Chapter 62 One Year Later◇
◎ Zhu Xi left quietly, leaving only a letter to Zheng with a silver note of one hundred taels attached.
Zhu Xi left quietly, leaving only a letter to Zheng with a silver note of one hundred taels attached.
The letter did not mention Zhou Yu at all, but only expressed gratitude to the Zheng family and said that he would repay them when he had the chance in the future.
After reading the letter, Zheng couldn't help but touch her eldest daughter's forehead.
"Kid, can't you control your temper? You know Sanlang doesn't have bad intentions. Why can't you just talk it out in a nice way? Why do you have to make things so awkward?"
Zhou Yu still said, "People with different ideals cannot work together!" He didn't think there was anything wrong with what he did, but whenever he was alone preparing herbs or studying medical books, without Chang Sanlang around to chatter with him, he always felt like something was missing, and he felt inexplicably empty inside.
However, Zhou Yu regarded this feeling as just a lack of habit. Even kittens and puppies can develop feelings after being raised for a few months, let alone humans!
But two people whose thoughts are not in sync and whose values are so different are destined not to stay together for long. Since they will have to go their separate ways sooner or later, it is better to separate sooner rather than later!
She has always been the type who prefers to be alone rather than with someone who is not good enough. Perhaps her personality is really not suitable for making friends, Zhou Yu thought, otherwise she wouldn't have no friends in her entire life!
However, she has come to terms with it now. If she doesn't have friends, then so be it. It's fine to be alone. At least she won't be cheated.
In her previous life, she either went to school or studied medicine, and she was alone all day long. Apart from occasionally listening to music, she had no other entertainment, let alone good friends!
When she first entered university, a boy asked her to sign up for a dance club together. She was really flattered at the time, thinking that someone finally wanted to be her friend, so she mustered up the courage to go...
But after just a few practices, the boy stopped playing with her. She was wondering what had offended him. Then, a senior from the dance club couldn't stand it anymore and told her that the boy actually made a bet every year with the new students to see if he could date the most withdrawn girl in that class. And she was voted the most withdrawn girl by the boys in her class, and she had been successfully deceived!
She was so angry that she couldn't help but question the boy, but she ended up humiliating herself and being laughed at in public. Of course, she didn't let him off easy either, and used her fists to make him be laughed at in public.
However, that experience still left a shadow on her mind, and she became even more withdrawn from the world...
So, from childhood to adulthood, in two lifetimes combined, the only two friends she thought she had were both damn liars!
………
Days passed one by one, and in the blink of an eye a year had passed.
Since the weather got warmer, the Zheng family's cotton-padded clothing business could no longer be done. Zhou Yu suggested that they simply open a garment workshop together. Instead of taking on business from the rich, they could target the soldiers as their main customers. Based on the riding clothes sold in Kyoto, they modified the baggy and coarse cloth clothes and designed several men's riding clothes that were both convenient and sturdy to wear, which were sold specifically to the soldiers.
And they don't have to work all by themselves. Zhou Yu also suggested that they hire all the women in Taohua Village who are good at sewing and work efficiently, and divide the work according to the current method. This way, not only can they increase their daily output, but they won't have to work so hard. They can earn more money themselves and help the women in Taohua Village make money together!
After hearing Zhou Yu's idea, the Bai family praised him and pooled their money to start the business. The workshop was once again located in the Bai family, with the shareholders being the Bai, Liu, and Zheng families.
Because the Bai family used two houses as factories (Zhou Li and Bai's houses were requisitioned), they accounted for 40% of the shares, and the Zheng and Liu families each accounted for 30%.
As soon as the improved men's clothing from the garment workshop was launched, it was indeed very popular among the soldiers. Zheng and her friends sold more, so they had to purchase more raw materials, and the purchase price was naturally cheaper than others, so the order price was not high. Gradually, almost every soldier in Baili Town had a piece of clothing from their workshop, and it almost became a unified military uniform!
Of course, during this period, there were also women who followed the trend and saw that their clothes were selling well, so they imitated them and made clothes to sell. However, Zheng and her colleagues made money by selling in bulk. They were doing wholesale, while those people were doing retail. How could they compare? As a result, after deducting the cost of selling the clothes, there was no money left. Gradually, no one wanted to take over their business anymore!
So, after a year, Zheng and Bai made a lot of money. In addition to the workers' wages, each of them had received 200 taels of silver.
The women of Taohua Village were also very satisfied. The Zheng family members were very kind and paid well. If they worked hard, each person could earn about two taels of silver a month, which was nearly fifty taels a year. One person could earn more than their entire family could earn from farming in a year. Therefore, the women of Taohua Village were now shaking...
Especially Li Gui's daughter-in-law Yang, because she was free and easy and hardworking, she was promoted by Zheng and others to be a small manager in the workshop. She could earn half a tael of silver more than others every month, and six taels more a year, which made Yang very proud at home.
According to Li Gui, his daughter-in-law came from the countryside and was illiterate. Although she looked straightforward, she always felt inferior in front of his eldest son.
But ever since she started working at the Zhou family, this daughter-in-law has been a complete jerk. The last time his eldest son came home, she was dressed in a new bright red satin dress and bounded out to greet him. His eldest son was so frightened that he almost didn't dare to recognize her!
………
And because of the business of Zheng and others, they discovered a sales genius, Zhou Luo.
As the most beloved grandson of the literary leader Zhou Ge Lao, Zhou Luo did not inherit his grandfather's literary talent and had no affinity with studying.
But I didn’t expect that he would be a good material for being a salesman!
Originally, the Zheng family asked Zhou Zesheng to transport the clothes they made to several garment shops in the town for consignment. Now Zhou Zesheng is driving two mule carts with his nephew Zhou Gong and cousin Zhou Luo to travel back and forth between Taohua Village and Baili Town. Whenever any family has something to take back, they ask them to bring it back.
Zhou Zesheng is an unconventional person. He has practiced for so many days but still cannot make it. Every time he goes there, he just throws the clothes into the designated shop as required by his wife Liu, and then doesn't care about them anymore. He doesn't care whether they sell well or not.
For a period of time, Zheng found that the sales of clothes had decreased a lot. Zhou Zesheng's wife Liu asked Zhou Zesheng if he had found out the reason. Zhou Zesheng didn't know anything about it. Zhou Luo took notice and secretly investigated and found out that it was because those ready-made clothing shops saw that the clothes in Zheng's workshops were selling well, so they joined forces to raise the selling price of each set of clothes by ten cents, hoping to make more profit from it, and did not sell them according to the price agreed by both parties at the beginning.
Since the price was so much higher, sales naturally decreased. Zheng and the others were very angry, but there was nothing they could do. They couldn't just sell the products themselves!
Even if they could scrape together enough money to open a store in town, Baili Town is so big, how much sales could a single store generate? The clothing stores knew this, so they banded together with no fear, knowing that without the Zheng family, those clothes wouldn't be able to sell at all...
In the end, it was Zhou Luo who came up with the idea again!
He found a dozen peddlers who walked the streets of the town all year round. As long as they paid a deposit, which was the cost of the clothes, they could take the clothes in his carts to sell. No matter where they took the clothes, as long as they sold the clothes at the price he set, he would give them ten cents for each piece of clothing and five cents for shoes.
If they cannot sell the clothes or shoes, they can return them in their original condition. As long as he checks that there is no damage, he will return the deposit to them.
Those vendors only make thirty or forty cents a day, and all the money can be earned by selling two sets of clothes. When they heard that the clothes were priced very low and the workmanship was good, the vendors thought they would sell well. The key is that they don’t have to purchase the goods themselves and spend money. Those vendors are as smart as monkeys, how could they not do such a good business?
They paid deposits for three, five, or ten pieces of clothing, took the corresponding clothes, and ran to places they were familiar with to sell them.
Some went to the market, some wandered around the alleys shouting, some ran to the big village below, and some went directly to the military camp...
Early the next morning, they had sold all the goods they had. Zhou Luo and the others had not arrived yet, so they were waiting on the roadside.
Zhou Luo paid them commission based on the number of clothes each person had taken, as written in the notebook yesterday. He then asked them if they would take the goods today. If they did, they would pay the deposit, which was the money for the goods. If they didn't, they could take the commission and the payment and leave, with the deposit being deducted from the payment.
The vendors weren't stupid, so naturally they all bought more goods than yesterday...
From then on, the clothes made by the Zheng family were no longer sold by those ready-made clothing shops. Instead, they were handed over to Zhou Luo, who took them to the town and handed them over to the vendors under his command to sell.
After a year, the number of salespeople under Zhou Luo has grown from a dozen to dozens...
Zhou Luo no longer followed Zhou Zesheng in driving a mule cart. He asked Zheng and his family for a commission of three cents for each piece of clothing and two cents for cotton shoes. Together with his cousin Zhou Gong, he became the full agent of Zheng's workshop.
The Zheng family originally wanted to give the two children more commission. The commission they used to give to those garment shops was five cents higher than the commission Zhou Luo gave to the vendors. In other words, Zhou Luo not only sold goods for them, but also saved them money. How could such adults let the two children work in vain!
However, Zhou Luo said that he could make a lot of money with just this commission, and he refused to ask for more.
Zheng and the others thought he was just talking, but unexpectedly, he not only said it, but also really did it.
After Zhou Luo negotiated the commission with Zheng and the others, he and his cousin Zhou Gong pooled their money to rent a large stall at the town's largest morning market. Every morning, they would pull a full cart of goods to wholesale. With the dozens of salesmen under his control, he could often sell out the goods in less than half a day. He could sell almost as much goods as Zheng and the others' workshop produced.
He spent the rest of the time buying other goods to sell...
Although he earned less commission than the street vendors, he sold more and earned more than one or two taels of silver almost every day. So, after more than a year, it was hard to tell who earned more between him and Zheng and the others.
As the most beloved young master in the Ge Lao Mansion, what good things has Zhou Luo not seen and tasted? He actually doesn't love money at all, but he loves the pleasure of making silver, the crisp sound of counting copper coins, and he is simply happy to do business!
Later, as summer was approaching, Zhou Yu suddenly had an idea and thought of mosquito coils. He thought that the herbs for making mosquito coils were on the mountain next to them, and there were people in Taohua Village who knew how to make charcoal. So he pulled Zhou Ruiquan and her master, two old men, together and opened a workshop. He hired most of the old men in Taohua Village and started a business specializing in mosquito coils.
Of course, Zhou Luo also took over all the finished products and handed them over to his vendors to sell...
Because the families had two joint businesses, they had almost hired all the male and female laborers in Taohua Village. Therefore, not only was there no one to reclaim the newly allocated land to the families, but the wasteland that Li Gui and his team had reclaimed was also sparsely planted.
Compared with the little output from the land, the family earned it in just two months working for the Zhou family. If they were not afraid that the land they had worked so hard to open up would become barren again, no one would even want to stop farming.
As the Zhou family had no one who knew how to farm and could not afford to reclaim the land, they decided to just leave the land idle and pay the tax directly when the time came.
Zhou Yu, on the other hand, was discussing whether to reclaim the land at the beginning of the year. Seeing the vegetable garden in the backyard, she suddenly remembered the vegetables she had collected in her space during the last time she collected supplies in her previous life...
She remembered there seemed to be dried chilies, a few potatoes and tomatoes...
The author has something to say:
I'm still asking for collections, comments, and flowers to thank the little angels who voted for me or irrigated nutrient solution during 2022-07-07 13:42:56~2022-07-08 06:49:49~
Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: 36 bottles of Hibernating Lazy Cat; 5 bottles of Cat Step; 1 bottle of Morning Light;
Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!
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