Chapter 89: Business
Everything was moving along smoothly according to plan for PeiYan , whereas for YuTang, there was a little bit of a panic.
Firstly, she was unsure if things were going well on Pei Yan’s end. Secondly, their family’s store could not re-open before this year’s Spring Festival as eldest uncle Yu Bo remained in Jiangxi for longer than expected and only returned in the 12th month. They hurriedly chose the 20th day of the 12th month to open, but in accordance with customary practices, the marketplace will be closed on the 22nd and 23rd day of the 12th month. And the days following that before the New Year, businesses will remain closed until after the 15th day of the coming year. Although they wouldn’t earn much this year, but they had to rush to open before the year, for an auspicious start.
Because of this, Yutang was called by her eldest uncle to help out in the store for two days.
In the words of her eldest uncle, even if she doesn’t know how to conduct business, she can’t be ignorant of her family’s financials. “Even if you get a son-in-law, you’ll have to know how much money your family makes in a year, whether it’s a loss or a profit, or you’ll be easily deceived.”
Yu Wen and Madam Chen both agreed with his words, and instructed Yu Tang to wear plain coarse clothing and stay in the back of the store to keep track of the accounts. They also admonished Yu Tang “From now on, you are to go to the store every five days. You ought to know what things are sold in our store and how much profit each item brings.”
Yutang listened and inwardly shook her head.
It is unsurprising that not many people want to become a hired son-in-law.
Their family can be regarded as generous, but this new son-in-law is still unfamiliar with his surroundings, but everyone is already on guard against him. Even if he entered willingly into their family, anyone who wasn’t stupid that was treated in this way would probably feel discomforted, not to mention further development of trust and reliance.
If there is no trust and dependence between a husband and his wife, how can the relationship thrive?
Perhaps recruiting a son-in-law may not solve everything.
Yu Tang was pondering these things in her heart, while standing at the door of the storehouse with the accounting ledger, as she registered the various inflows and outflows of goods.
When Yutang’s grandfather was still around, the family had their own small workshop, and could do complex and artistic designs like carving red lacquerware. After he passed away, her father hadn’t passed the scholar exam yet, and the master craftsman who had been in the family for two or three generations was suddenly poached by a century-old store in Suzhou, leaving only eldest uncle who knew how to carve red lacquerware. Their families didn’t have many children either and uncle’s temperament after this matter turned increasingly cautious. Although he found several apprentices who worked under him for more than a decade, he still hid this craft, unwilling to teach it completely to the apprentices. By himself, he couldn’t manage the work either, so the number of carved red lacquerware pieces grew lesser and lesser, with hardly any rare pieces, and their business grew worse with each passing year.
Instead of trying to find talented apprentices, the eldest uncle put all his hopes on Yu Yuan. Yu Yuan learned the craft conscientiously for a few years, but perhaps because of his poor skills or that eldest uncle was not good at teaching, Yu Yuan’s skills was only mediocre and not nearly as good as her eldest uncle’s eldest disciple Xia Pinggui.
Xia Pinggui was apprenticed to the Yu family at the age of six, and was two or three years older than Yu Yuan, and was the apprentice of Yu Tang’s grandfather’s son when he was alive, who lived in the Yu family when he was young. Later, as Yutang grew bigger, Madam Wang asked him to move to the store to stay given the differences between men and women. With the Changxing Street’s fire, Madam Wang chose to relocate him to the Yu family’s old residence instead of letting him move back to the Yu family.
This time, after the store was renovated, Xia Pinggui moved back to stay in the store with a few of his disciples.
Although Xia Pinggui and Yu Tang did not see each other often, they had grew up together. Occasionally when he went to visit the Yu family, he would run into Yu Tang. Seeing that Yu Tang was helping to keep accounts at the entrance of the storehouse, he asked the store’s workers to fill up a bowl of soup and handed it to Yu Tang “Eldest Miss, the weather is too cold, you should cover up a little, be careful of catching a cold.”
In the whole lacquerware store, except for the people of the Yu family, Yu Tang only knew Xia Pinggui.
She smiled and thanked Xia Pinggui and took the soup bowl.
Xia Pinggui’s honest and loyal face lit up as he replied “You are welcome”, and he went back to supervise the workers putting the goods into the warehouse.
Yu Tang saw two black lacquered tables in the storehouse, and she asked Xia Pinggui, “Our family also sells furniture?”
When she was young, she often accompanied her father to play in the storehouse. In her memory, the store room was filled with shelves upon shelves of lacquer boxes and chests of all kinds and shapes and sizes, from nine-tier boxes for snacks to delicate boxes for storing rouge.
Why is it now like a general merchandise store?
Xia Pinggui hesitated for a while, and seeing that Yu Bo and Yu Wen were standing at the front of the store discussing other arrangements, he lowered his voice and answered, “We are located close to Hangzhou City, and nowadays shells inlays are very popular, people who want to have carved red lacquerware are very particular about craftsmanship, so if we don’t sell some tables, chairs and boxes, our business will be even worse.”
Yu Tong did not understand.
Xia Pinggui explained to her, “In the past, when a daughter got married or a family got a daughter-in-law, they always had to buy one or two carved red lacquer boxes to hold their things, but ever since the Sheng family of Jiangxi opened their store in Hangzhou three years ago, it has become popular to buy shell inlay boxes in Hangzhou.”
Since her family has a lacquerware store, she knows a little about these inlays, which used conch and sea shells that were polished and then embedded in the box. The shells shimmered in the light with an iridescent luster and had a gem-like brilliance. Some people who wanted to appear more affluent but yet could not afford to buy a box with hundreds of precious stones would buy these instead.
People’s preferences change and were very diverse. Some people who valued heritage wouldn’t be interested in such bejewelled items, not mentioning that the inlay is not a gemstone but was just a poor substitute for a gemstone – merely a conch shell.
Yu Tang thought for a while before asking, “Does the Sheng family have any new techniques where the conch shells inlays were sold cheaper than the carved red ones?”
Xia Pinggui’s eyes showed his admiration at her keen observation. He said respectfully, “Eldest Miss, you are very perceptive. As you have said, their family made a kind of inlay called colored inlay, which is significantly cheaper than the normal inlay. However, if you choose to have a customized color it will be more expensive than the regular colored ones. This technique helped them to establish their business and create a name for themselves. I heard that the Chief Secretary of Zhejiang Province commissioned a twelve-fold hundred phoenix screen for the Autumn Festival from them.” After saying this, he hesitated for a moment, before continuing “However, our store still follows the same old patterns for many years and nothing have changed ……”
Although his words were polite, Yu Tang understood his meaning.
She said, “You’re saying that my family’s red carving lacquer technique is not up to par?”
Xia Pinggui gave an ambiguous response with an embarrassed face, and Yu Tang did not hear his reply clearly, but she understood his meaning.
She kept silent for a while.
In her previous life, their family’s store was sold after it was destroyed by the fire, so she didn’t know the exact state of their family’s business. Later, when Yu Yuan made his fortune, her eldest uncle tried to revive the family business, but he passed away before he could.
Their family spent so much time and effort to repair the store and silver to buy the goods, they can’t just let it fall to pieces, right?
She couldn’t allow for that to happen.
Although they put in the same time and effort as others, but their results weren’t as good as them.
They ought to find the cause and figure out a solution.
She sighed inwardly as she looked at the various things stacked up in the warehouse, none of which she was willing to look at more than a few times, much less those people who would want to buy them.
I wonder if the opening can be postponed and somehow the goods can be re-designed?
Yu Tang pulled Madam Wang aside and asked her quietly.
Madam Wang smiled bitterly. She held Yu Tang tightly and whispered, “Good child, I understand your well-intentions. Your eldest uncle has been doing this business for his entire life, so how could he not know these things? However we still owe the Pei family silver for the repair works, so we do not have spare funds to buy other goods. Besides, all the good ones are kept by the various families as treasures, so how can they easily be sold to us? Even if they sold them, some customers may take a liking to it, but we cannot produce them, so we might as well not show them.”
Yu Tang paused and asked, “Is it really because we lack silver?”
Madam Wang paused for a while and said in a soft voice “It’s not exactly about the silver, there’s also the lack of skilled workers……”
This means that their family doesn’t possess the necessary skills for the craft.
This was the same problem that Xia Pinggui mentioned.
All these years, eldest uncle was the one managing the store, so she feared that if she asked more in-depth questions, eldest aunt would feel humiliated, so she diverted the topic and went back to the store with eldest aunt, while searching for an opportunity to pull Yu Yuan aside to say something private. “How about the craftsmanship of those masters who were invited from Jiangxi? Do you think that these people can manage?”
Yu Yuan was also worried about it.
He replied, “Their skills are average. One of them is quite good, but he specializes in gold lacquer, and our family started out in red carved lacquer. According to Father, it’s easier to sell gold lacquerware as it is cheaper. I feel that he’s missing the point.”
Every lacquer store has its own characteristics, and it took several generations for their family to make a name for themselves as a carved red lacquer store. This time if they wanted to change to another technique, and one that they were not familiar with, it would be an unwise decision. Yu Tang agreed with Yu Yuan’s opinion.
Yu Yuan argued with Yu Bo several times over this matter, and Madam Wang stood firmly on Yu Bo’s side, saying things like “We can’t reverse our situation immediately. Let’s just earn some silver and then find some help from your uncle’s scholar friends to paint a few nice patterns and our store will gradually return to its former state.” Now suddenly, he met someone who felt the same way as him so he couldn’t hold back his frustration, and vented, “I don’t know what father is thinking. Even if the gold lacquer is good, it’s not our family’s craft. If we lose our family’s foundation, how can the Yu family establish a foothold?”
In her previous life, the two of them had argued about this.
Yu Tang laughed, “Didn’t you say you wanted to open a store in Hangzhou City? Why are you bothering about the store here?”
Yu Yuan blushed as he replied with embarrassment, “If father is bent on having his own way, then I will really go to Hangzhou City and open a store.” After saying that, he was afraid that Yu Tang would misunderstand him and said, “This is not your sister-in-law’s idea. It is my own. I still have the final say. “
Yu Tang looked at him as he attempted to hide his true intentions but inadvertently displayed them instead. She laughed out loud.
Yu Yuan sensed that he had misspoke and smiled bashfully along with her.
Yu Tang thinks this method is workable.
In her previous life, Yu Yuan had already shown his ability but failed to convince eldest uncle. In this life, he was still a kid learning his trade behind his father, so it was all the more unlikely that he would be able to convince eldest uncle.
Since both of them are not happy with each other, it would be better to separate for the time being and run their own businesses, as the family business will be Yu Yuan’s eventually.
Of course, Yu Tang also had a selfish motive.
She wanted to be like Jiang Ling in her previous life, a remarkable woman who made her own money to support herself and her family.
Chapter 89: Business
Everything was moving along smoothly according to plan for PeiYan , whereas for YuTang, there was a little bit of a panic.
Firstly, she was unsure if things were going well on Pei Yan’s end. Secondly, their family’s store could not re-open before this year’s Spring Festival as eldest uncle Yu Bo remained in Jiangxi for longer than expected and only returned in the 12th month. They hurriedly chose the 20th day of the 12th month to open, but in accordance with customary practices, the marketplace will be closed on the 22nd and 23rd day of the 12th month. And the days following that before the New Year, businesses will remain closed until after the 15th day of the coming year. Although they wouldn’t earn much this year, but they had to rush to open before the year, for an auspicious start.
Because of this, Yutang was called by her eldest uncle to help out in the store for two days.
In the words of her eldest uncle, even if she doesn’t know how to conduct business, she can’t be ignorant of her family’s financials. “Even if you get a son-in-law, you’ll have to know how much money your family makes in a year, whether it’s a loss or a profit, or you’ll be easily deceived.”
Yu Wen and Madam Chen both agreed with his words, and instructed Yu Tang to wear plain coarse clothing and stay in the back of the store to keep track of the accounts. They also admonished Yu Tang “From now on, you are to go to the store every five days. You ought to know what things are sold in our store and how much profit each item brings.”
Yutang listened and inwardly shook her head.
It is unsurprising that not many people want to become a hired son-in-law.
Their family can be regarded as generous, but this new son-in-law is still unfamiliar with his surroundings, but everyone is already on guard against him. Even if he entered willingly into their family, anyone who wasn’t stupid that was treated in this way would probably feel discomforted, not to mention further development of trust and reliance.
If there is no trust and dependence between a husband and his wife, how can the relationship thrive?
Perhaps recruiting a son-in-law may not solve everything.
Yu Tang was pondering these things in her heart, while standing at the door of the storehouse with the accounting ledger, as she registered the various inflows and outflows of goods.
When Yutang’s grandfather was still around, the family had their own small workshop, and could do complex and artistic designs like carving red lacquerware. After he passed away, her father hadn’t passed the scholar exam yet, and the master craftsman who had been in the family for two or three generations was suddenly poached by a century-old store in Suzhou, leaving only eldest uncle who knew how to carve red lacquerware. Their families didn’t have many children either and uncle’s temperament after this matter turned increasingly cautious. Although he found several apprentices who worked under him for more than a decade, he still hid this craft, unwilling to teach it completely to the apprentices. By himself, he couldn’t manage the work either, so the number of carved red lacquerware pieces grew lesser and lesser, with hardly any rare pieces, and their business grew worse with each passing year.
Instead of trying to find talented apprentices, the eldest uncle put all his hopes on Yu Yuan. Yu Yuan learned the craft conscientiously for a few years, but perhaps because of his poor skills or that eldest uncle was not good at teaching, Yu Yuan’s skills was only mediocre and not nearly as good as her eldest uncle’s eldest disciple Xia Pinggui.
Xia Pinggui was apprenticed to the Yu family at the age of six, and was two or three years older than Yu Yuan, and was the apprentice of Yu Tang’s grandfather’s son when he was alive, who lived in the Yu family when he was young. Later, as Yutang grew bigger, Madam Wang asked him to move to the store to stay given the differences between men and women. With the Changxing Street’s fire, Madam Wang chose to relocate him to the Yu family’s old residence instead of letting him move back to the Yu family.
This time, after the store was renovated, Xia Pinggui moved back to stay in the store with a few of his disciples.
Although Xia Pinggui and Yu Tang did not see each other often, they had grew up together. Occasionally when he went to visit the Yu family, he would run into Yu Tang. Seeing that Yu Tang was helping to keep accounts at the entrance of the storehouse, he asked the store’s workers to fill up a bowl of soup and handed it to Yu Tang “Eldest Miss, the weather is too cold, you should cover up a little, be careful of catching a cold.”
In the whole lacquerware store, except for the people of the Yu family, Yu Tang only knew Xia Pinggui.
She smiled and thanked Xia Pinggui and took the soup bowl.
Xia Pinggui’s honest and loyal face lit up as he replied “You are welcome”, and he went back to supervise the workers putting the goods into the warehouse.
Yu Tang saw two black lacquered tables in the storehouse, and she asked Xia Pinggui, “Our family also sells furniture?”
When she was young, she often accompanied her father to play in the storehouse. In her memory, the store room was filled with shelves upon shelves of lacquer boxes and chests of all kinds and shapes and sizes, from nine-tier boxes for snacks to delicate boxes for storing rouge.
Why is it now like a general merchandise store?
Xia Pinggui hesitated for a while, and seeing that Yu Bo and Yu Wen were standing at the front of the store discussing other arrangements, he lowered his voice and answered, “We are located close to Hangzhou City, and nowadays shells inlays are very popular, people who want to have carved red lacquerware are very particular about craftsmanship, so if we don’t sell some tables, chairs and boxes, our business will be even worse.”
Yu Tong did not understand.
Xia Pinggui explained to her, “In the past, when a daughter got married or a family got a daughter-in-law, they always had to buy one or two carved red lacquer boxes to hold their things, but ever since the Sheng family of Jiangxi opened their store in Hangzhou three years ago, it has become popular to buy shell inlay boxes in Hangzhou.”
Since her family has a lacquerware store, she knows a little about these inlays, which used conch and sea shells that were polished and then embedded in the box. The shells shimmered in the light with an iridescent luster and had a gem-like brilliance. Some people who wanted to appear more affluent but yet could not afford to buy a box with hundreds of precious stones would buy these instead.
People’s preferences change and were very diverse. Some people who valued heritage wouldn’t be interested in such bejewelled items, not mentioning that the inlay is not a gemstone but was just a poor substitute for a gemstone – merely a conch shell.
Yu Tang thought for a while before asking, “Does the Sheng family have any new techniques where the conch shells inlays were sold cheaper than the carved red ones?”
Xia Pinggui’s eyes showed his admiration at her keen observation. He said respectfully, “Eldest Miss, you are very perceptive. As you have said, their family made a kind of inlay called colored inlay, which is significantly cheaper than the normal inlay. However, if you choose to have a customized color it will be more expensive than the regular colored ones. This technique helped them to establish their business and create a name for themselves. I heard that the Chief Secretary of Zhejiang Province commissioned a twelve-fold hundred phoenix screen for the Autumn Festival from them.” After saying this, he hesitated for a moment, before continuing “However, our store still follows the same old patterns for many years and nothing have changed ……”
Although his words were polite, Yu Tang understood his meaning.
She said, “You’re saying that my family’s red carving lacquer technique is not up to par?”
Xia Pinggui gave an ambiguous response with an embarrassed face, and Yu Tang did not hear his reply clearly, but she understood his meaning.
She kept silent for a while.
In her previous life, their family’s store was sold after it was destroyed by the fire, so she didn’t know the exact state of their family’s business. Later, when Yu Yuan made his fortune, her eldest uncle tried to revive the family business, but he passed away before he could.
Their family spent so much time and effort to repair the store and silver to buy the goods, they can’t just let it fall to pieces, right?
She couldn’t allow for that to happen.
Although they put in the same time and effort as others, but their results weren’t as good as them.
They ought to find the cause and figure out a solution.
She sighed inwardly as she looked at the various things stacked up in the warehouse, none of which she was willing to look at more than a few times, much less those people who would want to buy them.
I wonder if the opening can be postponed and somehow the goods can be re-designed?
Yu Tang pulled Madam Wang aside and asked her quietly.
Madam Wang smiled bitterly. She held Yu Tang tightly and whispered, “Good child, I understand your well-intentions. Your eldest uncle has been doing this business for his entire life, so how could he not know these things? However we still owe the Pei family silver for the repair works, so we do not have spare funds to buy other goods. Besides, all the good ones are kept by the various families as treasures, so how can they easily be sold to us? Even if they sold them, some customers may take a liking to it, but we cannot produce them, so we might as well not show them.”
Yu Tang paused and asked, “Is it really because we lack silver?”
Madam Wang paused for a while and said in a soft voice “It’s not exactly about the silver, there’s also the lack of skilled workers……”
This means that their family doesn’t possess the necessary skills for the craft.
This was the same problem that Xia Pinggui mentioned.
All these years, eldest uncle was the one managing the store, so she feared that if she asked more in-depth questions, eldest aunt would feel humiliated, so she diverted the topic and went back to the store with eldest aunt, while searching for an opportunity to pull Yu Yuan aside to say something private. “How about the craftsmanship of those masters who were invited from Jiangxi? Do you think that these people can manage?”
Yu Yuan was also worried about it.
He replied, “Their skills are average. One of them is quite good, but he specializes in gold lacquer, and our family started out in red carved lacquer. According to Father, it’s easier to sell gold lacquerware as it is cheaper. I feel that he’s missing the point.”
Every lacquer store has its own characteristics, and it took several generations for their family to make a name for themselves as a carved red lacquer store. This time if they wanted to change to another technique, and one that they were not familiar with, it would be an unwise decision. Yu Tang agreed with Yu Yuan’s opinion.
Yu Yuan argued with Yu Bo several times over this matter, and Madam Wang stood firmly on Yu Bo’s side, saying things like “We can’t reverse our situation immediately. Let’s just earn some silver and then find some help from your uncle’s scholar friends to paint a few nice patterns and our store will gradually return to its former state.” Now suddenly, he met someone who felt the same way as him so he couldn’t hold back his frustration, and vented, “I don’t know what father is thinking. Even if the gold lacquer is good, it’s not our family’s craft. If we lose our family’s foundation, how can the Yu family establish a foothold?”
In her previous life, the two of them had argued about this.
Yu Tang laughed, “Didn’t you say you wanted to open a store in Hangzhou City? Why are you bothering about the store here?”
Yu Yuan blushed as he replied with embarrassment, “If father is bent on having his own way, then I will really go to Hangzhou City and open a store.” After saying that, he was afraid that Yu Tang would misunderstand him and said, “This is not your sister-in-law’s idea. It is my own. I still have the final say. “
Yu Tang looked at him as he attempted to hide his true intentions but inadvertently displayed them instead. She laughed out loud.
Yu Yuan sensed that he had misspoke and smiled bashfully along with her.
Yu Tang thinks this method is workable.
In her previous life, Yu Yuan had already shown his ability but failed to convince eldest uncle. In this life, he was still a kid learning his trade behind his father, so it was all the more unlikely that he would be able to convince eldest uncle.
Since both of them are not happy with each other, it would be better to separate for the time being and run their own businesses, as the family business will be Yu Yuan’s eventually.
Of course, Yu Tang also had a selfish motive.
She wanted to be like Jiang Ling in her previous life, a remarkable woman who made her own money to support herself and her family.
