Republic of China: Guandong Ginseng King

Chapter 396: Great financial resources
Although Chen Xiuyun couldn't go back to congratulate them in person, she felt a little relieved to know that her sister-in-law and nephew were safe.

However, I promised my son that I would take them back to see the baby, but I cannot fulfill it in the short term.

Chen Xiuyun was helpless. They had to rush together. She couldn't just abandon the mess at home and take the children back to her parents' home. It was impossible.

At the Damiaogou gold mine, work stopped before October.

After a final calculation at the counter, after deducting the wages for the gold workers and the dividends for the county officials, Qu Shaoyang was only left with about five or six thousand taels, which was not even a return on his invested capital.

Of course, the late start of work this year is also related. If we start work earlier next year and hire more people, we should be able to earn more.

In comparison, the Sandaogou Gold Mine is much better.

At the Sandaogou gold mine, gold sand is now washed out by machines instead of by human labor.

The machines are not afraid of the cold and can be run all the time. As for the metalworkers, they can also keep working as long as the ground is not completely frozen.

Therefore, this year the suspension of operations at the gold field was postponed by more than a month.

The mine was frozen solid until they could no longer dig, so they stopped working and took a break.

As agreed upon at the beginning of spring, the gold workers were paid this year's wages at the counter.

This year we have machines and produce more gold sand, so in addition to the minimum of 100 taels, each gold worker can probably get another 80 to 90 taels of dividends, and some can get more.

By this calculation, the income from metalworking is much higher than last year.

Moreover, gold workers no longer have to stand in the freezing river water to wash gold sand like they did last year. It is relatively easier now, and it is already very good to earn so much.

After receiving their wages, some of the metalworkers returned to their hometowns to celebrate the New Year and find wives, some looked for places to spend their money, and others simply found a place in Maoer Mountain to settle down and spend the winter.

As for the captives in the gold field, those with minor crimes and good attitudes were selected and assigned to serve in the patrol team, which was considered a successful reform.

All these people were dispersed and organized into several large teams, with people secretly assigned to watch them so as not to worry about them running away or causing trouble again.

As for those who had committed serious crimes and were stubborn, some were left in the gold field to guard the machines and the machine room, while the rest were sent to the mountain field to continue working.

The gold field stopped working, Qu Jiang and Qu Laokouer came back and handed in all the accounts.

This year, the gold mine produced nearly 4,000 kilograms of gold sand. After deducting the gold workers' wages, food and drink expenses, money for buying machines, hiring foreign engineers, and buying coal, there were still 400,000 taels of silver left in the cabinet, more than four times that of last year.

This is no small sum.

After settling the accounts, Qu Laokouer specifically told Qu Jiang and Chen Xiuyun to keep it a secret.

No one else can be told except them and Qu Shaoyang.

Even for Meng Lanxin and Chen, it’s best not to know too much.

This amount of money is too huge. If it gets out, it will probably bring disaster to Qu Shaoyang.

The winery and flour mill have also expanded their scale this year.

Today, the wine and vermicelli produced by the Qu family have become famous. The people in the surrounding areas, and even in Badaojiang and Tonghua, are quite familiar with them, and many merchants come to place orders.

The sorghum, potatoes, sweet potatoes and other products produced by our own family are simply not enough, and we have to purchase a lot of raw materials from outside.

This just solves the problem of the large grain producers around here having nowhere to sell their grain.

Needless to say, the warehouses and caravans are also doing very good business.

Pig bristles, soybeans, various medicinal materials, mountain products, and hides were collected here and transported to Fengtian, Yingkou, and Andong to be sold.

Then cloth, cotton, kerosene, ironware, porcelain, daily necessities and even guns and ammunition were transported back from there.

By doing this, you can make money both ways.

After Qu Jiang came back from the gold field, he took over the caravan, and together with Xingye and other managers, they collected goods from various places, and then organized sled teams to transport them to Yingkou, Fengtian and other places. Qu Shaoyang had said before that light and high-value goods such as bristles and hides should be collected and transported to Yingkou and other places for sale.

Avoid excessive inventory and losses due to unstable prices.

Bulk goods such as soybeans and grains are temporarily purchased and stored in warehouses. They will be directly loaded onto ships and shipped to Andong in the spring of the following year after the river thaws.

After the sentry post was blown up last year, the Yalu River waterway has become much easier to navigate.

This winter, Liu Dongshan and his men continued to clean the outpost, and it is estimated that it will be easier to pass next year.

Qu Shaoyang had already planned to build a large ship with wood in the spring and transport the bulk of the goods to Andong by ship.

Then we can dismantle the boat and sell the timber, killing two birds with one stone and it is very convenient.

Otherwise, as local soybean production grows, how many sleds would be needed for transportation?
Qu Jiang and others also thought that Qu Shaoyang’s proposal was very good, so they implemented it.

Anyway, the Qu family is rich now and the price of soybeans is not high, so it doesn’t matter if they have some goods in stock.

The newly opened dim sum shop is doing good business.

Taohua’s cooking skills are truly impeccable. Anyone who has eaten the snacks in this shop will say that they are not good.

Especially in winter, when the Chinese New Year is approaching, everyone is visiting relatives and friends, and who wouldn’t bring two boxes of snacks?

There is also a mountain field. This year, the scale of the mountain field has been expanded again, and there are hundreds of people just working on the woodcutters.

Every two or three days, we had to deliver rice, grain, vegetables, etc. to the other side of the mountain farm.

After Qu Laokouer came back from the gold field, he took the initiative to take on the task of delivering supplies to the mountain field.

He was bored sitting at home every day, but now he had something to do, which made him feel refreshed.

"Dad, I know you live frugally and are reluctant to spend a penny more.

We have to say something up front: you can be frugal, but you must not be stingy with our meals.

The food and supplies for the woodcutters are deducted from their wages and are not provided by our family.

Don't let the kids have bad food just to save a little money.

Those wooden handles are not easy to deal with. If you mess up, Shaoyang will definitely be angry when he comes back.

It would be ugly if the two of them started arguing. "

When Chen Xiuyun handed the task over to Qu Laokouer, she had to give him a few more instructions.

"Oh, don't worry, don't I understand this?
I have handled thousands of kilograms of gold sand in that gold mine, how much are these grains and vegetables worth? Your father is not obsessed with money, I know the numbers. "

Qu Laokouer is now a man who has seen big scenes.

The gold mine makes hundreds of thousands of taels of silver a year. Even though this money never goes into Qu Laokouer's pocket, he still feels happy and proud.

How much is the rice, grain and vegetables used in the mountain farm? Qu Laokouer is not interested in this.

After getting the promise from her father-in-law, Chen Xiuyun felt relieved and arranged for people to help Qu Laokouer.

There are so many shops outside, and tenants to collect rent, and hundreds of people at home to feed, with daily necessities such as rice, oil and salt. On the Chen family's side, there are also foreigners like Anders to manage.

Chen Xiuyun and Meng Lanxin are exhausted just from taking care of all the things inside and outside the house.

It just so happened that Qujiang Jia's little son Gensheng was one year old, so Chen Xiuyun simply handed over some household chores to Yang Qionghua to help them out so that they wouldn't be too busy.

(End of this chapter)