The Farm Life Of a "Fool"

Chapter 64

WHEELBARROWS

People could start reaping the early maturing upland rice as early as mid-August. Rice harvesting season is supposed to be the busiest and most exhausting time of year. It was, of course, the best time for the nation. They actually had a harvest after a year of hard work.

Since Wu Mei's and those few families' fields were all paddy fields or curved fields, they only had a few days to harvest their rice.

In this case, Xu Ran started to organize the people to do another job. Their wheelbarrows were taken out, and two people from each family were required to hawk them in other villages.

For the first five customers, Xu Ran had set a price of one tael of silver for the wheelbarrow. After that, it would sell for one and a half taels of silver, and each village could only sell twenty wheelbarrows at a time. If more are to be sold, they must each be sold for two taels of silver.

This was similar to raising the price at the transaction spot, but it would be difficult for him to buy the ten mu of land from Wu Mei and those few families if he didn't make any money with the wheelbarrows.

Furthermore, in modern days, this was referred to as sales promotion rather than raising the price at the transaction spot. Xu Ran felt relieved after calming down. In a village, it's unlikely that only a few people will come to buy it. After all, this tool has the potential to save the consumer time and energy. It was easy to use it to transport rice or for other purposes.

Everyone was also asked to hawk and yell their slogans, according to Xu Ran. If there were few people in the village, they could go to a location with many fields. Many people should be employed in their professions right now.

Wu Mei and Xu An went to Wu Village, Liu Qing and Xu Zhen went to Zhang Village, and Wu Lan and Xu Fa went to Xu Village with Gao Quan. They were all villages close to Xu Village, but each had a sizable population, with the smallest village housing more than a hundred households.

 The big one was Wu Village, where there were more than three hundred households at least.

Every team had two members, and they were only allowed to take out five wheelbarrows before returning to sell them. If someone else decided to buy it, he'd have to come to Xu Village and make the purchase himself.

Xu Ran had made this decision because he was concerned that raising the price at the transaction location would cause discontent, and the two sellers from an outside village would be easily bullied. The buyers must, of course, write down their names and pay the money. All of the wheelbarrows will be sent to the village head's house in the future.

Xu Ran asked every team member to visit the village head first when they arrived at one village and then tell him what they were doing.

Xu Ran had made up an excuse, claiming that Xu An was a carpenter who wanted to hire apprentices. He had made this method to gain people's interest by demonstrating his craftsmanship. They had prepared a promotional deal because it was the first time the wheelbarrow had been sold: the first five buyers could get it for half the original price, the buyers between the sixth and the twentieth could pay an additional half tael of silver, and the buyers after that could not get any discounts and had to pay two taels.

Since not every family could afford a tael or two, they had only brought five wheelbarrows, allowing the village chief to inspect the situation first. He could come and buy it if he so desired.

Xu Ran had also prepared half a kilo of white sugar and half a kilo of Chinese liquor for each villager's head. They were not insignificant presents. Even if the village head would not purchase the wheelbarrow, he would not expel them from the village because of the gifts.