Within a few days, the materials transported from Ziyun Mountain arrived in Qinwangzhuang one after another. But as soon as the thing arrived, it was immediately "squandered" by Zhu Youzhen!

The tens of thousands of taels of silver were just counted, counted in the account room, and then reloaded into the car, transported to Xi'an by the guys of the Jingyang Merchant Gang, and continued to be engaged in the business war.

It turned out that Zhu Youzhen had also been concerned about the situation in Xi'an in the past few days, and he asked Yan Ling to send people to report the situation of several major merchant gangs every day.

As expected, when Zhu Youzhen invested a huge amount of money to purchase cheap goods from the Yulin Merchant Gang, Ma Laosi soon became a little overwhelmed. Merchants are like this, no matter how much money they make, they will always be comparable, and they will have to be uncomfortable for half a night if they lose a penny.

Ma Laosi has always bullied and dominated the market, and this time he joined forces with the Jinzhong Business Gang and the Tiger Roar Business Gang to rectify the Shaanxi Business Gang by dumping at low prices. For this obvious means of losing money, he was a little reluctant at first. But thinking that after crushing the Shaanxi Business Gang, he could have one less strong opponent, Ma Laosi still reluctantly supported it.

Unexpectedly, these days, a large amount of mysterious funds suddenly entered the market, and began to purchase salt, cloth and other materials on a large scale. Although Zhu Youzhen tried his best to break it into pieces, Ma Laosi and others have been up and down in the business sea for many years, how can they not notice it.

It's just that the person behind this fund is very weird, obviously Jinzhong, Huxiao, and Yulin all sell goods, and the price is exactly the same, but he only buys Yulin merchants. In normal times, if the shops ship in large quantities, they not only earn money but also return the funds, the merchants are very happy. But at this time, Ma Laosi grinned, because the selling price was lower than the cost, and the more he sold, the more he lost. In just seven or eight days, the Yulin Merchant Gang lost 100,000 taels of silver.

At this time, the Shaanxi business gang, which had been holding on to the price for some time, suddenly began to dive. For example, cloth, under normal circumstances, the price of a piece of cloth is about two taels of silver, but in order to crack down on the Shaanxi merchant gang, the three major merchant gangs have lowered the price to one or two dollars. The cost of a piece of cloth is about one or two or five yuan, and for every piece of cloth sold, the Yulin merchant gang will lose three dollars of silver.

But the Shaanxi merchant gang is good, if it doesn't fall, it can be, and as soon as it falls, it will be ruthless, and it will directly kill the eight coins of silver.

Originally, Ma Laosi had also considered that the Shaanxi business gang might start a price war with his side. However, the consumption capacity of the entire market in Xi'an is limited, and no matter how low the price is, the people have enough clothes to wear, and they will not spend money to buy cloth. Therefore, there should still be a limit to your own losses.

Therefore, after discussion, the three major merchant gangs unanimously adjusted the price and reduced the price of cloth to seven coins of silver. Selling at this price, the merchant has already lost half of the capital, and he really knocked out his teeth and swallowed it in his stomach.

Unexpectedly, the mysterious funds seemed to be endless, and they swept away the cloth of the Yulin Merchant Gang! And Jinzhong and the Tiger Roar Business Gang, but there is still no one to patronize, but they just suppress the funds, at least there is no clear loss on the books.

Ma Lao Si didn't do it anymore, and he even wondered if Qiao Beiyue and Li Hu were joining forces to make a game, in the name of cracking down on the Shaanxi business gang, but in fact, they wanted to design the Yulin business gang. He immediately found Qiao Beiyue and Li Hu, had a big quarrel, and even threatened to withdraw from the price alliance immediately.

Qiao Beiyue and Li Hu's vision is much higher than that of Ma Laosi. Now that they have noticed that the situation is different, they have to reassure Ma Laosi and say: "Ma Gang Master, as the saying goes, sail against the current, if you don't advance, you will retreat." The three of us have started a war with the Shaanxi Business Gang, but now it is a situation where the fish is dead and the net is broken, and whoever retreats will lose completely. Your gang has suffered huge losses, why aren't the two of us losing money? What's more, the Shaanxi business gang also has to lose with us! ”

"None of you have a loss as much as I do!" Ma Laosi still roared.

Li Hu hurriedly smiled: "I'm afraid this is a bureau made by the Shaanxi Business Gang, deliberately paying money to buy the goods of your gang to divide us." It's just that they have eaten so much goods, it must be difficult to digest for a while, and they will only die faster if they occupy more funds. But the worry of the gang leader is not unreasonable, so let's change our strategy a little and simply close it! ”

"This..."Ma Laosi hesitated again. The first way to do business is to open the door every day regardless of wind and rain, but it is too unlucky to close.

Li Hu explained to him: "We are not really closing the Zhang, but targeting the Shaanxi merchant gang. As long as he dares to restore the original price, we will immediately open the door and sell it and bring the price down again. If he still sells at a loss, let him sell. I want to see how capable the Shaanxi merchant gang is, and how long can it compete with our three major merchant gangs? ”

In the end, after Qiao Beiyue and Li Hu made a compromise and compensated the Yulin Merchant Gang with 30,000 taels of silver, Ma Laosi finally held back his anger and continued to stay in the price alliance.

From the second day, the shops of the three major merchant gangs really began to close, and even if one or two opened occasionally, they still ignored the customers and refused to sell their goods.

After Zhu Youzhen learned about this situation, he also secretly admired it in his heart. I thought that I was not the only smart person in this world, and if I really talked about business experience, Qiao Beiyue and Li Hu and others were still far above me, and I was just stained with some sudden light.

As a result, the plan to establish a strategic reserve in the first place has been affected to a certain extent, and it is no longer possible to buy high-quality and low-cost goods; Secondly, the Shaanxi merchant gang also could not sell the goods, which not only seriously occupied the funds, but also the cost of eating horses and feeding them every day was not small. In the long run, I am afraid that Li Henian's father and son will not be able to withstand it.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen immediately allocated more money to Xi'an, part of which was to fund the Shaanxi merchant gang, at least to allow them to maintain their daily operations; The other part is to open up new trade relations and find suppliers from other cities.

Because although these three major merchant gangs are the kings and hegemons in Xi'an and control most of the retail terminals, if you look at the whole country, they are small merchant gangs with average strength. For example, there are four major merchant forces today, namely Jin merchants, Hui merchants, Zhejiang merchants and Chao merchants. Qiao Beiyue can barely be regarded as a Jin merchant, but in other cities, the power of Hui merchants and Zhejiang merchants is very large. Zhu Youzhen plans to contact other chambers of commerce more, at least to ensure that he can purchase scarce materials, such as grain and iron ore.

Of course, in this case, transaction costs and transportation costs will inevitably increase significantly. But Zhu Youzhen also understands the cruelty of this business war, since the other party does not leave a way back for himself, then he can only open the way by force.

The silver was arranged in this way, and the thousands of stone of grain were immediately replenished to the warehouse that was about to be emptied. On the issue of grain, Zhu Youzhen is really a little stretched.

It turned out that during this time, the population size of Qinwangzhuang increased very rapidly. After the earthquake, not only Jingyang County, but also the surrounding counties were seriously affected, and some counties were even full of dead bodies. But only Jingyang County, due to the presence of Zhu Youzhen, quickly regained its vitality.

First of all, there was no forced labor in Jingyang County, and the people had no other burden except for the land endowment; secondly, the Jingyang merchant gang recruited a large number of workers, and the wages were expensive; In addition, Qinwangzhuang also rebuilt houses for villagers and workers free of charge... Such a major preferential measure naturally attracted many people to come to Qinwangzhuang to seek a living. Not only from neighboring villages, but also from other counties.

However, in a little more than a month, the number of male workers in Qinwangzhuang reached 1,000 again after a few hundred were taken out to be a group of bravers; There are also more than 300 women who work, in addition to some of them are wives of male workers, and some of them were once bandits' sex slaves, and after being rescued, they stayed directly in Qinwangzhuang.

In addition to these laborers and group bravery, more than 600 primary school students also have to be provided by Jingyang Business Gang.

Regarding the wages of workers, Zhu Youzhen is not very worried. Although the total salary has reached nearly 50,000 taels per month, it is a large number, and now the Jingyang Merchant Gang is only recovering and rebuilding, and has not produced substantial benefits. But Zhu Youzhen only used two simple methods to let the silver flow back into his pocket.

The first method is consumption. Now the canteen is not free of charge like the original porridge factory, except for the widows and lonely who have lost the ability to work, whether they are workers of the Jingyang merchant gang or not, they have to pay for meals. Although the price of the meal is not expensive, at least it is not a loss. For workers, after a tiring day, no one wants to bother to cook by themselves. Since the meals in the cafeteria are varied and delicious, and the prices are affordable, then eat in the cafeteria!

And the strategic reserve just established by Zhu Youzhen also began to play a role at this time. He collected a large number of cheap necessities from Xi'an, and then opened a small shop in Qinwangzhuang, selling them at normal prices, mainly cloth, of course. Although the selling price is not high, the cost is lower, so it is still profitable. The workers now have money in their hands and are willing to make two new clothes for their daughter-in-law and children, so they are eager to buy them.

Of course, China has experienced thousands of years of deep-rooted small-scale peasant economy, and Qinwangzhuang's current petty fighting is far from the germ of a commodity economy. In addition to food and clothing, the common people are not willing to buy other things, and Zhu Youzhen really has no goods to provide.

So another method is even more important, and that is the money bank! Zhu Youzhen set up a money bank in Qinwangzhuang in the name of the Jingyang merchant gang to attract savings with an interest rate of one cent per year. And the silver in the hands of the common people has no place to spend except food and clothing, and when they see that there is interest to eat, they are naturally willing to deposit it in the bank. Therefore, when the wages were paid, the money passed through the hands of the workers and finally returned to the bank.

For Zhu Youzhen, this point of interest is really a trivial matter. But there is no good solution for him when it comes to food. No matter where you store it, you won't be able to produce more food, and there are generally only two ways to get it: either grow it yourself, or go out and buy it.

Of course, growing oneself is the most fundamental means, and if food is controlled by others, it will be finished sooner or later. Zhu Youzhen also understands this truth, but Shaanxi's grain production is already small, and some time ago there were frequent disasters, so it is impossible to count on it in a short time.

As for buying grain, Zhu Youzhen has been doing this. But there is no grain to buy in the Xi'an market now, waiting for the Shaanxi merchant gang or Han Zhen to transport grain back, and there is some far water that cannot quench the thirst of the near.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen can only take the third way: to fight to feed the war!