The Zhou Family's factory continued to buy chicken eggs from the nearby villages to create preserved eggs, so they didn't have to worry about not being able to sell their eggs. There was also a good market for the chickens too. Didn't the Zhou Family, who lived next to Brother Dahai, become rich from raising chickens? Fortune favored the bold, leaving only sc.r.a.ps for the timid. Liu Shuanzhu thought that raising chickens was a very good idea.
Shuanzhu's wife still wasn't completely convinced and had her oldest daughter, Huifang, go ask Yu Xiaocao. In her heart, Yu Xiaocao was a golden gra.s.s [1] that knew how to make money. If she agreed, then raising chickens was truly a risk-free method to earn money.
When Liu Huifang got to the Yu Family's residence, Yu Xiaocao was currently pondering on what to do next. If they opened a braised food shop, only selling braised pork was not enough. They also needed to prepare some other dishes, like chicken, duck, and vegetables to sell. Vegetarian dishes were easy enough. Her family grew vegetables and then, in a while, the markets would also have plenty of vegetables for sale. Ducks were also easy to get. Their neighbor, Madame Mao, had bought and bred over a few hundred ducklings to raise this year. Every day they herded the ducks into the pond behind the house to free feed and at night they were fed some wild gra.s.ses, so they didn't have to use much grain to keep them.
However, the Zhou Family's chickens were not as easy to keep. Luckily, Zhou Shanhu's father and older brother peddled goods, so they traveled quite a bit. They were able to bring back some cheaply priced rice husks and wheat stalks back. Even with this, the Zhou Family still couldn't raise too many chickens. They only had a hundred or so chickens. Let alone Zhenxiu Restaurant, even Yu Xiaocao's braised food shop needed a larger supply of chickens than this!
When Older Sister Huifang came over to tell her that they wanted to raise chickens, Yu Xiaocao naturally applauded their plans wholeheartedly. Furthermore, she promised Huifang that they would buy her family's chickens at two copper coins above the market price, so they had to only sell chickens to them.
Liu Huifang was finally able to relax. She smiled and then leveled a look at Yu Xiaocao, "Our two families have a good relations.h.i.+p, so there's no need to be so polite. When the time comes, just buy our chickens at the market price. We can't always take advantage of your family, right? I can't chat anymore, I need to go back and tell my parents to start getting chicks."
The days pa.s.sed and the Yu Family's vegetables had been pretty much sold out. In a blink of an eye, their dozen or so mu of watermelon fields had reopened. Although they planted a lot more watermelons this year, a lot of people came by from the nearby towns and the prefectural city to discuss doing business with the Yu Family. They didn't need the Yu Family to s.h.i.+p the watermelons as they were willing to come get them themselves. The watermelons would be sold to these people at a wholesale price.
Liu Hu's whole family continued to sell watermelons in town. Those who could afford watermelons definitely didn't lack money. Although last year was a disaster year, it didn't affect the blazing popularity of watermelons one bit. In about a month's time, Liu Hu's whole family had earned several fold more than they did the previous year; they received two hundred taels in profit!
Last year, the royal prince had transported a few carts of watermelons and caused a sensation in the capital. Fang Zizhen was inspired by this. He privately negotiated with Xiaocao's three maternal uncles. They were in charge of transporting the melons while he would be in charge of finding a market in the capital. The profits would be split fifty-fifty.
The watermelons sold in the prefectural city were priced higher than the ones sold in Tanggu Town. Thus, if they went to the capital, the price would go up even more. With such profits in front of them, they'd be lying if they said they weren't tempted. The Liu Family's three brothers calculated it out and decided it was worth it! The Fang Estate provided the horse cart, while the three brothers hired a few guards from a business that provided escorting services for merchants. They transported the melons to one of the dowry shops of Xiaocao's G.o.dmother. From spring to the start of summer, the Liu Family's brothers had gone back and forth to the capital five to six times and earned almost a thousand taels for their efforts.
In the blink of an eye, it was now midsummer. The spring crop of corn was now ripe. Although there wasn't a lot of rainfall until now, the corn was not affected one bit as it was a drought-hardy crop. In addition, Yu Xiaocao had emphasized that the crops only be watered with the best water from the wells. Thus, the corn on the Yu Family's farmstead grew very well.
Now that it was ready to harvest, Yu Xiaocao accompanied her father to keep an eye on the town's farms. For the past two months, Royal Prince Yang had been busy with something, so she hadn't even seen him once. Right before they were going to harvest, he finally came over in a hurry.
