Chapter 113: The Value of Real Estate (2)
Hanzhong.
The most crucial strategic point of Jiulong City and the city the Ten Demon Alliance covets most.
Bordered by the Han River, its soil is naturally fertile. Moreover, its geographical value is immense, as half of all goods traveling between Sichuan and Yunnan pass through this very Hanzhong.
However, its location is somewhat ambiguous… While it lies on the border between Sichuan and Shaanxi, strictly speaking, it belongs to Shaanxi.
Therefore, despite effectively controlling Hanzhong, the founding lord of the Nine Dragons Fortress ceded the fertile western lands to the Zhengdeng Mansion.
This was an intentional move to preempt future territorial disputes.
After these rights were settled, Hanzhong flourished alongside Nine Dragons City.
True to its strategic location, Hanzhong became a bustling hub, teeming with merchants from all corners of the Central Plains.
Merchants even came from Qinghai and Gansu, territories under the Ten Marquisates.
Where people gather, money inevitably follows.
And when most of those people were money-hungry merchants, it goes without saying.
Seeking to profit from this, middlemen emerged to act as brokers for the merchants.
These were the Hanzhong merchants, known simply as Hanshang.
By this time, the Hanshang had amassed such great wealth that they were hot on the heels of the merchants from Shanxi and Anhui, known as the two great trading houses of the realm.
And backing these Han merchants, providing them with capital, was none other than the Golden Dragon Hall. That is, the Ten Thousand Gold Money Exchange.
