Chapter 62: Beining Firm

Qin Xuan took one look at Hu Xu’s expression and knew immediately that this old fellow must have run into a tough problem.

"Spit it out. What on earth could make you leave behind piles of silver and run all the way to Beining City?" Qin Xuan asked straight to the point.

He certainly didn't believe that this old boy had made a special trip just to escort Hua Mingyue.

Hu Xu gave an awkward, sheepish smile. "As expected, nothing can be kept from Your Highness. This humble servant indeed has a matter I do not know how to handle."

With that, he began to recount the whole story from beginning to end.

It turned out that with the sales of coal briquettes and coal stoves, these two items had not only spread across the entire northern region, but were now even facing shortages in the south.

However, the trouble that followed was that an increasing number of counterfeit coal stoves had appeared on the market, severely hitting the profits of the three major merchant guilds: Mintah, Xuantian, and Baiyue.

"I remember telling you before that the coal stove is actually just a lure; the coal briquettes are what truly make the money. Could it be that the briquettes have been counterfeited as well?" Qin Xuan asked in surprise.

In his calculations, the coal briquettes shouldn't have been successfully copied for at least another two years.

Yet by that time, Qin Xuan would have already amassed countless fortunes.

"Your Highness, not yet. But nowadays we are conducting business over long distances, and feeding both men and horses incurs massive expenses."

"Originally, although the coal stoves didn't yield much profit, they at least managed to offset some of our costs. But now, with small workshops popping up everywhere, our coal stoves simply cannot be sold anymore!" Hu Xu said with a painful expression on his face.

For a merchant, every single sliver of profit must be contested down to the last drop.

"Such a simple matter, and you still had to run all the way back to ask me?"

Qin Xuan could understand Hu Xu's perspective, but he was somewhat baffled by his approach. In his view, such minor issues of commercial competition could be resolved with any number of trivial tricks.

"Your Highness, this humble servant knows that Your Highness possesses heaven-defying talent in commerce, but this humble servant is not you. Please, Your Highness, grant me your instruction."

Hearing the tone in Qin Xuan's voice, Hu Xu instantly felt a sense of relief in his heart.

At the same time, he mentally cursed Mogu and Huaiyun. Those two bastards, every time they encountered a difficult problem, used the excuse of being direct lineages of the Prince of Chu to force him to come and find Qin Xuan for a solution.

"Hu Xu, do you know what it means to overcome superior force with sheer simplicity?" Qin Xuan asked with a faint smile.

Hu Xu blankly shook his head, wondering what this had to do with the coal stoves.

"The coal stove has always been merely an add-on for us. Now that someone is competing with you over coal stoves, why don't you lower the price?"

"If we lower the price, we can make it back through the coal briquettes. What about the others? Can they hold out for a moment, or can they hold out for a lifetime?"

Just two simple sentences from Qin Xuan caused Hu Xu's eyes to light up brilliantly.

That's right! Their primary business was selling coal briquettes. If they started a price war, not a single coal stove workshop in the entire world could compete with them.

He had simply been blinded by the quick cash he was making recently, failing to even think of such a straightforward countermeasure.

"When you go back, give instructions to the craftsmanship workshop. From now on, stamp a brand mark onto every single coal stove produced to distinguish them from those of other workshops."

"In addition, recalculate your costs and build a price barrier."

"Of course, if you want to crush these counterfeiters to death, just make up a few stories and hire a few storytellers to spread them in teahouses, inns, and street corners. I guarantee that no one will ever dare to compete with us in the coal stove business again."

Qin Xuan rattled off three methods in one breath, each one more ingenious than the last.

Yet Hu Xu was left utterly bewildered, because he didn't understand the true meaning behind the latter two methods.

"Your Highness, what on earth is a price barrier?" Hu Xu asked with innocent perplexity.

Qin Xuan suddenly realized he was speaking a bit beyond the current era's comprehension, though it was easy enough to explain.

"The so-called price barrier means that when the profit obtained from producing a certain item is squeezed to the absolute limit, a natural form of protection is automatically formed."

"Take our coal stoves, for example. With our productivity, the net profit of a single coal stove can be kept at one coin of silver, or even just ten copper cash, because our workshop is the largest in the world, and our costs are diluted across massive volume."

"However, other production workshops are smaller than ours. Their lowest profit threshold is one silver coin. Once it drops below that standard, they either suffer a loss or are forced to continue expanding their production scale to achieve cost-sharing."

"Yet no matter how you share costs, there is always a limit to everything. Based on the current situation, the Beining City workshop is that limit."

"Therefore, as long as you set the price below one silver coin, you can wipe out most of your competitors. If you can drive the price down to ten copper cash, you can slaughter every single competitor out of existence."

Hearing this, Hu Xu couldn't help but draw a sharp intake of breath, his mind instantly branching out into wild trains of thought.

He eagerly asked, "Your Highness, what is the third method? What should those storytellers be told to say?"

"That needs to be used in conjunction with the first method."

Qin Xuan was in a rare good mood today and simply decided to give Hu Xu a modern business lesson: "When I told you to add a brand mark when producing the coal stoves, it was to make our coal stoves distinct from those of other workshops. This is called brand awareness."

"Once you have established brand awareness, you weave a few stories—for instance, about how someone used an unknown, unbranded coal stove and ended up poisoned, while their next-door neighbor used our branded coal stove with the official mark and was completely fine."

"At the same time, you must let everyone know that we were the very first inventors of the coal stove in this world. People always hold an inexplicable sense of trust toward the original creator."

"This way, whenever ordinary people buy coal stoves in the future, they will subconsciously choose the ones produced in Beining City because they already possess brand awareness."

"Understood?"

Qin Xuan kept his explanation relatively broad, fearing that if he went too deep, Hu Xu wouldn't understand at all.

To Qin Xuan's surprise, however, Hu Xu actually grasped it and even drew inferences about other cases. "Your Highness, then our refined salt and scented soap should also bear this brand mark!"

"Hahaha, you really are quick on the uptake."

Qin Xuan nodded and reminded him: "A brand mark is merely one form. You can also adopt other methods, such as through unique packaging, labels, or anti-counterfeiting markers—much like how banknote paper carries the official seal of the government. This official seal must be impossible for anyone else to imitate, and the paper used to make the banknotes must also be special."

Hu Xu's eyes grew brighter and brighter, his chest heaving violently.

He felt as though he were gazing upon a magical realm he had never stepped foot into before—a realm containing countless unbelievable yet immensely useful merchant knowledge.

"Your Highness, I intend to use the two characters 'Beining' as the brand name for all our goods. I want everyone in the entire world to know that anything coming out of Beining City is an utterly unique existence."

Hu Xu said with utmost excitement.

Qin Xuan gave a satisfied nod and smiled faintly: "Achieving that won't be easy, you know. You will have to ponder and hone it carefully."

Qin Xuan could never have imagined that from this impromptu lesson today, a terrifying entity capable of dominating the empire's wealth would be born into the world—the Beining Trading House!