Inside Boya Trading House, all the clerks had stopped playing cards. Everyone was half-heartedly greeting the few customers who accidentally wandered in, while watching with great interest the little girl on the sofa, who was completely bewildered.
She clutched an abacus, held a pen in her mouth, with a large pile of draft papers covered in various scribbles in front of her. Then she threw down the pen, sometimes grinning foolishly, sometimes frowning with worry—she had been in a daze for half an hour.
The clerks all knew she was Boss Rong’s good friend, though in people’s minds at the time, pure friendship between men and women was unimaginable. Especially unmarried ones with no family ties, no matchmaker, no betrothal—apart from romance, what else could they be doing? Ordinary people couldn’t think of anything.
But the clerks also knew Boss Rong’s character: his brain had been addled by studying abroad, full of strange ideas. He looked down on all the virtuous and gentle Chinese maidens, but was quite popular among Western women. Unfortunately, the Western women who came to China were either married or nuns, none of his business, so he just kept wasting year after year.
Finally past thirty, and not short of money either. Those landlords and wealthy men his age, the anxious ones, already had grandchildren who could talk. But he was content to hold his English books closer than any girl. His ancestors in heaven must be so anxious they’d appear in his dreams to urge him on.
Recently, he’d suddenly met this sweet little girl who visited the shop several times a day. Everyone thought there was finally hope, figuring that if Boss Rong gave himself wedding leave, they could also rest for a couple of days. But this hope was quickly dashed—just listen to what Rong Hong chatted with her about: America, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, economics, and people’s livelihood…
This girl even ordered Boss Rong around, making him transport several boatloads of tea from thousands of miles away!
Too outrageous. Better not to marry her.
So everyone generally speculated that this big-footed girl was probably Rong Hong’s distant relative, a sister or niece of some sort, and a spoiled younger generation at that, which would explain the “friendship” between them that resembled that between men.
So although Lin Yuchan occupied the most comfortable sofa and devoured half a box of the milk biscuits meant for guests in one go, no one dared complain about her, maintaining very polite attitudes.
Manager Chang approached tentatively and asked, “Miss Lin, those tea leaves in the warehouse… did you buy them all? They’re not our boss’s?”
Lin Yuchan replied with a grin, “The quality’s not bad, right?”
Manager Chang’s name was Paul, in his twenties, round and fair-complexioned with a very literary and harmless appearance. He was educated at a missionary school, good at both English and arithmetic, but unfortunately shy and not good at socializing, hitting walls when seeking work at various trading houses. Fortunately, he met Rong Hong, who greatly praised his English poetry published in newspapers and hired him at a high salary to be the face of the trading house.
Unfortunately, his business capabilities were mediocre. Seeing so much tea piled up like mountains, he was completely baffled.
Four thousand pounds of tea was no small amount. Back when Wang Quan was busy at Defeng Trading’s courtyard for most of the day, weighing basket after basket, he only collected about two thousand pounds, which took a group of coolies several hours to transport.
Even if Lin Yuchan suddenly unlocked her meridians, she couldn’t stuff so many boxes into her rental room.
The dock warehouses were damp and dirty, with exorbitant rent. So Rong Hong generously suggested they could first hire a cart to transport everything to his small mansion’s basement.
Lin Yuchan happily paid the transportation fee. It was much cheaper than rent anyway.
Now the mansion’s basement was packed full, and the first floor’s shelves, second floor’s guest rooms, and the storage room under the stairs were all partially requisitioned. Lin Yuchan stared at these old boxes, her heart full of sweet troubles.
With so much tea, without a separate storefront and three to five clerks to help, how could she sell it all?
Could she carry it basket by basket to the Bund to set up a stall?
Small businesses had their methods, and bulk commodities had their rules. The two weren’t entirely compatible.
After pondering for a while, she came up with a lousy idea.
“Mr. Rong.”
Rong Hong had just finished unpacking upstairs in his bedroom and was coming downstairs when he saw Lin Yuchan blocking the stairway, greeting him with a bright smile.
The little girl was beautiful as a painting, radiant and glowing, her whole body seeming to have inexhaustible energy, her small face written with big dreams.
She first said, “I’ve sampled and evaluated these four thousand pounds of raw tea—they’re all very promising good teas. Your eye for quality is impressive.”
Rong Hong quickly replied modestly, “I just followed the memo you wrote for me. I simply did as instructed.”
His mood was also extremely pleasant. Buying over four thousand pounds of tea for less than a hundred silver dollars—probably no one in the entire Qing Dynasty had ever made such a profitable deal. Although he wasn’t the one getting the bargain, he had at least opened his eyes and made the trip worthwhile.
Lin Yuchan’s second sentence was, “This grade of export raw tea has a purchase price of seventeen taels of silver per hundred pounds in Guangzhou. I’ll give you a generous discount—ten taels per hundred pounds.”
Rong Hong’s smile froze. “Ah? You want to sell the tea to me?”
“Yes,” Lin Yuchan smiled. “This way, you get cheap goods, and I can immediately recover my capital. We both win.”
Rong Hong couldn’t stand still and ran behind the counter to work his abacus.
Chang Baoluo calculated faster than him and blurted out, “Ten taels per hundred pounds, four thousand pounds means four hundred taels. Four hundred taels of silver—that’s five hundred seventy silver dollars. Miss Lin, how much did you say your capital was? One hundred? This… this is nearly six times the profit! Even opium trafficking doesn’t make six times the profit these days!”
As he spoke, he shook his head and frowned at her. Not daring to voice criticism, but his expression clearly said: Miss, aren’t you being too greedy! This isn’t how you fleece acquaintances!
But Lin Yuchan was completely unperturbed and smiled, “Rest assured. You won’t find tea this cheap anywhere in Shanghai’s tea shops and docks. I’m making money, but Mr. Rong is also getting a bargain.”
Chang Baoluo felt this little girl was simply ungrateful and weakly reminded, “But this tea was transported thousands of miles by our boss to help you…”
“The gratitude fee and trouble fee are already calculated into the price,” Lin Yuchan raised her little chin. “Otherwise, if it were someone else, I wouldn’t give them such a cheap price.”
This wasn’t wrong. If she went directly to the Bund to find trading house compradors and quoted fourteen or fifteen taels of silver, the trading houses would probably happily take it and immediately ship it for export.
Chang Baoluo shook his head. The little girl was even acting coy and spoiled now. Some distant relative indeed.
“Boss, Mr. Rong, wouldn’t it be better to use this money to buy tea yourself?” The clerks listening to the commotion also chimed in, “If you buy now, wouldn’t you be paying five or six times more for nothing? This little girl is too sharp, treating you like a sheep to fleece. Don’t be fooled.”
Lin Yuchan looked at these clerks in disbelief. Who was treating Rong Hong like a sheep to fleece? Say that again?
Only then did Rong Hong slowly finish working his abacus. After pondering for a while, he said, “Anyone can be wise after the fact. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of it beforehand… To be honest, Miss Lin, in all my years of business, I’ve never encountered such an unconventional approach as yours. I’ve long known about the trade blockade between the Qing court and the Taiping army, and I’ve had that travel permit for months, but I always thought of it as sightseeing and investigation—I never thought I could legally profit from it…”
Rong Hong deeply embodied the American spirit of the rule of law and greatly respected private property. They had already signed a purchasing agreement with handprints and signatures complete. The tea was bought with Lin Yuchan’s money, so it belonged to her—he wasn’t the least bit envious.
Rong Hong pulled out a cigar from his pocket and said casually, “I’ll buy it.”
The clerks all clicked their tongues, “Boss, you…”
Rong Hong was displeased, “What? Do you all think I’m so otherworldly? I just disdain to bow down for a mere pittance, but I don’t have a grudge against money! Why wouldn’t I want a bargain that falls into my lap?!”
The clerks heard their boss bare his heart for the first time and, thinking of their daily slacking that had probably cost him countless profits, immediately fell silent as cicadas, weakly returning to their posts while mentally reviewing their social connections, wondering how to find new jobs.
Lin Yuchan was also overjoyed, “Really?”
If Boss Rong was willing to take over, she wouldn’t need to worry about renting a storefront, hiring clerks, finding a workshop…
Six times profit, dear!
Rong Hong said, “But I have one condition.”
Indeed, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Lin Yuchan said seriously, “I’m listening.”
Rong Hong said, “Although I’m taking the tea, neither I nor my staff understand the tea market very well and lack relevant experience. I’ll pay an additional two hundred silver dollars to hire you to process these tea leaves properly so I can sell them at a good price.”
Lin Yuchan said “Mm” and, beating a clerk to the comfortable sofa, quickly calculated.
Two hundred silver dollars seemed like a huge sum, but it was just an operating fund for her to freely manage—the labor and material costs needed to process the tea would all come from these two hundred dollars. What remained would be her labor fee.
And this was an additional condition for “Rong Hong buying her tea.” This meant she couldn’t make too much money on the processing fee. This was just after-sales service attached to selling the tea.
Although Rong Hong wasn’t familiar with the tea business, his scholar’s brain worked quickly, and his rough estimate of processing costs was pretty close to the mark.
Lin Yuchan had worked at Defeng Trading for so long, helping with all kinds of odd jobs, so she was familiar with the basic processing procedures.
Although Defeng Trading had a secret tea roasting formula, so-called secret formulas were just icing on the cake, able to turn A-grade tea into A+ grade to attract the most discerning customers.
Like luxury skincare products of later generations, perhaps 99% of the ingredients were the same as cheaper alternatives, but because of that one percent that was rare in the world, the price skyrocketed.
Business requires focusing on the big picture. Starting from scratch, she didn’t need to pursue that one percent.
Even if she didn’t know the specific details of that secret formula, as long as she strictly followed the most basic tea roasting techniques with a conscientious and responsible attitude, producing B-grade or above finished tea shouldn’t be a problem.
She silently calculated the required costs, bounced up from the sofa, pulled Rong Hong’s sleeve, and dragged him to the small garden outside the mansion.
“Mr. Rong, I can help you with the processing,” Lin Yuchan nodded toward the clerks inside the mansion. “But can you guarantee that once the tea is processed, these lazy uncles can help you sell it smoothly? To be honest, the raw tea you collected has been sitting in warehouses for months after drying—it can’t compare to new tea. After roasting, it needs to be sold quickly, or it will affect the quality.”
Rong Hong also knew his clerks were somewhat hopeless. He pondered worriedly for a while, then asked, “Do you have any suggestions?”
She smiled innocently and shook her head. She couldn’t very well suggest he fire them directly—that would be too presumptuous.
Besides, even if he hired a new batch, like boss like employees—Rong Hong couldn’t train a group of cunning sales geniuses either.
If she planned to do a one-time deal with Rong Hong, take the money and part ways, she had no need to worry about the sales channels for these tea leaves.
But she couldn’t squander her reputation like that. She wouldn’t easily give up any friend who treated her kindly in the Qing Dynasty.
More importantly, she figured that Rong Hong offering two hundred silver dollars for her to build a tea processing supply chain from scratch—she was confident she had the ability, but if used only once, it would be too wasteful.
She pulled Rong Hong further away, lowered her voice, and tentatively said, “Actually, you could also use this opportunity…”
The spring rain had stopped. Water droplets shimmered on the lush ivy, and her sun-facing face glowed brilliantly.
“Mr. Rong, you now have triple citizenship—Qing, America, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Without exaggeration, probably no second person in the world can match this status. This is a once-in-a-millennium opportunity. Your capital is a hundred times mine. If you make another trip, you could be financially free for the next three years, able to do whatever you want without being limited by money.
“The people there lack money and sales channels. Your purchasing from them breaks the trade blockade and provides emergency relief. Buying at low prices isn’t heartless—it’s your deserved reward. Even if the Qing officials disapprove, they can’t do anything to you as a ‘foreign merchant.’ You won’t bear any legal risk.”
It wasn’t her fault that the Qing had made itself lose sovereignty and split its territory. She couldn’t make the foreign powers take back the treaties they’d signed—she could only make full use of the rules of the game without violating her conscience.
Rong Hong bit on an unlit cigar, studying her for a long time, then suddenly smiled, “Miss Lin, I regret not writing that customs job application more carefully.”
Lin Yuchan was confused by his leap in thinking, then figured out what he meant.
She smiled frankly, “Robert Hart is a progressive, strong man full of brilliant ideas, but you’re a Yale honor student—you’d be more than capable of being his superior. Why sell yourself short?”
Rong Hong had never met a sixteen-year-old girl with such sharp thinking. He only knew she had worked under Guangzhou tea merchants, then, by chance, joined the customs service. Based on experience, he assumed all her insights came from learning under the new Inspector General Hart.
So he momentarily regretted missing out on a good boss.
Of course, Lin Yuchan couldn’t explain that she had benefited from over a century of political and economic history. In twenty-first-century China, an outstanding female student well-versed in literature and history might still lack social experience, but she already carries the entire world in her chest.
She could only go with the flow and admit she had indeed learned from Hart.
This wasn’t entirely a lie. During her time at customs, she had indeed made rapid progress, feeling like she’d finally started university as promised.
But Rong Hong still smiled and said to her, “The girl’s thinking is excellent, but still lacks some social experience.”
Lin Yuchan blushed, “…”
Although… did he need to be so direct about exposing her shortcomings…
Rong Hong casually cleaned dead leaves from the ivy while saying, “My status exempts me from official harassment—that’s true. But you don’t know how many desperate outlaws with red eyes from hunger roam those thousands of miles of wilderness ravaged by war, caring nothing for how many countries’ passports you hold. On this trip to Nanjing, relying on my passport, I requested protection from Taiping elite troops all the way, yet still encountered bandits several times, fortunately without serious incident. On the return journey with your tea, one of the sailors I hired had ill intentions and led a group of local thugs. The ‘Heavenly Soldiers’ escorting me feared trouble and advised me to pay for peace—actually, I didn’t tell you, but your eighty-five silver dollars originally bought four thousand four hundred pounds of tea. Those four hundred pounds extra went to honor the local土地公. I didn’t mention it before—I hope you don’t mind.”
Lin Yuchan was speechless for a long moment, her face completely red.
“Of course I don’t mind—that’s normal wastage… Mr. Rong, I’m truly sorry. The risks you took were greater than I imagined. I shouldn’t have so casually asked you to…”
Rong Hong laughed heartily, “You have a child’s mind. My accepting the invitation to Nanjing was already risking execution. Your few boatloads of tea are nothing—just chocolate chips on a cake, not worth mentioning!”
Lin Yuchan was amused by his metaphor and laughed, “Chocolate chips on a cake.”
This person usually thought in English. He made her hungry and forget her earlier embarrassment and anxiety.
Rong Hong threw a handful of dead leaves into the flower bed and smiled, “Collecting thousands of pounds of tea for eighty-five silver dollars, I wasn’t without envy. I even calculated that with my credit and connections, I could get loans of tens of thousands of taels from Shanghai trading houses and foreign banks to buy a million pounds of good tea, not even one-tenth of the backlogged green tea in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Selling at regular prices, I’d never have to worry about money again in this lifetime.
“Sounds pretty good, right? But then I thought again—if I dared to travel with so much silver and so much tea, it would be impossible not to attract attention. If I encountered desperados who chopped off my head full of knowledge along with those ignorant, muddled heads, my lifelong ambitions would come to nothing. That would be too much of a loss—I don’t do losing business.”
Lin Yuchan nodded. True. Two or three boats on the canal could still pass as ordinary travelers, but if there were suddenly a fleet with each boat heavily loaded and riding low in the water, everyone would know it was a fat target.
She asked, “What about carrying bank drafts?”
Then she thought of the answer herself. Bank drafts from the Qing couldn’t possibly circulate in Taiping territory.
She suddenly had a wild idea and immediately said, “Couldn’t you hire a security agency?”
Rong Hong looked at her strangely, “What’s a security agency?”
Lin Yuchan: “…”
I must have come to a fake Qing Dynasty. Period dramas are all lies?
Rong Hong then understood, “You mean a security company? There are foreign-funded ones, but they only serve large trading houses and wouldn’t accept employment from an independent Chinese merchant like me. As for Chinese-operated armed fleets…”
He shrugged with a helpless smile, “The local thugs who made me ‘pay for peace’ this time were brought in by the sailors I hired. After disembarking, I went to complain to his boss, but was passed around like a ball—I didn’t even see a manager and had to give up. Tell me, can I trust them?”
Indeed, with the country poor and weak, the court’s military and government rotten to the core, with the roof beam crooked, the whole house leaned—many small traders also had no commercial reputation or credit, living day to day, grabbing what they could.
When the country first opened its doors, these untrustworthy merchants who only knew how to cheat and swindle poured onto the world stage in large numbers, shocking foreign merchants from mature capitalist societies. They further considered this a national character flaw of the Chinese people, held it in extreme contempt, and criticized it extensively.
Lin Yuchan fell silent. There was no quick solution to this problem. As long as the soil remained rotten, there would always be scavengers jumping around everywhere.
She had to abandon this wild idea, went back inside Boya Trading House, gathered up the draft papers, and said to Rong Hong, “Two hundred silver dollars isn’t enough. Give me two hundred fifty… no, two hundred forty dollars. I’ll have four thousand pounds of refined quality tea roasted for you within a month.”
Rong Hong also quickly switched states and bargained with her, “Two hundred twenty.”
“Deal.” Lin Yuchan smiled and lowered her voice, “If this tea can’t be sold later… feel free to come find me, I’ll quote you another price.”
Rong Hong cheerfully had someone open the safe, took out a bag of silver dollars, and counted them clearly on the counter.
Seven hundred ninety total—five seventy for buying her tea, two twenty for subsequent processing costs. Lin Yuchan had never seen so many silver dollars piled together—her heart pounded fiercely, and her breathing became somewhat irregular.
She touched the eagle’s wing on a trade dollar, thinking, “All of this is mine now.”
“Temporarily mine,” she reminded herself. “I’ll have to spend that two hundred plus later.”
But it was still the first time she’d touched so much money.
Still, she counted out ninety dollars and generously returned them to Rong Hong, “The tea transport involved greater risks than I estimated—you deserve more compensation. Also, according to Guangzhou tea merchant customs, cash payments can get a five to eight percent discount. I’ll still give you the friendship rate—ten percent off.”
The clerks behind them were making faces and shaking their heads at Rong Hong. This girl got seven hundred dollars for nothing and still acted generous!
Rong Hong just smiled and took back the ninety silver dollars.
“Miss Lin, carrying so much money, you’d better call a carriage.”
Lin Yuchan nodded her thanks, shouldered the heavy bag, and walked out of the small mansion.
The plants in the garden had grown new leaves with a fresh, pleasant fragrance.
Having been in the Qing Dynasty for almost a year, she now had a net worth of four hundred eighty silver dollars, equivalent to nearly three hundred fifty taels of silver. She was filled with mixed emotions.
At current prices, this money could buy a small courtyard, or twenty-some clever servants, or three to four thousand dou of rice—enough to feed a small village.
This was the total lifetime earnings of an ordinary long-term worker in the Qing Dynasty, and also nearly half a month’s salary of Imperial Maritime Customs Inspector General Hart.
It was also the customs fine that a certain unfortunate new shipping company owner couldn’t scrape together despite exhausting all efforts…
Lin Yuchan’s eyes suddenly brightened, and she turned to run back to Boya Trading House.
“Mr. Rong,” with a thud, she rushed in and dropped the money bag, calling to Rong Hong, who was about to go upstairs to rest. “If there were a Chinese security… security company that provided boats, personnel, and guaranteed reputation, ensuring your safety on the road so you could transport stranded tea freely, buying tens of thousands of pounds if you wanted—how much would you be willing to pay?”