Neon Clothes and Iron Clothes

"This -" Even an old fox like Wang Fuyin had a look of embarrassment on his face. As the political and economic center of the north that has been based here since the Eastern Han Dynasty, Luoyang, which is closer to the Guandong region, is actually more important than Luoyang, which is located further away. Chang'an in the Guanzhong Plain is much richer and more prosperous. The densely packed mausoleums of nobles on Mang Mountain north of Luoyang are a good example. Being rich and prosperous means that the land is expensive, and there are many residents there who have great eyes and hands. Even the imperial court like Wang Wenzuo Minister, if you want to take over a square of land and houses with just a wave of your hand, it's not that easy.

Gao Wuniang was so smart. She immediately saw Wang Fuyin's dilemma and hurriedly said: "Enough, enough, the common people now have enough houses and enough money, so I don't need to bother the general!"

"Oh? Then what else do you need to be able to produce hundreds or thousands of these four-wheeled carriages like I said?"

"This -" Gao Wanniang hesitated for a moment, thinking about how to express the difficulty of this matter in a subtle way without offending the powerful General Wang. After all, in her opinion, hundreds of people were built at once. Thousands of these four-wheeled carriages are simply impossible, but saying "no" to a big man like Wang Wenzuo is a very dangerous thing in itself. People like him don't even need to be angry, even if they show a little displeasure, for It's a disaster for myself.

"General, in fact, what the common people lack most now is not space or money, but manpower, especially manpower that is honest and willing to work!" Gao Wuniang said with a bitter smile: "You should know that in addition to the original business of our shop, The biggest job is to make hinges for water steamers. And for the hundreds or thousands of horse-drawn carriages you mentioned, it would require five to six hundred young men and women just for the handymen. In such a hurry, where can one find such How many people are there?”

"You are short of labor, right?" Wang Wenzuo smiled, and he looked back: "Mr. Lu, please note that Wuniang is short of manpower here! By the way, Wuniang, what kind of people are you short of? As long as they are physically strong Is it enough to be honest and willing to work? Is eight hundred enough? Huaiying, I leave this matter to you. Be quick and don’t waste time. When you go back, you can find Sancho and collect two thousand guan from my private treasury. Whether you are a prisoner or a recruiter on the market, you must get things done!"

"Your officer obeys!" Di Renjie replied.

Gao Wuniang was frightened by Wang Wenzuo's vigorous and resolute style. Of course she knew that the better Wang Wenzuo talked now, the greater her troubles would be in the future. As a great general, she wanted people, money, and venues. If you can't bring hundreds or thousands of four-wheeled carriages to the venue by then, you can imagine what will happen to you.Now that the matter has come to this, she no longer cares about so much. Her knees softened and she knelt on the ground: "The common people are punished with death. General, spare your life!"

"Get up and speak!" Wang Wenzuo frowned. He didn't like the way the woman in front of him looked like this. After all, he believed that his position was public procurement, not extortion, and most of what he said while kneeling on the ground were lies: "Also, don't talk about capital punishment or spare your life! I'm here to talk about business with you today. Business is not about humaneness and righteousness, so there is no need to be like this!"

"Yes, yes!" Gao Wanniang got up from the ground, with another layer of sweat on her forehead. If she hadn't wiped off the rouge on her face just now, she would have had a messy face again.She took a deep breath and said, "The manpower that the grassroots want just now is not just someone who has the strength to endure hardships, but also someone who has skills. Before the rush, let alone hundreds or even thousands of people, it is difficult to find even 23."

"Oh? Luoyang City is so big? There are so few skilled craftsmen?" Wang Wenzuo asked: "If the wages are not enough, you don't have to worry, I will take care of it!"

"General, you don't know something!" Gao Wanniang didn't care whether she spoke tactfully or not at this time: "Of course there are many skilled craftsmen in Luoyang City, but they either have their own shops, or they are also in the shops. He's an old man. Even if a craftsman like this pays several times the salary, he may not be willing to leave his own business and come to Cao Min. After all, his own business has been passed down from generation to generation, and no one can care about you, General. I don’t know how long I can eat it!”

"Then can your craftsmen recruit a few more apprentices who are thirteen or fourteen years old? Let them learn from you first. In this way, in a year and a few months, you can have a lot more people!" Wang Wenzuo asked road.

"General, how many apprentices can a craftsman bring? No matter how old the apprentice is, there are rules in this industry where ordinary people work! Even if they ignore the rules, the craftsmen will not teach seriously and teach the apprentices the principles of starving the master to death. They all understand!”

Wang Wenzuo leaned forward slightly, and his fingers touched the cold gold belt around his waist. It was this gold belt that separated him from the people on the ground. He was standing on top of it, while they were kneeling in the dust. In Chang'an, I have only been in the world of heavenly beings for more than a year, and I have actually forgotten the real lives of most people!How ridiculous.The guild system of feudal society was not only found in Europe in the Middle Ages. Similar things were also found among handicraft workers in ancient China. Wang Wenzuo wanted to train as many craftsmen as possible so that he could quickly expand advanced technology and achieve technological progress.But the ancient craftsmen were not fools. In their view, teaching their disciples too quickly and too well would only reduce the value of their skills. Anyway, the market is so big, and the real skills can only be left to their own sons and sons-in-law, who can watch over their own acres. Three-thirds of the land is the way to go.

"What about the rules in your industry, how many apprentices can a blacksmith have at most?"

"Four!" Gao Wanniang held out four fingers: "Actually, there are only two serious teachers. If there are more, there won't be that much work. It takes ten years for a person to go from entry to teacher. This is the case in the industry. Yes, only slower but not faster!”

"Ten years? Such a long time?" Wang Wenzuo exhaled a long breath. This time was much longer than he expected: "So long?"

"Actually, it's not that long!" Gao Wuniang replied: "Generally, people who join the apprenticeship industry are only eight or nine years old. In the first few years, they can help the master with some chores. By the time they really learn the craft, they are already fourteen or fifteen years old, and the blacksmith There are also many crafts, and it will take more than ten years to find a craft where you can settle down and make a living!"

"I don't need him to know everything!" Wang Wenzuo sighed: "Why can't we learn each subject one by one? After passing each subject, we can work independently. The following can be slowly learned while doing it. After learning, we can add more That’s all the salary!”

Following Wang Wenzuo's suggestion, Gao Wuniang just lowered her head but said nothing.

"The masters don't agree?"

"Well, the apprentices can't do much work in the first few years, and the food and clothing belong to the master. If they are allowed to leave the apprenticeship so soon, the masters will suffer a big loss, and they will definitely not be able to teach seriously. There is nothing anyone can do about this. Only the master himself knows whether the craftsmanship has been carefully taught, and the common people can't do anything to them!"

"I understand, let's take it easy first!" When Wang Wenzuo heard this, he could only sigh helplessly. He was not a magician. With a wave of his arms, thousands of skilled craftsmen would come from the ground. grow out of it.After all, they are flesh and blood people with their own interests, likes and dislikes. They are not NPCs. I can chop off their heads, beat them with whips, tie them up with ropes and drag them away in strings, and force them to work eight days a day. Shichen only gave me two meals of porridge.But in this way they can only produce the simplest and crudest products, and the scrap rate is astonishingly high, and the consequences are not worth the gain.

Seeing that Wang Wenzuo relaxed, Gao Wanniang felt relieved and hurriedly knelt down in the tunnel and said, "Thank you, General, for your forgiveness!"

"Get up, get up quickly!" Wang Wenzuo suppressed the unhappiness in his heart: "I just said, you have no sin, let alone thank me. I came here today to see how the four-wheeled carriage is made. Secondly, I want to see if I can imitate and promote it on a large scale. If it doesn’t work yet, forget it and make more preparations first!”

"Yes, yes, the common people understand!" Gao Wuniang stood up and stepped aside. She could see that although Wang Wenzuo was a little unhappy, he was not annoyed. According to the standards of a superior, the general's self-cultivation was really good. It's very good. "Is this four-wheeled carriage used in the Liaodong War?" Li Xian suddenly asked after being silent for a while.

"Your Highness! Maybe!" Wang Wenzuo replied vaguely, why can't His Highness King Pei learn to shut up?Doesn't he know that his role in the army this time is just a flag?Who would ask questions after seeing the flag?
"Then just give the order!" Li Xian pointed to Wang Fuyin beside him: "Luoyang Fuyin happens to be here. You just need to give him an order to build a thousand four-wheeled carriages within six months and send them to Fanyang. Is it done? The governor must know how to deal with those craftsmen and merchants!"

"Your Highness, that's enough!" Wang Wenzuo interrupted Li Xian coldly. He winked at Lu Zhaolin behind him: "Your Highness is a little tired. Mr. Lu, please take Your Highness to the car to rest!"

"Tired? I didn't—"

"Your Highness, please come down!" Lu Zhaolin directed several chamberlains and took King Pei away.Wang Wenzuo sighed and said to Wang Fuyin: "Your Majesty, Your Highness is still young and his words are not serious. Don't take it to heart!"

"Haha!" Wangfu Yin said with a smile: "I am afraid that you are the only one in the world who dares to treat the emperor's brother like this! Aren't you afraid of offending the nobleman and causing unforeseen disasters in the future?"

"Have you forgotten that King Pei is not the only one I have offended?"

Wang Fuyin was stunned when he heard this, and then laughed: "Yes, yes, I forgot! Yes! The emperor has several younger brothers, but there is only one, General Wang Wenzuo!"

"The prince said this, Wang cannot afford it!"

"You deserve it, you deserve it!" Wang Fuyin said with a smile: "Killing the Baekje, Goguryeo, Japanese, and Mohe people until corpses littered the fields, and being the first to attack the city of Pyongyang that neither Emperor Yang nor Emperor Wen of the previous dynasty could capture; He was able to lead the troops to oust the emperor and empress, and support the prince on the throne, but he was willing to be a minister; and then he took the emperor's brother out of Chang'an, leaving Chang'an and the court to the queen's father. People like you have always been Only one person!"

Wang Wenzuo smiled: "Is the prince praising me or derogating me?"

"It's not a compliment, nor a derogation! I'm just telling the truth!" Wang Fuyin said with a smile: "People like the general are destined to leave their names in history. Naturally, there will be comments from later generations of historians. I am incompetent and have no qualifications to comment on you, the general." !

Wang Wenzuo sighed. He had already heard the unspoken meaning of the old man's words. People like him would of course be judged as heroes by success or failure. Success would make him a famous official in the country, and failure would make him a rebellious traitor. This old man said Saying that you are not qualified is actually a bit of a reminder that you should be more cautious when doing things, so as not to overturn the boat and end up in a catastrophic situation.

"Actually, what His Highness Prince Pei said just now is a bit hasty, but it's not bad!" Wang Fuyin said with a smile: "With the manpower and material resources of Luoyang Dongdu, it is not impossible to build a thousand four-wheeled carriages. If it is for the Liaodong war situation, , this is also the duty of the old man!"

"What I want is not a four-wheeled carriage!" Wang Wenzuo answered decisively.

"That is--"

"Of course four-wheeled carriages are good, but what's more important is to use military orders to develop production!" Wang Wenzuo glanced at Wang Fuyin coldly. Although there were many new terms in his words, he didn't believe that the old guy couldn't understand. He had been silent for such a long time, and his mouth was not moving and his ears were definitely not idle. If Li Xian understood this, he would think more highly of him.

"You want to use these carriages to make Gao Wuniang's business bigger?"

"Almost, of course, it's not necessarily Gao Wu Niang!" Wang Wenzuo said coldly: "If we do what His Highness King Pei said, the merchants in Luoyang will be seriously injured. This is completely beyond my intention. I hope By building these carriages, a group of craftsmen and merchants who specialize in building carriages appeared in Luoyang, so that even after the war is over, this kind of carriages can flow into the private sector so that more people can use it!"

"Yes!" Wang Fuyin sighed: "The more people can make it, the cheaper and more durable the carriage will be, so that after the war is over, the people can use it. The general has such far-reaching considerations. , too old and too old!”

Wang Wenzuo snorted coldly. Of course he didn't believe that this old man understood it now, but he didn't have to say it to the end. He smiled and said: "Gao Wu Niang, after your righteous deeds, I will report your righteous deeds to the emperor and your orders." It should be delivered to you soon. Next time we meet, you won’t have to kneel down like this!”

"Thank you, General!" Gao Wanniang finally remembered this time. She didn't kneel down, but just bowed down.Wang Wenzuo turned around and left without saying anything else.Gao Wuniang walked to the door and waited until the procession completely disappeared at the entrance of the alley.

"Congratulations Wu Niang!"

"What a joy! Wu Niang!"

"Can you all speak? You should call me madam when you are yelling at Wu Niang! Didn't you hear what the general just said? When he goes back, he will tell the emperor of tomorrow to ask for a royal decree for Wu Niang!" (This chapter over)