Chapter 21
“So, as I was saying, you guys basically did not have any clash of benefits in the first place, and were simply lacking communication.”
Under my encouragement, the remaining store owners in the entire street and the upper echelons of the Black Wolf Tribe came together for a peaceful discussion.
Of course, because both sides had been in a conflict for such a long period of time, as the organizer of this activity, even after I used up all of my linguistic skills, I was still unable to get all of the store owners to come.
In the end, I had to spend 3 silvers for each store before they would come here unwillingly.
d.a.m.n it. As I thought, to merchants, money is everything, huh?
“My suggestion is this. The rest of you remaining store owners continue your business here, however, according to the difference in your products, I will have to make slight changes to the positions of your stores. Of course, I will personally be in-charge of the moving fees. However, these fees will be counted as my investment to this entire street, so, once you guys make money in the future, I will receive some of the dividends. Understand?”
I had made some investigations on the commodity prices in the vicinity.
As Luorande Kingdom’s position is considered as a central pa.s.sageway, in terms of traffic and manpower, it’s quite perfect. In other words, manpower costs will be rather low.
And there are only a few merchandises that need to be moved, hence, a single gold coin should be enough to deal with the matter.
Although, to regular people, a single gold coin is a large sum, to someone like me who sneaks into the treasuries of various kingdoms occasionally, it’s not really big of a problem.
“Un. We don’t really have any complaints. However, do you have any other suggestions in regards to our future development? Because of the long-term blockade caused by these people, our stores had already lost a large number of customers. This is basically a nightmare to our businesses.”
The person who said this is the boss lady of a kimono store, her name is Chuan Yemei. Her store is located at the eastern side of the street, next to the entrance. It’s an old store with a history of few hundred years.
Of course, it’s the largest store of this entire street, and other than the Black Wolf Tribe’s headquarters, there’s no other store that is larger than hers.
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
I nodded.
“I will re-arrange the entire layout of the commercial street, so as to guarantee that all of you will be able to obtain the largest benefits.”
Then, I pulled open a large piece of paper, revealing a sketch of a map that I had spent a dozen of minutes to make.
“Take a look. We’re actually a city made up of couple of self-established villages, located at the eastern side of the Luorande Kingdom. Because of the uniqueness of the Luorande Kingdom’s landscape, where mountains are located at the south, the seas are located at the north, and there are basically no rivers and forests in the center, hence, there’s no reason for a cl.u.s.ter of villages like ours to close ourselves up. But, as the central pa.s.sageway, we’re a supply point, thus, we’re able to connect the Eastern and Western Continents. At the same time, we’re near the seas, and a harbor is just a twenty minutes carriage ride away, this is also a positional advantage of ours.”
After saying that, I stopped and looked at them. When I saw them nodding their heads, I continued.
“But, around this area, other than this street, there are two other streets present as well. Our three streets are currently formed in a【凹】structure. Right now, not only do we have to exert our advantages, we have to steal the businesses from the other two streets at the same time. This is our final objective. First, we have to re-confirm what the people that pa.s.ses by are like. Zhang Ye, why don’t you try telling us?”
“Me!? Umm…”
Hearing his name being called out so suddenly, Zhang Ye was at a loss.
“Hungry people?”
Hearing his words, most of the people here started laughing.
I smiled, and nodded.
“The h.e.l.l you guys are laughing for? He’s not wrong at all, you know?”
I slapped on the map.
“Take a look at this yourself. This map labeled all of the villages and cities present in Luorande Kingdom. Other than a main city, two checkpoint cities, and five small cities, including ours, there’s nothing else. Looking to the west, the people coming from the Western Continent, after they have pa.s.sed through the border city on their side, other than pa.s.sing through our street, they will have to take a longer path around if they wish to head towards the Eastern Continent. The same applies for the people coming from the Eastern Continent as well. Merchant groups that wish to save costs by using horse carriages, do you really think they will choose to stay at the two border cities on each side, where the prices are astronomically high? Obviously not. They will choose to come this small city of ours to have their meals. Hence, calling them hungry people isn’t wrong at all.”
Then, I once again pointed to the map of our town.
“Look, the other two streets do not even have a single restaurant. All of them are selling merchandises such as high-grade equipment, rare gems, porcelains, pottery and magic tools. Have you people realized? Their stores are set up for the pretext that consumers will spend a large sum of money! This is where they’re failing at!”
I slammed on the table!
“Tell me, are there more merchants or tourists pa.s.sing by our street? How does it make sense for merchants to buy merchandises that are more expensive than the goods they’re handling!? The merchandises the other two streets are selling are basically targeting tourists, don’t you think?”
“So, the consumers we’re targeting should be the merchants that wish to be able to obtain resupplies here. As the saying goes, ‘hunger breeds discontentment’. We have to place food caterers and smitheries, these two most important stores at the two ends of the commercial district. Then, from these stores, we will recommend these merchants to head into the center of the commercial district, where more food, inns, and resting facilities are located. Shops that sell medicines and supplies can be placed there as well. Only through this way, where we promote ourselves mutually, will we be able to obtain the largest benefits as a whole.”
“But in that case, what about my kimono store?”
Ms. Yemei said with a frown.
“Although I think that your business strategy is very correct, the problem is that there are a few of our stores that do not deal with cheap merchandises.”
After saying that, she looked at the people next to her.
“That’s right, in our commercial street, other than Ms. Yemei’s kimono store, there’s Mr. w.a.n.g’s jewelry shop and Ms. Simi’s sculpture shop. As the three big shops that cannot be used as resupplies, I have pondered about this for a while, and decided to deal with this matter in another direction.”
As I said that, I flipped to the next piece of paper.
“I have decided that, we shall purchase all of the goods that merchants have yet to develop detailed plans for, and then, sell them our merchandises to fill their newly empty s.p.a.ces! That shall do!”
“This…”
They looked at each other, and asked.
“Can you guarantee that they will buy our merchandises? After all, the other two streets are selling various high-grade goods as well.”
“I guarantee it.”
I smiled.
“I had already advertised your merchandises to the various Merchant Guilds through the terminal. Right now, we have something else that we have to do. I believe Xiao Zhe will definitely do a good job with it, right?”
“That’s right, swallowing up the other stores or whatever! We’re specialized in it!”
“Hey, hey ,hey! What we’re doing is ‘legal purchasing’.”
“Legal purchasing? Just what are you guys planning to do?”
Ms. Yemei asked weirdly.
“It’s very simple. We shall head to their various supply holders and buy the merchandises at a low price, we will then move them over and sell them at lower prices than the other streets. This will suppress the pricing of the entire market, reducing their value, and then, cause them to go bankrupt in the end. Right after that, we will purchase their stores.”
“……”
The people that filled the entire room were all completely silent. Then, a moment later, unanimously, they said this.
“Profiteer…”
t.i.tle [Merchant with a Demonic Black Heart] unlocked.
Affinity with all Merchant Guilds increased by 5%. Goods that you have already seen the pricings of, can be directly compared to the pricings on the local goods.
Every 100,000 Gold earned, local fame decreases by 1 point.
This t.i.tle… Alright, I don’t deny it.
“But, how do you plan on buying those high-grade equipments, gems and potteries?”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
I smiled, and then pointed to the large-scale terminal next to the wall.
“In this world, as long as the information network is advanced, anything is possible. Oh right, there’s another condition as well…”
I pointed to the sky.
“And that is advanced technology!”
Gradually, the roar of a magical engine could be heard from the faraway skies.
“Middle Street, from today onwards, I shall begin to swallow you up!”