In episode 27, Fan xian brought his wife and his 2 siblings over to Cang Mountain for what he calls as his honeymoon, but in reality, was an investor marketing pitch to try to get financiers to buy Qing government bonds that will help plug in the hole in the imperial treasury. Meanwhile, Wu Zhu finds Ruo Ruo and gives her the crucial task of learning how to use a sniper rifle in order to help save Fan Xian’s life if ever the occasion arose.
Let’s continue on the money front first. After the investor pitch, all of the business owners sent off carrier pigeons with notes to their backers back in the capital. Word also travels to the palace where Chen Ping Ping, Fan Jian, the crown prince and the 2nd prince are all discussing the legality of creating bonds. They don’t know whether or not this idea is illegal since it’s so new and there’s no rule against it. But no matter, the Emperor doesn’t meet this group gathered in his study. Instead, he orders them out into a garden to help move flowers.
That’s rather odd because these are all some of the most powerful people in the Qing kingdom. You have the head of the Overwatch Council, and 2 princes and Fan Jian all now laboring to move some planted flowers. Apparently, the Emperor didn’t want any servants near this plot of land so these men have to help out instead. There is to be a Chrysanthemum viewing event coming up that the Emperor wants to prep for.
This is another odd point because, as the 2nd prince points out, the Chrysanthemum viewing party historically was done at a different time. However, Eunuch Hou points out that this year, the timing was moved to an upcoming date. The exact date? Well, that depends on when Fan Xian is able to return to the Capital. That is a HUGE signal to say that even though this Chrysanthemum festival is important, Fan Xian is even MORE important.
The next morning, hordes of servants make their way to Cang mountain where the various business owners are staying for the evening. They bring just one piece of news – the Emperor wants to host the Chrysanthemum Festival and has summoned Fan Xian to return to the Capital to go together. There was not a peep about treasury bonds, only about Fan Xian. That information alone was enough to convince all of these business owners to put money down for these treasury bonds.
Sure enough, there was a huge crowd of these managers all fighting for a chance to buy a treasury bond. With basically no stress at all, Fan Xian and Fan Si Zhe were able to sell ALL of the bonds and gather more than 20million taels of silver. Enough to cover the gap in the royal treasury and then some.
However, Fan Xian isn’t super pleased by this. After all. People only bought the bonds because of the Emperor’s invitation for the festival. If not for that, these managers wouldn’t bite. All of this back and forth inspires Fan Si Zhe into thinking about what exactly is the value of money, and the value of the Qing brand and its credibility. This ultimately inspires Fan Si Zhe to want to start a shop that will help be the in- between for all of these finances. This shop? A BANK! He’s going to open this up in the Northern Qi kingdom to manage all the finances in the land!
I’m not particularly sure why a bank doesn’t exist yet in this world because if Fan Xian’s mother made so much money, i feel like some kind of banking apparatus must have existed. Maybe just not one that is sophisticated enough to do larger scale bank lending.
Anyways, we talked about bonds last episode. The only other thing I want to mention here is about “credibility”. Fan Xian didn’t understand why the merchants wouldn’t buy bonds without his ties to the Emperor. But I do think that makes perfect sense. In modern finance, there is a ton of due diligence that needs to be done before someone gives out a loan, at least on a larger scale. But, in many instances, there are credit ratings available to give investors the signal of how likely do you think a company or a sovereign is willing and able to return money borrowed. Investors look at these credit ratings very closely and while yes, will often do their own analysis but these credit ratings are crucially important. At a corporation, investors and rating agencies look at things like debt to earnings, or earnings to interest expenses while at a sovereign level, they’ll look at things like debt to gdp ratios. At a personal level, in the US, we have credit scores which helps signal whether you are someone who pays back what is borrowed. None of those metrics exist in this world of the Qing kingdom so I’m not surprised these finance managers or business owners relied so heavily on Fan Xian’s ties to the Emperor. It ultimately is a signal of whether or not they will get their money back if they give money to Fan Xian.
And so, the problem with the debt for the imperial treasury is now completely resolved and Fan Si Zhe is ready to go start a bank.
The other thread in the episode revolves around Wu Zhu and mysteries around a murderer. He takes the case with the sniper rifle and brings Fan Xian to a room in the Cang Mountain that looks like it has not been opened in years. This place is very odd because it has objects that shouldn’t exist in this time period. There’s glass and even a telescope. Too western and modern for the Qing kingdom. Wu Zhu leads Fan Xian to a random wall and breaks open a tile and retrieves a box from inside. He gives the box to Fan Xian and states that his mother lived here back in the day. Ah. Now all the modern technology makes sense. As for what’s in the box? Um. Bullets for the sniper rifle.
The problem is, he can’t use this sniper rifle because a main component is missing right now. Wu Zhu tells Fan Xian that in order to fix it, he must go to Jiang Nan, to San Da FAng, or the 3 great workshops. The 3 great workshops are currently being run by the Ming family who ally themselves with the Princess Royal. If Fan Xian can fix the sniper rifle, then he’ll have 3 chances with the 3 bullets he has in hand to change his destiny. And only with these 3 bullets, does he even have an iota’s chance against a grandmaster.
With that, Fan Xian and company wrap up and head back to the capital as he basically has everything he needs and he also needs to head to the Chrysanthemum festival. He is stopped along the way by Imperial Guards and the Head of the Imperial Guards, Commander Gong, who, with the world’s smallest imperial decree, orders Fan Xian to join him on their way to the festival. He is responsible for bringing up pots of flowers that, it looks like the princes were digging up earlier in the episode, up the Hanging temple. In the next episode, we see what happens at this Hanging Temple for the Chrysanthemum Festival.
The last component of this episode is the fact that Fan Xian’s teacher, Fei Jie has quietly followed Fan Xian to the Cang mountain. Part of it was to see Fan Xian but also to continue investigating the various murders of a very powerful individual that has disappeared in the Capital. They had initially thought it was Wu Zhu but we know that is not the case. However, when Fei Jie was alone, he was attacked and left for dead. Noooooo! We’ll find out if he actually dies.
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So that was the episode recap, let’s talk about the pop culture and history found in this episode. Apart from the introduction of the financial instruments, most of the topics found here are surprisingly pop culture references!
The first is 赏菊 or the Chrysanthemum Viewing event. The Emperor orders the Crown Prince, the 2nd Prince, Chen Ping Ping, and Fan Jian to move around Chrysanthemums in preparation for an upcoming Chrysanthemum Viewing event. I will talk more about the timing and historical significance of the event. However, let’s focus on the chrysanthemums themselves. The main color of these chrysanthemums are yellowish orange.
Chrysanthemums are native to east asia and parts of northeastern europe but most of the diversity of the plant is from China. During the Tang and Song dynasties, they were introduced to Japan via Korea. In the seventeenth century, chrysanthemums spread to Europe and were later brought to the Americas.
The chrysanthemum has a documented history of more than 3,000 years. As early as the Western Zhou dynasty, The Book of Rites states: “鸿雁来…鞠（菊）有黄华 – When the wild geese arrive… the chrysanthemum has yellow blossoms.” Other ancient texts such as The Book of Songs contain descriptions and praise yellow chrysanthemums. Chrysanthemum blossoms are most commonly yellow, which is why they have historically been called “yellow flower” (黄华). Because gold and yellow has very powerful and auspicious meanings in Chinese, the chrysanthemum is also given elegant names such as “golden essence” (金英).
There are different varieties and colors of chrysanthemums that have proliferated over the years. For me, I particularly enjoy different varieties of Chrysanthemum tea as they are not caffeinated.
Next up is quick mention of something called 团建 or a company outing. Fan Xian makes a quick joke about this when he meets his teacher Fei Jie and the Shadow along with other members of the Black Knights / Cavalry in the evening. If you translate 团建 that also means Team Building. In modern day corporate China though, this often means an outing where a boss takes his team out for a weekend getaway or else a nice team dinner. Seems simple enough right? There’s some hilarious jokes on Chinese social media with people dreading these Tuan Jian because they either take up a weekend so you’re not actually getting paid for these outings or else you just go to a long dinner that instead means you’re there to sing praises about your boss. It’s also a fun joke where many people post. I’d rather take the money and go on vacation or else just have dinner without the boss to have the best time. I mean – hey! I don’t blame them!
Then there’s the funny quick modern day joke where Fan Si Zhe is trying to come up with the name for a storefront to maintain the funds of the bonds and its credit, Fan Si Zh uses examples which use the word 行. This includes 米行 the grain business. There’s 布行 for the fabric business. What should I use for money! 行 in Chinese represents a 营业机构 or an operating unit or business establishment. Fan Si Zhe immediately says oh! 范行 which translates to Business of Fan. Fan Xian immediately gives him a kick because in China, it is called 银行 or Bank! Well if you translate it directly it’s Silver Industry. The use of the name 银行 only began in the early 1900s when in 1905, the Ministry of Revenue of the Qing Dynasty established the Ministry of Revenue Bank. This was renamed to the Qing Dynasty Bank in 1906. The bank encountered much upheaval with the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the revolutions, WW2, and the civil war but now it is firmly established as the Bank of China.
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Let’s conclude with book differences! This is an extension of the previous episode in the sense that all the finance meetings do not occur at Cang Mountain during Fan Xian’s honeymoon. There is preparation for the Chrysanthemum viewing event but this happens after the events of Bao Yue Lou. So again, we’re now bringing all the different storylines to more or less align with the book.