After Ding Quan left, Li Yuanzhao came over, curious. “Old Fang, these latrine cleaners are actually so powerful? What exactly is this ‘Golden Essence Guild’?”

Fang Zheng explained, “You can think of the Golden Essence Guild as a feces factory or fertilizer plant… Since they’re already calling themselves a ‘guild’, it means this industry has developed to a considerable scale, and even monopolies have emerged in the trade of feces.”

“Don’t underestimate latrine cleaners. After centuries of development, they’ve formed their own forces and rules, just like salt workers and grain transport guilds, and even have master-apprentice lineages. So they should be called the ‘Feces Sect’ or ‘Feces Clan’. The big bosses of those Golden Essence Guilds are probably also the clan leaders of the Feces Clan.”

“The Feces Clan monopolizes the rights to collect feces in a city or region. They’re extremely difficult to provoke and can even disregard the government.”

“Not only that, they also extort the common people. If someone’s cesspit is full and it happens to be a rainy day, these people will jack up the prices, forcing the people to pay a high fee to clear the waste.”

“It’s normal for Ding Quan to fear them. If they go on a collective strike, the whole city will be filled with a terrible stench within a few days, the sanitation system will collapse, and more seriously, it could lead to large-scale outbreaks of the plague, malaria and other severe illnesses.”

“If it were you, what would you do? This problem is really a bit thorny, so we need to find a way to solve this hidden danger.”

Li Yuanzhao looked at him with admiration. “Old Fang, you know so much. So what should we do?”

“Wait! Wait for them to seek us out first. The situation is unclear now, so there’s no use in us making wild guesses.”

Fang Zheng sighed, his thoughts drifting back to the past.

…

Back when he was begging in Hengjiang Prefecture, he had dealings with the Feces Clan. So as soon as Zhao Gang mentioned the latrine cleaners, he felt something ominous.

Among Fang Zheng’s begging team back then, there was a group that specialized in soliciting from people when they went to the outhouse to take a dump. And their efficiency was extraordinarily high.

Of course, they didn’t ask for much, just one or two coins.

After getting the money, they would say a few auspicious words, like wishing for smooth bowel movements, and give a bamboo strip, which could be said to have kick-started the era of paid public toilets.

It was this group of beggars who, after frequent interactions, became familiar with the latrine cleaners and heard a lot of inside experience, which they then relayed to Fang Zheng.

After hearing it, Fang Zheng was also shocked. The profits in the latrine cleaning industry were far greater than what ordinary people imagined. So he also started getting ideas.

He was already a big brother in the begging business. If he wanted to make a breakthrough, he had to start diversified operations!

So he began organizing a group of beggars to collect, transport and sell feces. At first, everything went smoothly.

Benefiting from modern management methods, Fang Zheng’s team was well-regulated, reasonably priced, punctual, trustworthy, and often helped people dispose of household waste, winning widespread praise in Hengjiang Prefecture.

As time passed, they also caught the attention of the Feces Clan.

How could they allow others to encroach on their monopoly over latrine cleaning!?

So one day, many of the Beggar Clan brothers who were transporting feces in the city, along with their carts, were kidnapped and taken out of the city. The Feces Clan even sent someone to deliver a message to Fang Zheng.

At that time, Fang Zheng was riding high, inflated with pride, thinking that apart from not knowing the 18 Dragon Subduing Palms, he could beat Qiao Feng in every other aspect.

How could he endure this insult? He directly led a group of brothers, grabbed their weapons, and rushed out of the city.

The Feces Clan and Beggar Clan thus confronted each other.

Initially, Fang Zheng still had the intention of smoothing things over, thinking that as long as the other side compensated some money and said a few soft words, it would be fine.

Who knew that the Feces Clan, accustomed to being local tyrants, was extremely overbearing. They confronted Fang Zheng and threatened him to immediately withdraw from the latrine cleaning industry.

Fang Zheng didn’t show weakness either. He also spouted a continuous stream of exquisite native Jing language in a hundred different ways, arguing until the other side was tongue-tied.

The two sides went back and forth, and soon a fight broke out and escalated into armed combat.

Fang Zheng immediately ordered his men to rescue their captive brothers and retrieve the seized feces carts. However, before they could make their escape, the Feces Clan resorted to underhanded tactics, grabbing feces ladles and flinging excrement at the Beggar Clan.

Fang Zheng wasn’t to be outdone and hurriedly had his men splash it back.

The two sides thus began an epic battle!

With a flourish of his feathered fan, Fang Zheng stood tall in his silk sash, issuing commands to the Beggar Clan members. He cleverly instructed them to mix stones into the feces buckets, catching their opponents completely off guard.

A large group of people from the Feces Clan were struck on the head by the stones mixed with piss and shit, bleeding profusely and greatly reducing their combat strength!

However, the Feces Clan quickly learned and retaliated. The two sides fought more and more fiercely.

In an instant, a storm of feces and urine began unfolding outside Hengjiang City. In a short time, they could still fight back and forth, but as time went on, Fang Zheng’s side couldn’t hold up.

Although beggars also rolled around in the trash, they really couldn’t endure a feces fight!

Many brothers started vomiting as they fought, retching until they were in a daze, quickly losing their combat ability.

But the Feces Clan dealt with feces all year round, so their fighting strength grew fiercer and fiercer.

However, Fang Zheng didn’t panic. He decisively sent someone to report to the officials!

Hearing that there was a large-scale armed conflict outside the city, the officials also became anxious and hurriedly dispatched soldiers to rush to the outskirts. But they discovered shit everywhere, with the two groups still happily flinging feces.

The official soldiers watched in trepidation and quickly retreated.

Later, a second wave was dispatched, all armed with powerful bows and crossbows, before the battle was stopped.

Fang Zheng’s side immediately had the beggars scatter in a flash and run back into the city. Beggars were experts at gathering intelligence and hiding their tracks, so once they entered the city, they vanished without a trace.

The Feces Clan was dumbfounded. Many who fled were also captured in droves.

After all, there were only so many latrine cleaners in the city, and the government was well aware of them.

However, the importance of the Feces Clan went without saying. Before long, they were released, but they had suffered a heavy blow.

Later, Fang Zheng couldn’t swallow this insult and would find trouble with the Feces Clan every few days, then run after stirring up trouble.

His side had the advantage of being beggars. No one could match their ability to gather information and conceal their whereabouts.

So the people from the Feces Clan were “invited” into prison every few days, while Fang Zheng’s side charged ahead and forcibly carved out a share of the latrine cleaning market!

However, thinking back to that epic battle still made Fang Zheng’s heart tremble with lingering fear.

That battle could be counted as the most perilous one he had fought since transmigrating, and the Feces Clan had also left him with some psychological trauma.

Now he wasn’t sure about the situation with the Feces Clan in Banshan District, but based on Fang Zheng’s experience, he was afraid the Feces Clan had long formed a unified gang in the capital.

If that was the case, the trouble would be huge.

But he was not afraid. Now he had power in his grasp. If the Feces Clan dared to make trouble, he would lead Zhang Biao to launch a surprise attack on the ringleader!

No matter what, if he wanted to transform Banshan District, the latrine cleaning industry must be nationalized. Letting the Feces Clan be controlled by those big merchants, he was afraid that after a few more years of dominance, they would dare to directly stuff shit in people’s mouths!

Seeing Fang Zheng in a daze, Li Yuanzhao patted him. “Old Fang, what are we doing next?”

“Next?” Fang Zheng rubbed his chin and thought.

After a moment of contemplation, Fang Zheng declared, “To achieve common prosperity, we must put culture first. We need to recruit some scholars, even if they are just barely literate. Then…”