Journey 1995:Non-Stop

Chapter 193 High-End Wood Species
Li Shengli and Yan Hui were mutually benefiting; Li Shengli also urgently needed a good supplier of ash wood because it was really hard to buy.

Most businessmen simply don't understand ash wood. Why is a type of wood that can't be directly split into planks or squares, and which isn't straight or thick, so expensive? (With current technology, ash wood squares can be easily purchased.)

But those in the know understand that this wood is of excellent quality, with amazing lateral load-bearing capacity and great toughness, making it a great choice for furniture making.

The two finalized a rough contract in just half an hour. Li Shengli didn't know much about ash wood, but he had specific requirements. Yan Hui took a look and found that the quality requirements were quite high, with a cost of over two thousand yuan per cubic meter.

Among various types of natural timber, pine is the cheapest; even the 21st grade red pine is relatively inexpensive. Pine is generally comparable to fir and paulownia in price. At this time, there wasn't much planting of fast-growing poplar and other low-priced timber species.

Ash, birch, and elm are priced similarly, while beech, red oak, white oak, maple, cherry, and black walnut are priced in that order.

Black walnut wood can cost several thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan per cubic meter. Yan Hui had never actually seen it before; he had only read about it in books. It was said to be used only in high-end renovations and luxury car interiors. When Yan Hui worked at the timber market, he encountered both black walnut and mahogany, but he had very little contact with them. After all, his status was too low; as a porter, his knowledge was extremely limited.

Above that, it's usually rosewood. There are more than 20 kinds of rosewood. Chicken wing wood is slightly cheaper, but the others are all ridiculously expensive. Yan Hui heard a lot about it from Lao Guo.

Therefore, in Yan Hui's view, ash wood is nothing special and is very common in the market in Fengtian. It's just a matter of perspective.

Yan Hui spent two years in Tiexi District, the most developed industrial city in Northeast China during the 90s. Tiexi's timber market was actually one of the best in the country, but he didn't really appreciate it. Later, he followed Lao Guo to Yichun, a core timber-producing area, which can be considered quite lucky.

The only regret now is that Jianye's market is not big enough. Yan Hui has specifically studied magazines and found that currently, furniture and other light industrial production is still led by the Pearl River Delta, where the market size is enormous!
Of course, the competition will definitely be more intense.

“Mr. Yan, this is our first time working together, so I don’t know anything about this deposit,” Li Shengli asked tentatively.

“You want 100 cubic meters of ash wood here. Here’s what I’m thinking: since you’re not in a rush, you can order 30 cubic meters first to check the quality. I only need a deposit of 10,000 yuan,” Yan Hui explained.

After the ash wood is brought back, it needs to be processed and prepared, which takes quite a while. However, things like stair railings on construction sites aren't in a rush, since the building has only just been topped out.

"A deposit of 10,000 yuan. The main reason is that we've never worked together before." Manager Li was still a little worried.

"Manager Li, this is my business card. You may not know much about us, but we actually ship around a thousand cubic meters of timber every month. We're not a small company. Our system is quite rigid." By this time, Yan Hui had already insisted on a deposit.

"Okay, I'll go to the timber market in a couple of days, and we can talk in person." Li Shengli said, looking at Yan Hui's bracelet, "Mr. Yan, this bracelet of yours feels better than any I've ever seen. What kind of rosewood is it?"

"Manager Li knows about rosewood?" Yan Hui was overjoyed. Hadn't he encountered a professional again?

Having spent time with Lao Guo, Yan Hui has picked up a decent understanding of rosewood. While not as knowledgeable as Lao Guo, he is quite familiar with the 29 species in 8 categories of 5 genera, and he has even taken notes on them.

"Not bad, not bad. I have a string of small-leaf sandalwood beads." Li Shengli said with a hint of pride.

"Oh, sandalwood, that's really good, a fine product! Manager Li really knows his stuff!" Yan Hui praised.

Yan Hui's words, "Sandalwood," completely baffled Li Shengli. What was that? The scientific name for small-leaf sandalwood? That must be it! Unsure, Li Shengli went along with Yan Hui's question: "Mr. Yan, what is this?"

"This is Dalbergia odorifera, a type of fragrant rosewood. A friend specially requested it. There's no price listed, and I can't buy it myself." Yan Hui had said this many times. He didn't want to leave it unsaid beforehand, in case someone asked for it and he had to refuse.

"Oh, I wonder which is better, this or Hainan rosewood?" Manager Li knew that Hainan rosewood was the best.

"This is actually Hainan rosewood, but we timber people don't usually call it that. These names are a bit hard to pronounce, and I guess Manager Li might get confused too. Let me explain it briefly." Yan Hui gave a brief introduction.

In China, rosewood is generally divided into eight categories. We will not discuss ebony, striped ebony, and chicken wing wood for the time being. The most common of the remaining five categories are red sandalwood, black sandalwood, and rosewood. In addition, there are two more special categories.

There is only one type of sandalwood, *Pterocarpus santalinus*, also known as small-leaf sandalwood. There is only one type of fragrant rosewood, *Dalbergia odorifera*, also known as Hainan rosewood. There are seven types of red sandalwood, the most famous being "big red sandalwood," also known as Dalbergia cochinchinensis.

I won't go into the rest.

Yan Hui only talked about this much; if they continued, Li Shengli would probably get confused.

"I didn't expect Hainan Huanghuali to be so amazing, actually occupying its own category!" Li Shengli exclaimed in surprise. "And this fragrant rosewood sounds like a high-quality product; it's said to have a very unique fragrance!"

“Small-leaf sandalwood also falls into this category, it’s good that you have this!” Yan Hui thought for a moment, “Manager Li, since you have this hobby, I’ll go back to the Northeast in a while and see if I can get some large red sandalwood material for you.”

Yan Hui understood that Li Shengli wanted to play with and smell the Hainan Huanghuali, but he wouldn't lend it out casually; he would rather agree to something else.

"Oh, Mr. Yan, you're too kind."

For Yan Hui, meeting Li Shengli was an unexpected surprise.

For some time afterward, Yan Hui went to the construction site again, but to no avail, and did not expand to a new construction site.

The market is not so easy to expand, after all, the "existing" market is basically already occupied, and you can only take over if you are lucky enough to encounter "new" market.

There was a little incident here. When Yan Hui brought some ash wood to the market, many business owners immediately started asking around, trying to understand the market for ash wood, but they came up empty-handed.

One business owner even bought 20 cubic meters of ash wood to sell, but couldn't sell it at all and ended up having to sell it at a loss. Of course, that's another story.

In September and October, Yan Hui traveled back and forth between Jianye and the Northeast, keeping an eye on both sides, and the company's operations went smoothly.

At this stage, Yan Hui had basically controlled the price of white pine in the timber market. Other bosses who wanted to buy or sell white pine had to inquire about Yan Hui's situation first. Some even went to Lao San to get the price. "Great Ambitions" Company was already a large company in the market.

(End of this chapter)