Chess Mage of Faerûn

Chapter 522 Gaoyaling DR 1366 Annual Industrial Development Memorandum (Part Two)
In desperation, the sirens chose to flee with their barrels, running to their lord with the oil drums and chattering incessantly to complain. After comforting the aggrieved lord, the lord summoned the two ogre brothers and gave them a dressing down.

It's not that I'm worried about the cost of the oil, but it does affect production efficiency. More importantly, if those two careless people accidentally reach into a container of alkali instead of an oil drum, that would be a real disaster.

Soap production has relatively low technical requirements; the difficulty and key skills lie in the formulation and purification of raw materials, but this step is no longer difficult with the help of specially made chemical containers.

Large bars of soap were manufactured and then cut into regular small pieces by the cannibal brothers using specially made long knives; this was the initial form of the product.

No, it shouldn't be called soap. A finished product with added fragrance can be called scented soap.

To improve the appearance and quality, the soap workshop even hired one of the few carpenters in the area to further polish and carve the standard square bars of soap.

The original square shape has been transformed into an oval and a handle shape, which were common in the previous life. The smooth surface has also been engraved with the emblem of the High Cliffs and various flowers.

In terms of skill level, the carpenters from the countryside of Gaoya are worlds apart from those with true artistic talent, like mountains compared to a basin.

But soap is much easier to work with than wood; carving a flower according to a given pattern is not a problem.

As for the compensation?

In their minds, serving the lord was simply a matter of course, so why should there be any reward?

Unfortunately, Master Zhang's skin wasn't as thick as Master Huang's or Master Ma's from his previous life, and he made up the labor fees for everyone according to the market price.

Gained several subjects who were filled with mixed feelings of surprise and panic, and gained +10 reputation with the lord.

It wasn't just the industrial production sector that was busy this month.

Once all three production lines were running smoothly, a large-scale human resources planning mobilization meeting was held in the Gaoya territory.

Feeling the shortage of manpower, the lord decided to give his people a chance to change their fate, even though they looked so ordinary and unremarkable, and even the lice that were picked off their bodies were not as plump as those in other territories.

Of course, this is mainly due to the cleaning and sanitation efforts before moving into the Tulou. The frequent bathing caused the insects to become homeless, die, or escape.

But they are, after all, his subjects, and their entire families rely on him for a living. They can run away, but they can't escape his control, so at least their loyalty is guaranteed.

So, the working people of Gaoya, who had just finished spring plowing and summer planting and were enjoying a rare period of leisure, were swept up in a frenzy because of a piece of news.

Farmers constitute the main component of the Gaoya people. Originally, they lived a life of toiling in the fields, with their backs to the soil and their faces to the sky, and they had no illusions about their predictable lives.

Even the stories sung by bards seemed too distant to them, like another wonderful and colorful world isolated from their own.

But now, the benevolent lord has given them a chance to change their fate: High Cliff Territory is recruiting artisan apprentices!
It's no exaggeration to say that it can change one's fate. It's extremely difficult for ordinary farmers to break free from the limitations of their birth. Without connections, how can they expect to be taken in as an apprentice?
Besides, is life as an apprentice really that easy?
Aside from a lucky few who encounter a conscientious master, most unfortunate students can only play the roles of punching bags, servants, scapegoats, or even slaves during their apprenticeship, enduring the master's arbitrary instructions and exploitation.

Let alone wages, even the act of learning a skill is treated like stealing a master's secrets. If you don't rely on your cleverness to observe and imitate diligently, do you expect the master to patiently persuade you to learn? To meet the apprentice's learning needs, why sacrifice production efficiency and working time to patiently explain?

Then the other party is probably your maternal uncle, or even just your neighbor Uncle Wang who you can't acknowledge.

This primitive master-apprentice teaching process was far from warm and affectionate. Many masters deliberately concealed their skills and delayed the teaching progress so that they could continue to use their apprentices for their own purposes.

However, it is the lord who is currently recruiting apprentices!

Six months have passed, and policies have been implemented among the people; houses, water conservancy projects, mills and other infrastructure have sprung up.

Both the original inhabitants of Gaoya and the migrants from Hepan Village have personally experienced and witnessed the changes in their lives.

This change is different from previous changes such as good years and bad years, or harvesting a few extra bushels of grain. This change is beyond their past experience, and they can hardly describe it with their meager words.

Especially for the people who survived the barren years, compared to the hardships of the past, it was as if they had traveled back in time to the years before the shadows fell, reliving the beauty and abundance they had almost forgotten.

No, that's not right. Where in the past could one find such a magnificent, safe, spacious, and comfortable earthen building to live in? Where could one find such meager taxes? Where could one find such unheard-of benevolent governance, with druids helping farmers cultivate the land and even lords personally subsidizing their subjects?
Reputation and credibility are intangible things, but building them requires real money and hard work.

Similarly, the benefits that come with success are also considerable.

If other lords were to recruit apprentices, the first reaction of the common people who had been exploited in their territories would probably be: What kind of trick is that damn noble lord up to now to freeload off our labor?

Eat shit!

However, when Master Zhang posted the job recruitment notice among the residents, it immediately sparked a wave of job applications.

The word "credit" told the people that their lord was not a beast, a bastard, or a parasite, and that the promises in the proclamation—including all food and lodging, payment based on work, guaranteed job placement after graduation, and generous benefits—were not empty words.

The unexpected enthusiasm of the people caused the recruitment process to veer in another direction.

It's not that there aren't enough people, it's that there are too many. In Gaoyaling, where the total population is only a little over a thousand, more than three hundred people have flocked to apply. Almost every household has sent one or more teenagers, young adults, and middle-aged people to apply.

The influx of people quickly transformed the original promotional appeal into a screening and approval process.

Forget about literacy rates. Jady and the sirens first eliminated nearly half of the applicants based on their family background and age. Then, they tested the applicants' basic cognitive abilities, memory, and finger dexterity through a series of image recognition and mini-games.

In the end, only forty-one people met the criteria, barely one-tenth of the total.

This result was not unexpected for the monk. Even if they were apprentice craftsmen, not just anyone could do it. The fact that there were forty-one of them was because he had relaxed the age limit.

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(End of this chapter)