North and South groceries

Chapter 410

In Changle County, there are still very few scholars. Even among the guards, many people can't read a few big characters.

In the case of illiteracy, the communication between people depends on the imitation of speech and voice. This kind of imitation is easy to produce deviations, so there is the saying that three people become tigers. It's all vague and imprecise.

The crickets they are talking about here are actually cookies. Over the years in Chang'an City, no matter it is the sister's food store or the North and South Grocery, they have not stopped developing new products, and they often communicate with each other.

These cookies are sold in both Ajie's Food Shop and Nanbei Grocery. Ajie's Foodstore doesn't make it itself, but directly buys it from Nanbei Grocery, which can save a lot of trouble.

Not only cookies, the people Luo Siniang arranged for this time, they can cook and eat a lot.

In addition, Aunt Luo also arranged for a few people to come here this time, and asked them to come here first to see the situation and follow Luo Yong's arrangement. If the conditions here are ripe, they will open a sister restaurant here in Changle County. If the conditions for the branch of the shop are not yet mature, then let them work in the North and South groceries first, and then make arrangements after staying for two years. Anyway, she thinks that the development situation in Changle County should not be too bad.

Luo Yong asked these people from the sister's restaurant to occupy a space in the snack food area on the second floor of the North and South Groceries, and opened a sister's restaurant. The plaque was ready and the preparatory work was also done. Almost ready to open.

Because the shop downstairs is large enough, the snack food area on the second floor is also very large. In addition to the sister’s food shop, there are also various pastries, stewed and syrups, and drinks. The place is very spacious, and the shops are relatively small. Relatively sparse, it looks like a small square.

This small square is covered, but there are no walls around it, only concrete railings half a person's height, each shop is separated from the shop, and there are tables and chairs in the shop.

In addition, some open spaces have been reserved. If there are other food shops to settle in in the future, walls can be built on these open spaces to separate the pavements. These are all planned and designed in advance.

At present, these open spaces are just some beards built with cement, and straw cushions are placed for people to sit and rest.

This place in Changle County is no different from Chang'an City. It is very popular all year round. There are low seasons and peak seasons here.

Merchants usually travel to Changle County in summer and autumn, and in winter they also sell white flowers and cashmere. In addition, many herdsmen have come to them to sell live sheep in the past two years, so winter is also more lively, relatively speaking. , the lightest in spring.

At the same time, the shop downstairs is also making intensive preparations before opening. Now that it has entered the summer, one more day of delay means one less day of business.

In order to promote the opening of this branch, Luo Yong's disciples asked those Gaochang merchants and Yiwu merchants to bring out the words that all the products of this North-South grocery store will be sold at a [-]% discount on the first ten days of opening.

They even went to the morning market selling fish outside the city before dawn. It is said that the North and South Grocery store will open on the first day of July, with a [-]% discount on the first ten days of opening, so that those fish sellers will spread the news to Heheshu , Baizhang Shouzhuo and other places.

In Changle County and surrounding places such as Dunhuang and Jinchang, this news is well known, and many farmers are waiting to buy a cotton gin on the day of opening.

There are also big families with a large population, and one purchase is often a truckload of goods. The [-]% discount promotion means that they can save a lot of money.All kinds of sauces produced in Changle County are sold at a fixed price, and there is no discount no matter how much you buy. Generally, you will give a few spoonfuls as an extra.

By the first day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, midsummer had already passed halfway, and when the heat receded a bit, the Nanbei grocery store opened as scheduled.

Early in the morning, many people waited outside the shop, and when the shop opened, they flocked in. As for the bustling scene of the opening activities outside the shop, they had no time to watch, they just rushed to buy what they wanted .

Although the promotion of this new store will take a full ten days, everyone is also afraid that some products that are in short supply will be out of stock early, such as the cotton gin, which was often out of stock in the early days.

As soon as you enter the shop, you will see rows of shelves as tall as a person, row after row, as if you can't see the end, each shelf is full of goods.

Every commodity has a price tag, and the label has the product name and price, the most prominent of which is the number that was handed down from Xipo Village back then, and there are also Chinese characters, Turkic characters, and Sogdian characters.

This north-south groceries opened in Longxi. Apart from taking care of the local market, it also mainly does business with merchants from various countries in the Western Regions.

Among the countries in the Western Regions, Chinese and Turkic are the most commonly used languages. The reason why the Sogdian characters are marked is because they are extremely active in business and are a very important customer group.

While some people were still dazzled by the vast shelves and countless goods, others had already pushed into the shopping cart and went looking for the products they wanted to buy.

Like this kind of warehouse-style shopping mall, the help of shopping carts is indispensable. There are two types of shopping carts here, one is a light cart with red wicker weaving as the main body, and the other is a larger trailer for carrying heavy objects.

Pushing the shopping cart and continuing to walk in, there is a long row of shelves on the front wall, all of which are cashmere products for sale.

Although everyone knows that Luo Erniang's cashmere workshop is very large, few people can tell exactly how many patterns and styles their workshop can make. Dazzling and shocking.

Adjacent to the cashmere products is a row of shelves selling face towels, and not far away is a shelf selling pastries. Most of the pastries in this shop are pastries wrapped in oil paper, which are said to be relatively durable.

The salesperson in charge of this shelf holds a food box in his hand, takes out various pastries from it, and invites the passing customers to taste. A customer in front of him has tasted a few pieces. After asking about the shelf life of these pastries, he puts them in his shopping cart. There was a cart full of cakes of various flavors, so the servant pushed them to settle the bill first, and he himself had to look at other things.

If you want to say that the business is the hottest, it is still the area that sells cotton gins, where there are cotton gins of various sizes and models.

The smallest one looks like a small wooden box, which can be taken away with the lid on and hung on the shoulder. The largest one is a bit bigger than a threshing machine, and it takes several people to lift it. Such a large cotton gin Machine, it must be very fast to roll white stacks of flowers. Many people are tempted, but the price is too high to afford.

In addition to the cotton gin, it also sells threshing machines, Yanerfei, wooden rail carriages, etc., and even sells boilers. The big boiler is placed in an open space, surrounded by fences, and people can only watch outside the fence. .

I heard that they almost stopped biogas in Changle County last winter, but it was because of this kind of boiler that they survived.

The price of this boiler is also very expensive. Ordinary people just look at the excitement, and it is absolutely unaffordable to buy it. That is, some wealthy merchants are thinking about whether to buy one first and put it away while there is a discount right now.

Some people just took a look and left, some people made calculations there, and a special salesperson was there to explain the usage and use of this boiler.

"Is this boiler made of coal?" someone asked.

"Exactly, charcoal will do."

"Can't burn firewood?"

"Firewood is not good for burning boilers. The heat can't reach it, and the people who burn it are too tired. Look at this boiler..."

"I'm going to buy coal again."

"I heard that Nayiwu's charcoal has increased in price a lot in the past two years."

"I don't know the charcoal seller, so I don't know who to look for, and I'm afraid that I will be deceived by that black-hearted peddler."

"There are charcoal sellers in Dunhuang, Jinchang, why don't we go and have a look some other day."

"If you all want to buy charcoal, there is a batch in Changle County. The county magistrate is raising money to build water canals. The coal that was bought earlier will be sold at a low price right now."

"Really? Why haven't we heard of it?"

"Everyone, go to the county government to inquire and you will find out. It is also the news that has just been released in the past two days."

"Thank you!"

"Hey, I'm very polite. Gentlemen, think about this boiler again. It's a rare opportunity to get a [-]% discount. When the biogas digester technology is popularized, this boiler will be bought sooner or later."

"Since you have to buy it sooner or later, why are you so anxious to sell it now?"

"Hahaha! The store owner borrowed a lot of money from that sister's restaurant earlier to build this shop, and is now in a hurry to raise money to pay off the debt!"

"I heard that the upper floor used a lot of refined iron?"

"That's right, when the house was built, many of us locals came to watch the excitement."

"Erniang Luo is really rich."

"It's not a big deal. I heard that she bought a lot of real estate and land in Liangzhou City in the early years. In the past two years, due to the abundance of white flocks in Hexi, the land price in Liangzhou City has soared. Now it has doubled."

"Tsk, there is such a sister, the magistrate of Naluo said that he has no money, and still wants to sell charcoal."

"You think he doesn't make money selling charcoal?"

"When he bought the coal, what was the price, and what is the price of the coal now?"

"Don't be jealous, if he is not a man who can earn money, how can he still afford to repair the canal?"

"I heard that I have saved money for many years..."

"..."

After all, the price of this boiler is too expensive, and many people are reluctant to buy it. There are many people who have seen it, and only a few people actually buy it.

A few days later, a group of Sogdians came to Changle County, and rushed to sweep up the groceries from the north and the south. They ordered ten boilers in one go. Later, some other caravans arrived, and even Guo Xiaoke, the governor of Anxi, led them. A team of soldiers came to buy goods.

After these people passed, some large cotton gins, threshing machines, and boilers in the shop began to be out of stock for many models.

Some people were reluctant before, but now they want to buy it again, but it is too late.

Some caravans ordered thorium mesh gauze from Changle County. They didn’t want the finished product of biogas lamps. They only wanted the gauze alone. The lampshade workshop rolled up the gauze like cloth and sold it in whole rolls before shipping it to Chang’an. The batch of goods in the city was also made in the same way.

Nowadays, there are also some such goods that are sold on the shelves of North and South Grocery. You can buy them in whole rolls, or you can discuss with the salesperson in the shop and cut them down according to the quantity you want.

Some familiar Hu merchants asked Luo Yong how to build a biogas digester, and Luo Yong asked them to come back in a year or two.

He said that although the biogas pit method is relatively mature at present, it has not been popularized. The Han people have not yet used this method, and they have not taught the principles to foreigners first. Let them come back next year. By then, the biogas pit method It has been spread and popularized among the people, and when those Hu merchants want to learn, naturally no one can stop them.

When Guo Xiaoke came to Changle County this time, he also talked to Luo Yong about building a biogas digester. Luo Yong did not refuse this time, and directly arranged for a few people to follow him to Gaochang to build a biogas digester.

In addition, Guo Xiaoke also bought several boilers from Luo Yong and the others, some of which were shipped back to Gaochang, and the rest were shipped to Jiuquan.

Luo Yong guessed that the boilers transported to Jiuquan were not necessarily used to heat the biogas digesters, but were probably transported to the mining area for heating.

The weather in the Jingtieshan mining area is very cold and the vegetation is sparse. There is not much firewood for fire in that place. However, after the wooden track is opened, it is convenient for the iron ore in the mountain to be transported out, and it is also convenient for the coal transport outside. go in.

Guo Xiaoke is also very busy recently. He also needs to strengthen the border defense to guard against Turkic invasion, and he also needs to get money everywhere to provide financial support for his eldest son's mining team.

Hearing that several groups of people have rushed from Gaochang to Jiuquan recently, Luo Yong and Tang Jian guessed that those people were going to mine.

Ordinary people don't know this much inside information, and don't care about that much. Recently, many local people in Changle County have become fascinated by the various snacks on the second floor of the North and South Groceries.

Most of the various snacks at Sister’s Food Shop are tailored to local conditions, and are of high quality and low price, which many people can afford. The shop next to it sells cream cakes, and many people can only envy them.

There were also women from good families who came in droves in wooden carriages, just to eat a piece of cream cake upstairs from the north and south groceries.

One of the most popular ones is the orange-flavored cake, which is filled with orange pulp from Huainan. It is the place where fragrant oranges are produced in Huainan. Chang'an also uses this kind of orange pulp to make cakes. It has been made for two or three years, and the ladies in Chang'an City also like it very much.

Longxi is no better than Chang'an, and it is too far away from Huainan, which produces oranges. Many local people will never know the taste of oranges in their entire lives.

These food shops on the second floor of Nanbei Grocery not only brought them the taste of oranges, but also brought many kinds of food that they hadn't been able to touch before.

The two places like Jinchang and Dunhuang are, after all, close to each other. When locals want to eat, they can take a wooden carriage to come here, or send their family servants to buy. Generally speaking, it is more convenient.

However, places like Gaochang Yiwu are far away, and it is not easy to go back and forth. The rich people in these two places are either attracted by the food, or they value the development prospects of Changle County. Recently, many people They all plan to buy property in Changle County.

Changle County Government has a lot of real estate, and Luo Yong asked people to sell some of them depending on the situation when the market is good.

Some people thought the price was too high and questioned whether Luo Yong planned to make a fortune before leaving office. Convenience, all the money and silk from the house sale in Changle County will be donated to Guo Duhu for road construction.

Guo Duhu was very moved when he heard about this, although his old Guo family will soon have a mine, but right now there is no such thing.

This is to develop the mining area and pay for road repairs. Even if you are the governor of Anxi and the leader of the entire Longyou Road, there are still a lot of places to come in. However, you spend too much money so fast that you can't make ends meet.

In order to express his gratitude, Guo Xiaoke asked the people around him to give Luo Yong a golden horse, saying that he wished him a prosperous future when he returned to Chang'an City this time.

Luo Yong took a look at the golden horse, it was so small, and recalled that when Guo Xiaoke came here to take up his post, he was on his way to Changle County. At that time, Luo Yong could only give him some white wine and food, so he gave Luo Yong a few gold decorations with great wealth. Hui Luo used hemorrhage to donate money to build roads for him, so he took out such a small golden horse, and it would not be too eye-catching to tie a thin rope around his neck as a pendant.

"Tsk, it seems that I really have no money."