Fengqiao Shoji and Xu Si signed the contract. The next day, someone came looking for them to discuss the purchase of silver and sulfur.
The price of silver was reasonable, and the purity of sulfur was not bad. Fengqiao Shoji was willing to pay an extra sum to show Fengqiao Shoji that Zhang Xiaobao was a fair businessman.
However, before the money in their hands could even warm up, they had to pay another tax to Great Tang. Luckily, Zhang Xiaobao said that he would not punish them, so no one came to fine them.
As noon approached, Yamamoto and the other two didn't dare to go to the Water Cloud Club. They found a restaurant on a narrow road in Luoyang that specialized in soup pancakes. The variety inside was not bad. There were shaved noodles, ramen, and minced noodles.
The three of them saw that there were some black fungus in the minced meat noodles, so they chose this one. The three of them ate until they were sweating profusely. When they were paying the bill, Fengqiao Shoji took out six coins from his money pouch and placed them on the table one by one to show that the amount was correct.
If Wang Juan saw this, she would definitely feel that this scene was very familiar. The difference was the amount. The restaurant had placed nine copper coins, so it could be seen how poor the three of them were.
Needless to say, the people in the soup pancake restaurant were honest. The three of them ate until their stomachs were full. When they burped, they did not smell much of the black fungus. It was all ginger. Yamamoto rubbed his stomach and gritted his teeth.
"Damn, it's so delicious. I won't forget it for the rest of my life. Fengqiao Shoji, isn't it time to go back? Remember to go to the side and take a look. Just now, I saw that restaurant selling sesame seed pancakes. I bought a few to eat on the way. It's a pity that Henan is not as good as Sanshui County. "
"What can Sanshui County do? The two of you don't have a single copper coin on you? "Fengqiao Shoji understood Yamamoto's meaning. They wanted to walk back to the Four Seas Academy and buy some dry rations.
"Sanshui County is good. It doesn't matter if you bring sesame seed pancakes or fried noodles. When you see a pavilion, you can drink free soup and eat salted vegetables. Actually, you won't starve to death even if you don't bring any food. The money we have is for the students of our country to study. We can't squander it."
As Yamamoto spoke, he took out one roman note from his pocket. The denominations varied. The large ones were 100 strings of coins, while the small ones were only 10 coins.
Shan Si also chimed in, "Lord Wind Bridge, you can't enjoy anymore. Let's go. Suffer more hardships so that you can remember them well."
Windy Bridge Shoji pursed his lips and didn't say anything, but his eyes were filled with hostility. He looked back and forth between the two of them, implying that he would remember them.
*****
A day later, the news that Xu Si had taken over Wind Logistics spread throughout the entire Henan Province. Before the merchants who had pushed up the price of garlic with Wind Logistics could react, the price of garlic in the entire Henan Province fell to the bottom.
The normal price was reduced from ten copper coins per catty to one copper coin per catty. Xu Si, under the name of Wind Logistics, began to transport the garlic to the designated location. As for the losses caused recently, Wind Logistics was willing to compensate with the market price.
As the merchants of Wind Logistics knew that Windy Bridge Shoji wanted to collect garlic, other than the first time when he really wanted to transport the garlic to the location, he chose to transport the garlic to the nearest location in order to save on the shipping fee. For example, he chose to transport the garlic from one village to another.
The merchants were dumbfounded. Wind Logistics said that they had found the lost garlic, so it was impossible for them to pay three or even five times the original price. Moreover, even if they did pay, they would use the cost of transporting the garlic from Xinluo to offset it. Even if they paid five times the original price, it would only be five copper coins.
Because of the delay in transporting the garlic, paying again was different from losing it. It was impossible for them to pay the highest price, so they would calculate according to that price.
This involved the problem of artificial speculation. For example, if a merchant wanted to transport the goods from one place to another, the price of the goods would be the same when they were bought and the same when they were sold. If there was a slight delay on the way, the merchant who handled the consignment would make arrangements in advance at the destination and raise the price of the goods. Would the logistics company have to pay according to the price?
If that was the case, if the logistics company deliberately lowered the price of the goods in that place, the merchant would lose money. Therefore, usually, the compensation would be based on the price of the goods at the destination, which was the price of the goods at the time of shipment. As the system was not perfect, there was no way to preserve the value of the goods.
The late arrival of the goods and the non-arrival of the goods were two different things. In this way, if Wind Logistics lost money, they would only lose a small part of the money. If they lost the garlic because it was not delivered, they would have to pay the fixed amount.
The merchants did some calculations. No matter which method they chose to pay, they would lose a part of the money in the end. Although it was not a lot, and according to the terms of the contract, some merchants could even get a break-even result. However, if they really calculated it, this was not the case.
Because the merchants had put their energy on the garlic, they did not trade in other aspects during this period of time. No income was a loss, and none of them were willing to accept such an outcome.
They really wanted Wind Logistics to compensate them with physical objects. For example, if a lot of garlic rotted due to the delay, then this loss would need to be managed by the logistics company. The stipulated time when they signed the contract was set to prevent the garlic from rotting.
The merchants felt that the price of garlic could not stay so low. There would be a time when the price would rise. Then, they would still be able to make money once the price of garlic recovered.
However, they were worried that Zhang Xiaobao was determined to deal with them. After compensating them for the garlic, he would keep lowering the price so that their garlic could not be sold at the normal price for a period of time. In that case, some people would borrow money to buy the garlic, and some people would mortgage their fixed assets to buy the garlic. All the money would be bet on the garlic.
This part of the merchants had no choice but to choose to pay in cash. First, they did not want to provoke Zhang Xiaobao who was angry. Second, they could quickly recover their funds and carry out the next step of investment.
Sure enough, when they just got the money from Wind Logistics, the price of garlic once again returned to the normal fluctuation. The purpose of lowering the price first was to force these merchants to make a decision.
Some of these merchants lost money, and some lost money. They wasted a lot of time and opportunities on the garlic, but they did not get the slightest benefit.
In addition to them, there was another group of merchants who participated in the plan to attack Wind Logistics. They still had a lot of high-priced garlic on hand. According to Zhang Xiaobao, they would not lose money. They were waiting for Zhang Xiaobao to give them an idea.
Fengqiao Zhengsan and the others did not leave immediately. They wanted to figure out how Zhang Xiaobao would make others earn money.
The person who was in charge of the specific operation was Xu Si. He found the merchants on the various rankings and sold the remaining garlic from Wind Logistics at the price of 10,000 strings of coins. Even the rotten ones were shipped away together.
He gave the merchants a formula to make sweet garlic, which was also a formula for Xin Luo. He signed a contract with the merchants to buy sweet garlic. It was also because of this that Xin Luo was willing to take out so much garlic. They had signed a long-term acquisition contract, the kind that was tariff-free, and they could also get foreign exchange from Tang Dynasty.
The better garlic was picked out, leaving behind the bad ones and the ones that were starting to rot. Zhang Xiaobao asked the merchants to transport the garlic that could last for a while before rotting to the place where the flood had washed away the fields. The ones that could not be transported in time were planted on the spot to cultivate garlic sprouts.
The ones that could be transported could be used to plant garlic sprouts in the flooded fields. Even if garlic was rotten, as long as it was not completely rotten, it could still grow garlic sprouts. As long as the core was not rotten, the other parts would provide nutrients for the growth of the garlic sprouts.
As for what to do when the garlic sprouts grew up, it was simple. They could be directly made into various dishes, canned food, or even made into pickles. The people who had suffered the disaster would weave tiger head altars with branches. As for how to sell them, Zhang Xiaobao did not need to teach the top 100 merchants on the rankings.
The merchants discussed through telegrams and estimated the operation method and price. They found that they did not lose money. If they operated well, they could even make a small profit.
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