Chapter 326 Joe's Caravan
Qiao Weixin is one of the many merchants who traveled on the Silk Road. However, unlike other merchants, he has fame and strength in this business road that others cannot reach! Whether it is a merchant from the Tang Dynasty or a Hu merchant from the Western Regions, he will respectfully call him "Master Qiao" when he meets Qiao Weixin!
The reason for this is that on the one hand, Qiao Weixin owns a caravan, both in terms of size and strength, is the best in all dealings in this business road. On the other hand, Qiao Weixin has been active in this business road for twenty years!
People on this business road all know very well that judging whether a person is successful here does not depend on how much wealth you earn, but how long you earn wealth can last, or more directly, how long you can live and how long your caravan can exist!
Although the business road in the Western Regions is hard and dangerous, it can at least be included in the top three categories!
On the one hand, the area where this business road passes is not only a vast desert next door, but if you are not lucky, you will completely disappear into the world due to a sandstorm. There are also towering snow-capped mountains, even in the hot summer, sometimes blizzards will fall from the sky.
On the other hand, there are many countries on this business road and there is no unified governance, which leads to horse thieves and bandits rampant, and even the armies of some countries are engaged in killing and robbing people!
Therefore, when you go to this business road, you have to fight with the sky, and the latter is even more important than the former!
As Qiao Weixin himself often said, 80% of his success was due to enough luck... Although he did not need to walk on the business road in person, in the past ten years, his Qiao caravan was led by him, traveling between the Western Regions and the Central Plains again and again!
During this period, even he could not count the life and death tests he experienced! However, he clearly remembered that since the establishment of the Qiao caravan and began to walk the business road in the Western Regions, the Qiao caravan had accepted and recruited more than 20,000 people. However, until today, without expelling any of the caravans, the total number of Qiao caravans now is only a thousand people!
The remaining people either disappeared next to the desert, or were directly slaughtered by horse thieves and bandits...
Outsiders only know that Qiao Weixin. His Qiao caravan has earned unimaginable wealth on this business road in the past twenty years, but only Qiao Weixin himself... or those who have traveled to this business road really understand that in fact, the wealth they lost due to natural disasters and man-made disasters is even several times more than the wealth they earned!
"Father, the war between Gaochang and Yanqi has caused the trade route to be cut off for almost two months. Our batch of goods is stranded in Yizhou and it is difficult to move westward... The transaction time agreed with the merchant Fuqi is about to come. If the trade route is not smooth, the last batch of goods cannot be delivered on time... The money loss is small, but our Qiao family's reputation is...!"
Qiao Weixin's eldest son is no longer as anxious as Qiao Mingde, who is in his thirties. As the current person in charge of the Qiao caravan, he understands the importance of this batch of goods to their Qiao caravan this time!
What he is worried about is exactly what Qiao Weixin is worried about now. In the past twenty years of business, he has been able to achieve today's achievements. Luck is one aspect, and good reputation is also indispensable!
You should know that the time to and from this business road is calculated on a monthly basis, so these caravans often negotiate the types and quantities of goods traded with Hu merchants in the Western Regions, and then return to the Tang Dynasty to transport goods. If they do not have good reputation, how can they believe that you can transport the goods they need to to the Western Regions on time?
Some people may say, isn’t it enough to just take goods from the Tang Dynasty to sell them to the Western Regions? Why do you have to cooperate with Hu merchants in the Western Regions?
Even in later generations, a world known as a legal society, if Huawei wants to enter the American market, people can cause trouble for you for various reasons, let alone in ancient times? Or in the chaotic Western Regions?
Although silk and porcelain from the Tang Dynasty were very popular among the people of the Western Regions, every place has its own rules, or unspoken rules, local tyrants!
If you don’t cooperate with these people, it is very likely that the goods you have transported to the Western Regions through endless hardships will not only not be sold at all, but you will even have to pay your life!
Therefore, large caravans like the Cui family caravan have good cooperative relationships with Hu merchants in the Western Regions. They often only agree on an approximate delivery time. At that time, both parties go to a fixed location to pay the money and deliver the goods in the same way!
This has been like this for more than 20 years, but this time, due to the war between Gaochang and Yanqi, the business road was blocked, and all caravans were stranded in Yizhou and it was difficult to move westward. Of course, the goods of their Qiao caravans could not be transported to the Western Regions. If this batch of goods cannot be delivered on time, it is very likely that the Hu merchants will not cooperate with their Qiao caravans again from now on!
Logically speaking, this is a trade route blockade caused by war, not by the Qiao caravan, and those Hu merchants would not blame the Qiao caravan.
If someone thinks this way, it's a big mistake! Hu merchants don't care about these things. They only care about whether you can deliver the goods on time. As for how the goods are transported to them, they don't care about them! The war blocks the merchants and you can't transport goods. That's because you are incompetent. What's the relationship with them? Moreover, the most important thing is that the caravans of the Tang Dynasty cannot move westward, which does not mean that no one can transport the goods from the caravans of the Tang Dynasty. Those Hu merchants do not have the only way to purchase goods from the caravans of the Tang Dynasty!
You know, there is a very powerful country in the Western Regions - the Western Turks!
People think that the Western Turks only know how to grazle, but in fact, the Western Turks are not only grazing Turks, but also people of many other races. They can continue to go on business within the territory of the Turks... However, the goods sold by the caravans of the Turks are much higher than those of the Tang Dynasty caravans. After all, these Turks are also purchased from the merchants of the Tang Dynasty, and the business journey they take is also very long!
Qiao Weixin is well aware of the rules of the Hu merchants in the Western Regions, so he is also very anxious!
If one or two batches of goods were not delivered on time a few years ago, although he would suffer losses, it would not be too great. However, in the past two years, especially when the Tang Dynasty established the Ministry of Commerce, no longer deliberately suppressed commercial affairs, the caravans in the Western Regions grew sharply, especially with several caravans with deep backgrounds. As soon as Pu entered the Western Regions, he used his strong funds and unique commodity advantages to squeeze out many market share, which greatly reduced the interests of old caravans such as the Cui family caravans.
In order to deal with this unfavorable situation, Cui Zheng found a caravan from Fuqian with his connections in the Western Regions for many years, and the other party directly booked goods worth tens of thousands of gold from him!
The gold here is not the copper coins of the Tang Dynasty, but real gold coins, gold coins of the country! It is converted into coins of the Tang Dynasty, and the amount is more than one million yuan!
Moreover, the Qiao caravan has already collected 10% of the deposit from the other party, and the last batch of goods is left and the goods are shipped. At that time, he will not only obtain unimaginable benefits for ordinary people, but also gain the friendship of the caravan of Fuji. This is what Cui Zheng values the most!
Chapter completed!