Jinyi champion

Chapter 5 The beginning of everything is difficult
when it gets dark.

Mother Zhu and her son returned to the shop, and Aunt Li hurried over to ask, "Ma'am, is there any progress?"

Zhu Niang laughed and said, "Let's talk about the three families."

"what?"

Aunt Li didn't expect it to go so smoothly.

Zhu Niang looked at her son with loving eyes, and said with a smile: "Thanks to Xiaohao, he talked a lot during the talk, but now we have to quickly supply the salt..."

"Mother, the supply is not a problem. In two days, we will start drying salt in large quantities. As long as the salt is good and the price is not high, there must be a market. Why don't we find more people and try to lay all the ponds tomorrow. Before the rainy season comes, let’s get more salt..."

The family suddenly had life.

The drying of the salt was surprisingly smooth.

Five days later, the first batch of salt, about three to four hundred catties, had been dried out.

And judging from the current progress, in the future, three to four hundred catties can be dried out every day, and more than a dozen ponds take turns to store water and drain water. Zhu Hao uses special techniques such as pushing the brine and driving the brine to produce excellent salt effects...

When Zhu Niang and Aunt Li looked at the harvested salt crystals in front of them, they were attracted by the crystals shining in the sun.

"Mother, let's grind it quickly and send it to the restaurants that ordered it. Remember to pay for it and deliver it. In addition, we may not be able to do it with a few of us in the future. We need to find someone to come back to help."

Water storage and drainage, as long as Zhu Hao teaches Zhu Niang and the others, they can actually do it.

But when it comes to final salt grinding and shipment, help is needed.

Zhu Niang understood the reasoning, nodded her head and said, "I'll go to Uncle Zhong tonight and discuss it to see if they are willing to come to the house to do long-term work..."

Zhu Hao grinned and said, "Mom, in fact, we can find some healthy women to work at home, so maybe we can save a lot of money."

Because of the backward production tools in Ming Dynasty, there was a huge gap in employment prices between male labor and female labor. The work in front of me could be done by a skilled woman. Why did you have to find a much more expensive male labor?
"Xiaohao is right, I'll go now for my mother..."

Seeing the harvest in front of her eyes, Zhu Niang understood that sun-dried salt depends on the sky and cannot be delayed.

The first batch of salt was successfully supplied.

Get the money back.

The matter of finding healthy women to work was also surprisingly smooth. According to Zhu Hao's suggestion, the hired women were all hired from villages outside the city.

The women of ordinary peasant households usually plan food in the fields, and can't earn a little money every day after exhausting themselves. Now that they have the opportunity to obtain income other than the output of the fields, they naturally flock to them.

As a peasant woman, she has a lot of strength, she is simple and honest, she is illiterate, she doesn't have so many tricks, and naturally she doesn't have the ability to follow the example to build salt ponds and dry salt by herself, so you don't have to worry about technology leakage when you hire them back.

"Four people can come over tomorrow. If necessary, the number can be expanded at any time. It is very difficult for others to hire women to work in the city, but the situation is different here..."

With Zhu Niang's reputation as a chaste woman, it is naturally inconvenient to go out to do business.

But it is so convenient to hire female workers.

Naturally, peasant women don't want to show their faces, but if they work at a festival woman's house, no matter what they do, they can make the family feel at ease, and they won't let the villagers gossip.

This can be regarded as a special advantage of a feisty woman.

"Mom, let's set up the storefront tomorrow. I'm talking about selling official salt. Let people know that our official salt is cheap and good..." Zhu Hao suggested.

Aunt Li wondered: "Brother Hao, didn't you say that we can't do business with our neighbors?"

Zhu Hao said: "But we can't stop selling official salt all the time! Everything is difficult at the beginning. I have calculated that if we only rely on those inns and restaurants in the city, it will be difficult to sell the salt we make every day. Not much consumption..."

"We have to sell [-] catties of salt in order to get back [-] taels of silver and pay off the foreign debt we owed, but with [-] catties of salt a day, it is very difficult to sell if we don't work hard!"

Zhu Niang was so busy today that she forgot her troubles, and her face was full of sadness when she heard the words.

……

……

Early the next morning.

Zhu Niang wrote the word "Official Salt" on the wooden sign and hung it at the door in person, so that the neighbors could know that the shop resumed the official salt business.

"Hey, third lady, what are you doing? Are you still selling salt? Do you have any salt?"

A man in his forties came out of a grain store across the street, his thin face was full of wrinkles, and he spoke in a strange tone when he came up.

Zhu Niang didn't want to talk nonsense with the other party.

In Zhu Hao's few memories, this person's surname is Qian, and he is called "Qian Chuanzi". I don't know what his real name is, but there are no wrong nicknames in this world. The business in Zhu Niang's store is good, but there is always a run on her words.

Zhu Hao smiled and said, "Master Qian, we sell our salt. If a customer comes to the door, we will sell it to him. Does it have anything to do with you?"

Qian Chuanzi pointed at Zhu Hao: "You are still so naughty... Huh, tell your mother to cash out the shop earlier, wouldn't it be good to do something like a husband and a child? Oh yes, your mother is now There is no husband to match... High cheekbones, you don't need a knife to kill a husband, what a pity, what a pity..."

It really is a pot that can't be opened without mentioning it!
Zhu Niang is actually very beautiful, with a typical oval face and round cheekbones that make a face look three-dimensional, beautiful and delicate, dignified and elegant.

Zhu Niang dragged Zhu Hao inside, Zhu Hao turned his head and asked loudly: "Aunt Qian has higher cheekbones than my mother, I wonder if she is also Kefu? I must ask her face to face..."

"Bah, you naughty brat!" Qian Chuanzi cursed.

Zhu Hao stuck out his tongue and made a grimace.

Talking about it, you don't lose if you lose.

……

……

The shop put up a sign, saying that it would continue to sell official salt, but because of the previous government propaganda that the shop's salt ate bad people, who would patronize for a while?

In the morning, not to mention those who came to buy salt, those who came to buy grains were gone.

But Zhu Hao was not worried.

In the morning, Zhu Niang took Uncle Zhong and Yu San to the inns and restaurants around the pier to discuss the sale of official salt. With the ready-made snowflake salt in hand, everything is beneficial.

Zhu Hao and Aunt Li stayed to look at the store.

The Qian's shop across the street had a bleak business at first, but under the changing conditions, the Zhu's rice shop was in trouble, and the Qian's shop's business improved.

Whenever a business is done, Qian Chuanzi deliberately sends customers out of the store, and then squints with provocative eyes, as if in a demonstration.
But they don't know that the small courtyard's salt drying and sales operations are in full swing.

For God's sake, it was sunny for half a month, and under the scorching sun, there was no delay in drying the salt.

However, the rainy season in the Huguang area is coming soon, and it usually rains continuously in June and July.

In order to "harvest" the salt in the pond as soon as possible, Zhu Hao personally took part in the battle. After all, he is the only one who knows the brine driving technique.

This morning, it was just after Mao.

Zhu's back hall.

The old lady Zhu Jiashi called her son Zhu Wanjian to her.

"Mom, what do you want from me?"

Zhu Wanjian had a tired look on his face. Recently, he often wandered around the flower streets and willow alleys in the city, never returning home at night.

Zhu Jiashi pointed to Butler Liu who was standing beside him.

Liu Guanjia said: "I heard from Manager Zhao, who manages the family's rice business, that the inns and restaurants that ordered official salt from us have recently broken their contracts, and they didn't say where they bought the salt. I wanted to ask the government to come forward. Check to see if they bought smuggled salt, and learned from some sources that they bought salt from the third lady's shop..."

"Ha ha."

Zhu Wanjian looked contemptuous and sneered.

Zhu Jiashi's expression was stern: "What do you say?"

"Cut, what's the big deal for me? It seems that those inns and restaurants that have been booked out don't want to do business anymore. The salt from the third family is cheap, but it's common for the rough salt fished out of the pool to spoil your stomach. I'm afraid you'll have to obediently come back to us to buy salt in a few days!"

After speaking, Zhu Wanjian glared at Steward Liu.

He blamed the other party for not speaking for him, and felt that this person bypassed him to report to the old lady, obviously not treating him as the big shopkeeper of the Zhu family.

Zhu Jiashi waved his hand: "Bring the salt."

Immediately, Butler Liu took out some snowflake salt from a small bundle placed on the desk next to him.

Seeing the fineness of the salt, Zhu Wanjian's eyes widened in disbelief.

Zhu Wanjian pinched a grain of salt and put it in his mouth, then looked at Zhu Jiashi in surprise: "Mother, where did you get this salt? Not to mention Anlu, even Huguang, I have never seen such good salt. "

Liu Guanjia said: "It is the kitchen salt that was stolen from those inns and restaurants through the hands of the staff, but bought back from the third lady."

"This...how is this possible?"

Zhu Wanjian was completely dumbfounded.

Zhu Jiashi asked coldly, "How do you explain this matter?"

"Mother, you heard my son say that the quality of this salt is so good, it is definitely not something that the third daughter-in-law can get. We have a close personal relationship with the big salt merchants in the city. If there is good salt, they will not think about inviting us to distribute it? This Among them... there must be fraud."

Zhu Wanjian couldn't figure out what was going on, but felt that she was being tricked.

Zhu Jia's face was sullen, and he almost swallowed this unworthy son alive.

"Let's just say that you are not good enough to do business. The family shop is entrusted to you, and the annual profit is not enough for you to toss about. How dare you say that you don't know what happened now? It seems that this family business is better than entrusting it to you. Take care."

"Mother, don't be in a hurry to deny the boy's hard work over the years...The boy will bring someone there right now, and he must make that woman look good!"

Zhu Wanjian was furious, and turned around to find trouble with her sister-in-law's family.

Zhu Jia's face was expressionless, but it was Housekeeper Liu who persuaded him: "Second Master, please calm down first, this matter should not be violent."

Zhu Wanjian said angrily: "You surnamed Liu, you are such a coward, you don't tell me what you have to do, but you come here to tell the old lady, I think you want to take my position as the big shopkeeper!"

"enough!"

Under Zhu Jia's rage, he was full of arrogance, and suppressed Zhu Wanjian's arrogance at once.Zhu Wanjian drooped his head, with blue veins protruding from his forehead, wishing he could eat the old and weak family of Butler Liu and the third daughter-in-law alive.

"Steward Liu, tell me what you think."

"Yes, old lady."

Butler Liu was not in a hurry, "From the point of view of a villain, it is not appropriate to go to the third lady to settle accounts at this time."

"For one thing, we are not sure whether the salt came from the hands of the third lady, even if it is, it is more important for us to find its purchase channel.

"Such a good salt, I guess it is an official salt. If you come to the door to question the crime without a reason, I am afraid that you will be criticized by the villagers. It is better to call the third lady back to the mansion and ask her face to face."

Although Steward Liu is a servant, he can clearly distinguish the priorities of the matter.

Zhu Wanjian sneered endlessly: "Just say that woman must have hidden money from her own house, no wonder she has no fear, and she may have hooked up with some dubious person... A woman will definitely cause problems when she comes out to show her face. Sooner or later, Zhu's family style will be shamed by her ..."

Zhu Jiashi ignored the second son's slander against the third daughter-in-law, and said to Steward Liu, "Go to the shop and let me know that there are important matters in the house to be discussed before today's time, so she must represent the third one in the house. Attend."

"Yes, old lady."

Butler Liu took a look at Zhu Wanjian and walked out quickly.

Zhu Wanjian stood there, neither leaving nor staying. He was in a state of sleepiness and confusion, and his brain was completely insufficient.

(End of this chapter)