A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 77 A thousand pieces of gold

Liu Heizi led Cao into the inner courtyard of the west yard and took her to the west wing.

"We'll live here from now on. The village chief said you'll work in the workshop here, and I'll give you seven dou of millet a month."

Cao looked around the yard curiously.

The yard is very big and there are many people in it, all busy with their own work.

The room in the west wing next to the north house was assigned to Liu Heizi. Originally, it was planned to lend him Kong's cave to live in, but Li Yi said that they could just live in the west courtyard, and the couple could help look after the house at night.

Liu Heizi couldn't hide his inner joy. He enthusiastically introduced the layout and furniture of the house to Cao. "This is a bunk bed. We just asked the carpenter to make it. The village chief designed it himself. It's convenient for hanging mosquito nets. Look, the mosquito nets are ready. You don't have to worry about mosquito bites at night. You can sleep well..."

There was a bunk bed, a bedside table, a table, and a wardrobe in the room. The floor was very solid and the walls were very smooth. Cao was like dreaming.
I was suddenly transported here from the dirty, smelly and messy refugee settlement at Chang'an Third Bridge, and I was at a loss for words.

Liu Heizi boasted to the woman, "The village chief thinks highly of me. Tomorrow I will borrow some cloth from him and replace all your clothes with new ones. From now on, we will live a good life and you will never have to worry about not having enough food to eat or clothes to wear."

"Tomorrow I'll have the village chief take us to the headman to register our ownership, and then we'll divide the land..."

Cao's heart was filled with joy when she heard these words. She could not help but turn around and hug Liu Heizi tightly. Liu Heizi was startled, and was both excited and at a loss as to what to do.

······
Sanniang hurried to the East Courtyard.

"I just heard from a passing merchant that the East and West Markets of Chang'an, as well as Weiquji, have also started selling dried bean curd sheets and tofu puddings. They're much cheaper than what we sell. A pound of dried bean curd sheets is only 200 coins, and a pound of tofu puddings is only 240 coins."

Li Yi, who was checking students' homework, didn't even raise his head. The children's calligraphy was a bit bad. In order to save paper, ink and brushes, they practiced calligraphy in the sandbox most of the time.
This makes the progress of writing calligraphy on paper slower.

"Don't worry, since the recipe has been leaked, this day will come sooner or later. Your father used to sell tofu. This tofu has been made since the Western Han Dynasty and has been sold for eight hundred years. How many people in the world sell tofu?"

"But they've lowered the price so much, what should we do?"

"Let's follow suit. What's there to be afraid of? The worst that can happen is we'll make less money." Li Yi took a piece of white paper and wrote on it. "But we can't just engage in a price war. We need a strategy. First, we need to classify the grades. We have three grades in a pot of bean curd sheets. The top ten skins are the best. Not only will we not lower the price, we'll have to raise it. From now on, every kilogram of first-grade bean curd sheets will be worth one dou and two liters of rice."

"For this medium-quality dried bean curd sheets, we'll match their price. If they sell it for 200, we'll also sell it for 200 coins per jin."

"As for the third-grade yuba, we're a little cheaper than them, ten cents per jin. We sell it specifically where they sell it, but we have to limit the quantity and not sell too much."

Luo Sanniang was puzzled, "Why are prices going up and down again?"

"The price increase for first-class yuba is to tell our existing customers that our yuba has always been good. The reason why it is more expensive now is because it is much better than others. We want them to know that they have not lost out and will not lose out in the future. These first-class yuba have always been made with the best ingredients and the best craftsmanship. We will continue to strive for excellence and the quality will be even better in the future.

These top-grade products will only be available in limited quantities and will be branded as Wuji Yuba. Of course, of the two-liter price increase per kilogram, one liter will still be given as a kickback to the purchasing agent.

The middle-grade products compete with them at the same price, but the third-grade products are sold at a lower price to impact them, at least in limited quantities. The reason is simple: the low price is just for publicity, a strategy to sell less and suffer less loss.

In fact, there are only two bean curd skin businesses now. This kind of handmade workshop can't produce more than a few hundred kilograms a day, which is not enough to supply Chang'an City alone, not to mention the 22 counties in Yongzhou, the capital. There are so many other counties and prefectures besides Yongzhou.

But the Wei family is now slashing the price, this is for Li Yi,
They just wanted to lower the price first to squeeze Li Yi out, and then monopolize the market.

The Wei family thought he had the ability.

“What if they lower the price again?”

"I'm not afraid of them selling at a loss. At worst, I can flip the table and sell the house directly or make the recipe public. It's just a small business, so it won't matter if I don't do it."

Li Yi also has the ability to overturn the table. Originally, he made bean curd sheets and tofu soak because he saw the difficulties Sanniang's family was facing in selling tofu and proposed some solutions, but Sanniang insisted on asking him to do it. It was just an unintentional achievement.

Sanniang said, "Wuyi, I believe in you and will always support you. I'll go buy some yuba from the Wei family and see how good it is."

"Don't bother. The quality is definitely not as good as ours now, but it will be about the same in no time."

This kind of thing isn't high-tech; at most, there's a difference in production capacity and efficiency. But the Wei family also has a tofu workshop, so even if Li Shimin granted them a title last time, it wouldn't have had much of an impact.

"Stay calm and do our own thing. Now ask your father to notify some of our major clients, such as Mati Temple, and inform them of our adjustments."

Li Yi now has many high-quality clients, such as Hui Le, the head of the lower monastery of Ma Ti Temple. He takes a one-third commission, and Li Yi believes that Hui Le will still support him. Many monks and stewards in charge of purchasing in temples and aristocrats also take kickbacks.

Wait for Sanniang to go out,
Li Yi finished marking the students' homework.
He took out the Xishan Bailu green tea Du Ruhui had given him and brewed a pot for himself.
Drinking tea and thinking,

The Wei family's attitude has long been revealed, and they are extremely arrogant. They don't take Li Yi seriously, but because of Li Shimin, they may not dare to use some means for the time being, but no one can interfere with normal competition.

But Li Yi still said the same thing, it’s no big deal.

At most, the huge profits from bean curd sheets and fermented soybeans will be reduced and restored to normal profits, making it an ordinary small business. The capital is so big that his Wei family does not have the ability to monopolize it all.

Anyway, Li Yi has already made a lot of money. Even if the profits are lower in the future, as long as he can maintain it, he can also provide many jobs for the villagers and let everyone earn a salary.

Maybe I can think of some other money-making projects.

Ji had previously suggested that he use the silk and grain he had to lend out, as the interest income was quite good. If he did well, he could get a 100% annualized return, or at least 50% or 60%. If he was as unscrupulous as those noble landlords and temples, he could even get an annualized return of 200%.

Or you can open a pawnshop or something, which may seem insignificant but is actually very profitable.

But Li Yi was a little resistant to the idea of lending money. He felt that this business was a way of profiting from people's misfortunes and could easily lead to the separation of wives and children and the destruction of families. As a time traveler, there was no need for him to engage in this business.

Even if the villagers came to borrow money or grain, Li Yi would help them in an emergency, but he would only charge a low interest rate.

He thought of the lip balm box he had bought in the East Market, the lip balm and facial medicine inside, as well as the tooth powder and bath beans he had purchased in the West Market.
To be honest, these things are quite simple, but they are very expensive.

Although this one is said to be the prescription of the King of Medicine and that one is said to have been made for the palace for generations, they are just cleaning and care products.

Bath beans can be replaced by soap, and soap is just an upgraded version of soap.

The core ingredient of many bath beans recorded in the Qianjin Yaofang and Qianjin Yifang by the King of Medicine Sun Simiao is pig pancreas. After washing away the dirty blood and removing the fat, it is ground into a paste, and then bean powder, spices, etc. are added. After evenly mixing, it is naturally dried to become bath beans for washing.

It is very expensive, mainly because of the spices added, some even have pearl powder, etc., so of course it is expensive.

But from Li Yi's perspective, these so-called bath beans are too backward.

In fact, it doesn’t have to be that troublesome. You can just grind pig pancreas and add wood ash to make an upgraded version of pancreas from bath beans.

If you think about it more, you can use lard, or even all animal and vegetable oils, add alkali, such as milk, tea oil, or juices boiled from various medicinal materials, herbs, and spices, etc., and master the proportions, and you can get advanced soap.

Li Yi thought that he could make some basic soap first. He could mix wood ash with water, let it stand overnight, and filter it to make lye. The lye reacted with oil to form sodium higher fatty acids, which could be processed into soap.

The reason we use pig pancreas is actually just because it is very cheap.

In fact, the rapeseed oil he used to fry beans or the hempseed oil he used to light lamps could both be used to make soap. Just thinking about the exorbitant prices of bath beans sold in the East and West Markets of Chang'an, Li Yi felt as if a golden door had opened before him.

Although the oil is expensive, it is still far less expensive than bath beans.

The only problem is that all the pharmacies in Chang'an are doing the bath bean business, and the competition is quite fierce. If Li Yi's products don't have some characteristics, it will probably be difficult to compete. The difficulty lies in sales.

So he had to come up with something that was a revolutionary improvement over bath beans.

"Alang?"

"Ah."

Li Yi came to his senses and found Ji standing in front of him calling him.

"Is something wrong?"

"The meal is ready,"

Li Yi smiled and stood up.
"Ah Lang, today Du Shiniang sent a cart of cloth, saying that she would ask the women in the village to make a set of clothes for each of the children in the school."

"I know about this. Tomorrow, have Uncle Luo ask the women in the village if they are free. Invite them to make clothes for you. They will be provided with two meals a day and two liters of millet."

"Does Dalang really want to give every child in the school a set of clothes?"

"Well, give each of them a pair of cloth shoes."

"Dalang is so kind to them."

“They were all donated by caring people.”

"It's because of you, Alang, who founded this school and your reputation that people are willing to donate. Otherwise, so many children from ordinary people wouldn't be able to go to school, and no one would donate."

Li Yi could only smile at Ji's cleverness, as it was indeed the case.

"For children, a set of autumn clothes only takes a few feet of cloth. I asked the women in the village to help make clothes and shoes for the children. They can also earn some food."

The student got a new set of clothes and shoes, the village woman got some income, and Li Yi and the donors gained fame.

"Du Shiniang is a pretty good girl." Ji thought for a moment and said.

Li Yi looked at her, "What do you want to remind me?"

Ji looked at Li Yi and said seriously: "I can see that she has some feelings for A Lang, the feelings of a young girl who is just beginning to fall in love. As an outsider, I can see it, and I believe the Du family will also see it." As Ji Sujun, who was born into a noble family and married into an equally wealthy family,
She knew very well that Du Shiniang's affection was dangerous.
It will bring a lot of trouble to herself and Li Yi.

She has followed Li Yi. After spending some time with him, she has even given her body and soul to him. She has to remind Li Yi.

“Some things are like chasms and chasms that cannot be crossed.”

Li Yi laughed and grabbed her hand. "Thank you for telling me this, but you don't have to worry about this. I know what to do."

"Let's go, let's go eat. What are we having for dinner tonight?"

"Sister Xiuzhi fried a plate of eel for Alang, really rolled it into a roll, and also fried leeks and eggs, and a turtle soup. Sanniang collected it this morning from a villager in Sanjia Village at the bridge head. It simmered for a long time. I also cooked glutinous rice for you."

There are eel dishes, turtle soup, and leeks. Is Xiuzhi afraid that he can't handle these two beautiful maids and wants to give him some tonic?
When we arrived under the tree in the inner courtyard, we saw the two dishes and a soup on the stone table, as expected, as well as a small bowl of natto and a large bowl of rice water.

Lanxiang and her two siblings were already waiting for him.

Sujun, Yuse, Xiuzhi's mother and three others, plus Hongxiao who just arrived today, ate in the corridor. Their meals were much simpler, millet rice, stir-fried water spinach, and green onions mixed with tofu dregs.

Although Li Yi didn't care too much about the clear distinction, Xiuzhi and the others always took the initiative to maintain the boundaries between master and slave.

"This old turtle is so big, and the four of us can't finish all the soup. I'll reward each of you with a bowl of old turtle soup. Come and get some." Li Yi smiled and waved.

When they came over, Li Yi put some soft-shelled turtles in each person's bowl.

The evening sky was dyed red by the rosy clouds.

The evening breeze blows away the heat left by the sun.
Everyone was having dinner in the courtyard. Li Yi was enjoying himself while fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan.

The sunset is beautiful and the evening breeze is cool.

"Shitou, there's still half a turtle left. Give it to Heizi in the west yard to give him some extra strength. He's going to be the bridegroom tonight."

Shitou and the other kids burst into laughter and said, "Then we have to eavesdrop on the wall tonight."

"Be careful of Heizi who will beat you up. His palms are as big as palm-leaf fans, and he can slap you like slapping mosquitoes." Li Yi said with a smile.

"Brother, Liu Heizi isn't going to hold a wedding or a banquet?"

"Heizi and his wife both said there was no need for it. I think the guy is just impatient. His wife, on the other hand, is a person who wants to live a stable life. She started saving money for him as soon as she came." Li Yi said.

Xu Xiuzhi thought of herself. She also fled from famine in Guandong. Her husband died in Sanqiao. Fortunately, she had two children with her.

Li Yi saw her stunned, "Xiuzhi, do you also want to find someone to rely on? How about I take you back to Sanqiao one day and find a young and honest man. I just need someone like that."

Xiuzhi blushed and quickly took the bowl into the kitchen to wash it.

Shitou carried the turtle soup to the west courtyard and said to the two brothers, "Did you hear that? I'm going to help you find another one."

The little door post shouted, "Ah Lang is the best, let Ah Lang be ours."

The gate bolt nodded, "Yes, I am willing to do so too."

"Hahaha!"

Everyone laughed, even Ji Sujun couldn't help laughing out loud.

Xiuzhi, who was in the kitchen, rushed to the door and yelled at the doorpost, "You bastard, if you dare to talk nonsense again, I'll tear your mouth apart and beat your ass into pieces."

The doorpost and the door bolt were so scared that they rushed out of the door, running faster than rabbits.

(End of this chapter)