Dragon's Origin

Chapter 382: Wang Sheng Also Shakes the Blame (Part 1)

Everything in the capital seemed calm and peaceful, with nothing out of the ordinary. The only slight change was that the high-end products of Runzi Workshop began to be offered in limited quantities, but otherwise, nothing seemed different.

Outside the city, however, dozens of estates were in turmoil. Some powerful factions seized several estates, while smaller ones fought over a single estate. None of these disputes were resolved peacefully; all involved fierce fighting, resulting in countless innocent souls and buried bones.

After much fighting, things finally settled down, with each estate being divided among one or several factions. Once the territories were demarcated, each side began organizing the villagers to resume production.

The villagers were all skilled workers who had undergone more than a year of training at Runzi Workshop, making them all treasures. No matter how fierce the fighting outside, few villagers were harmed. After all, they were everyone's cash cow; who would be willing to hurt one?

Stewards appointed by the various factions began to move in, and the villages started working. The leaders of each side were all smiles as they watched the steady stream of high-end cosmetics being produced, bearing the Runzi Workshop brand. These small bottles and jars for women were all gold coins!

However, just two days after production started, all parties had to halt operations. The reason was simple: there were not enough raw materials. Whether it was for producing lipstick or facial masks, skin toner or face cream, all the raw materials were gone. Both the materials used to make the cosmetics and the packaging to contain them were depleted.

Even the most skilled housewife cannot cook without rice. Without raw materials, how could they produce anything? The leaders of each side became anxious, and the stewards below quickly asked experienced villagers what materials were needed, preparing to organize procurement.

Some clever stewards had already compiled a list of needed materials when production started two days ago and began placing orders from various sources. With the capital being so large, how could they be strangled by a mere shortage of raw materials? If Runzi Workshop could buy them before, then they should be able to buy them now.

After much investigation, the stewards of these estates suddenly discovered a terrifying fact: while ordinary materials were easy to find, they had no idea where to order five crucial ingredients.

Not only did they not know where to order them, but they didn't even know what those materials were. This was a major problem. Without the five key ingredients, the products they made were a mess. Forget about selling them; no one would want them even if they were given away for free!

"Where did these materials come from before?" Each faction immediately began to investigate, asking the villagers and some informants, and they quickly found the answer.

"Runzi Workshop would regularly send materials to the estates, with a dedicated team doing this." It wasn't just one person saying this, but all the stewards in the villages. As for where the materials were sent from or who sent them, no one knew.

Having been watching Runzi Workshop for more than a day or two, each faction immediately realized a big mistake: they had forgotten to control the supply and delivery teams. Fortunately, it wasn't too late to mend the fence after the sheep were lost. The more powerful factions immediately took action, seizing three estates that were not originally within their target area.

They couldn't control the people now; they had long since entered the Marquis's residence and were being protected. But the estates were outside the city and couldn't run away, so they were directly taken over.

These three estates were responsible for pre-processing raw materials and transporting them to various villages. Sure enough, there were many materials in the villages. These factions were overjoyed. By controlling the raw materials, they controlled the lifeline of other downstream manufacturers, allowing them to earn even more.

After solving one problem, the next one immediately arose.

Raw material pre-processing was just that, but they couldn't conjure raw materials out of thin air! The materials in these three estates were just those sent earlier for them to continue processing. Once this batch was processed, if no new batch was sent, they would still face the risk of running out.

These raw materials were ordered by Runzi Workshop from various sources, with plans made in advance according to production needs, and orders placed in a step-by-step manner. Once this batch of orders was completed, who would send things over for no reason without subsequent orders? Moreover, Runzi Workshop's orders were always placed in person, and the suppliers would deliver the goods to a temporary warehouse. But when they went to find those temporary warehouses, they were already empty, unable to even support rats.

What to do? What else could they do? They could only continue to compile a list of the needed raw materials, and then have people from each faction scour the world to buy things. Otherwise, they would have only seized a few useless estates and at most two days' worth of cosmetics production. Get rich? Dream on!

Last time, after Mei'er was driven out of Baoqing Yu Tang, she learned her lesson. From the beginning, Runzi Workshop begged Wang Sheng to give her a method that would prevent her from making the same mistake again.

Wang Sheng did not disappoint Mei'er and gave her such an interlocking industrial chain from raw material supply to pre-processing to formal production to sales. In addition, he also had Mei'er build a team dedicated to transportation.

Not only was the production process interlocking, but even the transportation team was. They ordered goods from various places and had them sent to scattered transfer warehouses. These general transfer warehouses then transported them to the main warehouse, and finally, according to the material processing procedures, they were transported from the main warehouse to three different pre-processing estates.

Of course, these were just the ordinary raw material processing methods. Wang Sheng had two other teams responsible for the processing and transportation of key materials.

One processing team was in the Marquis's residence, and the materials were also sent to the Marquis's residence. Because they were only key materials, the volume was not large, and only one or two people with storage rings could be responsible for transportation. With so many people entering and leaving the Marquis's residence every day, who would know what this person was doing? Even the Emperor's spies in the Marquis's residence only knew that there was such a place, but no one knew who was specifically responsible for the transportation.

To get this part of the key materials, unless they attacked the Marquis's residence, those people with ordinary materials could only watch helplessly, because they didn't know what this batch of key materials was made of. They only knew that they had to add it when using it, and each time a special person would send it over. Once the supply was cut off, the estates could only stop work, there was no other way.

The other key material team was at the Old Lord Temple. This was Wang Sheng's second most trusted base and the safest place.

The Old Lord Temple originally had a group of specially trained Taoists in medicine, which was perfect for them to practice, and also to find another source of income for the Old Lord Temple. Relying on this batch of key materials, the Old Lord Temple could also take in nearly 10 million gold coins in profit a year.

This was a stable source of income that would last for a long time, and the Grand Master had long protected it to the death. Anyone who dared to try the Old Lord Temple would definitely only have a life to enter and no life to leave.

The latest novels are first published at 69shu.com!