After Lu Yishan left out of excitement for a short while, Liu Xing came in with 3 more people.
The 3 people were the ones who raised their hands to show their support to Zhang Tie.
Like Lu Yishan, the three people were very reserved when they came in to greet Zhang Tie.
One of them was a bit younger at his 30s while the other two were at their 50s or 60s. All of them looked a bit rich.
Zhang Tie let them sit down. After exchanging a glance with each other, the 3 people also sat on the edge of the chair with a small part of their butts like Lu Yishan.
"Well, introduce yourselves!" Zhang Tie said as he waved his hand.
"Hermit, I'm Fang Tong, the head of Fang Clan in Qinghe City!" Among the three of them, the oldest one glanced at the other two. Seeing that the other two were looking at him, he took the initiative to stand up and introduce himself.
"Do you have an alcohol brewery?"
"Fang Clan indeed has an alcohol brewery in Qinghe City!"
"How large is it?"
"It could produce over 2,000 tons of alcohol per year!" Fang Tong replied respectfully. Even though he kept his eyes on the ground, he dared not look straight into Zhang Tie's eyes.
"Hmm, not bad, take a seat!" Zhang Tie nodded.
Fang Tong sat down, and a slightly older man dressed in a blue silk robe stood up.
"Hermit, this humble man is Chen Zihui, from Chen Clan of Muqing Palace in Langyun City. I'm the biological younger brother of Chen Zihao, the head of Chen Clan. As my elder brother was far away in Guanzhou Province, he couldn't come back to pay a visit to you. After knowing that Hermit is coming to Xuantian City, he especially asked me to come here to pay a visit to hermit on behalf of Chen Clan!"
Zhang Tie threw a glance at Chen Zihui as he revealed a smile, 'This guy is really eloquent. He could explain everything clearly the moment he opened his mouth.'
"Do you also produce alcohol?"
"Chen Clan has been producing alcohol for over 50 years. The annual output of Chen Clan is over 4,000 tons!"
"Hmm, take a seat!" Zhang Tie nodded.
The moment Chen Zihui sat down, the most vigorous one hurriedly stood up as he bowed deeply towards Chen Zihui, "This humble one is Li Tao, the head of Zhongpin Business Group in Dongyang City. Nice to meet you, Hermit!"
Zhang Tie threw a glance at Li Tao for a short while. Li Tao looked smart and capable with brilliant eyes. He had even reached LV 13 4-star battle general and was the most powerful one among the three people.
"You're not from Dong Yang City, right?"
"Daoist Master, I am indeed not a native of Dong Yang City. My family is from the Li family in the Wuhua Region of the Zhuo Province. Because I am a branch of the Li family and the second son of the family, I went out to make a living after I became an adult. I was lucky enough to establish a foundation in Dong Yang City. I have a merchant group and a small alcohol factory that can produce 1,000 tons of alcohol per year."
Li Family of Ten Thousand Voices Hall? After recalling the major clans in Taixia Country that he knew, Zhang Tie was slightly moved. Li Clan was a major clan in Zhuo Province. It was even more powerful than Huaiyuan Palace in Taixia Country. Such a major clan would have a large business. As there were too many disciples of the branch and branch of the clan, they could not take good care of each of them. Therefore, such a major clan would encourage young disciples to make a living in the outside world. Li Tao must have left Li Clan of Wansheng Palace for this reason. There were many people like Li Tao in Huaiyuan Palace.
However, even though they came from major clans in Taixia Country, not all of them could make a name for themselves. The brand of major clans only gave them the family background. There were hundreds of millions of such young people in Taixia Country. If they wanted to do something, they had to do it themselves. Many young people with the blood of major clans couldn't make any achievements even after so many years in Taixia Country. Li Tao had already made a bit of a foundation in Dongyang City, which showed that he was really talented. Even Zhu Dabiao, who came to Youzhou Province as the grandson of the provincial governor of Yanzhou Province, was almost stewed alive by Master Jiang.
Zhang Tie nodded and let Li Tao take a seat.
"I'm a straightforward person. I'll get straight to the point. This time, I've called you guys over to do something for me!"
"Hermit, what can we do for you?" Fang Tong asked as he slightly bowed.
"I want to establish an alcohol factory in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory. Hmm, actually, it's a bit large …" Zhang Tie touched his bald head, "Perhaps it's an alcohol production base. As you're all familiar with alcohol breweries, you must be familiar with it. Therefore, I want to entrust this task to you!"
"Hermit, I wonder … how large are you going to establish your alcohol production base?" Chen Zihui asked. The word "base" was a bit awkward here, causing Chen Zihui's heart to pound.
"At least 500,000 tons per year!" Zhang Tie replied casually.
The moment the words "500,000 tons" were uttered by Zhang Tie, besides Li Tao who remained calm, Chen Zihui and Fang Tong were so startled that they almost slid off their chairs. Their faces were so shocked that their mouths could even hold a duck egg.
"Five … 500,000 … tons?" If not being uttered by Zhang Tie, Fang Tong would have thought that Zhang Tie was joking. At this moment, not to mention Youzhou Province, even across Taixia Country, there was no alcohol production plant over 100,000 tons per year. If this plant was established, it would definitely be the largest in Taixia Country; however, it might become a joke in the end …
"What? Can't I do it?" Zhang Tie's face slightly turned gloomy.
"It's not that, but …" Fang Tong looked at the other two people as he wanted to say something.
"Go ahead …"
"If so, this humble one will be frank. Hermit, you want to build an alcohol production base of 500,000 tons per year. Technically, there's no problem with this alcohol production base. Taixia Country's technology in this aspect has been very mature. However, after building this base of 500,000 tons per year, it might not be able to operate normally!" Fang Tong said while gritting his teeth.
"Not able to operate normally? Why?"
"Hermit, you might not know about businessmen. Because business is business. The entire Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory and Youzhou Province, Tongzhou Province and Yanzhou Province which are adjacent to Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory don't have such a large market. Therefore, the alcohol production capacity and market in the three provinces are basically saturated. The fluctuation of supply and demand is very small. Therefore, the profit of alcohol production in each province has been very low. Take Fang Clan's alcohol factory as an example, after deducting the depreciation of labor and equipment, the profit of Fang Clan's alcohol factory is only about 4% these years. Plus the transportation cost, as long as the alcohol is over 1,000 miles away from the production place, the profit of the producer would be completely swallowed by the transportation cost. Even if such alcohol is transported to other places, plus the transportation cost, it would become very expensive. As a result, it couldn't compete with other local alcohols. If it is sold at a discount, it would suffer a loss. The more alcohol it produces, the more it would suffer a loss. Even though Hermit could suppress it for a while, he couldn't do that for the rest of his life.
The more alcohol is sold at a discount, the greater the loss. Therefore … "Fang Tong didn't continue. Because he had already made it very clear that it was not a problem to build an alcohol production base of 500,000 tons per year. The problem was that the area within 1,000 miles of Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory could not accommodate so much alcohol at all. Such a production base would suffer a loss. The more alcohol it produced, the more it would suffer a loss.
Therefore, the three people didn't agree at once. Based on Fire Dragon Hermit's position, it was normal that he didn't know about businessmen. Nobody dared laugh at him or say anything about him. However, they knew about it. Even though they produced alcohol, they had been working in the business circle for many years. They knew clearly about this. If they messed up Fire Dragon Hermit's task, they would not be able to bear the responsibility. It was not a joke. If Fire Dragon Hermit thought that they were cheating him, they might have to chop off their heads and put them in front of Fire Dragon Hermit.
After hearing Fang Tong's words, Zhang Tie just replied with a smile. Of course, Zhang Tie who grew up selling rice brew and working in a grocery store knew the relationship between commodity cost and market capacity. However, how could they know what he was thinking about?
These days, Zhang Tie looked around Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory. As it was August, the fields in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory were covered with verdant cornfields which were in the middle of summer harvest. Due to the features of drought-resistant, insect-resistant and high-yielding corn, many places in the north of Taixia Country were planted with corns. Especially in the provinces of Northeast Military Region. Especially after the holy war, many places had consciously expanded the planting area of corns. As a result, the planting area of corns in the entire Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory almost reached 1 million hectares.
According to Zhang Tie's preliminary calculation, if the remaining corns after summer harvest were 800 kg per mu, the entire Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory would produce over 12 million tons of corns this year.
Previously, most of these corn straws would be burned by local farmers after summer harvest in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory, even across Taixia Country. A small part of them would be used as fuel in rural areas. When they were fresh, some of them could be used as fodder. In general, over 80% of the corn straws would become useless and would be burned to fertilize the farmlands.
In another 2 months, when autumn came, the fields across Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory might be covered with black smoke due to burning straws.
Although corns were useless to others, they were treasures for Zhang Tie.
Because no one could have imagined that the latest mutated yeast that he had obtained could ferment high-energy alcohol using only corn stalks … (To be continued.)
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