Glory

Fang Xing was overjoyed and promptly kowtowed in gratitude.

Ye Yaming brought Fang Xing to the main courtyard and informed Ye Chongming about her decision to promote Fang Xing to Housekeeper.

Ye Chongming naturally had no objections. Due to the Zhou Xiang incident, he regarded Ye Yaming with immense affection. Not only did he agree to her promoting Fang Xing to Housekeeper without hesitation, but he would have readily consented even if she had requested Zhou Xiang, Meng Ji, or Li Fu to serve under her.

Moreover, Ye Yaming’s request was entirely reasonable.

Within the Ye residence, aside from Li Fu as the general steward, each household had its own internal and external Housekeepers. Internal Housekeepers were typically matrons who assisted the wives in managing their respective household affairs. External Housekeepers primarily accompanied the masters on outings and handled business matters.

The first and fourth households both had external Housekeepers, but the second and third households did not.

The third household was understandable, but Ye Hongsheng of the second household felt that since he spent all his time at the Tea Factory making tea and had few external business affairs to manage, employing an external Housekeeper would be wasteful—paying someone a higher wage than his personal Page for little work. Thus, he simply did not appoint one.

Now that Ye Yaming was promoting Fang Xing to serve as the external Housekeeper for the second household, no one could raise any objections.

As for whether Fang Xing would work alongside Ye Yaming or Ye Hongsheng, that was entirely the second household’s internal affair. As long as Ye Hongsheng had no issues, there were no problems whatsoever.

"Ming'er, should we start selling the Chrysanthemum Tea now?" Ye Chongming inquired.

Ye Hongsheng had brought back the Chrysanthemum Tea just before the Mid-Autumn Festival. Now, over a month had passed since the festival, and the Osmanthus Tea had long been sold out. The new tea sets required time—waiting for Master Zhineng to build momentum, finalizing the designs, and having the kilns produce them.

According to Lu Guanyi’s plan, it was best to launch the tea sets around the New Year. By then, Master Zhineng would have hosted two or three Tea arrangements, and the trend would have spread to the capital. Before the New Year, Lu Guanyi and Qi Ji would go to the capital to further amplify this trend. Once Ye Jia’s Gathering Fragrance Pavilion announced the availability of large quantities of new tea sets, selling them would not be a problem.

The nature of Lu Guanyi and Qi Ji’s collaboration with Ye Jia differed significantly from what Meng Chengwei had proposed. Given Lu and Qi’s status, if they were to engage in commerce, they would have to operate under someone else’s name—either a trusted servant or client, or by supporting a merchant household.

During the initial negotiations, Ye Yaming advised Ye Chongming not to raise this issue. If Lu and Qi chose to use proxies, Ye Jia would simply take their share of the profits. Ye Yaming’s continuous innovations in tea-making techniques ensured that Ye Jia would not become subordinate in the partnership.

Fortunately, Lu and Qi had no such intentions and placed the entire business under Ye Jia’s name.

This arrangement actually benefited them. Firstly, they could leverage Ye Jia’s established reputation in the tea industry without starting from scratch. Finding suitable individuals to manage commercial ventures was not easy. Secondly, as long as they maintained confidentiality, their collaboration with Ye Jia would remain largely unknown, preventing others from using it against them.

In the future, when Lu Guanyi pursued a career in the imperial court and Qi Ji participated in the imperial examinations, their involvement would not be affected in the slightest.

As for Ye Jia, besides receiving a larger share of the profits, they would gain significant prestige. With the support of these two, especially if the Crown Prince was involved behind the scenes, Ye Jia could even aspire to become an Imperial merchant.

This collaboration was mutually beneficial.

However, while the tea sets were part of the joint venture, the Chrysanthemum Tea was not. The family’s finances were tight—they needed funds for New Year gifts to Qi Zhifu and others who had supported Ye Jia, bonuses for managers and staff, payments and new clothes for servants, and various other expenses.The Ye family had vast enterprises and earned substantial silver each year, but their spending was equally extravagant. Little remained as savings. In years of higher profits, they would find some pretext to reinvest or purchase more fields and tea gardens. In short, money seldom stayed long in their hands.

So wasn’t it natural for Ye Chongming to turn his attention to Chrysanthemum Tea?

Ye Yaming nodded with a smile. "When we first released Osmanthus Tea, it attracted covetous eyes from all sides. At that time, our cooperation with Young Master Lu and Qi Gongzi hadn’t been finalized yet. A tall tree catches the wind—our foundation was still unstable, so it was only prudent to hold back on Chrysanthemum Tea."

"Now is the time to sell Chrysanthemum Tea. Autumn is dry, the perfect season for drinking it. But before the sale, first commission a batch of custom paper packaging bags printed with the words ‘Hangzhou White Chrysanthemum’."

At first, Ye Chongming didn’t understand. Frowning, he stared at Ye Yaming, but then his eyes lit up, and he slapped the armrest of his chair. "Brilliant idea!"

"By labeling it ‘Hangzhou White Chrysanthemum,’ we imply the chrysanthemums are produced in Lin’an, making everyone assume they come from the Ye family’s manor. If they send people to investigate, they’ll only check the Ye family’s manors. And since the Ye family owns multiple estates, Ye Chongming could even instruct the estate holders and tenants to spread misleading rumors as a smokescreen. That way, they’ll be led in circles and won’t think to look toward Tongxiang."

It was crucial to remember that the flower farmers in Tongxiang were free commoners. Even if Ye Hongsheng had signed contracts with them for next year’s chrysanthemum supply, if another buyer offered a higher price and was willing to bear all costs and consequences of breaching the contract, those farmers might very well switch sides and sell to someone else.

By firmly directing attention to the Ye family’s manors now, they could protect the true source of the chrysanthemums from being exposed.

"Still, this isn’t a long-term solution," Ye Chongming remarked. "It would be best if the chrysanthemums came from our own land."

Ye Yaming fell silent for a moment.

This highlighted the difference between merchants in a small-scale farming society and those in the modern era.

Merchants in an agrarian society would spend vast sums on land, preferring goods to originate from their own estates—it gave them a sense of security and peace of mind.

Take the Ye family, for example. If the tea gardens on the tea mountains hadn’t already been divided up, and if the scattered estate holders weren’t living comfortably off their tea garden earnings—unwilling to sell—making sporadic purchases pointless, Ye Chongming would undoubtedly have spent heavily to acquire more tea gardens.

With their own tea gardens, they wouldn’t be squeezed during the spring tea pre-orders or worry about estate holders being poached.

But operating this way meant only small-scale business, tying up all capital in land and leaving insufficient funds for trade. This hindered expansion. One reason the Huizhou merchants of the late Qing Dynasty declined without evolving into capitalists was their smallholder mentality.

However, in an agrarian society where policies emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce, the land-centric mindset was deeply ingrained—something Ye Yaming couldn’t change. She could only offer advice: "‘When oranges are grown south of the Huai River, they become oranges; north of the Huai, they turn into trifoliate oranges.’ Different climates and soils yield different flavors in chrysanthemums. If we’re to grow them, why not buy land in Tongxiang for cultivation? Land prices there are much cheaper than in the outskirts of Lin’an City."