As long as they reached the destination within the contract time, doing some small business on the road was completely feasible.
Chen Jinhu had been immediately tempted when Xu Huaiqian suggested it. In the past, they had been to prosperous prefectures on escorts, but goods there were expensive and impractical. If they wanted to buy something for their families, they had to worry about their wallets.
They had never thought about doing business themselves.
If they ran their own business, they could not only buy exotic items to enjoy but also sell them to earn extra—a win-win.
Bing Xingda thought Chen Jinhu was going to propose some grand my-making scheme, but it was just this. He shook his head and objected: "It sounds good, but business isn't that easy, Xiao Hu."
"Merchants are cunning; they've taken all the my to be made. What's left for us?" Bing Xingda advised him earnestly. "And business isn't always smooth sailing. If you suffer losses on the road, you'll waste years of escort earnings."
If business were easy, every would be doing it, and there would be no poor people left.
In short, Bing Xingda repeatedly persuaded Chen Jinhu. His own father had tried this path when he was an escort but was cheated—given shoddy, worthless goods that couldn't be sold, losing years of hard-earned my.
Now his father was always at home, warning them that unless they had a sharp business mind, it was best not to get involved.
Better to stick to their trade and love their work. Guarding their escort agency might not make them rich, but over time, it would keep the family from hardship.
Chen Jinhu had originally thought that since he couldn't hide his business plans from the agency during escorts, it was better to involve every and make my together than to sneak around behind their backs.
But the agency people looked at him as if he were a fool and didn't want to partner with him.
Chen Jinhu thought it over—it made sense. The world was full of people who wouldn't act without seeing tangible benefits. Expecting others to invest their hard-earned my based on just his words was indeed inappropriate.
So he picked a few northern escort jobs, planning to slowly explore and learn along the way.
When he left, his elder brother secretly gave him two taels of silver—apparently his private savings that his Second Brother didn't know about.
But his elder brother didn't know that shortly after, his Second Brother also secretly gave him ten taels.
Plus the three taels Wang Wanwan stuffed into his luggage before he left, he had a total of fifteen taels. It wasn't a huge amount, but it was enough to start with.
On the way from Yong'an Prefecture to Shengbei, he first tried dealing in tea—all "good tea" from Sanchun Prefecture. But when he brought it to Shengbei to sell, the shops there said it was just leftover tea and wouldn't buy it.
Chen Jinhu knew he had been cheated, but he wasn't discouraged. He learned from the experience—after realizing that doing business could lead to being cheated, he decided not to buy directly from shops anymore. Instead, he asked around among locals and planned to source goods from workshops.
Most workshops didn't do business with strangers, but since he didn't need much and paid on the spot, the managers had no reason to turn away business that came to them. They would usually sell him some goods.
Although it might not be the best quality, at least he wouldn't be sold inferior goods at premium prices.
He wasn't completely without brains either. When selling tea in Sanchun City, he would buy teacups from Shengbei to sell in Sanchun. Shengbei was in the north; once winter came with heavy snow, there was hardly any food, especially vegetables. People relied on drinking tea to alleviate the hardship of lacking greens, so he sold tea.
He couldn't afford to sell high-quality tea, so he sold lower-grade tea. Instead of selling in shops, he targeted small street-side tea stalls, selling in small quantities—every little bit helped.
At first, it was really hard to even open his mouth, but he got used to it. Slowly, he could sell a bit here and there every day.
With only fifteen taels as capital, he could sell out in a couple of days. His prices weren't high, and after going back and forth a couple of times, he got familiar with the stall owners. Seeing that he was quite hst, they would ask when he would come next and if he could bring some tea for them.
With the my from selling tea, he would go to porcelain workshops to buy sets of trendy teacups—specifically s that were good-looking and novel. It was okay if they were a bit more expensive. This time, he didn't sell retail; he sold directly to tea shop owners in Sanchun City for them to use when serving samples to customers.
Buddhas rely on gold adornment, people rely on fine clothes, and tea relies on good cups. With good tea and good cups, wouldn't people be more willing to buy tea?
Slowly, he got the hang of it. Each trip, besides the escort earnings, he could make a few extra taels.
Over the past six months, he made four round trips to Shengbei. From the initial fifteen taels, he now had fifty taels.
It wasn't a lot, but if he made a few more trips and built up his capital, it would surely grow.
However, he stopped making trips when autumn began because he remembered what Xu Huaiqian had asked him to do.
"While you're on escort duty outside, ask if medical clinics in other places would buy ginger."
Neither Xu Huaiqian nor Meng Fangxun had ever left Yong'an Prefecture and didn't know how to contact clinics elsewhere, but Chen Jinhu did.
From Yong'an Prefecture to Shengbei, he passed through two or three administration commissions and dozens of prefectures and counties.
Among so many prefectures, even if just a few clinics were willing to buy ginger in bulk, the ginger from their two families wouldn't have to worry about selling.
Moreover, when Xu Huaiqian told him, he specifically asked him to inquire in the north.
In this era, ginger hadn't been widely promoted yet. People in the south hadn't developed a habit of eating ginger.
But from his studies, Xu Huaiqian learned that in the north here, it was customary to drink ginger brown sugar water in winter to ward off the cold.
He heard it was especially popular in the Shengbei area, so he wanted Chen Jinhu to go and ask.
Neither he nor Chen Jinhu expected that this inquiry would yield an extraordinary result.
Ginger couldn't tolerate low temperatures and frost and couldn't be grown in places with intense sunlight. Areas like Shengbei, with scorching summers and heavy snow in winter, weren't suitable for growing ginger.
But Shengbei had a strong tradition of drinking ginger soup and eating ginger tea in winter. Large medical clinics had their own growing areas and naturally didn't worry about selling ginger, but small and medium-sized clinics weren't so lucky.
They had no connections or relationships, so every winter they could only watch enviously as large clinics sold ginger until it was out of stock.
When Chen Jinhu went to ask, the clinic managers were thrilled to hear he had large quantities of ginger, and from the south too. They immediately became restless and didn't even ask Chen Jinhu to bring the ginger to Shengbei—they wanted to go with him to see it.
If their ginger supply was stable, they could sign contracts to purchase ginger from them every year.
Of course, clinic couldn't handle this al, so that clinic contacted managers from several other clinics. They hit it off and decided to head south with Chen Jinhu.
The escort agency people watched all this unfold.
They saw how, over the past six months, Chen Jinhu had really managed to start doing business along the escort routes. Now he was even getting medical clinics from Shengbei to help his Second Brother sell ginger.
This series of events left them utterly stunned. Finally, Bing Xingda, unable to resist hearing Chen Jinhu talk about his "Second Brother" left and right, decided to come along to Xinghua Village.
He wanted to see what kind of person Chen Liejiu's husband was—why did things every else thought were impossible always work out when he was involved?
Seven or eight carriages gathered in Xinghua Village. If Chen Liejiu hadn't built the road, these carriages wouldn't have been able to enter the village.
The villagers of Xinghua had never seen so many carriages. When they heard they were all merchants from Shengbei coming to buy ginger from Chen Liejiu's family, they were completely astonished.
Not only were they astonished, but even Xu Huaiqian, who was hosting them at home, was surprised by what they said.
"As much as you have, we'll take it all, at a hundred coins per catty, no bargaining?" He asked uncertainly.
"Of course," the clinic managers from Shengbei were very generous. "But you must provide us with good ginger. We won't accept rotten or poor-quality ginger."
"Naturally." Xu Huaiqian coughed lightly, knowing that hsty in business leads to long-term success. "Let me take you to the fields to see for yourselves."
Seeing is believing.
No matter how much he praised his ginger, they wouldn't fully believe him until they saw it with their own eyes.
All five mu of land had been meticulously cared for by Chen Liejiu—not a single bad ginger could be found in the field, let al any flaws to pick on.
Sure enough, the medical clinic managers from Shengbei were very satisfied and wanted to sign contracts with Xu Huaiqian on the spot.
Xu Huaiqian asked again uncertainly: "Really no bargaining?"
After all, hundred coins per catty was the price for scattered purchases by clinics. This was bulk purchase, and on a large scale—it couldn't possibly be the same price.
"No bargaining." Qi Boren, the manager of Huichun Hall and the initiator of this southbound ginger purchase, gave Xu Huaiqian a firm answer. "However, we have another matter to discuss with you."
Since the client was so generous, it was normal to have some additional requests. Xu Huaiqian nodded with a good attitude: "Manager Qi, please go ahead."
"We want to sign a cultivation contract with you." Qi Boren looked at Xu Huaiqian's handsome but overly sickly appearance and asked uncertainly, "I wonder if Scholar Xu would be willing to take it on."
"—Ahem, why wouldn't I dare?" Xu Huaiqian coughed lightly and looked at Qi Boren with firm eyes. "Manager Qi, look at my poor health and see that I have such a large family to support. I should be thanking Manager Qi for giving our family an extra source of income."
After receiving Xiao Hu's letter, Xu Huaiqian had deliberately dressed down at home—he dug out his old, faded clothes to wear and asked Wang Wanwan and the others to dress as shabbily as possible.
In business, dressing well might leave a good impression, but after years of poverty relief work in the countryside, Xu Huaiqian deeply understood human nature. He felt that dressing well wouldn't leave a deep impression anyway; it was better to gamble on sympathy.
If the sympathy play worked, the benefits would far outweigh those from dressing well.
Sure enough, Qi Boren thought of how when he got out of the carriage, he saw the sickly-looking Xu Huaiqian and couldn't help taking his pulse. He discovered Xu Huaiqian had congenital weakness of the internal organs and needed a lot of my to maintain his health. He couldn't help but feel sympathy.
This rich man's illness would be manageable in a wealthy family, but born into a farming family...
If he hadn't figured out how to grow ginger and connected with them, who knew if he would even survive the winter.
"Alright then," after some thought, Qi Boren discussed with the other clinic managers and raised the original annual purchase from ten thousand catties of ginger to thirty thousand catties. "Besides this year, we'll sign another contract with you to purchase thirty thousand catties of ginger annually for the next five years."
While inspecting the ginger fields, they noticed that this place was particularly suitable for growing ginger. Since they had originally planned to find other local farmers to grow ginger anyway, and since Xu Huaiqian had the courage and was sick and in need of my, they might as well let him handle it all.
"Okay." Xu Huaiqian agreed without hesitation. "Thank you for your care, Manager Qi."
Thirty thousand catties of ginger at a hundred coins per catty—that was three thousand taels of silver!
Three thousand taels! Did the entire tax revenue of Mishan County even amount to that much?!