The Fiery Era: Starting from Longxugou

At the Hademen morning market, Zhao Shi'an quickly set up his stall, and while his family wasn't looking, he mixed in several batches of chives he had harvested from his spatial dimension.

After working for a while, Zhao Youtian and Zhao Youliang came over.

"Uncle, is it settled?"

As Zhao Shi'an spoke, he fiddled with the old-fashioned steelyard balance in his hand.

He was still using a 16-ounce scale, and thanks to the original owner's memories, he quickly got used to it. In short, the principle of a lever scale is the same as the lever principle. There are two ropes on the scale beam; the larger rope, next to the hook, is for weighing heavy items, ranging from one to ten pounds; the smaller rope is for weighing items weighing less than one pound.

"It's settled. The listed price at the state-run vegetable market is between 10,000 and 12,000 yuan per jin (500 grams)."

We'll set the price at 13,000 yuan per jin (500g), and even if we don't sell them all, the price can't go down to 10,000 yuan per jin!

Zhao Youtian lowered his voice and replied, "The first crop of chives is the most important source of income for most vegetable farmers. A mutual aid society has twenty or thirty households, and every household grows chives. If the price is not unified, it is easy to cause problems. So, each mutual aid society should set a unified price based on the state-guided price. This way, the rights and interests of vegetable farmers can be protected to the greatest extent."

"Thirteen thousand? Okay!"

Zhao Shi'an was somewhat surprised to hear this. He knew that the first batch of leeks was expensive, but he didn't expect it to be this expensive. The key point is that the state-owned listed price was not low either.

As soon as the stall was set up, a number of people dressed in fine cloth jackets with their hands clasped together gathered around. These people were neatly dressed, carrying cloth bags in their hands, and spoke very politely. They first bowed to the stall owner, and then began to check the quality of the chives. If they liked them, they would buy them directly.

These are the purchasing staff from various restaurants. The first batch of chives is extremely popular with diners and is one of the must-have dishes in restaurants.

In contrast to these buyers, there was a group of people with their eyes darting around. They came to the stall and started picking and choosing, complaining that the chives were too old or not long enough. These were all middlemen, banding together to try and drive down the price so they could make a profit.

The mutual aid society's standardized pricing is also intended to better combat these middlemen.

Vegetable farmers often earn less than these middlemen after a year of hard work.

"Hey bro, what's the price of chives?"

Several shoppers strolled up to Zhao's stall and asked, looking at the fresh-looking chives on display.

"13,000 yuan per jin, how many do you want?"

Zhao Youtian made a quote.

"Okay, let me check out the dishes first!"

After saying that, the group picked up the chives and examined them. They were quite satisfied with the white leaves, green color, and dew-covered chives.

"The chives look good! Brother, after you've weighed them, can we re-weigh them using our own scale?"

"If your scales are working properly, of course you can!"

Zhao Shi'an added a premise: the current scale weighs 1 jin and 16 liang, and the 16 stars are composed of the seven stars of the Big Dipper, the six stars of the Southern Dipper, plus the three stars of "Fu, Lu, Shou", for a total of 16 stars.

An old saying goes: lacking one ounce means less fortune; lacking two ounces means less prosperity; lacking three ounces means a shortened lifespan.

But despite all that, the practice of shortchanging customers has never stopped, since people can earn more money without a conscience.

There are many tricks used by cheating scales. The simplest one is the weight. Most scales are small scales weighing ten catties, and the weight weighs half a catty. If the weight is less than half a catty, the weight will be short. Small vendors use this type of scale the most. If the weight is more than half a catty, they will lose money. This type of scale is mainly used to collect goods from street vendors and make a profit by understating the weight.

There are countless ways to cheat people with steelyard balances. Not only can they change the weight or move the tin star, but they can also change the lifting rope, press down the tail of the scale, wrap the rope around the scale to jam it, hook the weight, and adjust the fixed star. Even using the wrong lifting rope can cause the scale to be short.

"Haha! You're quite cautious, young man! As long as your scales are fine, we'll be fine too!"

"That works!"

Zhao Shi'an nodded.

"Okay, give me five jin!"

"I want three pounds!"

"Give me two pounds!"

"Please wait a moment!"

Zhao Shi'an then asked his father and uncle to weigh the leeks.

After the other party weighs the goods and confirms there are no problems, the payment and goods are settled.

In this one batch alone, nearly half of the vegetables from these two companies were sold.

After seeing off the big client, business improved considerably, and soon, both companies were left with almost nothing.

As dawn broke, Sun Cuilan suggested:

"Sister-in-law, there's still a little over a pound left that's hard to sell. Shall we get rid of it?"

"Wait a little longer! The clearance price is only ten thousand, which is three thousand less per pound. That's enough to buy half a pound of meat!"

Liu Guiying was very reluctant to hear this. These were the leftovers, and the quality was not good. She was reluctant to just throw them away.

"Mother, let me do it!"

As Zhao Shi'an spoke, he picked up a scale to weigh the chives. After weighing each bundle, he tied it with a single chive.

"Shi'an, what are you doing? Why are you only weighing a small handful at a time?"

Seeing her nephew's actions, Sun Cuilan was very puzzled! Liu Guiying, Zhao Youtian, and Zhao Youliang also looked over in confusion.

"Auntie, uncle, and auntie, this bunch is one ounce, and we sell it for a thousand a bunch! Do you think they'll buy it by weight, or by the bunch?"

Zhao Shi'an didn't explain much, but let his family make the choice. This kind of trick is often used in modern times. Using kilograms to price is too expensive and easily discourages people. Changing it to ounces or grams makes it easy to fall into a trap if you're not careful.

"Of course they'll buy ours! Everyone else sells them for 13,000, but we sell them for 1,000 each. It sounds cheap, Shi'an, you really know how to do things."

Upon hearing his nephew's words, Zhao Youliang's eyes lit up.

"Boss, that's a really clever idea! By the way, how heavy is that?"

Upon hearing this, Liu Guiying became concerned about the weight of the chives.

"Mother, this handful is one tael!"

"One thousand a bunch, one bunch is one tael, one jin is sixteen taels, one jin is sixteen thousand, that's more expensive than what we just sold, oh my god..."

Hearing his nephew's words, Zhao Youliang did a quick calculation of the price and couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

Seeing this, Zhao Shi'an quickly tugged at his uncle.

Sun Cuilan stared at her nephew in shock. After recovering from her shock, she looked at her husband and scolded him:

"What are you yelling about?"

"Ahem! I'm just so happy!"

Zhao Youliang responded with an awkward laugh.

"So what if you're happy? You're really something else! Shi'an, you're quite the expert!"

Sun Cuilan praised her nephew and then followed suit. Before long, all the chives were bundled up, and she started selling them.

"Chives, chives, freshly cut chives, a thousand a bundle, a thousand a bundle..."

Women carrying baskets to buy vegetables immediately surrounded the area when they heard that the chives were so cheap. However, they were disappointed when they saw the bundles of chives. Fortunately, while some were disappointed, others were willing to pay, and the remaining chives were quickly sold out.

After selling out, the family happily packed up and went home.

Back home, Liu Guiying cooked, Sun Cuilan helped with the fire, and Zhao Shi'an sat down to count the money.

After counting several times, I finally figured out the amount of money from both families.

"Boss, how much?"

Seeing his eldest son's reaction, Zhao Youtian couldn't wait to ask, and Zhao Youliang also looked over.

"Big brother, our family's is 14. Uncle, your family's is 13!"

"So many? My family harvested a total of 10.5 jin of chives, and in the end, we had a little over 1 jin left. We sold them all by the bundle. If we sold them by the jin, we definitely wouldn't have been able to sell this many."

"Shi'an, your method really works! Let's continue selling like this tomorrow!"

Zhao Youliang was delighted to hear this. If he sold the remaining leeks the same way his nephew had done, he could earn at least tens of thousands more.

"Your uncle's right! If we'd known bundling them up would be so profitable, we should have started selling them like this sooner!"

Zhao Youtian agreed with his younger brother's words.