Farm Girl's Manor
Chapter 1211 - 382: Returning Home, Making Mooncakes_2

Chapter 1211: Chapter 382: Returning Home, Making Mooncakes_2

More than one person had crunched these numbers, and as Zhao Mu watched Mo Yan biting into a sweet apple, he only felt an intense dryness in his throat, "Boss, once this wine is brewed, how much do you plan to sell it for per catty?"

Mo Yan swallowed the apple in her mouth and thought for a moment before saying, "Considering such high costs and the amount of manpower needed, each catty will have to be sold for at least three taels of silver, right? For wines without a vintage, it shouldn’t be sold for less than ten taels of silver."

She hadn’t given much thought to the pricing yet, as it would depend on the quality of the wine produced. If it turned out well and became an instant hit, people would buy it regardless of a high price. Of course, even if the wine wasn’t good, she would make it better. In any case, she couldn’t set the price too low, or it would be difficult to raise it later after producing some high-quality wines.

Moreover, she planned to mix in the vintage wines from the thousands of casks in the Space as special offerings. She wouldn’t sell them for less than fifty taels per catty, considering that the wine from the Space did indeed have health-boosting and life-extending properties; to sell it cheaply would not do the wine justice.

Zhao Mu and the others, seeing the serious expression on Mo Yan’s face, finally believed she wasn’t joking. They found themselves at a loss for words, thinking about how ordinary families had to toil for an entire year and could only afford three to five catties of the cheapest wine.

Mo Yan saw their inner struggle and said with a smile, "Don’t think the wine is too expensive. The cost is very high, and the wine is brewed to profit from the rich. Once the fruit wine business expands, we will inevitably have to pay a significant amount of business taxes; I suppose this could be considered an indirect form of ’robbing the rich to help the poor.’"

With Mo Qingze in the Mo Family, their farmland was exempt from taxes, but that wasn’t the case with their businesses. Like the Fragrant Rice Store, each year at the beginning, they had to pay twenty taels of silver to the Government Office; this was the tax, which wasn’t based on the store’s revenue but on the nature and specific value of the store.

Businesses involving grain, salt, iron, and fabrics typically paid higher taxes; restaurants and tea houses paid a bit less, sixteen taels per year. Venues exclusively for entertainment, like the Qin Building and Chu Pavilion which were very profitable, were taxed even more, up to fifty taels a year.

For wine, the business tax fell between the grain and the brothels, requiring about thirty taels of silver per year. The Mo Family would have a dedicated fruit wine shop to manage their product and aimed to promote it across the entire country, necessitating the opening of more shops nationwide.

The task of promoting the fruit wine was entrusted to Yan Junyu, whose reach and influence was vast, though not quite covering the entire Great Chu. With at least fifty shops to his name, spreading the Mo Family’s fruit wine was simply a matter of time for him.

If things went smoothly, the fruit wine shops would flourish all over in just a few years, and the business taxes they would have to pay would naturally increase. Of course, compared to the profits earned, these taxes would seem somewhat insignificant.

The Court would collect various taxes, typically using ten percent to pay officials’ salaries, fifty percent for military expenses, and twenty percent for disaster relief and water conservancy projects. Great Chu was vast and disaster-prone, and in severe cases, the Court would have to offer support, which meant, to some extent, taking from the people and using it for the people.

As for the remaining twenty percent, a part was used for the expenses of the royal court, with the surplus serving as a reserve. Usually, this reserve came into play during times of war or persistent natural disasters. Under normal circumstances, the national treasury maintained a balance of income and expenditure, but deficits were not uncommon.

Zhao Mu and the others weren’t resentful of the rich; their initial reaction was simply a lament over the immense disparity between people. Seeing Mo Yan explain the situation specially for their sake, any slight bitterness disappeared without a trace.

The truly impoverished families couldn’t afford even ordinary liquor, except possibly during festivals and celebrations. Such non-nourishing luxuries were naturally the purview of the wealthy. If the price of fruit wine was only higher, what difference did it make? It might turn out to be beneficial in a subtle way if the rich ended up paying more in business taxes, thereby indirectly aiding the destitute who lived hand to mouth.

"Boss," said Zhao Mu, feeling a bit embarrassed, "we were narrow-minded."

Mo Yan waved her hand, indicating she didn’t mind. These people had mostly come from poverty, and if they were indifferent to such matters, that would truly be disappointing.