Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 200 Customers
Father Li doubted: "It's so simple? A Xing, are you talking nonsense?"

Li Xing looked at Father Li with dissatisfaction, and replied: "Father, why don't you believe me? This method seems insignificant. I have tried it a few times, and it really works!"

"Father! Ah Xing! Come out and unload the car!" While speaking, Li Chong's shout came from the courtyard.

The two hurried to the courtyard, and saw that the family's ox cart had parked under the grass shed to the east, and the cart was loaded with sugar cane piled up like a hill, and Li Chong was already carrying a bundle of sugarcane stacked on the wooden board under the grass shed .

"Brother, has the price of rice increased again?"

"It's lower than last month. This time, the rice from Huizhou and Chaozhou is ten cents lower than the rice from Wenzhou and Huguang."

"This time, after we sell this batch of frosting sugar, we will buy more while the price of rice is low, or we will spend a lot of money before it rises again!" Father Li piled a bunch of sugar cane on the wooden board Said.

Li Xing said, "Father, you can just go to the house and rest. Brother and I will do the hard work!"

Father Li said with a smile: "Don't underestimate your father and me, this is quite heavy work? Our farmers are relying on their strength to support their families!"

Li Chong wiped the sweat off his face, looked at Li Xing and said, "Ah Xing, when I went shopping just now, I heard a message spread everywhere in the town that I will come back quickly after buying sugar cane, and want to be with my father and you." Let's discuss it!"

"Brother, what's so important?" Li Xing asked as he put down a bundle of sugarcane.

Father Li also came over and looked at the eldest son suspiciously.

The three masters of the Li family have a clear division of labor. Li Xing and Father Li are the main laborers in the dormitory, such as squeezing cane juice, boiling cane juice, and making white sugar and brown sugar.Li Chong had a shrewd mind. Apart from working as a helper in the dormitory, he spent his days buying various supplies and negotiating prices with merchants who came to buy sugar.

When buying rice today, he heard a few colleagues in the sugar industry discussing in low voices. After inquiring, he found out that there was a Four Seas Bank in the town, and its main business was to lend money to the sugar workshops in the town. [-]% monthly interest.

Li Chong has contacts with many people and knows more than ordinary people.

He knew that the monthly interest rate of several large lenders was [-]%, and the [-]% interest rate of Sihai Bank was really attractive.

He had discussed with his father and younger brother a long time ago that he wanted to expand the scale of his workshop, buy a few more cows, hire more than a dozen farmers to work, and strive to produce thousands of stones of white sugar and brown sugar a year. With a few hundred taels of silver, in a few years, their Li family will become a wealthy local family.

But if you want to expand the workshop into what Li Chong wants, it will cost at least a few hundred taels of silver.

Li Chong plans to buy 27 bullocks and hire about [-] workers. A workshop of this scale can produce a thousand stones of sugar a year without any problem.

But buying land to expand workshops, buying cattle, buying sugarcane, rice, flour, rapeseed and other materials, and paying daily wages to hired workers, these are all kinds of things, and it takes at least 500 taels of silver to do it.

Their family's sugar house has been open for several years, leaving aside the family's food, drink, and other expenses, it has only accumulated 70 taels of silver, which is far from the funds needed for expansion.

Although Father Li also agreed to the expansion, what he meant was to use the money accumulated at home to expand the scale a little bit.Accumulate a little to make a lot, and after a few years of accumulation, expand it, so that after ten or twenty years, there will be a decent workshop.

But Li Chong was very angry. He threatened that he would either not build it, or build a large workshop if he wanted to.

Li Xing also agreed with his brother's idea, and building a large workshop became the dream of the two brothers.The two also thought about borrowing money for expansion, but they could only stop thinking about it after knowing that the interest on lending was so high.

After hearing about the Four Seas Ticket Office today, Li Chong, who had been thinking about expanding the workshop, suddenly became interested. After shopping, he hurriedly bought sugarcane rice noodles, and then drove the ox cart back to discuss the loan with his family.

After listening to Li Chong's narration, Father Li was still hesitating, while Li Xing shouted excitedly: "There is such a good thing! The interest rate is much lower than those big families! Father, brother, this Let’s borrow the money! When the sugar production is finished, we will expand the building, and it will be completed in less than two months! In a few years, our family will be counted as a big family in the town!”

Li Chong also said with a longing face: "With father and younger brother's skills, if you build a big sugar factory, you won't have to worry about not being able to sell it!"

Seeing that his two sons were in such high spirits, Father Li swallowed back the words that were on the verge of his lips.Cane sugar sales have always been good, especially white sugar and rock sugar, whose prices have risen every year. After the expansion of the workshop, the output has doubled several times, and money will flow into the house like running water. This is indeed a great thing.

The reason why Sihai Bank chose to start its lending business in Jun'an Town was also a decision made after many investigations by the commercial bank.

Sihai Commercial Bank set up a branch in Zhangzhou Prefecture a few months ago. The shopkeeper is also a former Shanxi merchant. His name is Li Ming. Four Seas Commercial Bank accepted it.

Li Ming, who is in his 30s, was transferred to Zhangzhou to set up a branch shortly after he received instructions from the head office: he was asked to find a place where local characteristic industries are concentrated to open a bank, support interested family workshops to expand their scale, and promote the development of the entire industry.

It has been several months since he came to Zhangzhou. With the assistance of the Zhangzhou Jinyiwei Thousand Households Office, Li Ming has a relatively in-depth understanding of the local characteristic industries, and he also has a deep understanding of the issue of ticket numbers.

Shanxi Merchants have also done ticket number lending business in the big cities of Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces. Unlike Sihai Commercial Bank, Shanxi Merchants’ ticket number lending has high interest rates and requires land as collateral.

Li Ming agrees very much with the request of the head office to lend money, because he knows that this is the fastest and easiest business to get money; but Li Ming secretly slandered the commercial bank for such a low interest rate on loans.He didn't know that this was specially ordered by Zhu Youjian. The business's earning money was secondary, and the main purpose was to support the specialty industries to become bigger and stronger.

Both Jun'an Town and the adjacent Zhangpu Town are places with the most developed sugar industry, and more than [-]% of Zhangzhou's sugar comes from these two towns.After inspecting the two towns in person, Li Ming decided to open ticket offices in Jun'an and Zhangpu respectively to provide financial support to sugar mills who wanted to expand their production scale.

Zhang Quan, the shopkeeper of the Sihai Bank in Jun'an Town, was dispatched from Datong by the head office, and has many years of experience in lending bank accounts.When Li Chong and Li Xing came to the shop of Sihai Bank, he was talking with a merchant who wanted to borrow money.

This merchant is a merchant surnamed Wang from Suzhou Prefecture, who specializes in the business of trafficking frosted sugar, rock sugar, brown sugar, and brown sugar from Xinghua County to Hangzhou for sale.

Zhang Quan said with a smile: "Mr. Wang, my account has not been established for a long time, so the loan must be secured. As Yuanwai said just now, it is difficult for me to agree to this, after all, 2000 taels of silver It's not a small number; I hope Yuanwai Wang will be considerate!"

The name of this peddler is Wang Jing. He is about [-] years old and has been engaged in the sugar business for ten years, so he has quite a lot of experience.This time he came to Jun'an Town for more than a month. He had already bought a thousand stones of cane sugar of various colors. He sent the housekeeper to hire someone to transport it to Quanzhou Port, and then rented a ship to send it to Hangzhou. He himself stayed and waited for the return from Hangzhou. News, by the way hoard white sugar and rock sugar with extremely low output.

Frosted sugar as white as snow and large chunks of rock sugar are very popular in the area of ​​Hangzhou Prefecture. Basically, every time they bring goods back from Xinghua County, they will be snapped up by local dignitaries, wealthy businessmen and tycoons at high prices. empty.

However, the output of this white sugar is very small, accounting for only about [-]% of the total sucrose.Therefore, if you want to buy more white sugar, you have to live in the town for a long time, and often go to various houses and workshops to check it out.

Wang Jing purchased more than a thousand stones of sucrose with a large sum of cash last time, far exceeding the original amount each time.But recently, when he was searching back and forth between Jun'an Town and Zhangpu Town, he found that the cumulative production of white sugar and rock sugar was quite a lot. However, after buying too much sucrose last time, there was not much cash left. He inquired about the loan everywhere, and happened to meet the opening of the Four Seas Bank, and the loan interest was extremely low, so he rushed to the door, wanting to borrow 2000 taels of silver to buy Frost Sugar.

　At the request of book friends, I will change it to a chapter of more than [-] words in the future, and strive for two updates every day. I will speed up the progress and finish the book as soon as possible.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)