In the next few days, the Northern Expedition was victorious, and good news came almost every day, sometimes several in a day. Officials in Shuntian Prefecture celebrated, colorful flags were flying in Beiping City, and the people were beaming with joy, and almost everyone was happy.
It is believed that the extermination of the Tatars is just around the corner.
Wan Lei spends most of his time locked up in the laboratory, out of sight and out of mind. Anyway, whether he wins or loses, it has nothing to do with him. He might as well care about his own pocket.
"Brother Wan, look at this, isn't this dress beautiful?" Zhao Xueer burst into the laboratory with a gust of wind and circled around Wan Lei.
At this time, she was wearing a green jacket skirt, a blue stand-up collared jacket, and a pink embroidered cloud shoulder. She no longer looked like a tomboy. However, her hands were waving around and her feet were kicking. Why?
She doesn't even look like a girl. No wonder Mr. Zhao insists on binding her feet. I'm afraid only by binding her feet smaller can she learn to be a woman.
"It's okay." Wan Lei just glanced at her and ignored her.
"What do you mean it's just okay? Sister Wei'er made this specially for me. I originally wanted to wear it as a surprise for you, but I didn't expect that you have no interest at all. It's true." Zhao Xueer pursed her lips and became angry.
"Go, grind those spices into powder for me immediately." Wan Lei rolled his eyes at her and said angrily: "You still have fun? If you don't work hard to make money, you won't even be able to eat. How can you still have fun?!"
"Who doesn't know that all the hundreds of taels of silver you just earned went into your own pocket, and you don't give us any extra wages? I've never seen such an unscrupulous employer like you." Zhao Xueer still looked dissatisfied.
"Humph, you are a lazy employee, and you still want to make money? If you don't work hard in the future, I will fire you and let you go home and have your feet bound."
As soon as she heard that she was going to be driven home to have her feet bound, Zhao Xueer was like an eggplant beaten by frost - wilted and obediently went to grind the spices. However, the little stone mill was whirring as she turned it, and she seemed
She regarded it as a punching bag. Wan Lei didn't bother to pay attention to her, opened a large iron bucket, poured out the ingredients inside, and left quickly.
In fact, after more than ten days of hard work, Wan Lei has accumulated more than ten barrels of inventory. The reason why he did not make large quantities of creams for sale is because he did not want to lower the price. In addition, he always had a sense of crisis in his heart.
So whenever you have free time, you should stock up on more goods to ensure that you will not be left with nothing if something happens in the future.
After the imperial army set out for the Northern Expedition, Zhao Hongru's kerosene business was finally launched. Every day he would catch up with several carriages and haul several kilograms of kerosene to sell in nearby markets. Although the common people had never seen this kind of oil,
Its price is only half of that of ordinary lamp oil, but its sales are slowly opening up. He can always earn a few taels of silver a day, and old man Zhao is naturally smiling from ear to ear.
In terms of money-making ability, Old Man Zhao is obviously not as good as Wan Lei. Wan Lei can earn at least dozens of taels of silver a day, which is several times that of Old Man Zhao. This is still the result of self-pressure on production volume. However, Old Man Zhao can't help it.
He is envious of others because he does not have their technology, and a primary product like kerosene has little technical content, so of course it is not very valuable.
It was not that Old Man Zhao had never thought about stealing the technology of refining tiger balm, but after seeing the production process, he was still confused and couldn't understand the principle at all. In the end, he had to give up this idea and go to oil extraction and refining obediently.
This is like primary processing work.
Although his ability to earn money is not as good as Wan Lei's, Old Man Zhao is still quite contented. Regardless of how many taels of silver he earns in a day, most people cannot earn that much in a month. The so-called "more than the better, less than the better", Zhao Hongru looked at himself
His pocket is expanding day by day, and his self-confidence is also rapidly expanding. He is thinking about how to expand sales and increase production all day long. In short, he has become a complete philistine, and his whole body smells of copper.
Zhao Hongru was extracting, refining and selling oil with great fanfare, and made a lot of money. Naturally, this kind of thing could not be hidden from the eyes of the villagers. Some elders were jealous and would inevitably make some sarcastic remarks. Some squires even wanted to make money.
Keep the road as your own.
However, Zhao Hongru is not someone to be bullied. I don’t know who he came from, and he actually met Liu Tong, a Confucian professor in Shuntian Prefecture. Don’t underestimate Professor Liu, he is also a ninth-rank official, in charge of a government.
The official academy, to put it simply, the entire Shuntian Mansion’s scholars were under his control.
With the support of Professor Liu, those squires dare not go too far for the time being. After all, their children all have to study and take exams to become officials. If they offend Professor Liu, they will definitely not get good results in the future. It can be seen that Zhao Hongru is really
As people mature, they can win over the right people at the lowest cost.
Wan Lei is really not as good as Zhao Hongru when it comes to finding a backer. He has not been able to find a decent backer yet. Instead, he has offended Cao Guogong's government because of his affairs. In addition, there are still some remnants of Yan thieves watching nearby.
Although you can make money, you can't protect yourself.
It's not that Wan Lei doesn't want to find a backer, it's because it's hard to find a backer. After all, he has a grudge against Cao Guogong's government. General backers are unreliable, and reliable ones can't be hooked up, so there's no use worrying. He has to keep a low profile and do good deeds.
Plant trees to enjoy early shade in the future.
No, as soon as he had a few dozen taels of silver in hand, he went to "secretly discuss" the establishment of a school with Zhao Hongru.
In fact, there is nothing difficult to build a school. Just renovate a dilapidated temple near Zhaozhuang and create a few spacious classrooms. The difficulty lies in the teachers. Without good teachers, no matter how spacious and bright the classrooms are, they are useless. And Shuntian Mansion has repeatedly
After the war, celebrities naturally stopped hanging out in this area. It was so difficult to recruit famous teachers.
"My dear nephew, I have told Mr. Liu about this. He said that there is an old Master Li in Lijiazhuang in the north of the city. He is a man of great talent and virtue, and he is a learned man. However, this bride price..." Zhao Hongru hesitated, obviously
, the bride price is too high and he cannot accept it.
"You come forward and ask him to come over when he is free and let me see him. As long as he has real talent and practical knowledge, the bride price is not a problem. I will pay it. As for the books, pens, inks, paper and inkstones required for the school, I only provide ink.
How about you wrap up the rest?"
"Well, this is okay, let's settle it like this." Zhao Hongru gritted his teeth and finally agreed. In fact, the reason why he was willing to pay this unjust money was mainly because his son had died in the war, and now
He only had one daughter, and she was married off. If he didn't do good deeds and recognize a few godchildren and grandchildren, I'm afraid there would be no one to show him off when he died.
Wan Lei and Zhao Hongru talked about some details again, and suddenly heard a knock on the door, and then heard Zhao Quanzhong shouting: "Boss, are you there? Come back to the inn quickly, there are distinguished guests.