1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 314 Hot 4
"This truckload is almost finished. Has the next truckload of bok choy set off yet?"

"We set off more than half an hour ago, we should be arriving soon!"

Hearing Chen Jiazhi and Xue Jun's conversation, Li Xiu in another car asked, "Jiazhi, can we get another carload of bok choy and Shanghai greens?"

"The bok choy and Shanghai greens harvested yesterday have all been shipped out, but the cold storage is out of stock. The earliest we'll get more is this afternoon!"

Chen Jiazhi responded loudly, and everyone in the stall got busy again.

Two cars have already been driven tonight, and there's no sign of it stopping.

He could only marvel once again at how easy business was these days.

Since arriving at the market, Chen Jiazhi has been constantly on edge, his mind pounding, and he's almost numb from handling all the money.

Once a customer leaves, you can immediately start working on the next one.

They're either collecting money or writing orders, and occasionally they have to help direct the loading process.

Luckily, he sells by the piece; otherwise, he'd have to add weighing and packaging, and even if the market was good, the sales efficiency wouldn't be able to keep up, leaving him helpless, or he'd have to hire a whole bunch of people.
He didn't have time to wander around the market, so he didn't know about other people's prices; he only knew that his own business was always booming!

Prices have risen again, with bok choy now costing 80 yuan per piece, nearly 2.7 yuan per jin (500 grams).

Even if we consider this price in 2025, the profit margin would still be quite good.

Especially now!
"Boss Chen, business is good! Give me 40 packs of bok choy."

Another big client arrived. Chen Jiazhi looked up and saw that the client looked familiar, but he couldn't remember the client's name. The client base was expanding rapidly.

This is inevitable, as it would be difficult to find another place in the entire market with so many high-quality leafy vegetables besides his.

Chen Jiazhi smiled and said, "The price of bok choy is 80 yuan per piece now. If the price is okay, we can find a truck to come and load it up."

"The price has gone up again!" The person was surprised for a moment. "Take it, take it. You won't find anything this good here."

"Okay, that'll be 3200 yuan in total."

"Wow, you make money so easily, and the customers even bring their own cars to pick up the vegetables. You're something else."

"Boss, you only see me eating meat today, but you didn't see how I was beaten up half a month ago. During that period, I was dumping dozens of tons of vegetables every day. If I didn't recover some of my losses, my stall would have gone out of business."

"Now it's your turn to make money, all the leafy vegetable stalls in the market will have to cater to your whims!"

In just a few words, Chen Jiazhi remembered this person; he was the owner of one of the first few stalls in the market.

It mainly deals in leafy vegetables.

In other words, the two are still competitors, and this situation is probably not uncommon.

He was unaware of the situation in the market, but it seemed that slot number 63 had already become a hot topic of discussion.

Chen Jiazhi pursed his lips. He preferred to make money discreetly. Receiving large sums of cash every day made him too easy to attract attention.

The night was calm and peaceful, literally calm and peaceful, and this kind of weather kept the No. 63 slot machine hot.

The work continued until four in the morning, when they had taken down two more trucks. Only then did Chen Jiazhi, Li Xiu, Xue Jun, and He Qiang, who had come to work, have a chance to stop and rest.

There weren't many vegetables left either. Shanghai bok choy, baby bok choy, and romaine lettuce were all sold out, with only a small half-cartload of bok choy hearts remaining.

"Once I get busy, it never ends!"

"It's time to get the market trucks running again. There's another wave of business this morning, and if we don't get them running soon, we won't have any vegetables to sell."

"Wait a minute~"

Chen Jiazhi tried to look up at the sky, but could only see steel plates. He had to walk a few steps away before he could put his hands on his hips and gaze at the sky.

"It feels like it's still going to rain~"

"Can you see this?"

Li Xiu also ran out, and Xue Jun, He Qiang and others followed suit to see the deep night sky.

There's nothing there?

"Do you understand? It's past four o'clock and there's still no sign of dawn. There's a good chance it will rain."

"I think the stall should also have a radio so people can listen to the weather forecast anytime."

If it rains again, it will help maintain the market, but if it rains too much during the day, there will be less time to harvest vegetables, and the supplies in the cold storage will not last more than two days.

And now that I have some free time, I realize that I have indeed attracted a lot of attention these past two days.

Chen Jiazhi thought for a moment and said to Xue Jun, "Finish this job, then we'll call it a day and get some rest."

"Are you alright?" Xue Jun said, "I'm not tired."

Chen Jiazhi glanced at him, seemingly genuine, but still said, "I haven't slept well for two days in a row, how could I not be tired? Let's settle it like this, get a good rest for half a day, and come back tonight. Besides, the vegetable leaves at the market can't withstand selling like this!"

"Okay~"

Time passed slowly, and with fewer dishes available, things became less busy. Chen Jiazhi asked Li Xiu to write down the orders and collect the money, while he calculated the 24-hour sales.

"Reset to zero, reset to zero~"

“5+2+4+20+12+30+5……”

"Reset to zero, reset to zero~"

As Chen Jiazhi pressed the calculator button again and again, he became more and more engrossed in the calculations, while at the same time he was secretly alarmed.

The combined sales figures are terrifying.

We dried nearly 8 tons of bok choy, 6 tons each of Shanghai bok choy and romaine lettuce, and the most of all choy sum. Including the remaining half truckload, it's almost 40 tons of cargo!

The total is about 60 tons, which is no less than that of Tongxingtai!
Chen Jiazhi stopped using the calculator and instead silently calculated with a pen, conservatively estimating that he had collected over 200,000 yuan in cash in that day and night.

These vegetables sold out quickly!
"Oh wow, all done!" "No more vegetables, no more vegetables. The next truck won't arrive until the afternoon. We'll come back later, later!"

After finishing the last truckload of vegetables, He Qiang handed Chen Jiazhi a cigarette and lit it for him.

Chen Jiazhi also pulled out a wad of banknotes and counted them. "Thank you for your hard work. Here you go. There were 60 tons in total today. I'll still give you 1200 yuan for the handling fee."

He Qiang waved his hand, "The market is declining now, and some unloading companies outside are only charging 12 yuan per ton."

"I don't care about anyone else, just take it if I tell you to," Chen Jiazhi said with a smile. "If anything happens at the stall in the future, you'll have to keep an eye on it for me too."

"Then I won't be coy. Just let me know if you need anything in the future."

He Qiang readily accepted the money. With the 1200 yuan distributed among his small team of about 10 people, each person could receive an average of over 100 yuan.

Now there are plenty of people vying to do manual labor, and the market price for unloading has dropped by almost half, making it even harder to find work.

They can live quite comfortably by staying at slot number 63.

Chen Jiazhi took a deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled a puff of smoke. "What are your plans for the future?"

He Qiang, shirtless and covered in sweat and salt crystals, was smoking a cigarette. "Let's keep moving goods. It's hard work, but making money is better than anything else."

"You can also do other things."

“I don’t have your skills. Boss Chen, are you going to show me the way?” After a pause, He Qiang added, “A few of us brothers can work for you.”

Chen Jiazhi pondered for a moment and said, "If you trust me, work at the stall first, and at the same time take some time to learn how to drive. Learn as soon as possible, and you'll have many opportunities to make money."

"drive?"

He Qiang, along with He Peng and Sun Jianjun who were standing nearby, were all stunned.

Chen Jiazhi added, "Yes, driving. You guys often move goods at the market, so you should know how difficult it is to find a vehicle to haul goods these days. If you can't afford to buy a car, being a driver doesn't pay badly, but it's best to buy your own car and run your own business."

Starting around 1993, the construction of expressways across the country entered a period of rapid development.

At the same time, the booming development of domestic industry and commerce, the large-scale production of goods by various factories, and the increasingly frequent commercial activities have led to a continuous increase in the demand for cargo transportation in retail, wholesale and other sectors, all of which have brought a large amount of business to the freight industry.

Take vegetable wholesale as an example. With the improvement of transportation, the potential demand for medium and long-distance freight is also very high.

He Qiang and others had been unloading goods for people in the market for a long time, and after a little thought, they felt that it made a lot of sense.

"The cars are just too expensive, I can't afford them," Sun Jianjun said. "Could it be that Boss Chen is considering buying a car and hiring a driver?"

“I will still buy more vehicles and need drivers, but I would prefer to cooperate with you and provide you with some freight orders.”

Sun Jianjun and He Peng had many concerns, as buying a car was too expensive.

Chen Jiazhi could only look at He Qiang, who waved the money in his hand and said, "Thank you, Mr. Chen. I'll consider it."

After dividing the money, the group left.

The stall became deserted after the vegetables were gone. After a quick tidy-up, Chen Jiazhi drove his Isuzu with Li Xiu and Xue Jun to the distribution center.

As soon as the car stopped, it started raining again, as if God had just broken up with someone.

This did not affect the busyness of the distribution center, and the sorting lines were also expanding.

Chen Jiazhi found Jiang Xiaoyan, looked at the orders from the past two days, and then they reconciled the accounts together.

After daybreak, he took a bag of money to the bank and deposited it. After a few days, he had saved up more than 40 yuan!
As Chen Jiazhi stepped out of the bank and looked at the continuous rain, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Carrying money around every day is stressful.

"WeChat is still the best!"

"Jiazhi, what is WeChat?"

"Uh…"

Chen Jiazhi forgot that Li Xiu and Xue Jun had also come to the bank with him, so he could only gloss over it.

Chen Jiazhi first drove Xue Jun back, and then he and Li Xiu returned home once again.

The rain just won't stop, so we probably won't be able to harvest the vegetables today. We also saw a lot of damaged fields along the way.

"Jiazhi, is the market flooded too?"

"It's hard to say, we'll have to go back and see."

The rain in Guangzhou is always unpredictable. It rains at night, in the morning, at noon, and several times a day. If you're unlucky, it can be a downpour every time.

Compared to rain, a little heat doesn't seem like such a big deal.

On rainy days like this, vegetables can't be harvested, seedlings can't be planted, and workers can only rest.

However, upon arriving at the market, Chen Jiazhi still saw many busy figures.

Upon asking, I learned that there had been a heavy rainstorm in the market area last night, and several plots of land had been flooded.

In the middle of the night, Yi Dinggan and the team leader were already organizing the use of water pumps to drain the water.

Chen Jiazhi went to check and found that the paddy fields were also flooded. The flooding hadn't lasted long, but as long as the sun came out, they were basically beyond saving.

Pumping out the water was effective, and the flooded area was brought under control.

“Those plots of land are the drainage outlets, and the terrain is a bit low, so there was really no other way.”

The rain was still falling. Chen Jiazhi patted Yi Dinggan on the shoulder and said, "It's okay, it's just flooded. There are still bok choy in the cold storage, so the price of vegetables can still go up a bit."

Yesterday, I gave Xia Youche some choy sum for only HK$75 per piece, but by the end of the day, the price in stall number 63 had risen to HK$80 per piece. He must have made a good profit.

(End of this chapter)