Qilu Zibo, Hengtai County.

Huang Youtian put down the chopsticks in his hand, returned to his room and quickly packed his luggage. He has been in Hengtai County for five days, and he has seen everything he should see, and whether the future business can be carried out here, he already has a bottom in his heart. He had to carry his luggage and continue south, heading towards Zibo Fucheng.

The public carriage from Hengtai to Zibo is a long-distance carriage, but it is different from the county public carriage in Hengtai County, there were only five shifts that day, and now the time is two o'clock, and he has to catch the bus at half past three.

After his half-brother Zhang Laifu took over, Huang Youtian's fate changed, and now they are a complete family.

During the winter vacation last year, Huang Youtian's son Huang Dan met his grandmother for the first time. Naturally, Huang Dan, who became a college student, made his father not look chilling at all in front of his second and third uncles, although the Huang family was really poor compared to Zhang Jinlai and Zhang Youfu. And when the two sides talked about the future, Huang Youtian had already planned to continue to do his own small business with the support of 'his brother' in a small store in Yantai. This little money is not worth mentioning for Zhang Jinlai and Zhang Laifu.

Now that Huang Youtian, the old brother, has given birth to such a good child as Huang Dan, no matter how much of their previous family relationship is left, even if it is for the sake of Huang Dan's face, Zhang Jinlai and Zhang Laifu will not let Huang Youtian continue to be a merchant and hawker who walks around the village. Huang Dan is also very grateful to his two cheap uncles, Zhang Jinlai and Zhang Laifu really helped the Huang family.

And the Zhang brothers are also going to set up a few shops in the provincial capital of Jinan, engage in real estate investment, and bring food and rent.

But at this time, Huang Dan put forward a different opinion. He felt that since his two new uncles had money in their hands, instead of buying a shop in Jinan, it was better to invest in the carriage and horse business.

Huang Dan, who is at the University of Hanlin Academy, although he is not from the School of Economics, has heard and seen that his 'strategic' vision is much stronger than that of local buns like Zhang Jinlai and Zhang Laifu.

"If you look at the price of horses in recent years, you can see how hot the domestic car and horse dealers are. But this is far from market saturation. ”

"To what extent should the real market be saturated? The prices of similar goods in villages and towns and cities of the same quality cannot be said to be exactly the same, or at least not so bad. Huang Dan raised a can of coconut candy in his hand. He didn't buy it in Yantai, but brought it back from Nanjing.

The retail price of canned coconut sugar in Yantai is five jiao higher than that in Nanjing, which can be regarded as a gap in freight. In fact, the cans of coconut sugar are very durable and not large, and the cost price of shipping to Nanjing and Yantai is spread across each can, almost zero.

But what about the price of coconut sugar in their hometown of Shanxian County? No, not to mention a single county. Just say Zibo.

Gaoqing in the north of Zibo is close to the Daqing River, and when the Yellow River failed to capture the Daqing River into the sea, the Daqing River is an important waterway transportation route in Shandong. The area of Zibo Prefecture is slender, and the distance from Gaoqing in the northernmost part to the city of Zibo Prefecture is 200 miles. There is also Xiao Qinghe in the middle, and he stabbed it horizontally. In this case, the price of a can of coconut sugar after coming to Zibo will still be higher than that of Yantai Port ~ Wujiao.

As for the confluence of the Daqing River and the canal, the price of coconut sugar there is roughly the same as that of Zibo, and may even be a few points lower.

There are also canned coconut sugar sold in Shanxian County, which should be more expensive than the meeting point, but Shanxian is close to the canal - more than 100 miles south of the meeting point, although it is farther away from the intersection of the canal and the Daqing River. But in fact, the price of coconut sugar is not higher than that of Zibo, because Shanxian is only about 30 miles away from the canal, and the canned coconut sugar here mainly comes from the Grand Canal, which is transported from south to north, rather than from the Daqing River. However, the price of coconut sugar in Shanxian County is also very stable, and it will not be like Zibo, where the high and low can be wrong. The price of coconut sugar in Shanxian County has been very stable!

A can of coconut sugar worth three yuan in Nanjing is three yuan and five yuan in Yantai, and four yuan in Shanxian County. Compared with sea transportation, inland waterway transportation is not dominant. But from the seaside to the inland, the difference is even greater.

Huang Dan said: "Shandong's land transport has not reached the level of saturation at all. Those big wharves already have a strong and extraordinary foundation. But what about the small docks? Instead of investing money in real estate in Jinan, it is better to set up a car and horse shop. "Who knows when Jinan's real estate industry will usher in the next wave of crazy rise. In recent years, the real estate industry in major cities across the country has developed rapidly, and the price of land has been rising day by day, but the price has risen to a certain extent, and it has entered a stable period.

Huang Dan persuaded his two new uncles, or his status as a college student, to persuade his two new uncles.

In Nanjing and Shanghai, college students are not unusual. But in Yantai and Jinan, college students are the treasures of various units and departments, and when they arrive in Shanxian County, college students are even higher.

Huang Youtian also got a new errand because of his son's proposal - detective. Go to the field and take a look.

Although this errand is more difficult, but the carriage and horse shop is built, Huang Youtian can get a share of 10%, according to the initial investment of 50,000 yuan, 10% of the shares also have 5,000 yuan. Huang Youtian didn't eat or drink, and he had to work for two years to get so much.

Before taking the bus to his next destination, Huang Youtian also needs to go to Wangdian Town in the south of the city to visit an old acquaintance of his, a small trader who used to travel around Yantai with him. This small trader was a buddy of a cloth village in his early years, and after he had the capital, he returned to his hometown to start a cloth shop business.

Don't say anything else, just say that the store that this person sold back then changed hands for three times the price.

Huang Youtian was originally going to stay in Hengtai for ten years, but it was because of the help of his old friend that Huang Youtian had a score in his heart in only five days. Although they hadn't seen each other for ten years, they hadn't changed much [except for being older], and the two sides recognized each other in an instant when they looked at each other.

Huang Youtian and this man have been friends for no less than three years, but Huang Youtian separated from him more than ten years ago, because by that time he already had a horse and two large baskets. At that time, Huang Youtian needed to save money to buy a house, and he couldn't keep up with the man's 'footsteps', so the two separated.

The last time I saw it before that was about ten years ago, when Huang Youtian had just bought a batch of donkeys, and that person's 'equipment' had been upgraded to a small horse-drawn van, and the business was on a new level.

Then Huang Youtian never saw this person. I only heard that he went back to his hometown and opened a cloth shop. Now in Hengtai County, this person not only has a cloth store, but also a department store specializing in groceries - such as sugar, knives, scissors, needlework, bamboo tools, small wooden tools, as well as wine snacks, candle whale oil, and oil, salt, sauce and vinegar. But it also owes a lot of debt because of it!

For this man did not rent the shop of the department store, but bought it.

This person can be said to be the first person in their original group to embark on the physical store sequence, to be honest, Huang Youtian is still quite envious.

The topic is far away.

The business of Huang Youtian's friend's department store is not bad. But it is far less than the flow of state-run stores, after all, the variety of species in state-run stores is much richer than that of private haberdashery stores, and ordinary people can buy all the things they need at one time when they enter here, which is too convenient. And some things in the state-run stores are still essentially 'monopolies' - the private sector can't get those goods at all. Therefore, the state-run stores will not only not lose money every year, but will also make good profits.

Moreover, the number of state-run stores is limited, and many things still need bills [refer to the supply and marketing cooperatives mentioned above], and many things are placed on the counter, but they will not be sold to the people in unlimited quantities, and they will not impact the economic market on a large scale.

Speaking of which, I have to say one more thing. Since the 10th year of Chengtian, the construction of state-run stores and supply and marketing cooperatives in the county governments has stopped, and the latter has been completely abolished in the following decade, and a considerable part of the former has also become privately owned.

Now, another five years later, the state-run department store is merging with the salt company, or it will disappear sooner or later.

As long as there is time - queue and ticket in hand, everyone is willing to buy things in the cheap state stores, the most obvious point is watches and military casual clothes, the prices of which are absolutely cheaper than the market prices outside, and the quality is excellent. That watch even has a warranty. And the service attitude is also very good. In the early years, the service attitude of the state-run stores once became quite poor, and they were severely rectified by the imperial court, and now everyone is amiable.

Huang Youtian carried the salute in his hand, and in the other hand carried two boxes of dim sum and two small jars of wine, and then walked along the street towards the front.

This is the hottest place in Hengtai County. A stone bridge spans both sides of the river, and the river in the city is so small that you want to go. On the other side of the bridge is a huge market, a comprehensive market.

Area A is the original farmers' market, and District B is the department store that was built later, with everything, and Huang Youtian's friend's new store is here. Then the station in Hengtai County, District C, outside District C is a street of eating, drinking and playing in Hengtai County, the price is more expensive, and Huang Youtian is reluctant to live here.

Of course, the bustle of the comprehensive market cannot be compared with Yantai, which is only a small county town, but the essence of businessmen is the same. The owners of each store are searching the crowd for every potential customer with a sparkling gaze, trying to get everyone who comes in to buy the goods in their store.

The means of competition are nothing more than cheap and high-quality competition and all kinds of empty promises, of course, in this process, it is inevitable that there will be a black competitor, these are all due meanings, Huang Youtian has long been surprised. Many of the storefronts here are plainly decorated, but some of the shops are very imposing, with glass window cabinets and even wallpaper on the walls of the shops, or they have been specially decorated.

Unlike industrialized goods such as cloth and standard ironware, many shops in the market also sell whale meat, salted fish, dried fruits, tobacco, tobacco and liquor, and the former farmers' market opposite has all kinds of seasonal vegetables, fresh meat, fish, seafood, poultry eggs, soy products, etc.

When Chen Han was founded, it was just a vegetable market, and farmers around the county would regularly bring their goods to the market to sell. Whether it is chickens, ducks, eggs, poultry, or melons, fruits and vegetables, there is no trace of organization. But now here, you don't see a trace of unorganized and alone.

It is to sell vegetables and fruits, and the handwriting on the back of the chest is written which farm or which farmer's trading company. In a word, there are fewer direct producers here, and there are more merchants/business organizations who go to the countryside to buy peasants' goods and resell them, and this trend is changing very slowly, far less quickly and violently than in those industrial markets, but it has also changed a lot in more than 20 years.