On the other side, Zhiwen led his men to ask at each shop in the town.
"Look, shopkeeper, after the customer spends one hundred coins, they can get good charcoal worth eight coins per pound by paying five coins per pound. It's a win-win situation, and you won't lose out."
"Hey, hey, don't chase me away! If all else fails, can I trade some charcoal for some old stock stored in the warehouse? Anything will do—grain, rice, flour, bedding, cloth shoes, seasonings..."
"Want to see our charcoal? Of course! Look closely, isn't there very little smoke? And it's not choking at all. If you burn it sparingly, one pound can burn for two hours!"
......
Zhiwen and Zhixing were worried and sent their tough-looking brothers to ask—they would think they were there to cause trouble or rob them.
The two of them talked themselves hoarse, but finally a few shops were willing to sell some charcoal as a bonus.
There are still about a dozen shops open in the town, which is a good start.
Zhiwen took a sip of water, his mind working slowly: "The grain shops won't sell it, but they have a lot of old grain in their warehouses and are willing to exchange it for us at four coins less per pound. The restaurants are having a bad time and have stockpiled a lot of rice, flour, seasonings, sauces, vegetables, fruits, and the like, and they're also willing to exchange some of that for us."
Zhi Xing leaned against the wall: "The general store, the clothing store, the teahouse, the blacksmith shop, and the bookstore are all willing to sell on the side. Among them, the clothing store and the blacksmith shop, after checking the quality of the charcoal, want to exchange some for their own stockpiling."
The bandits, who had been worrying for two days, vied to give the two men a back massage and leg massage.
Zhiwen and Zhixing forced themselves to sit up: "No need, we'll deliver all the charcoal first. We also need someone to stay and watch the shop we're selling. You guys..."
The two men looked at the bandits, who were a good two heads taller than them: "You...you should go back to the stronghold and do some hard labor. I'll talk to Elder Nian and ask him to send down a few of the smarter men."
The bandits were moved to tears. They were truly speechless; otherwise, they wouldn't have ended up in a bandit stronghold to make a living.
After watching the bandits count the charcoal as instructed, Zhixing's eyes remained bright: "Brother Wen, I think I know what I want to do in the future."
Zhiwen turned his head to look at him.
Zhixing was the most quick-witted and eloquent of the four, and it was he who suggested that Dazhuang teach them to read.
If it weren't for his family dragging him down, Zhixing could have been doing quite well long ago, and wouldn't have ended up in a bandit stronghold.
The light in Zhixing's eyes did not dim for a long time: "Brother Wen, I won't be going back to the mountain stronghold for a while. Please tell Elder Nian and Brother Dazhuang for me. I want to stay down the mountain and take charge of selling charcoal. I think I was born to do this."
After Dazhuang's advice, Zhixing had many more ideas in his mind, which he could perhaps try to put into practice.
Zhiwen remained silent: "Then can you still read?"
Zhixing gritted his teeth: "I'll go back every few days. Please remember the characters that Brother Dazhuang taught me. I'll make the most of my time to learn them when I get back."
"We're all brothers, so don't worry about troubling me. You know your own path, just keep moving forward."
"Um!"
After resting for a while, the two continued to busy themselves picking up charcoal and taking it to the shops they had booked.
Da Zhuang actually made three suggestions, but since it would cost money to transport goods to other towns and Longxing Prefecture, Guang Tou suppressed them first, telling Zhi Wen and the other three to take over the town at the foot of the mountain first, and then talk about transporting charcoal to other places.
Zhiwen returned to the bamboo house alone and told him about the charcoal robbery down the mountain. The bald man looked even more worried: "Isn't this burning money? We're losing money instead of making a profit... Sigh, we've lost all our capital."
It was all his money that was being burned, and it was all the money from the bandit gang!
Ye Wenxue happened to be there and rolled her eyes at him: "Don't worry, we didn't lose much."
Fearing a beating, the bald man didn't reply and silently walked over to Xu Lin, who was clumsily weaving baskets.
Xu Lin noticed the footsteps and put down the half-finished, crooked basket he was weaving: "Buy it for four coins a pound, sell it for five coins a pound. Buy ten pounds and get one and a half pounds of good charcoal free. You can do the math yourself."
There was a loss, of course, but it's not to the point that we've lost all our capital.
Moreover...
Ye Wenxue chopped wood: "This is called initial investment. When you open a shop, you have to pay rent, inventory, wages for hiring staff, and so on. Losing a little money can bring in a lot of silver. What more do you want?"
Ye Wenxue asked Dazhuang how he came up with these three methods, and Dazhuang replied blankly, "I read them in a book, and you also mentioned them, Mother."
Ye Wenxue: "As expected of my son!"
Bald man, Xu Lin: "......"
Xu Lin forcefully changed the subject: "The walnut charcoal you asked my dad to make won't be ready anytime soon. We have enough walnuts, but the heat is hard to control. He also made three kilns of bamboo charcoal this time. Why don't you think about how to sell it in advance?"
Charcoal, which costs eight coins a pound, is already so hard to sell; it probably won't be easy to sell bamboo charcoal at a high price either.
Ye Wenxue already had an idea, but she immediately looked at Dazhuang: "Kid, what do you think?"
Dazhuang had just finished weaving several palm-sized bamboo baskets, which contained small trinkets such as grasshoppers that Zhixing had made in his spare time.
When his mother asked, Dazhuang thought for a moment and said, "I'm afraid not many people in the small town down the mountain will buy bamboo charcoal. We have to sell it in the county town. But bamboo charcoal is easy to burn, and it's easy for people to learn how to make it and then sell it for a few coins cheaper."
"Why don't we save them up first and sell them all together after the walnuts are charcoal-roasted?"
In this way, even if someone manages to produce bamboo charcoal, they might not be able to produce walnut charcoal in a short period of time, so they won't be able to steal their business.
Xu Lin remained silent for a while, then couldn't help but ask Ye Wenxue, "How do you raise your children?"
Ye Wenxue proudly raised her head: "Hey, how could I teach a child? It's all because Dazhuang is so smart. And this kid, how can he be so smart? He's not leaving any way for others to survive."
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