Chapter 33 A Good Deal
Wang An looked in the direction Ergou pointed and saw a thatched house in the northwest corner of the yard. It should be the place where the yard manager and the porter usually rested.

Wang An nodded and walked towards the thatched hut with Ergou.

The door of the hut was ajar. Wang An knocked on the door and asked, "Is anyone in the room?"

"Come in, the door is not closed." A weak voice came from the room.

Wang An pushed the door open and walked in. The thatched hut was empty, with nothing in it except a brazier and a stool.

A pale-faced man was sitting on the stool, looking up at Wang An.

He didn’t know if it was an illusion, but Wang An felt that the other party seemed to be relieved after seeing his appearance clearly, but soon showed a disappointed expression.

"If you're here to buy coal, leave now. We don't sell it retail now."

Wang An did not mind the man's attitude, but said politely: "The shopkeeper misunderstood, I am here to see the warehouse."

A flush of red appeared on the man's pale face, and he stood up excitedly.

He just looked at Wang An's clothes again, frowned slightly and said, "If you want to buy this warehouse, you have to buy the coal outside as well."

Wang An smiled slightly, and said, "Shopkeeper, you misunderstood me. I just want to rent this warehouse. I wonder how much it costs?"

The man sat down on the stool again, waved his hands impatiently and said, "Not for rent, only for sale."

Wang An frowned and said nothing, glancing at Ergou beside him.

Ergou was a little embarrassed and angry and asked the man: "Boss, the sign on your door clearly says that it is available for rent and sale, but now it is only for sale and not for rent?"

"We two came all the way from You'anmen to see your warehouse. Are you kidding me?"

The middle-aged man seemed to be offended by Ergou's questioning. He frowned and said, "Although our father-in-law's family is in trouble, it's not something a peasant like you can do to act recklessly!"

"Do you know who I am? My elder sister is the current Queen Zhou!"

Ergou was immediately startled and looked at Wang An, not daring to speak.

Wang An was just surprised and blurted out, "Are you Zhou Jian?"

Historically, when Li Zicheng captured Beijing, he tortured Zhou Jian to death in order to force him to reveal Zhou Kui's treasure.

Zhou Jianwenyan, a rare blush on his pale cheeks.

"Oh, you are quite knowledgeable. You even know me."

Wang An suddenly realized that after Zhou Kui was beheaded at Caishikou, the Ministry of Justice would definitely pursue the stolen money from the Zhou family according to convention.

Even though the Zhou family has a queen protecting them, most of their assets will probably have to be sold off.

After thinking it through, Wang An couldn't help but feel tempted. The means of recovering stolen money in the Ming Dynasty could be said to be extremely inhumane. If the stolen money could not be returned in full according to the agreed amount, not only would his closest relatives suffer imprisonment but they would also have to endure physical pain.

In the end, even the entire family will be implicated.

However, Wang An felt that this seemingly inhumane law was most appropriate in this era.

Because the ancients had a strong sense of clan, basically if one person succeeded, the whole family would benefit.

Except for a few people who are indifferent to the concept of family, most of the relatives of corrupt officials can benefit from this.

Since you benefited from others' power, you are not innocent if you are implicated when corrupt officials are caught.

At this time, Zhou Jian must be under great pressure to return the stolen goods, and must be eager to sell his property quickly to avoid going to jail. As long as the owner is eager to sell, there is a lot of room for negotiation on the price.

Something that originally cost one hundred taels might now be bought for fifty taels.

However, it was obviously a pipe dream for Wang An to buy this large warehouse and the coal in it with the 350 taels of silver in his hand.

No matter how eager Zhou Jian was to get rid of it, it would be impossible.

Although he knew there was no hope, he still asked, "How much silver would you sell this warehouse for, Mr. Zhou?"

Although Wang An's clothes did not look like those of a wealthy man, Zhou Jian, perhaps because he was pressed by the Ministry of Justice, replied with a glimmer of hope: "I still have two million catties of coal in my warehouse. I'll give you three thousand taels of silver for the coal and the warehouse."

Wang An was shocked. He didn't expect that this cargo hold as big as a football field was piled with two million kilograms of coal.

But think about it, although this number sounds large, if converted into tons it is actually only about two to three thousand tons, which is not an exaggeration for a commodity like coal.

At that time, the price of coal was one cent and three cents of silver per hundred catties. These two million catties of coal would cost two thousand six hundred taels.

Considering this warehouse which covers a considerable area, a total of three thousand taels of silver is not considered expensive.

What's more, the Zhou family is in trouble now, and Zhou Jian seems to be in a hurry, so there is a lot of room for negotiation on the price.

However, no matter how much he negotiated, Wang An estimated that the other party would not sell it for less than two thousand taels.

But with Wang An's total net worth plus the three hundred and fifty taels, without selling the herbal medicine shop, he could only raise about five hundred taels at most.

The gap is so huge that there is no point in continuing the discussion.

Wang An bowed his hands apologetically: "Sorry to bother you!"

However, when Zhou Jian saw Wang An was about to leave, he suddenly became anxious.

Some people came to ask about it in the past few days, but they all left when they heard that they had to take over the coal.

Because the coal business in Beijing is almost monopolized by the nobles, after taking over the coal, they have to sell it, but this kind of selling is equivalent to offending the nobles in Beijing. How can ordinary people have such courage?

What's more, these people don't have coal mines. Even if they take over the coal, they can only do business once, and it will be gone after it is sold.

It is not worth it no matter how you look at it to offend the nobles just to do this wave of business.

No one was like Wang An, who did not turn around and leave immediately when he heard that he was going to take over the coal business. Instead, he thought about it seriously for a while.

"Please stay, sir," Zhou Jian stopped Wang An, "To be honest, if you want to do coal business, my Zhou family has two mines on the West Mountain that you can sell!"

"These are all good mines that can be dug with a hoe. If you miss them, you will miss them forever."

Wang An became even more excited after hearing this. When he saw the area of ​​the warehouse for the first time, he thought it would be nice if he could buy it and build a honeycomb coal factory.

This was also the reason why, when he heard that he was going to take over the coal stored in the warehouse, he did not turn around and leave immediately like everyone else, but was reluctant to leave.

Because he could use both the warehouse and the coal.

When he heard that there was a mine that could be taken over, it simply solved his subsequent raw material supply problem!

If we can acquire the business and then form a sales team, we can integrate raw materials, production and sales into one, without any middlemen, and maximize profits!

However, he couldn't even afford the little coal in the cargo hold, let alone buy it directly from the coal mine!

(End of this chapter)