Great Tang Idyll

Book 2: Chapter 20

Volume 02Chapter 20 Smarten Up When Taking Money

The more Li Xun heard, the more reasonable it sounded to him. With this activity, many children can receive a chance to exercise and train their bodies. He thought about the environment he lived in. Usually he also has to do some exercises, such as horse riding, archery, etc. After all, his imperial uncle is amazing in this area. As his nephew, if he wanted to be appreciated, he had to learn the same things.

At this moment, an opportunity was presented to him, it was absolutely impossible for Li Xun to refuse. After agreeing to the request, the date was set. The first area was the grassland. The only disagreement was that Li Xun did not agree with setting the time frame to five days. He insisted that eight to twelve years oldd should be there for ten days.

It was unclear why he made this decision, but he also wanted five to eight year olds to participate too. However, they only can stay for three days, and they will be taken care of at night. As for the older kids, they were all on their own.

Father Zhang knew about this child's identity, so naturally he did not go against his wishes. If a person like Li Xun was there, he will definitely have personal guards around him, so nothing bad will happen to the children.

The place for the grassland has also been selected to be at the Luo'chuan County near the Luoshui River. There is a pasture there with a few thousand horses. The number of horses were not too large, and the pasture was not too big. If a horse was ridden across the pasture from the south end to the north end, it would only take half of a day, and from the east end to the west end, it would only take a day.

After discussing the matter, Li Xun left and returned to his manor with his medal. The other children also followed their parents home. The busy day was over.

When it was almost evening, those people who often came to the restaurant had new ideas after seeing the children's game. They proposed that another game should also be held, and in particular, the intellectual game since they found it very interesting. When they first heard the questions, it sounded like jumbled nonsense, but after hearing about the answer and thinking more carefully about it, it actually made sense.

They ended up reserving the entire second floor of the restaurant, and the roof floor was included too.

Knowing that there were more adults who also wanted to play the game, the two of them got together to discuss because they wanted to gain even greater profits.

"Xiao'bao, come and take a look. This is a design I made---it's for placing the advertisement. We should place an entire row of it on the road outside. On the ad, we can place the names of the stores that are willing to pay. How about we charge them fifty coins a day for one spot, is that expensive?"

Wang Juan pushed a piece of paper with drawings on it to Zhang Xiao'bao and asked.

Zhang Xiao'bao's drawing skills were worse than Wang Juan's by more than one or two levels. He was better at talking, but if he had to talk about specific details, then he was incomparable to Wang Juan. He looked at Wang Juan's banner design and shook his head.

"The banner you drew is good, and it can also flap in the wind, but if the banner is made of cloth, the production cost will increase by a lot and lesser profit can be made. The most important thing is that the banner can only open up and stand upright in the wind, but when there's no wind, people can't see the design and words on the banner.

We need to make some changes. Let's not use cloth, let's use paper. That way, we don't have to use dye, and it can stand upright all the time. We can use sticks to set up frame, and then glue the paper onto it. If it's two windy, then we can poke holes into the paper---that way the paper won't rip when the wind blows onto it. Even if it rips, it doesn't matter since we can kjust make a new one.

This is the second time; the scale is larger than last time. The price shouldn't be too high. Let's make it thirty coins a day---fifty coins is a bit too much. That's not a small amount of money. I really don't have the heart to earn money from those merchants. It's not easy for everyone."

If Zhang Xiao'bao didn't say that last sentence, Wang Juan would have really believed his words. However, once he mentioned that he did not have the heart to earn money, Wang Juan began to pout her lips. There was no such thing as a good con man. It was just like crocodile tears. Who would believe that the crocodile was pitying the animals that it ate?

Sure enough, before Wang Juan said anything, Zhang Xiao'bao began to draw things out. Occasionally, he picked up the brush and added a few strokes to the paper. When he was done drawing, Wang Juan came in closer to have a look. She felt like making this thing would waste a lot of material.

Wang Juan stared at Zhang Xiao'bao sitting there looking at the painting, and asked him.

"That's not what I mean. Of course, you can use one pole for a banner that is two meters high, but mine is five meters high, and the frame is different. You can also stick fabric on it. It should be big, gigantic---the bigger the better. It's best if it's a banner that is three-meter by three-meter or three-meter by two-meter. We can place in front of the road that is used to go to the Ge Manor so that people can see it at first glance.

First we'll place small banners along the road for others to see. Thirty coins for one banner. If that's too much, then 20 coins is fine too. When all of the spots are rented out, then we will put up the large banners, and then let them fight to rent it. We don't need to put that many. We can space them out, so ten is probably enough.

This cost is higher since fabric is used. The starting price is 200 coins a day, 300 coins for two days, 350 for three days, then 1500 coins for half a month, and 2,500 coins for one month. What do you think?"

Zhang Xiao'bao expressed his thoughts and waited for Wang Juan to praise him.

Wang Juan looked at Zhang Xiao'bao for a moment, "I think you are in the middle of a dream. Those people aren't stupid. The brainteaser game only lasts a day and yet you're expecting others to buy the spot for a month? Furthermore, you aren't telling them at the beginning that there was going to be a big banner. Once they're done buying the smaller ones, you tell them about the larger one. What about the next time? Will they still come back?"

"You don't understand this. The small banners can have discounts, such as extending the time or lowering the price when buying it again, right?" Zhang Xiao'bao was very familiar with this kind of thing. It wasn't much of a skill and anyone who dealt with these kind of things before would know about it.

"Will anyone buy it for a month? The longer the time, the more we can earn. If I am a merchant, I won't buy a place at this price. I can always make my own banner and put it at the front. What can you do about it? I'll make it even bigger than yours."

Wang Juan continued to find faults in his idea. To be precise, she wanted Zhang Xiao'bao to speak out his true thoughts. She didn't believe that Zhang Xiao'bao did not take these aspects into consideration.

Zhang Xiao'bao glanced at Wang Juan and said, "Okay, okay, I'll tell you. You won't even let me act mysterious. It's mainly because I'm scared that you think my trick is too wicked. For that kind of game, it can last for one day, but why not drag it out for ten days or half a month? You can have preliminary rounds, rematches, round-robin tournaments, and then the final match.

Each match must be held individually, and not all of the games are played at the same time, so the contest cannot be completed in a day. Contestants can race to answer or contestants have to all take turns to answer. You also have to introduce the contestants, right? What if someone has some good poems? They can't miss the opportunity to show everyone their face."

Wang Juan finally remembered those entertainment shows. She never really had many opportunities to watch them, and she was always busy with work. She occasionally took a few glances at them, but she found them boring so she never continued watching. After Zhang Xiao'bao mentioned all of this, these old memories resurfaced in her mind and she finally understood what he was thinking about.

"No, no, no, we can't insert ads. If you insert ads, what are the contestants going to do in the meantime? There's no recording equipment."

Zhang Xiao'bao refused to insert ads, and he went on to say, "There are prizes. How about we say that the prize is the Four Treasures of the Study? It's such a good opportunity for the places that sell paper, brushes and ink. They can give us money and we'll use their products as prizes.

Also, we can stick things on our waiter's clothing--- things like particular shop names. Although, it's better to reserve that for ourselves. The restaurant at Little Luo'shui also needs ads. Am I too kind? "

"You are too shameless. If it was up to me, I won't provide you with those products. What can you even do about it?" Wang Juan once again followed the train of thoughts of people from this era to find loopholes for Zhang Xiao'bao.

Zhang Xiao'bao put down the brush. He put his two small hands behind his head, leaned back on the chair, and looked at Wang Juan from the corner of his eyes. "This is the wicked plan that I was talking about."

"What's the plan?" Wang Juan turned Zhang Xiao'bao's head to face her.

"Think about it. There can't be only one place that sells stationery, right? Especially on that bustling street in San'shui County. I've never inquired about it, but there should be maybe three or five stores. We can send someone to go to those places to buy brushes, ink, and paper in bulk. We don't need that many inkstones, otherwise it will be just a waste.

When we get people to buy them, get them to go into one store to look at the products. The person next to them can say that the other store's products are better so it's better to go to the other stop. Then, these people will go to the other store. They'll repeat this at every shop and not buy anything.

We'll send several groups of people to do this. After the stores become irritated, we will send another group of people, and this time, they will make actual purchases---they will give a down payment. We will get those stores' shopkeepers to come, and we'll ask them whose products were the best and whose price was better. Then, we'll select the store that's the worst. We will tell them our evaluation of each store, but we will speak negatively about the good products and praise the bad products."

"Be patient and let me finish. This time, we will order some products, and leave right after ordering. Immediately afterwards, we will send other people to discuss with them about buying products for the scholars at Little Luo'shui to write with. We must let these shopkeepers understand."

Zhang Xiao'bao took a sip of water and explained to Wang Juan again.