Chapter 684: Businesses (2)

Chapter 684: Businesses (2)

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In the afternoon, Chu Lian was sitting in a pavilion by a lotus pond in their garden. There were quite a few different confections placed on the table.

There were glutinous rice cakes, yam and jujube cakes, four joys dumplings, and cloud cakes...

There was also a cup of fragrant jasmine flower tea next to the confections.

Chu Lian leaned against the railing of the pavilion and listened to Manager Qin and Zhou Wen’s reports on the northern market, as well as Dejufeng Restaurant.

All that Chu Lian did for her business was to check the account books once a month. Everything else was left to the two managers to handle.

“Madam, the population of Liangzhou has already increased a few times over thanks to the northern market. More than half of the simple courtyards we built at the perimeter of Liangzhou City have been rented out. There are still a few more courtyards that are more finely decorated. Should we rent those out as well?”

The original Liangzhou City had been like a dead town. The citizens hadn’t even outnumbered the soldiers stationed there. This had also caused the senior official’s seat of Liangzhou to remain empty ever since the last one had been sacked.

Chu Lian had built more than ten simple markets at the boundaries of Liangzhou at the start, attracting the barbarians and Tuhun commoners.

They had used barter to trade goods at first. A jar of salted vegetables could be exchanged for some livestock, including cows, horses or goats. It didn’t even matter if they transported the livestock as live animals or after processing them into meat and skins. They would reap incredible profits by shipping them to Su City.

Later on, as the markets grew bigger and bigger, the barbarians and Tuhuns were no longer so stupid as to continue trading at that low price.

While the price of material goods had increased, due to the restrictions of the geography in Liangzhou, there was still a huge difference in price from the other cities that they could profit from.

Merchants pursued opportunities. Su City was close to Qianshan Lake, and was considered a major city. Thus, the merchants of Su City were soon drawn to Liangzhou to do business. The northern markets had also become more vibrant and bustling thanks to the addition of those merchants.

After the first batch of merchants in Su City brought in their first profits, the reputation of the northern markets spread further and further.

Soon, merchants from far away places started travelling to Liangzhou.

In this age where everything depended on word-of-mouth, the more the number of people, the more the city would flourish.

Once these people entered Liangzhou City, they would add on to Liangzhou’s dwindling population. With the northern market having turned into a ‘grand market’ and drawing more people in, there were more and more people settling in Liangzhou City daily.

When enough people had settled in the city, all sorts of businesses would soon spring up like bamboo shoots after the rain.

The merchants who had come to Liangzhou City to do business would need a place to stay. Thus, this is where the various houses and properties that Chu Lian had bought at low prices came into play.

The newly built houses were rented out to the travelling merchants. Since Liangzhou City was now in the midst of a boom, the rental of those houses would only get more and more expensive. As long as they had the deeds and properties in hand, renting out or selling those courtyards would be pure profit.

Even Manager Qin, with his experience, had never thought that the desolate and liveless Liangzhou City could change so much in the short period of half a year. The old city was now bordering on the edge of overpopulation, even.

Chu Lian sipped a mouthful of the delicate jasmine tea. She pondered for a bit before speaking to Manager Qin, “Don’t rent those out yet. Wait a while longer. If you have some extra cash on hand, renovate those courtyards and make them even more luxurious.”

Now that Liangzhou City had become a hub for foreign trade, all the merchants, regardless of their nationalities, would definitely have to find a place to spend their hard-earned money. Chu Lian was thinking of building something like a five-star hotel.

While Manager Qin didn’t know what Chu Lian was considering, he had never questioned Chu Lian’s decisions even if he didn’t understand them. After serving Chu Lian for all this time, he already understood that their Madam had plenty of strange ideas to spare.

Furthermore, her decisions always took them steps ahead of the competition.

Once Manager Qin was done with his reports, Zhou Wen stepped forth for his turn.

He was now helping Chu Lian to manage Dejufeng Restaurant and her other businesses in the capital. This summer, they had added on a tea garden to the list.

“Reporting to Madam, regarding the Biluochun green tea that we started selling in Dejufeng this spring, our pure profits alone have surpassed ten thousand taels thus far. The reservations made for the next batch of tea for this autumn has also surpassed ten thousand taels. May I recommend raising the price a little?”

Chu Lian shook her head, “No, we won’t raise the price. We have to be honest with our business. Since we’ve already set the price earlier, we won’t change it for the rest of this year. Tell them not to accept any more advance orders and tell them we’re already sold out. If they would like to reserve more, they’ll have to wait until next spring.”

Actually, the tea mountain that Chu Lian had bought was large enough to fulfill more than just this amount of orders, but she didn’t want to sell more.

The rarer something is, the more its perceived value. This was the law of supply and demand.

Furthermore, she hadn’t finished developing her methods for drying tea leaves and she needed more time to research and try it out. She also had to look through the various types of new teas she had bought on the mountain and filter out what she needed. Thus, they had to limit the scope of their tea operations for now. Once everything was ready, it would be time to expand the market.

TL Note: Food porn is back! Unfortunately, this will be the last food porn until the end, because we're in for the conclusion of the major plot!

These all look really sweet and tasty~ I've never tried any of these unfortunately, as they seem to be local specialties from China. The cloud cakes look really interesting though!

[caption id="attachment_122478" align="alignnone" width="300"] Glutinous rice cakes[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_122479" align="alignnone" width="298"] Yam and jujube cakes[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_122480" align="alignnone" width="271"] Four joys dumplings[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_122481" align="alignnone" width="300"] Cloud cakes[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_122482" align="alignnone" width="300"] Another view of cloud cakes[/caption]

I also found this video showing how glutinous rice cakes (苏式小方糕) are made! https://3g.163.com/v/video/VV06QE1GK.html

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