The Great Seminary

Chapter 42 The Expensive Servant

It is ridiculous for a small calf who doesn't even know that the business line is a three-head transaction to talk about big business.

But it's just like when the gatekeepers in the county town chat, they only talk about how much more money they extorted.

The soldiers at the gate of the capital city loved to talk about what would happen if the military collapsed and the foreign cavalry approached the city.

Then it is the same as whether the thickness of the city gate guarded by oneself is enough to maintain the country's destiny.

The larger the organization, the more they like to discuss major events in the organization.

The key point is, "Even though I am in a low position, I dare not forget my worries for the country."

Zhou Guanshan is smart and capable in small matters.
But in fact, in the "Charity Society", they were just low- and middle-level workers who had to work hard and escort slaves in the wind and rain during the Great Depression.

This was in stark contrast to his former intellectual heart, which was keen on worrying about the future development of the organization.

Winds blow from all directions on the vast county road.

The long line of young and strong slaves who had traveled a long distance were shivering with cold even though they had enough food and water and were dressed warmly.

At this moment, even Liu Hu, who had practiced martial arts for many years and was a ninth-rank cultivator, had lost interest in speaking.

But Zhou Guanshan was so excited by Zhang Gui's flattery that he drank the wind and shouted at the top of his voice.

"Yeah.

After I took over this job, I heard people say that the Pingyang Zhang family had a huge business in Luan Ya, but had recently suffered some setbacks.

But as the saying goes, the more setbacks you face, the braver you become.

Sometimes setbacks are not necessarily a bad thing.

For example, as you said, there is a lack of manpower in the development of the Luan Ya industry. If you want to rely entirely on your family to have children, you have to save up until that day.

It depends on us experienced people to find them all.

Look at the Rong family.

After buying your Zhang family's farm, you will use 100 laborers to manage it, and they will use 300.

why.

Because you grow grain, hemp, and cotton, but they want to grow more high-quality medicinal herbs.

That would naturally require several times more manpower, but the profits would be even greater.

Don't think that a purchased slave is inferior to a family son.

That's because you haven't met a large chamber of commerce like our "Charity Association" that specializes in one thing.

Ordinary people think that carpentry, porcelain firing, and blacksmithing skills are difficult to learn and are time-consuming and material-intensive.

This kind of slave must be born in a family with a history of hundreds of years and has learned skills since childhood.

In fact, that is all taken for granted.

The key reason why it is difficult to learn various skills is actually that the masters are afraid of "teaching their apprentices and starving themselves", so there are all kinds of restrictions when learning.

The first three years of learning to be a carpenter are just about planing bark.

To learn to be a cook, you must first cut vegetables for two years.

Of course it is very time-consuming and laborious.

But in fact, if you find some teenagers who are fifteen or sixteen years old, who are not stupid, weak or disabled, and let them follow a master who teaches them the skills with all his heart for one to two years.

I can’t say I’m a good hand, but I can definitely hone the skills.

Of course, such slaves are more expensive.

Stonemasons, porcelain workers, blacksmiths, and the like receive twenty taels of gold each."

"How much?" Zhang Gui asked in surprise.

Twenty ounces of gold is equivalent to six hundred ounces of silver at the current price, which can buy sixty thousand catties of flour, enough for a person to eat from birth to death.
It is also the salary of a worldly tycoon like Zhang Gui, who is almost five years' salary.

Seeing his eyes wide open in surprise, Lao Zhou felt indescribably happy and said with a smile:
“It’s a lot of money, but it’s not a problem if you don’t know the goods, it’s a problem if you compare the goods.

There is a severe drought in the southwest of Shijin, affecting five counties. If you take grain to the farm and buy it at the price of "half a pound of rice for a pound of man", you are paying too high a price.

But those rotten wood-like things cannot be repaired on the spot immediately. If you want to get out of the disaster area alive, you have to eliminate five of the ten pavilions first.

Then you don’t know whether the one who survives is a thief or an innocent citizen.

Maybe after a few days of eating well and getting healthy, they'll run away together.

Wouldn't that mean losing all your money? Also, when disaster victims were suffering, the imperial courts of various countries turned a blind eye and refused to provide food relief.

Others were willing to save him but he was unwilling to do so, and would often make things difficult for him or even beat him to death.

what would you do?
As for us at the Charity Charity Society, you don't have to worry about anything or spend any effort.

What they sell are high-quality slaves, who can help you do work after you buy them.

He works eight hours a day without complaining and can do the work of two hired workers.

Even if you don’t have a workshop or farm, you can still make a profit by renting it out to others.

So, is it better to buy the expensive one or the cheap one?"

This statement is similar to the rhetoric called "cross-selling" that Zhang Gui used before he traveled through time.

But Zhang Gui still listened attentively.

During the conversation, he showed an expression of sudden enlightenment, nodded in approval and admiration, which made Zhou Guanshan more and more interested and he couldn't stop.

So a lot of inside information was found out.

It turned out that Zhang Qitai, the new head of the Zhang family in Pingyang, was "not sad to sell his father's land" and actually planned to buy half of the clan's farms.

The point is that if you have to go against the decision of our ancestors, you should "either not do it, or do it thoroughly."

It is better to let our ancestors suffer a short pain than a long one.

As the royal merchants, the Shuanghu Rong family also has deep pockets.

It was expected that after buying so much fertile land from the Zhang family in Pingyang, there would be enough spare money to go to the "Charity Society" to order 10,000 trained young and strong slaves, half of them male and half female.

I plan to sign the land purchase and sale deed after the new year and start operating it immediately.

As for the New Year, these slaves gathered at "Wangbei Village", which had been handed over to the Rong family for trial operation, to celebrate the New Year.

Rest your body after a long journey.

You should know that half of the slaves bought by the Rong family this time are women, which means that these slaves are intended to be paired up and raised as "house-born slaves."

To do this, we must use both kindness and strictness, not be too harsh on them, and build a bond of gratitude.

Zhou Guanshan rode his horse and talked with Zhang Gui for half an hour before finally arriving at the gate of Wangbei Village.

The door eaves are covered with green tiles and the door is made of blackened iron and wood.

The courtyard wall is more than ten feet high and surrounds a large farm with a radius of about a mile.

The main room where the steward and the accountant live and do their work;

The dormitory where the servants lived;

The water mills connected to the canals, as well as workshops such as paint making and oil pressing, are connected by crisscrossing bluestone roads.

In addition, there are hundreds of acres of greenhouses built with red bricks that can produce off-season vegetables and fruits.

The cucumbers, honeydew melons, red dates and large tomatoes used by the Zhang family leaders in Pingyang for sacrifices in the cold winter and at banquets during festivals and holidays are all produced here.

However, now these greenhouses have been converted by the Shuanghu Rong family into temporary residences for slaves.

In the cold winter, the greenhouse with a fire burning on the ground is as warm as spring.

Heat rose through the new low bed.

No matter how cold the weather outside is, people living inside can do so without covering themselves with thin quilts or laying blankets underneath.

With more than a hundred acres of greenhouses crowded together, not to mention ten thousand young and strong people, even another ten thousand can be accommodated.

However, the new head of the Pingyang Zhang family, who took office this year, will not be able to eat the fruits and vegetables produced by his own family during the Spring Festival.

Although Zhang Gui had heard of Wangbei Village, he had never been here.

I didn't expect that when I first arrived, everything had changed and the owner had changed.

The person who was escorting Zhou Guanshan, Liu Hu and other members of the "Ci Ren Hui" to meet him was a middle-aged fat man named Sangui from the Rong family in Shuanghu with a fair and rosy face.

After the handover, Zhou Guanshan pointed out the identity of Zhang Gui next to him.

The fat white man was stunned, and bowed to Zhang Gui with a forced smile.
"It turned out to be the head servant from the Zhang family in Pingyang. He is so rude.

My name is Zhao Bingcheng, and I am now the third in command in Zhuangzi.

Our cabinet is in the main hall, you can go there now and see it."

(End of this chapter)