The circulation of commodities and daily necessities mainly relies on manpower, carriages and camel teams. Ordinary people cannot afford carriages and camels, so they have to rely on manpower.
Therefore, many people in mountain villages have never been outside the village for dozens of miles in their entire lives, and are completely unaware of many changes and information in the outside world.
This is the disadvantage caused by extremely backward transportation.
But that’s how things are in this world. If there are disadvantages, there must be advantages as well.
The advantage is that things are rare and valuable.
If you think about it, the inconvenience of commodity circulation makes it difficult to buy even the necessities of life in many places.
For ordinary people, even if they are poor families, even if they don't have enough food and clothing, they still need salt, and sewing kits for mending are also needed. This will provide those who do some small business
The hawkers and traders brought business opportunities.
However, if a merchant carries a load of goods and travels through mountains and rivers, walking countless mountain roads, and some even going from village to town for countless days of hard work, if he just wants to earn more than ten percent or dozens of percent,
The profits are not worth it, and you may not even be able to make back the expenses on the road. Who can afford to do such a loss-making business?
That will definitely mean earning back the money doubled or even countless times.
For example, if you buy a sewing needle in a shop in a big city, you may be able to buy ten pieces for one copper plate, but when a small vendor brings it to a village in the mountains, you may only get one piece for one copper plate, which is ten times the profit.
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Moreover, no matter how poor a family is, they have to bite the bullet and buy one or two pieces to mend the already tattered bed quilts and clothes at home. Maybe they can be used for several years. Although the price of a copper plate is expensive, it is worth it.
ah!
There are many big business houses in Shanxi now. Their ancestors accumulated wealth little by little in this way. Even Zhou Wen's Fuyuan Company is no exception. His grandfather was a slightly larger businessman back then.
Then the ancestors from his grandfather onwards started out as small traders.
Of course, there are also risks in doing business, and traveling across mountains and rivers also risks losing both people and money. If you encounter military disasters, robbers, wild animals, flash floods, injuries and illnesses on the road, etc., you may endanger yourself and others.
Years or even decades of hard work are ruined in one fell swoop.
Having said that, because of information asymmetry and backward transportation, the price gap between the two places will generally be very large. The specialty products of place A may be sold several times as long as they can be sold hundreds of miles to place B.
cost price.
Poor people have needs of poor people, and rich people also have needs of rich people.
The Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas were the areas with the most developed light industry and textile industry in the Republic of China. Silk cloth, various daily necessities and light industrial products were the scarcest in the entire Republic of China.
Not only are these products shipped to the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and the north, but they are also sold in dozens of large and small cities along the Yangtze River at prices that are several times or even ten times the cost, and there is still a rush to get them.
But please note that what is said here is if you can transport it to a certain place.
The key word is the word "luck".
How difficult will this “luck” be?
In later generations where logistics and transportation are very developed, that would not be a problem at all.
But in this period of the Republic of China, it was not an easy task, and it was even a very difficult problem.
This problem was the biggest obstacle to commercial development in the Republic of China.
Regardless of whether you have railways and roads extending in all directions, even shipping along the Yangtze River is a risky business.
First of all, if you are not strong enough to afford a big ship, you can only drive a few wooden boats to do short-distance business, and the profits will naturally be low.
If the threshold is too low, it will naturally lead to fierce competition, with shippers lowering prices against each other. In the end, they may have to rely on fists and sticks to carve out a world. If someone is killed, it's better to have connections, but you still have to spend a lot of money to find connections.
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Those who have no other options will end up losing their fortune, facing lawsuits and going to jail.
Hehe... I think everyone knows the darkness of the officialdom of the Republic of China during this period. These government officials want to find something for you and take the opportunity to extort you. Now that something has happened, why don't they knock your bones and suck out your marrow and make your life a waste?
Come on, let’s go clean?
But even in such an environment, there are still countless people with two coins in their pockets crying and clamoring to get into this doorway. For no other reason than running short distances can still make a lot of money.
This is true for short-distance shipping, but long-distance shipping is even more of a big business, and it's also a hugely profitable business.
Of course, long-distance transportation of hundreds of kilometers or even hundreds of kilometers requires large ships. 500 tons is considered small, and it is best to use ships with thousands of tons. This has made most small households
The ship bosses were intimidated.
For example, based on the shortest conventional route to Wuhan, based on the current market conditions, the freight is calculated at 20% of the total price of the goods.
Of course, there is also a rule, that is, your goods must reach a certain value. If it is just some cheap bulk goods, then the freight will have to be negotiated separately. Anyway, I won't do it if it doesn't make money.
As for scattered goods, experts at the dock will naturally estimate and settle the accounts with you, so I won’t list them all in detail here.
If you have a ship worth millions of oceans of goods, as long as you go to Wuhan for a short trip, you can make a profit of 200,000 oceans. If you bring another ship of goods back from Wuhan, you will make money on both sides.
, you can make back the money you paid for the ship in one trip and still have more than enough.
It can be said that during this period of the Republic of China, all things were not as good as logistics. This was because there were too few people engaged in the logistics industry, and things were rare and expensive. Therefore, doing logistics was a business that was sure to make money without losing money.
Then some people will say that such a profitable business can be done by everyone from the rich people of the Republic of China. How come Zhou Wen's mercenary group can get it?
Haha, if it were left to future generations, with Zhou Wen's half-hearted business acumen, it would really not be his turn to do it. Perhaps before he could think of it, all of China was already covered with various logistics companies.
However, this was the Republic of China, a truly troubled time, and it was not easy to do business.
As mentioned before, why even Qichang Yangxing, a super multinational company known as the number one in the American Far East, has to withdraw from the Yangtze River shipping business.
Is it just because I can't figure it out?
Can't figure out what?
We can't handle the water bandits and various checkpoints along the route, we can't handle the various relationships along the route, we can't handle the escort and security work along the route, we can't handle the fact that the Republic of China government has to turn a blind eye to the attempts of various local forces.
Or simply an attitude of being helpless and helpless.