sjar Chapter 130 The Fur Merchant Clears Out the Fur
Chapter 130 The Fur Merchant Clears Out the Fur
After playing with the child, Li Ju'an and Lu Zhiqiang took the forest farm's small train to the county town the next day and sold the tiger cub's raw hide.
Lu Zhiqiang had been eyeing the tiger cub pelts for a long time, hoping to get a good price so he could exchange them for a Type 54 pistol.
They wore wolf-skin coats and carried large bags in their hands, setting up stalls in the bustling market. They hung a tiger cub pelt with bright, glossy fur on a pillar and hawked it in the street. On the ground were also badger and raccoon pelts made into raw hides, as well as a dozen or so female leopards with their eggs still in them, being dried in the sun.
The market was bustling with people, mostly local hunters.
Li Ju'an spotted a stall selling weasel pelts. The pelts of small weasels, less than 30 centimeters long, were generally priced at around 10 to 20 yuan each for their grayish-black color, and about 20 to 30 yuan for their yellow color. If the pelt was over 40 centimeters long from mouth to tail, without any damage and with glossy fur, it could sell for 60 yuan per pelt.
Many southern leather merchants also traveled here, and quite a few of them dealt in donkey hides, mostly to be taken to factories to make donkey-hide gelatin.
Almost every household in the area possessed several hides, including donkey and mule hides. Merchants would collect them from nearby areas and then transport them south to resell, profiting from the price difference. Donkey hides were often obtained through scrambling. Large merchants would travel to slaughterhouses across the country to collect hides, while traders at the market would buy not only donkey hides but also other types of hides.
Before Li Ju'an set off, he called Pang Duolai and asked him to come to the market today. Pang Duolai said he was planning to leave soon and would return to the south for a while, and would come back when he had more free time. There were many fur merchants who traveled all over the country, but most of them were just inquiring about prices and didn't actually buy much, and they were very aggressive in bargaining. Li Ju'an offered them a cigarette and started chatting with them.
"You only buy donkey hides? These days, the donkey hide business is quite profitable."
The businessman who accepted the cigarette was named Cheng Guoliang. He wasn't very old, just over 30. He hadn't been a donkey hide trader before; he was a supplier to a donkey-hide gelatin factory. When that business became unsustainable, he switched to trading leather. He glanced at the cigarette, frowned, took a deep breath, exhaled white smoke rings, and began to speak loudly: "The donkey hide business has never been easy!"
He was having a terrible headache. The slaughterhouse and the fur traders were both incredibly shrewd. Whether it was the fur traders or him taking goods directly from the slaughterhouse, he was constantly being cheated on by shortchanging them—it was impossible to guard against. For example, fur traders could hide sand in the donkey hides or splash water on them to increase their weight.
Some slaughterhouses use clever tricks, deliberately leaving meat on the donkey's hooves, ears, and mouth, then sewing the meat inside with needles. Donkey hides sent in this way require an extra processing step, and their exact weight can only be determined once they reach the donkey-hide gelatin factory.
Every day, he led a group of people to the slaughterhouse at 7 a.m. to snatch donkey hides. The slaughterhouse started killing donkeys early, and they had to start queuing at 5 a.m., but they still couldn't compete with professional fur traders. They had no choice but to buy hides from the fur traders themselves. Because a small slaughterhouse might only produce three or four hides a day, the market was a seller's market.
Once the fresh donkey hides are collected, they must be placed in a warehouse, salted to draw out the moisture, dried, and then washed to remove sand and any hidden meat before being taken to the donkey-hide gelatin factory to be sold.
Li Ju'an lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and said, "In other words, after receiving the hides, we had no idea whether we made a profit or a loss."
Cheng Guoliang sighed, his expression heavy, and said.
"That's how this business is. Forget about buying expensive hides; even if you buy cheap hides, if the other party is a bit unpleasant and has layers of very thin flesh attached, you can't tell at all. The only problem is that the hides shrink a lot after washing. So you end up losing money. On the other hand, those hides that are bought at high prices may look expensive, but you actually make a profit after washing them."
Li Ju'an expressed his understanding and opened up: "That's for sure. It's tough for us in the leather business. Just one look at the leather brought from the Northeast and you know we'll lose money because it's full of sand, but there's nothing we can do but buy it. If we don't buy it, someone else will, and we'll lose a supplier. It's a seller's market, and to maintain the relationship, we have to grit our teeth and buy it even if we lose money."
In his previous life, he made a losing deal right out of the gate. He thought he would lose 30,000 or 40,000, but he ended up losing 120,000. He was heartbroken and had no one to complain to.
Cheng Guoliang was hit where it hurt. He rubbed his forehead with his palm, stomped the cigarette butt under his boot, and suddenly stood up, shouting, "What you said really hit the nail on the head, it really hurts! Mr. Li, I'm definitely going to be your friend."
He stepped on the cigarette and lit it on top of the leather on Li Ju'an's stall, wanting to take it all away without haggling.
Li Ju'an quoted 650 yuan for raw tiger cub pelts, 50 yuan for badger pelts, 55 yuan for raccoon dog pelts, and 3 yuan for a dried female leopard with eggs, for a total of 16 animals.
He didn't ask for a low price; he had already calculated the room for negotiation that the fur merchants could offer.
Cheng Guoliang exclaimed generously, "Brother Li, your hide is of high quality, without sand or water, and it's a well-processed raw hide. The leather-making technique is also meticulous. It saves us several steps. This price is really reasonable."
Without saying a word, he took out his wallet from his pocket and started counting the money while spitting out saliva. He counted the thick wad of ten-yuan notes and pulled out 805 yuan.
It cost 83 yuan in total, and he gave me two extra yuan, saying that if Li Ju'an had any good hides next time, he should call him.
Before he left, he gave me a landline number, but it was an out-of-town number, so I'd have to make a long-distance call. Those two yuan will be the long-distance fee.
After Cheng Guoliang left satisfied with the full load of leather goods, Li Ju'an, carrying a thick wad of ten-yuan notes, planned to give Lu Zhiqiang money and shares.
Lu Zhiqiang, standing to the side, was stunned, dumbfounded and unable to recover: "Li Ju'an, we've already sold the pelts? There are so many hunters over there, and not a single one has sold anything. They've been standing there for ages. We've only been standing there for a short while, chatting, and we've already sold them?"
As Li Ju'an counted the money and divided the shares, he could feel the envious and jealous looks from the other hunters who were also selling hides at their stalls.
These days, there are many hunters, many pelts, and many fur traders. But whether they can sell them, how many they can sell, and how much money they can make depends on each hunter's skill. Having lived two lives and been a merchant himself, he naturally understood what fur traders were thinking. In the time it takes to smoke a cigarette and chat, he had sold all the pelts, and at a pretty good price.
The hunter selling hides to his right stared intently at the 100-yuan note in his hand, his eyes practically piercing the note with his gaze.
The hunter to his left, who was selling leopard skins, was so envious that his breathing quickened and his eyes were practically glued to his cloth bag.
He quickly gathered up all the counted ten-yuan notes, stuffed all the cloth bags and oil paper from the stall into a woven bag, and waved to Lu Zhiqiang, shouting, "What are you waiting for? Stop standing here and waiting to have your money stolen. Let's go to the bank."