Chapter 306 Second-hand Clothing
The "sales team" from Innadili did not have many goods for sale. There were only a few or a dozen "samples" in each category. The prices were affordable and they were quickly swept away by the townspeople who heard the news.
The caravans stranded in the town also bought some "Tarantan goods" as samples and were amazed after carefully checking the quality...especially the undead cloth at twelve coppers per meter and the dark blue dyed thick cloth clothes at half a silver coin per set. The caravan owners only touched the material and checked the workmanship details, and they instinctively realized that these two products had huge hidden profits.
Merchants who can do inland business, among other things, must be bold enough and thick-skinned enough. Soon, the owners of the four stranded caravans all showed their talents and approached Innaderil who was staying in the homes of the townspeople one by one.
The operators from Innadri were very kind and friendly, and warmly entertained the caravan owners who came to inquire about the news; without waiting for these merchants to flatter them and offer them benefits, they took the initiative to tell them what they wanted to know...
Tarantin does have quite a bit of merchandise for sale, with dead cloth and ready-made clothing being the bulk.
If the caravan owners go to Innadri to purchase goods themselves, they can get the "wholesale price" of ten coppers for undead cloth and cheaper ready-made clothes.
Under the increasingly bright gazes of the caravan owners, Operator Innadri also... took out a colorful booklet that was beautifully printed and bound (actually it was custom-made from a roadside advertising shop on Earth).
This booklet is filled with colorful T-shirts printed with business advertisements, jeans that were popular in China five or ten years ago, outdated skirts and coats of various styles, and even school uniforms, sports jerseys, and shoddy down jackets that were once popular in China's rural markets.
——That’s right!
This mysterious booklet is filled with second-hand clothes!
A mysterious organization sets up clothing recycling donation boxes in communities across China. The collected old clothes, which were discarded by the Chinese people, were originally packaged into bales and sold to Africa at a price of a few cents per pound.
Yang Qiu found a salesperson from an expert group to help him go to a major exporting province, intercepted two (container) ships, and even agreed on a long-term order with the mysterious organization...
"These clothes are all second-hand clothes." Handing the booklet to the owner of the caravan to read, Innadeli introduced with a smile, "Although they are worn, they are still about 70% to 80% new and not damaged at all, so they don't need to be repaired."
Then, the operator slowly raised his arms...
"This short-sleeved cotton pullover (T-shirt), regardless of size, style, dyeing or printing, all for ten copper coins."
“This sleeveless shirt (jersey) has a smoother texture and is the same price.”
"This warm, soft, brightly colored uniform costs forty coppers."
"This thick, puffy clothing (cheap down jacket) is more expensive, 40 coppers per piece, but this kind of clothing is very warm and will definitely be very popular in the north..."
The caravan owners were so overwhelmed by the offer that completely broke through the bottom line of textile prices in the Nabarron continent and could make all the textile factory owners in the second-hand clothing distribution area cry. The Innadri operator smiled and said, "If you like these products, just go to the Innadri City Hall to apply for them. Someone will arrange for someone to take you to the site to inspect the goods."
The caravan owner tightly grasped the brochure that he would give them to read slowly on the road, and nodded vigorously.
Go, go, go! If you don’t go, you are not a human being!
The four caravans that stayed in the town to watch the wind could not even wait for one night. They said goodbye to the operators and hurried back to urge the caravan staff to pack up and set off immediately...
Operator Innadri was not in a hurry to leave, and stayed in the town for another two days. Every day, apart from taking the undead that was friendly to humans (actually a new tool of the national team, with the mission to investigate the local customs and practices) around, he also "leaked" the news of Tarantan's products to the local drinkers who liked to stay in the tavern and brag, and asked them to spread the word.
After ensuring that the townspeople were impressed by the Tarantan merchandise and Tarantan Undead, the operator led the team to the next town...
China had suffered from blockades before, and now because of the newborn regime of Nadeli, which is in another world and would also be likely to be jointly blockaded by opposition forces, the national team must not let the past experiences of China happen again here.
As a local warlord (the great nobles were indeed warlords to some extent), he could not do such a suicidal thing as establishing diplomatic relations with foreign countries without going through the kingdom's regime, but it would not be a taboo to do business with guests from all directions based on his own abilities.
Innadri, an agricultural territory that is good at nothing, was originally the trade center of the inland caravans in the eastern region. It only came out to advertise and promote in order to prevent some caravans from worrying about the undead and not wanting to do business here. As long as the surrounding territories don't really want to go against Innadri, there is no reason for them to refuse even such a small matter.
Innadelli sent out six teams like this, which were led by operators, accompanied by the Undead, and loaded with several carts of goods to carry out propaganda everywhere.
These six propaganda teams all carried official documents issued by the Innadri City Hall and signed by the lord. While in Adler, they were very sensible and did not go to places where taboos were violated. They only stayed in towns, villages and other population settlements, and only dealt with foreign caravans and the lowest level of local residents.
Anyway, Innadli didn't care about the so-called taboos such as the residence of the Adler nobles, their permanent manors, the number of their private soldiers, the location of their troop stations, etc.
What Innadri cares about is verifying whether Adler's population settlements match the Adler territory on the map of the Rhine Kingdom, how many people are in each settlement, whether the roads between settlements are unobstructed, what the living conditions are like, how much tax can be paid, and how many armed forces the Lord of Adler can afford...
After meeting Innadri's "propagandists", the family caravan from the north was extremely motivated and traveled for three days before arriving in Innadri.
When entering the city, the six-legged lizards with extraordinary endurance that were pulling the carts in the caravan were so tired that they were sticking out their tongues, and the people were so exhausted that they could even doze off while sitting on their horses.
Although they were physically exhausted, the caravan owners were in high spirits; after finding a familiar hotel in the southern part of the city and settling down their carriages and horses, the merchants hurried to the City Hall.
As usual, ghosts occasionally appeared in the courtyard of the City Hall, but these ghosts that the merchants used to care about had now fallen out of favor and barely received any attention...
The clerk from the Department of Commerce warmly received the merchants. After introducing Innadeli's new commercial tax policy and the income tax that the caravans needed to pay during domestic transactions, she readily took the caravan owners to see the goods.
The second-hand clothes that were transported directly from China in containers were all collected from various domestic recycling points and packaged directly into bundles. Many clothes needed to be cleaned, ironed and refurbished, and the manufacturer's labels had to be removed. Yang Qiu used to do this job himself when he was alone, but now he doesn't have to do it himself.
More than ten kilometers northeast of the city of Innadelli, in a valley near the Barcelo River, there are several rows of bungalows that were built by contract workers organized by the city hall at the beginning of spring, and a large number of brick and wood storage warehouses.
Today, quite a few workers have moved into this bungalow - all women recruited from the city, Westham Town and Everhope Town. Some former red-light district workers who have recovered and applied for employment are also accommodated here.
In front and behind the bungalow, there was a slightly leveled open space with endless amounts of clothes hanging out to dry...it looked like an extra-large laundry yard.
To ensure the safety of the women, City Hall agents would regularly dispatch agents to take turns on duty; plus this place was some distance away from the human settlement, so the biggest danger was usually snakes or roaming wolves running in.
The clerks from the Commerce Department took the merchants into a renovated warehouse and showed them the second-hand clothes that the hardworking female workers had cut off the labels on (not caring about the words printed on the clothes, since the locals couldn't read Chinese anyway) and washed and ironed, making them look brand new.
The biggest advantage of modern industrial textiles is that the printing and dyeing costs are extremely low and they are not easy to fade.
Even if it is a promotional T-shirt given away for free during a business event, it is quite difficult to wear out the colorful dyed clothes and make them fade - the collar is frayed, the material is pilling, and the dye may not fade much.
The world's textile industry is huge, but due to market capacity issues (the middle class and above who can consume ready-made clothes cannot support much of a market), the garment industry is not developed enough. Naturally, it is impossible for a capitalist to invest huge R&D funds to study printing and dyeing auxiliaries, printing and dyeing technology, printing and dyeing equipment, etc. for standardized and large-scale printing and dyeing.
The fashion industry on Earth dislikes gay purple, but if we move forward two hundred years on Earth's timeline, not many people can afford purple, a color with extremely high printing and dyeing costs!
In old Europe, which prided itself on being a civilized society, for a long time ladies and noblewomen even risked their lives to wear beautiful light green dresses - the dye that produced clear and bright green was poisonous!
Bright yellow, sky blue, bright red, light blue, lavender, warm tones, cool tones... The female workers who like beautiful colors specially selected and displayed basic T-shirts in various bright colors, which made the caravan owners cry.
There were so many short-sleeved pullovers in so many colorful colors, but each one only cost ten copper coins and came with all kinds of exquisite prints. The merchants only had to imagine the rush to buy the goods after they brought them back, and their tears of emotion flowed.
The clerk in the Commercial Department was very pleased with the customers' reactions. As a young girl, she also loved beauty and showing off. She showed the beautiful clothing samples that the female workers had prepared to shock the customers...
As economic conditions improve, Chinese people are keen on buying new clothes. Even ordinary citizens with average incomes who don't like dressing up very much buy more than ten pieces of clothing every year.
As for these newly purchased clothes, at least two or three out of ten pieces are no longer worn after being worn once or twice.
For Chinese people who pay more attention to their image and dressing style, the proportion of clothes that are worn once or twice and then no longer worn will increase further.
It is no exaggeration to say that the styles and types of clothing in the old clothing recycling bin downstairs in your community are often beyond your imagination.
Gauze skirts with lace edges, fairy skirts that are out of fashion very quickly, men's floral shirts with complicated patterns, all kinds of overalls, casual clothes, jackets, and even fake Hanfu, fake LO skirts, and fake plaid skirts...
Second-hand clothes from China can cause a buying frenzy among our African brothers who have access to the Internet, not to mention in this alien world.
The second-hand clothes purchased by weight are carefully unpacked, cleaned, ironed and refurbished by the female workers, and then divided into different price levels according to color, style, dyeing and type. The cheapest basic T-shirt is ten coppers, and the most expensive fairy skirt (including gauze skirts and counterfeit Hanfu LO skirts) costs one silver coin.
The prices thus broken down by feeling were inevitably somewhat high, but the caravan owners didn’t mind at all, and some even snapped up the items on the spot…
One pleated Hanfu skirt in particular was probably never worn by the original owner, who angrily discarded it after discovering that the machine-embroidered pattern had skipped stitches and that it was a knockoff after checking online. The clerk from the Commerce Department had just unfolded the skirt and hadn't given a quote when a businessman rushed over to grab it and held it in his arms, saying that he wanted as many of them as he could.
Of the two containers of second-hand clothing, the female workers in this renovation factory have only "unpacked" one-tenth of them. The clerk herself couldn't say how many such skirts she could find in her own warehouse.
The first four caravans spent almost all their cash to buy a large number of second-hand clothes. When they returned to the city, they immediately found familiar customers to dispose of the goods they brought. They did not even go to the territory of Odysseus, but went home directly - they were all anxious to take the goods back and sell them immediately, so that they could get more funds and make another trip as soon as possible.
While these four caravans were in a hurry to leave, more inland merchants from all directions came to Innadri...
While the city hall was happily using the second-hand clothes "wholesale" from Lord Yang to supplement its infrastructure funds, Yang Qiu's wizard tower was also being built up layer by layer.
Yang Qiu, who stood at the living room window every day, drinking brewed milk tea from an enamel teacup and admiring the progress of the construction site, became the most unique scenery in the City Lord's Mansion... Every time Rex came over, he could see Yang standing there as soon as he looked up.
Rex had nothing to say about his boss's hobby.
"Ms. Phoenix mentioned something in her letter this time." Rex, who interrupted Yang Qiu's appreciation of the progress of the Mage Tower, sat down and took out the letter with the Odysseus family emblem.
"A proposal from the third prince of the Rhine royal family?" Glancing at the contents of the letter, Yang Qiu couldn't help but smile.
In his last letter, Phoenix mentioned the Rose Kingdom vaguely.
The royal family of the Rose Kingdom also has the surname Odysseus. With Yang Qiu's understanding of this group of rulers from another world, he can easily guess what happened to the Odysseus family... It's nothing more than that the branch family developed too well, and the main family wanted to reap the benefits.
Although the Rose royal family is powerful, it is a foreign country after all. Logically speaking, the Odysseus family, as a great noble family in the Rhine, should not treat it as a major enemy - at worst, the family will send someone to kill them. If the Rose royal family wants to fight a national war with the Rhine Kingdom in order to seize the branch family business, the Odysseus family is not fighting alone.
This time, Phoenix revealed the prince's proposal, which made up for the hardships of Odysseus' family... Obviously, someone in the Rhine royal family also coveted Odysseus's family business and wanted to take advantage of the situation.
There was already a tiger blocking the way in front, and the "comrades" behind him were so greedy for his own fat meat that their saliva was dripping onto the ground. No wonder Phoenix could even do something like propose to Yang Qiu.
"If it weren't for the Rose Kingdom's relentless pressure, that woman might have welcomed the prince's proposal." Rex said with mixed emotions.
Rex originally admired Phoenix, a woman, but it was not an admiration without any romantic feelings - as long as Yang stopped comparing him with that woman.
"If there were no Rose Kingdom, the Third Prince wouldn't be enough for Phoenix to play with." Yang Qiu shook his head and smiled.
Of course, the great nobles are very happy to marry into the royal family. They have a few descendants of royal blood in their hands. If something happens to the royal family, the great nobles will have their chance.
But the royal family is not stupid. In most cases, the royal family will never choose a marriage partner from a noble family - whether it is a prince or a princess, the marriage partner is either a small family in the country that they know well, or the royal family of another country.
If there is no suitable marriage partner, the royal family will even let some neglected princes and princesses live alone for the rest of their lives.
Royal family members who would do anything to marry a great nobleman either knew that they and their descendants would not be destined to be the crown prince and decided to use the marriage opportunity to gain some other benefits; or they had lost their way in the royal family and would be killed if they did not desperately find a backer.
Yang Qiu could laugh, but Rex couldn't, and he couldn't hide the heavy expression on his face.
After all, he was born into a noble family in the Rhine. Although he was an illegitimate child, he at least received elite education from the kingdom's upper class in his youth. For a period of time, he respected the royal family very much.
Rex was disillusioned that the Rhine royal family would take advantage of the situation and stab the great nobles in the back.
Yang Qiu knew that Rex, a young man, also had literary problems, so he didn't care about his reaction. He said, "Reply to Phoenix for me. My suggestion is that the Rose royal family's affairs are not urgent for the time being, and we can give priority to resolving internal conflicts."
Rex was silent for a while, then said carefully: "Well...you mean, you have a way to dispel the third prince's intention of marriage?"
Yang Qiu just smiled at him.
Rex looked at Yang Qiu firmly.
"It's very simple. Don't worry about the third prince. The Odysseus family can just ask for help from the royal capital." Yang Qiu said calmly, "The Odysseus family is threatened by foreign forces and needs support from the royal family. Just ask the royal family to send an army to station in the north of the Odysseus territory to guard the gate for half a year."
Rex was afraid that Yang Qiu would suddenly say something about overthrowing the Rhine royal family and seizing the land of the Rhine Kingdom. After all, there was precedent for such a thing.
But Yang Qiu certainly wouldn't do that, at least not now... The Mage Tower hasn't been completed yet, the number of players is not enough to fight in the national war, and the parasites inside Nadeli haven't been completely cleared out, so there's no rush.
Rex thought carefully about Yang Qiu's words for a while, and finally reacted after a while. "Ah," he said, "I understand. As long as we get reinforcements from the royal family, we don't have to care about the third prince's intentions. The royal family has already made its position clear by borrowing troops, so the third prince can no longer use the name of the Rhine royal family to force the Odysseus family to bow their heads."
"Not bad." Yang Qiu nodded with satisfaction. Rex's literary youth disease was not too serious. "Even if the third prince is still determined to do evil, the crown prince will not let him do whatever he wants."
Which crown prince would allow his brother to suddenly seize the financial and military resources accumulated by the nobles for four hundred years. Doesn't he want the throne anymore?
Rex nodded vigorously, thought about it and felt something was wrong, and said in confusion: "No, that woman Phoenix couldn't have thought of this method, why didn't she do it?"
Yang Qiu couldn't help but dislike this political rookie again: "Because she is also worried that the crown prince will also set his sights on the Odysseus family because of this. After subduing his brothers, he will find a reliable suitor from his confidants who is more legitimate than the third prince to continue to put pressure on the Odysseus family."
After a pause, Yang Qiu pointed his thumb at himself and said, "So, Phoenix, a little girl who can be my granddaughter, would make a move like an old man like me to propose to her."
"After that, she gradually revealed the plight of the Odysseus family, hoping that an old man like me would allow her to use the excuse of negotiating a marriage with me as an excuse to make the crown prince give up the idea as soon as possible, considering that the Odysseus family has the value of an alliance and is willing to use the utmost sincerity to form an alliance with Tarantan and Innadri."
Rex: “…(° △° )”
No - what on earth are the structures of your brains? !
"I am the one who proposed to ask the Odysseus family for help from the capital. This shows my attitude. Phoenix can then let go and stabilize its own rear before breaking off relations with the Rose Kingdom. At least, it won't give the royal family a chance to stab their family..." Yang Qiu looked at Rex with disdain. "She took the time to write so many letters, and you are the first person to see the letters. Don't you understand her intentions at all?"
Rex: “…”
"Since we have formed an alliance with the Odysseus family, it is not appropriate to just sit by and watch Phoenix fight alone." Yang Qiu picked up the teacup, "How about this, arrange for someone to go to the capital and tell the royal family that Lord Tarantan is proposing to Miss Phoenix from the Odysseus family. An old man like me does not need any face, so I will take the blame. After the capital borrows soldiers, spread the news that Phoenix rejected me."
Rex: “…”
Rex wiped his face silently, responded with difficulty, and prepared to get up and go back to arrange people.
"Hmm? Wait." Yang Qiu suddenly thought of something and tilted his head slightly. "Come to think of it, I seem to have heard someone say that he knew a prince of the Rhine royal family, and one who was at the top of the succession line... When did I hear that from whom?"
In the Tarantan Wasteland, at the railway construction site which was in full swing, Hal Maxwell, who was diligently monitoring the prisoners, suddenly sneezed twice for no reason.
