Pan Ying said, "Mr. Ye collects five thousand shi every year."
Five thousand shi.
When Ye Heng was a fourth-rank official, his annual salary was no more than three hundred shi.
But after returning to Qingzhou, he collected this much every year. Where did he get the appetite—and the capital—for that?
Pan Ying explained, "Mr. Ye told us that Qingzhou is a remote place. After paying the land rent, there's still a lot of grain left over each year. It would be too time-consuming and inefficient for us to haul it out and sell it ourselves. As it happened, he knew a grain merchant in the business, so he arranged for them to come every year to take the rice. They even offered a higher price."
Ye Chutang almost had to laugh.
'I had no idea my dear second uncle had such a talent for playing matchmaker.'
He gave up a perfectly good official post to dabble in this sort of business.
