Noticing Ye Wenxue's movements, the three little ones stopped their playful fighting and squeezed towards the window, craning their necks.
Upon looking, his pupils slightly opened.
Siwang clung tightly to Ye Wenxue and said in a clear voice, "Mother, look, it's snowing."
Ye Wenxue reached out and hugged the three children, her voice tinged with emotion: "Yes, it's snowing."
When Dazhuang first heard Siwang say this, he thought he was just talking nonsense again. But when he saw Ye Wenxue nod, he quickly grabbed the waving Yuanyuan and rushed to another window.
Through the paper window, I could see the snow falling on the trees outside.
The snowfall was so heavy that the winter felt more severe than in previous years.
Ye Wenxue's family heated the kang (a traditional heated brick bed), so the temperature inside the house didn't change much. However, many families were shivering from the cold at night and added extra blankets and burned charcoal overnight.
As dawn broke, in the market at the very center of the town, the bandits were surrounded by people who wanted to stockpile and sell charcoal.
"What? This ordinary charcoal costs seven copper coins a pound?"
"Please forgive me, it's snowing now, so a rise in charcoal prices is inevitable. If you don't like it, you can always buy it elsewhere."
“I bought over a hundred catties of charcoal from you a few days ago for five coins a catty. Can you still sell it for five coins a catty? I want to buy more to stock up.”
"That won't do. Five coins a pound isn't even enough to buy ordinary charcoal, let alone good charcoal. How about this: if you really want to buy, I'll sell you good charcoal for nine coins a pound..."
Yesterday, Zhiwen, who happened to have gone down the mountain and hadn't returned to the stronghold, was so busy that he was dizzy. After dealing with this guest, he had to persuade another difficult guest, and he also had to keep turning back to tell the questioning bandits. He wished he could be divided into three people.
"Brother Wen, are you still selling the charcoal ash at the usual price of five catties for one coin?"
“If we weren’t so desperate to make ends meet, who would buy charcoal ash? The price can’t go up… Here’s what we’ll do: have the accountant write a notice saying that the price of charcoal ash remains unchanged, and anyone who needs it can go directly to his house to buy it. That way, we won’t block the market and incur the wrath of the constables.”
"Okay."
Zhiwen wiped his sweat, glanced at the many charcoal fragments left on the ground behind him where charcoal had been piled up, sighed heavily, and turned back to attend to the guests.
In the ten days or so before the snowfall, the nighttime temperature gradually dropped, and although the sun was blazing during the day, it was not as scorching as usual.
Thanks to the bandits' three-day promotion of buying ordinary charcoal and getting good charcoal for free, the townspeople and people in the surrounding villages had stockpiled some charcoal, so when it suddenly snowed last night, very few people froze to death.
But it won't last more than a few days.
Many wealthy people would come to sell charcoal as soon as it was light, while others who couldn't afford it would go to the mountains to either cut firewood or make their own charcoal for their own use.
The mountains, which were once so remote that no one dared to venture deep into due to bandits, now have a few more signs of human activity.
Yesterday, Zhiwen went down the mountain. Besides delivering a batch of charcoal, he also brought over a few survivors that his brothers in the mountain stronghold had found.
Looking at the bustling scene before him, Zhiwen repeatedly marveled at how useful the minds of scholars were.
There weren't many people in the village who learned charcoal making from Grandpa Xu; there were fewer than ten.
Several of the brothers who were quick to learn specialized in making charcoal, and one of them was even called by Grandpa Xu to study making bamboo charcoal and walnut charcoal with him. There were only a few brothers left who made ordinary charcoal, and they couldn't even supply the town's charcoal needs.
At this moment, Zhixing, who had to postpone his trip to Longxing Prefecture because he couldn't find Dazhuang at the bamboo house, stepped forward. He led his men to several surrounding villages and collected charcoal from house to house to sell.
Not only did they supply charcoal to the town at the foot of the mountain, but they also sold both types of charcoal to several large towns in the surrounding area, making a considerable profit.
They also connected with the charcoal business in the county town and sold several thousand kilograms of good charcoal to the county town through a middleman.
Even though the middleman made a lot of money, the profit from these several thousand kilograms of charcoal was several times higher than selling charcoal in the town.
Zhi Xing, whom Zhi Wen was thinking about, sat in front of the bald man, feeling uneasy but still mustering the courage to speak:
“Elder Nian, do the math again. It’s much better for us to sell the charcoal to the county town ourselves than to let a middleman make a profit.”
He bought charcoal at low prices from the surrounding villages and sold it to the town at regular prices. This was very similar to how middlemen bought their good charcoal for ten coins a pound and sold it to the county seat for fifteen or even eighteen coins a pound.
With a little estimation, Zhixing could figure out how much money the middleman made.
Instead of letting the middleman make the money, they should make it themselves!
Zhi Xing tapped the ledger with his brush: "After deducting the costs of renting carriages, buying dry rations, paying wages, and renting houses and shops, we can still make a considerable profit."
The bald man looked worriedly at the account books, then at Zhixing, whose demeanor was unlike anything he had ever shown before, and sighed.
"But there are plenty of skilled people in the county town who can produce good charcoal. Even in the small towns down the mountain, there are people who can estimate and produce charcoal that is almost identical to the best. Can you guarantee that no one in the county town can do it? Can you be sure that you can sell all your charcoal safely once you enter the county town and are unfamiliar with the place?"
Because good charcoal sells for a high price, charcoal burners who wanted to make money painstakingly researched and managed to burn good charcoal. Fortunately, Zhixing intervened to negotiate, otherwise the price would have been driven down so hard that both sides would have suffered losses.
Zhi Xing pursed his lips; he couldn't guarantee it, nor could he be certain.
Xu Lin, who was warming himself by the fire, shook his head after hearing this and spoke up to help Zhixing out of the predicament:
“When my father first started burning charcoal, he produced ordinary charcoal. It was only after seeing my eyes turn red from the smoke when I was studying by the fire that he tried his best to improve it, which led to the good charcoal that earns money today.”
"You have to let someone try, otherwise how will you know if they can't do it well?"
Zhixing's eyes lit up, and he nodded emphatically, looking expectantly at the bald man.
The bald man tossed the ledger, which was covered in scribbles, aside and sighed.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to try, but… selling charcoal in the prefectural city isn’t as simple as you think. Not to mention the complex web of factions in Longxing Prefecture, you’ll need to bring several thousand catties of good charcoal with you, right? It’ll take at least five or six days round trip, and if you don’t sell it… it won’t be so easy to sell it back to town.”
Zhi Xing remained silent, knowing that what the eldest brother said made sense.
Ke Zhixing had a vague intuition that he would make a lot of money selling charcoal in the county town.
This intuition came mysteriously and without reason. He was skeptical, but he was willing to try it out.
Seeing Zhixing's stubborn face, the bald man rubbed his head in exasperation: "Why don't we take it slow? This year, we can start by developing in a few surrounding towns and sell charcoal to the county seat through middlemen, saving on travel expenses and manpower."
"When the autumn winds begin to blow next year, you can go to the county town to develop and operate. I will not stop you."
Zhi Xing gritted his teeth: "Brother Nian, just let me try. I'll bring a thousand catties of good charcoal, plus all the bamboo charcoal and walnut charcoal, and about twenty brothers with me. I don't know how much we'll make, but we definitely won't lose money!"
The bald man slapped his thigh, and in a fit of emotion, suddenly stood up: "No, I won't..."
Before he could finish speaking, a snowball hit him from afar, making him see stars.
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