Chapter 169: Selfish Motives

Production hadn't increased by much, but the number of buyers had grown enormously. Beyond buyers within Xuzhou City itself, people from Feng County, Pei County, Xiao County, Dangshan, and Pizhou all came to purchase. With these buyers, the increased output was quickly absorbed, and supply still fell short of demand.

Much as Zhao Jin had estimated, the wealthy households in the city were drinking it for novelty. This strong, potent liquor was fine for occasional drinking, but there was no need to drink it every day. Yet aside from these pampered customers, the other drinkers welcomed Han Well Famous Liquor enthusiastically. They could taste the flavor when they drank, but weren't overly particular about it. Beyond flavor, what they cared about was kick, and Han Well Famous Liquor perfectly matched their needs. These drinkers consumed the most alcohol and were the most numerous.

The wealthy households with money didn't stop buying either, though others bought far more. After drinking the crisp, mellow, and full-bodied Han Well Famous Liquor, going back to other distilled spirits meant finding the taste either muddled or not strong enough. Han Well Famous Liquor might lack the standout merits of those truly "famous liquors," but it also had no flaws. Compared to common and mid-to-upper-tier wines, Han Well Famous Liquor seemed to have merits everywhere.

The customer base kept expanding, so purchase volume naturally rose steadily. The price, however, never exceeded sixty wen per jin. After all, among the drinkers buying the liquor, those of great wealth were a minority, and the merchants buying it also needed to resell for a profit. If the price was too high, they'd have no margin to gain, so the range of fifty-five to sixty wen was something everyone could accept.

That said, in trading firms, goods warehouses, restaurants, and taverns, Han Well Famous Liquor selling at eighty wen per jin was the normal price. The retail price was already not low, and anything sold below that price was basically watered down or mixed with other liquor.

By mid-October, the daily purchase volume from local restaurants and taverns dipped slightly, and wealthy households went from buying every day to buying some every few days. But local and out-of-town trading firms and goods warehouses began buying in large wholesale quantities. One fell, the other rose — the rise was greater, the fall smaller.

From these normal sales, Zhao Jin could make a tenfold profit. But compared to the sorghum-for-liquor exchange with Cloud Mountain Temple, theoretically, Zhao Jin could earn over forty times.

Entering October, out of the fifty jars of liquor sold each day, ten were delivered to Cloud Mountain Temple. According to Liu Yong's scouts, this liquor wasn't even transported up Cloud Dragon Mountain at all — it was transferred directly at the mountain's base and sent toward Pei County and Dangshan. Cloud Mountain Temple didn't just want it for their own drinking; trading it for profit was also the goal.

What Zhao Jin found interesting was that after settling terms with the monk Ruhui, the Cloud Mountain Trading Firm and Cloud Mountain Tavern in the city each came calling on their own. By all rights, both were subordinate to Cloud Mountain Temple, yet their approaches were surprisingly out of step. The Cloud Mountain Trading Firm's head manager, Xue Xiaozong, spoke in sweeping, all-encompassing terms: "Brother Ruhui on that side gives Young Master Zhao one dan of sorghum for three jin of liquor. I, on this side, am willing to offer one dan of sorghum for two jin. If Han Well Famous Liquor could be exclusively managed by my side, even one dan for one jin would be fine."

The Cloud Mountain Tavern side also proposed a rate of one dan for two jin. This had nothing to do with business sense anymore — it was pure profligacy.

Zhao Jin was puzzled at first, but later thought it through. Every year, Cloud Mountain Temple produced a vast amount of sorghum. Not much was eaten by people, not much was sold off. It was used to feed the temple's livestock, or they brewed some crude local liquor themselves. Every year there was a huge surplus in storage. Nominally, this stuff was worth over two hundred wen per dan, but hardly anyone came to buy it. These goods were all temple property — if they spoiled, it was the temple's loss. But if exchanged for Han Well Famous Liquor, the money earned from it could benefit one's own pocket. Why not gladly do so?

Zhao Jin, however, did not accept these generous terms. Earlier he'd worried about not having enough sorghum; now he worried about having too much. Raw materials were sufficient, but production capacity was still inadequate. Accepting the offer couldn't be fulfilled, and it would also damage the business relationships he had just established.

Zhao Jin now trained the household guards for half the day and worked at the distillery for the other half. His own martial practice and physical conditioning had to be done at night and at dawn. Fortunately, he was young and robust, and with a group of friends helping out, he didn't find it too exhausting.

The weather turned cold. Fermentation of the liquor mash could no longer be done in the open air and required artificial heating to maintain. Though the added cost wasn't much, the speed of liquor output dropped again. Several of the brewing craftsmen repeatedly suggested buying crude local liquor from outside to blend, which could produce a slightly inferior but similar-tasting liquor. Zhao Jin rejected this every time and strictly urged them not to slack off on quality. Better to produce less liquor than to fail to guarantee the taste.

But looking at the overall picture, Fragrance Distillery was still operating smoothly. To outsiders, it truly seemed inconceivable. A youth in his teens, who had never had any contact with the liquor-making trade, whose family relatives and close friends had absolutely nothing to do with the liquor-making trade either — he'd rashly started it up, and unexpectedly produced liquor on his very first attempt, and what's more, produced a top-grade famous liquor, and then it became a hot seller and a huge seller in Xuzhou, and it looked set to soon sell throughout the entire Huaibei region.

Outsiders found it inconceivable; Zhao Jin found it perfectly normal. The distillery was already there, the brewing craftsmen were already there, the raw materials for making liquor were already there — everything was already there. He merely injected silver and it could operate. In fact, "restored to operation" would be a more accurate way to put it.

What Zhao Jin did was tell them one trick — he told them the trick of the second pot. After improving this process, the craftsmen relied on their own experience to perfect and maintain it, and naturally, a famous liquor emerged.

After producing a famous liquor, with a superior exclusive product in hand, Zhao Jin's commercial knowledge came into play. Things like "hunger marketing," "brand effect," and those operational concepts for fast-moving consumer goods were all deployed one after another. Achieving such results seemed inconceivable on the surface, but in reality, it was only to be expected.

But because this trick was so simple, every newly recruited brewing craftsman was utterly shocked, and then, to varying degrees, they all began harboring their own little schemes. The apprentices were the same.

Working in the distillery, Zhao Jin didn't hide anything from them. Watching the entire process from start to finish, from fermentation to the liquor coming out, the whole sequence was nothing remarkable. The only distinction lay in the first pot and the second pot. This trick was too simple — anyone could use it, without the slightest difficulty.

At first, the newly arrived craftsmen and workers couldn't believe it. After several times, they were finally able to confirm it.

Such a simple method, yet the profit was so enormous. Each month they used about sixty thousand jin of sorghum. One dan was one hundred twenty jin, and one hundred twenty jin of sorghum cost only two hundred thirty wen. With such bulk purchasing, two hundred wen or even one hundred and several tens of wen could be achieved. Calculated on the high end, it was just over one hundred taels of silver. Add the cost of liquor jars, firewood, and wages for the workers, and in a single month, at the very most, it would not exceed four hundred taels. Yet the monthly liquor output was thirty thousand jin. Calculated at fifty wen per jin — and in reality, each jin could now sell for sixty wen — the minimum income was one thousand five hundred taels. Deduct those costs, and that was a net profit of one thousand one hundred taels per month!

Details like Cloud Mountain Temple exchanging sorghum for liquor were unknown to them. If the sorghum from Cloud Mountain Temple were factored in, then the profit of Han Well Famous Liquor was even more astonishing.

A private calculation was simple enough, and that trick of taking liquor from the second pot was even less trouble. With that calculation made, who would still be willing to work for someone else? Go out and open a small distillery of your own. Even if you couldn't produce this much liquor, even if you couldn't sell it for fifty wen per jin, you'd still make dozens or hundreds of taels of silver a year.

Think about it — in Xuzhou City, a year of food and clothing, with meat and fish every month, for a family of four wouldn't even use ten taels. To be able to earn so much in a year — what a wonderful prospect that was. Thinking of that, who could restrain themselves?

In practice, the newly hired craftsmen and apprentices at Fragrance Distillery often wanted to quit after just ten-some days of work. Their reasons were bizarre and varied, with claiming illness in the family being the most common, and not being able to leave family members behind also being a frequent one.

Zhao Jin's method for handling this situation was very simple and brutal. Anyone who wanted to quit would first be beaten, then starved for three days, have three months' wages docked, and have their wages halved for a year. And the work could not stop, nor could they harbor resentment and sabotage things — otherwise, the beating would be even harsher.

In any case, it had all been made clear beforehand, and the contract documents were there in black and white. It wasn't a matter of you deciding not to work just because you felt like it. Back when you thought the terms were generous and were willing to sell your labor by signing on for three years, where was the logic in just leaving whenever you pleased? Besides, everyone knew perfectly well why you wanted to leave.

Some were beaten a lot; some feigned illness very convincingly. For cases like these, the distillery also had a method. They would call a physician to come examine you. If you were sick, you'd be treated. If you weren't sick, the punishment was doubled.

Fragrance Distillery did all this with a clear conscience. Working here, you got high wages, ate well, and slept comfortably. You could say people were confined within the distillery, but it wasn't exploitation or squeezing. Every month when you got your wages, they could all be delivered to your family.

But when the money was handed over, conversation between relatives was not permitted. The distillery worker could only hand the money to Zhao Jin's household guards, who would pass it on in their stead. Relatives could ask questions, but the person from the distillery could only nod or shake their head.

This rule left everyone baffled. The relatives of these workers all initially suspected their family members were suffering and enduring hardship inside. But every month, when the weighty wages were placed in their hands, and they saw their family member standing there with a glowing, healthy complexion, the doubts in their hearts vanished like smoke. Finding a job wasn't so easy in these times, let alone one with good food, good clothing, and high wages like this.

Even with things done to this extent, the craftsmen and workers in the distillery were still greedy and never satisfied. Fragrance Distillery truly treated them well, but thinking of the profits they could earn by opening their own distillery, some still couldn't bear to stay.

The excuses of feigning illness and asking for leave didn't work well and only got them beaten and docked pay. So some began plotting to escape at night, climbing over the wall under cover of darkness. Even if they couldn't stay in the Xuzhou area, going elsewhere to make liquor would still bring wealth and prosperity.

Everyone who tried to climb the wall and flee at night was stopped by the household guards. Originally, the household guards on duty around the distillery were merely going through the motions, and during the midnight shift change, some would yawn and doze off. But Zhao Jin conducted spot checks every two days, and anyone found slacking off would inevitably be beaten and punished. After a few rounds of this, everyone was very alert at night.

In these times, those content with their lot were many; those who actually dared scale walls and flee were few. What's more, with household guards patrolling inside and out, the first one who climbed the wall to escape was given a severe beating and thrown back in, with two years' wages docked directly. The second who climbed the wall was dealt with in the same manner. The third was the unluckiest — because he was too furtive, a household guard thrust a spear straight at him. Fortunately, there was no intent to kill, but his thigh was pierced straight through.