Chapter 73: Satisfactory Profits on the First Day of Workshop Operation
Jiang Dahe came alone.
Jiang Liu is in charge of making tofu, so she doesn't need to come in the middle of the night.
Just as Jiang Dahe arrived, Jiang Tong, Jiang Fu, and Jiang Mantang also arrived with their oxen and mules.
The third animal Ye Li rented was Jiang Fuzheng's mule.
Five coins a day.
When he discussed the workshop with Jiang Fuzheng, Jiang Fuzheng immediately started promoting his own mules, and he agreed.
Today is the first day of work, and Jiang Fuzheng personally led the mule here.
He gave the task of frying tofu puffs to his youngest daughter-in-law, Jiang Mantang's wife. Out of curiosity, Jiang Mantang also came to watch the excitement.
At this time, in the large shed to the left of the back of the new house, there were three stone mills, and an oil lamp was placed on the millstone of each stone mill.
Three oil lamps cast a dim, yellow light, which was enough to get things done.
As soon as Jiang Dahe arrived, he went to the kitchen and brought out the soaked beans, so Jiang Tong and Jiang Fu could start working immediately.
They harnessed their animals to the millstone, led them around the millstone a few times, and then the animals would automatically circle around.
They stood beside the millstone, occasionally filling the millstone with beans and sweeping away the slurry.
This job is really simple, only thirty coins a day, which is really embarrassing.
Jiang Dahe stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes darting around, looking for some work to do so he could earn his wages.
But after looking around, I really couldn't find any work!
With nothing else to do, Jiang Fuzheng and Jiang Mantang went home.
Jiang Dahe will take their mule back later.
Without the father and son, Jiang Dahe and Jiang Tong had to look after three stone mills, which made them a bit busier.
Ye Li and Jiang Ji escorted the father and son to the door. After returning to the courtyard, Jiang Ji told Ye Li to go back and catch up on his sleep: "I'm going to the mill to get some corn cobs and shell them."
The corn from those two acres of land has been brought home. If we want to make cornmeal, we need to thresh the corn first.
He will be going to the county school to register in a few days.
Before leaving home, he did more of these laborious chores.
Ye Li yawned upon hearing this: "Okay."
Although he didn't do any physical work last night, he only slept for three hours, and he's still a bit sleepy.
However, he instructed, "If I get up late, please make breakfast while you're at it."
He specifically told Father Ye yesterday that he didn't need to get up early.
Jiang Ji agreed, and the couple went about their own business.
When Ye Li woke up again, it was still dark. He didn't have a watch, so he didn't know what time it was. The bed was warm and cozy, and he struggled for a moment before getting up.
The new house was located on the west side of the yard, directly opposite the kitchen. As soon as he came out of the house, he saw that the kitchen light was on.
The kitchen door was open, and Father Ye was sitting in front of the stove, tending the fire.
Seeing this, Ye Li wasn't guilty at all. It's normal to stay in bed late; he had nothing else to do if he got up anyway.
He walked over and asked, "Father, why are you the one starting the fire? Where is Jiang Ji?"
Hearing this, Father Ye turned to look at him and explained, "He's squeezing soybean dregs at the workshop, and Xiao Liu is there too. My son-in-law is a scholar now, how can he be tied to the stove?"
After he got up, he saw that Jiang Ji was washing rice in the kitchen, so he quickly took over the task.
"...So what kind of breakfast did you make?"
Ye Li asked again.
"Don't worry, I cut off a piece of the five jin of meat left over from yesterday and stir-fried it with radish. There's rice soup and cornbread in the big iron pot, and everyone gets an egg."
"Father Ye said."
When Ye Liang brought him here yesterday, he and Ye Wen pooled their money to buy ten catties of pork.
There was so much meat that it could last his family for half a month, but Ye Li ate half of it in just one meal last night.
Having witnessed his youngest son's extravagance firsthand, he certainly couldn't make do with the Ye family's meals, otherwise Ye Li would be angry.
The food is indeed quite good.
Ye Li smiled and said, "Then I'll go squeeze out the soybean pulp."
"Go on, go on," Father Ye waved his hand.
Ye Li washed her hands first, and then went to the greenhouse to squeeze out the soybean pulp.
Although our workshop is small, we are not unscrupulous, and we must pay attention to hygiene.
The beans haven't been ground yet at this shed.
But the pulp, which had been ground twice, had already filled three buckets, and Jiang Ji and Jiang Liu were busy working on it.
Jiang Liu had been there for quite a while. She rarely stayed in bed, and she woke up habitually when the rooster crowed for the first time. Ye Li told her not to come, so she took a nap. When she woke up again, she didn't dare to delay and came over quickly.
With so many beans, filtering out the bean pulp takes a lot of time.
A little while later, Uncle Ye, who had finished cooking, also came over to squeeze out the bean curd residue.
After Jiang Mai and Jiang Ya got up, they washed their hands and quickly came over to help.
The two little ones couldn't bear to part with their daily wage of two coins.
So, by the time all the beans were ground, most of the bean pulp had been filtered out.
Jiang Dahe and Jiang Tong weren't in a hurry to go home, so they both helped out. Everyone worked hard and finished filtering the soybean residue before dawn.
Jiang Dahe and Jiang Tong did not linger and led the livestock home.
While we're at it, let's also take Jiang Fuzheng's mule back.
Ye Li set out the food.
After breakfast, Jiang Ji first fed the pigs and chickens, and then went to Jiang Mai's room to teach Jiang Mai and Jiang Ya to read.
Ye Li then began teaching Ye Adie and Jiang Liu how to make tofu.
This job is simple; three people can easily take care of five stoves.
From starting to boil the soy milk to pressing the tofu into the mold, it only took one hour.
After that, everything was fine, and Jiang Liu could go home.
In the afternoon, we fried tofu puffs, and Liang Erxiang and Jiang Yu came over instead.
Jiang Liu: "..."
The wages they're paying are really suspicious.
Nothing much happened in the morning, so as is Ye Li's habit, she just lay down after finishing the housework.
Now that Uncle Ye has arrived, he doesn't even have to do housework anymore. Uncle Ye can't stay idle; he sweeps the yard one minute and chops firewood the next with an axe. Ye Li has already bought a lot of firewood, and thin branches, thick trunks, and old roots are all piled up under the yard wall in a mess.
Father Ye wanted to tidy up.
Ye Li thought it was unnecessary; whether it was a thin twig or a thick tree trunk, it could be stuffed into the stove without delaying the fire.
As for the old tree roots, they can be used for making fires in winter.
But Father Ye insisted on cleaning up, and he couldn't persuade him otherwise. He wanted to go over and help, but Father Ye wouldn't let him and told him to go back to his room to rest.
He thought about it for a moment, and then actually went back to the house to find Jiang Ji.
My dear husband will soon be going to study in the county town, so he'll have to spend more time with people.
Ye Liang arrived at noon.
Father Ye cooked all the remaining pork. Lunch was still prepared by Father Ye, with Ye Li only assisting.
Ye Li actually wanted to take action, but Ye's father doted on his youngest son, and Ye Li paid him forty coins a day, and the work wasn't tiring, so how could he stay idle?
He wished he could take over all the housework.
Ye Li could not argue with him and had no choice but to comply.
After lunch, Liang Erxiang, Jiang Yu, Jiang Dachuan, Gao Jun, Jiang Mantang, and Zhao Feng arrived.
Gao Jun was unwell; he had only come with Jiang Dachuan to watch the excitement.
Jiang Mantang was sending his wife to work.
Once everyone was present, the tofu was first cut into cubes and skewers, and then all five stoves were turned on to fry it simultaneously.
Today I'm only making 160 catties of tofu puffs. That means each stove will fry 32 catties, which is about the same amount as usual, and the time it takes is also about the same.
Just as they were finishing the blasting, Jiang Tong arrived in an oxcart.
Winter days are short and dark. After frying the tofu puffs, Ye Liang didn't delay. He loaded his portion onto the oxcart and headed home immediately.
The number of visitors to Baxian Town has not decreased significantly, but Ye Li did not make noodles today, so he took a few extra pounds of goods, totaling thirty pounds.
Ye Li lowered the price for him.
After all, Ye Li is now a small business owner, and as Ye Li's older brother, he naturally has access to internal discounts.
Previously, Ye Li paid him eleven coins per catty, but from now on it will be eight coins per catty.
So, by this calculation, he only earns a little over two coins per pound of Ye Li, which is half price, or a 50% discount.
Ye Li can't go without earning a penny; he still has to pay everyone's wages.
Furthermore, even if he were to offer Ye Liang the goods at cost price, Ye Liang would certainly not agree—Ye Liang is currently receiving thirty copper coins for his labor.
After Ye Liang left, Ye Li and Jiang Ji loaded the remaining tofu puffs onto Jiang Tong's oxcart. Without delay, the three of them went to the county town to deliver the goods to the small business owners.
When Jiang Ji was promoting tofu puffs, he wrote down all the names and addresses of these small business owners.
After entering the city, they first went to the west to deliver goods to the cold noodle shop.
The remaining small business owners are all in the east of the city.
Around noon, the food stalls were deserted, but there were three customers in the cold noodle shop.
Chen Cuihua stood in front of the iron plate, using it as a cutting board, and was slicing lean meat with a knife. Gong Lisheng was nowhere to be seen.
She was quite pleased to see Ye Li and the other two.
They hurriedly invited the three of them into the shop, brought them some snacks, and even wanted to serve them porridge—
Those three diners were all drinking congee with preserved egg and lean pork!
As for Gong Lisheng, he was going from street to street hawking his porridge.
Chen Cuihua said with a smile, "At first, my husband and I only sold porridge during mealtimes, but the porridge was so delicious that people kept coming to ask for it after mealtimes. So I made extra and kept it warm on the stove. We could sell about twenty servings in an afternoon."
The reason why it was only sold during mealtimes at the beginning was that keeping the porridge warm in the pot would require a lot of firewood.
But this stuff is all about volume, and selling twenty portions can earn you thirty coins, which is enough to cover your coal consumption for several days.
So after lunch, she made another small pot so that she could serve braised egg and lean pork congee in the afternoon as well.
As for the evening, that's the main attraction.
The shop here is small, so she has to go to the courtyard where Gong Lisheng rents to make porridge. Her parents-in-law help her, and the three of them together can make three big pots.
To this end, they renovated the courtyard and built several more stoves so that the three brothers could make porridge at the same time.
Three large pots of porridge, one of which was sold by Gong Lisheng who pushed it around the streets and alleys in a wheelbarrow.
The remaining two pots were brought over on a cart and sold in the shop.
The three pots together make a total of 120 bowls. If the profit per bowl is calculated at 1.5 wen, then that's 180 wen.
Adding the three pots at noon, that day's total was 360 coins!
While it can't compare to the profits from cold preserved egg salad, it's not bad either.
Before that, not counting the number of cold preserved eggs that Gong Lisheng sold door-to-door, the shop could only sell a little over two hundred servings a day.
Nowadays, selling porridge, Gong Lisheng and his shop together make more than 200 servings a day, far exceeding expectations.
To be honest, when they first learned about the preserved egg and lean pork congee, the couple were not optimistic about it.
This porridge is delicious, but it costs one coin more than stir-fried mung bean jelly.
Moreover, there was only one preserved egg and a few pieces of meat inside.
One bowl of it isn't enough to fill you up.
In addition, they also need to prepare a stove when going from street to street, which increases their costs considerably. Therefore, the couple is prepared to cut their profits in half.
But to everyone's surprise, the price didn't drop by half. Even so, the monthly income was still ten taels!
It won't affect my grand plan to buy a yard at all!
Of course, Chen Cuihua could not discuss these details in front of the diners.
She could only cheerfully urge the three of them to eat snacks and drink porridge.
Ye Li waved her hand: "Sister-in-law, don't serve, don't serve. We still have to deliver goods to the east of the city. We're not familiar with the area on the first day, and if we're late, we won't be able to leave the city."
"These are your tofu puffs. Weigh them; they weigh five jin in total."
He gestured for Jiang Ji to get the tofu puffs from the oxcart.
He had already counted them and put them in a small basket. Sixty per pound, so five pounds would make three hundred.
Upon hearing this, Chen Cuihua did not linger. Indeed, it would be troublesome if she couldn't leave the city.
She took the basket Jiang Ji handed her and was about to get the money when Ye Li told her to weigh it: "Sister-in-law, even close brothers should keep clear accounts. We'll all feel at ease if you weigh it, and that's how business can last."
Upon hearing this, Chen Cuihua outwardly said that he was being too serious, but inwardly she was even happier.
Ye Li is straightforward and honest, and she loves dealing with people like that!
After weighing it, and finding the weight to be correct, Chen Cuihua paid Ye Li the money.
One jin costs eleven wen.
Five catties is fifty-five coins.
So Ye Lijiang and Jiang Tong bid farewell to Chen Cuihua and set off in an oxcart towards the east of the city.
There were more than twenty small business owners who placed orders in the east of the city. Fortunately, Chen's Private School was also located in the east of the city, and Jiang Ji was quite familiar with the area. He went to each of them one by one without spending too much time.
These small business owners are in similar situations to Chen Cuihua and Gong Lisheng.
As soon as they launched their preserved egg and lean pork congee, it received unanimous praise from diners, and their business was not much worse than that of cold preserved egg salad.
Some small business owners are now considering focusing on selling porridge.
Because compared to their original signature dish, the preserved egg and lean pork congee is still more popular.
Now, when Ye Li delivers tofu puffs to their door, they pay the bill readily.
As long as Yezaopo continues to supply preserved eggs, regardless of whether the tofu puffs can be sold or not, they are willing to buy several kilograms every day.
Of course, tofu puffs shouldn't be unsaleable, and they taste pretty good.
So when Ye Li asked if everyone wanted tofu puffs tomorrow, everyone said yes.
Now we have the goods for tomorrow too.
Jiang Ji and Jiang Tong couldn't help but laugh to themselves; things had gone far too smoothly!
As darkness fell, the three left the city.
It was already completely dark when we entered the village.
Everyone went home. When Ye Lijiangji arrived home, his father had already prepared dinner.
So we started eating.
The trial operation was a great success, filling the dinner table with laughter and joy.
After dinner, Ye Li didn't wash up. He and Jiang Ji went back to their room to get paper, pen, and inkstone to keep accounts.
Since it's bookkeeping, it needs to be done meticulously, down to the cent.
We can no longer estimate.
One hundred and sixty catties of tofu puffs cost five and three fen per catty. Thirty catties of them were sold to Ye Liang at eight fen per catty, earning two and seven fen per catty, for a total profit of eighty-one fen.
The remaining 130 catties earned 5.7 wen per catty, for a total of 741 wen.
Added together, that makes 822 coins.
But this profit must be reduced by the cost of labor.
Jiang Tong, Jiang Dachuan, Jiang Dahe, Jiang Liuliang, Erxiang, Jiang Yu, Zhao Feng, and Ye Liang—these eight people are paid thirty coins a day, totaling two hundred and forty coins.
Father Ye's was forty coins.
The rental fee for Jiang Fuzheng's mule is five coins.
This adds up to a total of 285 coins.
Subtracting 285 from 822, this is Ye Li's profit, totaling 537.
Five hundred and thirty-seven coins.
Actually, to be precise, we also need to factor in the consumption of firewood. The firewood we burn now is purchased by Ye Li.
The cost of five and three cents that Ye Li had previously calculated did not include firewood.
But now the profits are high enough that this little bit of firewood money doesn't affect the overall situation and can be ignored.
Ye Li looked at the ledger in front of him, pointed to the words "five hundred and thirty-seven coins," and then turned to Jiang Ji beside him: "How is it?"
“Very good.” Jiang Ji nodded, his eyes sparkling.
This is the amount per day, so it's sixteen taels per month!
Including the income from preserved eggs, although the sales volume of preserved eggs has decreased, it can still reach six or seven taels.
Add two ounces of the drink.
The minimum is twenty-four taels a month!
Not to mention, the workshop is only in trial operation and the goods are few. Ye Li's goal is to produce two to three hundred catties of goods a day.
If I really achieve this goal, wouldn't I earn thirty taels a month?
I dare not think about it.
I don't dare to think about it in detail.
Just thinking about it makes my head spin and my body feel like it's floating.
For the past few years, Jiang Ji had suffered enough from being broke, but now he saw the dawn of financial freedom. This was truly...
He took a deep breath and reached out to wrap his arms around Ye Li's waist.
The two of them were now sitting on the second high stool that Jiang Tong had made. The stool was a bit narrow, barely big enough for the two of them, so they were sitting very close together.
With a little effort, he pulled Ye Li into his arms.
The door was closed.
The windows were also covered with paper.
So he boldly kissed Ye Li.
Ye Li was satisfied with today's profits, and when he came over, she smiled and pecked him on the lips.
After the kiss, the two looked at each other, and after a moment, they both burst out laughing.
It's good to be rich.
However, looking at the copper coins on the table, Ye Li felt a mix of joy and worry.
He had spent a lot of money building his house, and he was also eager to get rid of the fried tofu puff business, so he set up the workshop first.
He didn't think too much about it at the time; he just wanted to make money and be lazy. Now that he can actually be lazy and has made money, he's afraid that the money will attract too much attention and be targeted by others.
Without involving the whole village in setting up a village workshop, relying solely on their own efforts is somewhat weak and isolated.
He hugged Jiang Ji's waist and said, "That's enough for now. Any more and we won't be able to handle it."
Upon hearing this, Jiang Ji felt a chill run down his spine, then his smile faded, and he said seriously, "I will do my best."
The title of Xiucai (a scholar who passed the lowest level of the imperial examinations) was just the starting point, the bottom level.
He needs to continue taking the exams to advance to the next level.
He passed the imperial examination!
Once someone reaches the level of a Juren (a successful candidate in the imperial examinations), they are exempt from a significant amount of land tax according to the imperial court's regulations. Therefore, once someone passes the Juren exam, farmers will bring their land to seek their assistance.
Even if one is penniless before passing the imperial examination, as long as one passes, one will inevitably become a landlord.
All the successful candidates in the imperial examinations were wealthy, and even if they had a lot of personal wealth, it wouldn't attract much attention.
Besides wealth, their social status is also different.
After passing the imperial examination, one not only becomes qualified to serve as an official, but also gains connections with local gentry and influential figures.
By then, we will no longer be easily manipulated by others.
He had no grand ambitions; he was content to live a peaceful and prosperous life with Ye Li in Beiyang County.
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