The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 42 Catch the sea
Jiang Cheng looked at the old woman and then at the young girl. If he didn't have a partner and was about to get married, he would give her 2.8 yuan just because she was so pretty. But judging by the way the old woman was doing business, it seemed that there was still room for him to lower the price.

He didn't have any regrets, knowing that it was not easy for them to get these things, but Jiang Cheng still bargained: "Auntie, 26 cents, I want all yours."

The old woman thought about it for a while, and then called the girl beside her to go back and get the goods. It was already dark, so she sold it to the driver in front of her and took the money so that she could go to the city to buy some food tomorrow morning.

When the little girl came over with a basket of dry goods, other people followed, who were also from the same village. Almost every household in the village had some dry goods, mainly for their own consumption, and if they saw someone coming to collect the goods, they would sell them to buy food or daily necessities.

After watching Jiang Cheng finish the transaction, someone else immediately asked him if he wanted more. Jiang Cheng asked how much goods there were, and found that there were not many, so he agreed to take all of them.

Anyway, there weren't many households that knew Jiang Cheng was collecting things here, and each household only had a few dozen kilograms. At the price of 26 cents, it wouldn't cost much.

Nowadays, it is easy for drivers to earn extra income by carrying some goods as long as they are smart. However, other drivers do not have Jiang Cheng's conditions. They have to focus on the goods in their own vehicles. They don't have the leisure to drive to the seaside, especially those who drive Jiefang trucks. They don't have comfortable sleeping places in their vehicles, so they basically stay in guesthouses when they arrive in the city.

Before it got completely dark, Jiang Cheng took a bath in the seawater, and then washed himself with the river water in the space on the shore. Then he lay in the car, opened the door and felt the sea breeze. When he felt sleepy, he closed the door, cleared the mosquitoes and went to sleep.

The next morning, Jiang Cheng experienced the life of fishing. There were many shells and crabs on the shore, but Jiang Cheng didn't pay attention to them. Instead, he looked for some places with reefs and started his fishing activities.

When you see lobsters and crabs "coming ashore", the satisfaction is much greater than fishing in the lake. In addition to shrimps and crabs, there are also shells, clams, and conches.

Conch is particularly good-looking. Jiang Cheng used to watch eating videos. This conch is cooked and dipped in sauce. It tastes so good. Some people eat everything, while others remove some yellow and bile.

He would always say "Fans should eat it first" and then show off one with big mouthfuls. Seeing this, Jiang Cheng always wanted to try it.

In addition to these, there are naturally many fish, but probably in the shore area, there are no big fish. But there are small pomfret, small perch, yellow croaker and so on, which are all delicious.

As for the seaweed, there were really a lot of kelp. One kelp included stems and leaves, and there were a lot of them. There were also some seaweed plants that Jiang Cheng couldn't tell clearly, they seemed to be laver. But some of them looked like water plants, so Jiang Cheng didn't take them and only put the kelp into the space.

Jiang Cheng kept fishing at the beach, not even in the mood to watch the sunrise. He kept fishing for more than two hours. I can't say anything else, but I can eat lobsters for a long time.

Seeing that the time was almost up, Jiang Cheng also had to go to the transportation station here. It was time to go back to Changcheng, but in order not to waste transportation capacity, he had to go there to register and see if there were any goods to be sent to Changcheng.

You don't have to send it directly to Changcheng, but to Nanjing, Anqing or some other city. At most, you can go there and then head towards Changcheng.

At around 8 o'clock, Jiang Cheng drove to the Yancheng Transportation Station and explained the situation. He needed to take orders back to Changcheng. Once the transportation order was arranged for Jiang Cheng, the transportation fee would be paid by Changcheng Transportation Station and could be settled by remittance.

Now there are many orders but few transport vehicles. Cities are not afraid of you grabbing transport orders, but the more the better. The transport station arranged an order for Jiang Cheng to Huangshan City, which is close to Jingdezhen. When Jiang Cheng returns to Changcheng, he can go to Jingdezhen. The order is for some mechanical parts and equipment used in agricultural machinery. It is heavy. If there is any problem on the road, it will be difficult to unload the goods temporarily without help. So this is not a good order for the driver. If there is no driver to accept the order, he can only wait in line. It is useless for the machinery and equipment factory to be anxious.

Now that Jiang Cheng has received the order, the transport station called the machinery factory and they were very happy and said they would immediately arrange for loading personnel to wait for the truck to arrive.

After receiving the order, Jiang Cheng did not go to the machinery factory immediately, but went to the farmers' market here.

There are not many people going to the farmers' market at this time. Young people have to go to work. Some elderly men and women who don't have jobs also go early to buy vegetables, for fear that if they go too late, they will buy what others have left.

When he got to the market, Jiang Cheng looked around and found that there were many things he wanted to buy. For example, cucumbers and tomatoes, which are both vegetables and fruits. However, they are more expensive than Chinese cabbage and green vegetables, costing three cents per pound. Turnips, green vegetables, Chinese cabbage, etc., cost only one cent per pound, and in some places, Chinese cabbage costs eight cents per pound.

Jiang Cheng also found watermelons for sale here. Due to limited transportation and preservation conditions, fruits these days are generally not shipped out for sale except for orders from some canning factories. Even if they are shipped out, they are not sold to ordinary people, but to some regional leaders for their enjoyment.

Therefore, watermelon is a seasonal fruit that can be bought without coupons. When it is hot, it is normal for a well-off family to buy a big watermelon to cool off.

But even so, many families are reluctant to buy them. Watermelons have only been on the market for a short time in some areas. In Yancheng, where watermelons are also produced, they are all 5 cents per pound. When large areas of watermelons are on the market in a while, they will only be 2 or 3 cents per pound.

But a normal-sized watermelon weighs about 5-6 jin, not to mention the larger ones. If you buy a watermelon for a few cents, it will be gone in a pee, so not many people are willing to buy it.

Many people would do the math and think that instead of buying a watermelon now, it would be better to buy it in a month. If you buy one watermelon now, you can buy two later.

But Jiang Cheng didn't care. He wanted to buy now and would buy more in a month. His space was static. He didn't know where to sell the watermelons. He would take them out in winter and people would buy them for 1.5 cents.

After buying tomatoes, cucumbers, and watermelons, Jiang Cheng also bought some water celery, which is an aquatic vegetable and cannot be found in many places that are not near lakes or rivers.

Finally, Jiang Chengcai found a place selling hairtail and kelp. He didn't plan to buy kelp. He collected a lot of dried kelp at the beach yesterday. Although he also collected a lot of dried sea fish, those who live by the sea can't catch hairtail. Without special boats and fishing nets, they can't get hairtail.

I asked about the price, and found that hairtail costs more than 30 cents per pound, which is not much cheaper than inland cities without sea. I feel that the transportation industry is really a service industry these days. The inland cities are a few cents more expensive, which may just be the extra transportation cost.

But the key point is that the price is not much higher, it is just that inland cities rely on coastal cities for transportation. Even if Jiang Cheng's truck is loaded with a maximum of eight tons, it won't do much. It is only because of river transportation that some inland cities can buy hairtail during the New Year and other festivals.

(End of this chapter)