Chapter 96 20. If You Don’t Work Together, You Will Become Enemies
In this era, condiments are scarce, and food is even more scarce. It is a luxury to want food to have more flavors.
Naturally formed sugars are rare except for honey, and artificial sugars cannot be bought with just a few dollars. Although salt is not an expensive thing, one ounce of gold can buy more than three and a half stones, but after all, the per capita income is low, and people don’t eat very salty food. As for spicy, peppers were introduced not long ago, but wasabi has been around for a long time, but unfortunately, it is a monopoly product with extremely rare production, and later even became a monopoly product of the Tokugawa shogunate. As for sour, no one should pursue this taste, although there are many sour things.
It is conceivable that soy sauce, which needs to be fermented with soybeans and salt, is naturally a precious thing, but with the improvement of agricultural technology and the increase in agricultural scale, the output of soybeans is increasing day by day. Don’t you see that miso soup has also entered the homes of ordinary people, so soy sauce is no longer so rare.
As the largest town in Kinki (Kyoto cannot compare with Sakai in terms of business scale, but it is hard to say about the scale of towns), Sakai Town has a huge trading network that radiates the entire Kinki, Yinyang, and Shikoku. Sakai Town itself has a large population, so the soy sauce market is also very large.
Through Sakai's countless trade routes that affect the lifeline of Japanese commerce, the soy sauce produced in Kinki is loaded into wooden barrels, pulled by carts, carried by cattle and horses, and carried by ships, going to one strange and distant country after another, and entering the dining tables of thousands of households.
From some aspects, Heiroku was sent to sell soy sauce, which can be regarded as being valued and cultivated. If you were sent to sell kelp, kelp, or daily necessities, you would basically just follow your seniority and then live a life of working hard to retire gloriously as a hand-operated person. Only by being sent to a good sales product division can you have the opportunity to shine or stand out. So in the past two years, Heiroku has been dealing with soy sauce in the store, and gradually learning everything about soy sauce and the entire process of operating and selling.
Although he had not touched the accounts of soy sauce in and out during his several years of apprenticeship, he had been immersed in soy sauce for many years, which made him feel the quantity of soy sauce.
He roughly felt that there was a discrepancy between the sales volume of soy sauce and the actual shipment volume. At first, he did not make a fuss, but calculated the difference between the purchase volume and the actual shipment volume. Then he paid close attention and finally found the trick.
It is normal to add a little water to the soy sauce in retail. First, the original soy sauce is very thick, so it has to be diluted with water. It depends on conscience to add more or less. Second, all merchants are dishonest. As long as the taste is still there, there is no fear that no one will buy it. Hei Liu did not think there was anything strange about this. The 39 pure gold sold in jewelry stores now is not pure, and it can be forced that the ancient soy sauce is original. As a user, if it is just this trivial matter, he will do the same when selling soy sauce himself. It is just a customary habit.
However, since there are many wealthy people in Sakai and nearby areas, many people buy whole barrels or even several barrels of soy sauce. These people often don't care about the fact that a barrel of soy sauce is less than three or two pounds.
Some people in the store worked together to pack eight full barrels of soy sauce into ten barrels of soy sauce, with each barrel only slightly less, and then added some water, and almost no one ever found out.
This act of corruption was obviously done without the knowledge of the big boss of the store. According to Heiroku's observation, the deputy head or even the big head may have participated. This is a big case.
Heiroku didn't expose this matter because he was full of justice. He hoped to use this as a stepping stone to advance, gain the appreciation of the big boss, and be promoted to a deputy, and then be in charge of the store.
Of course, like the plot of a soap opera, he reported it with excitement, but he was alone and had no actual evidence, unlike now he can take photos and record. Instead, he was unanimously falsely accused by everyone else, saying that he had done this when delivering goods.
Then he was indeed framed and kicked out of the store. He had to rely on Tennoji-ya to survive, and soon he was starving and cold without food and clothing. He was unwilling to give up and tried to reason with them, but the result was that he was beaten up by those who held a grudge and thrown into a dark alley.
Then because he was beaten, anxious and hungry, he finally fainted on the roadside, and no one cared about him.
If Xiao Pingtai didn't care about him, he would probably end up wandering around as a beggar or starving to death on the street. After all, he was just a 17-year-old apprentice, with no place to stay and no gold and silver.
And he was a clerk who was kicked out of Tennoji-ya because of corruption. No store in the whole Sakaimachi would dare to employ him again. He might die in the chaotic world of the Warring States within half a month.
After listening to him, Xiao Pingtai was ready to say goodbye. How could he save everyone? I am not a charity. I watched over the 20,000 or 30,000 innocent people being driven to fill trenches in Odawara. Of course, I will not help a homeless person who I met by chance.
It is a great favor for me to give Heiroku a full meal. At most, I can give him three or five kan of money and let him start a small business.
When Koichiro left, Kobayata gave him 20 kan of money. First, he and Koichiro were close friends. Second, he agreed to hire him for a few days. Third, he wanted to establish a good relationship with such an outstanding young man. Facts have proved that the 20 kan of money Kobayata gave was very worthwhile. Now he has met the future Taihe and Yamato Dainagon.
As for Heiroku, there was only a superficial exchange. Although he could make it in a big store like Tennojiya, he should have some talent. But Xiao Pingtai didn't know his specific level. Was he going to pretend to be like in a cliché novel and test you on the problem of putting chickens and rabbits in the same cage or draining water from a pool?
This is a joke!
Although Xiao Pingtai knew that the trend of the times in the future would be an era where domestic experts would be popular, there were still many future big men buried in the grass waiting for Xiao Pingtai to pick up. It's not necessary to recruit talents for an internship in a store here. Masuda Nagamichi, Kusunoki Nagano and the like have already been born. They can go and fool people in a few years. There is no rush. If it really doesn't work, there is still Honda Masanobu in Mikawa Province, who is very close.
So Xiao Pingtai was ready to say goodbye. He had finished lunch and finished drinking. He patted his butt and got up. He told Aji and Tatsuzo to take good things and not to lose the iron cannon.
Xiao Pingtai said take care to Hei Liu and went back. Hei Liu seemed to have something to say but hesitated. He followed Xiao Pingtai all the way without knowing it.
When Xiao Pingtai and he found out, they had already reached the inn where Xiao Pingtai was staying.
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