Chapter 016: Just a Profligate Merchant
Then a little girl rushed into the office.
Lei Man took a look and said that it was his sister Zhao Sihan who came. Zhao Yulin heard from Li Chuan that Zhao Sihan was his fourth sister and the two sisters had the best relationship.
He immediately went over to take over. Zhao Sihan came up and hugged Zhao Yulin and started beating him hard. Her two little pink fists hit Zhao Yulin like a perpetual motion machine. He hugged and dragged the fourth sister to sit on the chair and asked what was wrong?
Who bullied her?
I'll go and avenge her.
Zhao Sihan immediately retracted her fists, covered her face with her hands and burst into tears, saying that since she was not his wife yet, then Chen Xiaomin was too bullying, selling the Jiuxiang Jade Dew to others instead of giving it to her sister-in-law, and her eyes were fixed on the pile of silver.
Haha, it’s the perfume’s fault again.
He smiled and said that this was not difficult, why don’t we go find Chen Xiaomin.
The little girl immediately stopped crying, pulled Zhao Yulin out, got on her family's ox cart and ran to Chengyi Restaurant. When she got to the door, she shouted, "Chen Xiaomin, my brother is here, why don't you give me the Jiuxiang Yulu?"
Zhao Yulin got out of the car and carried her fourth sister down. The little girl rushed inside to look for someone.
He walked into the restaurant and saw Chen Xiaomin sitting at the table, supporting her face with her hands, and saying proudly that she had plenty of perfume, but she would only give it to her if she called her "sister-in-law."
Zhao Sihan looked at Zhao Yulin.
If he says shout then shout it. It's a good deal to save ten taels of silver by shouting.
His fourth sister was very smart and immediately called "Sister-in-law, Sister-in-law". Chen Xiaomin was happy and ran into the house to take out a bottle and handed it to his fourth sister.
Zhao Sihan said she had ten sisters-in-law and wanted ten bottles.
Chen Xiaomin said that even if she called a hundred people, there would only be one sister-in-law and she would only give her one bottle.
Zhao Yulin went up to him, patted his sister on the head and said that Nine Fragrance Jade Dew was very difficult to make and just one bottle would be enough. He then handed the twenty taels of silver to Chen Xiaomin.
The girl came over, took his hand and said, "I'm so happy. I've made seventy taels of silver today. All the young masters and young ladies are vying for the bottles. I'm going to take ten bottles out to sell tomorrow."
When his fourth sister heard this, she immediately quit and said Chen Xiaomin was lying. It turned out that there were still a lot of them in the room, and she wanted to take another bottle. Zhao Yulin looked at Chen Xiaomin helplessly. This girl exposed that there were still old goods. He was dumbfounded.
Zhao Sihan said that she didn't take her sister-in-law's perfume for nothing. She would see her at school tomorrow. When others asked Chen Xiaomin for perfume, she would only sell five bottles and say they were sold out. When those classmates wanted to buy more, Zhao Sihan said that she had a way to get Chen Xiaomin to give them out.
Because, she is Chen Xiaomin’s aunt, hehe.
But she sells each bottle for twelve taels of silver. We can sell them one by one and make back all the money.
When Zhao Yulin heard this, he knew that his fourth sister was born to be a businesswoman, so he told the two of them to work together. If there were still many buyers for the last bottle, they could hold an auction.
The highest bidder wins. We will sell it to whoever is willing to pay a high price.
Zhao Sihan immediately exclaimed “Yeah!” and thought her brother was so smart.
The two little girls' heads immediately came together.
When Zhao Yulin returned to the White Pagoda, Ma Ling'er pestered him to teach him how to make beggar's chicken. This time he cooked it himself. He only made a small hole in the chicken's butt to clean the chicken's internal organs, and then stuffed the prepared spices and tonics into the chicken's stomach. Ma Ling'er skillfully wrapped it with mud and put it in the stove to bake.
After Lei Man, Lu Youpeng and others came back, they all tasted the beggar's chicken and gave thumbs up to Ma Ling'er.
Zhao Yulin said that Zhulin Beggar Chicken was ready for business, so he sold Chen's Wu Gu Feng.
Ma Jin said that a chicken costs five taels of silver, a pound of wine costs five taels of silver, and a meal costs at least ten taels of silver. Are the guests willing to pay this money?
Zhao Yulin said that the Zhulin Beggar Chicken only had five thatched huts and a hall, how many people could they seat? Your sister and a few helpers only sell five chickens and a few catties of wine a day, which is a livelihood of dozens of taels of silver. Do you want to tire her to death?
Ma Linger was delighted to hear Zhao Yulin's concern. She looked at her brother proudly and said that it was Brother Yulin who loved her.
Zhao Yulin said this is called hunger marketing. If you sell such expensive things in large quantities, they will become cabbages. How much money can you make from cabbages?
After he said this, everyone seemed to understand.
Zhao Yulin asked Ma Jin to arrange for craftsmen to clean up the stone carvings on the riverside from top to bottom and from left to right, repair the small pier and stone steps, and provide the four treasures of the study for the literati and scholars who came and went to write poems and leave messages.
He said that these services should not be underestimated, and are definitely a highlight to attract customers. People come to see them, and after drinking, they want to write poems and express their feelings. It can also help Rongbaozhai to get the stele engraving business.
Ding Er, who could barely read, thought Zhao Yulin was joking and started laughing.
Zhao Yulin ignored them, saying that he had to work after a good meal and followed Lei Man to train the guards. Lei Man focused on the skills of swords, guns and sticks, while Zhao Yulin paid more attention to the discipline of formation and keeping pace. He was observing and examining those with outstanding abilities, and was planning to establish a new team in accordance with the military system of later generations.
Lei Man threw a shining big knife to him. Zhao Yulin stretched out his hand to catch it and took a look. It was the anti-Japanese knife that he asked Chen Xian to make. He swung his hand and wielded the knife three times very smoothly.
Zhao Yulin asked everyone to gather around, introduced the characteristics of the broadsword one by one, and then used the Eight Wind-Breaking Sword Technique, which he used three times from slow to fast, and asked everyone to practice well. He said that learning more would not benefit anyone, and if the enemy was not killed after using these eight swords, he must have been killed by the enemy.
Lei Man was also shouting at the side, asking everyone to remember it carefully.
While Zhao Yulin was training in the White Tower, there was a huge quarrel in the living room of the Wang family in the city.
Wang Dehui held a small bottle of Nine Fragrance Jade Dew that Zhang Yanei had snatched for her, and proudly dropped a drop on the back of her mother's hand. The fragrance immediately filled the entire living room. Her brother, her sister, and her younger sister all shouted for a drop, just one drop.
Mr. Wang's wives looked at the children fighting over it, and although they didn't say anything, the expressions on their faces showed that they all wanted a bottle.
Master Wang was still immersed in the grief of the explosion in the distillery. Seeing these children playing and fighting, he was furious. He cursed, "They are all good-for-nothings. They don't know how to do anything." Then he left the hall and told his butler Du Wei to go to the home of Zhang Baopi, the county lieutenant.
The Wang family has been really unlucky these days, with accidents happening one after another at home, and this time the distillery explosion caused them to suffer huge losses.
Zhang Paopi warmly received Mr. Wang and asked him to go to the study. He told Mr. Wang to relax, saying that Liu San had been forced to climb a high mountain and would definitely not dare to come back. So he pushed all the blame on Liu San.
The explosion at the distillery was actually Zhang Bapi's way of using Wang's workshop to make up for his own deficit. He usually stole and sold gunpowder and weapons privately. Now that Mongolia was harassing the three northern passes and the war was tense, the Sichuan Administration Office urgently dispatched weapons to the north. He was worried that the matter would be exposed, so he arranged for Wang's family to rush production, but because of the lack of safety, such a big incident happened.
Mr. Wang covered his face and cried, saying that he had suffered a great loss this time. He lost the distillery, most of the granary was burned down, and he also lost money to several families, all of which was huge sums of money.
Zhang Paopi spread his hands and said he had no other options. He could add water to the wine. Wang's Lychee Green is unique in the world. Who knows if it's real or not? He could just add 10% or 20% water to it. Wouldn't it be a big profit if it's made with zero cost?
Mr. Wang's eyes widened. This was going to ruin the reputation of his Lizhiqing.
Although the Wang family was lavish in their work, they never dared to be careless when it came to the quality of their wine, as that was their golden signboard for making money and making a living.
But now, I can only see Lizhiqing earning money, and there is no other way to make money.
After hesitating for a moment, he got up and said goodbye to Dewey. After leaving Zhang's house, he went straight to his family's wine cellar and personally supervised the production of fake wine.
Because he has to ship the goods.
It was another sunny day. Chen Xiaomin got on her own ox cart early and went into the city to the academy. When passing by the Zhao family's gate, Zhao Yulin's fourth sister Zhao Sihan was already waiting there. The two little girls were whispering and discussing in the carriage. Before the ox cart got close to the academy gate, it was stopped by someone from a distance.
When Zhao Sihan lifted the curtain, she saw several classmates looking expectantly at Chen Xiaomin and asking loudly, "Where do you want the goods?"
Chen Xiaomin got out and showed her little face. Where were her four classmates? She said to them helplessly, "We agreed yesterday that they should be queuing up at the entrance of the academy."
Several girls held up bags of silver and asked to bring them over quickly because there were too many people at the entrance of the academy and a fight was about to break out.
Zhao Sihan said, "Sister-in-law, forget it. We're selling them anyway, so just leave them here." One of them took the goods while the other collected the money. The four bottles of perfume immediately turned into forty taels of silver.
When we arrived at the entrance of the academy, we saw a group of people gathered there, it was not even a queue.
As soon as they got off the ox cart, they shouted "Come inside, come inside", and went straight to Mr. Zhang's yard carrying the book boxes.
Zhao Sihan spotted Mr. Zhang from a distance, and asked the old man to make the decision with her sweet mouth. They would hold the perfume auction in Tingyu Pavilion nearby.
When the group of people who wanted to buy perfume entered the pavilion, Chen Xiaomin explained the rules, and Zhao Sihan distributed the prepared cards to everyone. The perfume auction went on round after round, and in just a short while, six bottles of perfume turned into 150 taels of silver and were put into Chen Xiaomin's box.
After everyone left, Qu Zhengxiang brought a jar of wine from outside and gave it to Mr. Zhang. Chen Xiaomin proudly told the old gentleman that this was a new wine brewed by her husband, Brother Yulin, called Wugufeng, and it was delicious.
The old man accepted it with a smile, looking at the two clever guys shaking their heads, and stroking his beard and nodding.
Chen Xiaomin is smart and good at finding people.
When she was brewing wine in Chiyanzi, she heard Zhao Yulin talk about how he killed Yao Ruffian in the downtown area. Knowing that Mr. Zhang was an upright person who liked excitement, she had planned in advance to invite Mr. Zhao to come forward. Naturally, those students behaved well and did not dare to act recklessly.
Therefore, her auction was able to proceed smoothly in the academy, and she did business openly and honestly.
Now, Zhao Yulin is still busy with his beggar chicken in the bamboo forest.
He checked the stove, selected the ingredients, and checked the steps, leaving nothing out.
The business is about to open today, so Zhao Yulin ordered them to kill ten chickens.
Ma Linger's heart was beating fast, and she asked Zhao Yulin excitedly: "Brother Yulin, there are ten chickens. What should we do if we can't sell them all?"
