Chapter 30: The Right Medicine for the Right Condition

Zhu Neng clenched his fists, veins exposed on his forehead, gritted his teeth and said, “The three of you …… today grandpa does not ruthlessly clean up you, you do not know what is called the height of the sky, angry me also!”

But just then, a head poked out of one of the outrigger boats docked on the pier.

By the time everyone saw that the fight was over, these boatmen who were hiding in the crow’s nest, however, jumped out of the boat one by one barefoot and gathered over here.

They all wore uniform green cloth clothes, as many as thirty to forty people, and when they swarmed up, they then saluted in unison, “Greetings to the three proprietors.”

Zhu Neng was already jaw-dropped at the sight of the overwhelming number of people.

Zhang Anshi carried his hands behind his back with a godly look, then waved his hand and said, “Disperse, hurry up and start work, don’t be lazy.”

“Yes.” The crowd dispersed.

Junen: “……”

Zhang Anshi smiled and said to Zhu Neng, “Uncle, didn’t I say that we took the silver to do business?”

“This …… this is your deal?” Zhu Neng pointed to a ship docked at the pier.

Zhang Anshi said, “Of course.”

“How much did you buy?”

“A brother of mine contributed thirty thousand taels of silver, and as for the three of us together, we contributed seven thousand four hundred taels, and bought a hundred vessels of all sizes, together with hire and other expenses …… roughly.”

Zhu Neng coldly laughed: “This price does not take much advantage, do you still want to learn from the ordinary people, relying on the ferry to do business, how much silver can this earn?”

Zhang Anshi said, “We bought a hundred ships, but who said we only have a hundred ships? Zhu Yong, come and tell your father how many ships we now have in our name.”

Zhu Yong crossed his arms divinely and said, “As of today, there are four hundred and thirty-one ships of all sizes.”

This one, however, scared Chu Neng.

When he was in Beiping, he was also from the middle level military officials step by step to today, the situation of the unusual marketplace, he has heard about it.

So he tensed his face and said, “The extra three hundred or so ships, where did …… they come from? Robbed?”

“What kind of words is that, Uncle Shih.” Zhang Anshi huffed, “Do we look like bandits?”

Jounen was silent.

Zhang Anshi sighed and said, “Uncle, you misunderstand us, in fact …… these ships, are all people take the initiative to defect to us, rushing to send the ship to our name.”

Chu Neng still only looked at him silently, as if he still didn’t believe his words.

Zhang Anshi then said, “Does Shibe know the situation of this pier? On weekdays, each of the eleven piers in this Nanjing City is filled with ships, and these …… Shibe thought he knew it.”

Chu Neng said, “So what.”

“But the wharf’s chaos, does uncle know? This Jiangnan water network is dense, countless flows of people and goods, are relying on the wharves and boats everywhere ushered to send, therefore, countless people rely on the wharves for a living, let’s just say that this Fuzimiao wharf it ……”

Zhang Anshi paused, continued: “Once upon a time, there are three evils here, the first evil, is the boatmen competing for passengers, there are many boatmen, can not wait for their own ferry loaded full, before they are willing to send the boat, in this way, passengers obviously early in the morning on board, but the boatmen are not willing to send the boat, until the passengers are full, until the midday before they will not be willing to move, many passengers suffer from it. ”

“This second harm, is the pier mixed, all kinds of will door and Taoist door mixed in, some blackmail boat family, some of them …… own hands under the boat also have a lot of boats, many people hand bottom is not clean, and even from time to time there are killing boat passengers, take away people’s property and goods happened, which dispute, countless. As the saying goes, the car boat store foot teeth, not guilty should also be killed, this is not a false statement, because the thieves involved in these lines are too many, a tongue and mouth slippery, which one hand under the clean up?”

“And the third harm is along the way of the government officials and officials, they or will collude with the door, through which to extort the property of the merchants and passengers. Or they turn to extort the boatmen, the honest boatmen are not able to overcome the disturbance, but have to endure the anger.”

Zhang Anshi’s words, said into the sense, Zhu Neng did not expect a teenager, actually understand the situation of the dock so clearly, at this time he was serious: “How about this?”

“Understand these circumstances, then it is good to do, only need to treat the symptoms can be. So nephew well, hey …… at the same time to do three things, this first, is to purchase a hundred ships, hire personnel, all the ships are brushed with a unified logo, the bow also hang a unified black flag. What is this called, this is called the brand, and after that, I let this hundred ships, fixed point ship.”

“Scheduled shipments?”

“Yes, for example, the boat from Fuzimiao Ferry to Qixia Ferry, half an hour must send a class out, no matter whether it is full or not, even if there is only one passenger on this boat, it will still be sent out, rain or shine.”

Zhu Neng stroked his beard and locked his brows, “Isn’t this going to be a loss?”

“The first few days did lose money, but later, those regular customers to and from the wharf soon found that our black-flagged boat traffic is always on time, as long as the pinpointed hour to the ferry to this temple, you can send the boat, so that there is no delay in the work, and for many people, hanging our flag boat so trustworthy, so also do not worry about halfway by the Boaters cheat, and even appear to harm people’s lives, so everyone is scrambling to come first to take our boat, the whole river, now our business is the most hot.”

Zhu Neng is what kind of person, this kind of thing, a little that is understood, can not help but secretly nodded, mouth, but said: “How much can earn?”

“Uncle first don’t be anxious, passenger transportation, of course, is to be fair to all, the price should be fair, so in fact, just earn some small profits. The real earning …… is word of mouth.”

Chu Neng looked at him with a puzzled expression and said, “Word of mouth?”

“Yes, after half a month, our reputation has been saved, we began to invite freight business, you see this Yingtianfu area, how many goods need to go in and out. But not what traders, all dare to hand over the goods to the boatman, after all, the dock is the most chaotic, many boatmen hands and feet are not clean. And at this time, many people see us so trustworthy, gradually there are merchants want to let us help on behalf of the transportation of goods.”

“You see this little boat, you can transport a few thousand pounds of goods, and this freight is extremely profitable, one way or another, is not a big money earned?”

Zhu Neng was surprised in his heart, and the reckoning in his mind seemed to have started crackling.

Zhang Anshi, on the other hand, continued, “Of course, relying on this alone, the money is still too slow, want to seize the first opportunity, it is necessary to expand rapidly. So there is a reputation, there is freight, then the third step, is to expand. Because we have the best business here, whether it is the boat passengers or traders have a reputation in their hearts, the other boaters, the business is in the doldrums, and that’s when …… we start to invite them to join.”

“It’s very simple to join us, attach the ships to our name, we give them permission to fly our flag, and at the same time make them pay a certain deposit and train them uniformly, and in the middle of the process, we also have to restrain them, and then at the end of the day, we will make a certain amount of draws based on the profits that they generate. You see, it’s only been ten days, and there are more than three hundred ships that have defected to us, and we’re expanding like a snowball.”

Junnen questioned again, “Are they so willing to let you draw a profit for nothing?”

“This has a hundred advantages and no disadvantages for them.” Zhang Anshi confidently said, “This is actually the second thing we did, and also why our three brothers, will be hanging out the name of the two murderers of the capital.”