my brother-in-law is the prince

Chapter 30
Zhu Neng clenched his fists, the veins on his forehead were exposed, he gritted his teeth and said, "You three...if grandpa doesn't deal with you severely today, you don't know what it means to be tall and thick, and you will be angry with me!"

But at this moment, heads popped out of the black-covered boats docked on the pier.

When everyone saw that the fight was over, the boatmen hiding in the awning jumped off the boat barefoot one by one, and gathered towards this side one after another.

They were all dressed in uniform blue cloth clothes. There were as many as three or forty people. They rushed forward and saluted together: "I have seen the three masters."

Zhu Neng was dumbfounded when he saw this dark and dense person.

Zhang Anshi put his hands behind his back, looked full of air, and then waved his hand: "Let's go, start working quickly, don't be lazy."

"Yes." Everyone dispersed.

Zhu Neng: "..."

Zhang Anshi smiled and said to Zhu Neng: "Uncle Shi, didn't I say, are we doing business with money?"

"This...is this your business?" Zhu Neng pointed to the ships docked on the pier.

Zhang Anshi said: "Of course."

"How much did you buy?"

"A brother of mine contributed 3 taels of silver, and the three of us contributed 400 taels together to buy hundreds of ships, large and small, plus employment and other expenses...that's about it."

Zhu Neng sneered: "This price doesn't take much advantage. Do you still want to learn from ordinary people and rely on ferry boats to do business? How much money can you 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 have under our name now."

Zhu Yong crossed his hands proudly and said, "As of today, there are 430 ships of all sizes."

This time, Zhu Neng was frightened.

When he was in Beiping back then, he also went from a middle-level military officer to today. He had heard about the ordinary market conditions.

So he said sullenly: "The extra 300 ships... where did they come from? Snatched?"

"What are you saying, Uncle Shi?" Zhang Anshi said angrily, "Are we like robbers?"

Zhu Neng was silent.

Zhang Anshi sighed and said: "Uncle Shi, you have misunderstood us. In fact...these boats are all volunteered by everyone to join us, and they are rushing to deliver the boats to our name."

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

Zhang Anshi said: "Does Shibo know the situation of this pier? On weekdays, there are eleven piers in Nanjing City, and every pier is full of ships. These... Shibo probably knows."

Zhu Neng said: "So what."

"But the chaos of the wharf, does Shibo know? The water network in the south of the Yangtze River is dense, and countless people and goods are received and delivered by wharfs and boats everywhere. Therefore, countless people rely on the wharf for a living. The wharf of the Confucius Temple..."

Zhang Anshi paused, and continued: "In the past, there were three evils here. The first evil was that the boatmen competed to attract customers, and there were many boatmen who wished that their ferry boats were fully loaded before they were willing to sail. , In this way, the passengers got on the boat in the early morning, but the boatman refused to leave the boat until it was full, and he would not leave until noon, and many passengers suffered a lot.”

"The second evil is that fish and dragons are mixed in the wharf, and all kinds of sects and Taoists are mixed in. Some blackmail the boatman, and some... I also have a lot of boats under my own hands. Many people have dirty hands and even kill them from time to time. There are countless disputes among the boatmen who robbed people and goods. As the saying goes, the feet and teeth of the car and boat shop should be killed if they are innocent. This is not a lie, because there are too many thieves involved in these businesses. , which hand is clean?"

"And the third evil is the yamen servants and officials along the way. They may collude with the Huimen to extort the property of the merchants and passengers. Or they turn to extort the boatman. The honest boatman is very disturbed, but he has to swallow .”

What Zhang Anshi said was sensible and reasonable. Zhu Neng did not expect a young man to know the situation of the pier so clearly. At this moment, he became serious: "So what?"

"After understanding these situations, it will be easy to deal with. You only need to prescribe the right medicine. So my nephew, hehe... I did three things at the same time. The first thing is to buy a hundred ships, hire people, and all All the ships are painted with a unified logo, and a unified black flag is also hung on the bow. What is this called?

"Schedule the ship?"

"Yes, for example, the boat from Confucius Temple Ferry to Qixia Ferry must leave every half an hour. No matter whether it is full or not, even if there is only one passenger on the boat, the boat will still leave, rain or shine."

Zhu Neng stroked his beard and frowned: "Isn't this going to be a loss?"

"In the first few days, it was indeed a loss, but later on, those regular customers who went to and from the wharf soon discovered that our ships flying the black flag are always on time. As long as you come to the ferry at the Confucius Temple at the right time, you can go to the ferry. In this way, it will not waste time, and for many people, the ship under our flag is so trustworthy, so they don’t worry about being cheated by the boatman halfway, or even killing people, so everyone Fight to be the first to take our boat, our business is the hottest on the entire river right now."

What kind of person is Zhu Neng? This kind of thing is easy to understand. He couldn't help but nodded secretly, and said in his mouth: "How much can you earn?"

"Don't worry, Uncle Shi. Passenger transportation, of course, is to be innocent and the price is fair, so in fact it's just a small profit. What you really earn...is word of mouth."

Zhu Neng looked at him suspiciously and said, "Word of mouth?"

"Yes, in the next half month, our word of mouth accumulated, and we started to invite freight business. You can see how much goods are needed in and out of the Yingtianfu area. It's just that they are not traders. They dare to hand over the goods to the boatman. After all, the docks It was the most chaotic, and many boatmen had unclean hands and feet. At this time, many people saw that we were so trustworthy, and gradually some merchants wanted us to help transport their goods."

"Look at this small ship, which can transport several thousand catties of goods, and the profit of this freight is huge. If you come and go again, don't you make a lot of money?"

Zhu Neng was surprised, the calculations in his mind seemed to have begun to crackle.

Zhang Anshi continued: "Of course, relying on this alone, the money is still too slow. If you want to seize the opportunity, you must expand quickly. So with word of mouth and freight, the third step is to expand. Because Our business here is the best, and both boat passengers and merchants have a good reputation in their hearts, but other boat owners’ business has plummeted, and at this time... we began to invite them to join us.”

"Occupation is very simple. We call the ship under our name, we allow them to fly our flag, and at the same time let them pay a certain deposit, and provide them with unified training. During this process, they must be restrained, and finally according to their A certain amount of profits will be drawn. You see, in just a few short days, more than 300 ships have joined us, and our scale has expanded like a snowball."

Zhu Neng raised a question again: "Are they so willing to let you take the money for nothing?"

"For them, this has all advantages and no disadvantages." Zhang Anshi said confidently: "This is actually the second thing we do, and it is also the reason why the three of us, the two brothers, will hang out the name of the capital's second murderer. .”

(End of this chapter)