Chapter 1 A Taste for Chrysanthemum Pu-erh

Without pretense, Sun Meier almost instantly fell in love with the light yet sweet touch of chrysanthemum pu-erh tea, slightly sweetened with honey. It wasn't simply the addition of a few ingredients, but a complementary harmony that created an incredibly welcoming and delightful flavor. Yuanyuan Garden's meticulously crafted tea menu featured a total of thirty-three single and blended tea options in the first batch. The single teas weren't particularly appealing; as Ye Tao himself admitted, they hadn't yet secured a reliable source of high-grade tea leaves, offering at most mid-range varieties. In a place like Yuanyuan Garden, which emphasized ambiance and style, the value for money wasn't exceptional.

However, the information conveyed by Sun Meier, Lei Huang, and even Sun Boping quickly made Yuanyuan Garden famous. Lü Zhen, a formerly unknown and down-on-his-luck merchant, suddenly became well-known. In everyone's eyes, Lü Zhen was quite peculiar. Regardless of whether Yuanyuan Garden's business was booming or struggling, he only stayed at the shop for a morning each day, spending the afternoons either networking or at home with his wife. Even when he was at the shop, he rarely paid attention to what the employees were doing, allowing everything to run smoothly according to the rules he had established for the teahouse. Every day, he would sit by the window on the second floor and play chess with his old friend "Uncle Liu" from Zhenzhou.

It was truly unexpected that this down-on-his-luck merchant from Zhenzhou could so quickly get on the good side of the now-popular Sun Boping, and even seem to have a good relationship with him. Regardless of the past, Lü Zhen, after gaining some small fame, successively took in some of his fellow clansmen who were also down on their luck in Anqing, the oldest being over fifty, and the youngest only a teenager. Everyone thus felt that Lü Zhen was a kind and generous man. And his reclusive… no, his never-leaving wife became an enigma within Anqing's circle of noble ladies. Sun Boping, Gu Xi, Sun Meier, and others successively and secretly visited Tan Weixin, while Lei Huang, Lei Ying, Cao Pojun, and others from the inner court were extremely excited after meeting Her Highness the Princess. Although Ye Tao didn't request it, when Lei Huang had to rush back to Taizhou to handle matters, he left behind a Zong Mo (Elite Demonic Vanguard) squad at the Princess's disposal, and, undoubtedly, they were elites among the inner court's elite.

Equally rising in fame was the biscuit shop run by a large group of young, strong, and mostly handsome young men. The biscuit shop was called Guansheng Garden, and it had no seating for customers, only take-out service. The second floor was a staff rest area, while the entire first floor was the main shop area, with dozens of identical copper trays displayed on two long tables. Each tray held a different type of biscuit. The rear half of the first floor housed six ovens, constantly baking various biscuits. From the moment Guansheng Garden prepared its ovens and opened for business without any formal announcement, the neighbors around Guansheng Garden were put to the test. Whenever Guansheng Garden's ovens were on, the warm, fragrant aroma of sugar, butter, and other ingredients would waft around, making everyone restless. Without any advertising, the aroma alone attracted countless customers to try the biscuits, and then they were hooked. From the elderly to children, the introduction of biscuits to Anqing had a universal appeal.

Guansheng Garden sold both mass-produced, loose biscuits sold by weight, and individually wrapped, high-end biscuits presented on folded, flower-like paper sheets. These high-end biscuits were certainly not cheap. The special operations soldiers were puzzled by their mission, but they worked diligently and conscientiously. Sweating profusely next to the ovens was also a good form of exercise. They quickly linked all their daily tasks with their training exercises, and they were enjoying themselves. While they were enthusiastically serving customers on the surface, the underground tunnel was being constructed unnoticed. Large quantities of firewood, charcoal, and other materials were delivered daily, and the lumber used to support the tunnel was mixed in with the supplies entering the shop. It was impossible for anyone to check whether the wood was actually being burned. As the tunnel was long, ventilation and lighting equipment were also delivered. Now, for anything that was particularly needed, it only took twenty days from requesting it from Yunzhou to transporting it through secret channels to Anqing. The logistics efficiency of Dongping's forces was now terrifyingly high. With electric lights, hand-cranked generators, and exhaust fans, the digging work became much simpler.

Originally, Ye Tao had specifically consulted Sun Boping, wanting to verify exactly how much silver was in the Standing Treasury. Unexpectedly, not only did Sun Boping have no complaints about Ye Tao wanting to move the Standing Treasury's silver, nor did he worry about it affecting his work, but he actively offered suggestions. It turned out that the so-called Standing Treasury was just a name; its purpose was not to provide funds for the court's circulation at various levels, nor was it even a storehouse that the Ministry of Revenue was supposed to manage. In fact, the silver in the Standing Treasury usually didn't even make it onto the Ministry of Revenue's books.

The Standing Treasury should have been under the direct jurisdiction of the Anqing Garrison Command, a treasury used to buffer daily tax revenue reported to the Ministry of Revenue. However, the ins and outs of small-amount silver collection, followed by an annual report of the total amount, had too much room for corruption, so the Garrison Command was reluctant to hand the Standing Treasury over to the Ministry of Revenue's direct control. In Xiling, local taxes were generally collected through two channels: local officials or tax supervisors directly under the central government. In smaller areas, various taxes were directly managed by local officials, who then paid them to the higher-level government. In larger areas, tax supervisors were stationed to collect taxes from smaller areas and implement various tax collections on the spot, especially the collection of additional taxes. However, in Anqing, there hadn't been such a problem before; the Ministry of Revenue's clerks could directly levy taxes on various affairs in Anqing. Unexpectedly, the Ministry of Revenue had once experienced a major problem, with large-scale corruption, leading to a thorough cleansing that lasted almost a year decades ago. Tax revenues from various regions were only temporarily retained locally for transfer, and Anqing's tax collection was left unattended, so the Anqing Garrison Command took it over. Then, the situation gradually evolved into what it was today.

The Standing Treasury wasn't actually "standing" at all; it was just a temporary solution, but the Anqing Garrison Command was unwilling to let go because it could constantly extract money from it. This Standing Treasury had become the Garrison Command's undisguised slush fund. Daily tax revenues, those loose silver coins, were certainly piled up, but after years of inventory, the remainder left after the dignitaries' division, and the common portion retained for special expenses in special times were also piled up in the Standing Treasury. Even Sun Boping wasn't sure how much money was in the Standing Treasury. He only knew that the amount allocated from the Standing Treasury to the Ministry of Revenue each year was always around one million taels, fluctuating by no more than ten thousand taels.

Now, Ye Tao's prank of making the special operations soldiers hesitate about whether stealing money was faster than earning it had gone slightly awry. No matter what, Ye Tao couldn't figure out how to make the special operations soldiers earn several million taels of silver in a few months. However, even Sun Boping was gradually shocked by the money-making ability of Yuanyuan Garden and Guansheng Garden. Because Sun Boping was protecting them, no officials dared to extort them, but the various courtesies were still quite thorough. Leaving aside Yuanyuan Garden, where the blended teas were indeed not cheap, the revenue was limited because customers were accustomed to sitting and chatting or playing chess for long periods of time.

But Guansheng Garden was terrifyingly successful. From the time the ovens started operating until now, they hadn't stopped. They were running non-stop for twelve hours a day, and still couldn't meet the huge market demand. Guansheng Garden immediately bought the house behind it, set up another twelve ovens, and then began to offer ordering and home delivery services after increasing production capacity. The handsome, strong, and sunny special operations soldiers were frequently sought after by wealthy families. If they didn't all have lofty ideals – to overthrow Xiling – it would be difficult not to be swayed. Naturally, the special operations soldiers didn't really want to rely on selling biscuits to get a million taels. In a month, they had dug the tunnel to the outside of the Standing Treasury, only a wall away from the place filled with silver. Now, they were waiting for the right opportunity to extract the silver unnoticed. Regardless of how much silver was piled up there, the special operations soldiers remembered one number: Guansheng Garden's revenue in the first month was 112,433 taels.

This number alone was enough to make Ye Tao chuckle to himself and make the special operations soldiers slightly puzzled. Although he seemed leisurely, Ye Tao hadn't come to Xiling for leisure. As Yuanyuan Garden became famous and the name Lü Zhen began to be known by more and more people, Ye Tao faced more and more problems. Just who was this merchant with an amazing business acumen? After all, some people were starting to wonder about this. So, while actively contacting various people and rolling out his various connections in Xiling according to plan, Ye Tao was also preparing to flee at any time with Tan Weixin. They didn't want to be trapped in Anqing when the time came.

A month after Yuanyuan Garden opened, Ye Tao took Tan Weixin to the outskirts of Anqing. They weren't there for a spring outing, but to visit Kong Yan, the head of Xingsi Workshop. Xingsi Workshop was also a Chen family property, and it was one of the few that remained calm and rational during the tide of separation. Everyone in the company had been instructed by Kong Yan to do their jobs well and not to be nosy. It might not be easy to get such a company back into their hands, but it was very suitable to use such a company to expose clues about their own "identity."