The circulation of commodities and daily necessities mainly relied on manpower, carriages and camel teams. Ordinary people could not afford carriages and camels and had to rely on manpower.
Therefore, many people in mountain villages have never been outside their villages for dozens of miles in their entire lives, and are completely unaware of many changes and information in the outside world.
This is the disadvantage caused by extremely backward transportation.
But that’s how things are in this world. Wherever there are disadvantages, there must also be advantages.
The advantage is that things are rare and valuable.
If you think about it, the inconvenience of commodity circulation makes it difficult to buy even the necessities of life in many places.
For ordinary people, even if they are poor families, even if they do not have enough food and clothing, they still need salt, as well as sewing kits for mending. This brings business opportunities to hawkers and merchants who do small business.
However, if a merchant carries a load of goods and travels through mountains and rivers, walking countless mountain roads, and some even working from village to town for countless days, if he just wants to earn more than ten percent or dozens of percent, The profits are not worth it, and you may not even be able to make back the expenses on the road. Who can afford to do such a loss-making business?
That will definitely mean earning it back multiple times or even countless times.
For example, if you purchase a sewing needle in a shop in a big city, you may be able to buy ten pieces for one copper plate, but when a small vendor brings it to a village in the mountains, you may only get one piece for one copper plate, which is ten times the profit. .
And no matter how poor you are, you have to bite the bullet and buy one or two pieces to mend the already tattered bed quilts and clothes at home. Maybe it can be used for several years. Although the price of a copper plate is expensive, it is worth it. ah!
There are many big business houses in Shanxi now. Their ancestors accumulated wealth bit by bit in this way. Even Zhou Wen's Fuyuan Company is no exception. His grandfather was a slightly larger businessman back then. Then the ancestors from his grandfather onwards started as small traders.
Of course, there are also risks in doing business, and traveling across mountains and rivers also risks losing both people and money. Encountering military disasters, robbers, wild beasts, flash floods, injuries and illnesses on the road, etc., may ruin yourself and years or even decades of hard work.
Having said that, because of information asymmetry and backward transportation, the price gap between the two places will generally be very large. As long as the specialty products from place A can be sold hundreds of miles to place B, they can be sold at a price several times the cost.
Poor people have needs of poor people, and rich people also have needs of rich people.
The Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas were the areas with the most developed light industry and textile industry in the Republic of China. Silk cloth, various daily necessities, and light industrial products were the scarcest in the entire Republic of China.
Not only are these products shipped to the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and the north, but they are also sold in dozens of cities along the Yangtze River at prices that are several times or even ten times the cost, and there is still a rush to get them.
But please note that what is said here is if you can transport it to a certain place.
The key word is the word "luck".
How difficult will this "luck" be?
In later generations where logistics and transportation are very developed, that would not be a problem at all.
But in this period of the Republic of China, it was not an easy task, and it was even a very difficult problem.
This problem was the biggest obstacle to commercial development in the Republic of China.
Regardless of whether you have railways and roads extending in all directions, even shipping along the Yangtze River is a risky business.
First of all, if you are not strong enough to afford a big ship, you can only drive a few wooden boats for short-distance business, and the profit will naturally be low.
If the threshold is too low, it will naturally lead to fierce competition, with boat owners lowering prices from each other, and in the end, they may have to rely on fists and sticks to carve out a world. If someone is killed, it's better to have connections, but you have to spend a lot of money to find connections.
Those who have no other options will end up going bankrupt, facing lawsuits and going to jail.
Hehe... everyone must know the darkness of the officialdom of the Republic of China during this period. These yamen officials want to find something for you and take the opportunity to extort you. Now that something has happened, why don't we break your bones and suck out your marrow, make your life a piece of cake, and leave you clean?
But even in such an environment, there are still countless people with two coins in their pockets crying and shouting to get into this doorway. If nothing else, you can still make a lot of money just by running short distances.
This is true for short-distance shipping, but long-distance shipping is even more of a big business, and it's also a hugely profitable business.
Of course, long-distance transportation of hundreds of kilometers or even hundreds of kilometers requires large ships. Even 500 tons is considered small, preferably a ship with a thousand tons. This has discouraged most boat owners from small households.
For example, based on Wuhan, which has the shortest conventional route, and based on the current market conditions, the freight is calculated at 20% of the total price of the goods.
Of course, there is also a rule, that is, your goods must reach a certain value. If it is just some cheap bulk goods, then the freight will have to be negotiated separately. Anyway, I won't do it if it doesn't make money.
As for scattered goods, experts at the dock will naturally estimate and settle the accounts with you, so I won’t list them all in detail here.
If you have a ship worth millions of oceans of goods, as long as you can make a trip to Wuhan, you can make a profit of 200,000 oceans. If we bring another ship of goods back from Wuhan, we will make a profit on both ends. We can make back the money we paid for the ship in one trip and still have more than enough.
It can be said that during this period of the Republic of China, all things were not as good as logistics. This was because there were too few people engaged in the logistics industry, and things were rare and expensive. Therefore, logistics was a business that was sure to make money without losing money.
Then some people will say that such a profitable business can be done by everyone from the rich people of the Republic of China. How come Zhou Wen's mercenary group can get it.
Haha, if it were left to future generations, with Zhou Wen's half-hearted business acumen, it would indeed not be his turn to do it. Perhaps before he could think of it, all of China was already covered with various logistics companies.
However, this was the Republic of China, a truly troubled time, and it was not easy to do business.
As mentioned before, why even Qichang Yangxing, a super multinational company known as the number one in the American Far East, has to withdraw from the Yangtze River shipping business.
Is it because I can't figure it out?
Can't figure out what?
We can't handle the water bandits and various checkpoints along the route, we can't handle the various relationships along the route, we can't handle the escort and security work along the route, we can't handle the Republic of China government turning a blind eye to the various local forces. Or simply an attitude of being helpless and helpless.
