The list was written eloquently for half a page. After reading it, shopkeeper Li Zhengdao smiled bitterly and said: "Master Zhao, the food here can be guaranteed. There is a small one here, but there are no red bricks. We have all blue bricks. We haven't seen them yet."

There is a brick kiln that can bake red bricks! Snow-white frosting sugar costs five cents of silver per catty, and the one stone you want is fifty taels of silver! As for other yellow mud, coal, lime, etc., they are available locally. Don’t buy them in small stores. There are also iron

The pipe is thirty feet long, and there is not a single blacksmith in the entire Qiongzhou Prefecture who knows how to make iron pipes. I wonder where Mr. Zhao heard about iron pipes!"

In the Ming Dynasty, due to poor craftsmanship, red bricks could not be fired and could only be fired into green bricks. However, the sintering temperature of red bricks and blue bricks were the same, so brick kilns could be made with both. Zhao Fuxiang did not understand the difference between green bricks and red bricks, but as long as the bricks were produced locally, they would be fine.

Zhao Fuxiang was interested in the price of white sugar. At this time, Zhao Fuxiang had already seen the purchasing power of silver in the Ming Dynasty. Two taels of silver and one stone of rice were enough for an adult to eat for a month. Nowadays, a pound of frosted sugar costs five yuan of silver. It seems that

Isn’t this sugar a high value-added commodity?

Zhao Fuxiang didn't care about anything else now and asked: "Brother Li, do you have sugar here? Bring it to me to see how it is."

Li Zhengdao nodded and asked the clerk to go to the back warehouse to get a bag of white sugar, which weighed about one kilogram. Zhao Fuxiang eagerly opened the moisture-proof oil paper bag, and white sugar from the Ming Dynasty appeared in front of him.

The white sugar of the Ming Dynasty was about the same sweetness as the granulated sugar of later generations, but the appearance was much different. Because of poor craftsmanship, the white sugar of the Ming Dynasty was yellowish, which was not obvious in the house, but could be clearly seen under the sun.

Li Zhengdao saw Zhao Fuxiang frowning at the sugar and said nothing, thinking that this guy thought sugar was expensive, so he smiled and said: "Master Zhao, this kind of frosting looks good and tastes similar to brown sugar. There are women in our family who want to make it."

Pastries are the same with brown sugar!”

"Brown sugar? What kind of it is it? Brother Li, can you show it to me?"

Brown sugar is a commonly used sweetener among the people, and Furui has a large inventory here. After all, Xuwen across the Taiwan Strait is rich in sugar cane.

Soon the brown sugar was brought. Zhao Fuxiang looked at it and saw that this brown sugar was different from the brown sugar of later generations. There was some sugarcane bagasse in it that had not been cleaned, but it did not affect the sweetness. However, this brown sugar was slightly bitter, probably because

The impurities inside have not been removed.

In fact, brown sugar is the product of preliminary processing of sugar cane juice. After brown sugar is filtered, it becomes brown sugar. After brown sugar is decolorized using primitive means, it becomes white sugar. However, in the Ming Dynasty, only physical means, such as gauze filtration, etc., could be used, which could not completely remove the sugar in the syrup.

of pigments.

Zhao Fuxiang basically understood the price of sugar. He put down the brown sugar in his hand and asked: "Brother Li, how much does this kind of brown sugar cost per stone?"

Xuwen's production area is just across the strait, so the cost is very low. Li Zhengdao said: "This kind of brown sugar costs four taels of silver and one stone. It is a large quantity. Many of our merchants sell it, but because of our friendship, we can

Give Mr. Zhao a 10% discount!"

Zhao Fuxiang nodded. He knew that the profit of this kind of bulk material was very small. Unlike table salt, this product was not exclusively fixed by the state. The price had to follow the market economy pricing. It was considered good to give him a 10% discount.

Zhao Fuxiang calculated in his mind that white sugar is five yuan per catty and brown sugar is four liang and one stone, which means that the value of white sugar is twelve times that of brown sugar. If the loss of brown sugar purification is included, it is estimated that there will be an eight to nine times price difference during the period.

, the deal was done.

Zhao Fuxiang made up his mind and whispered: "Brother Li, I have a way to make a fortune and want to cooperate with Brother Li. I wonder if Brother Li is willing?"

Cooperation? Li Zhengdao was stunned after hearing what Zhao Fuxiang said, but everyone wants to do a profitable business. Li Zhengdao quickly asked: "I would like to hear the details!"

Zhao Fuxiang pointed to the white sugar and brown sugar on the table and said: "Brother Li, my family has a secret method that can turn this brown sugar into white sugar. We just lack the manpower and capital. I wonder if Brother Li wants to make a fortune together?"

Li Zhengdao didn't believe his ears after hearing what Zhao Fuxiang said. He asked a few more questions before he was sure that what he just heard was true. The fat guy in front of him who came back from Nanyang knew how to refine sugar.

Sugarcane has been cultivated in China during the Han Dynasty, but the purification technology was only invented in the Song Dynasty. By the Ming Dynasty, after hundreds of years of technological transformation, the white sugar purification technology was very mature, but the high price of white sugar represented high income, so the white sugar purification technology

It has been controlled by several big families in the Xuwen area and is not allowed to be spread outside.

Some local tycoons in Guangdong and Guangxi want to use violent means to obtain this technology, but these big families have been operating in the area for hundreds of years, and have formed a community of interests with each other and the government. With the help of the government, other families

It is basically impossible to join in and get a share of the pie, so although sugar cane is grown in Guangxi, it can only produce cheap brown sugar, or at most brown sugar. The most high-end white sugar has always been a specialty of Xuwen.

Needless to say, white sugar is very popular in China. The scholar-bureaucrats in Nanzhili like to drink tea and recite poems, and eat some desserts to cheer up the mood. No one wants to lose their mood with a bite of bitter cakes when poetry is flourishing, so white sugar is very popular in Nanzhili.

Li is very popular and can even be sold for as high as two taels of silver per catty.

Although the Forui in Guangzhou is not the largest business house in Guangzhou as Li Zhengdao boasts, its scale is also among the best in Guangzhou. The Li family has been operating the Forui for hundreds of years and is related to all the government and pirate forces, but they engage in

Maybe those country bumpkins in Xuwen have no choice but to spend a lot of money to buy this kind of sugar every year.

Li Zhengdao is the bastard of the Li family and the eighth son of the current boss of Furui. Because his mother was from a humble background, Li Zhengdao was also implicated. He could not go to the semicolons in the big cities in South Zhili, so he had to go to

I work as a small manager of a branch on the remote island of Hainan Island.

Originally, Li Zhengdao had already resigned himself to his fate. He wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of being in charge of the Qiongzhou branch to make some money. After his father passed away, he would take his mother to live in Qiongzhou Mansion. Although it was not as prosperous as Guangfu, it was better than being bullied by his wife's children at home.

.

But what Zhao Fuxiang said today rekindled Li Zhengdao's hope. As long as he could obtain the sugar production process, his father would definitely reuse him, and it would not be impossible to take over the family business by then.

The Li family has been in business for hundreds of years and has connections with pirates and bandits from all over the world. Li Zhengdao even thought of finding a few strangers to tie up this fat man and beat him severely to obtain crafts.

However, Zhao Fuxiang gave him the nickname Oil-soaked Glass Ball. How could he not know the principle of keeping wealth hidden? He could tell what Li Zhengdao was thinking by seeing Li Zhengdao's eyes rolling around. Zhao Fuxiang smiled and pretended to be casual and said: "Actually,

I can find my relatives to cooperate with me, but my relatives don’t know how to run the business, so they might not be able to make any money, and it will also involve my energy. So after discussing with my family, it’s better to hand over the distribution rights to Brother Li.

, let’s invest in technology, how about we both share half of the profit when the time comes?”

When Li Zhengdao heard what Zhao Fuxiang said, he remembered that this fat man had come back from Nanyang to visit his relatives. It seemed that his relatives still had some strength. Li Zhengdao asked, "I wonder where your relatives are employed?"

"He's not a high official, he's just my uncle from the Qianhu household in Haikou, Zhang Guozheng, the previous generation!"

Although the Haikou Institute is only a thousand-household institute, it is known as the gateway to Qionghai and is the most important of the five institutes in Hainan Guard. There is also the former Qianhu Institute Zhang Guozheng, deputy chief of the army. I heard that even the current commander of Hainan Guard is called

Sir Zhang Guozheng, this is not someone like Li Zhengdao who can afford to offend.

But Zhang Guozheng’s surname is Zhang, isn’t your Zhao Fuxiang’s surname Zhao? Why do you still call him uncle?

Li Zhengdao expressed the doubt in his heart, and Zhao Fuxiang said in a pretentious manner: "Hey, there is no way! Our Zhang family was originally a military household and moved to Qiongzhou during the Hongwu period. My ancestor was the second son of the Zhang family. At that time, because of his relationship with

My brother and I were at odds with each other, so we took our family to Nanyang and settled in Luzon. Later, the Fo Langji people in Luzon killed the Han people, and my Zhang family was afraid of being massacred, so we changed our surname to Zhao!"

It is not a secret in the local area that the Zhang family moved from Ningbo. Li Zhengdao heard what Zhao Fuxiang said and believed it 80% of the time. Since he could not use extraordinary means, he had no choice but to join forces.

Li Zhengdao thought for a while and asked: "Master Zhao, you said you can purify white sugar. What is the yield?"

Zhao Fuxiang really didn’t know this. He thought for a moment and said, “It depends on the scale, but I estimate that one hundred stones can be purified in one month!”

Li Zhengdao didn't know that Zhao Fuxiang was bragging here. He thought about one hundred dan a month. According to Xu Wen's wholesale price of 50 taels and 1 shi, it would be 5,000 taels of silver a month. If he transported the sugar to the provinces in southern Zhili,

That was twenty thousand taels of silver. Li Zhengdao was really shocked when he thought of this.

In fact, one hundred shi per month is not bragging in Zhao Fuxiang's opinion. One hundred shi per month is ten tons. Later, the Leizhou Longmen Sugar Factory in Guangdong had an annual production capacity of about 140,000 tons. Zhao Fuxiang believed that even if he was old

My father is engaged in hand-made sugar, but according to the knowledge that is hundreds of years ahead of the world, the output of ten tons per month is not excessive.

Although Li Zhengdao is a shrewd businessman, his desire to make a difference in his family and his greed for making a fortune made him deeply involved in the pie planned by Zhao Fuxiang. After careful consideration, Li Zhengdao decided to participate.

Asked: "How much money does Mr. Zhao need in the early stage? I only have more than a thousand taels of private money. Is it enough?"

Li Zhengdao had already made up his mind to leave the family and work on his own. He thought that if he relied on the family, even if he succeeded in doing this, he would only serve as the shopkeeper of the semi-colon in a prosperous place. It would be very difficult to become a legitimate son and take over the family business.

It's absolutely impossible. So why not seize this opportunity and go it alone, and then go out and create your own business?

Zhao Fuxiang did not expect that this boy was quite rich. He now knew the purchasing power of silver in the Ming Dynasty. One thousand taels of silver was not a small amount.

Zhao Fuxiang thought for a while and said, "Don't worry about money yet. Brother, you prepare things according to the list I gave you. I will send you the finished product in a few days and you can decide. What do you think?"

Li Zhengdao was very satisfied when he heard it. As long as he invested money in it after seeing the finished product, he would never suffer a loss.

"In that case, please pay more attention to Mr. Zhao! However, Mr. Zhao needs too many things and needs to prepare them for a few days. I will let the villain do the hosting for these few days. How about we go to Fucheng to get together?"

Zhao Fuxiang happened to be going to Qiongzhou to take a look and said with a smile: "Brother, why do you call me Mr. Zhao when you are like this? Brother Yu is forty-two years old this year. You can just call me brother!"
Chapter completed!