"Great! Grandpa Wang, we're going to open the soy sauce vat today to get some soy sauce. Can you quickly calculate whether today is an auspicious day?"
Grandpa Wang looked up at the sky, then at his shadow on the ground.
"Today is an auspicious day, but you must wait a little longer, until the midday sun is at its brightest. That will be the true auspicious time."
Since Grandpa Wang said so, the villagers eagerly awaited the start of construction, as long as their feet aligned with their shadows.
The village chief and Chen Ping'an took a ladle and a basin and stood next to the soy sauce vat. As long as the auspicious time arrived and the first spoonful of soy sauce came out, they would be considered to have caught the auspicious time.
It's almost here, almost here...
The villagers silently counted down the hours until Grandpa Wang roared, "The auspicious time has arrived! Open the soy sauce..."
The village chief stepped on the rim of the vat and immediately scooped out a spoonful, so as not to miss the auspicious time.
Applause and shouts filled the entire soy sauce factory, and the cheers didn't stop for a while.
Su Luo walked up to the platform and addressed the crowd.
"Today, our village is extracting soy sauce. There is only one last step before our soy sauce can be sold. At this time, what our village needs most is for everyone to work together to get rich."
"Get rich, get rich..."
The village chief asked everyone to be quiet and listen to Su Luo finish speaking.
"Gentlemen, today we will filter out the soy sauce from all one hundred soy sauce vats."
This step is called "raw soy sauce." After boiling the soy sauce, we add a little licorice root slices for aroma. Then, we sun-dry it for ten days before selling it.
Although we have to wait another ten days, they've already waited for months, so what's another ten days?
“Yan Chuan’s mother, don’t worry. Today, I still have Chen Ping’an and the village chief here, plus so many people in our village. We will definitely be able to filter it out today.”
"Alright! I'll stay here and watch over you."
This kind of physical labor is done by the men in the village; if anything is done incorrectly, she can correct it promptly.
"Luo Luo, you don't eat when you're busy. Look at you, you haven't gained much weight. This won't do."
Zhao Ruyun packed all the food from home and brought it to the soy sauce factory because she knew that Su Luo would forget to eat whenever she was busy.
"Grandma, I'm not hungry."
"Lunchtime has passed, I'm going to get angry if you don't eat."
The food was already placed in front of Su Luo, and only after seeing Zhao Ruyun's warm face did Su Luo take the bowl.
"Thank you, Grandma!"
While holding the bowl, Su Luo didn't have a moment to rest; she had to keep track of everything, big and small, in the soy sauce factory.
Zhao Ruyun could only sigh helplessly and stand at the door waiting for Su Luo to finish eating so she could take the bowl home.
Use a cloth to filter the soybean pulp. Don't throw away the remaining pulp. Put it back into the soy sauce jar, add water, and after half a month, you can make soy sauce again.
The large pots at the village entrance were also brought out. Four or five pots were boiled at the same time, and then the contents were transferred back to the clean vat and placed back to be exposed to the sun.
One hundred pounds of soybeans can produce three hundred pounds of soy sauce.
The day didn't end until evening.
Before everyone had dispersed that evening, the village chief called everyone together to agree on a name and price for the soy sauce.
"Since this soy sauce is made in Changping Village, we'll call it Changping Soy Sauce from now on, and as for the price..."
The group looked at Su Luo, since they had no experience with this kind of thing.
"Su Luo, you tell me, how much silver should we sell it for?"
Su Luo did the math. Although things are valued for their scarcity, and soy sauce is a new product in this world, it is still just a condiment and cannot be sold at too high a price.
"Village chief, uncle, currently in the entire Nanning Kingdom, including Beiliang, only our village has soy sauce, which can be considered a luxury."
However, if we want the soy sauce to have a long-term future, we can't sell it too expensively. From now on, whether it's wholesale or retail, as long as it's bought from Changping Village, it will be 30 wen per jin.
The villagers fell silent when they heard the price.
Only one of the younger ones said, "Yan Chuan's mother, thirty copper coins a catty, is there any profit left?"
None of them had any formal education, so naturally they couldn't immediately calculate the profit involved.
"Of course there is profit, and it is a very large profit."
Those who stayed for the meeting were all men from the village, but their eyes were all fixed on Su Luo.
"Let me calculate for you. One pound of soybeans costs ten wen, but after processing them into soy sauce, we can get three pounds of soy sauce, and one pound of soy sauce sells for thirty wen."
Therefore, it means that we can earn 90 coins per pound of soybeans. Subtracting the initial investment of 10 coins, we still have a profit of 80 coins per pound of soybeans.
"Wow……"
Exclamations of surprise came from the villagers.
"Eighty coins, eighty coins!"
They never imagined that these unassuming soybeans, after just a few months of processing, could double their earnings so much.
The village chief didn't figure it out so quickly either; he only knew that this would definitely earn him a lot of money.
"Yan Chuan's mother, if all the soy sauce in our village is sold, how much silver can we earn?"
"Yes, Yan Chuan's mother, please calculate it quickly, we all want to know."
Seeing that everyone was staring at her, Su Luo did some mental calculations.
One vat contains 100 jin of soybeans, so 100 vats would contain 10,000 jin.
Each pound can yield three pounds of soy sauce, which is multiplied by three, equaling 30,000 pounds.
Each pound of soy sauce sells for thirty coins, so that's a total of nine hundred thousand coins, which is nine hundred taels of silver.
Adding the soybean dregs that haven't been thrown away yet, if they continue to ferment, they can produce quite a bit of soy sauce. This batch will be worth at least a thousand taels of silver.
"Based on all our soy sauce, including the ones still fermenting, we can probably earn more than a thousand taels after selling them all in our village."
"More than a thousand taels, more than a thousand taels..."
This is an astronomical figure, more money than they can even count.
The villagers were extremely excited. They had never seen so much silver in their lives, let alone more than a thousand taels, not even a hundred taels.
If they could sell all of this soy sauce, they would never have to live a life of hunger again.
Several men were so moved that tears streamed down their faces.
Amid everyone's joy, the village chief said, "As for profits, as long as everyone agrees, that's fine. But if we sell the soy sauce, the first thing we need to do is pay Chen Ping'an and Wang Dehou their wages."
The success of the soy sauce was achieved through their tireless dedication day and night, even without wages. We must not let them down.
"Yes, yes, yes... Village Chief, we understand what you're saying."
"Everyone is tired today, so let's go back first. Once my Changping soy sauce is sold and we have money, we will expand the soy sauce factory and make our village bigger and stronger."
"Alright! Village Chief, we'll all listen to you. With you and Yan Chuan's mother here, we'll follow you."
It was late at night when Su Luo returned home. Before she even entered the door, Shi Tou and Hua Hua ran towards her and rubbed against her feet.
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