Volume 6: The Great Change Chapter 0888 Business is not good
The existence of a thing cannot be said to be necessarily reasonable, but there must be a reason for its existence.
For example, a jellyfish broker like Zhou Gong, since it appeared, it means that there is a soil for its existence and there must be a place where it can play a role.
Wang Rongsen and Lao Zhu set off, and brought along Xiuzhen, the "local boss". At around two o'clock in the afternoon, Xiuzhen came back alone and quietly called Ah Xin away.
Wu Xiaowei had no idea what they were doing until the next morning, when only Ah Xin and Xiuzhen came back, covered in dust and dirt, and only one truck came back. Only then did Wu Xiaowei hear from Ah Xin what had happened yesterday.
It turned out that Wang Rongsen and Lao Zhu successfully received more than 400 barrels of jellyfish, which was about 10 tons. Wang Rongsen calculated that this trip saved him more than 4,000 yuan in labor fees. He wanted to quickly make up for the previous loss of more than 100,000 yuan, so he decided to take a secret route passed on by word of mouth by the drivers in order to escape the inspection at the checkpoint.
Jellyfish transactions are taxed, about 0.3 yuan per pound, and needless to say, this tax is collected from the purchaser. The job of the inspection station is to check whether the jellyfish has been taxed. If not, the inspection station will detain the jellyfish, and the jellyfish can only be taken away after the tax and fine are paid.
Secret routes are often dangerous routes. Since they are dangerous, accidents are prone to happen. As expected, an accident still happened. One of the two trucks of goods overturned on the road. Wang Rongsen and Lao Zhu stayed on the road to rescue the other truck of goods. Ah Xin and Xiuzhen returned with one truck of goods and shipped the goods back to the hotel. Wang Rongsen's tax evasion plan was aborted and he suffered a loss of tens of thousands of yuan.
The story didn't end there. Before Ah Xin finished telling the story, a sidecar from the Industrial and Commercial Inspection Team came to the hotel. An inspector got off the truck, walked around the truck, and then asked the people in a stern voice, "Whose goods are these?"
All three of them shook their heads.
Seeing that the three people did not admit it, the inspector sneered and said, "It has no owner, right? Fine, I'll have someone take it away right away."
Seeing this, Ah Xin panicked and quickly said, "These are our boss's goods, but he's not here right now."
"Have you paid your taxes?"
Ah Xin shook her head, indicating that she didn't know.
The inspector saw this and said, "I will write a tax refund bill first. You give it to your boss. When he comes back, ask him to come to the inspection team. Remember, look for me."
The inspector emphasized the words "find me".
If Nan Yi was present, he would understand the whole thing as soon as he heard it and would know what to do next. However, he has never bothered to evade taxes, so it is unlikely that he would encounter such a thing.
The inspector quickly issued a tax refund slip to Xin. It was not a formal document, just a handwritten slip. The content on it roughly meant "Five tons of tax-evaded jellyfish were found, and you need to pay an additional 8,500 yuan in taxes, and wait for your opinion on how to proceed."
From the perspective of business procedures, this tax supplement bill is completely unreasonable. As long as the jellyfish has not been shipped out of Qingsongling, you can pay the tax at any time. There is no such thing as supplementary payment, and you cannot have an extra 5,500 yuan for no reason.
Let's think about this matter. Why did the inspector go straight to Xiuzhen Hotel and be so accurate? Why did the inspector dare to charge more than 5,000 yuan?
"I expect Wang Rongsen to feel guilty and will be punished for tax evasion."
In a restaurant, Zhou Gong and Nan Ruoqiong sat opposite each other, eating pork stewed with vermicelli and chatting.
Nan Ruoqiong laughed, "Grandpa Zhou Gong, you should teach those who don't know the rules a lesson. What kind of place is this? Qingsongling, also known as Zhou Gongzhai. In front of you, a dragon must coil up and a tiger must lie down. How can you let a foreign trader break the rules?"
"You little girl, you are making fun of your grandfather Zhou Gong." Zhou Gong smiled, then his face changed, "Now it is the ban period, the market is short of jellyfish, as long as we ship it out, we can make a good profit. This Wang Rongsen is reluctant to give me two cents. Before the ban period is over, he can't even think of shipping out one or two jellyfish."
"Yes, take care of him." Nan Ruoqiong agreed, and then said, "Grandpa Zhou, it's time to give Wu Xiaowei the jellyfish. The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment."
"Hahaha, you girl..." Zhou Gong laughed.
Soon, Zhou Gong helped Wu Xiaowei buy more than 1 ton of sandwich jellyfish at the price of 7 yuan. The top part was good, but the bottom part was bad. It could not be said to be bad, but it could definitely not be sold at a high price.
After Hai Jellyfish got on the train, Wu Xiaowei went to find Ah Xin very seriously and asked her to send a telegram to Han Xin, who had not returned yet, asking Han Xin for help.
Ah Xin agreed and the telegram was sent.
But when Wu Xiaowei arrived in Shanghai and asked Han Xin to help introduce customers, he was dumbfounded when he inspected the goods. What the hell were they?
Wu Xiaowei was furious and regretful when he found out that he had been cheated. In the end, Han Xin couldn't stand it anymore and helped him find a customer who bought Wu Xiaowei's bad jellyfish at a low price. In total, he lost more than 10,000 yuan.
After being cheated, of course he had to find someone to settle the score. Wu Xiaowei followed Han Xin, who was about to go back to Qingsongling to purchase more goods.
As soon as he set foot on the land of Qingsongling, Wu Xiaowei hurriedly looked for Zhou Gong all over the world. Finally, the two parties met in the office. Before Wu Xiaowei could open his mouth to settle the account, he was held down.
Nan Yi, who was listening to the story, laughed and said, "There's no need to tell me what happened next. I know all the details. Ruoqiong, you saw it just now. I told her to hold you down, and I also ordered you to be beaten. I wanted you to wake up.
After suffering a loss, if you think calmly, you will realize that you should not go back to Qingsongling, because you will never get any good results if you go back.
You have good luck and ability, you can find the right place and direction the first time, but you are still too impatient. If I were you, I would first find a temporary job pickling jellyfish at the seaport, no wages, or even money, spend a few days to understand the ins and outs of Sanfan jellyfish, and then try to find out the ins and outs of the jellyfish business.
Our ancestors said that different trades are like different mountains, and you cannot make profits from different trades. When entering a new industry in the future, you must do a long-term preliminary investigation and thoroughly understand the operating model before considering whether to enter.
Of course, if you have 100 million in funds and only need to invest 100,000 to enter a new industry, you can investigate and test the waters at the same time. There are some problems that you cannot discover by just looking at the information if you don't experience them yourself.
Just like drowning, if you don’t experience it yourself, you will never get the most accurate understanding just by relying on the description of someone who has experienced it.”
Nan Yi reached out and patted Wu Xiaowei on the shoulder, "Okay, minus the 20,000 yuan I gave you, you still have 140,000 yuan. Come with me to Russia tomorrow, and then fly back. I'll give you another month to double the 140,000 yuan.
This time, I won't tell you what to do. You have to use your own eyes to find business opportunities. Remember, the business you want to do must be reasonable, legal and compliant. The more you earn, the more I will treat you differently, and the greater the opportunities you will get in the future."
After listening to what Nan Yi said, Wu Xiaowei felt mixed emotions. He now understood why he was beaten, and why after the beating, Uncle Zhou helped him buy 10 tons of jellyfish on credit, allowing him to make a fortune before the ban ended. It turned out that he had been "protected" by Uncle Nan all along.
Ask yourself, if Zhou Gong didn't set a trap for him, was it because his business was small and he was a newcomer, and they still wouldn't give him good luck? Or, would he end up like Wang Rongsen in a miserable way?
Wang Rongsen, a member of the jellyfish purchasing team, was obsessed and went further and further down the wrong path. He even dared to break into some notorious villages to purchase goods. First, he found that the jellyfish in a village was too bad and refused to purchase it. Then he was detained. Finally, Xiuzhen's brother stepped in and gave some money to settle the matter.
After going around in circles, he finally exchanged all his remaining money for jellyfish. However, the jellyfish he received were even worse than the ones Wu Xiaowei had bought. In a bucket, only the surface layer was good, while the rest were all poor stuff that had not been properly pickled. Some buckets were even stuffed with stones.
After the jellyfish were shipped back to Shanghai, no wholesalers wanted them.
Old Zhu kept Wang Rongsen under arrest, and of course he suffered the same fate as the other party.
Han Xin was a trustworthy and good person, and he bought another 20 tons of jellyfish before the ban ended. He still had some debts, but with his credit record, he was able to make the deal, and he helped Ah Xin exchange all the money for jellyfish.
During a jellyfish harvest season, Han Xin made a lot of money, and Ah Xin made a small profit.
Soon after Wu Xiaowei left Qingsongling, Nan Ruoqiong also left and went to other cities in the Northeast, and then came to Suifenhe to meet Nan Yi.
Seeing Wu Xiaowei lost in thought, Nan Yi quietly left and went downstairs to talk to Nan Ruoqiong.
The next day, Nan Yi and his party, escorted by the Virgin Mary and her team, arrived in Pogranichny, Russia, and stayed there for a day. Nothing special happened. Then, Nan Ruoqiong went to Kyrgyzstan, Wu Xiaowei returned to Suifenhe, and Nan Yi set out on the journey to Ussuriysk.
The road was not easy to walk on, but nothing worth remembering happened. If I had to find one thing, it would be that the scenery was really nice, the area was vast and sparsely populated, there were not many human footprints, and everything in nature could grow and reproduce freely.
After arriving in Ussuriysk, Nan Yi and his party checked into the ninth floor of the Ussuriysk Hotel through the connections left by Ye Qi. They booked all the rooms on the right side to form a relatively closed space.
Ussuriysk Hotel is the largest and most luxurious hotel in Ussuriysk.
In 1987, after the border trade between China and the Soviet Union was opened, a large number of Chinese traders poured into Ussuriysk and gathered in the Ussuriysk Hotel. As a result, some smart Chinese began to contract the Ussuriysk Hotel, first the first floor, then the second floor, and then the third floor. Gradually, like a silkworm eating a mulberry leaf, the entire Ussuriysk Hotel was swallowed up.
Naturally, this action of the Chinese caused dissatisfaction among the Russians. Several Russians who came to Ussuriysk on business trips from other places, because the Ussuriysk Hotel was full with Chinese people and they had no place to stay, were instigated by several local people and jointly petitioned the municipal government, asking the municipal government to intervene and return the Ussuriysk Hotel to the Russians.
The municipal government had long felt that it was not appropriate to contract the entire Ussuriysk Hotel to the Chinese, so it took the opportunity to take back the 1st, 3rd, and 5th floors, while the rest were still contracted and managed by the Chinese.
In December last year, the Soviet revisionism collapsed and Russia's private economy was liberalized. Seeing that the hotel industry was profitable, the Russians in Ussuriysk built several buildings one after another and rented them out specifically to Chinese traders who came to do business.
It is no longer as difficult for Chinese people to find accommodation here as in previous years. However, because it is the first hotel that Chinese people stay in, the Ussuriysk Hotel has become increasingly important in the minds of Chinese traders.
In order to attract Chinese people, the newly built small hotel offered prices much cheaper than those of the Ussuriysk Hotel. Gradually, the small traders moved away, and only the wealthier or more successful merchants who resold wood, grain and vegetables remained in the Ussuriysk Hotel.
There are very few high-rise buildings in Ussuriysk. Most buildings are six or seven stories high. About 30 to 40 percent of the residents live in old-style bungalows. Ussuriysk Hotel is the tallest building in Ussuriysk.
Nan Yi stood sideways in front of the window, overlooking most of the city of Ussuriysk. At this time, the sun was setting, and the sunlight was shining on the sparse but well-arranged houses in Ussuriysk, with white birch trees interspersed in the gaps. The whole picture seemed to be coated with a layer of gold.
In August, Russia can be said to have entered autumn. Occasionally, the autumn wind blows, and the leaves reflect the sunlight, mixed with the unique sweet and fragrant scent of autumn. The leaves tremble and are arranged in an orderly manner. The bark is cracked like fish scales, just like the weathered forehead of the great leader. Except for the vulgar dew hemisphere, the whole city is covered with golden armor.
Nan Yiji was intoxicated. He took a deep breath, sighed, and couldn't help but compose a poem, "Ah, gold, that pile of golden gold, so much! Ah, birch tree, why did you turn golden too?"
In the past two years, legitimate publishing houses have not had a good time. They are everywhere trying to trick people into sponsoring book publishing. An autobiography can be published with 100,000 yuan. I heard that there are quite a few pretentious traders who are building monuments for themselves. Nan Yi is thinking about whether he should really publish a collection of poems.
The thought came quickly and went away even faster. After a while, Nan Yi brought his thoughts back and did what he would definitely do in a new place - read the newspaper.
"Hold!"
After reading one newspaper and picking up the second one, Nan Yi couldn't help but throw the newspaper in his hand away. Half a page of the newspaper was filled with call girl advertisements, which were immoral and uncultured, but had pictures, addresses, and phone numbers.
Nan Yi picked up a few other newspapers and flipped through them. The situation was basically the same. Except for the first newspaper he read, the others were all advertising content. It seemed that people spent money to buy newspapers just to read advertisements.
There was nothing he wanted to read in the newspaper, so Nan Yi put all the newspapers aside, picked up the map of Ussuriysk and studied it for a while, then went to the restaurant on the sixth floor to eat.
The Ussuriysk Hotel was contracted by three groups of Chinese: one group on the second and fourth floors, one group on the seventh floors, and one group on the sixth, eighth and ninth floors. In addition to providing accommodation, each group also provided catering services, which are the so-called restaurants. If you stay on the ninth floor, you naturally have to go to the restaurant on the sixth floor to eat.
The sixth, eighth and ninth floors are contracted by a pair of brothers. They are not often in the hotel, and the management is handled by their parents. When Nan Yi arrived at the restaurant downstairs, the "mother" who was usually responsible for cooking was sitting in the restaurant in a daze, while the kitchen next door was busy cooking.
The restaurant on the sixth floor, although called a restaurant, can be considered a snack bar at best. It has two guest rooms, one used as a kitchen and the other as a restaurant, and that's all it is.
The "mother" who is responsible for cooking is idle, but someone is busy in the kitchen because of Ye Wei's advice - the cooking of that person and that person's mother is very bad, so don't try it.
Nan Yi is a man who listens to advice. Since Ye Wei said so, he certainly would not go and bring bad luck upon himself. The one who was busy in the kitchen was Mei Zhengyi, who flew here from Moscow first. A quarter of an hour ago, the people of the Holy Mother had taken turns to eat. Now, the only person eating in the restaurant was his own people and only one outsider.
Although the restaurant is small, it looks clean. Nan Yi greeted the "mother" and sat down at a table close to the door but unable to be seen directly from the door. He looked at the "outsider" for a few times. You are a middle-aged man in his forties, with a burly figure, a full beard, messy hair, dirty clothes, and bloodshot eyes. At this moment, you are eating voraciously, as if you were a starving ghost reincarnated.
The school beauty exchanged glances with the Virgin Mary, and after receiving the other party's reply that everything was safe, she took the fairy to the kitchen next door and quickly brought over a few dishes.
There was no need to have too much expectation on Mei Zhengyi's cooking skills. After the rice was served, Nan Yi invited the school beauties to sit down and started eating together. They just ate quietly and had no interest in communicating with their "mother" and strangers.
Although Nan Yi left Moscow last year, he still knows the situation in Russia very well, including the latest situation of China's profiteers.
As soon as the Russian economy was liberalized, the number of traders coming from the country increased instantly. The faint sense of brotherhood that could be found in the past has now disappeared. The traders often say "Chinese don't cheat Chinese". Based on the theory that people like to emphasize what they lack, the things that need to be repeatedly emphasized must have been greatly lacking.
This is indeed the case. It is very difficult to make friends with strangers in China in Russia. Chinese people who appear in groups of three or five on the streets are most likely related by blood, family or neighbors, or they are already friends in China and come to Russia together.
When Chinese people in Russia meet strangers who try to talk to them, they will be very alert. Too many people have been fooled by their own people, and word of mouth has spread, so they are afraid.
There are currently three types of passports available for traveling from China to Russia: official passports, private passports, and a tourist passport. Official and private passports are extremely difficult to obtain, not only are the procedures cumbersome but the fees are quite high. Although there is the convenience of being able to travel freely between China and Russia to any location within the visa period, most Chinese traders will not apply for them, but instead apply for tourist passports.
In fact, the so-called tourist passport does not involve visiting tourist attractions, nor does it provide a tour guide. When the "tourists" arrive at the designated location, they scatter like birds and beasts. Most of them come here to do business in the name of tourism.
The maximum validity period of a tourist passport is three months, and you can only travel to the places specified on the visa, which is very inconvenient. There is also an even more embarrassing rule that you can only stay for a few months as stated on the visa, and you cannot overstay or go back early.
In a foreign country, the easiest targets for making illegal money are compatriots. Whether it is stealing, robbing or cheating, people with the same skin color and speaking the same language are the easiest to become fat sheep.
If I were penniless in Russia, I might really starve to death here.
If Nan Yi, who was surrounded by a group of people, rashly approached others to talk to them, it would easily make their legs tremble, for fear of encountering a disaster. It is not fun at all to scare people, so why give them a nightmare?
Especially in the city of Ussuriysk, which was disturbed by the Far Eastern Military Region last year and had just returned to normal this year, several waves of domestic outlaws soon arrived. They raised the banner of "acting on behalf of heaven" and held the commission from heaven to collect a page of taxes for heaven. This kind of tax can be abbreviated into three words - protection fee, which can also be called sanitation fee, cleaning fee, and land fee.
This tax is equal to all, regardless of gender, age, wealth or poverty, and everyone must pay it. Of course, the Jade Emperor cannot control the Russian people, so Russians don't have to pay it.
To put it bluntly, when the outlaws go abroad, they still only dare to act like bullies at home.
After dinner, Nan Yi went to Nekrasova Street downstairs, the longest, widest and most prosperous street in Ussuriysk. He didn't walk far, but just walked around nearby as a way to digest the food after the meal.
Although it is the busiest street in the city, it is very quiet. There are not many vehicles passing by, and no sound of horns can be heard. Passers-by walking in groups chat in whispers, and no loud noises can be heard.
Nan Yi enjoyed this tranquility very much. This time when he returned to Moscow, there would be not only bloody storms but also swordplay. It would be difficult for him to have another chance to enjoy a quiet moment. Now, he wanted to enjoy it greedily.
I sit by the roadside, lean against the wall, close my eyes and take a nap, regardless of time and space, and regardless of the strange looks from passers-by. When I have stayed long enough, I go upstairs to wash up and go to bed.
The next day, as soon as she woke up, the school beauty reported to Nan Yi that three strange men had come last night and knocked on the doors of two rooms on the left side of the ninth floor. They looked like they were here to collect sanitation fees, but as there were so many people guarding the right side, they didn't dare to come over.
After listening to this, Nan Yi sighed and said that the student’s work motivation was really high and he really deserved an award for outstanding employee.
After washing, exercising, and eating breakfast , when it was nine o'clock, Nan Yi went out to the Huaguo Market in Ussuriysk, which is also the largest Huaguo Market in the Far East. It not only has a daytime retail market, but also a night wholesale market starting at one o'clock in the morning. The traders are accustomed to calling it the white market and the night market.
The night market in Ussuriysk is very famous. Not only do merchants from Ussuriysk wholesale various Chinese products here, but merchants from Khabarovsk, Vladivostok and other places also come here to wholesale.
There are not only Chinese merchants who come to wholesale Chinese products, but also Russian and Vietnamese merchants. Although the entire Far East region is crowded with merchants from various countries, what they sell are almost the same , all Chinese products.
In fact, Ussuriysk is the distribution center of Chinese products in the Far East.
The Huaguo Market was huge and chaotic. The Virgin Mary took Nan Yi through many twists and turns in the market and finally stopped in front of a small stall after a long time.
The stall owner was a middle-aged man in his forties, busy at the stall. When he saw someone coming, he raised his head and was about to greet them. When he saw it was the Virgin Mary, he hurriedly called out enthusiastically: "Hey, Yuan, why are you here?"
The Virgin Mary was a Korean from Kazakhstan, her surname was Yuan, and her grandmother was from Yanbian. When she was young, she followed her parents to Seoul to do business, and met the Virgin Mary’s grandfather who was engaged in anti-Japanese intelligence work in Seoul. The two got married in Seoul, and on the eve of the end of World War II, she returned to Kazakhstan with her son.
Her mother is North Korean. She was sent to work in St. Petersburg in the 1960s. She met the Virgin Mary's father, and then they got married and had children. So the Virgin Mary is of multiple nationalities, but all of her ancestry is Korean. She is fluent in Yanbian Korean, North Korean, Korean, Kazakh Korean, Russian Korean, Russian, and the not-so-authentic Northeastern dialect.
The middle-aged man spoke Mandarin, which was a bit stiff and mixed with a strong Northeastern accent. It was not difficult to tell from his accent that he was from the Northeast, and most likely of Korean ethnicity.
"I just arrived yesterday." The Virgin Mary replied with a smile, and then asked, "How is business?"
"Very good. The Chinese products you found for me are very popular. I can make a lot of money every day." The middle-aged man also responded with a smile, "Don't leave at noon. I'll treat you to a meal."
Nan Yi listened to the conversation between the two people while looking at the goods on the stall. Without exception, all of them came from Haitang Trading's channels. In fact, the middle-aged man in front of him was a distributor of Haitang Trading. Moreover, without listening to his accent and only looking at the goods, Nan Yi could tell that the middle-aged man was Korean, because the goods on the stall were exclusively for Koreans, regardless of their nationality.
No matter which country the Koreans are from, they are very aggressive when doing business in Russia. Whether in the Soviet revisionist period or now when they belong to different former republics, Koreans are a minority and their lives are generally poorer than those of people of other nationalities.
When people are poor, they tend to seek change. While other impoverished ethnic groups try to start legitimate businesses, most Koreans in Russia engage in activities that are not acceptable, and are relatively powerful.
Because they belong to the same ethnic group, speak a language with slightly different accents, and share common living habits, the Korean people in China quickly established contact with the Korean people in Russia. Whenever there was something big or small, they would always ask their fellow Koreans in Russia for help.
With a strong backer, the Korean people in China will naturally feel that they are more powerful than other Chinese people and are more successful in business. Even those outlaws dare not cause trouble for them and will only stay away from them.
Korean traders rarely encounter difficulties and can focus fully on their business. As long as they do not bully others, end customers and next-level wholesalers are more willing to patronize their stalls because they are less likely to encounter trouble.
Naturally, Haitang Trading will give them some higher-profit commodities. Both parties will benefit mutually and can make huge profits.
After the Virgin Mary finished chatting with the middle-aged man, she took Nan Yi to visit other stalls.
At a stall, Nan Yi saw Haitang brand canned fruit, but when he looked carefully, he found that the label paper was definitely not from Haitang Trading. He bought a can, opened it, and found that the quality of the fruit pulp inside was not good. It was a counterfeit, not the genuine product from the cannery.
Handing the can to the Virgin Mary, Nan Yi said, "Check the source of the supply. If it's in China, take legal action. If it's here, keep it simple and direct."
"good."
I continued walking for a while and suddenly saw a riot ahead. I walked closer and saw that a Chinese stall was smashed by several Russians. Some of the down jackets they were selling were torn and the down was scattered on the ground in clumps.
Nan Yi picked up a handful and rubbed it in his hands. It was 100% chicken feathers. The way this business was run was too fucking ugly. They deserved to be beaten to death. Ruining the stall was the least of their worries. The brotherhood that Nan Yi had just felt was extinguished in an instant.
There are counterfeits in front and inferior products in the back. This is cutting off the livelihood of Chinese businessmen in Russia and also undermining the foundation of the Haitang trade. If the reputation of Chinese products is ruined in Russia, business will be difficult in the future and traders will also face unpredictable dangers.
