’t much of a concern. The garment factory belonged to the warlords, and the money house handling the foreign-exchange settlement was also owned by the military bigwigs of Tiger State.

He couldn’t care less if those lords were simply moving money from their left pocket to their right. No matter which pocket it ended up in, it was still their money. As long as he knew where it had gone, that was enough.

If anyone really had reason to panic, it was the small workshops. After all, the gallons and even Silver sitting in their bank accounts waiting to be settled were money they had earned themselves. By pulling this trick, White Tiger City’s banks had effectively confiscated the Silver in their accounts. They clearly had no intention of preserving even the slightest shred of credibility.

What really threatened to kill the old accountant, however, was the second problem.

Where had the profits gone? How had they somehow gotten poorer the more they produced?

The old man looked completely bewildered. He wet his index finger with saliva and, forcing himself to remain calm, flipped through the ledger again and again.

At last, he discovered the clue in the raw-material costs.

In the span of barely a month, the price of cotton cloth had actually doubled. Even linen, whose price had always been the most stable, had risen by 80%! The profits from the first half of the month had been swallowed whole by the rising raw-material costs in the second half!

No wonder they had worked themselves to the bone all the way to the end of the month, only to finish 2,000,000 in the red.

That was no small matter. At least they had made some profit during the first half of the month, which was why their total loss had only been so much. If the trend continued, they would probably lose 20,000,000 next month!

At the rate they were going, they would be bankrupt within half a year!

The accountant was sweating profusely and was just about to get up and find the factory manager when the foreman on duty suddenly knocked and walked in. Looking cautiously at the old man behind the desk, he asked, “Sir... the workers are clamoring for their wages. Do you think we could settle their pay first?”

Normally, being one or two weeks behind on wages wasn’t that big of a deal. The free citizens employed as long-term workers were generally quite capable of enduring hardship, and they were very considerate toward their employers.

However, no one knew what had happened recently. Across the whole of White Tiger City, practically everything had gone up in price except the red soil. Even the soybean meal fed to livestock had become more expensive.

The accountant’s expression stiffened. His backside, which had only just left the chair, dropped back down again. He glared at the foreman with a dark expression and grumbled, “I haven’t even finished the damn accounts yet. What are you rushing me for?!”

The foreman replied with a miserable expression, “Sir, it isn’t me rushing you. I’m not in a hurry. It’s mainly the workers who are...”

The accountant impatiently waved his pen, putting on the appearance of still being busy. “Tell them to get back to work first. General Jeha owns an estate so big, do they really think he’d be short of this tiny bit of money? If they want to work, work. If they don’t, they can get lost. Stop bothering me while I’m counting money.”

The foreman looked thoroughly aggrieved and groaned to himself, but he didn’t dare say anything more. He could only lower his head and leave the office.

For that entire day, White Tiger City seemed as though it had been possessed. From the cloth market doing petty trade to the factories doing major business, cries of misery were everywhere. The people doing the work labored from dawn to dusk, while the people keeping the books worked from dusk till dawn, yet not a single one of them could figure out where the damn money had actually gone.

The only exceptions were the plantation owners growing cotton, sugarcane, and other cash crops, as well as the nobles who owned those estates.

Being situated upstream, or rather, at the very source of the industrial chain, they suffered the least from the shock. One could even say they were the biggest beneficiaries of the round of engineered inflation.

Of course, that was only for the time being. Soon enough, they would discover that fertilizer which had once sold for 100 Xilande coins had risen two or threefold, while the artwork and cosmetics bought by their second wives had multiplied several times in price as well. After all, those things still had to be imported from Port Gallon using foreign currency.

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