North and South groceries

When Luo Yong ran out of money, he thought of selling goose feathers. When the emperor ran out of money, he thought of selling cement.

The cement recipe in the hands of the emperor is much more advanced than that of Xipo Village. He used to burn cement to pave the road, but now he has no money, so he had to let the road paving work go. Concentrate on burning cement, burn more and sell it for money.

The cement in Xipo Village only costs five or six yuan a load, while the cement in Chang'an City costs fifteen yuan a load. The price is so expensive, but there are still many people who buy it.

Not only people from Chang'an City buy it, but also many people from other places come here to buy cement, and merchants are also very active.

I heard that in some places in the south of the Yangtze River where there is frequent rainfall, they especially like this kind of cement. Before that, many people bought some earth and cement transported from Lishi County at a high price to repair manors and roads.

Although the cement in Chang'an City costs fifteen yuan a load, his side is relatively south after all. If it relies on water transportation and travels all the way down the river, the transportation cost will be relatively small. The quality of cement produced in Chang'an City is also better, so generally speaking, it is more cost-effective for them to buy cement produced in Chang'an City.

The emperor started to sell cement, and Luo Yong lost more than half of his cement business there. Even people from Taiyuan City stopped buying cement from him, and would rather travel thousands of miles to Chang'an City to buy it.

As a result, many local porters in Lishi County had no choice but to change their jobs. Instead of carrying cement, they bought soybean meal and soy sauce from Luo Sanlang and went to the village outside to collect goose down.

On this day, when Zhao Chen came to Xipo Village on horseback, he saw Luo Yong squatting on the side of the dirt road bargaining with a merchant.

The merchant brought a cart of goose down from another place and asked Luo Yong to exchange it for wormwood soap. Luo Yong told him that ten taels of goose down would be exchanged for one piece of wormwood soap. Pulled up.

"...I heard that one or two goose downs can be exchanged for three catties of soybean meal here." The vendor always felt that he would be at a disadvantage if he counted ten taels of goose down and a piece of soap.

"It's about the same." Luo Yong told him, "The soybean meal here is only sixteen or seventeen cents a load."

"Sixteen or seven renminbi for a load of soybean meal..." So the guy started counting with his fingers, but he couldn't figure it out.

"Once soybean meal can be exchanged for more than 30 taels of goose down, sixteen or seven taels is almost three pieces of wormwood soap. Do you think ten taels of goose down is a piece of wormwood soap? It is reasonable to say that it takes more than ten taels to exchange one piece. I have already Wipe off the change for you." Luo Yong explained to him in detail.

"Then my carload of goose down can't be exchanged for 100 yuan of soap?" This guy's previous expectations were obviously too high, probably influenced by the cashmere, thinking that this goose down would also be very valuable.

"Why don't you pull a few more trucks next time? The goose down over there shouldn't be expensive, right?" It's really not worthwhile to travel all the way to pull such a truckload of goods, so Luo Yong gave it to him. Said: "Okay, I will give you five more pieces of wormwood soap, and next time there will be goose down, and you will bring it to me."

"Okay!" The goose down seller was much happier when he heard that. His carload of goose down costs about 900 yuan, and he can exchange 90 yuan for wormwood soap, plus Luo Sanlang's extra five yuan, then There are 95 yuan.

Although the transaction process was not as beautiful as he had imagined, but with the 95 pieces of wormwood soap back, he could still make a fortune.

But at present, the price of this goose down is still far lower than that of cashmere, but the price of that cashmere is too high. These small traders have little capital and basically don't touch it very much. They are all collected by some big merchants.

Although the profit of this goose down is lower, the cost is also lower. Relatively speaking, the risk is much lower. Moreover, Luo Sanlang seems to be buying for a long time, so there is no need to worry about the sales. Get some wormwood soap from Luo Sanlang. , Take it to other places to sell, and you can make a lot of money if you sell it.

"Sanlang doesn't make cashmere now, but started to make goose down?" Zhao Chen led the horse, stood not far away with a smile, and waited for the two of them to finish talking, and then said.

Luo Yong raised his head and laughed immediately: "Zhao Dalang came so late this year, I thought you were going to mess with my cashmere."

"Hahaha, who would dare to disrespect the cashmere of your coffin board?" Zhao Chen joked.

"Don't tell me, there really is." Luo Yongke remembered Yan Liu's stroke, "Why did you come here alone, where is the cashmere?"

"It's all in the back. The bullock cart moves slowly, so I'll come here on horseback first." Zhao Chen raised his finger and pointed behind him, and said.

"Okay, let my disciples pick it up, let's go to eat first." Luo Yong patted his clothes and stood up from the side of the road, then took out a small notebook and a pen from his arms, took off the pen cap, and wrote on the notebook. Scribble down a line and hand it to the goose down seller: "You take this note to my yard, just as we both agreed, you won't miss a piece of soap."

The vendor took the note and went happily, while Luo Yong and Zhao Chen walked slowly on the concrete road.

I haven't seen him for more than a year, Luo Yong has obviously grown taller, and Zhao Chen looks rougher than before, probably because he has been on the prairie for a long time.

"This entry is not as smooth as last year." Zhao Chen said to Luo Yong.

"But you were stopped?" Luo Yong asked.

"The number of officers and soldiers stationed at Mengmen Pass has more than doubled compared to last year, and the process of entering the pass is extremely cumbersome. We could have arrived a few days ago, but it was a waste of three days." Zhao Chen sighed.

"Is there any damage to the accompanying goods?" Luo Yong asked.

"That's not true, it's just that the few barbarians accompanying me, if I hadn't found a familiar local person in Mengmen Pass as a guarantee, they might not be able to get through." Zhao Chen said.

"Hai Rigu and the others are here again?" Among those people, Luo Yong also remembered Hai Rigu because that girl, Si Niang, always talked to him.

"Hai Rigu didn't come. He was also at the Chengzhou market earlier, and he went back to the prairie after the spring. The people in their tribe raised more lambs this year than any other year." Zhao Chen told him. The situation on Hai Rigu's side.

"Is there enough grass on the grassland?" Luo Yong asked.

"At the edge of the grassland, they can exchange a small amount of soap for a large amount of soybean meal. I heard that most of the soybean oil is sold to Chang'an, Luoyang and other places. The dishes of your Xu's guest house are widely spread now." Zhao Chen laughed.

"Exchange soap for soybean meal, cashmere can be kept and sold for money, but what about mutton?" Luo Yong asked again.

"The price of mutton is cheap." Zhao Chen said with a smile, "Nowadays, grassland people don't lack meat."

The two were talking, and soon came to Xu's guest house. Luo Yong first asked Xu Weng and the others to buy meals according to the number of people Zhao Chen said, and then asked Zhao Chen what he wanted to eat.

"Give me two sets of dice first." Without further ado, Zhao Chen ordered dumplings first.

I still remember that the first time I came back to Xipo Village, I ate the fried noodles made by Luo Sanlang. Since then, he has been greedy for fried noodles. Now they can make fried noodles at home, but they are greedy for this again. Die, this dime can't be eaten anywhere except in Xu's guest house.

Two large plates of dumplings, one large bowl of dumpling soup, and one cold dish. Zhao Dalang ate it heartily. He didn't even bother to stretch out his chopsticks for the dishes that came later. He ate the two large plates of dumplings in a blink of an eye. A clean sheet.

Luo Yong watched from the side, and his mind became more active.

After a while, all the people arrived, and everyone had dinner together, and then Luo Yong observed, and he found that their dumplings were very popular among Han people and Hu people alike.

In the next few days, the group will rest in Xipo Village before turning north.

In the past few days, Luo Yong chatted with Zhao Chen a lot. The two mainly talked about the situation on the prairie and the current trade situation in the northwest. Zhao Chen has been running outside, and the news must be better than Luo Yong.

According to Zhao Chen, the imperial court seems to intend to expand the trade market in the northwest, and they did not take any restrictive measures to the spontaneously formed market outside the Chengzhou city this time, but actively participated in and managed it.

Nowadays, there are more and more Hu merchants coming from the west. Wherever the business road passes, many cities and towns are slowly prospering, especially Liangzhou.

At this time, Liangzhou, also known as Wuwei in later generations, was the most prosperous city in the northwest region where merchants gathered.

Wuwei City is an important node city on the Silk Road, but at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, there was no such thing as the Silk Road. The Silk Road was named by later generations. Luo Yong knew that in ten years or so, some tribes in the west He would ask Li Shimin to open a "Shentian Khan Road" to facilitate the tribal leaders from the west to come to Chang'an City to meet Tian Khan. At the same time, this road is also of great commercial significance.

"Then what are the housing prices in Liangzhou City?" Luo Yong heard Zhao Chen's talk about the development of the west, and his heart ached because he really didn't have any money at hand, otherwise it would be extremely difficult to buy a few houses and wait for the appreciation OK

"Sanlang wants to buy property in Liangzhou?" Zhao Chen was a little surprised, Liangzhou is not close to Shizhou, but he said again: "If Sanlang is interested, if not, I will ask my family to help you find out. Ayer is going to run a guest house over there."

"Your family is going to run a guest house in Liangzhou?" Luo Yong raised his head suddenly, his eyes were like a wolf seeing meat, he smelled a business opportunity.

There is no way, they are all poor and troubled, and they owe so many debts. If they say they don’t feel any pressure at all, that would be a lie.

Recently, the emperor sold cement in Chang'an City again, almost robbing his family's cement business.After all, he was the emperor, and Luo Yong couldn't compete with him, so he had to find another way. This Liangzhou city is very good.