52 The weather was already a little hot at the beginning of April, and in the afternoon, five black canopy boats docked at the catchment wharf outside the state city. Before the boat came to a stop, a man jumped out of the boat and went to the city gate, while the rest sat on the boat with fifteen or sixteen boatmen, all of whom had knives at their waists, and waited on the boat. The shopkeeper of Hesheng Grain Store sat in it, he looked at the scenery on the wharf, wiped his sweat with a cloth from time to time, and did not speak.

There are two wharves in the state city, here is the larger one of the confluence wharves, located in the northwest of the state city, in the upper reaches of the state city, and is a few miles away from the county seat of Ziyang, and the other is located in the southeast and lower reaches of the state city The wharf was built earlier, which is much smaller than the later construction of the confluence wharf, and the locals call it a small wharf. At this time, the tooth people on the dock had already gathered on the shore and asked one after another, "What are you selling?" "Don't sell anything, I'm waiting for someone." Lao Zhang returned. "Waiting for whom? If you don't buy or sell, you have to row away, and you have to pay for stopping the boat. "Well, just for a moment, I'll talk about it later." Lao Zhang nodded.

After a while, more than ten people came, and a few mule carts were led, and an old man walked to the shore and bowed his hand to Zhang Fukun, "Shopkeeper Zhang has been waiting for a long time." The old man who spoke, Lao Zhang, knew that it was the shopkeeper of Taixiang Grain, and immediately returned the salute, "Shopkeeper Li, please." The shopkeeper Li didn't say much, and boarded the boat with a strong man beside him.

But I saw that the boats were full of sacks, and they were piled up to the top of the tent, and they were all grain. "This bag" Shopkeeper Li pointed to the middle bag, "This, the bag inside." Then he pointed to one on the top and one on the bottom, three bags in all. Immediately, one of the boatmen pulled out the sack of grain he was pointing at and put it in front of him, "Come," he spread his right hand, and the man who had come on board with him handed him an iron awl a length of a foot. The iron cone was hollow, and the shopkeeper Li took it and inserted it into the grain bag, and the millet flowed out of the cone. He pulled out the cone, poured the grain into his hand, rubbed it, took it to his nose and sniffed it, put it in his mouth and chewed it for a while, spit it out, and said nothing. I redid the process on the other two bags of millet that I pulled out, and my face was still expressionless.

"Go and get a pick," the shopkeeper Li instructed the others, and soon brought one or two baskets. "Open four bags and put them in two baskets." The men did not say a word, but quickly opened the sack and poured the grain into the basket, all of which were just one load. Shopkeeper Zhang stood aside and looked at him coldly, and did not speak. "Go, the remaining four ships have checked in turn." Shopkeeper Li handed the cone to the man who followed him and said, the man got off the boat and took a few people with him.

The rest of the day they all stood on the boat and waited. After a while, the man returned to the boat and said to Shopkeeper Li, "I have checked it all, and it is indeed the best grain." "Hmm" Shopkeeper Li's frowning brows stretched a little, nodded at Zhang Fukun, and then turned to slap the guys on the shore, "Lift it up." "I saw that the men took eight large wooden boxes from the mule cart with great effort, and the four men carried one and carefully carried them into the two designated boats." Shopkeeper, please check. Shopkeeper Li stretched out his hand and made a gesture of please. Hmm" Wu Disaster on the side of Lao Zhang Chong raised his chin, Wu Disaster hurriedly walked to the box and counted the number of runs, only counting the number of runs, as for whether each pass is enough for nine hundred Wen, but there is no need to count them one by one, and you can know how big it is when you look at the length. Besides, this is not a one-shot deal, a fraud in a small amount of money, and the old rivers and lakes will not be stupid in this kind of thing.

"Each box is fifty times, eight boxes are four hundred, and together with these ten pieces, a total of four hundred and ten pieces, all are complete." Saying that, the shopkeeper Li asked someone to hand over a burden, and Lao Zhang asked people to answer, "Today's five boats of millet have a total of 100 quintals, each quintal is 1,850 yuan, and 100 quintals are 200 and 5 quintals, and this time it is collected together with another 100 quintals of money next time, that is to say, four hundred and ten quintals are good." Lao Zhang paused, slowed down his voice and said, "The next batch of grain will also arrive in five days after 100 quintals, and if you still want to order at that time, you will have to pay the amount to be ordered in advance. "Hehe, no one is as good as you." Shopkeeper Li also had a smile on his face, and pointed at Lao Zhang jokingly. "No one has such a low price as ours, everyone knows this, so there is no need to say more." Lao Zhang disagreed. "This bag is two and a half buckets, four bags are a load, the bag is lent to you, the broken ones have to be repaired, the next time the food is delivered to you, you have to take it back, and you will have to use it to transport grain in the future, if you want to keep it, you can also buy it."

After counting the money, Shopkeeper Li asked someone to unload the grain, and then sat on the boat with Lao Zhang and chatted, and the atmosphere was warmer than just now. "Your Zhou Dongjia is very stakes! At this price, I look at a few other companies in Ziyang, oh, what else can he do with that surplus grain, can he bear it? "I don't know what he's doing, whether he can put up with my." Lao Zhang pinched a few grains of grain and threw them in his mouth, squeaking and chewing carelessly. "Hey, okay! Your. Lao Li smiled and gave Lao Zhang a thumbs up.

"Oh, there is another thing, when we landed just now, someone asked us to pay the money, saying that it was by the boat, a hundred yuan for a boat, what's the matter?" "Well, there is such a thing, the boss of this dock Pi Rongli's rules, everything that does business ships docked must be paid, 100 yuan for large ships, 60 yuan for small boats, the rules established last year. I've fought for this many times, and now no one dares to disobey this rule. "Then I just came here a few days ago, why didn't anyone collect money?" "Are you on a ship that sells and pulls goods?" "Oh, in this way, when the two of us discussed it a few days ago, you didn't say this, we can't give out this money." "Hey, didn't you say that the bag would be delivered to the dock?" "Sent to the dock, but I didn't say that I moved ashore, if we want to count this boat money as our out, then next time we will only have to increase the price of food." "Lao Zhang, you said that hundreds of dollars of business, what do you care about on these two hundred yuan? Hey... "One hundred wen per boat, five ships is five hundred wen, how much should it be in the long run?" Accounts cannot be calculated. Besides, the price I gave you is comparable to other grain numbers? Make grain, you are an old oilman, how much do I earn from these boats of grain? Think for yourself. "Okay, I won't talk to you more, and I'll pay half of the money according to your boat, so it's okay!" Lao Li waved his hand impatiently, expressing his unwillingness to dwell on this matter. "The food to be carried ashore will have to be carried by your men. We've been rocking the oars here for a day, and we have to shake them back again, and we don't have the strength anymore. Lao Li grinned and shook his head when he heard this, and his fingers shook Zhang Fukun, "Tut-tut, Lao Zhang, don't say it anymore, I'm convinced of you." ”