Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 112: East Factory Owners and Resources

After seeing off Ship No. 1, Yuanye returned to his office, took out the "Project Progress Report" submitted by "Wanjin Bugyo" Endo Chiyo, glanced at it, pondered for a moment, wrote a note and signed it, and sent a maid to give it to her, asking her to put the "Saltwater Leaking Workshop" in the construction queue to avoid a successful expedition and a large pile of cooked bird droppings that could not be handled.

The saltpeter mission had to come to an end for the time being. He could not continue without waiting for the "Ship No. 1" to come back. He looked through other reports and confirmed that Wanjin was currently operating normally.

Well, Endo Chiyo is really capable. She is worthy of being the "SSR virtuous wife" who left behind countless folk legends. Her performance is better than he expected. All of Wanjin's work during this period is in order. Most of the trivial matters have been filtered out by her and do not bother him at all, which helps him save a lot of time.

Of course, this was also due to the fact that he had made all the plans and formulated various rules and regulations early on, and there were only more than 300 people in Wanjin at present. Strictly speaking, it was not a difficult task, but she could still say that she did a good job - her identity as a samurai's daughter also played a big role. Whether they were powerful samurai, fellow samurai, or senior men, most of them would give her some face and would not be too rude in front of her. In addition, she had a high emotional intelligence and always greeted people with a smile. She was really a good material to be a housekeeper.

Since she did a good job, Yuanye had no desire to show off his micro-management skills. He did not plan to give her an order to "move wood pile No. 3 in the workshop area five centimeters to the left". He let her continue to work and instead sent a newly hired and somewhat silly little maid to call A-man.

Ah Man came over very quickly, and Yuan Ye asked her without waiting for her to sit down, "How is the task I asked you to do going?"

After finding the captain of the saltpeter boat, Aman was not idle either. She was ordered to set up the "Wanjin East Factory". She was the first factory manager under Yuanye. Moreover, she had advantages over ordinary factory managers. She was not born with those advantages, so she did not have to take that blow.

"Wanjin Factory Master" Ah Man is now a powerful person in the area, and he is very impressive. He touched his tea bowl and took two sips before saying, "There are six people now. According to your request, all...departments? Well, all departments now have one person, and I will add more people later depending on the situation."

As she spoke, she took out a piece of paper from her bosom, which looked like it had been crumpled up to wipe her butt, and handed it to him, "Here is the list."

These people are Aman's men trained and are part of the internal supervision. Now there are only more than 300 people in Wanjin. Of course, the government is stable and the people are harmonious. Everyone is loyal and dedicated, otherwise Yuanye will arrive at the scene within five minutes and kick them in the ass. They have no choice but to be loyal. But it is hard to say when the number of people increases in the future. There is no organization in this world that is without some problems, so there must be an internal supervision mechanism and the ability to correct errors in a timely manner.

Half of the work of Aman, the "factory manager", is currently preparing for this. It allows Yuanye to have the ability to understand the entire territory while reading reports. And this is not spy politics. Her title of "factory manager" is a joke. In reality, she only has the power of investigation and can only discover problems, but cannot arrest or torture anyone.

As for the department responsible for internal error correction, anti-corruption, and anti-espionage, there is no such department now. After all, the business has just started and everything is thriving. No one will make mistakes of principle. Even if something really happens, he can handle it personally. There is no need to rush this department.

To put it simply, everything is just being built and the organizational structure needs to be gradually completed.

Yuan Ye took a quick look at the list and found that it was written in the secret language of the "Life-Saving Flow". He did not bother to translate it and asked A Man, "What about the external communication?"

"There are six or seven people who are out there, but they are all stupid dung balls and are useless for the time being." Aman took out another piece of toilet paper and handed it to him. "Except for the two people who were put in your shop in Kuno Castle, the others can only pretend to be merchants and move around. It's impossible for them to sneak into the Oda family and the Hayashi family for the time being."

Yuanye took the list and glanced at it. He also filed it away and locked it up together with the previous one without looking at it carefully. He said, "Don't worry, we still have time. But don't slack off. We still need to recruit people as soon as possible. By this time next year, we should at least be able to avoid being ambushed. No matter what happens, we must have enough time to prepare."

"Well, I'll try it first. There are too many idiots here. Smart people are not easy to find, and smart people who can be controlled are even harder to find." Aman sighed. She has been selecting and training people recently. She feels that these people are even dumber than Aqing. She is scratching her head every day. Now she has to say the ugly things in advance and shirk the responsibility in advance to avoid Yuanye settling accounts with her in the future.

"Hold on tight!"

Yuanye said one more sentence and let her go. After all, intelligence work can only be done slowly, and sometimes it depends a lot on luck. No matter how hard you try, you won't get any good results.

He turned and asked with concern: "What's the situation outside now? Is there anything special happening?"

"No, if there was any, I would have told you long ago!" Aman denied it first, then said in a general way, "Oda Nobunaga is still urging the powerful families to build roads and implement his so-called Le City system. There is no other movement. The powerful families just suffered a defeat and many people died. They have been very honest recently. The Imagawa family and the Matsudaira family have not made any movement either. The front line is peaceful, and there are no small-scale conflicts. So, that's it, nothing happened."

Yuanye nodded slightly. Just keep quiet. It would be best if these people did not cause any trouble for the rest of the year and just lived quietly until next year. However, he was very concerned about Oda Nobunaga's situation. After all, he was the biggest boss in Owari, and his thoughts were very jumpy and a bit neurotic. He immediately asked, "How is the effect of the Rakuichi system?"

Aman thought about it and said uncertainly, "I feel it's okay. The castle town of Kuno Castle seems to be more lively than before. Many people have really moved there, and there are a lot more merchants coming and going. Maybe this Leshi system is really useful, and he's not just messing around." Has it started to show results in more than two months?

It seems that the Japanese monks in the past suppressed free artisans and small businessmen too harshly. As long as these people see a little hope of freedom, they will do anything and even endure the notoriety of "Oda the Great Fool" and the uncertainty of the future.

This is a pretty good situation. The richer Nobunaga becomes, the stronger he becomes, and the stronger he becomes, the richer he becomes. It seems that this is about to enter a virtuous cycle.

This was not good news for Yuanye. He felt pressured by Oda Nobunaga's rapid expansion of power, but at the same time he was a little envious. He also wanted to have a big city where a large number of workers would come to him as long as he issued a decree. He could set up a music market and enjoy free trade. However, others had the foundation passed down from their ancestors, while he did not, so he could only sigh and regret.

He envied the life of the third generation of the rich for a little while, and when he felt that there was nothing else to do, he was ready to send Ah Man back to work. But Ah Man was not in a hurry to leave, and asked him with concern: "When are you going to recruit another man? Now that you are not short of money, I think it is about time, right?"

She was a little scared after escaping death at Takeuchi-sho. Seeing that Yuanye had rebuilt her business and it was almost time for her to enjoy her life, she was very concerned about her safety, fearing that something else would ruin her good life. She hurried to remind her, but Yuanye had a comprehensive plan and immediately shook her head and said, "I don't plan to recruit a man."

"You're not going to recruit people?" Ah Man was surprised. "What if something goes wrong again?"

"Just don't want Lang's party, but we still need an army." Yuan Ye had nothing to hide from her. Her blood was not shed in vain, so she immediately revealed her plan. "After a while, I plan to select people from the workshop to form an army. These people have worked in the workshop for a period of time, and they will have a certain basis of obedience and discipline. Then I will train these people personally and form the army I want."

Ah Man was stunned for a moment, and then even more surprised, and quickly said: "Can we fight without Lang's party? Is this possible? Don't do this kind of thing recklessly, if you make a mistake, we will all lose our heads!"

"I don't know either, but I want to try." Yuanye didn't pretend to be so confident that his idea would work. It's just that although the "generals + servants + military households" organization model is mature, the Ming Dynasty has proven that it is not very useful and it is easy to create private armies. Now he has few people and one person can take charge of the overall situation. There is nothing wrong with this organization, and the combat effectiveness may be higher in the short term. But in the future, he won't be able to manage it alone. With too many generals under him, he always feels that he will be betrayed. So he still thinks that even if there are some risks, it is better not to go astray from the beginning.

However, he only had some superficial ideas now, which were not thorough and reliable. Even if he didn't want to hide it from A-Man, it was difficult to explain it clearly to her. He could only say that he would give it a try.

Aman scratched his face and twitched his eyebrows. He felt that his idea might not be very reliable. They had been fighting like this for hundreds of years, so how could they change it just like that? However, there was no external threat for the time being, so it would not hurt to let him try it first.

She was going to wait until Yuanye failed before she started pointing fingers, expressing her foresight, leaving a sentence like "You know what's going on" and then patting her butt and leaving, going back to continue being her "Dongchang Director", continuing to kick future intelligence officers' butts, and then scolding them for being a bunch of idiots.

She left quietly, and Yuanye was not in a hurry to think about the army. The farmers who were free and undisciplined before had not been corrected by the regular and tight life in the workshop. They still lacked discipline, and there were not enough of them. There was no rush to select soldiers, and he had to wait for a while. He was more concerned about the accumulation of resources.

He took out a piece of paper and drew a diagram, thinking about the resources at hand as if he was playing a strategy game.

Population: There are only over 300 people now, and there is a great shortage of labor, but there is no good solution for this at the moment. The islanders cannot be deceived in a short time, and now he can't go out to plunder the population, so he can only continue to purchase them sporadically;
Money: The workshops are running normally, and the raw materials are in sufficient supply. The monthly revenue from the soy sauce workshop and the dyeing workshop has exceeded 1,200 kan. In addition, they are close to Atsuta Port and have high quality advantages. There is no need to worry about sales. They are far from meeting market demand, and can continue to expand production. There will be no problem with funds in the short term.
Food: There is no shortage of food for the time being. There are only more than 300 people, so just buying food will be enough for them.

Wood: Wood and wood derivatives, such as charcoal, are also fine. Japan is now in an era of vast land and sparse population, and natural resources are extremely rich. The mountains are full of mature trees. As long as you don't run into someone else's territory, you can cut them down at will. It's a different matter from when you were hiding in Takeuchi Village.
Sulfur: Japanese sulfur is very cheap, and it is more cost-effective to purchase it than to mine it yourself, so this is not a problem;
Saltpeter: Already on the way to dig;

Leather: This is not a problem. There are many wild animals at this time, including deer. Leather resources are sufficient. Once saltpeter is available, a nitrated leather workshop can be built.
……

Yuanye made a list and finally circled the word "steel". After the saltpeter problem was initially solved, steel began to become a scarce resource. The money spent on purchasing iron tools every month accounted for almost 40% of his income. In the future, he would also need a large number of armors and cannons, which were also big consumers of iron. It would not be possible to rely entirely on buying them. Even if he could make more money, the financial pressure would be too great.

What's more, the arms business is a big business with super high profits and unparalleled influence, which can greatly increase the right to speak. I must get involved in this field and must have a stable supply of raw materials.

But how can we get enough iron in this unfortunate time and place?
(End of this chapter)