The great hero of the Silk Road, starting from a farm farmer

Chapter 284: What is the purpose of putting porcelain on iron?
For ordinary people, the military and state affairs discussed by Luoyang officials were nothing more than a topic of conversation about distant places after a happy life.

After leaving Luoyang, the people who were running around for a living couldn't even figure out where the Mimeng people were.

Ren Damin pushed his heavy bicycle and climbed to the top of a slope between Hanzhong and Qinzhou official roads with difficulty.

Finally, when we reach the top of the slope, there will be a long downhill. The speed will be very fast and people will not have to work hard. The advantages of riding a bicycle for business can be highlighted.

At the end of last year, Ren Damin spent most of his savings from several years of business and bought a bicycle in Taoyang City.At that time, the fellow villagers who were doing business together were hesitant, and some even thought that he was spending money in vain.

Ren Damin sneered at the shortsightedness of his fellow villagers.They don’t see the benefits of using bicycles to do business. With bicycles, they can run back and forth between Hanzhong and Taoyang in the same time, while fellow villagers without bicycles can only travel between Qinzhou and Taoyang. Ran back and forth.

A long journey naturally has its own benefits. A trip from Taoyang to Hanzhong can make more than twice as much money as before. In one year, not only can I earn the money to buy a bicycle, but I can also If you have plenty of money, you would be a fool not to buy a bicycle.Ren Damin, who owned a bicycle, broke away from the caravan composed of people from the same village from afar, joined a new caravan composed of people who also owned bicycles, and started a new business.

"Brother Ren, it would be better if the trade route we take is all downhill!" Accompanied by the howling mountain wind, the companions who were traveling together were shouting and chatting while enjoying the convenience of traveling without effort.

"How can such a good thing happen? It's all downhill and uphill. Who can walk on it? If you ask me, it's best if it's all flat. You don't put in much effort and you don't walk slowly." Ren Damin felt that his companion's idea was too naive. In the world, There is no such thing as a good thing.

"This slope must be twenty miles long, right? If we walk on two legs, it will probably take more than an hour. If we ride a bicycle, we can reach the bottom of the slope in less than half an hour. I think this bicycle is born to Those of us who traveled far away did it.”

While listening to the gossips of his companions, Ren Damin and his bicycle caravan, composed of Qinzhou businessmen, soon arrived at the bottom of the slope.

After descending to the bottom of the slope, they continued to move forward on their bicycles. That night, everyone arrived at the border of Qinzhou.

Since the severe drought the year before last, Qinzhou's life has become somewhat depressed. This is one of the reasons why Ren Damin decided to buy a bicycle.

If we continue to do business in the old way, the goods picked from Taoyang to Qinzhou will not be sold in the local countryside. We can only sell the goods to big businessmen from outside. Those people will lower the prices very hard. They treated Ren Damin like this For small businessmen, there is no profit margin.

With the convenience of bicycles, Ren Damin transported small pieces of ironware produced in Taoyang to villages in Hanzhong for sale. They were well received by the local people and the profit margins were large.The price of the ironware produced in Yungu is too cheap. If it is shipped to Hanzhong and sold at double the price, it is cheaper and of better quality than the local ironware.

Another advantage of taking the Hanzhong trade route is that you can receive first-hand eucommia gum from local farmers, transport it to Yungu, and sell it directly to the military supply house without having to travel to villages. This can more than triple the value and make money. Don't make it too easy.

Bicycle trading has more obvious benefits for small traveling traders like Ren Damin.The traveling speed is faster than the mule and horse teams of big merchants, and the goods transported are nearly twice as much as the load.Calculated in this way, even if they travel long distances, they will not suffer a loss compared with big merchants in terms of cost.In other words, with the bicycle as a tool, small businessmen who run single gangs have little cost disadvantage when competing with large businesses with large scale.If it is land transportation, large merchants have no other means to reduce transportation costs lower than Ren Damin and others.

The merchants who work alone also have the advantage of flexibility. Unlike large merchants, they have to bear extremely high manpower and energy storage costs, and they have to sell goods through layers of channels.As a result, Ren Damin and others can choose to wholesale goods to local small merchants in Hanzhong to shorten the time and cost of sales and payment collection.

If it were not for going further, there were too many checkpoints in Dazheng and it was not friendly to small businessmen crossing the border. Ren Damin and others discussed using bicycles to carry goods to the Central Plains, Sichuan and Sichuan for business.

After arriving in Taoyang City, Ren Damin sold more than 200 kilograms of glue and tea directly to the military supply house, and then started trading in the military supplier house.Let’s take a look at what we should bring with us when we go to Hanzhong again.

Ren Damin didn't even look at the area where other goods were sold in the military supply store. He just stared at the iron section.Because ironware is shipped quickly in Hanzhong, after doing business for several years, he summed up a set of business experience. Regardless of whether the profit is large or small, goods that ship quickly are good goods that small traveling merchants can get their hands on.

The glass from Yungu can earn four to five times the profit after being shipped to Dazheng, but small traveling merchants cannot make this money because they have no access to sales channels.Those who can spend a lot of money to buy glass are either rich or expensive, but ordinary people, who can afford it?

"My lord, why did you place the porcelain next to the ironware? You are not afraid of being careless. We rough guys bumped the porcelain when we were picking up the goods?" Ren Damin, who was wandering around the ironware area, accidentally saw the military supplier shop. The person actually placed the porcelain on the iron goods area, and couldn't help but remind the clerk.He was mainly afraid that he would get bumped while holding the iron tool.

"Brother, this is not the same thing as porcelain. It's a new thing produced by the government. It's called enamel. It looks like porcelain, but it's actually iron. Naturally, it has to be placed in the iron goods area." The clerk saw that Ren Damin didn't know how to do it. Then he explained in words.

"Ah? This is made of iron. Why do I think it's porcelain?" Ren Damin picked up an enamel jar and looked at it in disbelief.

If you look closely, you can see that it is indeed made of iron, because iron is exposed on some corners where the porcelain is not well polished.Putting porcelain onto iron?What is the purpose of doing this?In terms of workmanship, it looks very rough, far less exquisite than porcelain.No wonder Ren Damin found these porcelains to be weird when he looked at them from a distance. The shapes of the porcelains were different from real porcelains.

"Sir, do you sell this kind of enamel well? I saw that the goods are very thick, and no one comes to buy them." When he first got started, Ren Damin was a little disdainful of the quality of enamel, but since the military supplier company will Things are placed here for wholesale (the military supply store that Ren Damin visited specializes in the import and export of goods and does not do unit price retail business.), so there is nothing to say.

"Brother, don't look at the roughness of the goods. Let me tell you, the sales of these things are really not bad. But most of them are merchants who go through the feudal route to buy the goods. They have all gone to the market in the past few days, and now I see some It’s deserted. When they come here, there are hundreds or even thousands of items to buy.”

"Ah? The feudal people like to use coarse goods! It's no wonder, they can't use good goods." When he heard that he was buying a feudal state, Ren Damin suddenly felt that he had figured out the business rationale, and the feudal clan could not buy it. Good porcelain can only be dealt with with bad porcelain.

(End of this chapter)