Double-Cut During the War of Resistance: My Wife Came from 1937

[Boss Guan: "Did Lao Jin introduce you? How much mountain produce do you have?"]

Upon seeing the other party's message, Ma Hongwei first sent some photos to them.

[Ma Hongwei: "I have 30 jin of millet that has never been sprayed with pesticides or chemical fertilizers!"]

[Ma Hongwei: "There are also other mountain products, such as forsythia, bupleurum, kudzu root, and Sichuan pepper."]

[Boss Guan: "Xiaomi looks good. Where are you located? I'll come over this afternoon to take a look!"]

[Ma Hongwei: "I'm in Lincheng. Let me know when the boss arrives."]

[Boss Guan: "I'm currently in Hecheng, it's only a little over an hour's drive away."]

[Ma Hongwei: "Then I'll wait for the boss to come over in Lincheng!"]

After closing WeChat, Ma Hongwei reported the situation to Xia Weiwei.

Ma Hongwei said with a smile, "Weiwei, I've already dealt with some of those mountain products."

"Oh?"

Xia Weiwei asked, "I wonder how many were sold?"

"So far, we have only sold 1750 jin of wild Codonopsis pilosula."

Ma Hongwei said, "However, the price was 3500 yuan per jin (500 grams), and these sold for a total of 612.5 million yuan!"

"So many?"

Xia Weiwei said, "Didn't you say before that it cost over a thousand yuan per kilogram?"

"3500 yuan, isn't that over a thousand yuan?"

Ma Hongwei spoke with a smile.

"But isn't this difference too big? It's increased several times over."

Xia Weiwei expressed her incomprehension.

"As the saying goes, scarcity increases value!"

Ma Hongwei slowly said, "In the past, people harvested too much, resulting in a very small number of wild medicinal herbs in the Taihang Mountains, especially Codonopsis pilosula that is over 8 years old."

"Most importantly, it is now forbidden to harvest older Codonopsis pilosula, and there are special personnel patrolling the area, so it is rarely available on the market."

"It's practically impossible to buy them even if you want to. What's circulating in the market is mostly leftovers from before that haven't been used up, or artificially cultivated wild-grown Codonopsis pilosula."

Xia Weiwei nodded, indicating her understanding.

Just like those Yuan Shikai silver dollars they sold before.

The more common something is, the cheaper it is; the rarer something is, the more expensive it is.

……

Ma Hongwei waited at home for more than an hour before Boss Guan arrived.

He sent the other person his location directly.

Then they went to the warehouse ahead of time to wait.

All the millet and other items had been taken out by Ma Hongwei and placed in this warehouse.

Boss Guan drove up to the warehouse and called out, "Is anyone home?"

"Are you Boss Guan?"

Ma Hongwei came out, smiling and inviting, "Please come in!"

Boss Guan got out of the car and asked, "Are you Boss Ma?"

"it's me."

Ma Hongwei nodded and led the other party into the warehouse.

He pointed to the goods and said, "Boss Guan, take a look. They're all millet and mountain products."

Boss Guan grabbed a handful of millet, smelled it, then pinched it in his hand and nodded repeatedly: "Your millet is good. The grains are small and uneven, but it's very oily. It's definitely from seeds saved from the past. Eating this regularly will prevent you from getting gastrointestinal problems."

He glanced at the millet and asked, "How did you manage to get so much millet?"

"Well, that's a secret!"

Ma Hongwei smiled mysteriously and asked, "Then what's the price of these Xiaomi products?"

The shop owner said, "This is genuine organic, naturally grown millet, and there's such a large quantity. How about I give you 9 yuan per jin?"

"Boss, I haven't used any chemical fertilizers or pesticides at all. You can come and test it yourself."

Ma Hongwei said, "We don't use any chemical fertilizers at all, and we still use the old seeds. We only harvest about 100 jin per mu, at most 200 jin. It's different from other seeds. The price is so low, I can only ask others."

Hearing this, Boss Guan gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, I'll add another 2...3 yuan, this is the highest price I can get!"

"All right!"

Ma Hongwei nodded and said, "Let's calculate it at 12 yuan per jin."

Ordinary millet costs only 2-3 yuan per jin (500g), so 12 yuan per jin is indeed not cheap.

Ma Hongwei calculated in his mind, "Then these 30 jin of millet will be worth 360 million yuan!"

"After we finish discussing Xiaomi, there are some other local products over there!"

As Ma Hongwei spoke, he carried the wicker baskets out of the warehouse one by one.

"Is this wild Bupleurum chinense?"

Boss Guan picked up a Bupleurum root and said, "The nodule is very large, densely covered with multiple stem base remnants, dark brown in color, with straight and long rhizomes. Fresh rhizomes over 5 years old require 4 catties to produce 1 catty of dried product!"

"Your Bupleurum root is excellent. It's very intact, with no broken pieces at all. It's almost all whole pieces, making it a top-grade wild Bupleurum root."

Ma Hongwei said with a smile, "I have tens of thousands of kilograms of wild Bupleurum here. If the price is right, boss, I'll not only sell it to you this time, but I'll also sell you this good Bupleurum again whenever I come across it!"

"I guarantee you a high price!"

After thinking for a moment, Boss Guan said, "How about 248 yuan per jin?"

Tens of thousands of kilograms of wild Bupleurum chinense—that's no small business.

"Yes, yes!"

Ma Hongwei felt that the price was already quite good.

These Bupleurum chinense bulbs were sold for another 248 million yuan.

I must say, there are so many treasures in the Taihang Mountains!

"And forsythia!"

Ma Hongwei took out another basket and said, "These are all wild too."

Boss Guan grabbed a handful of forsythia and noticed they were all old, blackened forsythia. He asked, "Are they all old forsythia? Are there any green ones?"

Forsythia, a medicinal herb, is actually more expensive when its unripe, green fruit is actually green.

This is the main ingredient in those cold medicines and anti-inflammatory drugs, and it's also the one with the largest market demand.

These were also harvested in the anti-Japanese base areas to treat colds and fevers, external injuries and swelling, and plagues.

After the first frost, the fruit will be fully ripe, turning yellowish-brown, and the outer shell will crack.

This medicine is milder and lighter in dosage, but at the same time, a lot of the active ingredients are lost, so the price is not as good as that of Qingqiao.

"Yours are from back in the day, so I'll price them at 14 yuan per jin (500g)!"

Boss Guan asked, "How many of these are there?"

"This weighs 20000 jin!"

Ma Hongwei answered.

20,000 jin, totaling 280,000 yuan.

"Twenty thousand jin, that's not a small amount!"

The shop owner then asked, "What other mountain products do you have?"

Ma Hongwei said, "We have 5000 jin of Sichuan peppercorns, 5000 jin of dried Sichuan peppercorns, and 20000 jin of almonds."

"The Da Hong Pao tea is pretty good, very rich in flavor. I'd say it's a top-grade selection, 30 yuan per jin!"

The shopkeeper said, "Dried pangolin is 10 yuan per jin, and almonds are 4 yuan per jin!"

These three kinds of mountain products together amount to 28 yuan.

All these mountain products were sold off, totaling 664 million.

Including those Codonopsis pilosula, the total must be over 1200 million.

Moreover, Ma Hongwei still has a lot of Codonopsis pilosula that he hasn't sold.

He felt that the price of Codonopsis pilosula was good, and that it could generate a steady stream of revenue, so there was no need to sell it cheaply.