Chapter 1841 - The Tea House Boss's Worries

Zhang Yu savored a fun guo dumpling, speaking between bites in his measured way.

"Let's count the courts ever established in Guangzhou," he said, patting his belly. "Unified China? None. Even those content to cling to half the realm in Jiangnan—not one. At best, Guangzhou saw petty warlords carving out a corner. The Kingdom of Nanyue lasted barely a century; the Southern Han held on for fifty-odd years, each generation feebler than the last. All this talk of Guangzhou possessing a dragon vein?" He shook his head. "I find it dubious."

Immediately, a tea guest raised his thumb. "Young Master Zhang is truly learned!"

"You flatter me." Zhang Yu's words were modest, but pride flickered across his face. "Just a few gleanings from reading history." Remembering the directives from the public opinion cadre meeting, he added, "Actually, this sort of basic knowledge is covered in any Australian magazine. Compared to dense history tomes, the explanations are clear and systematic—and far more thorough."

"Everyone knows you're deep in 'Kun'—ah, 'Australian Studies,'" the tea guests chimed in agreement.

"But if Guangzhou has no dragon vein," one guest fretted, "wouldn't the Australians' conquest of the realm be uncertain?"

"The Australians' dragon vein lies in Australia—what has Guangzhou to do with it?" another guest replied. "Besides, I've never heard of Qiongzhou Prefecture having particularly auspicious feng shui, yet the Australians prospered there all the same."

"Auspicious feng shui?" A well-traveled tea merchant who'd seen the world laughed bitterly. "The Great Ming's Central Capital at Fengyang Prefecture had 'auspicious feng shui'! Produced a Zhu Emperor, and the result was peasants fleeing famine and begging in the streets!"

Pleased to hear the conversation on the right track, Zhang Yu seized the moment. "Precisely. Since ancient times, those who take the realm rely on nothing more than two words: popular sentiment."

Everyone nodded. The traveling merchant sighed with feeling. "These past years wandering north and south, I've seen that only our Guangdong and Jiangnan can truly be called paradises. Everywhere else shows signs of the end times!"

"When you put it that way, Guangzhou really is blessed land! Ha ha ha!"

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Seeing that the sermon had run its course and having other business to attend to, Zhang Yu rose to take his leave. He had barely stepped away from his seat when the tea house boss waved him over.

This boss was an old acquaintance. It was he who had first "discovered" Zhang Yu back then, letting him read all manner of Australian pamphlets aloud to the tea guests—a practice that drew considerable custom and gave this modest establishment quite a reputation.

But in those days, Zhang Yu had been the one receiving patronage. Now everything was different. The boss regarded the young man before him with complicated emotions. Not only had he grown much taller, but his bearing and manner were utterly transformed—his every gesture now carried the flavor of a "personage."

This rascal really stumbled into remarkable luck! the boss thought. Somehow hooking up with the Australians! And the Australians were truly peculiar—spending money to support such a small tea food shop! Now the Zhang Family Tea Food Shop not only did booming business but had built a large workshop dedicated to supplying goods to the Australians. Materials came in and goods went out on great ships—the Zhang family had solemnly become the foremost tea food establishment in Guangzhou. Even purchasing their wares required signing a contract in advance, stating monthly usage and paying a deposit first. Otherwise, one shouldn't even dream of getting goods. What tea food shop had ever operated this way?

"Come, come. Over here." The boss beckoned him toward a private room.

"I really must be going—the family business keeps me busy," Zhang Yu said.

"It won't take long. There's a matter I've been undecided about for some time. You're familiar with the Australians. Perhaps you can offer me some guidance?"

Zhang Yu couldn't dismiss this. After all, this tea house boss had shown him "recognition and kindness" in the old days. So he replied straightforwardly, "I wouldn't presume to give guidance. But if you trust me, I can certainly think it through with you."

"Presumably Ayu knows the Australians are issuing new currency." The boss glanced toward the door, confirming the waiters were about their duties and the tea guests engrossed in loud conversation. He lowered his voice. "Exchanging silver for silver dollars—that's nothing. The Red Hairs and Franks use silver dollars too. But this business of Silver Dollar Certificates and Subsidiary Coin Certificates..." He shook his head. "I truly can't rest easy. Isn't this just the Great Ming's Treasure Notes all over again!"

Just a month prior, on June 1st, the Ministry of Finance and Economics had officially begun issuing new currency in the Guangdong Region. Because the business community had been briefed in advance, and the exchange was silver for silver coins—with deductions for handling fees and production costs based on purity, but ultimately silver in and silver out—there was no sense of loss. Apart from some premium adjustments for purity issues, it posed little burden for merchants and commoners. Moreover, the old currency had varied wildly in purity and weight. Now the silver coins received in exchange were uniform in both—full weight, no less—and bore no risk of counterfeiting. Convenient for all parties. For these reasons, the silver coin exchange encountered little resistance; enthusiasm ran high.

However, as the exchange work advanced, the comprehensive collection of copper coins began, and subsidiary coin certificates—along with half-yuan and two-jiao silver coin circulation certificates—started appearing in the market. This promptly sparked worry among the citizenry, especially small and medium merchants.

For a small merchant like the tea house boss, this was a matter of life and death. Such men dealt primarily in small-denomination currency in their daily trade. While the occasional generous patron might spend freely, most customers' bills came to only a few hundred wen, or one or two mace of silver. And when he went out to purchase ingredients, the transaction volumes were similarly modest—aside from a small amount of bulk goods, fresh provisions were bought daily at retail, using mainly small-denomination currency.

Before Guangzhou was recovered, he had used copper coins of varying quality. Because local copper coins were insufficient, he'd also used tiny silver beans privately cast by merchants and wealthy households—weight varied, purity was approximate at best, and one couldn't haggle too finely over quality. After all, these things were mere specks. As long as the purity wasn't utterly debased, they could be spent, though it took some fast talking. And when small currency fell short, he had even issued homemade "tea chips" to give change to regular customers and settle accounts with familiar vendors. That too required persuasion and currying favor.

In truth, he'd had no objection to the Australians minting new currency. The gleaming silver dollars, large and small, felt substantial in hand and looked pleasing to the eye.

But now the Australians intended to completely collect broken silver and copper coins, replacing them with paper subsidiary currency. For small merchants, this was a bolt from the blue.

"Think about it, Ayu. How much cash flows through my shop in a day? Most business comes in at a few hundred wen. How many silver jiao can I collect? Needless to say, the guests all pay with subsidiary coin certificates. And now the Australians are about to issue silver jiao certificates too, supposedly circulating equally with silver coins. If a guest offers one in payment, I can hardly refuse! My whole family—waiters, apprentices—we work all day, and what do we exchange it for? A stack of Great Song Treasure Notes!" He grimaced. "They say these circulate equally, but they're just pieces of paper... I truly can't rest easy." He wore an expression of someone entrusting his life and family fortune. "You're familiar with the Australians, looked after by the Senators. Is there any assurance in this?"

Zhang Yu was moved by the question—because the boss's words echoed almost exactly what his own father had said.

The Zhang Family Tea Food Shop had been reorganized into "Zhang's Food Company, Ltd." under Senator Zhang Yikun's guidance. As for the details of the reorganization, naturally no one in the Zhang household understood them clearly—it had all been handled by Zhang Yikun. After all, the two Zhangs wrote their surname with the same stroke.

Zhang Yu's cousin had been sent to "learn Australian accounting" precisely for this reason—the Zhang family's tea food shop had never employed an accountant to begin with. Setting aside the differences between Australian and Great Ming bookkeeping methods, the key principle was this: cash doesn't stay overnight; money is transferred by account.

Cash not staying overnight meant that every evening, after reconciling accounts, cash was remitted to the Zhang Company account at Delong Bank. In the old days, Zhang Yu's mother had personally carried the money box into the back room, closed the door to count carefully, then sorted and stored it.

Depositing money at a large shop's counter to earn interest was something the Zhang family had considered. But their shop was small, with modest cash flow, and daily expenses began the moment the door opened. They could never save much. Business had been poor in recent years—they'd been dipping into savings each year. There was no room for such thoughts.

Now business was good, but the money no longer entered their own door. It went straight to the bank. What they received in return was a passbook—the shop's funds reduced to mere numbers on its pages. Invisible, intangible. For people running a small business, this was unsettling. But that was secondary. The critical issue was that money could no longer be spent freely!

In the past, the finances of the Zhang Family Tea Food Shop had been indistinguishable from the family's personal funds. If Zhang Yu wanted a sesame cake, Father Zhang fancied tea and sticky rice chicken, Mother Zhang went to buy vegetables—all of them simply took money from the counter. Recording a stroke in the running account was considered diligent; forgetting meant it went unrecorded. They had a rough sense of how business was going, but specific profit or loss could only be determined at the three annual festivals: settling accounts, collecting debts, offsetting the two, then tallying up the various bits of income and expense. Only then did the figure emerge. Because family and personal spending were intermingled, the shop's actual operating situation was a confused ledger.

Now everything had changed. Company accounts were completely separated from household expenses. Father and son Zhang, like the waiters and apprentices in the shop, received a monthly "salary" from the business. Beyond that, they could no longer draw freely from the accounts. Most critically, all company expenses above a certain amount had to be paid by "check"—and the seller had to provide an "invoice."

This system wasn't being promoted only at Zhang's Food Company. The Australians were forcibly implementing it throughout Guangzhou. All commercial and handicraft enterprises above a specified scale were required to adopt this financial system.

And so the Zhang father and son soon discovered that while their family's business grew ever larger, the clinking, gleaming silver dollars they actually saw grew fewer and fewer.

(End of Chapter)