Chapter 73 Expansion

The Seven Seas Trading Company's growth and expansion were generally positive. Though the profit wasn't significant compared to the massive investment, the Seven Seas Trading Company had already established a firm foothold in Nanyang. After attending Ye Tao's wedding, Qi Zhentao was summoned by Tan Xiaopei. After Ye Tao arrived in Yicheng, Qi Zhentao relayed the content of that summons to Ye Tao. It turned out that Tan Xiaopei hoped the Seven Seas Trading Company could further expand its escort fleet. If they could strike a blow against Chunnan from its long coastline when Dongping and Chunnan went to war, that would be ideal. Although Qi Zhentao stated that he would fully support this, he also said that he was old and might not live to see that day, and hoped that Dongping's strategy could be consistently implemented. Otherwise, although the Seven Seas Trading Company had developed, it would be terrible if they were labeled as intending to become independent.

Qi Zhentao even mentioned another possibility, which was to establish a province in Nanyang. Of course, this would require a considerable population migration. Although Dongping was ahead of other countries in terms of naval forces, that didn't mean Dongping was a maritime nation, but only that Dongping was willing to spend money on its navy and knew how to spend it wisely. In terms of climate, Dongping generally belonged to the temperate zone, and if a large-scale migration occurred, acclimatization problems would be serious. Moreover, Dongping's continued development and relatively clean officialdom and economic system allowed most Dongping people to live comfortable lives, and there was no inherent need for migration. Of course, merely as a suggestion, Qi Zhentao's idea was insightful. From this meeting between Tan Xiaopei and Qi Zhentao, Nanyang was formally included as part of Dongping's unification war plan. This made Ye Tao even more stressed, because it meant a constant stream of technical problems would arise with the Seven Seas Trading Company's expansion in Nanyang. Basically, whatever problem Old Man Qi encountered, the first name that popped up was "Ye Tao"...

To prevent his honeymoon from turning into a work trip, Ye Tao firmly refused to go to Crescent Island. The new warship, officially named the Yashui-class by the Ministry of War, was independently developed by the Seven Seas Trading Company's Crescent Island shipyard and referred to as the Tiger Tooth-class in the records of the Seven Seas Trading Company and the Ye Family Workshop. It didn't attract Ye Tao enough to make him ignore everything else and go see it. Besides, the Tiger Tooth-class was about to make its debut at Yicheng Port. He would naturally have the opportunity to board and visit it then. Moreover, after seeing the blueprints, he knew that the Tiger Tooth-class was indeed a very powerful warship, especially suitable for long-range bombardment tactics combining ballistae, Shenbi crossbows, and fierce oil. According to Ye Tao's estimation, strengthening the structure would make it easy to replace the weapons with cannons in the future... Naturally, cannons were something he needed to create.

At this time, it was very unrealistic for him to leave his family, especially his two wives who had entered the Ye family, to go see that cold, large thing. He couldn't bring his family to Crescent Island.

Although Tan Weixin's health had greatly improved, being at sea for a day of turbulence would be unpredictable. As for Dai Qiuyan, she was used to the sea view and had sufficient immunity to seafood.

What reassured Ye Tao was that although he inevitably lacked experience in handling such family relationships, Tan Weixin, Dai Qiuyan, and Sophie got along very well. Perhaps it was because they had plenty of time in the past few years to figure out their respective positions, or perhaps it was because they all cherished the opportunity and feeling of being with Ye Tao. After helping to sort out the tropical crops, Ye Tao stayed at home. They stayed in Chunnuan Residence, living very comfortably, not wanting to go out or receive guests.

They spent almost the entire day together, lying in the quiet room of Chunnuan Residence, enjoying the gentle breeze and chatting about various topics. Dai Qiuyan set up her easel and painted a very large family portrait. In the middle of the painting was naturally Ye Tao, sitting in a grand armchair with a faint but extremely confident smile on his face. Tan Weixin sat beside Ye Tao, her expression was joyful, but her smile was fainter and more reserved, which was Tan Weixin's typical smile, not eye-catching, but not to be ignored. Dai Qiuyan placed herself behind Ye Tao and Tan Weixin, her hand on the back of Ye Tao's chair, and her body leaning forward, her head close to Ye Tao's head, looking very attached. Sophie stood beside Dai Qiuyan, her head slightly lowered, focusing all her attention on Ye Tao. Perhaps the colors of the painting were not very festive. Ye Tao was wearing a cyan-gray coarse cloth robe, Tan Weixin was wearing a moon-white long skirt, Dai Qiuyan was wearing light pink clothes, and Sophie was wearing a Frankish-style long dress, a conservative style, making Sophie look like a governess-type figure in a navy-blue long skirt... These clothes were all too ordinary, just the clothes they usually liked to wear most comfortably. However, the composition of this "temporary" family portrait and the posture and expression of everyone in the painting were too consistent with their relationship.

Dai Qiuyan completed the entire composition in her mind before sketching out the rough composition on paper with a pencil, and then colored it little by little with extremely delicate brushstrokes. After seeing this painting, Ye Tao, Tan Weixin, and Sophie all liked it and looked forward to its completion. It would be the best decoration for their family's residence.

Dai Qiuyan was still somewhat unaccustomed to the change in her identity. Becoming a young woman from a pure girl was not just a simple matter of growing pains. She didn't know why Ye Tao asked her to change her address of "Brother Ye", she didn't understand why Ye Tao would say that it would make him feel very evil. The words like "raising" that occasionally popped out in Ye Tao's half-drunk murmurs also made her confused. However, she could feel Ye Tao's cherishing of her... in a more direct way than before.

Dai Qiuyan was the kind of person who expressed her likes and dislikes very directly. After Tan Weixin and Ye Tao's marriage was confirmed, she had worried whether her "Brother Ye" didn't like her anymore. But when nothing changed, she calmly accepted the fact. Tan Weixin was an amazing person, this was the view that her best friend Tan Weishi constantly instilled in her. Naturally, she also believed that she would never have Tan Weixin's ability to handle so many things. And Tan Weixin had never put on the airs of a princess in front of her, whether in the past or now. She even treated Sophie with an extremely equal attitude.

After the two weddings, when Tan Weixin, Dai Qiuyan, and Sophie first "accidentally" gathered together to negotiate how to get along in the future, Tan Weixin proposed that the three of them take turns, and if Ye Tao was not around, they would postpone it. Dai Qiuyan certainly had no objection, and Sophie was even more surprised.

Dai Qiuyan was the young mistress that the Ye family had long recognized, and this would not be shaken no matter what Tan Weixin's identity was.

And Sophie had always only considered herself Ye Tao's maid. It was very common for a young master of a noble family to keep a maid in his room. Although Ye Tao didn't treat her that way, she didn't have any intention of changing the status quo. However, Tan Weixin placed Sophie in a relatively equal position. She even persuaded Sophie to start using maids herself, which was something that Ye Tao had not been able to do. Ye Tao had long felt that Sophie's energy should be focused on the drawings in Ye Tao's studio, and that her value and significance were far greater than her taking care of Ye Tao's internal affairs. As a beautiful and young woman who cherished her beauty, she also had many things to do. Sophie fully understood that Ye Tao had many projects in mind, anticipated, and pre-researched, which would be slowly released in the future. The work of sorting, copying, and classifying these technical accumulation projects was quite heavy, and she couldn't entrust it to others. As for becoming a member of the rotation lineup, with the same treatment as Tan Weixin and Dai Qiuyan, Sophie had no reason to refuse.

Doing what was most beneficial to Ye Tao was their tacit understanding, and with this tacit understanding, getting along with each other was not difficult at all. This included taking turns being models for Dai Qiuyan, so that Dai Qiuyan could complete the "family portrait" as soon as possible.

Dai Qiuyan, who put a lot of effort into this painting, was also making good progress. She had originally made a portrait for Tan Weixin, and had long studied Tan Weixin's face shape and features. Except for adding a healthy rosiness to Tan Weixin's face in the painting, she didn't make any modifications. As for Sophie, she had been a model for Dai Qiuyan more than once or twice. Her three-dimensional face and figure had always been a subject that Dai Qiuyan liked very much, and she could paint it even without a model. As for painting herself, there were no obstacles except for feeling a little shy when drawing the hairstyle of a young woman. On the contrary, Ye Tao, she found that no matter how hard she tried to think, she could only draw a rough outline, but she couldn't remember the details of Ye Tao's face. She didn't doubt that she could recognize Ye Tao in a crowd, and it seemed that she had never mistaken Ye Tao for anyone else or mistaken anyone else for Ye Tao. So, she was very nervous about this strange situation. When she cautiously asked Ye Tao to stay in front of the easel as a model for the entire time she was painting his part, and said embarrassedly about the problem she had encountered, Tan Weixin half-jokingly and half-sincerely complimented that she and Ye Tao had reached the highest level of acquaintance, knowing, guarding, and forgetting each other, which made her blush for a long time.

"I just realized that when the light comes from this side, Brother Ye is still very handsome," Dai Qiuyan said, carefully looking at Ye Tao's face.

"You don't have to doubt that, I'm always handsome," Ye Tao raised his eyebrows and said shamelessly.

Such jokes wouldn't have happened so naturally before. Dai Qiuyan liked this relaxed feeling. But what made her even happier was that Tan Weixin and Sophie immediately began to find all kinds of embarrassing things about Ye Tao to attack him. Ye Tao wasn't angry at all. His eloquence was already very good, and after dozens of high-quality debates in Danyang for two consecutive months, it had improved even more. He actually refuted some of the more absurd things, perhaps things he didn't remember after being drunk. As for those things that seemed to be his embarrassment, he asked Tan Weixin and Sophie to "provide evidence" one by one, otherwise he would "punish" them.

Tan Weixin simply raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes, which made Ye Tao speechless, while Sophie really began to "provide evidence"... This time Ye Tao had no choice but to beg for mercy. Dai Qiuyan laughed so hard that she couldn't paint anymore. She had to hold her stomach and laugh for a while before she could calm down and continue to draw a few strokes.

"I can't paint anymore... I can't stop laughing." Finally, Dai Qiuyan threw away the pen in her hand and ran to the sofa to hug a pillow, concentrating on chatting and telling jokes.

Just then, Zhao Dazhu arrived. There were some things in the workshop that needed Ye Tao's decision. Ye Tao left with an apologetic look, or rather, Ye Tao couldn't stand this funny scene and ran away.

What Zhao Dazhu came to ask Ye Tao about was indeed a serious issue, which was which project should be allocated the first batch of wootz steel ingots. Due to the excellent quality of wootz steel and the somewhat insufficient quantity of the first batch, several workshops requested to be given priority in the allocation of materials. The first and foremost was the sword and armor workshop. They had already received an order from the Blood Kirin Army, and although the construction period was still very generous, they hoped to fully grasp the material properties and optimize the process, which would take time. Secondly, there was the heavy machinery workshop. In fact, most of the heavy machinery workshop's production capacity was in Danyang, but the Yicheng headquarters was still responsible for supplying the Seven Seas Trading Company and the Samir family with ballistae and other weapons. Now the navy had also squeezed into this queue. In terms of heavy military equipment, the Ye Family Workshop had always used the most durable materials to make those parts that were prone to wear and deformation, such as the crossbar used to fix the torsion spring on the ballista. Zhao Dazhu himself also wanted to use that batch of wootz steel. He wanted to use this batch of wootz steel to comprehensively upgrade the various tools used by the workshop... He felt that his idea was beneficial to the entire workshop, but because this idea didn't directly generate benefits, and it was still a question of how much it could improve productivity, he didn't have the ability to come up with a plan with reference value. Therefore, he had no choice but to come to Ye Tao to make this decision before the workshop started arguing.

"Unless the heavy machinery workshop has some amazing breakthrough, we will fully supply the workshop with tool upgrades," Ye Tao decided immediately. To do a good job, one must first sharpen his tools. This was not a question that needed to be hesitated. "I don't even remember what the heavy machinery workshop needs such good materials for. Why did you even consider their request?"

"Actually... there really is," Zhao Dazhu scratched his head, and then he realized that he couldn't explain the problem clearly. "You'll know when you come to the workshop. They've actually made the blueprints you left behind a long time ago."