Chapter 251 All the cloth was sold out
The next day.
The sun is shining brightly.
Zhao Ergou and Zhao Dawang got up early and piled all the remaining cloth on a cart to take it out.
They rented a small stall in the busiest part of the city and started shouting at the top of their lungs.
They sold their cloth for two coins less than the market price, and business was pretty good. However, before they had sold more than a few bolts of cloth, a group of menacing-looking people suddenly surrounded them.
"Where did this unfamiliar young man come from, daring to sell cloth in front of our Zhang's Cloth Shop? Does he have a death wish?"
The burly man leading the group held a thick stick in his hand and had a fierce and menacing look on his face.
He waved his hand, and several men behind him gradually surrounded him.
"Smash his stall!"
Zhao Dawang turned pale with fright and rushed over to protect the cloth in his arms.
He was no match for four strong men all by himself, and was lifted up like a chick.
"Brothers, let's talk this out!" Although Zhao Ergou was angry, he still put on a smiling face. He took out a handful of copper coins from his pocket and handed them over. "I'm just treating you to some tea. Please calm down. This is all a misunderstanding. Please don't fight."
There were actually less than a hundred copper coins in the handful, but it looked like a lot and was pleasing to the eye. Most importantly, it made people seem sensible.
The leader waved his hand, and Zhao Dawang was released.
Zhao Ergou walked over and said with a forced smile, "This is my first time in Nanyang, and I'm not familiar with the rules of Nanyang. It was indeed our fault for offending Zhang's Cloth Shop, and it's understandable that you want to smash their stall. However, if you smash their stall, everyone will say that Zhang's is bullying others. There are so many cloth shops in the city, and no one wants to go to a shop with a bad reputation. Rather than ruining your own shop's reputation, why not cooperate and everyone can make some money?"
He spoke clearly and logically, neither servile nor arrogant, and most importantly, he was tempted by financial benefits.
The leader was the owner of Zhang's shop. Zhang's shop's cloth prices were market prices, and business was always very good. But today, because of this small stall, all their business was taken away, so he brought a group of henchmen to cause trouble.
“This batch of goods of mine all came from the neighboring city. The cost price of linen was nine copper coins, and the cost price of fine linen was sixteen copper coins. How about I sell it all to your Zhang family at a profit of one copper coin per foot of cloth?” Zhao Ergou said. “You have to go to much farther places to get your goods, whether by land or water. The costs on the way are quite high. This batch of goods of mine is delivered right to your doorstep. Even if you only make one copper coin per foot of cloth, you can still make about fifteen taels of silver.”
The shopkeeper quickly started calculating in his mind.
He can sell linen for twelve coins and fine linen for twenty coins. A quick calculation shows that he can earn at least thirty taels of silver.
This deal is incredibly worthwhile.
Most importantly, there is no risk of sourcing goods from long distances.
This year, harvests have plummeted everywhere, and many places have displaced people, which has led to rampant banditry. The biggest fear when buying goods from other places is encountering bandits.
There's no reason not to accept goods that are delivered to your door.
He immediately laughed: "Young man, you really know how to do business. Okay, let's do it this way. Someone, help me move the goods."
Four burly men immediately stepped forward and carried all the cloth from the cart into Zhang's shop.
Zhao Dawang's heart was bleeding. He grabbed Zhao Ergou and asked, "Are we just going to let them off so easily?"
"Otherwise what?" Zhao Ergou seemed very calm. "Even a powerful dragon can't suppress a local snake. On someone else's turf, we can only bow our heads. Besides, my purchase price is actually very low. The linen only costs three copper coins... In short, I can still make a lot of money. When you're out and about, safety is the most important thing. Avoid trouble."
He kept his elder brother's words in mind: when he was out, he must not cause trouble, and he should handle things properly on his own so that his mother would not have to worry about him.
After the cloth was moved, the total price was 160 taels, which, together with yesterday's income, amounted to 312 taels of silver.
The purchase price of this batch of goods was eighty-nine taels, and after many days of sluggish sales, the cost and profit were finally recovered.
Although the profit from reselling was huge, Zhao Ergou dared not do it again because the risk was too great. Otherwise, why wouldn't others make money by reselling cloth?
He returned to the inn, satisfied.
When I pushed the door open, I saw Cheng Wanwan fiddling with a piece of fine linen that had been left behind.
The fine linen was cut into square pieces, some stained with oil, some with bloodstains of unknown origin, and some covered in mud...
"Ergou and Dawang, you're back just in time. Come and help us," Cheng Wanwan said. "Make these pieces of cloth as dirty as possible."
Zhao Dawang picked up a piece of cloth stained with oil: "Auntie, I might as well take these pieces of cloth to the inn's kitchen to wipe the stove. They'll definitely be filthy."
"That's clever, go ahead." Cheng Wanwan thought for a moment and said, "Ergou, spend some money and go to the kitchen to buy a bowl of leftover food and oil."
Zhao Ergou had already figured out what Cheng Wanwan wanted to do, and nodded to do it immediately.
He hurried downstairs with a basin in his hand, when a drunken middle-aged man suddenly came upstairs and bumped into him, making him dizzy and disoriented.
Given his previous personality, he would definitely have questioned him, but now that he was in another city, he couldn't act ostentatiously, so he forced himself to hold back.
He looked up at the man in front of him, feeling that he looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen him before.
The man was really drunk; he stumbled and almost tumbled down the stairs.
Zhao Ergou quickly helped him up.
This person was really heavy, round and chubby, and all his weight pressed down on Zhao Ergou, almost crushing him to death.
"Uncle, which room do you stay in? I'll help you back."
"Stay...stay over there!"
The man casually pointed to the back of the first floor.
The first floor is the lowest class of rooms, costing half a tael of silver per night, and it is where ordinary people stay.
The man's clothes were clearly made of silk, and Zhao Ergou asked again, "Are you sure he lives behind here?"
The man nodded, hiccuping from alcohol, "Right, right there."
Zhao Ergou, ever the good Samaritan, helped the man walk to the back, but the man didn't stop at the room door. Instead, he continued pointing behind him, eventually leading them to the warehouse rented by the inn.
The man took a key from around his neck and threw it into Zhao Ergou's hand: "Open the warehouse."
Zhao Ergou was confused, but he did as instructed anyway.
When he opened the warehouse, he was stunned. It was filled with cloth, piled up all the way to the roof.
Moreover, it didn't seem to be ordinary fabric. He took a closer look and it looked like gauze, which was an extremely expensive piece of cloth!
Just as he was taking a peephole, a tinderbox appeared in his arms.
The man, reeking of alcohol, said, "Burn them all."
Zhao Ergou was so startled that he dropped the tinderbox on the ground. He had been reading the soap factory's fire prevention rules every day recently, fearing that it might cause a fire. He quickly picked it up and threw it into the yard outside.
"Uncle, arson is a capital offense!" He hurriedly pulled the man outside, "Lock it up quickly, I can pretend I didn't see it."
"Get away!" The man clung to the storeroom door, then suddenly burst into tears, "Tens of thousands of taels of silver! My tens of thousands of taels of silver! It's all gone in there..."
Tears streamed down his round face.
Zhao Ergou, unaware of the situation, comforted her, "A single bolt of silk gauze can cost over ten taels of silver. This warehouse full of cloth could fetch at least fifty or sixty thousand taels. You won't lose money..."
He had been in the cloth business before, so he had some knowledge of this area.
Gauze is a luxurious fabric woven from silk, exclusively for the nobility.
"Waaah... I thought I wouldn't lose money..." The man tore off a piece of cloth and roughly spread it out. "It's all ruined... It's all my fault for not inspecting the goods carefully. I got ripped off... I invested 30,000 taels, and others invested 20,000 taels together. We lost it all..."
Zhao Ergou glanced at it and was speechless.
Silk gauze is made by weaving silk into cloth and then dyeing it in various colors. This piece of cloth was originally supposed to be light blue, but it has turned into large or small clumps of dark blue or dark green. The silk gauze cloth has been completely ruined by the dye. If a piece of cloth can sell for a hundred coins, that would be considered a great fortune!
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