After he finished speaking, before Tao Zhu could respond, Li Liang's loud voice came from outside: "Xiao Qiao, Xiao Qiao——"
"...Big brother and sister-in-law can't wait for a moment."
Li Qiao was helpless.
Today Jiang Mao came to visit. Li Liang and Wang Guihua both met him and had lunch together. After lunch, Jiang Mao followed him to the study, while Li Liang and Wang Guihua were busy with other things.
Now that he knew Jiang Mao was gone, Li Liang couldn't wait to find him.
But his eldest brother was going to be disappointed.
Sure enough, after listening to what he said, Li Liang stomped his feet in regret. What a wonderful baby, but why is his mind so complicated?
Wouldn't it be over if he took the imperial examination honestly? Some of them were corrected, but he and Xiaoqiao were disgusted.
well!
Li Liang left sadly, and Li Qiao and Tao Zhu went back to the room to continue laying the kang.
Although it is a sunny day today, the temperature is still a bit low. It is the third month of the lunar calendar, so a cotton-padded jacket and quilt are still indispensable in a heated heated room.
The weather is indeed abnormal.
After laying out the kang, Tao Zhu took Li Qiao to sit in front of his desk and started talking about business.
Li Qiao wants to open a snack shop. He has already chosen the store and hired the clerk. He has almost finalized the specific types of snacks to sell.
Now let Li Qiao take a look. If Li Qiao has no objection, then he will let the assistant take action.
The two of them crowded on a chair as usual. Li Qiao put one hand around Tao Zhu's waist, took the paper Tao Zhu handed him with the other, and began to read slowly.
"Hmm... chestnut kernels, assorted crisps, amber walnut kernels, nut lotus root powder, spicy/five-spice dried tofu, pork breasts, red dates with walnuts, corn chips, spicy gluten, spicy strips, millet rice crispy rice, tiger skin and chicken feet, spicy Shredded kelp, roasted chicken drumsticks with honey.”
"Yes, they are all common and delicious foods."
After Li Qiao finished speaking, he kissed Tao Zhu on the cheek with a smile: "Thank you for your hard work, Brother Zhu, just do as you please."
"Okay." Tao Zhu took the paper from Li Qiao's hand and tapped the word spicy strips with his slender fingers: "This will definitely be very popular."
This is a new dish that Li Qiao came up with. The ingredients are very simple and easy to make, but the taste is surprisingly good.
Everyone in the house tasted it, and only a few people who couldn't tolerate spicy food said they couldn't accept it. The rest of the people praised it again and again.
This spicy strip comes in two flavors, one is spicy and the other is sweet and spicy.
He prefers sweet and spicy food, but spicy food is also good.
Li Qiao smiled and nodded: "I also think it will sell well."
Everyone knows that spicy strips are junk food, but there are many people who love them.
Spicy strips and dried tofu are the most affordable snacks in his snack shop. They are not only for the rich, but also for ordinary people.
If the rich don't like it, that's okay.
Ordinary people should like it.
Li Qiao and Tao Zhu had a good idea. In the first ten days of the third lunar month, Li's snack shop opened. On the first day of business, the business was full.
Tao Zhu hired a hundred clerks, and all the goods he prepared two days in advance were sold out within one day.
Especially for the spicy strips, the couple made it clear when advertising the new store in other Li's shops that the spicy strips were cheap and you could try them out.
Therefore, on the opening day of the new store, not only the well-off regulars of Li's shop went there, but also some ordinary people.
After ordinary people tried the spicy strips, they liked them very much. They bought two taels of small ones and one catty of large ones. They bought half a catty or one catty. In less than two hours, they finished buying a thousand catties of spicy strips. .
As for other snacks, such as lotus root starch, although they are expensive, they sell out very quickly.
Lotus root starch is pure lotus root starch. It takes more than ten catties of lotus root to make one catty of lotus root starch. In addition, nuts are added to it, so one catty of lotus root starch sells for ten taels of silver.
Li Qiao and Tao Zhu think the price is very conscientious.
Lotus roots are hard to come by, and someone needs to be sent to dig them in the pond. Moreover, in Shengjing, the best season to dig lotus roots is in winter. It is spring now, and there are not many lotus roots left.
After digging out the lotus roots, you have to work hard to make lotus root powder. So much time is spent in the process, which is all a cost.
If the cost is so high, the selling price cannot be low.
Moreover, lotus root starch is meant to compete for the money of the rich. If the price is too low, why bother with Li Qiao?
Besides, even the Supreme Emperor praised the lotus root starch for its good quality.
So in summary, Li Qiao and Tao Zhu feel that this price is very appropriate.
Rich people with money in their pockets also think that the price is not expensive. Some people can't accept lotus root starch, but there are also people who love lotus root starch very much. Those who love lotus root starch are willing to pay for it, so it is easy to buy a hundred kilograms of lotus root starch on the first day. It's sold out.
Li's snack shop became famous on the first day.
Not only do these snacks taste good, they are also novel and it’s hard not to think they are popular.
Not only ordinary people urged the shopkeepers to prepare goods quickly, but also dignitaries and rich people urged the shopkeepers to prepare goods quickly.
The Sixth Prince, who was originally dissatisfied with Li Qiao, saw the popularity of the snack shop and closed his mouth.
Li Qiao took the information from Xiaozhou Prefecture and Shangshu County and pondered it for so long, but in the end he only came up with ways to grow chestnuts and lotus root starch. The sixth prince was actually very dissatisfied.
He had high expectations for Li Qiao, because Li Qiao took the initiative to get involved in the second question.
Li Qiao took the initiative. Even if Li Qiao said modest words, he must have had patches of bamboo in his heart.
But who knows that Li Qiao doesn't have it.
Li Qiao only took out two things to eat.
If it was a food like vermicelli that could make everyone in the house rich, then he would naturally have no problem with it.
But what Li Qiao brought out were chestnuts and lotus root starch.
It’s totally incomparable to vermicelli!
He was so disappointed.
But nowadays, lotus root powder is sold very quickly, and chestnut kernels are also sold very quickly, which shows that there is some connection between growing chestnuts and growing lotus roots.
Although these two methods have little effect, they are better than nothing.
The fourth prince, the eldest prince, and the second prince saw that Li Qiao had come up with practical solutions for the seventh and sixth princes, so they approached Li Qiao one after another and asked Li Qiao to give them some advice.
Li Qiao cannot favor one over the other.
The piers of the eldest prince and the fourth prince are all in Jibei Province. Li Qiao gave his idea: farming.
You can raise pigs, chickens and ducks, but each household should not raise too many to avoid getting sick.
He collected all the livestock raised by the people in these two places.
Jibei Province is close to Shengjing and has convenient transportation. It does not cost much to transport the livestock raised by the people to Shengjing.
When the Grand Canal opens in the future, the cost will be even lower.
The Li's snack shop requires livestock to make meat. Judging from the popularity of the Li's snack shop, it is enough to consume the livestock raised by the people in these two places.
As for the second prince's dock, Li Qiao has more clues at this time.
Chapter 207 Li Qiao is going to open a shop in Peng County, the dock of the second prince.
The second prince's wharf is at the junction of Eian Province and Jiangshu Province. It is called Peng County, which is a small plain county.
This small county has four distinct seasons, abundant rainfall, no mountains, water, and plenty of arable land. The people make a living by farming.
As for crops, rice is the main crop, with one to two crops a year.
In addition, there is water for fishing, so the life of the people here is pretty good.
More importantly, it has been three years since the construction of the Grand Canal began, and the section of canal where Peng County is located is an ancient canal that existed in the Spring and Autumn Period.
The Ministry of Industry only needs to send people to dredge this ancient canal and divert water. Then this section of the canal can be put into use. The amount of work is much smaller than that of other sections of the river.
According to estimates, this section of the canal where Xia Peng County is located will be opened this year. This section of the canal connects several prefectures in Jiangshu Province. After it is opened, people from other prefectures will pass through Peng County, regardless of whether they are visiting or transporting goods. .
Therefore, Li Qiao's ideas are really many.
Previously, he had focused most of his attention on Shengjing, and the farmland Sheng Hong rewarded him with was also in Jibei Province. He wanted to ensure that the situation in Shengjing was stable.
He neglected the South.
This is really not the case.
If the north is really short of food, it can pin its hopes on the south.
Even in the south, the temperature has dropped a lot, which at least ensures that the food will be ripe once a year.
Peng County is not only suitable for growing rice, but also for growing taro and yam. Taro and yam can be used as vegetables, grain, and snacks.
In the future, when the temperature in the south drops, the people in the south will definitely need cotton, and he also wants the local people to grow cotton.
However, he has posted a notice in his shop that he wants to purchase cotton. It would be a bit strange for him to let farmers grow cotton in Peng County.
At least, it seemed at this time, the South had no need for cotton.
Therefore, after careful consideration, Li Qiao suggested to the second prince that the farmers in Peng County should plant more yams and taro.
No matter how much he planted, he wanted them all.
Yams can be used to make snack yam tablets, which taste quite good.
Taro can be used to make taro puree. There are no purple potatoes here, but sweet potatoes can be used instead. The taro puree will still be delicious.
Moreover, the popular assorted crisps at Lijia Snack Shop require the use of yam and taro.
Their assorted crisps are made from four starch-rich foods: potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, and taro. I don’t say how good they taste, but they are magical, one after another, making people unable to stop. Come down.
But this season, there are not many of these four kinds of food left, only potatoes are more, because the fried chicken shop sells French fries, and Shenghong also has a potato flour shop.
But the sweet potatoes, yams and taro were really running out, so he plucked them all over in Shengjing, and then made several hundred kilograms of assorted crisps.
Once it's sold out, it's gone. If you want to eat it again, you have to wait until these four crops mature.
However, the snack shop's hundreds of kilograms of assorted crisps have already become famous in Shengjing. Everyone who has tasted them praises them for their crispy texture and salty taste, which makes people want to eat them again.
But it happened that Li's snack shop was gone.
