usatvline Chapter 82 Cooperation
Chapter 82 Cooperation
Chapter 82 Cooperation (Part 1)
Lu Zhonghe returned late and could only eat with the shopkeeper and managers in an empty room next to the kitchen.
Actually, this treatment is quite good.
A son-in-law who lives away from his wife's family is much better off than one who lives with his wife's family. Lu Zhonghe has already gotten used to it.
The kitchen was noisy, with many people talking.
"During the reign of Emperor Yuan, a reed flew in front of a paper money flying behind over the Qingcun (salt) field in Songjiang Prefecture. All the villagers who saw it burned incense and begged it to descend into their homes. Later, it landed on the house of Lin Qing, and his family has been well-fed ever since."
"There must have been a strong wind that day."
"Not entirely. Who can say for sure about matters of gods and ghosts? There was a man named Huang in Hailing. When money flew to his house, it bumped against the garden fence and fell off in large quantities. Later, he became rich, with a fortune of 100,000, and became famous throughout Jiangbei."
"Sigh, why doesn't money fly into my house?"
This was the kind of conversation that Lu Zhonghe overheard when he entered the dining hall.
After he went in, everyone fell silent and gradually stood up to pay their respects.
Lu Zhonghe returned the greeting, found a seat, and glanced at the food prepared by Manager Mo next to him.
Old Mo cupped his hands in greeting and said, "This is wild boar. Madam is very kind and specially ordered the kitchen to prepare it for my recovery."
Upon hearing this, Lu Zhonghe called out to the outside, "Bring me a bowl of wild boar."
Shopkeeper Mo's expression immediately became quite interesting, and he whispered, "Young Master, I ate wild boar to recuperate."
"What illness?" Lu Zhonghe asked.
Shopkeeper Mo was silent for a moment, then said, "It's chronic hemorrhoids, and the bleeding won't stop."
For a fleeting moment, it seemed as if the blood from Manager Mo's anus had flowed onto Lu Zhonghe's face.
The cook quickly brought out the wild boar soup. Just as he was about to hand it to Lu Zhonghe, Manager Mo took it from him and said with a smile, "Thank you for the soup, son-in-law."
After saying that, he gestured to the cook to order something else, and then forced himself to eat.
Lu Zhonghe's face regained some color, and he made conversation, saying, "Manager Mo, you've worked so hard in all these places, it must have been truly tiring."
Manager Mo had almost finished eating, and now that he had another bowl of wild boar soup, he was so full that he could hardly move. After swallowing a mouthful of meat soup, he wiped his mouth with a cloth and said, "Young master, these are just errands and shopping tasks. I'm familiar with the place, so it's not that hard."
"Oh? The store has started a large-scale purchase?" Lu Zhonghe said in surprise.
Their family already owns two shops in Liujiagang. One was given to them by Shen Rong and mainly sells grains, oils, soy sauces, and vinegars; it has been open for many years. The other is a newly opened shop, and they haven't decided what to do yet.
"It wasn't purchased for the inn," Manager Mo explained. "Yesterday, Zheng Yifang came to visit and said he'd be going to Jiangxi in late February. Since our two families have been doing business abroad, our relationship must be quite special. It would be a waste to go to Jiangxi empty-handed, so he asked if we had any goods that needed to be transported and if we wanted to buy some goods in Jiangxi to bring back."
"Zheng Yifang? Zheng Fan?" Lu Zhonghe asked.
"That's right." Manager Mo nodded and said, "Madam has already agreed and instructed me to go to the market to see what goods are worth selling to Jiangxi."
"Who will you sell it to over there?" Lu Zhonghe asked again.
"Lord Taiyue".
"Shen Xie?"
Manager Mo glanced at Lu Zhonghe and said, "It is Lord Tai Yue."
Lu Zhonghe grunted in response.
Shen Xie and Shen Taiyue were members of the Shen clan. According to the genealogy, he and Shen You and Shen Wansan were already five degrees removed from the lineage, but he was quite capable. He was stationed in Jiangzhou Road and was the head of the Shen clan's business in northern Jiangxi.
He also engages in personal trade, doing all sorts of things, not fixed jobs, as long as it's profitable. Selling goods to him would indeed save a lot of trouble, but—
"Lord Taiyue is a member of the Shen clan. Why should the Zheng clan be allowed to come in and take advantage of him?" Lu Zhonghe said with some dissatisfaction.
When Shen Xie first arrived in Jiangxi, he struggled to make a name for himself. It was only with the strong support of the Shen family that he gradually gained a foothold, a process that took many years. Why would the Zheng family lend such connections to them?
"We might suffer a loss in Jiangzhou, but we can make up for it in Taicang. Young master, we need to consider the bigger picture," Manager Mo said.
Actually, there was one more thing he didn't say: Jiangzhou was using the network of relationships that the Shen family had built up over many years, but Taicang and Liujiagang were the ones who benefited, while the benefits belonged to you two. Don't you understand this?
But Lu Zhonghe's focus was not on this, though he couldn't say it aloud.
He slowly ate the minced meat that the cook had just served, lost in thought.
******
"What? So the path you pointed me to was Lady Shen?" On the morning of the eleventh, Shao Shuyi, who had just finished doing squats, asked breathlessly, his legs a little weak.
When Shao Shuyi first bought the Drilling Wind Sea Loach, he asked Zheng Fan if he needed help transporting the goods. At the time, Zheng Fan said he would point him in a way, but nothing came of it. He thought Zheng Fan had forgotten about it, but unexpectedly, it came to him here.
"So you live here." Zheng Fan crossed his arms and looked around the courtyard.
The weeds and debris have long since disappeared, replaced by a well-maintained training ground.
Every morning, if you pass by the dirt road outside the courtyard, you can see Shao Shuyi and Li Fu practicing their skills. Sometimes Yu Yuan, Wang Huadu, and Liang Tai will join them, but Yu and Liang don't necessarily stay here every day, and Wang Huadu has been sent to Shanghai and hasn't returned yet.
In addition to strength training exercises such as squats, push-ups, and pull-ups, Shao Shuyi also frequently practices archery.
Li Fu mainly practices sword and spear techniques, under the guidance of Liang Tai, but his skill level is not yet apparent.
"My lord, it's not that I don't want to tell you, it's that you've never asked," Shao Shuyi said with a smile.
"Alright, alright, it's my fault for not asking." Zheng Fan said with a helpless smile, "If I hadn't taken a few extra glances when I passed by yesterday, I wouldn't have known you lived right under my nose."
"Tie Niu, what are you standing there for? Serve the master a bowl of porridge." Shao Shuyi ordered, looking at Tie Niu who was standing there dumbfounded on the veranda.
Tie Niu said "Oh," and rushed to the kitchen, bringing over a bowl of porridge.
Zheng Fan was hungry, and after reaching for the bowl, he realized there were no chopsticks.
Tie Niu paused for a moment, then rushed to the kitchen, grabbed some chopsticks, and handed them to Zheng Fan.
Zheng Fan was overjoyed and laughed, "Little Tiger, is this your newly hired servant?"
"I am from the Zhang family," Tie Niu corrected.
Zheng Fan laughed and said, "The build is similar, but the rest is not."
"Tie Niu, hurry up and strengthen your muscles and bones," Shao Shuyi waved his hand and said.
Tie Niu grunted in agreement, then lay down on the ground and began doing the push-ups that Shao Shuyi had taught him.
Zheng Fan was almost dying of laughter, and said, "What a wealth of talent!"
After laughing, he looked at the porridge in the bowl and said, "Oh, red lotus rice."
"My son has been coughing badly these past two days, so I had someone buy some millet to make porridge. It seems to be helping a bit. Daohua and Rongniang aren't coughing much anymore, and Sihai is also much better," Shao Shuyi said. "Making money is all about making sure the people around you live well, isn't it? If you're not sincere, others will take advantage of you. In this world, it's all about sticking together for warmth."
Zheng Fan quickly finished half a bowl of porridge and said, "Little Tiger, do you know what I admire most about you?"
"Which point?"
Zheng Fan didn't answer. He quickly finished the remaining half bowl of porridge and said, "This porridge is a bit bitter. I won't eat it. It'll just fill my stomach. Maybe there will be something better to eat at the Shen residence later."
Shao Shuyi looked to the west in surprise and said, "I didn't expect that mansion to belong to the Shen family. No wonder they're building so much."
"The money for this major construction project came from Wan Sangong," Zheng Fan said. "Madam Shen is going to stay in Liujiagang for a long time and is eager to open her business, but she doesn't have a boat yet. If you can win her favor, you'll be able to transport goods until the boat falls apart. By the way, is the boat repaired yet?"
"Alright," Shao Shuyi said, "I've spent more than ten ingots of Zhongtong paper money, and I only have five or six ingots left."
Zheng Fan instinctively sensed something was wrong.
Sure enough, Shao Shuyi said with a grin, "Sir, let's round it up. Lend me another twenty ingots, and then I'll owe you a hundred ingots. It'll be easier to remember."
Zheng Fanzhen was getting a little overwhelmed and asked, "Didn't you just receive two thousand ingots (equivalent to four hundred ingots of Zhiyuan paper money)?"
"Sir, I only have eight hundred ingots of silver myself," Shao Shuyi said. "Besides, all my brothers and I have reached an agreement to buy land in Shanghai. There's an old official there who's retired and returning to Dadu, and he's currently dealing with his land holdings. If you want to buy land, sir, I'll have Gou Nu inquire for you."
Zheng Fan shook his head and said, "I have 300 mu of high fields and 260 mu of low fields in Taicang, that's enough."
"My lord, you actually own so much land?" Shao Shuyi was somewhat surprised.
The term "takada" literally means that the terrain is relatively high. Many families like to rotate rice and wheat, that is, after the autumn harvest, they plant winter wheat, prepare seedlings in March or April of the following year, and transplant them into the field after the wheat harvest. In a whole year, they can harvest one season of wheat and one season of rice.
Low-lying areas are often planted with two rice crops a year, or rotated with other crops such as cotton, to improve the soil.
Zheng Fan's land must have been well-cultivated for many years, with a very high yield, incomparable to the slightly saline-alkali land in Pudong. Cotton is a salt-alkali tolerant crop, which is one of the reasons why Shanghai County has formed a pattern of planting rice in the west and cotton in the east.
"Is it strange that I have so much land?" Zheng Fan didn't want to argue with him about this anymore, and instead said, "Have you finished practicing? Hurry up and get ready, we're going to the Shen residence."
"Okay!" Shao Shuyi didn't waste any more words and went back to his room to tidy up.
This was a business deal that Zheng Fan introduced to him: first, transport a batch of Shen Niangzi's goods to Jiangzhou, and after selling them, purchase timber, porcelain, iron, copper, and other items locally to return to Liujiagang.
Among them, timber, copper, and iron were all Shen Niangzi's goods, while porcelain was purchased for Zheng Ji Qingqi Shop—this was Shao Shuyi's suggestion to develop new suppliers and not always focus on purchasing from porcelain kilns within the province.
Shao Shuyi once considered using his huge sum of 800 ingots to purchase goods and transport them to Jiangxi to see if he could sell them, but he later gave up. He was unsure when the deal would be finalized in Pudong, and what if he urgently needed to pay but the goods hadn't been shipped and sold yet? Wouldn't that be disastrous? Things all piled up at once, and he had no choice.
As for loans, I'm not considering that for now, simply because the interest rates are too high.
Merchants who urgently need money for trade with foreign countries can consider it, because maritime trade is extremely profitable and can cover interest expenses. However, those who do domestic business should forget about it; it's not worth it and they'll just be working for the Hui people, temple monasteries, and powerful and wealthy families.
Shao Shuyi quickly changed his clothes, ordered Tie Niu to follow him, and then went directly to the Shen residence, which was under construction, with Zheng Fan.
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