Today is a special day. Yang Fan’s Xinghe Supermarket opened in Daming.
At present, this land is still wasteland. Only a part of the ground facing the street has been simply leveled and hardened, a cement floor has been laid, and a drainage ditch has been built underneath.
It took about a week for more than 3,000 people from Xinghe Tuanlian in Beijing to complete all the leveling work on this area.
The land is divided into three parts, with the front quarter reserved as parking for parking horses. The middle half of the area is ready to be built as a supermarket building. The rear quarter of the area is used to build warehouses and staff dormitories.
The middle and back parts are covered and construction is going on inside. A tinkling sound came from inside.
It attracted many passers-by to look at it curiously, but it was surrounded by woven cloth and nothing could be seen.
Building materials are mainly stored here, and carpenters make doors, windows and wooden components of the house in advance. Under the guidance of workers transferred from Zunhua, locally recruited workers were trained to learn reinforced concrete construction methods. Pre-tied steel bars.
It's winter now, which is not a good time to start building houses. Besides, such a large building will take a long time to complete. It is impossible to wait for the building to be built before opening.
Yang Fan planned to open the business years ago. Today is the Lunar New Year on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, so he took advantage of the festival to open the business.
At present, only the location of the parking lot has been leveled, hardened and drained, and then it will be opened in the open air. They are all open-air stalls. On the venue, there are a large number of tables arranged in a zigzag shape and covered with tablecloths. There are goods on the table.
There is a dazzling array of various products, including the food section, firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, everything is available. The supplies area has a wide variety of silk, tea, ironware, porcelain, and lacquerware. All common products on the market are available here. And the price is slightly lower.
The guys are all recruited locally these days.
The situation in Ming Dynasty has been very bad in the past two years, and the situation in Beijing is not optimistic either. Many people have nothing to do. Recruitment is very smooth, and the requirements are not high. As long as there is a guarantor, no criminal record, and under the age of thirty.
Yang Fan kept his promise to His Majesty and sold aged grain here at low prices.
A load of rice cost one cent and five cents, and a load in the Ming Dynasty weighed 100 kilograms. However, a kilogram in the Ming Dynasty weighed about 600 grams, so a load of rice weighed 120 kilograms today.
This price is the same as Xiaomi, very cheap. Historically, due to years of famine, the price of rice soared soon after the Spring Festival in the first year of Chongzhen. This price can't be maintained for much longer.
In the Wanli era, as long as a bundle of firewood was struck in the morning and sold in the city, it would be enough to buy two days of rice. Those good days will be gone forever, and the Ming Dynasty will enter the apocalyptic mode.
Now the rice produced back then cost five cents of silver per load, that is, five cents of silver per catty. If it is old grain, it costs about three cents of silver per load, or about three cents of silver per pound.
The rice in the supermarket is directly priced at the same price as millet, which is still very attractive.
But this rice is double-cropping rice rotated out of modern warehouses, or milled from three-year-old rice. It tastes very bad, has a bad texture, and basically has no aroma. However, in terms of nutrition and calories, there is not much difference between it and the pure natural rice of this era.
The effect of eating it is similar, but it doesn’t taste good.
Three days before the opening, sufficient publicity was done, 10,000 leaflets were distributed throughout the city, and 500 notices were posted in various streets and alleys.
That is to say, there are more literate people in the capital. If we change places, this method may not be feasible.
In addition, wheat flour and corn grits are also sold in supermarkets.
Yang Fan's wheat and corn are old grains from modern warehouses, and they don't taste good.
However, the flour of later generations was ground more finely and looked snow-white in color. Due to technical reasons and the unwillingness to lose too much, the grain of this era was ground lighter, and the flour looked yellow.
The appearance is not as good as Yang Fan's. The flour is not ground as finely as Yang Fan's.
Flour cost one penny per pound, which was cheaper than rice and only equivalent to one-third of the price of flour in this era. Although the north is a wheat-producing area, the price of flour will not be less than three cents of silver per load.
As for corn, people in this era have never seen this kind of food.
Corn is extremely cheap, costing one penny or two pounds.
There has never been such cheap food in the entire Ming Dynasty, and even miscellaneous grains are more expensive than this.
In order to facilitate everyone's acceptance of this new food variety, a tasting point was specially set up. There is a pot platform built next to the stall, and corn mash and kidney bean porridge are cooked in the big pot.
You can taste it for free, just grab a small bowl and try it.
On the table next to you are freshly steamed cornmeal cakes, as well as sweet corn pancakes and corn mush.
There's even a separate large pot for frying popcorn.
The aroma of sugar and cream wafts around the popcorn tasting area.
Today is the first day of opening. Everyone who comes to the market can get a small paper bag of popcorn for free.
The reason why the corn is crushed into small pieces is because firewood is not cheap in this era, and cooking the corn requires fire, which increases the cost.
Xiaozhai is much more mature.
There are also cooked polenta for sale. Bring your own basin and you can beat the prepared polenta here and take it home to eat.
Supermarkets use honeycomb briquette stoves to cook porridge in large quantities, which is low-cost and cheaper than cooking it at home.
After finishing the matter of Jin Yiwei, there was nothing major in the past ten days, so Yang Fan focused all his energy on the supermarket.
Yang Fan had a large number of carriages with strong transportation capabilities. According to the Ming Dynasty's habit of buying new year's goods, he sent them all to surrounding places to fully purchase supplies.
When it opens today, there are more than 100 kinds of products. Basically, all the New Year's goods that need to be bought are ready. You can buy everything just by coming here.
Yang Fan, on the other hand, used Tuanlian's baggage transport carriages to purchase directly from the production area, eliminating the intermediate link and reducing the cost by half. In this way, we can benefit the people at a low price.
At noon, thousands of people who had arrived in advance had gathered outside the supermarket, including many officials. Yang Fan came out and announced the opening of Xinghe Supermarket.
At this time, the plaque covered with red cloth hanging on the door was pulled open, and as the red cloth fell, the four golden characters of Xinghe Supermarket appeared in front of the people.
The lion dance team began to perform, the gong and drum team immediately played music, and Donkey Dan led people to set off two sets of 10,000-ring firecrackers.
The atmosphere suddenly reached a climax.
Watching the excitement is the favorite of Chinese people, so Yang Fan specially arranged a lion dance performance.
Huang Hao, the head of the Ministry of Personnel, looked at the handwriting on the plaque and felt that it looked familiar. After thinking about it, he was suddenly shocked. This was His Majesty's own handwriting.
He had seen His Majesty's handwriting on the memorial that His Majesty directed to the Ministry of Officials.
Soon the officials gathered in front of the gate started whispering to each other. They all heard that Xinghe Supermarket opened today and came to see the excitement. Now many yamen have closed their holidays in advance. Although it will take a few days for the seal to be sealed, it does not affect them. The family went out for a walk.
They were all quietly pointing to the plaque inscribed by His Majesty himself and whispering to their family members.
Recently, a lot of daily necessities have come out of the palace and are very useful. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, towels and even plastic washbasins have been scattered across the capital.
Toothpaste and toothbrushes have been sold on the black market for one or two silver a set. The towels have arrived for five cents each.
There is no market for it, and without a familiar little father-in-law, there is no way to buy it. These were sold privately by the eunuchs and maids who had received supplies for the group training.
After all, there are still many poor people in the palace.
After sharing some good things, I couldn't bear to use them, so I sold them for money.
After many officials and wealthy businessmen used them, they could no longer live without them. One tube of toothpaste is used by the whole family, but it is used up very quickly. After using it, I don’t know where to buy it.
Later, news spread that after using up these things, you can wait for Xinghe Supermarket to open and buy them there.
In the past two days, I got news about the opening of Xinghe Supermarket. Many officials and wealthy businessmen came to visit with their wives, young ladies, and young masters.
After the opening celebration, the door was opened, and crowds of people rushed in. Many wealthy people went there for daily necessities, while ordinary people went for cheap food.
