Master Kong Zhongni

Chapter 136 Huge Business Benefits

In the city of Tuqiu, within the government office.

Zai Yu was sitting on the high hall, his upper and lower eyelids were trembling, as if he might fall asleep at any moment.

Zi Gong, who was sitting in the hall, was holding a thick account book in his hand, flipping through the pages, his hands trembling with excitement.

In the past six months, the caravans he sent to various places have been receiving good news. All the books shipped to the Zhao family and the Qi country have been sold out, and the sales situation has far exceeded the best expectations.

Because the content of books and the length of transportation vary, after excluding labor costs and printing costs, the net profit of each book ranges from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.

Among them, the high profit made Zaiyu and Zigong gasp.

However, the bamboo slips used to be written were too expensive. If a 3000-character "Poetry" was written on bamboo slips, more than [-] bamboo pieces would be used, and they would be sold in two to three hundred copies, with a total price of tens of thousands of dollars.

But Zaiyu sells "Poetry" to them, the same content, but only needs to use [-] pages, and there is even room to write some annotations and understandings of the master.

And the price dropped from tens of thousands of dollars to four thousand dollars.

But the price of [-] yuan was too high after all, so they split "Poetry" into three parts: "Feng", "Ya" and "Song", and sold them separately.

But even so, there are still many people who are cash-strapped, so after negotiating with the heads of various caravans, they launched the bulk sale business.

The so-called bulk sale means selling one page at a time. If you can’t afford four hundred pages, you can buy four pages!

Four hundred pages are worth four thousand dollars, and one page is sold loosely for ten dollars.

Moreover, in order to promote Da Zhou's Mandarin "Ya Yan", under Jae Yu's order, the price of "Ya" was lowered to about [-] yuan.

Three qian, in those big countries with rich products, may be the price of a day's meal.

If you are not even willing to pay this little money, Zaizi will not be able to save you.

In terms of the pricing of different books, Zaiyu and the others have also adopted a flexible sales strategy. Enlightenment and interesting books such as "Erya", "Poetry" and "Shan Hai Jing", which are mainly responsible for literacy, all adopt a low-price strategy.

Books such as "Yizhuan", "Zhouyi", "Shangshu" and "Wei Liaozi", which are mainly aimed at the wealthy scholar-official class, are the main profit points.

This business strategy has indeed achieved great success. According to the account feedback sent back by caravans from various places, the printing and paper industry has won a huge profit of nearly one million yuan for Zaiyu and Zigong in more than half a year.

However, the caravans did not report all the good news.

Some people found that the books they sold in Qufu would be swept away by local merchants as soon as they were put on the shelves.

Afterwards, they were loaded into the car as a whole, and the price was increased to send to Wu, Yue, Zheng, Chu and other markets that Zigong's caravans had not set foot in yet.

Later, even businessmen from neighboring countries such as Song and Wei came to buy goods because of the smell.

Regarding this, the heads of the various caravans said: "Damn, it's more uncomfortable to see our opponents making money than ourselves losing money. Why don't we just stop the supply of books in Qufu! Cut off their supply and see how they sell it!"

But Zaiyu and Zigong dismissed the protests of the principals.

Although we are businessmen, we are first and foremost Confucian scholars.

Selling books is to make money, but more importantly, to spread cultural education.

Zigong's original understanding of improving the literacy rate of the people was mainly due to his natural sense of morality as a Confucian student.

But in the past six months, he has deeply recognized the harm of illiteracy among the people.

Every time he wanted to expand the papermaking workshop, he would get into trouble because he couldn't recruit enough craftsmen.

Because engraving movable type requires not only knowledge of carpentry, but also knowledge of characters.

And typesetting word selection, you have to be literate to do it.

More importantly, the books they sell are only bought by those who can read.

There are not many literate people, so he cannot recruit enough craftsmen, nor does he have a large enough market for sales.

Don't look at their books are selling very hot now, but after most people have bought their favorite books, the blue ocean market for selling books will also come to an end.

Therefore, the low literacy rate has seriously hindered the growth of his assets given by Duanmu!
Zigong flipped through the ledger while muttering to himself.

Zai Yu glanced at him, only to feel that the streetlights of this kid are getting heavier and heavier recently.

He had a gentleman's agreement with Zigong before, and Zaiyu would take [-]% of the proceeds from selling books, such as "Poetry", "Book", "Ritual" and "Le", after deducting the cost.

And for new books such as "Yi Zhuan" provided by Jai Yu, Jai Yu took [-]% of the profits.

So in the past six months, the two have made a total of about one million profits, and Zaiyu's actual income is around 50.

50 yuan, calculated according to the average grain price of Lu State, is [-] shi of grain.

After one year, it is a total of [-] shi.

And all the fields in the whole Tuqiu add up, and the annual grain income is only less than [-] shi.

In other words, even if all the people in Tuqiu lay down together, Zaiyu could barely afford to support them.

With the support of the paper-making and printing industry, Zaiyu's words became more rigid.

He coughed and turned his gaze to Zigong: "I said..."

When Zigong heard Zaiyu speak, he immediately smiled like a flower: "What's the matter?"

Seeing him like this, Zaiyu said solemnly: "Duanmuci, look at your face now, it's only a million, just a million, what's the matter?
When Guan Zhong was in charge of the Qi State, he just increased the price of Qi's salt by [-] cents per bucket, and the monthly income of the Qi State increased by as much as tens of millions.

I heard that a scholar cannot live without Hongyi, can you have a little ambitious pursuit? "

After hearing this, Zigong immediately sensed what Zaiyu meant: "What do you mean? What kind of money did you come up with... No, it's a new way to promote kingly education?"

Zai Yu said: "I plan to recruit talents and open a township school in Tuqiu to teach the local people to read and write, and try to teach them simple reading and writing methods in a short period of time. What do you think?"

"Of course it's a good thing..." Zigong frowned sharply in the middle of speaking: "I, what do you mean?"

Zaiyu said solemnly: "As Doctor Tuqiu, I naturally have the duty to protect the environment and the people. As I said, in the first three years when Tuqiu was in power, the focus of his administration was to attract business and investment.

In the past three years, Tuqiu will try its best to improve the business environment and attract high-tech and high value-added industries to settle in Tuqiu. "

The new words that came out of Zaiyu's mouth one after another made Zigong startled for a while.

But even though he only listened to it half-baked, Zigong finally felt the taste.

"Are you planning to let me move the paper-making workshop to Tuqiu?"

Jae Yu didn't speak, but just pushed a piece of paper on the desk in front of him.

"I won't say much else. If you agree, just sign your name here."

Zigong took the paper and took a look, only to see a few large characters written in cinnabar on the top of the paper.

——The relevant oath agreement on the settlement of Duanmu Paper in Tuqiu.

　I toast readers with a glass of wine, and monthly ticket rewards are not mandatory.

　　——Excerpt from "Zaiyu's Diary"

　　
　
(End of this chapter)