The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 220: New Year's Day,
At night, before leaving Hong Kong, Jiang Cheng went to the basement to replenish his goods.

Before leaving, Jiang Cheng also gave Shen Li some money so that she could pay the workers' wages and also have her living expenses.

As for the sales plan for fish balls, Jiang Cheng asked Shen Li to find someone to promote them. Since the current production volume is not high, he could just ask some cart noodle vendors.

Those who set up stalls at the docks and at the street corners at night are originally from the lower class, and fish balls at two yuan per pound are easy to sell.

Late at night, Jiang Cheng sailed away against the wind and waves.

In fact, when traveling from Baoan County to Xiangjiang, even if Jiang Cheng used space to sneak across, he had to be cautious every time. On the sea, because it was dark, and he used a tire to sneak across, it was very secretive and there was no big problem.

But the car always stays in the BF unit. It doesn't matter if the people disappear for two days or a few times. But it's not good to keep it like this. Jiang Cheng really wants to dismantle it and put it in the space. But the Jiefang car is not a tractor, the chassis is integrated.

If it were in the future, with only a tractor front and the carriages hung on the back, it would be convenient for Jiang Cheng to put it in the space.

Jiang Cheng returned to the BF unit late at night and slept in the car all night. It was inconvenient to disturb others at such a late hour, so he got a new pass and returned to Changcheng the next day.

After returning to Changcheng, Jiang Cheng took two days off to accompany Zhou Lingying, whose belly was getting bigger. Then he went to Xiamen, Fujian, and on the way, he helped a friend of Zhou Lingying, who was an educated youth from Fuzhou, to deliver some things.

In mid-November, Jiang Cheng went to Hong Kong again. His low-price fishball sales strategy was very effective because the price he sold was no different from the cost of making fishballs by himself, and at most he could have a little extra fish head and tail for himself.

Moreover, the fish balls made privately by some people may not be as delicious as those made by Jiang Cheng. After all, they are not professionally produced, and they may not use ginger and scallion water because they find it troublesome.

Or maybe the production process lacks the step of soaking in cold water for a while, the fish balls will not be so chewy.

Anyway, Jiang Cheng's three-no workshop business is pretty good, but because the raw materials need to be replenished by Jiang Cheng, the production limit leads to a small gap between income and expenditure. The fish in Jiang Cheng's space are barely converted into Xiangjiang currency at a relatively low price.

With the same production volume, doubling it without increasing the use of cold storage can actually save two thousand yuan a month in cold storage fees.

But no matter what, at least this is Jiang Cheng's third time in Hong Kong and he doesn't need to rely on selling pork and watches to get start-up capital.

But in order to expand, Jiang Cheng still got a few watches and exchanged some money, and asked the agent to help find a factory. Before finding a factory, Jiang Cheng rented a house as a warehouse.

Jiang Cheng couldn't keep replenishing the raw materials of fish and eggs, so he built another warehouse and put fish in both sides. This way, with only an extra 200 yuan in rent, the output could be doubled.

Time flies for Jiang Cheng, who travels to several places every month. Zhou Lingying also feels that time flies. She buys vegetables and feeds chickens every day, washes clothes, listens to the radio, reads books, or chats with others about gossip.

Winter in the south is coming, and it is cold and damp, but not that cold in terms of temperature, at least compared to the temperature in the north. But the cold in the south will penetrate into your clothes.

In addition, people in this era did not have much warm underwear, not to mention warm underwear, and even sweaters were not available. Wool was very rare in this era, and it had to be purchased with coupons.

Zhou Lingying had already put on a green military coat at home. Jiang Cheng bought some cotton in Hong Kong, which was more expensive than in China. It was the kind that would suffer a loss no matter how it was sold in China, because no one would buy it because the price was too high.

With a sewing machine and fabric, Zhou Lingying made a lot of cotton-padded jacket linings. The so-called cotton-padded jacket lining is to spread Jiang cotton on the cloth, sew it in place, and then put on an outer layer.

The weather in Changcheng in December was not too cold, at least there was no need to warm up by the fire. The south currently uses coal stoves for heating, and charcoal is only affordable for the rich. Jiang Cheng bought a lot of charcoal at the reclamation farm, but he didn't use it for heating, it just didn't take much.

In December, Jiang Cheng went to Hucheng and then went to Zhou Lingying's parents' home. He sent a lot of things, such as a three-piece bedding set, a can of milk powder, and some black sesame paste.

As for canned food, you have to pay for a box.

After returning from Nanjing, Jiang Cheng went to Hong Kong again.

This time on the trip to Hong Kong, his fish ball plan finally got on track.

He rented a factory and built several fish ponds next to it. Jiang Cheng also registered a food company called "Jiang Donglai". On January 1, 1973, the New Year's Day came.

"Lingying, what kind of dish is this? I have never seen it before."

"Auntie Wang, this is watercress. My husband brought it from Guangzhou. It's winter here, but the weather over there is like spring."

"You have so many vegetables, can you sell some to the aunt?"

"There's not a lot of this. The weather is so bad right now, it will be gone in a few days."

Zhou Lingying was washing vegetables in the pool in the yard with a big belly. Aunt Wang in the backyard passed by and saw her washing vegetables, and her eyes widened.

In this weather, the only products in the southern market are Chinese cabbage and radish. Almost every household eats these. Many people cut the radish into strips because it has been frosted, and dry it in the yard to prepare for pickling.

The pickled radishes from frosted radishes are also refreshing and sweet.

But there is no other way. In winter, this is the only vegetable we can eat. There are no greenhouses for growing vegetables these days. You can cook a radish in many different ways, but no matter how you cook it, it still tastes like a radish.

Zhou Lingying, on the other hand, had several green vegetables, including chrysanthemum, green vegetables, watercress, and spinach. These were just leafy vegetables, and Zhou Lingying had hidden some of them at home.

There was no stock in the market, and Zhou Lingying thought that these were some vegetables her husband had brought back from nearly a thousand miles away. How could they be sold by a neighbor lady in the backyard at any price? Besides, Zhou Lingying was not short of money at all.

Today is the first day of the new year. In the evening, Zhou Lingying's family is going to have shabu-shabu mutton, or in other words, mutton hotpot.

Nowadays, there are many places where people eat shabu-shabu, but many people don’t call it hotpot.

In Sichuan, shabu-shabu mutton hotpot is quite famous. But there, it is not said to eat hotpot, but to eat shabu-shabu mutton. It is called hotpot in Sichuan.

Zhou Lingying followed Jiang Cheng's arrangement and decided to use a steel pot to cook meat and vegetables on the coal stove. The steel pot was also bought by Jiang Cheng from Hong Kong, where it was originally used for hot pot.

After hearing what Zhou Lingying said, Aunt Wang knew that the vegetables were no longer available. After all, it was just a matter of talking, and if she didn't get them, it would be nothing. If she did get them, it would be like "picking them up for free."

In fact, people in the yard have long known that the vegetables for Zhou Lingying's family were brought by Jiang Cheng from other places, and many people even wanted to ask him to help bring the vegetables.

But Jiang Cheng shirked all the responsibility by saying that it was difficult to preserve, but this was not a lie. In fact, there were green vegetables to eat in every city, but only some big leaders could eat vegetables.

In some places, vegetables have to be transported in insulated boxes. If they are not packed properly, they will freeze on the road. We are afraid of freezing, and we are also afraid that they will go bad if left for too long.

It can be said that it is very difficult to transport vegetables to some places in winter. After being transported to some places, they are also "specially supplied".

That is to say, Jiang Cheng has space. If he doesn't have space, he has to get some insulated boxes that sell popsicles in the summer to pack some vegetables. How can he bring vegetables back for others? If he wants to bring vegetables, he can only bring some to the director of the street office, Director Xiong of the supply and marketing cooperative, and Zhu Lan.

After sending Aunt Wang away, Zhou Lingying continued to wash vegetables happily. There was no holiday on New Year's Day, and the General Supply and Marketing Cooperative and the Supply and Marketing Cooperative were not given a holiday.

It is a kind of happiness for women to prepare rich food for their men at home. To capture a man's heart, you must capture his stomach.

But Jiang Cheng's stomach was easy to grasp, while Zhou Lingying's was not. A while ago, Jiang Cheng thought Zhou Lingying ate better, and then her body became fatter and her appetite became smaller.

Who knew that it was just the early stage of her pregnancy, her appetite was not so good, so she could only eat two bowls of rice at a time. Now her belly is bigger, her appetite is also better, and she complains of being hungry all the time.

One time I cooked a chicken, but didn’t finish it during the day, so I ran to the kitchen in the middle of the night and used boiling water in a thermos to heat the chicken and ate it.

(End of this chapter)