When the prince of no descendants found out that he had a baby, he went crazy

Chapter 11: Tea Houses Surviving on Subsidies

The weather is fine and the sun is shining.

Gu Hua sat in the carriage, leaning against the window, quietly looking at the floating white clouds in the sky, the green trees on the roadside, the wild flowers blooming everywhere, and the air was filled with fragrance.

After looking at the scenery outside for a while, Gu Hua closed his eyes and rested.

I thought to myself that Jiangzhou City has eleven counties under its jurisdiction, and the Gu family is one of the richest businessmen in Jiangzhou City, so of course they have several shops in each county.

It connected five silk shops, three tea houses and two grocery stores in Jiangzhou City.

There are eleven county towns, seventeen cloth shops, sixteen tea shops, and fifteen grocery stores under it, two of which are located in wealthy towns with convenient transportation.

With this calculation, the Gu family owns a total of 58 stores.

This time, Gu Hua plans to inspect all the forty-eight shops distributed by the Gu family in various counties and towns. If all goes well, he can complete the inspection in about a month.

In addition to the five shops managed by Su Fuying in Jiangzhou City, the silk and satin shop also has a slight surplus every year.

The three tea houses managed by Gu Chen in Jiangzhou City maintained a balanced income and expenditure, with neither loss nor profit.

The two grocery stores in Jiangzhou City are now managed by Dagui, the eldest son of the mansion's chief steward. They have made both losses and profits in the past three years. The biggest reason is that the purchase funds provided by the original owner were insufficient, which led to a slight loss for the store.

Apart from these ten shops which are still within the controllable range, among the forty-eight shops in other county towns, only a few can make a profit or maintain a balance between losing and earning.

The remaining cloth shops, tea shops, and grocery stores are all suffering losses and have to pay subsidies to their original owners every year to continue operating.

The first stop that Gu Hua and his men went to was Guangning County, which was the closest to Jiangzhou City and the more affluent. The carriage took more than an hour to arrive.

The streets were crowded with people. The teahouses, pubs, pawnshops and workshops on both sides of the street were bustling with life and people coming and going, creating a prosperous scene.

Gu Hua did not take people directly to the several shops opened by the Gu family here, but said to Gu Chen: "Cousin, please find a tea stall first and take the people to rest and get some food and drinks.

I will take Su Fuying, Mu Feng and the other two to go for a walk on the street first."

Gu Chen looked at Gu Hua in confusion, thinking that he shouldn't go inspect the shop and check the losses first, so as to solve the problem as soon as possible, so why was he still shopping?

Gu Hua took the lead and walked towards the crowd, and Mu Feng and the other four followed closely to protect him. Su Fuying patted Gu Chen's shoulder with an understanding smile, and chased in the direction Gu Hua left.

"Fox man, what are you laughing at?" Gu Chen stared at Su Fuying's back and complained, "Aren't we here to solve the shop problem? Why are we just strolling around?"

"Young Master, there is a reason for doing things. Manager Gu, let's find a place to rest for a while." said the accountant named Chen among the several accountants brought with us.

Not to mention that Gu Chen, who was full of doubts, took the accountant, guards, and servants to find a place to rest.

After more than a month of traveling through time, Gu Hua was no longer interested in the ancient street scenes, so she first went to a teahouse according to her memory.

This tea house is not small. The first floor is a tea shop, and the second floor is a teahouse where people can listen to books and drink tea. Normally, such a tea house opened in a prosperous area should not make no money, but lose money.

"Come in, I'll treat you to tea."

After Gu Hua finished speaking, he led Su Fuying, Mu Feng and the other two inside. The waiter selling tea glanced at them and asked lazily, "Are you going upstairs to drink tea or buy some tea?"

"..." His perfunctory attitude made me want to hit him.

Gu Hua raised the corner of his mouth to reveal a smile, but the smile did not reach his eyes, and his tone was flat: "We are customers who come here to spend money, shouldn't you stand up and greet us?" "It's up to you to buy or not, we don't rely on you to buy things to pay us monthly wages." The waiter said contemptuously.

"Oh." Gu Hua looked curious and asked humbly, "The store doesn't make any money, so where does the money come from to pay you monthly wages?"

Perhaps it was Gu Hua's inquisitive face that pleased the waiter who loved to show off that he was smart, so he raised his head and replied generously: "Our boss is the wealthy Gu family in Jiangzhou City. They have a lot of money, and every year they subsidize our store with hundreds or even thousands of taels of silver.

You guys spend a few taels of silver here, and you still want us to be humble and serve you. In the end, after the money is deposited into the account, it doesn't even go to a mistress like me. It's thankless work, so I won't serve you."

"That makes sense." Gu Hua praised the smug waiter in front of him, not knowing whether it was true or not, and then walked towards the second floor.

I don’t know if these people will still get their monthly salary if the store goes bankrupt because of the way they run it.

"I also think what he said makes sense." Su Fuying said with a bit of sarcasm.

Gu Hua rolled his eyes at him and said nonchalantly, "Why don't you ask the guys in the five silk shops you manage to learn from this waiter how to be a competent and cunning waiter.

Then he sent all the guests away and went home to eat his own food.”

Su Fuying pulled out a folding fan with a picture of a beauty from somewhere and shook it coquettishly, "Forget it. The guys in my shop are all decent people. Let them earn some money to support their families."

Gu Hua glanced at Su Fuying and was somewhat skeptical about how serious the guys working under him would be with a manager like him.
Mu Feng and the other three followed the two to the second floor.

Seeing the scene before them, the four of them couldn't help but gasp and turned their gazes towards their master.

Then Mu Feng, Mu Yu, Mu Lei and Mu Xue all looked at their master with admiration.

Compared to their master who remained calm when he saw the broken teahouse tables and chairs and the waiter sleeping and snoring on the put-together tea table, their astonishment seemed small-minded.

Fortunately, the four of them saw Su Guanli who also showed a surprised expression for a moment, otherwise they would have felt that they were being too surprised.

Gu Hua touched the tea table with a missing corner, sat on a shaky bench and almost fell, raised the corners of his mouth and smiled defiantly, "Very good."

The original owner subsidized the company with a few thousand silver coins every year, but it was not used for business operations and instead supported a group of parasites.

Gu Hua said calmly: "Let's go."

"Master, don't we really need to do anything?" Mu Xue asked angrily.

Gu Hua raised his hand and tapped her fair head, "Let's go to the next one first, there may be a surprise.

I'm afraid if we do something here, the other side will hear the news and the surprise left for us will be gone."

I understand everything I understand.

At this moment, everyone showed a look of understanding, except for Su Fuying who guessed from the beginning that Gu Hua wanted to secretly investigate the store, the other four people now admired their master even more.

Because Guangning County is close to Jiangzhou Prefecture, there are many wealthy people here. Gu's father opened two tea houses, three large and small silk shops, and a grocery store here.

Next, Gu Hua and his friends went to another teahouse.

(End of this chapter)