Huang Daoqing: ......What do you mean?
"You don't want white alkali anymore? Aren't you afraid your workshop will go bankrupt?"
"You don't need to worry about that."
"Humph, let's see how long you can still be arrogant!" Huang Daoming sneered, "After today, the price won't be the same anymore."
Just then, Wang Xiao Si rushed in like the wind from outside and shouted loudly as soon as he entered the door: "Mom, third uncle is back!"
Wang Family's third son Wang Yuanguo was the purchasing agent appointed by Li Yao.
His return meant that the white alkali was also bought back.
Sure enough, soon Wang Yuanguo, Jia Zhanliang, and Liu Yuan came to the door, and behind them were more than 20 heavily loaded ox carts.
“Mistress Li, I have not failed you!”
“This time I went north and bought a total of 8,000 catties of white alkali.”
Liu Yuan also said: "There is not so much white alkali in the south, I only bought 5,000 catties."
That's 13,000 catties.
If all made into soap, it would be about 140,000 pieces.
It should be enough for now.
"Mr. Huang," Li Yao said to Huang Daoqing, "I heard that you were hoarding white alkali. I don't know if you have hoarded enough. If not, I can share some with you here."
Huang Daoqing: ......
He was completely stunned, feeling colder in his heart than falling into an ice cave.
How could he have imagined that Li Yao would have people buy white alkali from other places!
Couldn't this prefect stop them at the border?
Now that Li Yao has enough white alkali, she will definitely no longer be constrained. His hoarded white alkali is useless.
No, he has to get rid of it immediately.
"Mrs. Li, what are you talking about?" Huang Daoqing laughed, "I just want to make some small money too. But I misjudged earlier and did hoard a little too much. Why don't we do this? I see you use a lot, so I'll sell you everything at the market price of 500 wen per catty, how about it?"
"No."
"400 wen?"
"No."
"300 wen!" Huang Daoqing was really anxious, "Then I'll give it to you for 250 half price!"
This guy is really shameless.
But even if it was given for free, Li Yao would not want it. She was not short of money and had no need to be greedy for such a small profit.
On their way back, Wang Yuanguo and his men had already sent people to various places to sell alkali to shops. The market was completely saturated.
So Huang Daoqing's white alkali could only rot in his hands.
He thought it was a rare commodity, but didn't expect to end up riding a tiger that was hard to get off. Huang Daoqing regretted it bitterly.
"Just wait, I will deal with you sooner or later!"
He silently cursed in his heart, and Huang Daoqing left crestfallen.
With enough white alkali, Li Yao immediately arranged for the workers to work at full capacity to try to produce another large batch before the new year to give Jia Zhanliang and Liu Yuan enough goods.
They had put in a lot of effort this time, so let them earn more and have a happy new year.
The soap workshop was running at full capacity, consuming 30 catties of white alkali every day, producing about 3,000 pieces of soap. This was still under the limited supply of lard.
If lard could be supplied in large quantities, the output would be even higher.
In ten days, 30,000 pieces of soap were produced. Added to the previous 10,000 pieces, there was a total of 40,000 pieces of soap.
There were also 2,000 pieces of fragrant soap.
Seeing so much goods, Jia and Liu were both excited.
"Mistress Li, how much are you giving us for these?"
"I'm giving you 50 wen per piece for the soap, the market price is fixed at 100 wen," Li Yao said, "You can be flexible with how much profit you keep for yourselves."
The two were overjoyed.
The 50 wen margin was enough. They could earn a lot.
And Li Yao earned even more.
After careful calculation, the total cost of a piece of soap was 10 wen. She could earn 40 wen per piece, 40,000 pieces was 1,600 taels of pure profit.
Of course, compared to soap, Jia Zhanliang and Liu Yuan were more concerned about the expensive fragrant soap, which was where the big profits lied.
"I'll give you 1 tael of silver per piece for the fragrant soap. As for the market price, it will be up to you to decide for the first year."
Decide for themselves?
The two were at a loss for words to express their joy.
Being able to set their own price meant they could speculate and earn even more.
As profit-driven businessmen, who would complain about too much money?
The cost of fragrant soap was not much different from ordinary soap, but the 2,000 pieces of fragrant soap brought a profit of 1,980 taels of silver.
The two shipments together earned a total of 3,580 taels, all in cash on delivery.
After discussing, Jia and Liu decided to divide the goods evenly between them, and then head south and north separately to sell them.
With Beijing in the north, and many rich people in the south, the two were not worried about not being able to sell them at good prices.
After reaching an agreement, the two were led by Li Yao to the workshop's "finance office".
To their surprise, such a large transaction, so many silver notes, Li Yao actually let an outsider be in charge of collecting money. It was really unbelievable.
The cashier collected the money, the accountant kept the books, and then the two could take the receipts to the warehouse to collect the goods.
The receipts clearly stated the type, quantity, and collector of the goods. All three were required, only then could the shipment be released.
Jia and Liu once again marveled at Li Yao's meticulous thoughts, not giving anyone a loophole. How could they not earn money by cooperating with such a meticulous person?
......
The workers in the soap factory were secretly delighted to see the first batch of goods shipped out of the city.
The more shipments there were, the more Li Yao earned, and the more prosperous the soap factory could become, which meant their wages could be guaranteed and lasting. This was a very simple psychology.
"Let's work harder before the new year, and try to ship another big batch! When Li Yao is happy, maybe she'll give us more bonuses."
At Wang Xueshi's urging, dozens of workers were full of motivation. They started work early every day, and if it wasn't for the limited amount of lard, they would have worked until midnight.
Of course Li Yao did not shortchange them either, distributing the lard residue refined every few days to the workers, so that many families did not need to spend money to buy meat.
With the soap factory not needing Li Yao's attention, and the county magistrate not asking her for help recently, Li Yao had a lot of free time.
In addition to chatting with the county magistrate's wife every day, she also went to the mountains behind to take a look.
Da Zhuang was the type who couldn't sit still. Although it was winter now and there was nothing to do in the fields, he still drove the cows every day, plowing the flat ground in the back mountain to prepare for planting sweet potatoes or potatoes next year.
"Young master is really a model of diligence."
Every time she saw Da Zhuang working, the county magistrate's wife couldn't help praising him a couple of times.
Li Yao also felt that Da Zhuang was good, just a little too honest. Luckily He Xiaoya was sensible and not as overbearing as her original self, so the two matched well.
