Chapter 1 How Fast

"You found a shop so quickly?" After a day of busy work, Ye Tao returned to the small courtyard, greeted by Tan Weixin's kind and gentle smile. Whether these shop-finding and opening matters must be done by oneself, and whether it seems genuine or not in the eyes of others is a minor issue. The main thing is that both Tan Weixin and Ye Tao felt that since they came out like this, it would be a great pity not to experience life properly. Although it was a bit tiring, and they had to watch other people's faces somewhat during negotiations, Ye Tao was not an arrogant person to any extent. He only felt that fighting with others was endlessly enjoyable and didn't feel it was hard work at all.

"Yeah, in Fenglian Alley, right behind Six Ministries Street, it's considered a good location. It's just that the price of this place was really impossible to negotiate down. It actually cost more than seven thousand taels of silver, and it seems a bit bigger than the small shop we originally planned. However, a fellow popped up right away, and seeing that we had acquired that place, he felt it was too big and joined in. I rented the backyard part of the shop to that fellow. We'll have someone build a wall to separate the two sides later, so we won't disturb each other." Ye Tao chuckled, recounting the results of his busy day.

"Oh? What's the background of that fellow?" Tan Weixin knew that if it wasn't necessary, Ye Tao would rather leave that part empty or use it for other purposes than sublet it.

"He's a merchant from Chun Nan. Now that the two countries are at war, he has no choice but to switch from a traveling merchant to a local trade merchant. Fortunately, Xi Ling has learned its lesson now and doesn't dare to randomly eliminate merchants from enemy countries. As long as they don't commit crimes, they generally don't care, so this fellow can survive. He needs a convenient place to run his business. That fellow is from the Jin Yuan Trading Company." Ye Tao said with a smile.

"What a coincidence." Tan Weixin also smiled. The Jin Yuan Trading Company was one of the key targets they were going to tackle in Chun Nan later. Although the Jin Yuan Trading Company was not the largest trading company in the Chen family's industry, it was the one Tan Weixin felt was the most difficult to control. This was mainly because the business scope of this trading company was too broad. The Jin Yuan Trading Company was the kind that had been engaged in international trade and freight transportation. They had fixed suppliers and supply targets, as well as random sources of goods, but basically all sales targets were within Chun Nan. Although the profit of each transaction was meager due to the loss of long-distance transportation, and considering the average time spent on each transaction, the profit could be said to be thin. Sometimes, the temporarily organized sources of goods might even lose a little, but they couldn't withstand the persistence and stability of this business model. There were always several main agents in each aspect responsible for the overall operation, responsible for managing the procurement and transportation of goods in a certain area. Apart from the Jin Yuan Trading Company's headquarters, these people scattered in various places were the most valuable asset of the Jin Yuan Trading Company. As long as these people were there, relying on the powerful adaptive system, the Jin Yuan Trading Company could make a comeback at any time, even if the headquarters was gone. And these regional agents located throughout the mainland had different backgrounds. Some were locals, some were sent from the Chun Nan headquarters, some were full-time agents, while others had their own other industries and only managed the Jin Yuan Trading Company's business part-time. Anyway, no matter who it was, it would take some time to understand this system.

And the one Ye Tao encountered was also a regional person in charge with quite a background who was responsible for operating activities in Xi Ling. However, suddenly having to change from international trade to local operations made that merchant named Xiao Xingyuan a little confused. And just when he was at a loss, he ran into Ye Tao. Ye Tao's style of doing business was not to unilaterally lower prices. When purchasing all the land of that shop, Ye Tao only lowered the price below his psychological price, which was actually a pretense. Ye Tao and the others had brought enough money, with silver notes of up to three million taels with them. However, after reaching the price, Ye Tao persuaded the other party to write a series of other conditions into the transaction documents. The person who sold the house also had to bear the cost of a renovation and thorough cleaning of the shop. This kind of negotiation method in which both parties got what they wanted made Xiao Xingyuan feel a little good about him. And later, Xiao Xingyuan and Ye Tao became business neighbors, so they would have to visit each other often.

"What about tomorrow? What are you going to do tomorrow?" Tan Weixin asked about Ye Tao's arrangements. Although she was a senior economist, she was not very good at the practical aspects of doing business. She was only good at numbers, concepts, and methods.

Ye Tao thought for a while and said, "I have to find another shop. It's not a solution for the Special Operations Unit to be idle in Anqing now. Moreover, that's a good opportunity to do big business."

"Big business?" Tan Weixin said with a chuckle, "What business have you thought of again?"

"When chatting with Xiao Xingyuan, he mentioned one thing. In Anqing, the Xi Ling Dynasty has a total of three treasuries. One is the most important national treasury located in the palace. One is the people's treasury in the west of the city, and the other is the standing treasury in the south of the city. I actually knew this before, but I went to the south of the city to take a look just now. The standing treasury in the south of the city is in the downtown area of the south of the city, which is mainly a treasury for accumulating daily fiscal revenue. Although Xi Ling is now financially tight, the standing treasury will not be touched much. The main reason is that there are all kinds of large and small silver ingots and broken silver in the standing treasury, which is not convenient for dealing with regular large expenditures. There is now probably a little less than one million taels of silver piled up there. This treasury is counted and smelted once a year, probably after collecting the first commercial tax of the year in March or April. During the time between counting, there is basically only one deposit every three days. I think…it is actually possible to put our minds to this place."

Ye Tao's words made Tan Weixin stunned. Then, she said with a smile, "Only one million taels of silver, it won't do any harm to Xi Ling, and it won't do us any good, is it fun? How come you, a grown-up, have come to Anqing, the capital of Xi Ling, and want to be a bandit?"

Ye Tao shook his head and said, "It's really not for that one million taels of silver. Such a small amount of money, I really can't see anything now. However, it's really fun. We open a shop on the street next door, doing business honestly and making money in the open, and secretly dig a tunnel underneath and dig in, and then move everything away, isn't that fun?"

Tan Weixin immediately understood Ye Tao's idea, he just wanted to copy movies. Woody Allen's "Small Time Crooks"... The problem is, this time Ye Tao really wanted to steal those silver taels to play with. He just wanted to find some fun for the Special Operations Unit soldiers.

"So that's how it is. Actually, I would rather you develop film technology. There's really no fun now." Tan Weixin sighed.

"If Zhang Wei or Song Feng, or Barrett were sent to prison, and they were given a hammer, they may not be able to chisel it out. The conditions for the downloaded prison are not so good, and there is no privacy or anything. However, there are really a lot of things that can be copied." Ye Tao also laughed. "I would like to see what their expressions will be when they see that they can earn more than one million taels a year doing business, but my task for them is to steal that one million taels."

Tan Weixin nodded and said, "Yes, yes, it's really interesting. I'll help with this. However, it's not that easy to earn one million taels doing small business. What are you going to let them sell?"

"Naturally, if you want to copy, you have to copy completely, cookies." Ye Tao curled his lips and said.

Tan Weixin smiled and did not respond. In this time and space, it is really not easy to earn one million taels by relying on cookies. However, if other means are involved, it is not impossible. Tan Weixin's mind could immediately conjure up all kinds of ideas.

"What about our own shop? You asked me to take over the shop, but you didn't tell me what to sell." Ye Tao asked.

"We came to Xi Ling to deal with people, it's best to have a home base. There are people from all walks of life who we deal with, but there are also many people with some status. We, these fallen commoners, should also have a little style, right?" Tan Weixin teased. "So, how about we open a teahouse? A more elegant environment, more attentive service, with a hall and private rooms. As for the types of tea, naturally it won't be those small teahouses with only black tea, green tea, pu-erh tea, and oolong tea. We can come up with some tricks. For example, those blended teas, flower teas, fruit teas, and things like that. As for snacks and tea snacks, we can research local products and see what we can come up with. As for the decoration, you always take care of it, but don't do it yourself. Otherwise, the details of those carved railings and painted buildings will reveal your identity, which won't be fun."

Ye Tao smiled awkwardly and said, "Okay, I won't play tricks. What's the name of the teahouse? According to our usual naming principles, what should it be called this time? Should it be called Yuan Yuan Yuan, or Yi Cha Yi Zuo?"

After thinking carefully, they decided to call it Yuan Yuan Yuan. After all, the name Yi Cha Yi Zuo was too modern for this time and space.

In the following days, Ye Tao continued to work hard on these two things. The Special Operations Unit soldiers had earthwork projects and other items during their usual training, so there was no obstacle to digging this kind of not-very-difficult tunnel. However, in terms of stealing the standing treasury, Ye Tao fooled them well. Ye Tao took Zhang Wei and Song Feng and spent a morning buying two small shops just one street away from the Nanshi Tax Office where the standing treasury was located, and then began to clean up and prepare to redecorate.

In the afternoon, Ye Tao and Jin Ze, who was disguised as "Little Jin," stayed in the place they bought in the east of the city, carefully studied the two-story building that was only two and a half years old and well-maintained, and basically finalized the decoration plan. Ye Tao didn't dare to play too many tricks. There were still people from Ye's Workshop in the Special Operations Unit and the people who came to Xi Ling this time, plus himself, so it was more than enough to handle the general difficulty of decoration. However, they couldn't possibly do it themselves after all. After doing a little research on the local construction workshops or private contracting teams in Anqing, Ye Tao really didn't have the confidence to play any tricks. He now knew why Ye's Construction Firm was such a high-profit institution. His clear pricing strategy was really providing Australian air-freighted lobster service at the price of crawfish for those merchants who traveled north and south and had suffered enough in this area.