In an instant, a bunch of things related to the tea industry emerged in Zhao Hao's mind.
He couldn't help swallowing his saliva. It wasn't for the virgin tea picking and breasts first baking. It was for the good money prospects! Yeah, serious face.
It took Zhao Hao a while to break free from his reverie and remember that he came back not for the tea industry, but for the porcelain industry.
So he changed the subject and said to Lin Zhengying with an apologetic smile: "But don't worry, old patriarch. A new tea needs to be produced stably, open up the market, and gain a firm foothold before it can be profitable. This cannot be achieved without a decade or eight of nurturing."
"Ah, so long?" Lin Zhengying's enthusiasm was extinguished. He could only smile bitterly and said, "Don't worry, don't worry, just take your time."
"But I have a method that will produce immediate results and help your people get out of poverty and become rich. Would you like to listen to it, old patriarch?" Zhao Hao changed the subject again.
"Okay, okay, please go ahead, sir." Lin Zhengying's hope was rekindled. He liked the way of making money quickly so that he would not be fooled easily.
Contrary to what most people imagine, the enclosure is not hot and stuffy, but rather quite cool. Sitting under the sky, you can feel the breeze under your armpits, without sweating at all.
Scientifically speaking, the high walls, huge eaves and corridors have reduced the amount of sunlight in the courtyard, leaving most of the house in the shadows. The thick earth walls also block the conduction of heat, making the inner courtyard and rooms very cool. The narrow gate creates alley wind, making the central hall facing the gate the coolest place in the entire building.
Mr. Zhao took advantage of the gentle breeze to express his intentions.
"I'm planning to open a few kilns... the kind that make porcelain. I heard that Feitianyan has high-quality porcelain clay mines, and I'm open to buying them. I'll take whatever you have." Zhao Hao raised a finger and said, "One stone of clay costs ten cents, how about that?"
"Wow..." All the tribesmen who could understand Mandarin exclaimed in unison.
One shi is equal to two hu, which is the measure used by the government to collect tax grain. The Lin family didn't pay taxes to the emperor for many years, so they naturally didn't have that thing. But everyone knew that one hu was roughly equal to a rattan basket they usually carried.
In other words, they can earn ten cents by carrying a load or two baskets of soil?
That's ten cents! I can buy four catties of rice for my family or salt for half a month!
During the slack season, they would work hard all day in Fenghuang Town, and the boss would only give them ten cents! They were very content.
Can you make so much money just by carrying soil?
"Excuse me, sir, how do we carry it from the mountain to the city?" Lin Yichen was smart. He was worried that it would be too uneconomical to transport it from the mountain to the city.
"We just need to transport it to the Phoenix River." Zhao Hao said with a smile, "I heard from Lao Gu that your Beiliao is right next to the Phoenix River and has built a dock. We can just send it there."
"Wow, we've made a fortune, we've made a fortune..." The villagers couldn't help cheering again. It was only five miles from Feitianyan to Beiliao Wharf. They could easily make eight or ten trips a day.
Wouldn't it be better to earn a hundred coins a day? Why would I still farm? I won't farm for the rest of my life!
Someone with a quick mind thought, if we repair the road and use wheelbarrows to transport soil, wouldn't it be a great fortune? It wouldn't be a problem to earn five or six hundred coins a day?
Even Lin Run felt that Zhao Hao was too generous and whispered to him that he didn't need to give him so much face.
Mr. Zhao smiled and said nothing, looking generous. In fact, he wanted to offer a price of ten cents per stone of soil, and an additional five cents for transportation to the dock.
He had someone do market research before and found out that this price was enough to drive the mountain people, who had cheap labor, crazy.
Unexpectedly, they went crazy when the price was only ten cents, so Mr. Zhao kept silent and did not mention the five cents shipping fee.
Giving them 15 wen at a time can only make the villagers happy once. Giving them 10 wen first and then raising it to 15 wen later can make them happy twice.
Doesn't that make more sense? Um, a more serious face.
But Zhao Hao noticed out of the corner of his eye that although all the Hakkas in the sky were dreaming of getting rich, only Lin Zhengying was not moved.
To be precise, after being moved, he quickly regained his composure and his expression became a little ugly.
"What's wrong?" Lin Run also noticed that Lin Zhengying seemed to have objections, so he asked, "Is there anything wrong?"
"My uncle, of course we all dream of living a good life without worries about food and clothing. But Feitianyan... is where our ancestral tomb is." Lin Zhengying said with a sad face: "As the old saying goes, 'Never move the ancestral tomb. Nine out of ten times it will fail.' Our great-grandfather went through so much trouble to select such a Feng Shui treasure land for his descendants. We can't move it casually."
"Besides, Feitianyan is the resting place of five generations of our family. How can we bear to dig up the grave and disturb our ancestors?" He sighed and said, "If we could make this money, we would have made it back then, and we wouldn't have been poor until today."
As soon as these words were spoken, the sky became quiet. The tribesmen who had been agitated just now were all wilted as if a basin of cold water was poured over their heads.
Zhao Hao looked at Lin Run and said, "Zhongcheng, it's up to you. Isn't it just to tackle this tough problem?"
"So that's how it is." Lin Run nodded in understanding, and then changed the subject: "But have you ever thought about it? Since this is a Feng Shui treasure land chosen by your ancestors, how could you let five generations of you be so poor today?"
"This..." Lin Zhengying was speechless for a moment, and after a while he said: "Maybe the time is not right yet."
"No, the time has come, today!" Lin Run waved his hand decisively, then looked at Lin Zhengying and said, "You are so confused, Zhengying! Let me ask you, when was the porcelain clay mine discovered?"
"About fifty or sixty years ago." Lin Zhengying said in confusion.
"That is to say, when your great-grandfather, my uncle, was choosing the ancestral tomb, he had no idea that there was a porcelain clay mine in Feitianyan, right?" Lin Run pressed.
"Of course." Lin Zhengying nodded.
"So, the Feng Shui treasure land that the geomancer said should be located at this mine!" Lin Run said loudly with a very affirmative tone: "We can make a lot of money if we dig it out! This Feitianyan is a treasure pot!"
As he spoke, he looked at the crowd with a little emotion and said in his native accent: "We Hakkas have suffered so much during our migration, but when we arrived in Chaozhou, we can only live in the valleys of 'seven mountains, two rivers and one field'. Year after year, we get up early and go to bed late, working harder than anyone else, but we can't even get enough food and clothing. The discovery of porcelain clay mines in your territory is a blessing from our ancestors, and smoke is really rising from our ancestral tombs!"
"Yes! That's right!" All the Hakkas immediately responded loudly to the powerful great uncle. They felt that the great uncle was more capable than the clan leader, and he saw through the key at a glance. No wonder the great uncle could become the governor, while the clan leader could only be the clan leader in the mountains!
"Chief, just listen to our great-uncle!" Everyone begged Lin Zhengying. "Let us live a good life by relying on porcelain clay, this is what our ancestors meant!"
"Our ancestors would never want us to be poor! They chose this place so that our descendants can enjoy its blessings!"
"We've made money from mining, so we'll look for a good feng shui site and build a big tomb for our ancestors, with stone men and stone horses, so that our ancestors can enjoy the blessing too!" The voices were getting louder and louder, and the noisy scene made the old patriarch, who was always very strict with the rules and his word, feel unfamiliar.
"Be quiet, what are you arguing about!" The old patriarch slammed the ground heavily with his cane, his voice was very stern. He subconsciously wanted to refuse this, as if as long as he nodded, then his era would be completely over.
The accumulated power over the past few decades immediately stunned everyone. The sky became completely silent again.
Then Lin Zhengying pointed to the archway outside the compound with a dark face and said, "Don't get carried away when you hear about getting rich. Don't forget that we are the Lin family of Jiumu! Our ancestors relied on studying and becoming officials to bring glory to our family! They didn't get rich by doing business! No matter how rich a businessman is, he can't be respected by others, let alone be famous for generations!"
Seeing that the clansmen lowered their heads after what he said, Lin Zhengying secretly breathed a sigh of relief, then changed his tone and politely said to Lin Run: "Uncle, you don't know, the Feng Shui master who chose the land for our great-grandfather said very clearly that the Feitianyan's location is so advantageous that the master's descendants will become generals and ministers, which is completely contrary to the saying of getting rich!"
"You fool! Stand up and answer!" Lin Run could no longer suppress his anger and slammed the table. The governor is playing a role of recognizing relatives with you, but you just leave it there. You really don't know how to appreciate it!
Seeing his great-uncle getting angry, Lin Zhengying was so scared that he quickly stood up. Then he remembered that the other party was the Governor of Guangdong.
"Let me ask you, over the past hundred years or so, how many juren and jinshi have emerged from our clan?!" Lin Run asked with a dark face.
"Alas..." Lin Zhengying shook his head dejectedly, "Not even one. The last scholar was sixty years ago."
"Then why is the feng shui of this 'Flying Swallow' not effective?" Lin Run sneered.
"The crux of the matter is still that damn porcelain clay mine." Lin Zhengying sighed, "After discovering this mine, those tycoon families in the prefecture wanted to buy Fei Tianyan. After being rejected by my grandfather, they changed to robbing. As a result, they fought several battles and were defeated. Many people died. Then, in order to vent their hatred, they colluded with the tycoon officials in the prefecture and expelled all the Lin family students who were studying in the county school from the prefecture."
"Since then, for sixty years, the prefectural and county schools have not allowed our Lin family to take the boy's exam." He gnashed his teeth and said, "This is how we wasted generations of talented people in our family."
"If Chaozhou Prefecture had let us take the exam, we wouldn't have failed two subjects in a row!" Lin Yichen was also angry: "They squeezed us out just because we Hakkas are too good at studying and took away their enrollment places!"
However, it is difficult for the clan members to sympathize with this statement. Being isolated from the imperial examination for sixty years has dealt a huge blow to the cultural and educational undertakings of the Lin family. Although the clan school has been preserved because of the tradition of farming and reading, without the imperial examination as a way out, the clan members have only learned to read and do accounting.
By this time, there were no serious scholars in Daliao anymore...
p.s. I think I will be scolded if I stop here, so there will be three updates today.