"Zi Yi."
Gao Fei greeted him warmly.
Li He and Liu Pei stood beside him.
Behind the three of them, a hundred soldiers stood in neat formation, accompanied by constables.
Lin Ze had seen these soldiers patrolling the stretch between Fengping County and the coal mine over the past few days. Today, their commander had brought them straight to the mining area.
Many other merchants stood beside this imposing formation.
While Lin Ze had been busy getting the coal mine running smoothly, Gao Fei had been hard at work too. These merchants were the customers Gao Fei had contacted.
Gao Fei's method of finding customers was simple. After having his blacksmiths make enough coal stoves, he used his position as a clerk to gather the merchants in town and demonstrate how to use coal.
He also made clear that coal was cheap: five catties for one copper coin.
Used properly, coal wouldn't poison you. It also burned longer and hotter, and all you had to do was make an extra coal stove to use it for a long time.
Perhaps everyone still had doubts about using coal, because the first customers to buy it didn't purchase very much. Each family bought around seven or eight hundred catties.
They went straight to issuing receipts.
This was only the first step in opening up the market. All that remained was to wait for everyone to accept coal. Once its reputation for being good quality and inexpensive took off, sales would explode.
The miners had earned high wages at the mine and were eating well every day. All of that was thanks to the coal mine opened by Dan Xuliang.
Li He nodded.
These people didn't dare offend even the clerk who supervised them, let alone the higher-ranking county magistrate and assistant magistrate.