My Ancient Commercial Empire

Shen Qinghe was closing the last sales report when her keyboard suddenly gave her an electric shock. When she opened her eyes again, she had gone from being a 996 office drudge at an internet company to an orphan running a shabby fabric shop in Bianjing, the capital of the Great Xia Dynasty.

A pawn ticket weighed down one corner of the table. The leaky shop smelled of mildew, and all the original owner had left behind was half a chest of old cloth and three copper coins. On her first night after transmigrating, she crouched behind the chilly counter, gnawing on a hard steamed bun. Feeling the smooth, worn steel coin in her pocket, the only thing she had brought from the modern world, she smiled wryly. “You have to make a living wherever you are, so I might as well get this rundown shop back on its feet.”

She didn’t know much, but she did understand a little modern business:

The fabric shop’s stock was old-fashioned? She designed brocade patterns and mixed silk shipped from Jiangnan with cassava starch to make fabric. Her crisp, wrinkle-resistant “Qinghe silk” became a hot commodity, snapped up by Bianjing’s noblewomen.

Soapberries couldn’t get grease out? She experimented with lard and lye to make soap, selling it in little glass bottles. Even the palace’s Wardrobe Bureau placed monthly orders.

Trade routes were unreliable and stock was piling up? She struck a deal with the Caobang transport guild and opened branches across five prefectures and seven commanderies. With a draft in hand, the silver arrived that very day.

People said she was obsessed with money, but she used her earnings to build bridges and roads. When a disaster struck Nanhe Commandery, she distributed five thousand shi of coarse rice at reduced prices and, along the way, taught farmers to make noodles from wild fruit to trade for grain. When Qingxi County ran short of firewood, she drew up an efficient stove design and asked craftsmen to teach people how to build it, then gave twenty bolts of coarse cloth to refugees for winter clothes.

Someone asked what she was doing it all for. Shen Qinghe was crouched in Lin Family Village, watching a young man dry a fresh batch of noodles. Twirling the steel coin in her hand, she smiled. “I used to work just to pay rent. Now I want to make money so fewer people in this world have to gnaw on dry steamed buns.”