Chapter 122: cooperate

 Chapter 122 Cooperation

In today's Dachu, even if you cook oil from fat meat at home, a pound of meat oil costs 60 cents. However, meat oil on the market is more expensive than home-made meat oil, with a pound of meat oil selling for 70 yuan. arts. The jar of meat and oil that their family gave to the Gu family last time was only five kilograms, and plus the price of the jar, it cost 380 Wen.

Pine oil requires going into the mountains to collect the resin and then refining it, so it is not cheaper than meat oil at all, and it also sells for seventy cents per pound.

 Let alone candles, they are expensive things.

 A pair of candles sold for two hundred cents, and except for nobles and nobles, only wealthy households could use them. Ordinary farmers would only buy two of them during the Chinese New Year, weddings, or ancestor worship.

 Calculated in this way, the cost of soybean oil is much cheaper than them.

Shang Xiucai finished the calculation, and he was even more excited. He asked Gu Jinli again: "Can this soybean oil light a lamp? Does it consume a lot of oil?"

Gu Jinli nodded: "Of course it's okay."

After hearing this, Shang Xiucai picked up his teacup, drank the tea in one gulp, put the teacup on the table, and said to Gu Jinli: "Xiaoyu, pour in the soybean oil from the wooden bowl."

Ah Jiu took the jar of soybean oil to the kitchen for cooking, but Gu Jinli still had a wooden bowl of soybean oil in his hand. Hearing this, he poured the soybean oil in the bowl into a teacup.

He then took out a half-finger-wide piece of burlap, twisted it into a wick, and put it into the tea cup. After the wick had absorbed the soybean oil, he took out a fire stick and lit the wick.

 The wick catches fire quickly and burns slowly.

Shang Xiucai looked at the burning flame and waited silently for more than a quarter of an hour. The flame was still burning, and the soybean oil in the teacup seemed not to be missing.

"This soybean oil is indeed the same as meat oil. It can be used for cooking and lighting lamps." Shang Xiucai was very happy. In this way, the value of the soybean oil will be higher.

As he was talking, Ah Jiu had already come in with a storage box: "Master, the dishes are ready."

Ah Jiu opened the box and placed a plate of fried meat, a plate of fried bean sprouts, fried eggs, and fried meatballs on the table in the main room, and placed five pairs of bowls and chopsticks.

“These dishes are made with the soybean oil brought by the little fish girl. Please try them, sir.”

After hearing this, Shang Xiucai greeted Third Grandpa and the others, and couldn’t wait to pick up his chopsticks and taste the dishes on the table.

“…Although it is not as fragrant as meat oil, it tastes good and can be used for cooking.” Shang Xiucai ate the four dishes on the table. The more he ate, the more satisfied he became, and he became more optimistic about the soybean oil.

The people in Dachu are poor, and farmers in many places can only eat boiled vegetables. They buy some meat during the New Year and festivals to dip it in meat.

With this soybean oil, I dare not say that the people of Dachu will be able to eat meals made with oil every day. At least the farmers in the Jianghuai prefectures will no longer have to eat boiled vegetables.

Shang Xiucai put down his chopsticks, sipped his mouth with tea, looked at Grandpa San and the others, and asked, "Uncle Gu, Brother Gu, what are your plans for this soybean oil?"

Although Third Grandpa was close to Gu Dashan's family, he was not Gu Jinli's biological grandfather after all, so he didn't rely on his elders. Instead, he said, "Let Dashan and Xiaoyu make the decision."

 Gu Dashan was a little panicked when he heard this. He didn't have much ability, but he knew how to be powerful. Seeing Shang Xiucai's excitement, he knew the value of this soybean oil very well.

 After thinking about it, he looked at Gu Jinli and said, "Xiaoyu, you made this soybean oil, you make the decision."

After escaping from the famine all the way, Gu Dashan felt in his heart that his daughter was more capable than him, and the decisions she made were usually beneficial to them.

Gu Jinli was neither polite nor procrastinating, and said directly to Shang Xiucai: "Uncle Shang, how about our Gu, Shang and Jiang families cooperating to make soybean oil?"    "If Uncle Shang and the Jiang family agree, the three of us will cooperate to open an oil mill, and my family will make it. We don’t care about oil prescriptions and other things. As for the profit, we will share it equally among the three of us.”

Shang Xiucai was really shocked when he heard this: "Xiaoyu, do you know how much profit this soybean oil can bring to your family? Are you really willing to cooperate with the three companies and share the profits?"

He was so straightforward, saying that as long as he made profits, he would not care about the oil mill's affairs in the future.

Gu Jinli smiled: "Uncle Shang, if you have money, you must have life to spend it."

Her family is an ordinary farmer, without even a backend. If she wants to start the soybean oil business, she needs to find someone to cooperate with her. Currently, the best partners are the Shang family and the Jiang family.

The Jiang family has a county captain who is considered a local snake in Tianfu County. Only by tying the local snake to his boat can he keep her family safe.

Shang Xiucai did not expect Gu Jinli to say such straightforward words, but she was right. Money is important, but life is more important. If giving up part of the money can bring peace to the family and property, why not do it.

 But Shang Xiucai did not agree immediately. Instead, he said, "I have to ask the Jiang family about this before I can reply to you."

 He wanted to help the Gu family, and he also wanted to make soybean oil to benefit the people of Chu, but he didn't know what his father-in-law thought, and he had to discuss it before doing anything.

Gu Jinli knew that this matter was urgent, so he said, "Okay, we are waiting for Uncle Shang's reply."

After talking about soybean oil, Taozi came over and said that Jiang and Yuanyuan wanted to see Gu Jinli.

Gu Jinli followed Taozi to the backyard of Shang Mansion, met Jiang and Yuanyuan, talked to Jiang for a while, played with Yuanyuan for a while, and then left.

The third grandfather went to the town to sell tofu, Gu Jinli and Gu Dashan returned to Dafeng Village, and Gu Jinan stayed at the Shang family to study with Shang Xiucai.

 …

 Dafeng Village.

As soon as Gu Dashan and Gu Jinli arrived at the end of the village, they saw a group of people surrounding their home.

 Lao Qin, Sanlang Qin, father and son of the Luo family, and Gu Dafu were blocking the group of people from entering Gu Jinli's house.

The group of people were very anxious and kept saying: "Brothers, we are not bad people. We are from neighboring villages nearby. We know that the Gu family's tofu is good, so we came here and wanted to meet the head of the Gu family. Talk about the tofu business."

There were quite a few of them, more than a dozen of them, and they were all adult men. However, Gu Jinli's family only had women and children. How could Father Luo and the others let them in? He just said: "This family is not here, and we don't know you, so hurry up and leave." "

This group of people came here specifically for Gu’s family. If they haven’t entered this door yet, how can they leave?

When Gu Dashan saw this group of people surrounding his home, he was very frightened. He hurried over and stopped the group with Luo's father and others, and asked, "Who are you? Why are you surrounding my home?"

Gu Jinli ran over with a dagger in his sleeve, staring at the group of people with unkind eyes.

The dozen or so people heard Gu Dashan's words and knew that he was the head of the Gu family. They immediately laughed and said: "Brother, you are the head of the Gu family tofu stall, right? Don't be afraid. We are not here to cause trouble. We want to come to you." Let’s buy tofu at home and let’s talk about the tofu business.”

The speaker was a middle-aged man wearing a coarse cloth jacket with gray cloth patches on his sleeves and trouser legs. When he said this, he had a flattering smile on his face.

 (End of this chapter)