Chapter 64 Chapter 64 Daily Operations
The two men strung the copper coins onto the hemp rope one by one. The copper coins made a crisp sound when they collided, which made people feel strangely at ease.
After a thorough calculation, he found that today's pork had earned him two thousand two hundred copper coins, which was a little over two strings of cash.
I sold some dry goods outside, and the total profit was still three strings of cash.
This time, they made so much money on the first day of opening. Firstly, it was because they had just opened their business and had a strange business. Secondly, they used pigs raised by themselves and did not have to pay any other costs.
If you buy a pig from outside to slaughter, you will have to pay at least a thousand copper coins less.
Kang He inquired about the market conditions and found out that the price of a pig for slaughter was eight cents.
A pig weighs at least a hundred pounds, so you need to prepare at least one or two strings of coins to collect it.
Kang He put the strung copper coins away. This time they were not going to exchange them for silver or Jiaozi. To do business, they needed some small change.
The money he had saved from selling medicinal candles was used to build roads and buy land, and he also had to pay rent and repair the shop. He spent a lot of money in total. He had 30 or 40 strings of cash on hand, but after all the expenses, he only had 16 or 17 strings left.
However, two days before the shop opened, the eldest wife sent a red envelope of two strings of coins and three hundred coins, Father Fan and Chen sent a red envelope of three strings of coins, and even Hu Dasan sent a red envelope of one string of coins and two hundred coins.
All in all, the red envelopes they received amounted to six strings of cash, five hundred coins. Even if they didn't take away the money they saved, the money from the red envelopes would be enough to last them for a while.
On the other hand, Xiangxiu mentioned the Meng family during the Chinese New Year. The eldest wife thought it was not bad, so the two sides met and met.
A few days ago, a matchmaker came and went through the formalities. Both parties were satisfied and the engagement was settled, but the wedding date has not yet been decided.
Kang He had previously asked Hu Yuan in the city about Meng Lao San, who ran a sweet water shop. Hu Yuan had been doing business in the city for a long time and actually recognized this person.
He said that his character was quite acceptable, and Kang He felt more relieved after hearing that.
Although I heard that the Meng family was a good family, when discussing the engagement, they also said that they had to follow the customs of marrying off daughters outside.
What is the custom nowadays? It is a generous dowry.
If you go to the city to ask, you will find that the dowry in the city is even more generous than in the countryside. Even the dowry of boys and girls from ordinary small families is as high as 15 strings of cash.
In addition, you also need to buy some materials, cabinets, and jewelry to make it look good.
If you do a careful calculation, you will know that it is not a small amount.
The eldest wife was worried about the dowry at the time, so she went to a village far away from Fan Shoushan to hire a musician just for a few copper coins.
Zhang Jingui didn't want to lose this good relationship, so she tried her best to make money.
For this reason, when Kang He and Fan Jing opened a shop, the eldest wife gave them such a large red envelope, but they didn't want to accept it.
Uncle Fan refused. When the eldest wife had set up a private school, Kang He helped a lot and gave her a red envelope of two strings of cash. Now that they were doing business, how could the eldest wife not give him a red envelope?
The amount added is not much, and it seems not much at first, but there is actually a big expense that is pressing on me, and I can't come up with much extra money.
Although Kanghe was reluctant to take it, he had no choice but to accept it since he could see that the eldest wife was sincere.
Anyway, the wedding date hasn't been set yet. When it is, he and Fan Jing will have enough money by then, so they can give Xiangxiu a bigger red envelope.
Kang He and Fan Jing Dian just had money, snuggled together, felt warm in the quilt, and felt at ease.
"After spending this little money, I feel refreshed."
Kang He rubbed his tall nose against Fan Jing's neck.
"I've thought about it a little bit."
Upon hearing this, Fan Jing pushed Kang He's head a little further onto the pillow beside him. How could he not know what this man was thinking?
After a busy day today, it's a good thing he still has the mind to think about you.
"You have to get up before dawn tomorrow."
Kang He posted it again: "I know it. I won't bother you for too long, and it won't delay tomorrow's work."
Fan Jing didn't understand. People always say this. Once they take off their pants, they will be fine. Who will remember what they said before taking off their pants?
"No."
Seeing that the man didn't seem moved at all, Kang He guessed that he really didn't want to do it.
He then calmed down and held her in his arms: "It's okay if it doesn't work out, but you have to promise to make me two pairs of socks."
Kang He rubbed Fan Jing's calf with his foot. "It's very cold in this early spring. Standing in front of that stall, my heels feel like they're frozen."
Fan Jing thought to himself that this person really wouldn't suffer any loss. If he couldn't get this, he would definitely get that.
He thought so in his heart, but nodded.
Kang He was delighted, and he came forward and pecked the person on the mouth before falling asleep.
The next day, before daybreak, the two men quickly loaded the car.
Zhen'er hurried out of the house and gave Kanghe and Fan Jing a mouth covering and earmuffs respectively.
She hurriedly made this last night. It was cold in early spring, and going out before daybreak, with the wind blowing all the way, would be uncomfortable for her face and ears even if she was strong enough to handle it.
Kang He saw how well made the things were and felt warm when he touched them. He thanked Zhen'er, put on his mouth mask and earmuffs with Fan Jing, and then he put on his own before driving the donkey cart out.
This time he had a hat on his head, covering his ears and half of his face. The wind that had been frozen and was as sharp as a knife had lost most of its power when it blew across his face.
It was already dawn when they were halfway there, but they didn't feel that cold anymore.
As usual, he packed up the stall and opened the door, and got everything done. Later, when Chen Sanfang had finished taking care of the household affairs, he came over to help.
Today, there are only three of them.
Although the business is not as prosperous as yesterday, there are many new faces coming here today, probably because of referrals.
They are offering discounts and the same as yesterday, with free konjac tofu and pig blood tofu.
Several wives and husbands, carrying baskets, invited each other to come and see their potential son-in-law. Yesterday afternoon, they heard that a new pork shop had opened in the area, also selling dried meat.
The shop owner inside was a walk-in customer. He was a nice guy, tall and with a handsome face.
When people have time to listen, they want to see something new.
This time, I actually saw a couple sitting at the pork stall outside the shop.
The boy had a stern face, so the young man brought him a cup of hot tea and coaxed him with some gentle words. The boy took two sips, and the man took it back and ate the rest himself.
"Hey, look, what a loving couple they are~"
Hearing the teasing, Kang He looked up and saw several people coming in, and he invited them in to see.
"Look, the son-in-law is not only handsome, but also treats me well."
Kang He laughed: "My wife is joking. Since the shop opened but there is no business, I can only have one bowl of tea. Now my husband and wife come to take care of me, and I can have a whole bowl of tea."
A few people laughed and teased Kang He for a while. When they left, they each bought a piece of meat.
Seeing that the person had left, Fan Jing wiped the knife and glanced at Kang He.
He reached out and poured a cup of tea from the teapot in the rear window and handed it to him.
Kanghe looked at people and smiled.
After a while, an old man wearing a straw hat came over and asked, "Is this the newly opened pork shop?"
Kang He put down the cup and responded to his words.
"Can you take the pigs and kill them?"
"receive."
Seeing that the customer was not a meat buyer but a pig farmer, Kang He said, "This is our new shop. We can run it for a long time. If Dad wants to sell pigs, we can go and slaughter them."
The old man asked, "What's the price here?"
"Just like outside, the price of a pig is eight cents."
Kang He was talking about a fair price. He had inquired around beforehand and found out that it was not a festival or a holiday, so the price of pigs was not high.
The price of pork increased during the New Year's holiday, and then slowly dropped from a high of twelve cents to eight cents in the latter half of the first lunar month.
However, Kang He was already thinking about buying pigs. The two pigs at home had been slaughtered. If he didn't buy more pigs to slaughter, the shop would be out of stock.
He was especially polite to the pig farmers who came to inquire about prices. "My business is just starting out, and I'm willing to offer some patronage to attract customers. For the past six months, we haven't charged a cent for slaughtering pigs, and we've even given them 28 cents as a thank-you gift."
The old man first heard the price of pigs here, and didn't have any other thoughts in his mind.
This shop was newly opened, and the price of pigs was no higher than other places. He had never dealt with anyone there before, so why did he sell pigs here instead of looking for someone he had dealt with before?
But now when I hear about such patronage, my heart is moved.
The reason for asking for quotes everywhere is just to make a few more cents in profit.
The old man was a little skeptical and asked again, "Are you really not going to charge for slaughtering the pig?"
Kang He nodded and said, "Dad, I opened this new shop just to do this one business. How could I do something that would deceive people and destroy my reputation?"
The old man thought it was a good deal. The butcher outside charged sixty cents for a pig. Although it was half as cheap as hiring someone to butcher the pig, he still had to pay dozens of copper coins.
Well, the old man told Kang He the location, and they agreed to go to the house to slaughter the pig tomorrow afternoon.
After the old man left, Kang He was afraid that he would forget what he had done due to being too busy, so he took out a pen and paper to record it so that he would not forget where he had been.
Chen Sanfang heard the conversation between the general and the two men and said to Kang He, "Just don't charge them for slaughtering the pig, but why give them 28 copper coins as a thank you? It's really a loss."
Kang He said to her, “If we don’t give them some sweet treats, how can people come to us? At the beginning of this business, the most important thing is to build a good reputation.
"After the pig farmers saw our butchering skills a few times and saw our sincere business dealings, they felt reassured and reassured, which led to further business. At first, they saw you were young and no better than other farmers, so they were reluctant to trust us. It's better for them to come to us on their own than for us to ask for the pigs we want."
Chen Sanfang thought what he said made sense, so he didn't say anything more.
It was almost noon, and Kang He went to the restaurant as usual and ordered three bowls of noodles for the three of them to share.
After the morning market, Chen Sanfang was actually not that busy anymore.
She cleaned the shelves in the shop, ate lunch in the shop at noon, and prepared to go home in the afternoon.
The salted duck and preserved eggs were selling fast these past two days. Now that she had a shop, it was easier to attract customers. She missed home and asked her husband Shen to make more.
Outside, the weather is getting warmer, so I'm preparing to hatch two more broods of chicks and ducklings.
There is a lot of work to do at home. In the spring, Dad Fan has to be busy with farm work. He has almost ten acres of land, and it is a bit difficult to work alone.
Kang He agreed and asked her to take the car home instead of saving the two copper coins.
Chen agreed and said that she had boiled a pot of hot water for them and they could have a few sips of the hot soup when it was empty. Then she took the basket and left.
Business was slow in the afternoon. Kang He had nothing to do, so he cleaned the stall carefully. Fan Jingtong, who was selling tea-boiled eggs with a basket, bought two eggs. He peeled one and shared it with Kang He, while he ate one himself.
The eggs were boiled with the shells broken, and then simmered for a while, so the egg yolks were cooked well and tasted good.
When they closed the shop that day, the two men had sold nearly 100 kilograms of pork. The newly slaughtered pig was not as big as the one from yesterday, weighing only about 150 kilograms.
They sold the leftover meat from yesterday today, rounded off the profit and gave the customers a few cents less. This made it easier to sell the meat the next day, and soon all the meat was sold out.
As a result, there were about 50 kilograms of pork left from a newly slaughtered pig.
On the way back, Kang He and Fan Jing said, "Let's sell the remaining meat tomorrow morning and go out to slaughter a pig in the afternoon. That's a good idea. But based on the business we've had over the past two days, we won't have enough pork to sell. We won't be giving away pig blood tofu tomorrow, so there might be fewer customers. But for the first seven days, we'll still be giving away konjac tofu."
Fan Jing was silent for a moment, then said, "Why not go back and kill a few rabbits and add them to the meat stall?"
Kang He heard this and his eyes moved: "That's a good idea. The two new litters of rabbits bred at the end of last year are both strong. There are almost twenty rabbits now. When we are short of pork, we can kill a few rabbits, chickens and ducks, and then we can set up a stall.
It also saves the two girls from having to go around looking for grass to feed the rabbits in this cold weather. If there are too many rabbits, they will have to be very busy feeding, drinking, defecating and urinating them."
After they had finished talking, they went home and slaughtered four fat rabbits, a chicken and a drake, preparing to take them out to test the waters.
At night, the family prepared a pot of blood tofu and tender vegetable soup with duck blood and chicken blood. Chen Sanfang also stir-fried chicken and duck intestines for Xiang. There was a large bowl of soup left, which he put into a lunch box and asked Kang He and Fan Jingming to take to the city to eat tomorrow.
She ordered noodles twice at the shop. A bowl of vegetarian noodles cost five cents, and adding meat cost more. She felt that it was not enough to fill her up, and it was expensive.
It's okay to have a snack occasionally, but it's not cost-effective to order food from the county every day.
So I thought it would be better to prepare some food and bring it from home.
Kang He also thought it was a good idea. There were stoves in the shops around the city. He could just add some fire to heat up the food. Business was not busy at noon, so it wouldn't be much trouble.
He noticed that most of the food in other shops was sent by family members, and there were few people who came from the city to eat.
The next day, Kang He and Fan Jing went to the city. They didn't have any pulled pork, but they were relaxed and arrived earlier than usual.
"No fresh pork today?"
Most of the women who came to the morning market to buy meat were sharp-eyed. They noticed that the meat on the stall was incomplete. There were no pig heads, pig trotters, or pig offal, and there was no pig blood tofu. They guessed that it was the leftover meat from the previous sale.
Kang He was also honest: "The meat is not bad, it is what was left over from yesterday. My lady, please smell it. The meat tastes good in this weather."
The woman knew that in this weather, pork from the previous day wouldn't go bad. She said, "I heard Mr. Zhang say yesterday that he bought three pounds of pork from your shop from the previous day, and he was short four copper coins in change. Do you have any less pork from the previous day today?"
"It all depends on you, my lady. Just come and visit me often and take care of my business."
The woman became happy and asked for two pieces of meat.
But it's hard to say about the rounding off. Some integers have three cents more, sometimes one or two more. If you encounter one that costs four cents, you have to buy at least two kilograms of Kanghe to get the less. If you buy half a kilogram or one kilogram, you will not make any money at all if you get such a small amount.
Fan Jing was too accurate in cutting the meat this time. Two pieces of meat cost exactly thirty cents, with no change left.
Kang He picked up a piece of the scrap and put it into the woman's basket. He felt it was worth it and was happy.
Turning around, she saw two rabbits hanging there. The woman asked, "Why are there rabbit meat? Do you sell that here?"
Kang He wrapped the pork in a clean banana leaf. When the woman asked, he replied, "These are rabbits we raise at home. We killed them yesterday. Since we didn't kill any pigs, we used them to fill the shop. We also have rabbits, chickens, and ducks, but not many."
The woman pinched the skinned rabbit between her two fingers and looked at it from left to right. It looked plump and delicious.
Ask Kanghe what the price is.
"It's the same as outside, twenty cents a pound. These rabbits raised here are not as expensive as wild rabbits."
Previously, Fan Jing sold a wild rabbit for fifty coins. Most restaurants bought them individually, so the price was cheap. If they were skinned and sold separately outside, they could get at least thirty coins per pound.
"I'd like to buy some to make a rabbit dish. Your rabbits are so fat, each one must weigh more than two kilograms."
"That's not easy. If you think it's too big, I'll split it in half for you. You can take half home and cook."
Kang He said, "You just can't chop it down any more. It will damage your appearance and people won't buy into it anymore."
"Okay, half is just right."
Fan Jing followed his instructions and split the belly into two halves along the spine.
The woman carried the meat away with satisfaction.
I didn't think about this side. People came to buy half and half, and there were few who bought the whole ones, which attracted more customers.
They found that the people in the city bought things in a very fine manner. They thought that it was because they lived in the city and wanted to do business easily, so they did not like to buy a lot of things at once, except when entertaining guests at home.
As for the stall owners, their thoughts are often exactly the opposite of what the customers think.
Everyone is looking forward to customers buying eight or ten pounds of meat at a time. It is convenient and profitable to buy poultry such as chickens, ducks and rabbits as a whole. Who would be willing to cut them into pieces and sell them?
Kang He and Fan Jing felt that this was indeed a bit troublesome, but they couldn't help but sell it. This time they got a good deal and planned to sell it this way in the future.
The other two butcher shops on the street had just slaughtered a fresh pig, and they had everything from pork belly to front legs and tenderloin, so they were quite a crowd of customers.
Kang He and Fan Jing's business of selling leftover meat should not be good, but they make concessions and have chickens, ducks and rabbits that other pork shops don't have, which attracts customers, so their business is not bad.
After the morning market, the leftover meat was almost sold out.
Even the lady who owned the oil shop next door came over and asked for half a rabbit, intending to take it back to cook for dinner that night.
Kanghe gave someone a piece of konjac tofu.
Although selling at such a low price may seem like a loss, in reality, once all the items are sold, you will make a profit.
By noon, the stall was clean, and Kang He and Fan Jing were both happy.
As soon as the two of them heated up their food, Chen brought her maid Qiao'er to the city to help them look after the shop. Seeing how capable they were, they had already sold out all the pork.
Chen Sanfang was glad that he had brought a pot of freshly made konjac tofu, so that he could sell some at the stall in the afternoon and not have to worry about having nothing to do.
After Kang He handed over the deal to Fan Jing, he took out two taels of silver and five hundred coins and put them in his pocket, then drove his donkey cart to Xiaotan Village where the old man lived.
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