"This...is this?" Shen Rong took the box with both hands. As soon as he opened a small gap, he was immediately blinded by the crystal clear inside.
I saw a palm-sized Buddha statue lying in this exquisite brocade box lined with soft silk.
If it were just a Buddha statue, it wouldn't matter. The key is that this Buddha statue is crystal clear, and its entire body is made of glass!
"What an exquisite glazed Buddha statue!" Shen Sen, who was standing nearby, couldn't help but marvel.
Shen Rong tried his best to suppress the trembling in his hands and gently took out the glazed Buddha statue. The wind and rain in the sky have now stopped, and a ray of sunshine breaks through the clouds, shining on the Buddha statue in Shen Rong's hand. The entire body of the Buddha statue emitted seven colors of light, as if the gods and Buddhas had appeared.
"Ah!" Shen Rong shook his hand and almost dropped the Buddha statue to the ground. Fortunately, Shen Sen had quick eyes and quick hands and was able to grasp the Buddha statue firmly with both hands. The father and son breathed out as if they had spent the rest of their lives after two calamities.
"Your Highness, is this a treasure that you took out from the palace?" Shen Rong put the Buddha statue back into the box and returned it to Zhu Su respectfully. "Although this thing is very exquisite, things in the palace cannot be used for business."
"The Shen family really doesn't dare to take this risk. We still hope that His Highness Haihan..." Shen Rong said.
"Executive member Shen thinks this is the treasure I stole from the palace?" Zhu Su sneered. "Does this king look like a prodigal who steals family treasures and sells them? This thing was made by my imperial village. Mr. Shen, let's see how much this thing can be sold for?"
"You made it yourself?" Shen Rong was surprised. Shen Sen also suddenly thought of something and asked: "It is recorded in the book that the court in the Song Dynasty could make glazed lamps, but there were too many colors in them to make them crystal clear. Could it be that Your Highness has mastered a more perfect firing method? ?”
Just as Shen Rong was about to scold his son for being rude, Zhu Su had already waved his hand and said with a smile, "It doesn't matter. Mr. Shen's guess is good. I have indeed mastered a more complete firing method."
"This thing is not colored glaze, I call it 'glass'. In your opinion, what price does Mr. Shen think this thing should cost?"
"Hmm. Such a crystal-clear jade Buddha, and it can reveal the Buddha's image under the sun. If it were placed in a prosperous place in the south of the Yangtze River, five hundred taels would be more than enough... I wonder how much this thing cost?" Shen Rong asked.
"This number." Zhu Su held out five fingers.
"Fifty taels? Well, even if you exclude the freight charges, this item will be seven or eight times more profitable." Shen Rong nodded with satisfaction. If this is the case, this business can be done.
"Uh. I said, five taels." Zhu Su scratched his head. He originally wanted to say five taels. After all, the raw material for making glass is worthless sand. Five taels is considered too much, but Thinking about the hard work of the disabled veterans working in the glass kiln, their labor expenses should be calculated more.
A glass Buddha costs more than four taels, so it’s not too much.
"Five...five taels?" The Shen family father and son almost collapsed again. A hundredfold benefit! This is not doing business, this is stealing money!
He Shen Rong has been doing business all his life, and he has never seen anything that can be a hundred times more profitable!
"I don't know, how much is the output?" Shen Rong asked tremblingly.
"Huh? Production volume?" Zhu Su thought for a moment. "In one month, I should be able to make forty or fifty statues."
"If the mold wasn't a little troublesome, it could have been done faster."
Glass molds are indeed a troublesome thing. The steel-making side has not yet figured out how to make suitable alloy glass molds. Lao Zhuang, a veteran glass-burning veteran, led several veterans to try again and again, and finally discovered a mold made of river mud that could barely shape the glass solution.
Although it can only be used for one-time use and is far inferior to reusable alloy molds, it is already a huge breakthrough.
"Forty or fifty statues a month? Can it be faster?"
Shen Rong's eyes almost dropped. This kind of thing, which can be called a rare treasure, can actually be mass-produced! Moreover, the cost of each one is only five taels?
The way he looked at Zhu Su changed. What kind of prince is this from the Zhu family? He is clearly a philanthropic boy!
But after calming down a little, he still found the problem: "Your Highness, although this thing is cherished, but...if there are too many, I'm afraid it won't be that valuable."
"If you want to sell this thing, I think it's better not to sell so much at once. If Your Highness is not short of money, you can sell more of this thing, and the profit will be even greater."
Sure enough, he is a businessman who has been doing business all his life! We know that rare things are more valuable than others. If this glass Buddha were sold alone, the high price of five hundred taels would be more than enough. But if forty or fifty statues are sold together, it would be extremely rare for one statue to sell for a hundred taels.
In later generations, someone bought a pair of identical antique vases and deliberately smashed one for this reason. Because if one is broken, the other becomes an orphan and becomes even more valuable.
"Hey, hey, there's no need to worry, Mr. Shen, everything is under my calculation." Seeing that Mr. Shen had something up his sleeve, Zhu Su also revealed his plan to buy glass. "It doesn't have to be a Buddha statue. Now that we have a statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, we don't have to arrange a statue of Guanyin? Otherwise, how can we know the sincerity of the world's people in paying respect to Guanyin?"
"Now that we have the Guanyin statue, the Eighteen Arhats will also need it, right? And the Ksitigarbha Buddha and Maitreya Buddha, why don't we just stop looking at them?"
"Buddhism is over, there is still Taoism. The Taoist Patriarch of the Sanqing Dynasty and the Infinite Heavenly Lord, which one does not need to be resembled?"
"If you like it, we can make it bigger. If you sit in the hall with such a big glass Buddha, it will shine brilliantly under the sunlight. Who dares to say that this family is not blessed by gods?"
It doesn't matter that all the gods have been carved. Now the half of the Three Kingdoms that I mentioned has been spread in Yingtian Mansion. When the time comes, I will take advantage of the east wind of the Three Kingdoms to make glass statues of Liu Guan, Zhang, Xiahou brothers and other generals of the Three Kingdoms. You can also get a series of Wei, Shu and Wu, and a series of eighteen princes attacking Dong. Sell this thing as a collectible figure.
If you buy Liu Bei, why don't you buy Guan Zhang? After buying Guan Zhang, could Zhao Yun and Ma Chao be weaker than him? Now that you have bought so much, you might as well gather them all at once with so many advisors in Shu, otherwise you can't bear to be separated.
Now that the Three Kingdoms is finished, we can continue with the Water Margin! Now that Water Margin is over, we can still talk about The Legend of Yue Quan, The Eight Parts of the Dragon, The Legend of the Condor Heroes...
With so many variations, there is no need to worry about the glass image losing its high value.
After listening carefully to Zhu Su's words, the Shen family father and son were stunned and couldn't say a word for a long time.
After a long time, Shen Rong bowed his hand to Zhu Su and said, "...I have already appreciated His Highness's great talent."
This Fifth Highness is so young, how could he have so many twists and turns in his belly that come from evil profiteers?
So dark! It’s much darker than us! If the fifth prince had been born a few years earlier, what would have happened to our Shen family?
There is no Shen Wansan in the world, he has long been changed to Zhu Wansan.
"Glass statues are just one of them." Zhu Su continued without any surprise. "I still have many big deals on my hands. For example, soap that is ten times better than today's pancreas, mellow wine that is fragrant and fragrant, perfume that is ten times better than today's rouge powder, and can... A charcoal stove that allows you to burn charcoal in winter without fumes..."
Every time he said something, the wrinkles on Shen Rong's face jumped. He had no doubts about the authenticity of Zhu Su's words. It was impossible to burn glaze of that color with five taels of silver. Taken individually, each of these things can become a wealthy businessman!
"Your Highness!" Before Zhu Su could finish speaking, Shen Rong directly interrupted Zhu Su's narration.
"I wonder if Your Highness would allow me to serve as a merchant."
"I, Mr. Shen, would like to join His Highness Ji Wei and serve His Highness the King of Wu!"
(End of chapter)
