Journey 1995:Non-Stop

Chapter 181 Getting On the Right Track
Mr. Zheng was the first to place an order. His furniture factory couldn't possibly use all red pine; that would be too expensive!
For example, on a table, what part requires the highest strength?
It's neither the tabletop nor the table leg, but rather the connecting part.

When a table wobbles or even collapses, the problem almost always lies at the connection between the table legs and the tabletop. In physics, this is called a "force-saving lever," so this area needs extra reinforcement.

As for the wooden planks of the table and the wooden ribs of the table legs, white pine can be used, because white pine is very suitable for gluing.

In Jianye Market, the most common way to sell timber is actually through spot sales.

As you can see, it's in stock, and you can buy as much as you need. This is the option that 99% of buyers would choose. Yan Hui's truckload of goods is clearly better dried than air-dried material, and the price is only 50 yuan more per cubic meter.

In one day, both truckloads of leather were sold out. In addition, Yan Hui also secured a new order for white pine.

Ordering is always cheaper than buying in stock; everyone knows that.

"More than 100 cubic meters of timber, and you didn't have any orders, yet you sold it all in one day, that's incredible!" My cousin gave me a thumbs up during dinner that night.

"Brother, didn't you help me digest 20 doses? Come on, let me toast you, with water instead of wine!" Yan Hui is in good health now, but he still rarely drinks alcohol.

“Give me that price, and I’ll make a profit selling them right here. We’re brothers, no questions asked! I’ll try to save up some money as soon as possible, so that I can at least buy a whole train carload of your goods in the future!” My cousin truly saw a way to make money.

Some say business people are the stingiest; others say they're the richest and most generous. These seemingly contradictory statements actually reflect different stages of a business's development.

My cousin has more cash on hand now than before, but he has higher expectations for the future, and at this stage, he needs to invest his cash flow in inventory. In other words, my cousin is richer than last year, but he's a little more frugal.

However, my cousin never expected that selling white pine would be so easy.

Two days later, Yan Hui had just flown back to Northeast China when he sold all 20 cubic meters of white pine trees.

The easy-to-gluing properties of white pine have been confirmed by several furniture manufacturers in the past two days.

The strength of wood is never just about the strength of the wood itself. After all, no wood in the world grows into a finished product in one go; all wood needs to be processed. Cutting is only one aspect; splicing is the real issue.

Mortise and tenon joints, nail-holding joints, and adhesive bonding are very common.

Good adhesive bonding offers advantages such as low cost, high effectiveness, and reduced risk of wood splitting, which are difficult to replace with nails.

Some people like to blindly praise the traditional mortise and tenon structure, which is also incorrect. On the one hand, the mortise and tenon structure increases waste. For example, two 30cm wooden sticks glued together will be 60cm, but with the mortise and tenon structure, they will only be 55cm. On the other hand, it requires a high level of craftsmanship and has low work efficiency.

After 2010, more and more CNC machine tools emerged, giving new vitality to mortise and tenon structures. However, before the widespread use of CNC machine tools, the time required for mortise and tenon structures was simply too long.

Therefore, the main connection methods currently used by furniture factories are nails and glue.

Since 2018, more and more small furniture items have been shipped online via express delivery. Therefore, many common small furniture items use screw-based construction, which is most conducive to repackaging and transportation. These changing times directly impact factory production.

The excellent adhesive properties of white pine significantly increase the strength of white pine furniture. After the furniture factory tested it, when they went to the market to buy materials, only my cousin's family had any in stock.

The mere 20 square meters of goods, costing just over ten thousand yuan, were naturally sold out quickly. Not only that, but some people even placed orders directly with my cousin, and some were willing to pay a deposit.

My cousin wouldn't directly act as a middleman and buy Yan Hui's goods; he passed the customers on to Lao San. He could make enough money trading spot goods himself. His biggest advantage was that he could always get spot goods from Lao San, and once the next train car arrived, he wouldn't be in a hurry to sell.

Upon returning to Northeast China, Yan Hui immediately devoted himself to the project of air-drying and oven-drying white pine trees.

There weren't many drying plants in Yichun at that time, and many of them were established specifically for drying high-end imported goods. For example, drying 60mm thick red pine planks takes more than a week, and Yan Hui couldn't easily find an available drying plant.

Drying these thick plates requires advanced technology, mainly because of the large humidity difference between the inside and outside of the plate, necessitating continuous steam replenishment. Yan Hui visited several drying plants and finally managed to negotiate with one new plant that offered suitable prices and lead times.

The drying process was too risky, so Yan Hui didn't dare leave the place and traveled between several different locations every day.

I don't need to go to the forest farm much anymore. I mainly work at the processing plant, the station, the drying plant, and the air-drying workshop. I'm busy like a spinning top every day.

If Yan Hui were to recall the past few months, he would have no recollection of them.

In Yan Hui's memory, the three months of March, April, and May felt like a fleeting moment, passing by in the blink of an eye.

After three months of hard work, Yan Hui has basically secured deals for logs, planks, and timber from three types of wood: white pine, red pine, and larch.

The Jianye Zhonghuamen Timber Market has completely recognized Yan Hui as a great businessman.

During this period, it wasn't that no one had tried to transport white pine here, but either they couldn't find drying equipment or they lacked experience in air-drying. Although they had learned some tricks from Yan Hui, the quality of the white pine they transported was slightly inferior. Especially when it came to transporting timber, no one dared to do it except Yan Hui.

To prevent numerous breakages during the transportation of white pine timber, Yan Hui used a configuration of one layer of planks and one layer of timber, and every few layers, he would sandwich a layer of larch hardboard.

This was his unique loading method, known only to his third brother and cousin, and the third brother personally oversaw the unloading process every time.

In short, after three months of running around, Yan Hui finally got the business route working. He went directly to Wang Hongjun, borrowed Liu Zi, and paid Liu Zi an extra 1000 yuan a month to help him visit various factories. Wang Hongjun readily agreed.

Yan Hui had long been his number one stable customer. He could borrow six pieces of gold from Wang Hongjun, or even lend the deputy director to Yan Hui without any problem.

Now, whenever Wang Hongjun goes to the logging camp to pick up timber, he always calls Yan Hui in advance to ask for Yan Hui's opinion.

After working non-stop for three months, Yan Hui can finally take a break. The supply chains in Northeast China and Jianye are running smoothly. In the Northeast, everything can be handled by Wang Hongjun, daily tasks can be handled by Liu Zi, and if there's anything they don't understand about the business, they can rely on Lao Guo.

In Jianye, the third brother is finally on track, acting like a boss all day long, running around without any problems. If he has any issues he can't handle, he can ask his cousin for help.

Yan Hui bid farewell to Wang Hongjun and Liu Zi again, preparing to return to Jianye for half a month.

As for his current funds, they are actually not much, just over 50.

(End of this chapter)