The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 41: Receiving Goods at the Seaside
Yancheng is located in the east of the Yellow Sea. As a city close to the sea, kelp is cheap and you can buy it if you want without a ticket. In Yancheng, dried and salted kelp costs only 40 cents per pound. In Changcheng, an inland city without a sea, the price is not cheaper than meat, and it costs 70 or 80 cents per pound.

But these are all dried kelp. After soaking, one pound of dried kelp can produce six or seven pounds of kelp. Anyway, as long as Jiang Cheng buys kelp back, he can double his money.

You don't need a ticket to buy hairtail here, but the price is only a few cents cheaper than inland cities. In many inland cities, hairtail is not expensive, only 35 to 40 cents per pound. But it is rationed with a non-staple food book, and you can only buy hairtail at a specific supply time and supply point.

Anyway, hairtail is very popular in inland areas and is usually unavailable.

Even if Jiang Cheng had a portable space, it would be impossible for him to catch hairtail because hairtail is a deep-water fish that usually lives in waters about 20 to 40 meters deep. If Jiang Cheng wanted to catch hairtail, he would have to go to the sea.

So Jiang Cheng thanked the factory guard for his kind reminder. He planned to go to the beach for a walk tomorrow and then go to the market to buy dozens of kilograms of hairtail to bring back to Changcheng. As for the kelp, he would naturally go and catch it himself.

After chatting with the security guard for a while, the person in charge of unloading the goods from the pharmaceutical factory came. Two more packs of cigarettes were stuffed into Jiang Cheng's hands, and then Jiang Cheng followed the instructions and parked wherever he was told to.

Not sure if it was industry practice or some other reason, but Jiang Cheng discovered that no matter whether it was loading or unloading, it seemed like every factory would give away two packs of cigarettes, the only difference was the price of the cigarettes.

Maybe it’s because those who planted the trees will enjoy the shade, many drivers have already established some private rules. After all, drivers are public officials, working for the government, and they are not afraid of offending people.

If you don't give me any benefits, the truck will stop at the gate of your factory, and then it will break down, so you have to unload the goods outside the factory. This is not bad, but if you have to load the goods, and some goods need to be delivered in a hurry, it's really not worth it to offend a driver for a few cents and waste time.

Jiang Cheng got two packs of Daqianmen cigarettes anyway. Actually, he doesn't smoke much now. He just smokes one during breaks. A pack of cigarettes can last him at least two days.

After unloading the goods, it was lunchtime, but the people at the pharmaceutical factory were off work. Jiang Cheng was not treated to a meal, so he did as usual, taking dozens of kilograms of fish from the car to the restaurant.

Even if a city is close to a river, lake or sea and has rich fishery resources, it does not mean that there is no shortage of fish in restaurants. Because these days you can go fishing, but you cannot use a boat or fishing net to catch fish yourself, at least not by yourself.

For example, hairtail is basically caught by employees of the fishery department and then supplied to inland cities across the country. At most, cities near the sea are given more resources.

In some places with rich agricultural resources and major grain-producing provinces, the food rations for ordinary people are still the same, and those who are supposed to go hungry will still go hungry.

So even in the coastal cities, Jiang Cheng asked the waiter in the restaurant if they would accept fish. When they saw that it was freshwater fish, they accepted all of it. Freshwater fish here are more expensive than marine fish. Hairtail fish may be bought for 30 cents, but freshwater fish is 40 cents. And it is not easy to buy at ordinary times.

The fish was sold and the meal was eaten. It was already past five o'clock. Jiang Cheng could find a guesthouse here to stay. Drivers only needed a work permit, not a letter of introduction, to stay in a guesthouse. Moreover, if the guesthouse issued a receipt, the driver could get reimbursed by the company after returning.

But Jiang Cheng didn't plan to stay in the guesthouse. If he was driving a Jiefang truck without a rear lounge, he would definitely stay in the guesthouse. It was hot now, and it would get dark after six or seven o'clock. This time was enough for him to drive to the Yellow Sea.

The air is fresh these days, there is no garbage on the beach, and the sky is blue. Jiang Cheng plans to stay by the beach tonight, enjoy the sea breeze, and watch the sunrise.

After driving for an hour and a half towards the Yellow Sea, Jiang Chengcai finally saw the sea. In later times, the seaside was prosperous, but in this era, there was only a small village near the sea, and nothing else.

But Jiang Cheng thought about it and realized that even in Shenzhen, a city of reform and opening up in later generations, there might only be some dilapidated villages near the sea, not to mention other places near the sea.

A large car drove over here, and many people from the nearby villages came to watch. Even some brave children, seeing that Jiang Cheng did not drive them away, climbed onto the back of the car to play.

Jiang Cheng was smoking and enjoying the sea breeze, feeling very comfortable. When no one was around, he planned to go to the beach to take a bath, the kind where he could swim naked.

While Jiang Cheng was looking at the scenery, an old woman came up to him and asked in a low voice: "Master, have you received any goods?" Jiang Cheng did not expect to have an unexpected surprise at the beach, so he immediately asked: "Auntie, what goods do you have?"

Hearing Jiang Cheng's question, the old woman waved in one direction, and soon a little girl appeared and ran towards them.

Women who live by the sea can retain a certain amount of moisture in their skin, making it look firmer and more lustrous, because the air is humid there.

But living by the sea has both advantages and disadvantages. The sea is windy, and if you bathe in sea water without washing it with fresh water, your skin will be easily damaged and your skin will age faster.

To put it simply, some girls at the beach may be very beautiful, but if they live by the beach all the time, their appearance will age quickly.

Why do so many love stories happen at the beach? It's not because people at the beach are so romantic, it's simply because the girls at the beach are prettier. If they were ugly, there would be no love stories.

The little girl trotting towards Jiang Cheng gave people a simple and beautiful feeling. If the little girl was the "goods" the old woman said. Although she was a little young, Jiang Cheng also had a girlfriend, but~~.

The little girl came over carrying a basket. Jiang Cheng was a serious man and he knew at a glance that the things in the basket were the goods the old woman was talking about.

Coming to Jiang Cheng, the little girl lifted the cloth covering the basket, and Jiang Cheng could see clearly the dried fish and kelp.

If Jiang Cheng didn't have a portable space, he would definitely buy it without thinking. Facing the girl's eager eyes, Jiang Cheng thought for a while and decided to buy it.

After all, the fish he caught were all fresh and alive, and they were delicious. But it was hard to explain why he went back to Changcheng and sold fresh fish. There were no refrigerated trucks in those days, so if you wanted to eat seafood in the inland areas, you could only buy dried seafood.

"Auntie, how much is this?" Jiang Cheng asked. He had sold fish caught from lakes and rivers along the way, and the money he had with him when he left was already more than three hundred yuan.

You can eat the freshly caught sea fish yourself, and you can take the dried goods back and resell them.

"Kelp is three cents, and dried fish is also three cents." said the old woman.

"Auntie, how much stock do you have? Can you give me a discount?" Jiang Cheng asked. This price was a little cheaper than what the brother who was the security guard at the pharmaceutical factory told him, but not much cheaper.

"There are more than 30 kilograms at home. How much do you want?"

"I want all of them. I can give you a discount."

When Jiang Cheng said he wanted all of them, the girl with the basket smiled happily, and then looked at the old woman, hoping that she would sell them at a lower price. Many people in the village would secretly get some of these kelp and fish, but they didn't dare to deal with them openly. In addition to eating them themselves, many people wanted to exchange them for some money.

However, for kelp, it takes six or seven pounds of wet kelp to make one pound, and the process requires labor to organize it. Selling it for 30 cents a pound is actually very cheap, which means that a pound of wet kelp costs less than five cents.

The old woman hesitated for a moment and tried to ask, "What about the 28 cents?"

　I spent the day in a daze today, and didn't write much. The update was supported by the saved drafts. I have to adjust my state. It seems that it is not realistic to ask for monthly ticket encouragement for the current collection. So I will say that if you don't have monthly tickets, you can actually support it with rewards.

　
(End of this chapter)