Chapter 27: Daughter's Red Wine Worth a Total of 200,000! (Please Keep Reading!)

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[Today's Intelligence]:
Yesterday, you had a small gathering for drinks with your fellow townsman, Liu Zhiyuan, and obtained the following intelligence:
Next to the tenement building where Liu Zhiyuan rents a room, there is a detached courtyard currently available for rent.
Buried at the base of the west wall of the courtyard are 10 jars of 20-year-old, top-quality Nu'er Hong wine!
Note: This wine was hidden by a deceased tenant, and the total value of the goods is approximately 200,000!
...
"Nu'er Hong wine worth 200,000!"
Seeing the intelligence refreshed today, Jiang Tao's eyes lit up.
Yet another piece of intelligence worth 200,000!
"It just so happens that I need a small courtyard to store the sugar mandarins. I'll go rent that place tomorrow!"
"As for those 10 buried jars of Nu'er Hong, I'll just have to dig them up quietly when the night is still and everyone is asleep."
Seeing the note that the wine was hidden by a deceased tenant, Jiang Tao felt no moral burden.
After checking the intelligence, Jiang Tao crawled into bed to sleep.
He slept until 6:45 the next morning.
After waking up, Jiang Tao washed up briefly, got dressed, and headed downstairs.
When they were drinking last night, he and Liu had agreed to meet at "Old Guo's Shop" at 7:00 AM for breakfast.
When Jiang Tao arrived, he saw that Liu Zhiyuan was already there.
The guy was smoking a cigarette while scrolling incessantly through his phone with one hand.
Sensing someone watching him, Liu looked up, saw Jiang Tao entering, and greeted him with a grin, inviting him to sit down.
"Brother Jiang, you're here! Come, have a seat."
After sitting down, Jiang Tao asked with a smile, "What are you scrolling through, looking so happy?"
Liu Zhiyuan chuckled, "Brother Jiang, don't you know? Recently, a lot of foreign girls have been popping up on Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu); we can finally get a taste of something exotic. Look at this one—much better looking than those cookie-cutter internet celebrities with their sharp, tapered chins back home!"
"Damn you, looking at pictures is what you call 'getting a taste'?"
Jiang Tao was amused by Liu's remark.
Liu wasn't offended and laughed, "Just appreciating, that's all! That’s the extent of my hobbies! Unlike you, Brother Jiang, having married such a beautiful sister-in-law—you’re a real winner in life!"
Jiang Tao smiled and encouraged him, "You need to step it up, too. Go on more dates during the Chinese New Year; you have to cast a wide net to catch a fish."
"Sigh, with my situation, I don't count on marriage anymore. It's so much freer being on my own!"
"I earn money for myself, spend it on myself, and save a few tens of thousands a year. When I’m old, I’ll just go straight to a nursing home."
Liu Zhiyuan laughed sheepishly. His longing for marriage had long since vanished after one failed blind date after another.
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Although he worked hard and could earn seventy or eighty thousand a year, his income was insignificant compared to the ever-increasing bride prices and the increasingly outrageous requirements in his hometown.
He could grit his teeth and pay a bride price of 188,000.
He could even afford a car worth over 150,000.
But adding a fully paid-for house in Ping County of over 100 square meters?
That was far beyond what a rural youth like Liu Zhiyuan could bear!
In Jiang Tao’s hometown of Ping County, the base salary was less than 3,000 yuan, and there were no decent large-scale enterprises in the county.
Yet, housing prices were absurdly high.
Even for old, dilapidated second-hand houses, the average price per square meter exceeded 4,000 yuan.
For apartments in high-rise buildings built within the last ten years, the price was as high as 7,000 per square meter!
The fact that Jiang Tao had managed to marry Xu Li back then without a car or a house meant he had truly struck gold.
Over the years, every time he visited his parents-in-law during the New Year, his mother-in-law never failed to imply that he had gotten the bargain of a lifetime by marrying her daughter.
"You're still young; there will be plenty of opportunities later."
Jiang Tao patted Liu Zhiyuan's shoulder with a smile. It wasn't his place to advise someone on marriage.
Whether or not to marry was a personal choice; they were just two different attitudes toward life, and neither was inherently right or wrong.
Jiang Tao changed the subject and asked, "Xiao Liu, have you thought about what I told you last night? Do you want to join in? If we pull this off, we might make some money."
"Brother Jiang, I’ve thought about it, but I feel there is still some risk."
"So... I can only invest 50,000 yuan at most. Anything more would exceed my risk tolerance."
Liu Zhiyuan answered bluntly; 50,000 yuan was a significant investment for him as well.
"Fine, 50,000 it is. Invest whatever you're comfortable with."
Jiang Tao didn't care how much others invested.
He just wanted to get everyone on the same boat so they would help him sell the sugar mandarins.
He couldn't possibly sell 250,000 worth of mandarins by himself within a week.
The intelligence system indicated that this market trend would only last for a week at most.
After a week, prices would drop, and the profit margin would shrink accordingly.
Therefore, they had to act fast; winning this battle within a week was the only way to maximize profits.
If he wanted to eat meat, his brothers had to at least get a taste of the broth.
Otherwise, it would be hard to avoid resentment, and they wouldn't work hard for him.
After chatting for a while, Shan Yufei and Zhang Chao arrived, and everyone was present.
They ordered four steamers of xiaolongbao, along with tofu pudding, wonton soup, and millet porridge.
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While eating and chatting, Shan Yufei, like Liu Zhiyuan, agreed to invest 50,000 yuan.
Zhang Chao said he didn't have any spare cash on hand, but he was willing to help the group sell the mandarins.
And so, Jiang Tao personally put in 250,000, Liu Zhiyuan 50,000, and Shan Yufei 50,000, for a total capital of 350,000.
Jiang Tao’s stake was 71%, while Liu Zhiyuan and Shan Yufei each held 14%.
The remaining 1% was set aside for the group's meals and fuel expenses.
If this project proved successful, they would have to celebrate with a feast at a decent restaurant.
After the meal, Jiang Tao and his group drove four trucks to the fruit wholesale market they had visited the day before.
The three of them were regular customers there and knew many of the bosses.
They eventually decided to partner with a boss surnamed Liu for this order.
The boss, Liu Yue, was 35 years old, about 1.6 meters tall, with fair skin and a certain charm.
Liu Yue had been operating in the fruit wholesale market for over a decade; she had a good reputation and significant resources.
An order of 350,000 in sugar mandarins wasn't a huge deal for her.
Ultimately, after some haggling by Jiang Tao and his friends, they managed to knock the price down by 2 yuan per crate, settling at 33 yuan per crate.
In the end, it totaled 10,606 crates, saving them over 20,000 yuan just on the purchase.
This was one of the benefits of pooling their money together.
To sell everything within seven days, they needed to sell at least 1,500 crates a day.
Even with three heads and six arms, Jiang Tao couldn't have managed that alone.
With four people selling, the difficulty was reduced fourfold.
Each person would only need to sell 378 crates a day to meet the goal.
Liu Yue had 3,000 crates in stock today, and the remaining 7,606 could be delivered all at once tomorrow.
According to the intelligence system, the price of sugar mandarins wouldn't start to soar until the day after tomorrow.
So, getting the delivery tomorrow was perfectly fine.
The four of them filled their four trucks, each carrying 300 crates, and returned to Xiao Shahe Village.
Jiang Tao successfully rented the detached courtyard next to Liu Zhiyuan's place for a short-term monthly rent of 2,300.
The small detached courtyard was quite spacious, with the yard alone spanning seventy or eighty square meters—perfect for storing the sugar mandarins.
After renting the courtyard, the group unloaded the mandarins from the trucks into the yard and went back to the market to fetch more.
They made three round trips before they finished hauling the 3,000 crates for the day.
All 3,000 crates of sugar mandarins were piled up in the courtyard and covered with a large tarp.
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