The next day was a rare cloudy day, with neither rain nor sunshine. Tian Cai did not need to make any medical visits. She divided the roe deer meat she had prepared the previous night into portions, wrapped them in oil paper, put them in a bamboo basket, and carried them back to the county.
She couldn't finish all the meat, so she might as well exchange it for money and buy some necessities.
Tian Cai was alone and didn't need to worry about food ever since she started earning work points. With her work points, it was not a problem to feed herself. With Mimi being a good hunter, she would not lack meat. So for her, the 1960s, when everyone was having a hard time, seemed to be no different except that there was a lack of electricity and internet and some material scarcity.
After arriving in the county, Tian Cai went straight to the family quarters of the machinery factory. She knocked on only a few doors and finished off all the roe deer meat she had brought with her. Without wasting any time, she got on the tractor directly back to the commune.
After arriving at the commune, I went straight back to Kaoshan Village. The whole trip took me almost the whole morning.
In the afternoon, as usual, old lady Huang came for acupuncture, and she was still accompanied by Huang Zhengguang. He was now a die-hard fan of Tian Cai. Most of Tian Cai's deer penis wine was sold through Huang Zhengguang. Most of the buyers were his friends and colleagues. Moreover, Huang Zhengguang set the price very high. A small bamboo tube with about 100 milliliters was sold for five yuan.
Tian Cai thought the price was outrageous. She went to the supply and marketing cooperative and saw that a bottle of Moutai was only six yuan, but she was selling such a small amount of deer penis wine for five yuan.
"Is it too high?" Tian Cai was unsure whether this behavior would be considered as profiteering.
Huang Zhengguang waved his hand nonchalantly, "It's not expensive at all. If you set the price at one dollar, no one would dare to buy it! I think five dollars is too low. Let's sell it for ten dollars next time."
Tian Cai felt even more unsure. She really had no talent for business. She calculated the cost before selling. Among the things used, only the wine was bought with money, and it was the cheapest kind. The deer was hunted in the mountains, and the medicinal herbs were ready-made at home. Although they were also bought from the purchasing station, Tian Cai did not spend her own money. If all these were counted, the price of a jar of wine was about fifteen yuan, and this jar contained twenty kilograms of wine.
After a quick calculation, Tian Cai widened her eyes in surprise. No, no, this was too much money. She had to tell the two team leaders.
Zhang Defa and Li Tiegang both knew that Tian Cai had made wine with the deer whips, but they had never heard her say that the wine was ready. After she sent the Huang mother and son away, she made a bamboo tube and gave it to the two captains. As for the effect, she didn't say much and asked them to try it themselves in the evening and talk about it tomorrow.
At around nine o'clock the next morning, Li Tiegang and Zhang Defa met. They looked at each other, then turned away at the same time. Seeing each other's flushed faces, what was there that they didn't understand?
"If this is done well, it can bring a lot of income to our commune!" Li Tiegang couldn't help but smack his lips. Last night, when he heard Tian Cai say the selling price of 100 milliliters, he thought it was a fantasy, but after experiencing it himself, he no longer thought so.
Zhang Defa coughed lightly, his old face flushed slightly, but he had to point out the most crucial point, "We can't produce too much of this stuff. Don't forget, the most crucial thing is the deer whip. Deer in the mountains are already difficult to hunt, and hunting too many is even worse. If you ask me, let's put this matter aside for now."
Li Tiegang pondered for a while and had to admit that Zhang Defa had thought very carefully. He said regretfully, "If only deer could be raised like pigs."
The two talked all the way and soon arrived at the door of Tian Cai's house. The door was not closed. Tian Cai was sitting in the pavilion grinding medicine. When he saw the two captains coming, he hurriedly stood up to greet them.
"Just sit down and talk," Li Tiegang said without any official airs. He asked Tian Cai not to stand up and pulled a bamboo chair to sit down naturally. "I remember that Doctor Xiaotian made a jar of that wine, right?"
Tian Cai was stunned for a moment, then her mind raced as she realized that there were three deer whips in total, and she had put a lot of medicinal herbs in them, so one jar was too crowded, so she had to divide it into two. However, she thought this was a trivial matter and did not tell the two captains. Now that she was asked about it, she could only nod reluctantly.
"You said yesterday that there were medicinal herbs in it, those for nourishing the kidneys and strengthening yang, right?"
Tian Cai continued to nod.
Li Tiegang tapped his finger on the table and made the final decision. "Our team isn't unreasonable. Although the deer penis and herbs are all ours, the recipe is yours. Without your recipe, this wine wouldn't sell for a high price. And the city folks helping sell the wine are only doing it out of your kindness. According to the old business rules, they should give you half, or even the lion's share."
Seeing Tian Cai was about to say something, Li Tiegang waved his hand at her and continued, "But now it's different from before. Everything is collectively owned. Lao Zhang and I have discussed this and decided that we should change the calculation method. We'll sell it for five yuan as you said, and give you three work points for each piece sold. If the team hunts deer to make new wine in the future, we'll still calculate it this way."
Zhang Defa also nodded and said, "This matter will be announced to the members at the general meeting. The money from the sale of alcohol will be included in the income from supplementary food."
Tian Cai nodded and said nothing.
She had heard Grandpa Tian talk about this before, saying that craftsmen at that time had a hard life as they all worked for the brigade and there was no way they could earn extra money. For example, Carpenter Chen's job was to make furniture for the villagers and build plows for the team. He was even assigned to repair some simple farm tools. These jobs actually brought in no income. Tian Cai had been paid for making doors, windows and furniture there because she did not prepare the wood herself, but used the ready-made wood from Carpenter Chen's house. Of course, she had to pay for the wood.
This algorithm is a bit like a fixed salary. No matter how much work you do, your salary is fixed. However, some production teams will give extra rewards to motivate team members.
This is how Tian Cai got his share of the medicine money, and this is also the meaning of the three work points for the deer penis wine.
Thinking about the smell on her hands when handling the deer whips, and the lingering odor in the house because they were dried in the shade for many days, and then soaked and cut, she calculated it based on last year's work point price. One work point was about 1.5 cents, which means she could earn 22 cents for one pound of wine, and 4.5 yuan for 20 pounds. For a villager, this was already a considerable amount of money.
However, it is ironic that after working hard for several months, the final reward is not even as expensive as two taels of wine.
Zhang Defa saw that Tian Cai did not show any dissatisfaction, so he smiled with relief. This girl is not bad, she knows the general situation and knows when to advance and retreat, and most importantly, she is not greedy. It was worth it for him to help her get such a high work point.
The two talked to Tian Cai for a while and then left.
After the people left, Tian Cai was deep in thought while grinding the medicine. She had emptied her small treasury when buying a watch before. She had saved that money for more than a year since she came here. More than 20 yuan of it came from the pockets of the three men in the mountains. The rest was from the mountain products she carried into the city to sell. The money converted from work points and medicine expenses was only a very small part of it.
It seems that if you want to make money at this time, you can only go down the path of speculation.
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