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Chapter 15
Shen Shi had arrived.
Like everyone else, she was completely puzzled.
She didn't understand a word about bidding and tendering.
"Everyone stop yelling," Li Zheng said standing on a bench to speak once most people had arrived, "You all know what's going on, but let me explain the details clearly again."
Li Yao's plan was to wholesale from home from now on. Anyone who wanted to sell her stewed food could buy inventory from her. The highest bidder wins.
If the bids were the same, Li Yao would decide who to sell to.
The winning bidder had to purchase at least 50 bowls per day, and must use the sign "He Wan Village Li Family Stew".
They must sell at the uniform guided price set by Li Yao, and could not arbitrarily raise or lower prices.
They could not do anything to damage the reputation of the brand.
They could not cheat on the quantity or quality.
Once discovered violating the rules, the contract would be terminated immediately, and they would never cooperate again.
Li Zheng explained each point clearly, and everyone finally understood. But everyone looked at each other, not daring to step forward.
Finally, Shen Shi was the first to stand up and bid 13 wen.
She got this price from asking Zhou Shi, so she was certain it wouldn't be wrong.
Seeing Shen Shi be so proactive, the others were emboldened, and after whispering with their families, they began to bid one after another.
In the end, 9 families bid.
"The results are out," Li Zheng said, "The highest prices are from Wang Yuan Cai and Fang Ming Chuan."
Li Yao was not surprised at all by this result.
Wang Yuan Cai was the eldest son of Li Zheng's older brother.
With Li Zheng handling this, how could he let the benefits go entirely to other families?
And the Fang family was the second biggest family name in He Wan village. The patriarch Fang Shi An was also a respected elder who was worldly wise. Fang Ming Chuan was his second son.
The prices offered by the two families were 14 wen for stew with rice and 11 wen for stew with steamed buns.
That meant they would only earn 1 wen profit per serving sold.
"They bid so high. Aren't they afraid of losing money if they can't sell it all?"
Facing such doubts, both families just smiled without answering.
How could they possibly not sell out?
Just go to the market to see, Li Yao's stewed food was in high demand with insufficient supply.
As for only making 1 wen profit per serving, what did that matter? Selling 100 servings per day, they could steadily earn 100 wen, without needing much capital. Where else could they find such a good business?
They even felt that this was Li Yao deliberately letting them have a high profit margin out of worry that they would become jealous of too much money.
With Li Zheng as witness, Li Yao signed contracts with the two families, and their cooperation officially began.
Starting tomorrow, the marketplaces of Changhe County and Linyuan County would have stalls selling He Wan Village Li Family Stew.
The two families were ambitious, and booked 100 servings each for the first day.
That was 400 servings total for the four stalls.
Before noon the next day, all the villagers were craning their necks, waiting for Wang Yuan Cai and Fang Ming Chuan to come back, wanting to know how they did.
The results were of course very smooth. The two families easily sold all 100 servings, earning 100 wen each.
Hearing this result, those who bid lower prices yesterday regretted it immensely.
The most regretful and resentful was Shen Shi. She felt Zhou Shi had tricked her with the random price she told her, and got another scolding from Wang Xue Shi.
"With your pig brain, you still want to do business?"
"Your elder sister gave us low prices to look after us!"
"If you dare speak nonsense and ruin your second brother's business, watch me rip your mouth apart!"
The aggrieved Shen Shi realized that her mother-in-law not only favored her elder sister-in-law, but also favored her second sister-in-law more and more.
She really didn't understand why, when her second sister-in-law hadn't even given birth to a son yet.
...
"Mother." After dinner, Wang Er had calculated the day's earnings, "Today we sold 400 servings total, and earned 2,095 wen."
Li Yao nodded, "Too little."
The children were shocked into silence, not daring to breathe.
Earning 2 taels of silver in one day, and mother still thought it was too little?
"Mother, it's not little."
"It's really not little!"
They only needed two months to buy a house in the marketplace!
But Li Yao felt it truly wasn't enough.
The whole family eating their fill and dressing warmly was only the first step of her plan.
Next, she still had to build a house.
According to her design, just the main structure would need over 300 taels of silver. At their current income, it would take half a year to save up that much money.
Winter would arrive soon, and she didn't want to rely on righteousness to get through the winter.
"We need to earn more money."
The children looked at each other, confused.
"Mother," Da Zhuang asked, "How do we earn more?"
"By making high-end stewed dishes."
...
Li Yao's next plan was to make high-quality stewed foods to earn money from the wealthy.
But the ingredient supply was a big problem.
After circling the marketplace for half the day, she only saw a few chickens and ducks, still the kind raised for years, unsuitable for making stew.
Finally on the streetside she suddenly spotted an old man with a big white goose before him, making her eyes light up.
Goose meat was generally tough and old, and the birds were large, so a single one was not cheap.
Most importantly, there was little profit, so commoners in this era rarely ate goose.
People who raised geese mostly did so for the eggs.
But stewed goose, she felt, would be a good product.
"Old Zhang, how much to sell the goose?"
Old Zhang had been trying to sell the goose for three days already. Some had asked but either complained the goose was too big, or offered too low a price.
A potential buyer had finally arrived, so he tried asking, "25 wen per pound, what do you think? Or I could do 24."
He immediately started lowering the price before she could bargain, clearly the goose was hard to sell.
Li Yao weighed it in her hand. This goose was at least 10 pounds. A single one would cost over 200 wen. Ordinary families really couldn't bear to eat it.
"I'll take it."
"Great, let me weigh it for you."
In the end it came out to 11 pounds.
Taking the 264 wen from Da Zhuang, Old Zhang breathed a long sigh of relief.
"Finally sold one."
Li Yao asked, "From your words, your family still has more?"
"Over ten more," Old Zhang gave a long sigh, "I'm so anxious I could die!"
It turned out Old Zhang was from Baiyun Village, also next to the mountains. The wild grasses were plentiful, so villagers raised geese for the eggs to sell to peddlers who brought them to Yizhou Prefecture.
The continuous drought had killed all the wild grasses, and without grain to feed them, the geese couldn't lay eggs to sell for money, instead becoming a burden for the villagers.
"If we really can't sell them, we have to kill them to eat ourselves. But with over 300 total in the village, we've invested heavily in them."
Old Zhang felt his eyes tear up as he spoke.
"Old Zhang, go home and grab 3 more for me," Li Yao said, "And tell your villagers not to kill them yet, I may buy them all."
"Really?"
"My mother's word is as good as gold," Da Zhuang said. "Our family still has a stall in the marketplace selling stew. You can find us any time if you don't believe us."
Hearing this, Old Zhang said, "So you're the Li mother known for selling stew! No wonder, I've met a noble person today!"
Li Yao smiled to herself, she didn't realize she had become so well-known.
"I'm going back to grab geese right now!"
Old Zhang happily returned home.
When he came back, he carried 3 more large white geese, 35 pounds total, for 840 wen.
"Come to the market in two days. By then I'll know if I want the rest."
"Of course, I will definitely come."