Chapter 55 Yazhou City (2)
The action team with a special mission has no intention of spending time visiting cultural landscapes such as the Confucius Temple - those who really want to see it can wait until they occupy Yazhou to see enough. After receiving Yan Chujie's consent, Schneider simply proposed to Luo Shengdong that he wanted to visit the largest local business house first. Of course Luo Shengdong would not object to this proposal. He had long known that these Haihan people came to Yazhou for two purposes. One was to introduce people, and the other was to do business with Yazhou merchants. Since it is a business, there must be profits, and Luo Shengdong also hopes to help the Haihan people conclude a few deals, so that he may also have the opportunity to get involved. Of course, no matter what, doing business is definitely better than going to war. This truth is always true. If the Haihan people want to do business in Yazhou, there will definitely be no more wars in the short term. Luo Shengdong has long thought about the turning point in this process. Understood.
There are two largest merchant houses in Yazhou City, but they are both from outside. They are "Fu Ruifeng" from Guangzhou and "Anfuxing" from Qiongzhou Fucheng. The first place Luo Shengdong led his team to was the "Anfuxing" located in Nancheng.
After traveling through the city, they discovered that Yazhou City was not what they thought before. It was located at the end of the world, full of criminals, and full of depression. On the contrary, the market here was actually extremely lively. There are many small shops selling groceries on the street. There are also stalls selling seasonal vegetables and fruits or snacks and hot food on the street. People come and go in an orderly manner. From time to time, you can see groups of three or five walking around. A scholar who shakes his head.
The only thing that makes people feel a little dissatisfied is the poor sanitation situation in the city. Domestic garbage discarded on the streets can be found everywhere. Occasionally, there will be a steaming puddle of fresh horse manure in the middle of the road. This group of people from four hundred years later People who pass through can only pass by with their noses covered. In this era of lack of professional sanitation workers, residents do not have the habit of dumping garbage at designated locations. Such environmental problems will exist to varying degrees in every city with a large population. If we want to change the current urban environment situation in Yazhou City, I'm afraid we have to wait until the executive committee takes over the place.
"Anfuhang" is not far from the South City Gate. After crossing two streets, you can already see the black and red sign outside the store. The waiter who was greeting the guests at the door saw an officer coming to the door with a group of strange people in strange clothes. He didn't know what to do and quickly went inside to call the shopkeeper out. Shopkeeper Zhang of "An Fu Hang" was settling accounts in the back room. He hurried out after hearing the news. At first glance, he saw that the officer leading the charge was someone he knew.
"Mr. Luo Bai, you are here today. Do you have any advice?" Shopkeeper Zhang hurriedly came forward to greet him.
"Shopkeeper Zhang, I'm here to bring you money today!" Luo Shengdong laughed, pulled shopkeeper Zhang to his side, and introduced to him: "These are wealthy businessmen from overseas who want to make money in Yazhou When purchasing some things, you are the first place I think of!”
"Thank you, Mr. Luo Bai, for taking care of me!" Shopkeeper Zhang felt relieved after hearing this, as long as no one came looking for trouble. As for Luo Shengdong's proactive overture, shopkeeper Zhang would naturally express his feelings afterwards.
"Shopkeeper Zhang, here is a list. Please see what goods you can provide?" Schneider was fully represented in the business negotiations of the action team. He did not intend to go around in circles and went straight to the topic as soon as he started.
After receiving the list, shopkeeper Zhang did not rush to read the contents. Instead, he asked the waiter to quickly go to the back hall to move a few more stools for the guests to sit. In the eyes of shopkeeper Zhang, the people Luo Shengdong brought wearing strange short shirts and short hair were all taller, with fair skin, and their expressions were not humble at all, but rather conveyed a sense of superiority. The person's self-confidence seems to be that of a pampered nobleman.
Shopkeeper Zhang just stood there and chatted with Schneider and others for a while, and asked about their origins. Shopkeeper Zhang was also quite capable. He heard that Schneider had a northern accent when he spoke, so he used a similar accent to talk to him. Of course, Schneider also took advantage of the situation and told the story of Han descendants thousands of miles away from home looking for their roots, which made shopkeeper Zhang sigh. After everyone in the group sat down, he picked up the list and read it carefully.
Taking into account Akira's reading habits, the purchase list issued by the Executive Committee was written in traditional Chinese characters in vertical format, so that there would be no deviation in the other party's understanding. After reading the list, shopkeeper Zhang put down the list, nodded to Schneider and said, "We at Anfuxing have most of the items listed above. It's just that the quantity you need is quite large, and I'm afraid it will take time to raise some goods."
"So what can be provided to us immediately?" Schneider didn't intend to hang himself on a tree. There was another trading firm "Fu Ruifeng" in the city.
"Tung oil, various shipbuilding tools, and fine Songjiang thick cotton cloth. We have to supply these things to Yazhou Water Village, so we have them in stock for a long time. Mr. Luo Bai has dealt with them many times. Everyone, what's your opinion? You can rest assured about the quality. As for cassiterite and cinnabar, although they are in stock, the quantity is not large." Shopkeeper Zhang also inadvertently pointed out that "Anfuhang" is one of the official suppliers of Yazhou Shuizhai. Luo Shengdong should also have received a lot of purchase rebates from here. "As for the saltpeter, sulfur, coal, and coke that you have specified, these are not easy to purchase not only in our firm, but also in the entire Qiongzhou Island." Shopkeeper Zhang shook his head helplessly: "If you need one hundred and eighty kilograms, It may be easy to raise money, but your list starts with a thousand kilograms, so it may be difficult to buy enough in a short time.”
"Let's put aside the hard-to-purchase items for now. Let's talk about the prices of these goods that you can provide here first!" Schneider was gearing up, preparing to show his colleagues his bargaining skills.
However, with Luo Shengdong, a former buyer, present, shopkeeper Zhang did not leave much room in his quotation. The thick cotton cloth with a width of more than three feet was finally sold at eight coins a piece. In one fell swoop, they bought 200 horses from An Fuxing's inventory at a special discount price. According to shopkeeper Zhang, the supply price to Yazhou Water Village is at least one tael of silver per horse. Of course, everyone present knew that the supply price to Yazhou Shuizhai included public relations expenses, which was completely different from the current commercial procurement.
These cloths are purchased items required by the Ministry of Shipping. When Chuanzhong's own cotton production is still far away, the Ministry of Shipping cannot expect to have its own textile production in a short time, and the cloth produced locally on Qiongzhou Island is in The strength did not meet the requirements, so the Ministry of Shipping asked the Commerce Department to purchase a batch of better-quality Songjiang cotton for trial production of sails.
After agreeing on the prices of several commodities one by one, shopkeeper Zhang still refused to give up and continued to sell various porcelain, lacquerware, jewelry, high-end stationery and other "luxury goods" to Schneider and others. I have to say that his recommendation was actually carefully considered, because this group of Haihan people indeed looked like wealthy businessmen - they were accompanied by officers at the level of Chief Hundreds when they came to discuss business. This air of grandeur was something Shopkeeper Zhang had never seen before. Seen it before. It stands to reason that these social elites should be very particular about the quality of life. Isn't it ridiculous that there are not two high-end vases in the study room, there is no lacquer toilet in the bedroom, and there is not a set of Hu brush, Hui ink, rice paper and inkstone on the desk?
If before time travel, a group of people would have gone crazy if they had seen so many Ming blue and white flowers in front of them. This thing would have been so expensive in the cultural relics market of later generations that they could be priced directly. But today is different from the past. Everyone knows that these things will not help their ongoing careers, let alone improve the quality of life and other nonsense, so their attitude is relatively cold - everyone now lives in the city It is still a dormitory, and there is no place to put these useless things back.
Shopkeeper Zhang’s hard-working sales pitch came to nothing in the end, so his face naturally didn’t look that good. However, Schneider had no intention of ending this business negotiation - the purchase was over, but the sale had not yet begun. Just getting in and out was not the style of the executive committee's chief business representative.
"We also have some special products. I wonder if your company is interested in selling them on a consignment basis?" Schneider said, opening his backpack and carefully taking out a few items.
Shopkeeper Zhang's eyes lit up, he reached out and picked up a crystal clear glass wine glass in front of him, and then grabbed another glass bowl and looked carefully: "Is this the glassware sold by the Folangji people? It is rare in the local area. I once had I have seen such glassware in Guangzhou and it is indeed very expensive. I wonder how much you want it to cost?”
"These glassware are not made by Folangji people, but are products of our Haihan. The quality is definitely better than that of Folangji people. It's just that we are from overseas and are not familiar with local product prices. Shopkeeper Zhang might as well come up with it." Let us take a price for reference." Seeing the other party's obvious interest, Schneider knew that the matter was already half done.
The executive committee will naturally not let go of the glass that has become a weapon for making money in the hands of countless time travellers. As the basic material for making glass, Sanya has huge local reserves of quartz sand, and the conditions are unique. With the super-era technology in our hands, our cost and quality will be greatly superior to any competitors of this era. In the future, glass products will be excellent foreign trade products in both the East and the West. In order to fire glassware on a large scale, the Ministry of Industry also sent several people to the glass factory to receive specialized training to learn glass production technology and the manufacturing processes of various common glassware. Some of the dozens of tons of refractory clay still installed on the New World are intended to be used to build crucible furnaces for melting glass.
(End of chapter)