Chapter 120: Grand Opening

Despite its impressive name, the Hainan Women's Cooperative Corporation was essentially a secondhand goods shop. Its entire inventory came from the Gou Manor confiscations—antiques, ornaments, calligraphy, paintings, and porcelain that found no buyers in the local market, alongside mountains of ordinary household goods. The clothing alone filled dozens of cartloads, bundled garments that held irresistible appeal for the common folk.

A thorny problem emerged, however. As Wen Desi had pointed out, the shareholders' capital was denominated in the transmigrators' internal accounting currency: vouchers. But how many vouchers equaled one liang of silver or a string of copper coins? According to the Committee's original declaration, one voucher equaled one RMB.

"Since vouchers are pegged to RMB, we can simply use RMB benchmarks for value—" Li Mei began.

"I'm no economist," Wen Desi interrupted, "but the timelines are different, and RMB values can't be applied directly. Consider: a huanghuali table would fetch a fortune in the 21st century. Using straight RMB conversion, that single table's value would be astronomical."

"We could convert using grain prices," Cheng Dong suggested. "That would give us more realistic purchasing power equivalents."

He proceeded to work out the conversion using rice as the baseline:

Lingao rice price: 1.3 liang of silver per shi (94.4 kg).

Modern Chinese urban rice price: approximately 3.2 RMB per kilogram. Converted to one shi, this came to 302.08 RMB.

Using this unit, the RMB's actual purchasing power in 1628 Lingao worked out to: 302.08 RMB = 1.3 liang of silver. With local prices established, the RMB conversion became straightforward.

After exhaustive cost calculations and market research, the Hainan Women's Cooperative Corporation—abbreviated simply as the "Women's Cooperative"—finally opened its doors. Having launched later than the salt shop, and thanks to Li Mei's considerable public relations acumen, the Cooperative's grand opening far eclipsed its predecessor's quiet debut.

The structure itself remained humble—simple sheds of brick pillars, awnings, and tarps—but it occupied a substantial lot on East Gate Street. Li Mei had lobbied to purchase this land in the company's name, but land policy remained sensitive, and the Committee refused to set precedent. After persistent negotiations, they finally issued a three-year land use permit—the glorious Certificate #001.

Where the salt shop had opened without fanfare, the Women's Cooperative proved decidedly event-savvy. The grand opening featured ten thousand firecrackers specially procured from the county seat. A crude brick archway displayed a wooden plaque bearing five large characters hand-brushed by Xi Yazhou: "Hainan Women's Cooperative." The surrounding brick pillars bore congratulatory plaques—rough-hewn but festive—from an impressive array of donors: the Committee, the East Gate Market Administration, the Military Department, the Security Department, the Nanhai Experimental Demonstration Farm, even the Ma'ao Salt Village and Damei Village committees. Speakers mounted at the doorway played cheerful strains of Xi Xiang Feng on continuous loop.

This familiar spectacle stirred nostalgia in many transmigrators, and even those with no intention of buying found themselves drawn inside to browse. More than ten stalls operated without proper counters—Gou Manor furniture substituted admirably—and console tables and square tables groaned under piles of dazzling goods.

Li Mei had carefully curated the first batch of merchandise. Rural purchasing power was limited, and spending priorities centered on eating and wearing. Porcelain, ornaments, and furniture weren't necessities—commoners couldn't use them and couldn't afford them. Only clothing and daily goods qualified as must-buys. The main stock therefore consisted of clothes and shoes, sorted by fabric, condition, and purpose. Pairing thousands of shoes alone had been a monumental undertaking; the Ming family of four had worked two days and nights straight. Damaged items weren't sold but were carted directly to the paper mill site as raw material.

The Cooperative's entrance immediately became a spectacle in itself. Locals had never witnessed anything like this grand opening, and crowds gathered thick. Li Mei seized the moment, directing her clerks to draw in customers.

The clerks had been carefully selected from among the Damei Village migrants—pleasant-faced, articulate middle-aged women. Freshly bathed and uniformed in matching indigo skirt-and-jacket sets embroidered with "Women's Cooperative," they looked neat and professional. Li Mei herself wore a blue cloth skirt and jacket, inhabiting Ming-era clothing with natural ease. Her face was scrubbed clean, her hair neatly combed; she radiated crisp authority. She stationed herself at the entrance, greeting guests of every stripe—even hesitant locals peering uncertainly from a distance received her not-quite-fluent Lingao dialect greetings. After all, she was earning their money, and customers were Buddha himself.

She understood that old farmers, inexperienced with commerce, often feared entering unfamiliar establishments lest they be cheated. So she positioned attractive items along the street-side stalls—secondhand clothes, shoes, hats, small combs, hairpins. Most commoners had never seen such abundance: silks and satins in every color imaginable. Families with daughters to marry or daughters-in-law to welcome began calculating: perhaps pick up a few pieces. Those tight on cash who felt that poor folk couldn't wear such finery—no problem. Here were new and half-new cloth garments in hemp and cotton, priced cheaper than buying cloth and hiring tailors. Even the most cautious found themselves interested.

Within an hour of opening, all five shop fronts were packed with people rummaging through goods and haggling over prices. Li Mei surveyed the lively scene with deep satisfaction. She found herself thinking that this inexplicable arrival in 1628 perhaps wasn't so terrible after all. Already she was envisioning her future commercial empire—a peak that would have been unreachable in the old timeline. The excitement made her slightly dizzy. Then she remembered: she was nearly sixty. Would she live to see that day? She ought to find a Chinese medicine doctor for pulse diagnosis. Autumn was the season for supplementation, after all—and wasn't it autumn now?

Lost in these thoughts, she spotted a couple emerging through the East Gate—the woman blonde and blue-eyed. Spectators at the entrance, finding fresh novelty, crowded around to gawk at the foreign barbarian woman.

Li Mei parted the crowd to greet them. "Editor-in-Chief Ding! You've come to visit our humble shop?"

The visitors were Ding Ding, the self-proclaimed publisher and editor-in-chief of the Lingao Times, accompanied by his Western girlfriend Pan Lin. They had returned from Damei Village only days ago, having rushed through a special feature: The Crimes of the Gou Family. The galleys had been finished just yesterday. Hearing that the first joint-stock company had opened, Ding Ding's news-sensitive instincts had fired, and the pair had come straight to East Gate Market.

"Sister Li! Your new shop has opened and we weren't among the first to show support—how rude of us." Ding Ding, ever the man of the world, was effusive with courtesy. He glanced around. "I didn't even send a congratulatory plaque—"

"No matter—just publicize us later!" Ding Ding remained an editor without a newspaper, but Li Mei never doubted that the Lingao Times would eventually become a major conglomerate on par with The New York Times. Better to cultivate connections now than regret it later.

"Done! I'm editing today; tomorrow you'll get a special edition!"

"Many thanks! Normally, company openings call for treating everyone to drinks—conditions don't permit that yet. But come to my place in a few days, and I'll cook personally. I still have some Pixian doubanjiang—I'll make you proper Sichuan cuisine!"

"We'll definitely come. I've been dreaming of shuizhu yu. Can't find a single red chili anywhere here." Ding Ding laughed. "Sister Li, give us a tour!"

Li Mei obliged with pleasure, guiding them through the premises. Material conditions remained crude, but commercial management was already on track: purchasing, inventory, and sales were all properly recorded. Since the clerks were illiterate, bookkeeping fell to Li Mei herself. Clerk compensation operated on sales commissions—no fixed wages. Commission percentages varied by product: easy sellers earned lower rates, hard sellers higher ones. Three meals were provided daily, and work hours followed local custom: five in the morning until six in the evening. There were no days off, though family emergencies or illness qualified for leave—which simply meant no income during absences.

By the standards of that other timeline, these conditions severely violated labor laws. In this era, however, they weren't particularly harsh. Ding Ding recalled interviewing an old established Shandong business: even in the early twentieth century, many shop clerks had received zero fixed wages—nothing but room and board from the boss plus year-end red packets.

(Note: Historically, many commercial enterprises paid no base salary. Clerk income derived from two sources: daily tip sharing and year-end profit sharing based on labor shares.)

He noticed ceramic jars arranged in one corner, filled with artemisia tea, a bamboo ladle and wooden bowls standing ready beside them.

"Free tea," Li Mei explained. Many traditional businesses had provided roadside tea for passersby in all seasons—a time-honored commercial virtue. It was popular and excellent for customer flow; people who came merely for tea often found themselves drawn to the merchandise.

"You really know your trade," Ding Ding said admiringly. "Truly—every profession has its masters. Impressive. You'll be the first person here to get properly rich."

"Not necessarily," Li Mei demurred with a smile. "Business looks brisk today, but this is only Day One. The road ahead is long. We're a joint-stock company. Land use fees, construction materials and labor, even the clerks' daily meals—all represent cash expenditures by the company. Except for the Committee's invested goods, the Cooperative hasn't taken a single cent from the Committee. That ought to qualify as a 'self-reliant economic development model,' wouldn't you say? Please do publicize us favorably—it'll help when I lobby for preferential policies later."

"Done!" Ding Ding's eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. Then, lowering his voice conspiratorially: "This Women's Cooperative—are men allowed to invest?"

Li Mei caught his meaning instantly. "Isn't Little Pan a woman?"

They both laughed knowingly.

(End of Chapter)