Transmigrated Farmgirl's Scheme to Get Rich - Chapter 208
Female Manager
Mo Yan prepared to send Liang Lan off, but when the carriage had just gotten onto the main road, she said, “Yan’er, I want to go to your storefronts to take a look!”
“Alright! When I called you over before, you refused to go, you’re finally willing to take a look?”
She flicked the whip in her hand, and the carriage got onto the road to Qianshui Town.
When they arrived in town, Mo Yan let Chuzi help return the carriage, and brought Liang Lan to the storefront in the Humanity’s Flames Alleyway.
Liang Lan took a look at the goods inside the storefronts, “Your silks and tea leaves are from Linan, I prefer the brocades from Shu. Also, I like Luling’s mountains, clouds and mist tea leaves more.”
When she opened her mouth, her culture and knowledge could be seen. It seemed like the reason she previously said she didn’t want to go to school was because there weren’t enough books she hadn’t read!
Liang Lan took a look at Cao Zhang, who was sitting behind the counter, “Is this the manager you’ve hired, sister?”
Cao Zhang got up and said, “I’m just the accountant.”
Liang Lan said, “Then you’re still missing a manager here, Yan’er, do you think I’d fit?”
At this moment, Chuzi came over from outside, “I don’t think she’s all that good, do you really think you can become a manager?”
Liang Lan turned around to look at Chuzi, “And who are you?”
Mo Yan explained, “This is the manager of my commercial firm, Liu Yuchu.” [1]
Liang Lan glanced at her, “No wonder, he’s afraid I’ll steal his job.”
Chuzi said disgruntledly, “We’ll have a fair competition, and if you have the ability to, come and take my job!”
Today, at the Zhong family, Mo Yan had met Liang Lan all over again, and when she proposed to become the manager, Mo Yan had high hopes for her. If she was truly useful, she’d be both reliable and close to her heart, how good would that be!
“Alright, so how about we do a competition. A single day won’t be able to prove much, so both of you take turns to be the manager for three days, to manage both the commercial firm and the storefronts. Whoever has the higher revenue wins, and I’ll have Mr. Cao be the witness.” [2]
Both of them clapped and agreed, and it was agreed that the competition would begin the next day, and Chuzi said, “Tomorrow is a market day, and there’ll be more people in town than normal, so business will also be better. I’ll let her go first.”
Liang Lan replied disgruntledly, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll let you go first. It’s just that you aren’t allowed to make excuses when you lose.”
Chuzi ran over to fetch a brush and paper, “There’s no evidence with just the spoken word, we need to write it down as proof.”
He picked up the brush and was about to write, but was stopped by Mo Yan, “Wait.”
“What, you want to write it personally? But with your calligraphy…”
Mo Yan slapped Chuzi on the shoulder, “You’re making fun of my words again, I’ll let sister Lan write it.”
She wanted to take the opportunity to look at Liang Lan’s calligraphy. Liang Lan went over to flatten the paper, picked up the brush and started writing.
“Wager: Today, Liu Yuchu made a wager with Liang Lan, in the span of three days…”
Seeing Mo Yan and Chuzi looking at her write happily by the side, Cao Zhang also went over, and said just after taking a single look, “These words are pretty good! They’re delicate, but also have character.”
Mo Yan and Chuzi didn’t voice it out loud, but shared the same sentiment. After the wager was written, the two of them signed it, and gave it to Cao Zhang for safekeeping.
The first three days, Chuzi was the manager. His marketing strategy was just to let the employees stand outside the door to attract customers, doing a few discounts and giving away a few small gifts.
After Cao Zhang’s calculations, his revenue these past three days was confirmed to be higher than usual.
After that was Liang Lan’s time to be manager. She was already at a disadvantage to begin with, as both the employees in the commercial firm and the storefronts were Chuzi’s people.
Mo Yan was also curious as to what Liang Lan would do, and went over to the storefront to take a look early in the morning.
Before the storefronts opened, Liang Lan summoned all of the employees, then asked Mo Yan, “Landlord, since I’m currently the manager, do I have permission and responsibility to dismiss these employees?”
Mo Yan nodded, “Of course you do.”
Liang Lan turned to look at the employees, “You’ve all heard her. If you want to keep your job, work hard, and don’t try to make life hard for me.”
The employees all knew that she was Mo Yan’s elder cousin, so naturally wouldn’t dare slack off. However, they would still have to listen to Liang Lan on how to market the goods.
Liang Lan got a brush and paper and wrote a menu with prices and it, and let the employees stick it outside the door. The employees looked at the prices she wrote down, and asked in surprise, “Why are these prices higher than before?”
Mo Yan and Cao Zhang both looked at Liang Lan, not knowing what she was thinking of doing. Liang Lan shrugged and said, “There’ll be a war at the southern border soon, and southern goods won’t be able to be imported. Each bolt of silk sold is a bolt of silk we can’t get back, and the same goes with each ounce of tea leaves. This also applies to the four treasures of the study, and even grains.”
“Sister, you can’t tell this lie, faking military reports is a death sentence in the army!”
Liang Lan laughed, “This isn’t the military, and I’m not a general with soldiers under me. I’m just a small peasant girl, their military rules wouldn’t be able to punish me.”
“But I still don’t think that’s right.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Lu Junming stepped inside and said, “There’s a war at the southern border, and my father has already stepped into the role of the leading general to bring soldiers to defend against the enemy.”
He’s finally become a real general! [3]
“Then the imperial dynasty?”
“Prince Yi became the king.”
Liang Lan didn’t care about anything aside from the revenue she would be earning in these three days as manager. As soon as the news that goods from the south wouldn’t be able to be imported broke out, the number of people who came to buy goods increased, and she increased the price of the goods by another 10%.
Mo Yan immediately ordered the employees to tell Chuzi to go out to buy southern goods. All of the southern goods in the vicinity, no matter the item, had to be brought over.
“Can southern goods really no longer be imported?” Mo Yan asked Lu Junming.
“Not from Jizhou, at least.”
Liang Lan interjected, “Then why not import from Shuzhong, it’s just a longer road and a little more time-consuming.”
Mo Yan had also thought of organising a merchant caravan, but she didn’t have sufficient funds in the funds, or a suitable person to lead it.
Lu Junming said, “Shuzhong is its own country, and has fairly good relations with our Beiyan, so it’s doable to send precious southern goods to Shuzhong before taking them here. As the road is long, naturally, we have to import the most precious goods.”
Mo Yan thought of the ancient maps in the history books. There were five roads going into and out of Shuzhong, all of which went from Shuzhong to inside the borders of Shanxi by traversing the Qinling Mountains.
“The roads to Shuzhong can’t be traversed by the average person, but I’ve heard that there are caravans which regularly take the risk and travel on them. How about we set up a turnover point within the borders of Shanxi, and receive the goods there?”
In just three days, the southern goods within the commercial firm and storefronts had practically been cleared out. It went without saying that Liang Lan had won the wager between her and Chuzi.
Chuzi sighed at how fortunate she was, but Liang Lan said that this was divine ordinance, and that she should be the manager of this storefront.
Mo Yan said, “By now, the storefronts don’t have a lot of goods. As the manager, what strategies does sister have to remedy this?”
Liang Lan said disgruntledly, “If there aren’t southern goods, there are still western, eastern and northern goods. Can’t we just import goods from elsewhere? After all, even urine is sufficient to suffocate a person.”
Even though her words were vulgar, she spoke correctly, and even Lu Junming said that this manager was hired correctly. It was just unfortunate that she was a girl, so it wasn’t convenient for her to go out to import goods.
“It doesn’t need to be too far away, a few dozen kilometres away from us is sufficient, there’ll be a lot of goods for us to import. Fujia Village’s black magnets, Yongming Village’s fabrics, are all goods that can be sold easily.”
“Since cousin is so familiar with these goods, how about you personally make a trip there! Let Manager Liu go and help you out.”
Hearing that Chuzi would be assisting her, Liang Lan immediately and swiftly agreed.
P.S. Not much to say here, thanks for reading!
[1] I think this is the first time Chuzi’s actual name has been mentioned.
[2] This refers to Cao Zhang.
[3] Wait, he wasn’t a real general before?