Siheyuan: Starting from 1958

"No sale..." Just as Zhou Gui was hesitating about how to refuse the sheep dealer without offending him, his son Zhou Guangcai directly refused.

The sheep trader frowned, clearly dissatisfied with Zhou Guangcai's answer, and replied with a stern face, "You'd better think this through..."

“We’re one of the few sheep buyers in the whole town, so the price I’m offering is definitely the lowest. If they don’t sell to me, no one else will offer such a high price…”

"Young people shouldn't speak so impulsively... Think it through before making a decision..."

Zhou Guangcai had always had a lot of complaints about the sheep dealers in the town.

In the past few years, they have bought up almost all of the goats I raised. Not only did they offer very low prices, but they also tried every means to cheat me on the weight.

What kind of sheep eats too much? Two pounds should be deducted from the scale...

If a sheep is too dirty, a pound should be deducted from the weight...

Because there are only a few sheep dealers in the town, if they don't sell to them, they'll just be stuck with the sheep.

Despite the sheep dealers' attempts to exploit them, Zhou Guangcai had no choice but to sell his family's goats to them.

Now that mutton processing plants are buying goats at higher prices, Zhou Guangcai is finally free from their exploitation and no longer has to compromise as he used to when talking to them.

Faced with the sheep trader's threats, he replied without hesitation, "There's nothing to think about..."

"My five goats already have buyers, I won't sell them to you..."

"father……"

"Let's go straight to the processing plant; there's no need to waste time talking to them here."

“We have a purchase agreement with the processing plant, and these goats must be sold to them.”

The sheep trader's face grew even uglier than before. Watching Zhou Gui and his son slowly disappear into the distance, he replied gravely, "It's that mutton processing plant again..."

"We haven't received any goats in town for quite some time since they arrived..."

Another sheep trader chimed in, "Brother Wang..."

"I heard that the processing plant has signed cooperative sheep-raising agreements with many local people, stipulating that the goats they raise must be sold to the processing plant..."

“I even asked around, and the processing plant is buying live sheep for 50 cents a pound, which is a whole cent more expensive than us. I really don’t know how they make a profit buying goats at that price.”

“We buy live sheep in town for four cents each, slaughter them ourselves and sell them, but we don’t make much money.”

"They buy the sheep for 50 cents a pound. I heard that the processing plant also employs dozens of workers who specialize in slaughtering sheep, but they still don't lose money. I don't know how they do it."

“If this continues, once everyone in town knows the price the processing plant is charging for sheep, we might not be able to get a single sheep. How are we supposed to survive then…”

The sheep trader known as Brother Wang was clearly the strongest among them, and all the sheep traders immediately focused their attention on him, hoping that Brother Wang could help them come up with an idea.

Brother Wang's already serious face became even more serious. After taking a deep breath, he replied, "Since the processing plant won't give us a way to survive and doesn't want us to have an easy time, then we won't let them have an easy time either. We'll make sure they can't survive in Tangshan Town."

"I've already found out..."

“The processing plant delivers mutton to Beijing before dawn every day, all by large trucks.”

"Although our Tangshan Town is nearly 100 kilometers away from Beijing, large trucks can reach Beijing in just two hours."

"The mutton in Beijing is more expensive than here, so naturally they can make money."

"Our mutton can only be sold to locals. The price is cheap, so we can only buy it at a low price, otherwise we will lose money. We definitely can't compete with others."

The reason why the processing plant can still make money by buying live sheep at high prices and supporting dozens of workers is not only because it delivers the freshest mutton to Beijing every day and sells it at prices far higher than the local prices, but also because of another very important reason.

Tangshan Town is rich in goats, and although the locals enjoy eating mutton, few are willing to eat the strong-smelling offal. As a result, goat vendors basically give away unwanted goat heads and offal for free when selling mutton.

Different processing plants...

Whether it's a sheep's head or offal, they can be categorized and sent to Dongjun Restaurant to be cooked into dishes, or even sold in major vegetable markets.

If no one wants them, they can be sent to Dongjun Restaurant for simple processing and sold as braised dishes.

A set of mutton offal and a sheep's head that the locals didn't want was sent to Dongjun Restaurant and major vegetable markets in Beijing, where it could be sold for at least five yuan, directly offsetting the higher price the processing plant paid for the live sheep.

Of course, these are things to follow.

After hearing the analysis, the group of sheep traders immediately chimed in, "Brother Wang..."

"Then do you think we can also send the goats we slaughter to Beijing to sell?"

"How do we deliver it?" Brother Wang asked, looking at the other person with an idiotic expression.

"We're over a hundred kilometers apart from Beijing; it would take one or two days to get there by bicycle..."

"It would take two or three days to walk there by cart..."

"By the time we got to Beijing, the mutton had all gone bad."

“We can also find a truck to haul it over…” another sheep trader immediately chimed in.

Brother Wang, still looking at the sheep dealer with an idiotic expression, retorted, "Do you know how much it costs to hire a big truck to deliver our mutton to Beijing?"

"At least one hundred yuan..."

"The money we made from selling the three sheep didn't even add up to a hundred yuan."

"After deducting costs, selling ten sheep might not even earn you a hundred yuan..."

"If we really hire big trucks to haul mutton to Beijing for us, all the money we've worked so hard to earn will end up in the hands of the truck drivers. It's better to just keep the mutton and sell it locally..."

"If we can't get low-priced live sheep in Tangshan Town, we'll go to other towns to buy them."

"If all else fails, we'll go to a more remote village and pick it up door-to-door by bicycle."

The sheep traders clearly didn't want to give up such a large market in Tangshan Town just like that.

Tangshan Town has the largest number and scale of sheep farming among all the towns in the county.

If they give up the Tangshan Town market, their annual income will be reduced by at least half.

Immediately, two sheep traders stepped forward, their faces full of resentment, and asked, "Can't you find a way to drive the processing plant away...?"

"If we can't survive, the processing plant shouldn't expect to survive here either..."

"Tangshan Town is such a big market, why should all the benefits be taken by the processing plants?"

At this point, a sheep trader suddenly spoke up: "Brother Wang..."

"You just said that the processing plant delivers mutton to Beijing every day before dawn..."

"If we sabotage the highway from Tangshan Town to Beijing, preventing the trucks from reaching the processing plant and causing all the mutton to rot on the way, do you think the processing plant can continue operating in Beijing?"

"Once we drive the processing plant away, all the goats raised by the people of Tangshan Town will belong to us, and we can buy them at whatever price we want." (End of Chapter)