In 1959, what's wrong with me pedaling a tricycle?

Er Gouzi said with envy, "Wang Er, you're really something, so many people are willing to exchange goods with you. Damn it, that grandson of Wang Pangzi, I've asked him several times to exchange some goods, but he still won't agree. I'm so envious of you."

Wang Xingguo said with a smile, "Brother Ergou, there's nothing to envy about this. Although Fatty Wang gets me the goods, he charges exorbitant prices. If I weren't thinking about making a good impression on the first day of business, I wouldn't have switched to his overpriced goods."

Er Gouzi suddenly lowered his voice and asked, "Wang Er, do you still have any pigs over there?"

Wang Xingguo asked in surprise, "No, I only got six last night. What do you need so many pigs for?"

Er Gouzi rubbed his hands together and said, "Pork prices are soaring right now. I'm thinking of getting more pigs, raising them in a secluded little courtyard, and slaughtering them around the New Year to sell them slowly."

In fact, Wang Xingguo didn't mind exchanging pigs for grain, because he couldn't do business with customers in the Xicheng District at all.

The higher the price of the meat he can produce, the less he will actually produce.

When prices skyrocket next year, you might only be able to sell a few dozen kilograms a night, but those few dozen kilograms of meat will fetch more money than a whole pig does now.

If it weren't for the need to feed the pigs large amounts of pig feed and soybean meal to prevent them from losing weight, Wang Xingguo would have liked to raise all the pigs until next year before selling them.

Er Gouzi doesn't need to provide food for his clansmen, so he has the means to raise these pigs. He can't do that himself, though. The clansmen in the Gaobeidian production brigade alone have several thousand mouths to feed. If you include Wang Siying's branch, the number is even greater.

However, the Twenty-First Master did not mention this matter. The goods supplied by the clan must have a share from Wang Siying's branch. As for how the profits were divided, Wang Xingguo did not care.

Wang Xingguo pretended to be a little embarrassed and said, "Brother Ergou, given our relationship, I should agree to this. But as you saw, the pork was sold at such a high price tonight. Even if we calculate it based on the black market price of grain, according to the proportion of grain you gave, it's less than three yuan..."

Er Gouzi disagreed with Wang Xingguo's statement, retorting, "Wang Er, that's not fair of you. Is grain so easy to obtain? If it were just a few hundred catties, it would be fine, but your pig weighs nearly a thousand catties. Getting this batch of grain for you would be a huge risk for me. You can't just calculate the selling price of the grain; you also have to consider the risk cost, right?"

That's absolutely true. The price Wang Xingguo paid for exchanging pigs for grain already factored in the risk costs.

It was precisely because they couldn't buy large quantities of food even by running around the city's black market with money that they exchanged it at this ratio.

After thinking for a moment, Wang Xingguo said, "How about this, Brother Ergou, you add an extra pound of rice, and we'll exchange it in the following ratio: two pounds of rice, one pound of wheat flour, one pound of millet, one pound of corn, one pound of sorghum, and one pound of buckwheat. If that's the price, I can decide to exchange it for some pigs for you."

Upon hearing this, Wang Ergou hesitated, his expression shifting constantly, clearly considering whether the ratio was worthwhile.

After a long pause, he gritted his teeth and nodded, saying, "Deal! You arrange ten more pigs for me, and I'll pay you for the feed at the new rate. But you need to keep this a secret. I don't want anyone else to know I'm raising so many pigs, lest someone come looking for free food from me."

"That's no problem at all. I promise you I'll keep it a secret. Anyway, I just want to quietly exchange some food and I don't want to be targeted by others."

The cooperation was agreed upon, and Er Gouzi sent one of his henchmen to lead Wang Xingguo to the yard where the grain was stored.

It has to be said that these people have been around for a long time and they have a lot of houses. Moreover, the yard where they store grain is not on the left or right, nor in front or behind, but in a remote and particularly hidden location.

The guide called out the five guards of the grain, told Wang Xingguo that they would come to lock the gate that night, and then left.

Wang Xingguo went inside, collected the grain from the room, closed the courtyard gate, and set off for Gaobeidian on his tricycle.

Wang Xingguo is in a dilemma because he needs to exchange grain for pigs and sell pigs so that he can have money to continue investing in buying pigs.

He wasn't afraid of collecting too much now. Once the temperature dropped and the river froze over, he could use the space to collect ice blocks, then build an ice cellar below the space to slaughter and freeze the pigs for storage.

This year is the last chance to buy pigs. Next year, due to a shortage of grain, and even a shortage of pig feed, pigs may not be able to get fat even after a year of raising them. At that time, it will be difficult to find the kind of fat pigs that you can buy now.

By then, pigs weighing seventy or eighty pounds will have to be slaughtered. The fat on those pigs is pitifully thin, so we must buy more pigs this year to exchange for more grain.

After arriving near Gaobeidian, Wang Xingguo checked his watch and found that it was only 10:30 a.m.

He scratched his head, then decided to ignore it and started releasing the bags of grain according to the weight of the pigs.

Twenty-six pigs, weighing a total of 3,973 jin (approximately 1,585 kg). Based on the ratio of 5.5 jin of grain to 1 jin of live pig, 21,851 jin of corn need to be released.

Wang Xingguo naturally didn't have that much corn. He traded eels for 1,500 catties each of japonica rice and corn. Later, he traded ten pigs for about 3,000 catties each. Er Gouzi and Jin Sanye also traded for more than 1,500 catties of corn. Niuye still had more than 3,200 catties left from last time.

The total weight was about 9,400 jin. Wang Xingguo started by releasing all the 1,500 jin of sorghum, then 1,000 jin each of millet and buckwheat, followed by barley, and finally all the 12,000 jin of barley.

The corn can be delivered to the He family, and the barley can be kept for our own clansmen. I believe that no one will have any objections to having so many extra kilograms of barley.

Now Wang Xingguo only has more than 6,000 jin of japonica rice, more than 1,500 jin of wheat flour, and about 500 jin each of millet and buckwheat.

He will keep this batch of fine grains for now and distribute them to the clan next year. Of course, he won't give them away for nothing; they can discuss it then.

Even if he were to charge money, he wouldn't charge a high price; otherwise, he wouldn't be helping his people, but rather taking advantage of their misfortune.

Anyway, he's now under that person's control, and no matter how high the profit margin on fine grains is, he can't earn a single penny from it.

He knew that if he dared to disobey his orders, he would be locked up tomorrow if he sold the fine grains tonight.

He didn't want to guess what those in power were thinking, much less gamble with his life. The little money he could earn from selling grain was simply not worth it!

After putting away the grain, it was almost eleven o'clock, just the right time to ride my bike in.

When Wang Xingguo rode his bicycle into the village, he found that oxcarts, donkey carts, and handcarts had already been prepared, and a large group of people were waiting for him on the threshing ground!