Casting Nets to Catch a Husband

Chapter 160: Cooperate

Not only was Liu Yu impressed, but even Liu Yanan, who wasn’t as naturally gifted in business as their second brother, had his eyes gleaming. Lu Shuang, standing beside them, was utterly amazed.

Nineteen embroidery shops, and the business could even expand to the neighboring prefectures.

It felt to Lu Shuang as though she had stepped into a completely different world, one she had never encountered before. Her third brother, third sister-in-law, and even the second brother of her sister-in-law—how could they be so bold in their thinking?

As it turned out, when these few people came together, they were even more daring than she had imagined.

Because in the next moment, she heard her third brother say, “I’ll join in on finding a shop through an intermediary. I’ll follow the same plan as you. Wherever your Ruyi Embroidery Shop opens, I’ll open a Lufeng branch.”

This made Liu Yanping burst into laughter and tease, “So, is this what they call ‘a wife sings and the husband follows’?”

Even Liu Yanan couldn’t stop laughing.

Lu Chengxiao let his two brothers-in-law tease him, but Liu Yu wasn’t having it. She shot a glare at her second brother and stood up to leave. “I’m still busy. You guys carry on.”

Liu Yanping stopped her, saying, “Wait a minute. The cotton from our family’s fields will be delivered in a few days by Sixth Uncle’s family. There should be just over a load. If the embroidery shop needs more, many families in the village and clan have some. We can go back to the village to purchase it at the buying price.”

They had been selling autumn clothes lately, and in a few days, it would be time to prepare for winter clothing.

The Liu family had planted cotton themselves, but since everyone had moved to the county and was busy, there was no one to tend to the fields. Naturally, they couldn’t take care of the land, so they entrusted it to a family in the clan, specifically the family of the Sixth Uncle Liu Yanping mentioned.

Although he was called Sixth Uncle, there wasn’t much blood relation left, only that they belonged to the same clan. However, Sixth Uncle’s family had little land and many children, so they lived a very tight life. When Wei Shi’s family moved to the county to do business, Sixth Uncle’s family took the initiative to offer to manage the fields for the Liu family in exchange for some grain.

Their family didn’t lack manpower, having many children and grandchildren.

This arrangement suited We Shi perfectly. The fields and property were purchased by the grandmother long ago, and even though they moved to the county for business, she was unwilling to sell them. They agreed that Sixth Uncle’s family would manage the fields and split the harvest fifty-fifty. This way, they could help Sixth Uncle’s family, and We Shi wouldn’t have to buy all their grain.

The vegetable garden was loaned to Sixth Uncle’s family without any expectation of a return, and the chickens and ducks the Liu family used to raise were also taken over by them. As for the rabbits Liu Yu used to raise, they weren’t easy to keep in the county shop, so they were given to the clan leader’s granddaughter who liked them.

Sixth Uncle, having gained so much, promised to continue raising the chickens and ducks for the Liu family. Occasionally, when Liu Chunshan or Liu Datian’s wife returned to the village, Sixth Uncle’s daughter-in-law would tie up a chicken or duck and bring the eggs and freshly picked vegetables from the garden to them to take back to the county.

Sixth Uncle’s family was straightforward. Although cotton was no longer as precious as when it was first introduced in the previous dynasty, it was still very valuable, more so than rice or meat. A dou of rice cost seventy wen, a jin of pork cost thirty wen, but cleaned cotton fetched a price of 150 wen per jin. Even cotton merchants offered 130 wen per jin when buying. The Liu family had only moved to the county in August of this year, and Sixth Uncle’s family took over the fields just before the harvest. Naturally, they didn’t want fifty percent of the share. They only took twenty percent of the cotton this year and would take fifty percent next year.

So when the cotton was harvested, Sixth Uncle’s family carefully cleaned the raw cotton and processed it into finished cotton. A few days ago, when Liu Yanping returned to the village, they informed him of the harvest and said they would use a cart to deliver it to the county in a few days.

A load of cotton was over a hundred jin. Since it takes about three jin of raw cotton to produce one jin of finished cotton, over a hundred jin meant they had processed three to four hundred jin of raw cotton, a considerable effort for Sixth Uncle’s family.

It takes two to three jin of finished cotton to make a thin padded jacket, so over a hundred jin of cotton could make dozens of winter garments.

“Alright.” Liu Yu nodded, indicating that she understood.

With that, she hurriedly prepared to leave.

Seeing Liu Yu leave, Lu Shuang, though not quite satisfied with what she had heard, felt it wouldn’t be appropriate to stay behind, so she called out, “Third sister-in-law, wait for me!” and quickly followed.

However, she noticed that Liu Yu wasn’t heading toward the tailoring room but was exiting through the side gate of the courtyard. Curiously, she asked, “Third sister-in-law? Where are we going?”

“Going to check on the fabric shop at home.”

The fabric shop she referred to was naturally the Lufeng Fabric Shop.

To run a business in a small town, the clothes not only needed to look good, but the costs also had to be kept down. Autumn clothing was priced at around 900 wen, and winter clothing just over 1 guan. This required relatively cheaper materials, which the embroidery shop didn’t have, but the Lufeng Fabric Shop did. Liu Yu planned to go check out the fabrics and have some styles ready in time for the sale of the winter clothing.

~

After Liu Yu and Lu Shuang left, Lu Chengxiao looked helplessly at Liu Yanping. He hadn’t seen her for several days, and now that he finally did, he barely had the chance to say a few warm words.

Liu Yanping raised an eyebrow, “Why are you looking at me? Who’s the one who ran off right after the wedding?”

Feeling embarrassed, Lu Chengxiao rubbed his forehead and said, “Let’s get down to business. Yanping, Yanan, how about we partner up to open a weaving and dyeing workshop?”

Though he changed the subject quickly, it was to an excellent topic, drawing the immediate interest of both Liu Yanping and Liu Yanan.

“A weaving and dyeing workshop?” they both echoed.

Lu Chengxiao nodded, “Our family runs a fabric shop, your family runs an embroidery shop, and we ourselves started by trading fabrics. Where don’t we need cloth? In the early stages, we can buy in small quantities from local weaving workshops or villagers, and have the cloth dyed in Yuanzhou. But when the scale grows, this approach becomes less cost-effective, and it’s also hard to control the quality.”

“Hemp and cotton are abundant here, giving us a price advantage. Hemp, in particular, is priced very well. As for cotton, I’ve heard our old shopkeeper mention that processed cotton sells for over 300 wen per jin in Xi’an Prefecture, 100 wen per jin in Jinan Prefecture, and fluctuates around 130 wen here. While the price isn’t the lowest, it’s still quite good, and there are many women skilled in weaving. These are regional advantages we can capitalize on.”

“The most important thing is, whether it’s running a fabric shop or an embroidery shop, you need to have something unique that others can’t easily copy.”

This last point came from Liu Yu’s previous discussions with Lu Chengxiao about An Ji copying their designs. He knew how much effort Liu Yu had put into designing these clothes. Usually, Ruyi Embroidery Shop would sell no more than five pieces of any single design. Yet, after all her hard work, someone else would quickly copy her designs and sell them. The thought alone frustrated Lu Chengxiao.

What made An Ji Embroidery Shop any different from thieves?

Yet, such thieves couldn’t be punished by the law.

So, they had to make it so that copying was either impossible or not worth the effort.

These words hit home with both Liu Yanping and Liu Yanan. They were deeply frustrated that their sister’s hard work was being stolen, and both of them were very protective of Liu Yu.

Moreover, Lu Chengxiao was right. If they truly wanted to grow their fabric and embroidery shops, they needed something of their own.

Liu Yanping nodded, “Alright, but what about silk?”

Lu Chengxiao replied, “We’ll do that too, but later on. Raw silk is easy to come by; we’re close to the Zhejiang area. Every year when raw silk is on the market, we can directly purchase it. However, weaving high-quality silk fabrics like brocade and satin requires skilled artisans. We’ll need to bring in experienced craftsmen. On my next trip to Zhejiang, I’ll inquire with the local guilds.”

Hearing that silk weaving was also in the plan, both Liu Yanping and Liu Yanan were getting excited. They could already envision the future where, with Liu Yu’s keen sense of style and skill in garment-making, both Lu Feng Fabric Shop and Ruyi Embroidery Shop would flourish.

The three could even imagine that in Yuanzhou, where there were branches of Ruyi Embroidery Shop and Lu Feng Fabric Shop, if they controlled the supply of certain fabrics between the two families, their fabrics and ready-made garments would be incredibly popular.

That would be business other embroidery and fabric shops could only watch helplessly, unable to compete with, even if this control lasted for just a year or a season. Seizing this opportunity would be enough.

Just as they were about to delve into more details, Aunt Lin arrived with three bowls of freshly made hand-pulled noodles.

The three had only had some dry rations in the morning and were quite hungry. They quickly finished their noodles, and with their minds still on the business discussion, Lu Chengxiao suggested, “Let’s continue at my place, where we can talk in more detail.”

This detailed discussion would naturally include where to establish the weaving and dyeing workshop, how to set it up, and if they were going to partner up, how they would collaborate.

The three of them arrived at the Lufeng Fabric Shop, where Liu Yu was already busy examining the fabrics with Lu Shuang. When she noticed Lu Chengxiao and the other two entering, she merely glanced at them before returning to her work, continuing to focus on her tasks.

Lu Chengxiao felt a bit uneasy, unsure if Liu Yu had noticed anything from his recent trip or if she was genuinely busy or possibly upset with him. Reflecting on how she had spoken to him earlier at the embroidery shop, he quietly reassured himself, thinking, “She probably didn’t notice anything, right? She didn’t seem upset with me.”

Since Lu Chengxiao had business to discuss with Liu Yanping and Liu Yanan, and this wasn’t the right time for a conversation between husband and wife, he greeted his father and elder brother before leading Liu Yanping and Liu Yanan from the shop into the backyard.

Chen Shi was over at the embroidery shop, while Qin Shi had taken the two younger children and the maid Xiao Ya out to the street, and they hadn’t returned yet.

Ge An, who had been apprenticing at the shop for a few days now, had become quite good at finding work for himself. Seeing Lu Chengxiao bring in Liu Yu’s two older brothers into the backyard, and noticing there were no customers in the front shop, he quickly informed his mentor Lu Chengzong and went to the backyard to boil water and prepare tea.

Lu Chengxiao and the others didn’t pay much attention to him and began discussing the plans for the weaving and dyeing workshop.

They talked about the costs of the site, labor, and materials, all of which required investment. And with the plan to open branch locations as well, everything involved a significant amount of money.

Liu Yanping smiled wryly and said, “If we want to start the weaving and dyeing workshop, it’s best to have it ready before the spring hemp comes to market next year. Spring hemp is of the best quality, and if we can buy it in large quantities, the resulting fabric will be of high quality as well. So, it would be ideal if the workshop could be operational by April. If we find a shop for a branch during that time, that’s another investment. There’s so much we want to do, but the capital needed is no small amount. Do you think we can make enough money on two trips to Zhejiang before and after the New Year?”

As Ge An brought over the freshly brewed tea, he happened to overhear Liu Yanping’s comment.

In fact, boiling water took time, so he had overheard most of their conversation while he was preparing the tea. As he served the tea, he hesitantly asked Lu Chengxiao, “Third Young Master, I heard Manager Yan say that you’ve been trading fabrics to Zhejiang before?”

This young boy, though still small, was already trying to talk like an adult and gather information.

Lu Chengxiao chuckled and said, “Yes, why? Are you interested in the trade business?”

Ge An shook his head with a smile, “I don’t know anything about trade, but back in my hometown, many merchants passed through, so I’ve heard and seen quite a bit since I was little. I overheard you and Second Brother Liu talking about needing more capital…”

At this point, Ge An paused, glanced around to make sure no one else was listening, and then lowered his voice, “Have you heard of sea merchants (Haishang)?”

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