kingnovel Chapter 397 Building a Manor
Chapter 397 Building a Manor
Whether it is perfume or the two medicines, they are high-end luxury goods in this era and ordinary people cannot afford them.
It is indeed very appropriate to start promoting perfumes and aphrodisiacs from brothels.
On the one hand, those who can come to brothels to spend money are generally rich people who can at least afford golden gun pills.
On the other hand, brothels are also places that merchants like to visit, and where they can quickly promote their products to other places.
It has to be said that this brothel is very wealthy. The first batch of fifty bottles of perfume produced by Lu Cheng were directly bought by Zuihonglou.
The revenue of fifty taels of silver directly exceeded Huichuntang’s total sales of the previous month.
Afterwards, Lu Cheng ordered Steward Sun to purchase a piece of land outside the city and prepare to build a manor outside the city.
The land can be used to plant and cultivate some Chinese herbal medicines, or to grow some flowers, etc., providing Huichuntang with a relatively stable raw material base.
With a farm, it is also convenient to support tenants, farmhands, and servants, and there will be more people available.
In fact, in ancient times, whether one was an official, a businessman, or someone engaged in any other profession, after one had money, they would generally set aside part of it to buy land.
In many cases, the wealth of a person or a family can be directly measured by the amount of land they own.
The reason is very simple. In ancient times, productivity was extremely low. There were no fertilizers, pesticides, or good seeds. The amount of food that the land could produce was extremely limited. If a family had too little land, the food they could grow would not be enough to feed the family.
In addition, ancient agriculture had weak resistance to natural disasters. Drought, floods, pests and diseases, and locusts could all cause a significant reduction in grain production, or even a complete loss of harvest.
Once a natural disaster occurs, resulting in a large-scale reduction in grain production, the price of grain will naturally rise.
Moreover, ancient people did not have many ways to invest, and land was a resource that could be passed down and produce relatively continuously and stably.
For various reasons, land has become the most stable support in people's hearts.
Of course, the issue of land annexation has always been one of the important reasons for the demise and change of dynasties.
Manager Sun took people to the pawnshop to learn about the situation, and then went to the fields to take a look. In the end, he bought 100 acres of top-quality land at the price of 10 strings of cash per acre, and 100 acres of medium-quality land at the price of 6 strings of cash per acre.
Lu Cheng also directly became a small landlord with 200 acres of land.
After spending 1,600 strings of cash in one go, Lu Cheng's savings shrunk a lot in an instant, but this only meant that his liquid funds turned into real estate, and his assets remained the same.
The land purchased by the Lu family is located five or six miles south of the city. Basically, it is all connected fields, which is also easy to manage.
Immediately afterwards, Lu Cheng asked Steward Sun to find a group of craftsmen to build a manor next to the fields according to the drawings he had drawn.
The newly purchased land also needs to be planned, including where to plant what flowers, where to plant what herbs, where to plant grains, vegetables, fruit trees, etc.
Fortunately, it was summer now and the wheat harvest season had just passed, which was a good time to replant.
While building the manor, Lu Cheng specifically instructed housekeeper Sun to fence off some fertile fields near the manor, and personally guided the tenants to sow seeds that they had never seen before in the land.
These seeds were the excellent varieties that Lu Cheng had specially stored in his cross-border backpack and had been subsequently improved and cultivated. Among them were corn, potatoes, peanuts, sweet potatoes, peppers, etc.
After experiencing the world of "Embroidered Spring Blade", Lu Cheng specially stored some of the best seeds from later generations in his cross-border backpack, in order to deal with the situation of traveling to the ancient world again.
In this day and age, these grains and vegetables have not yet spread to China, and many are still far away on the other side of the ocean, making it difficult to find them.
Now, if Lu Cheng directly takes it out for planting and cultivation, it can definitely save a lot of trouble.
Lu Cheng attached great importance to these seeds. He only took out a small part of them from the cross-border backpack for planting and cultivation. The rest were temporarily kept to deal with emergencies, so as to avoid any accidents that would destroy all the new crops.
Lu Cheng watched with his own eyes as the farmers planted various seeds, and reminded them that these were important Chinese herbal medicines, many of which were poisonous. He also asked Butler Sun to arrange for people to patrol regularly.
While the manor is being built, the land where various new crops are planted will also be enclosed by a wall.
While the construction of the manor outside the city was in full swing, the business of Zuihonglou in the city became even more prosperous because of perfume, Jinqiang Pills and Longhu Pills.
The Golden Gun Pill, in particular, was quickly recognized by many brothel regulars, and they bought it from the girls one after another.
Although the girls work harder and suffer more than before, they can earn double the income just by lying down, so they are tired but happy.
As for high-level elixirs such as the Dragon and Tiger Pill, only a few wealthy people in Yuncheng County and a few big businessmen passing by were willing to buy them. And only the popular girls in Zuihonglou could sell some of them.
However, high-end products take a high-end route, and the profit of a bottle of Longhu Dan is more than that of 10 bottles of Jingun Wan.
As the products gained market recognition, merchants came to the door and wanted to buy perfume and two medicines in bulk and resell them to other places.
These businessmen who travel back and forth to do business all have extremely keen business sense and are best at discovering products with commercial value.
While Lu Cheng asked Manager Liu to recruit more staff and expand production, he also contacted suppliers of medicinal materials in several nearby counties to stabilize the supply.
Due to the current limited production, those merchants' orders have been scheduled for two months later.
However, Lu Cheng was not in a hurry, as this was just in line with the hunger marketing strategy.
Early in the morning of this day, just after Lu Cheng finished his exercise, the servant Lai Fu came running over to report the news: "Master, Madam Wang from Zuihonglou is here to visit. Would you like to see her?"
"Of course, let her wait in the front hall."
Lu Cheng washed his face, and dressed himself with the help of his maids Xia He and Qiu Lan, then walked to the front hall.
"What wind is blowing today that brings Mother Wang here?"
"Mr. Lu, I don't come to you for no reason. I want to discuss our business again with you."
"Oh? Please go ahead, Madam Wang."
"I heard that Mr. Lu is planning to sell Golden Gun Pills, Dragon Tiger Pills, and Hundred Flowers Jade Dew to other merchants. I wonder if he can sell a batch to me? To be honest, I know some friends in Bianjing and have my own channels. I also want to do this business."
"Of course, no problem. We'll sell this good stuff to anyone. Zuihonglou is also our Huichuntang's first partner, so there's no problem selling it to you."
"Thank you very much, sir. I heard that the production of this medicine is limited now. Can you give us priority to sell it?"
"Mother Wang is a little late. The orders we have now are already scheduled for two months later."
"This..." Mother Wang hesitated for a moment, then nodded, and two young girls in their prime came out from behind her.
"Master Lu, these two girls are daughters of wealthy families. They were sold to me because of problems at home. They can read and write, and after being personally trained by me, they also know some music, chess, calligraphy and painting. I just happened to bring them here today. If Master Lu likes them, I will give them to you. They can be your beauties, speak sweetly, make the bed, and serve tea."
Upon hearing this, the two girls looked up at Lu Cheng, then lowered their heads shyly.
Both girls knew their fate. As women, having fallen into such a situation, the best outcome for them would be to be sold to a rich man as concubines.
If she is lucky, she can be sold to a young man who knows how to care for others. If she is unlucky, she may be sold to an old man, who will outshine the old man. She may even be given away as a gift and eventually return to the brothel.
If they could be sold to a young and handsome nobleman like Lu Cheng, they would absolutely be willing to do so.
Seeing that Lu Cheng did not agree immediately, the two girls raised their heads at the same time and looked at Lu Cheng with their big watery eyes.
In this era, the status of concubines was very low. They could be bought and sold like commodities, and sometimes even used to entertain distinguished guests.