Gu Tianqiao was indeed more distant from Lin Xie and the others, watching them being affectionate, standing aside with a heart full of envy. They had originally planned on the road to let Zhao Hu's younger brother be an apprentice in the tea shop, but unexpectedly Lin Xie also wanted to support Zhao Xiong in reading books in the city. He thought that Zhao Hu was just a nominal master, while Lin Xie was truly kind to them. If he could be sincere in doing things, he wouldn't be worse off in the future. Moreover, earlier Lin Xie had told Lin Jingzhong not to hold back and let him take charge of the tea shop as soon as possible, which moved him deeply.
Lin Xian looked at Gu Tianqiao standing there, deep in thought, and called out to him: "Tianqiao, you have a family now, and you're very busy. After the New Year, you'll be bringing your wife and son into the city, don't worry, I'll provide for you with the monthly silver, being frugal, it shouldn't be a problem to support your family in Jiangning City..."
"Tianqiao Dai Yunniang and Xiao Hu Xie Dongjia have arrived." said Gu Tianqiao.
"Don't be so distant, just call me Lin Fu from now on." Lin Fu hoped that Gu Tianqiao would bring his wife and children to Jiangning, not only to win him over but also because he thought that after settling down in Jiangning, Gu's thoughts of the Stone Liang Gu family would naturally fade.
Gu's family still has over a thousand catties of old tea, which was intentionally left behind by Gu's family. The quality of the tea is quite good. In two days, they will have Wu Qi and others transport it here with horse-drawn carts. Lin Jingzhong and his group returned in a hurry and only brought 100 catties of tea goods for emergency use. The tea shop needs to open, and there can't be no tea in the shop.
Send two apprentices from the Gu family and Zhao Hu's brothers to collect the rent, Lin Tie called Lin Jingzhong, Gu Tianqiao and others into the house to discuss business matters: "Jingzhong will follow us back to Shuojia Lane to live, and the shop will be led by Tianqiao to guard, in Jiangning City, operating a tea shop is all about sitting and waiting for customers to come and buy tea... this way of doing business needs to be changed."
"How to change?" Lin Jingzhong asked. He had been the accountant at Linji for two years and all he knew about business operations was "warehousing, sales, and storefronts", as well as small vendors (peddlers) selling on the streets. He also knew that some businesses would hire drum and lion dance teams to promote their reputation during temple fairs and festivals, but ultimately, tea shops still had to wait for customers to come to them, and he didn't know of any other way to do it.
"These days, I've been going to various tea houses in the city center," Lin Xiang thought that due to the constraints of the era, it was impossible to bring all the experiences from a thousand years later to this time. However, some experiences could be borrowed and referenced. "There are over 40 famous tea houses in Jiangning City, which also operate as tea merchants; those unknown, scattered tea houses on the streets and alleys number in the thousands. These tea houses don't care about the quality of tea, each using around 200 kilograms per year, requiring a total of 2 million kilograms of tea. I've also asked the Tea and Horse Tax Office to investigate, and after deducting transportation costs and distribution, the 150,000 households in Jiangning City use approximately 400,000 kilograms of tea per year... which means that tea houses account for almost half of the city's total tea consumption..."
Listening to Lin Xie's analysis, Lin Jingzhong had a kind of sudden enlightenment. He used to think that he was very profound in his views when he was doing accounting at Linji Warehouse, and these days he has been racking his brains over the operation of the tea shop, but he never thought of looking at the problem from this height.
Lin's meaning is very clear, the mode of guarding the shop and selling goods needs to be changed. However, it is impossible for tea shops to employ a large number of people to go door-to-door in the city to sell tea goods. Focusing on selling tea goods to tea houses and tea buildings in the city is feasible. Other tea shops are all about guarding the shop and selling goods, while this side is delivering goods to customers' doors, which naturally has a great advantage. Lin Jingzhong thought to himself that except for when new tea comes onto the market, various tea houses and tea buildings usually stock up on goods every two or three months, which means that employing one apprentice to sell tea goods to fifty tea houses at the same time is not a problem at all. Covering the entire city of Jiangning only requires twenty or thirty apprentices.
Lin Jingzhong became more and more excited as he thought about it, saying: "It seems that we need to invite more people..."
"This isn't busy, let's follow this train of thought and do it slowly..." Lin Mou said. Some things are easy to think about but not necessarily easy to do. Other tea merchants and tea shops see their sales plummeting and can't just sit back and wait for death. Once they discover that we've changed our sales model, they'll either follow suit or band together to resist us. Even if everything goes smoothly, where will they get more tea goods to sell? Before the new tea is released next year, they only have a few thousand catties of old tea from the Gu family. If they stock up on high-priced tea from other merchants, their profits will be much lower. The real source of tea - tea gardens, tea mountains, and tea fields - are all monopolized by local officials and wealthy merchants. Unless we overthrow the current tea-horse-salt-iron monopoly system, there's no way for Jicloud Society to buy tea directly from the source."
In this era, tea consumption was also a habit that was unimaginable after a thousand years of drinking canned beverages, almost reaching the point where "all gentlemen and villains are fond of it, and all the rich and poor use it". The imperial court's annual tea tax revenue reached as high as 2 million taels of silver, accounting for nearly two-tenths of the country's annual tax revenue. Tea trade was absolutely a major commodity trade that coexisted with salt and iron trade.
Lin Jingzhong's thoughts were not as far-reaching or profound as Lin Xian's, but he was more practical and could focus on details. He didn't have the ambition to monopolize all the tea goods needed by the thousands of teahouses in the city, which was impossible anyway; even if it were possible, it would offend all his fellow businessmen. In Jiangning, before he had established himself, it was entirely possible that one of his competitors might set fire to his tea shop at night. However, Lin Jingzhong thought that with this plan, starting from the area around Cangqian Bridge, using the thousands of catties of old tea from Gu's family as a foundation, and then adjusting two or three thousand catties of tea from other shops, he could open up sales channels within two to three months. Then, after purchasing several tens of thousands of catties of new tea from Gu's family next spring, he wouldn't have to worry about inventory piling up in his hands - Lin Jingzhong had been worried about the sales channel for Gu's family's 40,000 catties of new tea next year. With the New Year approaching and only four months left before the first batch of new tea went on sale.
Gu Tianqiao was certain that Lin Xie was being sincere with him, and if it were any other tea house, they wouldn't have let him in on these details. With his limited experience, he couldn't interject at the moment, so he just listened intently by the side.
Lin Fu again reminded Lin Jingzhong and Gu Tiancheng to pay attention to those carefully selected good teas, even if it meant spending more money on exquisite packaging. As they were discussing this matter, a commotion was heard from outside. Lin Fu walked into the middle courtyard and saw that there were seven or eight beggars with staffs and bowls surrounding the entrance of the shop, refusing to leave. The two apprentices from the Gu family had no experience in dealing with such situations, one blocking the entrance of the shop to prevent the beggars from entering, while the other came to report to Lin Fu.
Lin tied up his sleeves and didn't care, Lin Jingzhong pulled Gu Tianqiao out to deal with it, after a brief negotiation, those seven or eight beggars dispersed. Lin Jingzhong walked back and said: "It's all like this everywhere, if you don't want to be bothered by beggars, you have to pay a beggar's tax. Just agreed on the price, 50 copper coins per month. After paying the beggar's tax, they will post a gourd paper on the gate as a door god later, and then we won't have to worry about being bothered by beggars... Alas, it hasn't officially opened yet, in two days the local rascals will also come to ask for money.
Beggars in the city are not afraid of being caught by the government and put in jail to eat at public expense, so beggars are more difficult to deal with than street urchins. Even a large business like Qingfeng Hang cannot escape alms. The monthly alms of fifty cents is still reasonable, just to keep things quiet, otherwise, seven or eight beggars would surround the shop every day, and business would be impossible.
As for the case of Qingpi, Lin Xie thought for a moment and said to Lin Jingzhong: "I have an appointment with Zhang Yubo, the left commander of Jiangning Prefecture, today. You come with me. In this Jiangning City, the security and anti-theft work on the north shore of Longcangpu are under the jurisdiction of the Left Commander's Office. Today you will meet Zhang Yubo, and in the future it will be more convenient for you to deal with those officials under the Left Commander's Office..."
Zhao Hu led his younger brother back to Bianji Alley first, while Lin Dai took Lin Jingzhong and Zhou Pu to the government office.
***********************
Met with Zhang Yubo, not because I was worried that the Ji Yun social gathering would be harassed by local evil forces in the future, but because I wanted to know some inside information about the Jiangdong Procuratorate from Zhang Yubo.
Although the Jiangning Garrison Left Commandant was subordinate to the Jiangning Prefecture, Zhang Yuber, as one of the civil officials in charge of local security forces in Jiangning, also had to follow the orders of the Inspectorate's military affairs. He was half-in and half-out of the Inspectorate's yamen. Moreover, when Zhang Yuber first arrived in Jiangning from the capital, he served as a seventh-rank secretary in the Jiangdong Inspectorate, before being promoted to Left Commandant of the Jiangning Garrison. Therefore, he knew many details about the internal affairs of the Jiangdong Inspectorate.
Although Zhang Yuber hopes to be a county magistrate, he never dares to slack off in front of the Surveillance Commissioner. Gu Wuchen, as a new noble of the Chu Party and also from Dongyang, shares the same thoughts with Zhang Yuber and Chen Yuanliang, the county magistrate of Miling, hoping to label himself as part of the Chu Party through Gu Wuchen.
At the Dongyang Guild Hall attending Yang Pu's welcome banquet, Zhang Yuber heard Yang Pu mention that Lin Xie refused Gu Wuduan's invitation to join his staff, knowing he was a person valued by Gu Wuduan.
Lin Xian invited everyone to gather at the Fang Lou, and Zhang Yu Bo naturally had to squeeze out time from his many banquet invitations.
Although Su Mei became famous in Fanlou, her flower plaque is still only placed in Fanlou. Lin Xie arrived in Jiangning these days and will come to Fanlou for the first time tonight. Not for anything else, but because Fanlou invited others to a banquet, plus the cost of placing the flower plaque, which cannot be less than ten taels of silver; if it weren't for this special occasion to entertain Zhang Yubo, a figure in Jiangning's Dongyang Party, Lin Xie wouldn't dare to be so extravagant. Besides, he also invited Lin Mengde to accompany him.
Jiangning is the capital of this dynasty, the southern capital of the empire, with high-ranking officials and nobles as numerous as clouds. A seventh-grade official like him can't be considered anything, but the left commander of the Military Affairs Department is equivalent to the director of the Public Security Bureau after a thousand years, and in Jiangning City, he is considered a pragmatic faction. Lin Lian and Lin Mengde first met in front of the Fanlou, and when they entered the Fanlou to arrange their seats, they didn't pay much attention to the staff inside. They waited for Zhang Yuber to arrive outside the Fanlou, and then two attendants wearing brocade clothes rushed out to enthusiastically lead them into the hall.
