Hai Hongzhu said: "I don't believe it, how can a big dog make money?"
Hua Bushi said: "This is not a joke by Hua Bushi. You saw the banquet I ordered for shopkeeper Sun yesterday. Whether we can successfully open the business then will all fall on this big dog Baoliang. Now. What we have to do is to train Baoliang into one of the strongest fighting dogs in Okura City within three days."
Hai Hongzhu said: "Do you want to use that big dog to gamble with others?"
Hua Bushi said: "During the banquet, I will use Baoliang to fight a powerful fighting dog in this city. However, it is not to win money through gambling, but just to let the principals of major business houses in this city understand that we train fighting dogs. It’s just a matter of skill.”
Hai Hongzhu said: "So you really want to start a business of helping people train fighting dogs?"
Hua Bushi nodded and said, "That's exactly it."
Hai Hongzhu frowned and said: "How much money can I make from this dog training business? How can I afford to repay the usurious loan you borrowed? Are you lying to me again?"
Hua Bushi said seriously: "This kind of dog training business can't make much money elsewhere, but in this Okura city, I'm afraid there is no business that is more profitable than this!"
Regarding the annual "Purple Sky Terrace Dog Fighting Conference" in Okura City, when Hua Bushi asked shopkeeper Sun about the situation on the island earlier, shopkeeper Sun didn't say anything. That's because this "dog fighting conference" is a specialized event in the city. The affairs of large merchants engaged in ocean trade had little to do with ordinary people, so shopkeeper Sun took it for granted that Hua Bushi would not be interested.
"Purple Sky Terrace" is a 100-foot-high platform located in the north of Okura Castle. There are not only pavilions on the platform, but also 18 venues dedicated to dog fighting. Every year on the fifth day of May, on this platform, A dog fighting conference was held in Okura Castle, where hundreds of fighting dogs from major businesses in the city and trading companies from Western countries competed in rounds, and the rankings of each fighting dog were finally determined based on the number of winners and losers.
It is not easy to participate in the "Zixiao Terrace Dog Fighting Conference". The owner of each fighting dog participating in the conference must pay a thousand taels of silver to replenish membership membership when registering, regardless of how many fights the dog has won or its ranking. , there is no bonus of one tael of silver. Under these rules, ordinary people will certainly not participate.
There is no prize money because the bet in the "Zixiao Terrace Dog Fighting Conference" is not silver coins, but the priority of ocean trade at the port. And the value of this priority, in the eyes of major trading houses, is enough to be worth it. Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of silver taels.
Where there are interests, there will be disputes, just as where there are people, there will be rivers and lakes.
Ocean trade is a type of transaction that is extremely profitable. Naturally, competition among fellow merchants is inevitable, which will inevitably lead to conflicts and fights.
Every year, merchant ships from the Ming Dynasty in China would transport a large amount of goods to Okura Island, mainly tea, raw silk, satin and porcelain. Large cargo ship owners in the West would also transport cloth, spices, weapons and other items produced in their countries. .Among these goods, some are in very short supply and are being competed by merchants from both sides, while others are not so popular.
What Okura Castle implements is free trade. There are no restrictions on transactions between cargo ships and the island's merchants. Therefore, a shipload of goods in short supply arrived at the port, which immediately caused several merchants to compete. The situation of competition. When the bidding failed to gain an advantage, many merchants began to use other methods. Most of the trading houses on the island hired bodyguards and warriors. They were originally used to guard the stores and guard the warehouses. At this time, they happened to send Useful.
As more and more merchants settled in the city, ocean business became more and more prosperous, and these fierce battles became more and more fierce. Not only did many people die and get injured, but they also repeatedly caused chaos in the city, affecting the trade of all parties. Even if he was in charge,
When the city's "Wanjintang" intervenes, it is often not easy to mediate. After all, in free trade, if both parties offer the same price, there is no certainty to which company the goods will be sold to.
Finally, five years ago, the city lord Sima Zhufeng was determined to try to stop such disputes, so he spent a lot of money to build Zixiaotai and set the rules for the annual "Zixiao Terrace Dog Fighting Conference".
The Lord of Okura City issued regulations that the trading houses with higher rankings at the "Purple Sky Terrace Dog Fighting Conference" can have priority in trading with merchant ships coming to the port. For the same ship of goods, those with higher rankings must at least compete with each other if they want to bid.
The former is 10% more expensive.
It is of course much better to use fighting dogs to replace human fights, and to follow established rules and compete fairly and openly than to have random fights without restrictions.
The method of dog fighting was chosen because this kind of betting competition for raising and training fierce dogs is popular in both Chinese and Western countries. It is not only accepted by Ming Dynasty merchants in China, but also by trading companies from Western countries.
This is a mandatory rule set by the city lord Sima Zhufeng. All ocean-going trading firms in the city must abide by it, even the merchant ships of "Wanjintang" are no exception. And if anyone violates it, he will be expelled from Dacang immediately.
The city is no longer allowed to do business in the city.
You must know that ocean-going merchant ships sailing to Okura Island generally carry at least tens of thousands of silver taels of goods, and there are even many merchant ships with goods worth more than hundreds of thousands of silver taels. If the island's merchants can give priority to transactions, this 10%
The price difference is by no means a small amount, especially for large commercial banks. Over the course of a whole year, if they conduct dozens of transactions, the difference will be at least hundreds of thousands of silver taels.
Now that the rules have been set, dog breeding has become popular on Okura Island for a while. Various businesses have spent huge sums of money to search for the strongest fighting dogs in Middle-earth and hired the best trainers with high salaries, just for this purpose.
Fight for a better ranking in the "Purple Sky Conference". A number of trading companies in Western countries also found ferocious beasts from the country and transported them to Okura Island on ocean-going cargo ships to participate in the dog fighting conference.
In fact, for the large cargo ship owners coming to Okura Island from Western countries, the tea and raw silk produced in China are in short supply, and they can earn extremely high profits by shipping them back to Europe. Their demand for trade is far greater than that of China.
The demand for their goods is much stronger for the merchants, so they place more emphasis on the rankings of the dogfighting conventions.
In the past few years, most of the fighting dogs ranked at the top of the "Purple Sky Conference" every year were from Western trading companies. The "Dog King" who ranked first at the conference last year was an oceangoing dog from Spain.
The merchant ship owner Gongola kept a large gray-haired dog named "Gala".
After Hua Bushi and Cao Muyun heard about the "Zixiao Dog Fighting Club" in the city yesterday, they immediately became interested. Now they only have a few thousand taels of silver in hand, and if they want to do ocean-going trade, they often need tens of thousands.
Two, so we must make a lot of money as soon as possible.
Cao Muyun was originally an official in the capital, and he was no stranger to playing with birds and dogs, and Hua Bushi was an expert in this art. The two discussed opening a workshop to help people train dogs, so as to make money.
After collecting some silver, you can also take the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the many ship owners and merchants in this city so that you can make bigger deals in the future.
If you want to make money quickly, you must use extraordinary means. Each business in this city has its own animal trainers hired with large sums of money. Even if a new dog training studio is opened to make a living, it will be difficult to do business with these businesses. It's never easy.
So Hua Bushi made a plan and spent all his money to buy the big dog Baoliang. He was going to hold a banquet at the Yuelai Hotel and invite the principals of various businesses in the city to use Baoliang to challenge another " "Ruixiangji" the fighting dog "Gate" on the ship.
"Haifeng" ranked thirty-three in last year's "Zixiao Terrace Dog Fighting Conference", while Baoliang ranked eighty-sixth, which is a far cry from each other. If Baoliang can defeat Hayate, it will be extraordinary, and he will be able to win in the eyes of everyone. The ability of the dog training studio opened by Hua Bushi and Cao Muyun was proven in front of them.
Hua Bushi spent a lot of time to tell Hai Hongzhu the whole thing. He also admitted that he was really poor now and had no money to circulate, so he came up with the trick and mortgaged Hai Hongzhu to " Boss He from the Mingyue Club borrowed 1,500 taels of silver. According to this young master, as soon as the banquet is over in three days, a big business will definitely ask them to train fighting dogs on their behalf, and then they can Repay the loan shark debt owed.
It took a lot of effort for Hai Hongzhu to understand what Hua Bushi said, but the more she listened, the more frightened she felt. Although Hai Hongzhu didn't know much about ocean trade or dog fighting, in her case Come to think of it, Baoliang was ranked eighty-sixth in the dog fighting competition. How could it be so easy for him to defeat Gao Feng, who was more than forty places ahead? The evil young master actually gave away all his property, even her net worth, so casually It's too much to bet your life on this dog fight that has little chance of winning!
It's a pity that now, she has no choice but to gamble with Hua Bushi, and there seems to be no other way.
The Hai family has never been rich, and the old boxer Hai is very economical in spending money. When he opened a martial arts school in the countryside, he always taught his children to learn to be diligent and thrifty in running the house, and not to get into the bad habit of excessive gambling. Therefore, Hai Hongzhu's concept of money has always been very conservative. , but she didn’t expect that this young master was so bold and crazy about gambling, which was really hard for her to accept.
Hai Hongzhu was wondering how she could have wanted this dandy young master to be her real husband before. If she had followed Hua Bushi all her life, even if she wasn't used as a pawn and sold by him, she would probably be taken advantage of by this guy's crazy adventures. If your behavior scares you to death, the consequences will definitely be bad.
Hua Bushi didn't seem to care about Hai Hongzhu's look of shock and anger on his face and his murderous look, saying, "Ms. Hongzhu, I've made everything clear to you! As the saying goes, a husband and wife are of the same mind, and their strength is as strong as gold. Now only if we work together and train Baoliang into the most powerful fighting dog within three days can we earn back the silver and prevent my wife from being kidnapped by the 'broken family'."