Staff member Zhang Huayu went to the front desk to settle the bill. Such a seafood dinner only cost 5 silver dollars. It cannot be said to be very cheap, but it is really not expensive.
In the afternoon, according to Lu Xiangsheng's plan, he was going straight to the place where he could buy bicycles. The sooner he could achieve his goal, the better.
But Lu Xiangsheng suddenly became less anxious. Instead, he wanted to walk around more in this harbor city and learn more about the situation in Xujiazhuang, because only by knowing yourself and your enemy can you win every battle.
Sun Yuanhua, Zhang Huayu and other staff members all expressed support. In other words, they were also curious about Xujiazhuang and wanted to know more about this potential opponent.
"Let me take you to the wholesale trade market in the south of the city. If your purpose of coming here is to do business, you will find business opportunities in the trade market." The guide Liu Sanbao suggested.
"Can I buy bicycles at the trade fair?" Lu Xiangsheng asked with a sudden thought.
"There is a bicycle shop there, so there should be channels for purchasing." Liu Sanbao said.
"Okay, then let's go to the trade market!" Lu Xiangsheng nodded.
It's just that the Harbor City is very large, and the trade market is more than ten miles away. It takes half an hour to walk there. Liu Sanbao suggested that everyone take a rickshaw there, which can save a lot of time.
"Is the taxi fare expensive?" Zhang Huayu asked. He had already noticed the bicycles with three wheels coming and going on the road. There was a seat with a canopy at the back, which could seat three people.
Looks like, the speed is three to four times that of an adult walking.
"It's not expensive. It only costs about 300 yuan for the six of us to take two cars." Liu Sanbao said.
"It's not expensive. At this price elsewhere, you can hire someone to carry the slider all day long." Zhang Huayu shook his head repeatedly.
"Sir, this kind of customized passenger tricycle costs thousands of silver dollars each. It will be scrapped in ten years at most. The annual depreciation cost will be hundreds of taels. It has no bumps, is protected from wind and rain, and allows for better sightseeing.
Is fifty cents per person really expensive for the scenery in the city?" Liu Sanbao analyzed.
"Okay, let's take a taxi there." Lu Xiangsheng nodded and said.
Soon, six people piled into two human-powered tricycles and headed straight to the wholesale trade market in the south of the city.
Lu Xiangsheng and others were curious to find that the tricycle they were riding not only strictly abided by the traffic rules of driving on the right, but also when passing through some intersections with heavy flow of people and traffic, there would be special traffic policemen holding traffic light signs.
Standardize the passage of pedestrians and vehicles on the road. If there are more people and fewer vehicles, more passing time will be allocated to pedestrians. If there are fewer people and more vehicles, more passing time will be allocated to vehicles, so as to improve the efficiency of pedestrian and vehicle traffic and avoid congestion.
If there is a violator who does not obey the traffic rules and runs a red light, he will be punished and responsible for holding the traffic light sign. Unless he finds the next violator to replace him, the traffic light sign weighing more than 20 kilograms should not be lifted for a long time, thus making the violation more difficult.
Those who keep this lesson firmly in mind.
"Wonderful, wonderful."
Sun Yuanhua repeatedly praised that the most exquisite management method in the world is to turn the offenders into supervisors and let the next offenders relieve themselves without imposing harsh punishments, which has a very good restraint effect.
…
The wholesale trade market in the south of the city covers an area of millions of square meters, has tens of thousands of stalls, and sells countless types of goods.
Lu Xiangsheng and others felt dizzy as soon as they entered the maze-like commercial market, which was bustling with people and packed with people, unable to tell the difference between east, west and north. Unless there was an acquaintance to guide them, it would be very easy to get lost.
After barely adapting to the lively environment here.
Then, facing the goods on the store stalls, they all let out uncontrollable exclamations.
"This snow salt is too cheap. It retails for eight cents per catty. If you buy more than a hundred catties, it only costs five cents per catty. There are discounts for buying more. I remember that the snow salt in Damingfu seems to cost one hundred cents per catty. How much can I buy?
They don’t even lower the price. It’s only five cents here, and the price difference is twenty times. If we had known there would be such huge profits, we should have formed a caravan and come to Harbor City to buy salt.”
Sun Yuanhua exclaimed. In addition to serving as a staff member in the Tianxiong Army, he was also responsible for some logistics and procurement matters. He dealt with a lot of businessmen. Now that he saw the wholesale price of snow salt in Harbor City, he realized that in the snow salt area alone
, how badly he was ripped off by those businessmen.
"The quality of snow salt is so high, the wholesale price is as low as five cents per catty, and stall owners can make a profit. Nowadays, Harbor City controls more than 90% of the world's Shanghai salt production. How many cents per catty will its production cost be?" Lu Xiangsheng pinched his fingers.
While holding a pinch of snow salt, I thought of another thing.
And in the trade market.
The price was so cheap that they exclaimed, and it was far more than commercial products like snow salt.
The steel products in the iron shop are also very cheap and of excellent quality. For example, a kitchen knife only costs 100 francs, a hoe costs 150 francs, a sickle costs 80 francs, and a hammer, axe, hatchet, etc. all cost less than 500 francs. The average price is
, generally more than half cheaper than elsewhere (the price of ironware in ancient times was very high, and it was a valuable item that caused red faces and even broken relationships between brothers when family property was divided).
Cornmeal, potato flour, sweet potato vermicelli and other coarse grains in grain stores are very cheap. The wholesale price is 3 to 5 Wen per catty. One silver dollar (=1000 Wen) can buy two or three shi, but the taste, texture, nutrition, etc. are all inferior.
It is not much worse than rice, wheat and other fine grains, but the price is less than half. If more of this kind of grain can be purchased to replace part of the fine grains, the soldiers will be able to eat more fully, and the expenses will be reduced a lot.
In addition, there are dried kelp, dried seaweed, canned marine fish, etc. The price can be described as cheap and large in quantity. It not only has umami taste, but also contains a lot of salt. It is a very good side dish for military rations and is easy to carry.
, has the value of buying in large quantities.
Of course, there are also products that are prohibitively expensive but have great practical value.
For example, mechanical watches, the cheapest models cost hundreds of silver dollars each.
For example, a telescope with only ten times magnification function costs three hundred silver dollars per unit at wholesale price.
For example, the most popular record player nowadays has a wholesale price of three thousand silver dollars, but it can be used to play some music or tell stories, which greatly relieves the mental pressure of soldiers.
It's just that these things are too expensive. Although Lu Xiangsheng and others want them all and want to buy them all, the five of them carry more than 500 silver dollars in total, and they can't even buy a few items after spending them all.
What's more, the purpose of their coming here this time is to buy bicycles, not other things. They cannot be distracted by these irrelevant things.
So they stopped wandering around and looked around, and went straight to the bicycle shop. In the trade market, there happened to be a bicycle display shop specifically for sea trade merchants. There were several bicycle samples on display, but not
Responsible for selling, just letting potential customers take a look and try it out. If they are interested in buying, we will discuss it further.
Lu Xiangsheng and others entered the bicycle shop and took a look.
There are five models in total.
The wholesale prices are: 5,000 silver dollars, 3,500 silver dollars, 2,000 silver dollars, 1,800 silver dollars, and 500 silver dollars.
Only the newly launched Jinlong brand bicycles are the cheapest, but they cost a full 500 silver dollars each.
The group of them took out all the bits and pieces they had and could only afford to buy a mere car.
"If I want to buy 10,000 cars, how much cheaper can the wholesale price of this car be?" Lu Xiangsheng asked the store owner.
"Ten thousand vehicles. The sales volume of the whole country next year will not be that much. If you can really afford the money, it would be okay to make it cheaper. If you can't afford it, you deliberately place such a large order. I apologize for the inconvenience."
A few days ago, the boss received a turbaned Tianzhu businessman, who also made a scary order, but only took out a deposit for ten bicycles, and then asked him to ship a thousand bicycles, and the payment would be made in a few days.
It is added that the boss almost complied with the request for the sake of performance, but after the owner learned about it, he stopped it in time, thus avoiding heavy losses. From now on, all Tianzhu businessmen will be banned from entering the Harbor City.
So now, the boss is not only subconsciously wary of these potential customers who place large orders at every turn, but is also very disgusted.
"I have no money now, but I will think of a way to pay for the goods. Please ask the big boss behind you to discuss it with me in detail. I am the famous magistrate Lu Xiangsheng, and I am also the military commander of the Tianxiong Army. As long as your big boss is willing to discuss it with me in detail.
If we talk, we will be able to work out a way to buy tens of thousands of bicycles." Lu Xiangsheng announced his family name.
But the boss sneered and immediately kicked Lu Xiangsheng and others out of the store, because the boss had determined that they were a group of liars who wanted to gain nothing.
fail.
Lu Xiangsheng, who had only five hundred silver dollars in his pocket but planned to buy 10,000 bicycles, was naturally rejected and failed.
but!
Lu Xiangsheng will not give up so easily, he will continue to try other methods, unless every road is blocked, unless there is no possibility.
There is no way, even though he is a thirty-three-year-old middle-aged man this year, he still has a stubborn character that will never look back until he hits the wall.
I saw that it was already evening and it was getting late.
Lu Xiangsheng and others left the trade market, planning to find a place to eat first, and then find a hotel where they could stay, settle down, and then make long-term plans.
However, I have just stepped out of the import and export trade market.
There was a snap.
Thousands of street light poles in Harbor City were lit up one after another. The light emitted by the fifty-watt LED light-emitting tubes could still make a small area look like daylight.
And when all the street lights are lit together, it creates a sea of lights, a scene like a fairy city on earth.
Plus the green laser sweeping back and forth from the top of the White Castle.
Harbor City, which is like a city that never sleeps, is so shocking and beautiful that Lu Xiangsheng and others were once again stunned.
Fortunately, they already had immunity and quickly returned to normal. Then, on Liu Sanbao's recommendation, they found a specialty beef hotpot restaurant. It had beef bone soup base, covered with chili oil, cut into thin slices and cooled with crushed ice.
Beef, as well as beef tripe, yellow throat, beef liver, beef kidney, beef tendon and other beef offal, were all put into the hot pot. The beef slices were served one after another. Everyone enjoyed a beef feast.
Everyone was sweating profusely after eating and felt so refreshed.
But beef is expensive. This meal cost 22 silver dollars, but compared to the price of beef elsewhere, it is still very affordable.
After eating and drinking, I found a three-star hotel not far from the hot pot restaurant, booked two triple rooms, and paid the room rate for five days - a total of ten silver dollars.
By this time.
Everyone, including Lu Xiangsheng, was very tired. They just wanted to take a hot bath and then lie down and have a good sleep.
But the news broadcast at seven o'clock in the evening resounded throughout the city. Two announcers, a man and a woman, used their magnetic and clear voices to announce some current news about today, March 14th.
This temporarily dispelled the sleepiness of Lu Xiangsheng and others, and they pricked up their ears and listened to the broadcast that lasted for half an hour.
Staff Sun Yuanhua and Zhang Huayu took stock of the contents of the broadcast and found that among the 28 news items in total: 16 were related to Xujiazhuang, 10 were related to various parts of the Ming Dynasty, and 2 were related to overseas.
Emphasis was placed on the recent massacre of Chinese people by Spanish colonists in Luzon.
Then I felt extremely surprised and horrified.
"With a magical tool like radio, you can know what's happening in the world without leaving home."
"Xu Jiazhuang knows everything about the Ming Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty court affairs very clearly, as if they are transparent. It can be seen that Xu Jiazhuang's spies have penetrated deeply, but everyone in the Ming Dynasty knows very little about Xu Jiazhuang."
"This broadcast said that His Majesty spent all his internal funds and ordered all-out efforts to exterminate the bandits. However, the personal assets of Zhang Fengyi, Minister of War, increased from less than 300,000 taels last year to 880,000 taels today. Is this true or false?
? Or did Xu Jiazhuang deliberately fabricate this matter in order to slander and slander the imperial court and divide people's hearts?" Follower Lei Shi said.
"Why was Xujiazhuang so angry when the Chinese people were killed in the Luzon Kingdom thousands of miles away? He spoke so harshly and even killed millions of Hongyi people to pay for it with blood?"
"Xujiazhuang is unfathomable. It is different from our Ming Dynasty in every way. There are so many magical weapons. In addition, we use broadcasts every day to induce and tame the people. Over time, how can our Ming Dynasty defeat it?"
Sun Yuanhua's sigh caused everyone to fall into a long silence.