The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Creating a lively atmosphere isn't so easy.

The first day of business.

The eight main streets of Yili Bagua Street were packed with people, a dense crowd of heads.

There are more than a hundred children who got lost in the crowd of adults!
If it weren't for the military personnel stationed every three or five steps on the streets, these children who got lost in the crowd might have been taken away by kidnappers.

Moreover, most merchants focus on bulk purchases and have no interest in individual customers making small, sporadic purchases.

The onlookers could only watch the spectacle.

This is not.

Some general stores in Sichuan and Chongqing even set up chariots in front of their shops.

Hundreds of Hu people and foreign merchants watched as two young men operated two spinning wheels, easily separating a stone of rice with husks from a stone of wheat with ears of wheat residue.

And then.

The onlookers, including foreign merchants and non-Chinese, held up silver notes issued by the Yongtai Dynasty's Grand Bank and loudly proclaimed their desire to buy goods.

In Sichuan and Chongqing, you can get a chariot for just one tael of silver, including the cost of the wood.

Here, the grocers shouted:

"One chariot costs fifty taels of silver! Minimum order of ten chariots!"

That's just how domineering they are!

The small motorbike is a unique business in the two border trade cities.

This drew envious glances from the shopkeepers on both sides of the store!
Jealousy won't help!
Two hundred chariots were sold out in less than half an hour!

Easily get back 10,000 taels!

After deducting commercial taxes, purchase costs, and expenses along the way, they made a profit of over eight thousand taels of silver.

The grocery store owner and his son were still excited but not quite done.

The son, on his first long-distance trip, remarked, "Dad, we're still not brave enough!"

The owner of the grocery store was also filled with regret:

"It's my fault for not understanding the Provincial Governor's hint back then. If I had understood, I could have shipped a thousand or eight hundred of them and made a fortune in one go! I only found out after arriving in Guanzhong that the General Who Guards the West is our Provincial Governor's own elder sister. Sigh! If only I had known earlier!"

His son also nodded and sighed:
"What a waste of a one-off deal! Any clever carpenter could easily replicate it by simply disassembling these chariots. Father, should we deposit this payment into a branch of the Imperial Bank and withdraw it when we return to Sichuan? Or should we buy some rare leathers or gems from here and take them back?"

"Of course we'll buy the goods! This time, we from Sichuan have brought over five hundred people, a formidable force, so we're not afraid of being robbed on the way! Add a little more silver to make it ten thousand taels of silver worth of goods, and once we get back to Chengdu, we can easily make two or three times the profit."

Not only were the grocery stores selling trolleys doing brisk business, but most of the tea merchants from Sichuan and Chongqing also quickly entered a period of booming sales.

Loose tea and tea bricks are available at various price points.

The merchants from the Western Regions had never seen such a massive quantity of tea for sale before. They bought it like crazy!

During a series of buying frenzyes, many people got into heated arguments with their competitors.

But they didn't dare to really fight.

The first thing they were required to do upon entering the city was to remove all knives or other lethal weapons.

On the streets, troops are stationed both day and night to maintain order.

Actually, the rush to buy tea wasn't the most frenzied thing; many herbal medicine shops had even put up barriers.

The herbal medicine shop only serves five or six people at a time.

The popularity of medicinal herbs such as rhubarb, gallnut, licorice, angelica, ginseng, poria, cassia seed, and astragalus is self-evident.

Nine-leaf hibiscus unexpectedly became a hit.

The reason is that all the herbal medicine shops held a free smoking experience event.

For the merchants from Central Asia and other foreign countries who were smoking hookah for the first time, a new world was opened up to them.

Throughout the smoking process, the aroma of the nine-leaf hibiscus intertwines with that of various Chinese medicinal herbs and melts in the mouth.

After finishing the tube, my mind was surprisingly clear.

Then comes a sense of satisfaction that cannot be expressed in words.

With something this good, what man wouldn't love it? Very quickly.

Nine-leaf hibiscus has been sold at an unbelievably high price.

The business on the Han Chinese merchant side is in full swing.

The foreign merchants who came from afar had a different mindset; most of their capital was invested in the goods they brought.

They're eager to sell off their holdings and cash out, then make a large-scale purchase.

I'm afraid that if we wait another day or two, all the good stuff from the Han Chinese merchants' shops will be bought up by the Hu people.

Competition among peers immediately began.

The prices quoted for those luxury goods were exceptionally reasonable!
According to Tian Jiu's flying eagle report, the transaction amount in the Yili River Valley Foreign Trade City exceeded six million taels in just three days!

Of this, Kansai Trading Company only received a portion of the deposit.

Including the final payment, it will soon reach eight million taels.

The Han Chinese merchants in Weilumu were all beaming with joy.

Compared to the Iri Valley, which has a population of nearly 800,000, including indigenous people, military personnel, military dependents, and new immigrants.

The Venezuelan state has only 3,000 garrison troops, their families, and 20,000 new immigrants, with a total population of 110,000.

This border trade city is only one-third the size of the Bagua City, which is about the size of a county town.

A city that is square in shape.

It is shaped like the Chinese character "田" and consists of two main streets and four markets for mules, horses, cattle, and sheep.

Various chain stores and businesses in Kansai occupy most of the main street in the Tajiki-ji area.

The rest were left to the merchants from within the Great Wall.

The grid-like areas within the grid are livestock trading markets belonging to the herders of various tribes near Weilumu and north of the snow-capped mountains.

The herders north of the snow-capped mountains, who were dealing with Han Chinese for the first time, were pleasantly surprised to find that the newly built "田" (field) shaped city by the Kansai Army was very friendly to them.

Livestock such as cattle, horses, sheep, and mules are located in the east, west, south, and north sections of the city, and there are special livestock passages for them to enter.

Every animal entering the market undergoes a routine health check.

If the animal passes the test, a small tag will be placed on it.

Owners who wish to trade on their own can bring their livestock into the free market to trade.

Alternatively, they can be sold directly to the official sellers.

The official purchase price is the market price on that day.

Compared to the instability of prices in the free market, the vast majority of herders chose to sell to the Tianzicheng government.

The official government of Tianzicheng is extremely wealthy and powerful.

No matter how many cattle, sheep, mules, or horses they buy, they don't even blink an eye when they buy them, and they never try to lower the price just because they buy a lot!
Don't be fooled by the fact that these livestock aren't cheap here.

After being transported from Kansai to the interior, the value of the goods would at least double.

And the sales channels are official!

Tian Jiu has been personally leading people to maintain order these past few days, fearing that something might go wrong.

The tax officials from the Ministry of Revenue stationed in Iri greeted Tian Jiudu with beaming smiles.
"General Xiaoji, if we had known these businesses would be so booming, we should have built our trade city much sooner! Our tax office hasn't had such a satisfying tax collection experience in a long time! This year, the tax revenue that Guanzhong pays to the court will definitely rank in the top three!"

Tian Jiu: "."

Of course you're collecting your taxes smoothly.

Once inside the border trade city, all goods are subject to a round of taxation.

Kansai Trading Company is no exception!

Goods such as silk, porcelain, tobacco, herbs, tea, gemstones, jade, glassware, spices, gold and silver utensils, and furs are subject to taxes as high as 30% of their selling price.

The imperial court didn't spend a single penny to build the city!
The imperial court did not send a single soldier to defend the city!
Free tariffs are a boon for anyone who collects them!

Given the profit-driven nature of merchants, the two border trading cities will only become more prosperous in the future! (End of Chapter)