Sanwei Bookstore is an industry of Zheng’s family in Xingyang.

Back then, due to the influence of Xinhua Bookstore, Sanwei Bookstore almost did not go bankrupt.

Fortunately, Manager Zheng from Sanwei Bookstore is still quite capable, and has helped Sanwei Bookstore overcome difficulties again and again.

With the spread of the technology of papermaking workshops and printing workshops under Xinhua Bookstore, Sanwei Bookstore has gradually recovered.

Although I can't sit at the first place in Chang'an City now, the second place is very stable.

Just last year, Manager Zheng made another very important proposal. After spending all his efforts, he finally convinced Zheng Hai, the head of the Zheng family in Chang'an City, to agree to open a paper workshop in Nanyang.

In order to make this papermaking workshop run as soon as possible, Manager Zheng spent a lot of effort and directly stayed in Nanyang with a group of people for nearly a year.

"Shopkeeper, I have calculated the preliminary results. The papers are placed here and produced in Chang'an City. The production cost is reduced by more than half.

Even if the transportation costs are included, our costs can be cut in half.

In this way, the profits of selling paper in our Sanwei Bookstore suddenly increased, and we can also carry out some promotional activities frequently.

Immediately afterwards, the cost of printing our books can also drop significantly, and we can consider regaining our former first place."

Xiang Jin is the foreign relative of Manager Zheng. This time he went to Nanyang, the finance department naturally had to bring someone worthy of trust.

Fortunately, the cost calculation of the papermaking workshop is not particularly difficult. Xiang Jin, who worked in Sanwei Bookstore for a period of time, quickly got started.

"Are you sure there is such a big difference in production costs? Don't make mistakes?"

Manager Zheng naturally hoped that the lower the cost of paper, the better, but he was also afraid that Xiang Jin would make a mistake, which would be embarrassing.

"Yes, there are indeed such a big difference. I'll give you a few main differences and you may be able to understand it.

First, the wood for making paper is no longer allowed to be cut down randomly in the mountains and forests around Chang'an City. You need to transport wood slightly farther to make paper.

But there is no problem here in Nanyang. There are all kinds of woods, as many as you want.

The most important thing is that we don’t need to arrange people to cut down in person, we just need to make a noise saying that we are willing to purchase all kinds of wood here.

Especially for wood suitable for making paper we need, many people immediately came to sell it with wood.

Therefore, the cost of wood alone is far lower than that of Chang'an City. At the cheapest time, the cost of wood is only 100% or 20% of that of Chang'an City.

This has a very big impact. After all, a considerable amount of our papermaking costs are wood costs.

The second point is the processing cost of paper. The labor cost in Chang'an City is really too high now and has been rising continuously for nearly twenty years.

Nowadays, a craftsman who is still a good man costs several hundred cents a month. The kind of fourth-level and fifth-level workers who have mastered the core income will have even higher wages.

But in Nanyang, as long as you pay 100 yuan Kaiyuan Tongbao every month, a large number of people are willing to come.

In this way, our processing costs will naturally plummet.

Of course, the wages of the men and craftsmen brought from Chang'an City are higher than those in Chang'an City. This is one of the few places that are higher than the production cost of Chang'an City, but the impact is very small.

Finally, I made paper here, and any wastewater is discharged directly into the river without any treatment.

But in Chang'an City, there are more and more restrictions now.

Especially for our papermaking workshops, they can be described as harsh.

In addition, there are some other influencing factors, so our paper cost is much lower than that in Chang'an City."

In order to make Manager Zheng believe that he really carefully calculated the papermaking cost and introduced the specific situation.

"We just drained such dirty water into the river, there's no problem?"

The pollution problem of papermaking workshops is a problem that has attracted more attention from the people of Chang'an City in recent years.

Especially the people living around papermaking workshops often express their dissatisfaction in various ways.

Manager Zheng will make up his mind to come to Nanyang to build a workshop, which has a lot to do with this.

So he cared about this very much.

"Shopkeeper, please be honest! There is no shortage of water here in Nanyang, and there are rivers everywhere. Although our papermaking workshop is large in scale, it discharges a lot of sewage.

However, there are few people living downstream, and the people here have no idea about water pollution. As long as we are willing to come here to build workshops, they will not be too happy.

Although the people here have a unique geographical environment, they will not starve to death easily.

But they basically have no other income. If they want to buy something on the market, they basically have no money on hand.

But now it’s different. They can just cut down some trees and get to Kaiyuan Tongbao, or come directly to our papermaking workshop to help, and they can also make money.

In this way, they can use the money to buy all kinds of supplies on the market.

You should know that in recent years, our Tang Dynasty merchants have occupied the market of the main population-gathering cities in Nanyang.

Every city has shops opened by our Tang Dynasty merchants, selling a variety of Tang Dynasty goods.

Whether it is a lighter, a mirror, or other porcelain and ironware, it is very popular here."

Xiang Jin was obviously living in Nanyang during this period.

In fact, many people will find that the situation is much better than they imagined after coming to Nanyang.

I originally thought that this place was a land of the Southern Barbarians, and there were all kinds of dangers, but there were still many discomforts.

But after actually coming here, I found that this seemed to be the case.

Especially for those of them who came to Nanyang to build workshops, life here is so comfortable.

Any craftsman can hire a female slave if he takes out a little wage. No matter whether he is helping with work or doing anything else, there is no problem.

If you have enough money, you can still go to brothels in a larger city nearby. Whether it is Silla maids, Japanese women, or girls of other flavors in Nanyang, you can find them.

The most important thing is that after coming to Nanyang, their status has been greatly improved.

In Chang'an City, they are just ordinary friends and craftsmen.

But after arriving in Nanyang, they were people from the Celestial Kingdom.

In order to have the opportunity to follow Chang'an City, many people would even prefer to follow them back to be concubines.

This kind of experience is simply not too good.

Fortunately, the Tang Dynasty was not monogamous, otherwise the families would definitely become very disharmonious after these people came to Nanyang.

"I'm relieved if you say that! The cost of papermaking in Nanyang is so low, I'm still struggling with whether to further expand the scale. Now it seems that there is no need to struggling."

Manager Zheng still trusts Xiang Jin very much.

Since he said that there is no problem with the situation in the papermaking workshop here, it is obviously not a big problem.

Otherwise, these people would have been clamoring to return to Chang'an City.

"No need to worry at all! The shopkeeper has already had a lot of paper in our warehouse, and I think it can be transported to Puluo for sale first.

The Nanyang Daily there consumes a lot of paper every day. It was transported from the Tang Dynasty before, so the cost is definitely relatively high.

We entered Puluo at a price with absolute impact, and directly monopolized the market here, squeezing all the papermaking shops that came from the Tang Dynasty."

Xiang Jin is responsible for calculating the production costs of his own workshop and is particularly sensitive to the price.

Although their paper workshops do not produce high-grade paper, there is no problem in printing newspapers and general books.

In this case, as long as the price is low enough, those merchants will definitely choose their own paper.

Originally, the paper cost here was much lower than that in Chang'an City, but now I don't have to pay a particularly high transportation fee, but the other party needs it.

With one plus and one subtraction, the cost difference is even more exaggerated.

To be honest, even if the Zheng family’s papermaking workshop sells paper in Puluo at the price of Chang'an City, it can seize a large amount of market.

If it can be slightly lower, it won't be said.

Such a price is a huge profit for the Zheng family's papermaking workshop.

"Your idea is good! We first quickly occupied the paper market here in Puluo, and then occupied the paper markets everywhere overseas such as Qiwanggang, and finally returned to Chang'an City to compete with other paper workshops."

In a moment, Manager Zheng, who had a lot of business experience, made a decision.

"Shopkeeper, why did we go back to Chang'an City to sell papers as soon as possible? Or should we take them back and sell them earlier?

With the output of our paper workshops, as long as we continue to expand, these cities in Nanyang should not consume so much paper."

If you don’t understand, ask. Anyway, it’s my own relative, so Xiang Jin didn’t beat around the bush, and if you don’t understand, ask.

"It's very simple. No matter how many markets we sell overseas, no matter how many times we seize, the papermaking workshops in Chang'an City cannot feel much impact.

Because many of the shops selling paper here are goods brought by various merchants.

In this way, we can make money overseas freely without worrying about having competitors so soon.

But if we immediately enter Chang'an City, the situation will be different.

Other papermaking workshops that feel the crisis will immediately confirm the reasons behind it.

In this way, it is estimated that in less than a year, those paper workshops will come to Nanyang to build paper workshops.

Their skills are no worse than ours. We can make paper smoothly in Nanyang, and they can do it too.

Even though we have the first-mover advantage at that time, our advantages will be very limited, so we naturally don’t have much money to make.

That's why I thought about going to Chang'an City later to stimulate them, and I would like to make money overseas for a few years before talking about it."
To be continued...