Chapter 828 - No Longer Sit and Wai
Chapter 828 - No Longer Sit and Wai
“Merchants pay great importance to their profits, and no one would say no to money. The Medicine Deity Corporation might be holding the largest sales channel in the country, but the merchants could only obtain a small profit from them. It was far inferior compared to the profits they could make from a Chinese medicine factory. Furthermore, the merchants were also helpless to ban us from finding supply. After all, anyone who dared to stand out will immediately disappear.” Su Tao smiled confidently.
However, Chu Huilin wasn’t as optimistic as Su Tao and replied, “The Medicine Deity Corporation has an unwavering position in He City, and I believe that no merchants will disobey them.”
“Then shake the Medicine Deity Corporation and let those merchants suffer.” Su Tao sneered.
Chu Huilin was stunned upon hearing those words as he instantly figured out that Su Tao still had a follow up plan.
Su Tao had finally decided to make the first move.
He wants to let those merchants taste some bitterness and also let Wang Guofeng be punished for his acts.
After a brief chat with Chu Huilin, Su Tao took a cab towards Yu Wei’s residence. Now that Yu Wei grasped the Nie Family’s resources, she managed to gain a footing in He City. And if he wanted to deal with the Medicine Deity Corporation, he would need Yu Wei’s help.
After half a year of nurturing her body, Yu Wei’s health had clearly improved as his complexion had turned better as well. She no longer seemed as weak as before and she had completely gotten rid of the toxin in her body.
Yu Wei’s residence was spacious with the lawn in her courtyard well-tended. Although it was already in the autumn season, her lawn was still covered in green with flowers by the corner permeating floral fragrance.
Yu Wei had already been waiting for Su Tao, and she even went as far as setting up a banquet in the living room. Cai Yan’s father, Cai Zhongpu had an apron around his waist as he attended Su Tao to sit down.
“Aunt Wei, when are you and Uncle Cai going to treat me to your wedding banquet?” Su Tao teased while Cai Zhongpu wasn’t around.
Cai Yan had acted as the matchmaker between Yu Wei and Cai Zhongpu, and the two of them have been getting along pretty well. Although they weren’t at the stage of marriage, anyone can tell the two of them are doing well together. There was only a thin layer between them, and Su Tao had decided to poke it through.
“Stinking brat, what are you talking about?” Yu Wei smacked Su Tao’s hand with her chopsticks before she changed the topic, “I have already prepared the information that you’ve requested of me. But are you sure that you’re going to do that?”
Nodding his head seriously, Su Tao replied, “The medicine market in China is too chaotic, and it needs to be treated.”
“If you really did that, you will definitely become the enemies of many merchants.” Yu Wei smiled bitterly.
“Well, it doesn’t matter since we’re already enemies.” Su Tao smiled.
Upon hearing that, Yu Wei was briefly stunned before she realised that Su Tao’s words made sense and sighed, “I have also tried persuading some of my friends in the herb industry, but they were firm about banning the Three Flavour Medicine. Wang Guofeng had promised them great profits, and the Three Flavour Medicine had even acquired a Chinese medicine factory recently, and it was sufficient to create a few hundred millions of profits for them.”
“I’m not only going to vent out my anger, but I’m also doing this to cleanse the market. You should know that.” Su Tao smiled.
“You have my support!” Yu Wei smiled.
This time, Su Tao had decided to fall out with those merchants completely.
After they finished their meal, Yu Wen came out from her study room with a thick stack of documents and handed it over to Su Tao. They were all the dirty stuff that the Nie Family held to threaten those merchants. But Nie Haitian did not wait for the day that the information was used to come.
When Su Tao returned to his hotel, he went through the information before he gave a call to Chen Guang, the reporter of the Nanyue’s City News.
When Chen Guang exposed the dirty deeds of those charity foundations back then, he had shown the backbone of a reporter that left Su Tao in admiration. Hence, Su Tao decided to use Chen Guang to find a breakthrough in controversy.
“Mr Chen, I have information about the dark side of the herbs market in the country, and I wonder if you're interested in it?” Su Tao spoke in a solemn tone.
Chen Guang had a good impression of Su Tao. After all, when he exposed the charity foundations back then, it was Su Tao that rescued his daughter. Hence, he owed Su Tao a favor.
Furthermore, he also made use of that news to become more famous.
“If those information are true, then I will definitely report about them!” Chen Guang stated his position without any hesitation.
Chen Guang had a keen sense when it came to news. He could vaguely sense that this would be major news.
Seeing that Chen Guang’s reaction was just as he had predicted, Su Tao smiled, “I’ll send you them to your email later.”
Nodding his head, Chen Guang replied, “Then we’ll discuss again after I go through them.”
When he ended the call, Chen Guang soon received the information from Su Tao. After a rough look through them, Chen Guang was deeply shocked in his heart as he never expected that the unremarkable herb market would be so dark.
In the eyes of many, there were many rules hidden in the western medicine, such as the low cost of producing the tablets, but they were sold at an expensive price due to the sales representative and the hospital. As a result, it caused a situation where medical help was expensive.
But in reality, TCM also had similar issues.
After Chen Guang pondered briefly, he began to write a report about the herbs industry because the information provided was detailed. But due to the sheer length of it, it had to be separated into several reports.
The next morning, the first article that shook the entire country took the headlines of Nanyue’s City News, “Are Chinese herbs really that expensive?”
Because the article was written by Chen Guang, it instantly became the focus of the media around the country.
In the article, Chen Guang wrote, “Chinese herbs that were used to save lives had their prices marked up by blackhearted merchants, and the prices have been soaring in recent years.
“Due to the fact that the government had loosen their grasp on the Chinese herb prices recently, few merchants had found an opportunity to take an advantage of it as they began to monopolize the market and mark up the prices of commonly used herbs to create a profit for themselves. For example, the commonly used herb, Pseudoginseng. It originated from Yundian, and two years ago, it only cost ¥70/kilogram. But today, it went as high as ¥850/kilogram in Yundian Province, and it’s ¥1,100/kilogram in Yunhai retail. The increase in price was actually more than ten-fold! Another example would be the Pseudostellariae, originated from Minnan and Wannan Provinces. Two years ago, it was ¥50/kilogram, and it’s now as high as ¥330/kilogram. It even goes as far as ¥448/kilogram in Yunhai retail. Those who supplied those two above-mentioned herbs mainly took advantage of natural disaster and draught to stockpile before selling them at an explosive price.
“Many blackhearted merchants would monopolize the manufacturing location of the herbs in order to make as many benefits as possible, such as Baishan Province, the place where the Sun-dried Ginseng was produced. Someone had monopolized the entire place and therefore controlled the prices. Two years ago, they were only ¥240/kilogram, and the price had gone up by once in just a year. Even now, the price is still constantly rising. Another example would be the caterpillar fungus, the production location was monopolized as well. Two years ago, it was ¥9/kilogram, and now, it has gone as high as ¥14/kilogram, and it’s still rising ferociously.
“The government should take actions and come up with measurements for those prices.”
As a result, Chen Guang’s article swept like a violent storm, attracting attention to the Chinese herb industry.
Many leaders of the country were loyal readers of Chen Guang, and when they read that article, they immediately gave out instructions to make an investigation. At the same time, they had to find out the model and deal with those merchants to kill the threat while it was still in the cradle.
Very quickly, news started to spread in He City as many merchants became uneasy.
Furthermore, there were news leaked that the boss of the Three Flavour Hall, Su Tao, had leaked it to Chen Guang to retaliate against those merchants.
Then again, that piece of news was released by Chu Huilin, mainly to show those merchants what they were capable of.
Hence, the merchants immediately became uneasy as all of them went looking for Wang Guofeng. For their meeting, they prepared a banquet in the best restaurant in He City.
The location was close to the Medicine King Garden, and merchants were frequent customers here, so the service here was simply perfect.
However, all the merchants had their brows knitted together as they had just received news that the central investigation team had arrived in He City, and they will soon begin their investigation on the herbs market.
Under the waitress’ lead, Wang Guofeng entered as he brought a gorgeous woman along with him. Everyone in the industry knew that Wang Guofeng wasn’t interested in ordinary women, but young married women.
As Wang Guofeng sat down, he greeted everyone before he whispered with the young married woman.
Finally, the leader among the merchant, Lai Rong finally couldn’t hold back anymore and asked, “Mr. Wang, have you seen the news?”
“I heard some news about it. You guys now know why I called you guys not to supply the Three Flavour Medicine?” Wang Guofeng swept his glance over.
Lai Rong wore a bitter face as he knew that if they had supplied Su Tao previously, there wouldn’t be so much trouble. Hence, he continued with a helpless voice, “Then what should we do now? The central government even sent an investigation team over, and we have to resolve that, right?”
“I already have an idea.” Wang Guofeng lowered his voice as he continued, “The central investigation team only needed an outcome. So as long as you give them an outcome, wouldn’t it be resolved?”
When Lai Rong heard Wang Guofeng’s words, his eyes immediately lit up as he raised his thumb, “Mr. Wang, you’re truly smart!”
As Wang Guofeng ate a few as courteous, he soon found an excuse to leave. After all, these merchants weren’t clean, and he couldn’t afford to be too deeply involved with them. Now that he had given them a solution, it would depend on them if they could resolve this issue.
After Wang Guofeng left, Lai Rong and the other merchants began to discuss among themselves, “Now that this matter had already attracted the attention of the central investigation team, we need to find a few scapegoats. Do you guys have any suggestions?’
Lai Rong’s intention was blatant. Since the central investigation team wanted an outcome, then they could just drag a few merchants out as scapegoats to get away with this mess.
This way, the central investigation team could return satisfied while they avoid the responsibility.
After the merchants discussed among themselves, they came out with a list of those who were once their enemies and competitors.