Rural folks are frugal, and each household saves at least a thousand or eight hundred pounds of cabbage, there will only be more, not less. If they can’t consume it all, they have to haul it to the town or the county to sell. As long as you pay, there’s no worry about not being able to buy cabbages.

"Just from our village, we should be able to buy enough. If our village doesn’t have enough, the surrounding villages can surely provide ten or eight thousand pounds." Lian Manman said.

Selling sauerkraut made from purchased cabbage naturally costs slightly more than using one’s own cabbages. However, if you want to produce and sell sauerkraut on a large scale, this is unavoidable.

Buying cabbages was originally very simple, but neither Lian Shouxin nor Lady Zhang had any experience in doing business, so they didn’t think of it at first. With Lian Manman’s reminder, both of them immediately caught on to her line of thought.

However, while sourcing cabbages was not an issue, producing over a thousand pounds of sauerkraut in three days clearly exceeded the manpower of the Lian Family.

"We can ask for help," Lian Manman said, "I mean, we pay to hire people."

With the family’s own hands not being enough, needing outside help meant following the local customs of giving and taking. Now that the Lian Family was earning money from making sauerkraut, they of course had to pay appropriate wages to those who helped.

The family then discussed how to spend money to hire workers.

"Dad, mom, Shopkeeper Wu has already ordered sauerkraut from us, fifteen hundred pounds in three days. I think, if his shop does well, he might ask for more," Lian Manman paused and added, "In our town, and even in the county, it’s not only Big Boss Woo that has taverns and restaurants. If other taverns and restaurants see that the sauerkraut business is good, they might also want to buy from us."

"Aside from taverns and restaurants, individuals might also want to buy a few pounds for their own households from time to time, and they would have to come to us to buy. You saw at the market last time, the first time we sold, we sold several tens of pounds," Lady Zhang nodded her head and said.

"Right, we can’t just focus on the business from these taverns and restaurants. I’m thinking, we might as well skip retailing and wholesale to peddlers, letting them sell everywhere. That’s also a big business..." Lian Manman suggested.

The more the family talked, the bigger the business seemed to get.

"If we take all that into account, how much sauerkraut do we need to make each day?" Lian Zhizhi exclaimed.

"Definitely not a small amount," Lian Manman said, "Dad, mom, I think we might as well set up a workshop, just like other workshops, spend money to hire people to work."

"Setting up a workshop..." Lian Shouxin pondered.

Lian Shouxin and Lady Zhang were honest farmers without much of a head for business. And with a small farmer economy, which is essentially self-sufficient, producing and selling on their own. Lian Manman’s step-by-step guidance was to help them broaden their thinking, realizing they were about to set up a workshop for business, so they wouldn’t be overly cautious when it came time to manage these affairs.

Setting up a workshop was seen as a significant venture in the eyes of the family.

"We don’t have much money right now, nor do we have much time to prepare, so let’s keep it simple and just make sure it doesn’t delay the work," Lian Manman suggested.

"We definitely won’t have enough space inside the house, how about we build a shelter in the garden below, and set up two more stoves?" Lian Shouxin proposed.

"That works," Lady Zhang nodded, "Make it sturdy, it’s going to get even colder in a few days."

"If we’re hiring people, how much should we pay them?" Wu Lang asked.

"We can’t pay them too little," Lady Zhang said.

"Then how much is appropriate?"

"I’ve heard that workshop helpers hired in a few of the town’s workshops get paid only a few large coins a day."

"Manman, what do you think?" Lady Zhang turned her head to ask Lian Manman.

Lian Manman was mentally calculating. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

They sold the sauerkraut for One Wen Money a pound, and cabbages for One Wen Money per four pounds. Calculating on the basis of one pound of cabbage yielding one pound of sauerkraut, pickling four pounds of sauerkraut would earn them Three Wen Money.

"Cabbage, labor, firewood, vinegar..." Lian Manman counted on her fingers.

Planning for pickling five hundred pounds of sauerkraut a day would require five hundred pounds of cabbages, approximately ten workers, one hundred pounds of firewood, and five pounds of vinegar.

"What if we pay One Wen Money for every ten pounds of sauerkraut pickled?" Lian Manman consulted with everyone.

"Ten pounds of sauerkraut for One Wen Money, fifty pounds is Five Wen Money, five hundred pounds is Fifty Wen Money," Lady Zhang mumbled to herself.

"Mom, would you be willing to do this work if it were you?" Lian Manman asked.

The most laborious parts of making sauerkraut are cutting the cabbage strips and squeezing the water out of the cabbage strips; by calculating wages by weight, it’s fair and motivates everyone to work hard.

"If it were me, I would be willing," Lady Zhang thought for a moment and said, "This is a good price; I can pickle several tens of pounds of sauerkraut a day, earning six or seven Wen Money each day. Over a month, that adds up to more than two hundred Wen Money. That’s not a small amount of money, enough to buy quite a few things."