Chapter 138 Tile Kiln
The village head drove over on a mule cart and explained, "We can go now. One person from each household will come out to buy things, so one cart will be enough!"
Hearing this, Xu Zhiyi stuck his head out and said, "Then come over here, two people, don't squeeze into one car, you still have to put your things in later."
After hearing this, the people inside, Wang Daniu and Doctor Li got off and got on Xu Zhiyi's mule cart.
It only took one stick of incense to drive the mule cart at normal speed from the village to the town gate. The few of them first went to the kiln site that the village chief had mentioned.
After walking in from the left side for about a quarter of an hour, you will see a large open space with mud bricks drying in the sun and tiles stacked in a circle.
The kiln owner saw two mule carts stop and ran over quickly, raised his signature smile and said, "Are you here to order tiles or clay blocks?"
The head of the village nodded and said, "Yes, we need to order both. I just don't know how to calculate the price."
Upon hearing this, the shopkeeper quickly introduced: "We have two ways of buying. One is to buy tiles one by one. Tiles are ten copper coins each. A normal-sized house will need about four hundred tiles."
"Ordinary people make mud bricks by themselves, drying them slowly and storing them, but we have them here. We only charge a labor fee of one copper coin for each mud brick. The mud bricks used for a house cost about one thousand mud bricks."
"We also have a kind of package, which includes the mud and tiles for a room, and costs 42700 wen for a room. Which one do you plan to choose?"
Upon hearing this, Xu Zhiyi quickly calculated in his mind. If he ordered piece by piece, it would probably cost five taels of silver for a room. So it would definitely be cheaper and more convenient to order the whole room.
One house costs 4 taels, 700 wen, so building five houses would cost 23 taels, 500 wen.
The village head and Doctor Li, who were good at arithmetic, squatted on the ground and used sticks to draw an abacus to calculate.
The two of them muttered to each other for a while before they stood up and whispered in everyone's ears, "Let's forget it, it'll be cheaper if we book the whole room."
Xu Zhiyi: "Boss, if we order more, can we still get a discount? To tell you the truth, we have eight households that want to build houses, and each household must build at least three houses."
The shopkeeper was a little incredulous when he heard Xu Zhiyi's words, and stuttered to ask again: "Really... is it... Hachihu?"
The head of the village said, "Boss, can we deceive you about this?"
After getting a clear answer, the shopkeeper was so excited. He had never received eight orders at once! The tiles and clay blocks he baked were usually ordered by people from various villages who wanted to build houses. The most he had ever seen was three households at a time.
As for the wealthy families, they all built houses with blue bricks and tiles, so it was even more impossible for them to come to his small kiln, so he was doing business with the common people. Most of the clay bricks were accumulated and dried by the villagers themselves over a long period of time, so most people came to him to order tiles, but only a few came to order clay bricks. He had never seen such a grand scene.
The shopkeeper said: "Well, I'll give you 50 cents less for each room."
Xu Zhiyi: "Two hundred coins less per room"
Shopkeeper: "Girl, this... this is too much! I can only offer a hundred coins at most. If I lower the price any further, we won't even have enough to pay for the hard-earned wages of our masons."
Upon hearing this, Xu Zhiyi looked at everyone with a questioning look.
The head of the village said: "Boss, let's both take a step back and reduce the 150 coins."
The shopkeeper was troubled when he heard this, but finally thought of the huge amount and didn't want to lose it, so he gritted his teeth and agreed: "Okay! Then everyone pay a deposit of one or two silver coins, and I will write you a contract and a record. Which of you will build a few rooms? Write all these down, oh, and the address."
Xu Zhiyi heard this and thought to himself, four taels and five hundred and fifty wen per room, and five rooms would be twenty-two taels and seven hundred wen.
When writing the contract and paying the deposit, Xu Zhiyi suddenly remembered that the yard wall had to be built, and it would not work without the wall.
"Shopkeeper, is this place surrounded by a wall?"
When the shopkeeper heard what Xu Zhiyi said, he put down his pen and said, "Miss, this is not included. However, if the yard is not too big, since you ordered so much at once, I will charge you 500 coins for a three-foot high yard wall. This is half selling and half giving away."
Xu Zhiyi heard this and thought, three feet, according to the ruler of this dynasty, is one meter, which is too low. The courtyard wall should be at least two meters high: "Boss, just give me three more feet, and I will pay another five hundred coins."
When the shopkeeper heard this, he thought it was a big loss! But after hesitating for a while, he finally agreed!
After coming out of the kiln, we lined up at the town gate to enter. It happened to be market day, so each person had to pay two copper coins to enter the town.
The first thing the village head and his colleagues cared about was the price of grain, so everyone followed suit and asked.
After asking about the price of food, they finally breathed a sigh of relief. The price was normal. When they were fleeing from famine, they would have thought that due to the drought, the price in several cities had increased two or three times.
Black flour is eight wen per pound, coarse flour is eight wen per pound, white flour is fifteen wen per pound, and broken rice is twelve wen.
Then it became more refined. Xu Zhiyi was curious and asked about it.
Fine flour costs twenty-three cents per pound, and fine rice costs twenty-nine cents per pound.
Polished rice is more than half as expensive as broken rice! But the difference is also very big. Polished rice is more complete and white, while broken rice is more broken and yellowish.
Then I went to a stall selling agricultural seeds and bought some seasonal vegetable seeds and grain seeds.
Next, we went to the iron shop. I brought a very small iron pot with me when I fled the famine. Now that I have settled down, it is easier to cook in a big pot.
Xu Zhiyi: "Uncle, how much silver do you need to make a big iron pot? And a hoe and farm tools?"
"A hoe costs 200 coins, an iron rake costs 300 coins, and an ordinary iron pot costs two taels of silver. A fine one costs three or five taels."
Upon hearing this, Xu Zhiyi went over to take a look to see how big a difference there was between the two. The ordinary one didn't look that smooth, and the fine one, the one worth five taels of silver, was perfect, but the one worth three taels of silver was also acceptable!
"I'll give you three taels of silver for the pot! And two hoes and two rakes."
Su Ze: "Boss, give me two hoes and two rakes each."
Later, the village head and his men also bought hoes and rakes, which they needed to use when they returned. After the fields were divided, they could start by weeding and turning the soil.
After coming out of the market, Xu Zhiyi paid special attention to what was sold at the stalls on each street. After walking around, he found that the food stalls were doing good business, not knowing whether it was because it was meal time.
There were many people watching the excitement at other stalls selling clothing, but most of them just looked at it, asked the price and left! They would only stop and bargain for the price if they really liked it.
Therefore, it is relatively easy to make money by selling food, but the prerequisite is that you have to have the skills to cook. If the food is not delicious, flies won’t come.
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