Chapter 35: Opening up Transportation Lines
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"Shouzhe, where did you get 50,000 or 60,000 tons of grain?" Gongsun Qiang took a deep breath and said almost in disbelief.
The Gongsun family of Shanyang is considered powerful, owning ten thousand to twenty thousand acres of fertile land. But even so, the grain output in one season does not reach 50,000 to 60,000 dan! What's more, the output of the family's fertile land requires a share of profits from the tenant farmers, as well as an annual tax per mu. In addition, there are grain reserves, insecticide powder and other consumption.
It can be seen from this that these 50,000 to 60,000 dans of grain are astronomical figures. Even under normal circumstances, it would be extremely difficult to obtain so much food at once, let alone the current state of the world.
"I bought it from Qian's Trading Company through a friend's relationship." Wang Shouzhe said, "Uncle, without further ado, let's go to [Jucaizhuang] first, and the carriage will follow."
Because Gongsun's carriage was used to transport minerals, the cargo cars were specially reinforced. The horses that pull the carriages are also heavy-duty draft horses from the North with strong physiques and full endurance. Each carriage uses four to five horses, which can easily pull thousands or tens of thousands of kilograms.
Bought through a friend relationship?
Gongsun Qiang's eyelids twitched. Where did such friends come from? Can you give me a dozen? With envy, jealousy and a little disbelief, he took the lead in following Wang Shouzhe to the [Jucai Manor].
Jucaizhuang is one of Qian's properties, a place specially used to store various bulk goods. Many bulk goods often cost tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of loads, etc., so there is no need to transport them to Changning Acropolis.
As for the fear of being attacked and robbed, that's just a joke.
Let’s not talk about the strong armed forces in Jucaizhuang. Let’s just say that no one dares to have the slightest evil thought even if the Qian family, a wealthy family in Longzuo, has the brand name there.
He went through the door of Jucaizhuang to ask for an audience, and within a few moments, the money boss Qian Xue'an came out with a dark face, as if he didn't want to give Wang Shouzhe a good look.
Afterwards, he made a handover on behalf of Qian, and the two parties re-drawn a contract, in which Qian "repurchased" the insect killer powder from Wang Shouzhe.
The price is very reasonable, 10,000 dry gold in cash and 60,000 tons of aged grain in stock. After buying back the original 5,000 bags of insecticide powder, Qian could sell at least 15,000 to 20,000 dry gold, so he would naturally not lose money.
Regarding such "embarrassing" matters, the shopkeeper of Qian's Changning branch didn't even want to talk to him, so he entrusted everything to Qian Xue'an. The shopkeeper who had never shown up had obviously already thought about it and put the responsibility for all mistakes on Qian Xue'an, the boss.
Therefore, when Qian Xue'an was assisting Wang Shouzhe to go through the formalities, his face was so gloomy that he was dripping with water, and he didn't want to say a word to Wang Shouzhe from the beginning to the end.
After everything was settled, he threw Wang Shouzhe a stack of gold tickets and a road guide for 60,000 dans of grain, and left angrily.
Wang Shouzhe was also stunned for a moment when he saw such fake acting. I feel deeply in my heart that once Qian Xue'an succeeds in being promoted to the Lingtai realm, he will definitely be a great person in the future.
After completing the procedures, Wang Shouzhe found Gongsun Qiang who was waiting outside: "Uncle, the procedures for receiving the 60,000 dans of grain have been completed. When your people arrive, let's start transporting the grain."
Gongsun Qiang's body was greatly shaken, and he was stunned. Really, he had actually "bought" a full 60,000 tons of grain. This nephew was really incredible.
Soon, Gongsun Qiang's 20-carriage convoy slowly drove in, bringing with them 80 strong mining slaves.
In the granaries piled high, old grains are packed in rice bags. A bag of rice weighs exactly one hundred kilograms per load. But those mining slaves easily carried three or four bags and started loading the truck.
"Uncle, how much can one cart hold?" Wang Shouzhe had never seen so much food in his two lifetimes. Even though he had made some inner predictions, the volume and quantity still far exceeded his imagination.
"Put it on, load it up, load it on a hundred loads. Our carriages are all specially reinforced. The heavy draft horses in the North are not capable of being pulled by ordinary people." Gongsun Qiang's eyes have also started to turn red. He has lived a lifetime, so naturally I have never seen so much food piled together.
With the power of the Gongsun family in Shanyang, it is enough to store 20,000 tons of grain all year round, which can feed thousands of strong laborers for a year. The Shanyang Gongsun family's tenant farmers, miners, and slaves, plus family members, etc., add up to a population of several thousand at most.
Hundreds of tons? That's tens of thousands of kilograms of grain...
Wang Shouzhe was slightly startled, which was unexpected. This was indeed a fantasy world. Not only were ordinary people much stronger, but even the heavy draft horses in the North were so powerful. What's more, this is not a spiritual beast-level war horse, otherwise it would be even more powerful.
Those mine slaves were obviously used to doing heavy work. Every four people were assigned a carriage, but they only had to go back and forth six or seven times to load the carriage. Special ore-pulling wagons were overloaded with grain.
But even so, it was only two thousand tons.
According to this pattern, it can't be pulled thirty times? Come on, pull it slowly. Anyway, we don't expect to finish transporting this batch of grain in a short time.
Fortunately, at this time, Qian Xue'an appeared again. He still said with a cold face: "Our Qian's Trading Company attaches great importance to goodwill and will never embarrass our customers. You can rent our heavy-duty carriage, including the driver." Twenty coppers a day includes the rations for the driver and the heavy draft horses, and you are responsible for loading and unloading."
It is very obvious that Qian Xue'an took the risk and came to assist.
But the uncle Gongsun Qiang on the side almost spit out his blood. Although the price offered by the other party was reasonable, it also weakened his hard work, didn't it?
Originally, Gongsun Qiang wanted to use this help to shamelessly ask his eldest nephew to give him some food.
"This way we can make money to take care of things." Wang Shouzhe said happily, "Then let's rent another thirty carriages."
The number of carriages owned by Qian's firm far exceeds that of Gongsun's, and their business is spread all over Longzuo, so the cargo capacity of their carriages is of course extremely high, no less than that of Gongsun's carriages.
When all fifty carriages were loaded, they drove all the way out of Jucaizhuang.
Jucaizhuang is only ten miles away from Changning Ferry. Under normal circumstances, a carriage can reach it in less than an hour. However, there were many people at Changning Ferry, so Wang Shouzhe did not want to make a big fuss for the time being to avoid unnecessary complications.
After the carriage passed the three-way intersection, it took the road to Shanyang. After another two or three miles, it turned a corner toward Anjiang and arrived at the entrance of a dense forest. From here, the carriage could no longer enter. However, after only walking a hundred or so steps into the dense forest, there is a vertical cliff five to six feet high. There is a natural inlet of twenty or thirty feet wide under the cliff.
At this time, the sixth uncle Wang Dinghai had already received a letter from his family to inform him that he led the fleet to wait here and built a sloping temporary plank road. Those boats include fishing boats and ferries. In short, we brought all the boats that could be used at home.
Although transportation in this way is difficult, it is very concealed.
It took about 250 steps from the carriage to the dense forest to the cliff and the boat. Wang Shouzhe asked the mining slaves and the generals to stand in position, one person at three steps, to deliver the food in a relay.
Once everyone got used to it, they discovered the benefits of this simple human transportation line, which was stable and orderly and gradually improved in efficiency. The speed of loading can eventually reach a load in one or two breaths, and it saves time and energy in running back and forth.
In just over an hour, all the food for fifty carriages was miraculously loaded and unloaded. Afterwards, the carriage team returned to Jucaizhuang to get the next batch. Wang Shouzhe followed the fleet and crossed Anjiang all the way to Fenggu Gate.
There are more people in Fenggu Farm, with two hundred households of tenant farmers, easily able to spare one hundred and fifty strong laborers. Using the same method, the rice grains were transported through Fenggu Gate and temporarily stored in Fenggu Farm.
There are not enough boats in the inland river, there are only about five or six boats, so we have to move slowly on this last line.
The transportation line was successfully opened with difficulty. While Wang Shouzhe relaxed, he also became strongly dissatisfied with his own transportation line.
The first is the over-reliance on public ferries and the lack of private private development of hidden small piers.
Secondly, it is inconvenient to go from Anjiang to the inland river, because the water levels on both sides are inconsistent, and a single lock cannot be opened for a long time at will, otherwise it will cause waterlogging. In this regard, we must find a way to build a lock that can allow ships to pass.
Furthermore, the family has obvious shortcomings in ship transportation and carriage transportation. Perhaps with the current scale of the Wang family, this shortcoming is not very obvious, but as the family continues to grow and expand, this shortcoming will seriously restrict the development of the family.
It seems that it is urgent to establish our own and complete transportation channels.
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