Lee Geom-min’s residence was not very far away.
I took a carriage that Archie had prepared and visited her home alone.
Her husband had been wearing traditional Chinese attire, and when Lee Geom-min had been disguised as an old woman, she had worn the black clothes typically worn by poor Chinese elderly women.
Because of this, I thought the house might be in a traditional Chinese style, but surprisingly, it was a Western-style building with a slight Chinese touch.
When I handed Archie’s letter of introduction to the servant at the gate, I was soon sent word to enter.
I was able to meet Lee Geom-min in the parlor of the mansion.
“Young Master Lee Myeong-jin from Joseon? I am Lee Geom-min.
I am meeting you because you brought Archie’s letter, but I cannot imagine why you would want to see me.”
During the day, I hadn’t been able to look at her closely because she had a face full of rage while beating her cheating husband, but Lee Geom-min was more beautiful than I expected.
She appeared to be about twenty years old.
Recalling the action she had displayed earlier, I wondered if I would have been capable of such a brave act when I was twenty in my past life.
I concluded that I probably wouldn’t have been.
Furthermore, women of this era are usually shy about revealing their own names.
Even though I was a child, I could see at a glance that she was a confident Yeojunghogeol by the way she asserted her name.
I first placed a box containing two geun of Ginseng on the table and spoke.
“Since this is a meeting with a person of high status, I have brought a small gift. I hope it is to your liking.”
The maid standing next to Lee Geom-min looked exactly like the woman who had been beating the gisaeng earlier that day.
That maid placed the box I offered onto the table next to Lee Geom-min. When Lee Geom-min and the maid opened the box, they were both startled.
In the China of this era, even for a wealthy person, two geun of Ginseng was enough to cause surprise.
“Young Master and I are complete strangers. For what reason do you give me such a precious gift? If you do not state your reasons specifically, I cannot accept such a thing.”
“I brought these with me when I came from Joseon. Unlike here in the Great Qing, Ginseng is not that difficult to obtain in Joseon. So, please do not feel too burdened.”
I placed the bag I had brought on the table and continued.
“I have come to see you today because I have a matter to consult with you about. Before that, would you mind taking a look inside this?”
The maid stepped forward again to pick up the bag, but she hadn’t anticipated the weight.
She failed to lift it properly and dropped it.
She then gripped it again and lifted it; it seemed a bit heavy for a woman.
The maid placed it on the table next to Lee Geom-min and opened the bag.
Upon seeing the contents, both of them showed expressions of shock once again.
Inside the bag was 20kg of gold.
Lee Geom-min asked in a startled voice.
“Why are you showing this to us?”
“Because that is precisely the matter I wish to consult with you about.”
Both Lee Geom-min and the maid tilted their heads, expressing their confusion about what I wanted to discuss.
“If I were to walk through the streets of Shanghai with the contents of this bag in my hand, what do you think would happen?”
“I see. You are finding it difficult to manage such great wealth in such a young body. That is why you have asked for advice from me, a young woman who manages a large fortune.”
“Yes, that is exactly it. I am simply afraid of what to do with such immense wealth in this young body. Therefore, despite my lack of shame, I have presumed to consult with you, Sister, to ask what I should do.”
In this era, calling a woman you’ve just met ‘Sister’ is a great discourtesy.
However, I was quite young.
Furthermore, as a foreigner who was not very well-versed in Chinese etiquette, a slight discourtesy could be overlooked.
Also, since both Lee Geom-min and I shared the surname Lee, there was no reason we couldn’t call each other sister and brother once we became close.
As we continued our conversation and shared the circumstances of the wealthy that cannot be told to others, we became quite close.
Eventually, Lee Geom-min even began calling me her younger brother.
“…And that is how I was able to preserve and not waste the fortune my father left me. However, that man my father matched me with as a husband is out there wasting my money on other women, so do you think I would be angry or not? That is why I finally couldn’t hold back and caused that scene today.”
“Today’s events were truly refreshing. It wasn’t just me; everyone watching around us found it exhilarating.”
“As you can see, our father did not force Foot-binding on us sisters. That is why people tease us by calling us Daegak. After what I did today, I’m embarrassed that people might call me a tigress or a Hadongsaja.”
The term Hadongsaja originated from a poem by the poet Su Dongpo.
He wrote a poem comparing his friend Chen Zhao’s wife, Lady Liu, to a lion after seeing how fierce she was and how much Chen Zhao feared her.
Lady Liu was from Hedong. The term refers to a wife who is as terrifying as a tiger.
“That is not true. I personally saw and heard it there today. Everyone watching thought your achievement was refreshing, and I never heard a single word looking down on you. I only heard them say it was a pity that a Yeojunghogeol had married the wrong man.”
Lee Geom-min and the two maids next to her sighed simultaneously.
While our conversation had grown long, the other maid I had seen during the day had also joined the group.
Lee Geom-min pointed to the maids and said.
“Some people say that we sisters all married one man, but that is not true. My father had that intention, but how could I ruin my sisters’ lives just for my own convenience? These girls are all pure maidens, and I want to find them good husbands in the future, but I cannot find suitable men.”
“There are many such cases in Joseon as well. It is common for a father with only daughters to leave a large fortune to them, only for a son-in-law to blow it all away. In the cases I saw in Joseon, many lost their wealth to gambling, though I do not know if it is similar here in the Great Qing.”
Of course, I wasn’t speaking from personal experience, but from stories I had heard or books I had read in my past life.
This time, Lee Geom-min and the maids sighed in unison again.
“It is the same here. Many men squander the wealth their fathers-in-law bequeathed to their wives through gambling.”
After we lamented our situations to each other, Lee Geom-min finally resolved my business.
“My father worked at the Sassoon Merchant House for decades, so he knows many people there. I will write a letter in English for you to take to the Sassoon Merchant House. They will process the gold for you and arrange passage to Bombay, India, via Hong Kong and Singapore.”
Lee Geom-min was a rarity among Han Chinese women of this era; she did not have bound feet and had learned English from an early age, allowing her to use it like a native language.
After finishing the letter, Lee Geom-min called for a gold smith to melt the gold and verify its purity and value, then issued a bill of exchange.
The bill she issued was for approximately 9,800 nyang.
Although it was our first transaction, seeing her trade through such precise methods made her seem like a worthy partner for continued business.
I promised Lee Geom-min and her sisters, Lee Geom-yeong and Lee Geom-seon, that I would certainly visit the next time I stopped in Shanghai, and then I took the carriage back to the hotel.
Afterward, I obtained about twenty bags, loaded them into a carriage, and went to the Sassoon Merchant House.
The Sassoon family are Jews who are called the Rothschilds of the East, being the most influential Jewish capitalist family in Asia.
They were influential Western merchants in Hong Kong and Shanghai as well, with assets no smaller than those of Jardine Matheson.
Of course, as was typical of Western merchants in this era, their primary commodity was opium.
The major difference between the Sassoon Merchant House, also known as Sassoon & Co., and Jardine Matheson’s Yihe Yanghang, was their stake in finance.
The Sassoon family held large shares in finance, and they were one of the influential parties behind the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
Because she was the daughter of Ah Rin, who had worked as the Sassoon & Co. Comprador for 30 years, Lee Geom-min’s letter was delivered directly to Elias Sassoon, the head of Sassoon & Co.
Elias Sassoon was an old man nearly 60 years old.
Although he used an English name, he was ethnically an Eastern Jew and resembled a Middle Easterner.
Elias Sassoon read Lee Geom-min’s letter and spoke.
“It is not difficult to arrange passage to Bombay via Hong Kong and Singapore and to write a letter of introduction to the Sassoon family in Bombay. But, you say you have something else to deposit?”
“That is correct. I have heard that the Sassoon Merchant House here has a close relationship with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Therefore, I thought you might be able to handle my deposit.”
Hearing my words, Elias Sassoon looked me up and down.
No matter how I was dressed in Western clothing, I was a ten-year-old Asian child.
Elias spoke with a look of incomprehension.
“I will fulfill the request since it comes from Geom-min, but what exactly is it that you wish to deposit?”
“I would be grateful if you could call someone to unload the bags from my carriage.”
Elias Sassoon nodded and called for men to unload all my bags from the carriage.
The men from the Sassoon Merchant House all looked surprised by the weight as they tried to move the bags.
They all had expressions wondering what on earth could be in the bags to make them so heavy.
Once the bags were placed in front of Elias Sassoon, I had him dismiss the other people and then opened the bags one by one.
Each of the 22 bags contained 40kg of gold.
Even Elias Sassoon, a great merchant who dominated India and China, was left gaping at the 880kg of gold.
Though Elias Sassoon possessed assets far greater than the gold before his eyes, he had rarely seen this much physical gold laid out in front of him.
“Is… is all of this truly gold?”
“Please call a gold smith to verify it yourself, and I would be grateful if you could provide a certificate for it.”
“If you wish to make a deposit, in what currency should it be? Chinese silver nyang, Mexican pesos, US dollars, or British pounds?”
“Please make it in British pounds.”
Elias Sassoon hastily closed the bags himself, called for a gold smith, and sent someone to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
“By the way, did you say you were from Joseon?”
“Yes, I am from Joseon.”
“Does so much gold come out of Joseon?”
Are you asking so you can send a fleet if it does?
I shook my head.
“The method of obtaining gold does not necessarily require the gold to come from Joseon itself. Joseon has a treasure no less valuable than gold, does it not?”
“Ginseng? Well, I suppose one could obtain this much gold with Ginseng. But I haven’t heard stories of Joseon selling Ginseng to take away gold.”
“I will leave that part to your imagination. I have circumstances that prevent me from revealing that part.”
Elias nodded as if he fully understood the situation.
His own Sassoon family had been forced to flee their hometown of Baghdad in the middle of the night to move to Bombay when he was young.
Rumors had circulated that the Governor of Baghdad was targeting the Sassoon family’s fortune.
His father, David Sassoon, had secretly moved his assets to Bombay beforehand and fled Baghdad in the dead of night.
Great wealth always carries danger.
At least Western countries like Britain or France protect property rights, making them safe, but such things are not found at all in other feudal nations.
Officials, in particular, seize the assets of merchants as if it were their right.
Except for the Western Concessions in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Hankou, the same was true for the Qing Dynasty.
Though he hadn’t been there and didn’t know for sure, it was likely the same in the country called Joseon.
It was understandable why this young boy had come all the way here to see him through Lee Geom-min.
He wondered what kind of great wealth could exist in a poor country like Joseon, but since Joseon was a country possessing the treasure of Ginseng, it wasn’t entirely impossible.
Besides, setting all that aside, how could he know if the child’s parents had discovered a gold mine or something?
“The price of gold is about 7.32 grams per pound, but you are aware that there will be a commission fee?”
I nodded.
“I am aware of that. How much commission is required?”
“Since you have a letter of introduction from my daughter Geom-min, I cannot take too high a commission. I will set the rate at 7.4 grams of gold per pound and take the remainder as the fee.”
That seemed like quite a kindness, so I nodded in satisfaction.
And so, 118,918 pounds were newly created.
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