Early the next morning, Aegon and Tyrion got up early, took the certificate signed by Eddard Stark and the commission provided by Jeor Mormont, and quickly began their first frantic shopping spree since entering this world.
For the first time since its establishment, the Night's Watch Office did not open in the morning: all office staff, including Jaqen, followed their Chief Logistics Officer to the cargo distribution centers on Steel Street in King's Landing and at the Blackwater River port outside the city – for procurement.
The task of the followers was simple: carry the money and protect it well.
Several Night's Watch men in black clothes and carrying weapons, plus two fully armed Lannister guards in dark red armor, and a Dwarf known to few people in the whole city... well, with such a strange and intimidating combination, it would be strange if anyone in King's Landing dared to have wicked thoughts.
They took out half of their total funds, over a thousand golden dragons, found several large merchants with the most abundant goods as the sun rose, and purchased food and military supplies worth nearly ten times the amount of cash they brought: enough food for the entire Night's Watch for several months, hundreds of horses, steel swords, bows, crossbows, and a large number of arrows sufficient to arm seventy or eighty men to the teeth in minutes...
Not only did the two not haggle, but they also paid one-tenth of the goods' price on the spot as a deposit at a price slightly higher than the market price. The requirement was: sign an agreement.
The agreement stipulated that these materials must be quickly inventoried and concentrated at the port warehouse, and gradually loaded onto ships and sent to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea within two weeks. After arriving at The The Wall and being delivered to the Night's Watch, the deliverer would then use the receipt obtained from the Night's Watch at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to claim the remaining ninety percent of the payment from the Night's Watch Office in King's Landing.
The liquidated damages for both parties were one-tenth of the total payment, the same amount as the deposit.
Simply put, if Aegon suddenly decided he didn't want this batch of goods, he would lose the entire deposit already paid, effectively giving this money away to the owner of the goods. If the owner of the goods suddenly decided to terminate the transaction before shipping, he would need to return double the deposit.
***
The terms looked reasonable, and the price was fine, but in reality: Aegon's funds were actually insufficient to pay the remaining ninety percent of the payment. He was using a 'empty-handed' approach to gain 'temporary ownership' of these food and military supplies, which were worth ten times the deposit and five times the net worth of the Night's Watch Office.
By the time news of the upheaval in the Vale spread from the Red Keep through various channels to the ears of these merchants, the price of these food and military supplies would inevitably rise. The direction of the situation that Tyrion could analyze would naturally also be analyzed by merchants who make a living from this, at most slightly slower.
Aegon and Tyrion did not want to earn the rising price difference, but the liquidated damages.
The reason is simple: earning liquidated damages is risk-free, but trying to earn that price difference is like pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth, extremely dangerous. Large suppliers who can provide so much food and materials, even if they don't have any titles themselves, must have backing. Aegon wanting to resell items still in the owner's hands at a higher price to subsequent buyers with just a document from the Hand of the King, without being able to pay the remaining ninety percent of the payment, is an impossible leap.
The transaction would stall. If the deposit was Aegon and Tyrion's own money, and they weren't afraid of death, they could agree on a higher liquidated damages ratio and drag it out with the goods owner for greater profit. But in reality, as creditors came demanding redemption of bonds, the capital chain would quickly go from tight to broken. By then, everything would be over.
Taking the initiative to make concessions and accepting the liquidated damages, becoming the "victim" of the other party's breach of contract, seemingly giving up the bulk of the profit, actually meant they had already made a huge profit. The best part was also avoiding potential accusations and troubles later – the items never reached our hands, the Night's Watch is also a victim of the rising price of food and military supplies, where is the talk of war profiteering?
Don't forget who the current Hand of the King is, the honest to the point of being pedantic Eddard Stark. He is determined to help Robert manage the Seven Kingdoms well and will never sit idly by while this war against the Vale degenerates into a carnival for military supply and food merchants to extract wealth from the Iron Throne. Before those who inflate prices can finish counting their money, sanctions may already descend from the sky.
After that, it will be the stage where the "backgrounds" behind these merchants and the future King's Father-in-law, the current King's Hand, wrestle. It can be expected: as long as Robert is alive, Eddard is actually in an invincible position. Whether this strong dragon can suppress the local snakes, how much compromise this man from the North will ultimately make with the local interest groups in King's Landing and the market itself: how much price increase he will allow the material suppliers... depends on the final outcome of his open and secret struggles with the nobles and rich people of King's Landing.
No matter who wins or loses, the Night's Watch Industry will have already received the liquidated damages by then, repaid the debts demanded for redemption, and with the advantage of being the first to obtain information, narrowly passed the most dangerous initial test of fundraising and entrepreneurship, stepping onto the bright road of expansion and development!
...
The above is Aegon and Tyrion's plan. In the plan, these steps were likely to be completed slowly over several days to a week. If a diligent goods owner finished counting the goods early and prepared to load them for The The Wall, the Chief Logistics Officer might even need to find some excuses to delay – after all, once the ship departs, he would have to worry about the remaining ninety percent of the payment.
...
But in reality, everything was completed at an astonishing speed.
***
Aegon is not the only one with ears in the court.
Since the news of the Vale's internal conflict was sent to King's Landing by the party that initiated the rebellion, Varys's intelligence network did indeed cover the Seven Kingdoms, but this change happened too suddenly. Although his "little birds" were ubiquitous, they could not fly faster than the ravens from Runestone.
Therefore, this upheaval was first learned by Grand Maester Pycelle, who is in charge of managing ravens, from the official declaration letter of the League of the Righteous. The second person to know was Queen Cersei, but this politically clueless old maid didn't even think about whether this matter might be related to her – then it was Varys, but this Grand Eunuch's collaborators and supported candidate are far across the Narrow Sea, and aiming for the Iron Throne, he had no intention nor means to profit from war in King's Landing... The fourth person to receive the news was the King's Hand. Only after he convened a small council meeting and informed Robert did the news finally spread to the remaining ministers and the King's ears.
Finally, came the spies from all sides with ears in the Red Keep.
These spies would try to secretly pass the news to their masters. Only when their masters realized what this internal conflict meant would they send people to the market to inform the merchants of their interest groups to hold onto goods that were about to increase in price.
Each of these steps takes time: the ears and insiders of the interest groups in the palace, and the runners who deliver information, are usually maids, servants, and the like. These low-status people are strictly controlled when entering and exiting the Red Keep, only allowed through the gate at fixed times in the morning and evening.
Even after leaving the gate, they still had to find ways to deliver the information to their masters, but masters could not stay in a fixed place all day waiting for information from their eyes and ears – in this era without telephones, it takes too much time to relay intelligence.
But what about Arya? She heard her father Eddard and his advisors discussing the Vale's internal conflict during lunch and discussing the specific time for the emergency small council meeting in the afternoon. Afterwards, the girl rode out of the Red Keep with her guards as usual to the Night's Watch Office, met Aegon, chatted and laughed for a few minutes, and before her sword fighting lesson began, she showed off by telling this intelligence as a story to Aegon.
The idea in the girl's head was simple: Aegon always told her adventure stories, so in return, exciting and interesting news like "my aunt I've never met is besieged in the Eyrie" should naturally be told to her Master immediately.
In this thrilling information relay race, Littlefinger, who was originally more likely to win, was under house arrest in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's residence in the Red Keep because of that rumor... Thus, Aegon, confused, lucky, and yet inevitably, became the champion of the speed race.
Having completed the procurement, the sun was already overhead, and Aegon and Tyrion returned to the office. By noon, all items on the market that might be useful in war had stopped being openly sold at marked prices. Before sunset, the first payment of six hundred golden dragons plus liquidated damages had been delivered to the Night's Watch Office and placed on Aegon's desk. The person who brought the money also brought a message from their master to Aegon and Tyrion: next time there is inside information, we can cooperate, don't play such tricks.
Looking at the large bag of gold coins on the desk, Aegon and Tyrion both fell into thought.
The Night's Watch Chief Quartermaster broke out in a cold sweat, full of lingering fear: if not for Arya's first-hand information this time, wouldn't his venture in Westeros have died in the womb before it even began?!
The Lannister Dwarf frowned and thought on a deeper level: if even a royal residence like the Red Keep is so full of holes in information security, is the peace and stability of the Seven Kingdoms entirely a facade?
---
A very important task for fanfiction is to patch up plot holes in the original work. This is a world with magic, so this operation is not too difficult; if there is a problem, just push it onto magic.
But there is one pitfall that is so big it makes me hesitate: in the Hand of the King's tournament, the winner of the mounted jousting competition is awarded 40,000 golden dragons, and the runner-up gets 20,000 golden dragons. The winner of the melee team combat gets 20,000 golden dragons, and the winner of archery gets 10,000 golden dragons.
...
[A/N: Sorry, this can no longer be described as outrageous. After detailed research and analysis, I have determined that it is more appropriate for these prizes to be reduced to one percent of their original amount.
The specific judgment process cannot be written here, only the conclusion is posted here: in the world of Ice and Fire, a golden dragon is a very large unit of currency. Forty thousand golden dragons, you can imagine it as billions of RMB (or RMB during the period before reform and opening up when materials were very scarce). This is equivalent to tens of percent of the Crownlands' annual tax revenue, can equip the entire cavalry of the North, can feed the Night's Watch for more than ten years, can pay the salaries of all soldiers in the King's Landing City Watch for 2-3 years, or bribe their leader to rebel against Eddard 6-7 times.
Given that the original author is a liberal arts student and admits that his currency settings are unreasonable (the original work says the Hound drank all 40,000 golden dragons, was he drinking '82 Lafite?), I won't say more about this matter. Please forget the existence of those 40,000 golden dragons. It is reasonable for the prize money for the tournament winner to fluctuate between dozens and hundreds.]