"Your primary responsibility now is to train sailors and captains for me. If you do this well, I will definitely make proper arrangements for you and will not treat you unfairly," Gu Qingcheng promised.
When asking people to do things, one must naturally offer them a future. Gu Qingcheng was not the type to exploit others for free.
Some people, when asking others to do things, often employ the tactic of "discarding the donkey after it has served its purpose," and even feel smug about it, thinking they are saving money and effort since the other party's residual value has been squeezed dry and there's no need for further investment.
However, this kind of heart-wrenching approach, while seemingly gaining the upper hand in the short term, has far-reaching and detrimental consequences. It might not be apparent immediately, but the powerful elephant is often brought down by an insignificant ant, an ant that has been exploited.
For the brothers Da Peng and Xiao Peng, they didn't need Gu Qingcheng to pat his chest and guarantee them a future. Young Master Gu himself was a shining beacon of trust and a guarantee. This was the reputation Gu Qingcheng had meticulously built through his long-term actions among the villagers.
"Young Master Gu, rest assured, we will not fail in our mission," Da Peng said, unable to hide his excitement.
"I will have Yan Xin select twenty people from the hunting team for you to train. You need to carefully observe their overall performance. Those with good character, courage, perseverance, and who are genuinely suited for life on the water can be kept; those who are not will be eliminated."
"Yes."
Having been trained in the military camp, the brothers Da Peng and Xiao Peng's obedience to superiors was instinctive, deeply ingrained in their very beings. Now, with Gu Qingcheng's trust, they were eager to exert all their strength.
Gu Qingcheng took the brothers to the river bend to see the boats. After a thorough cleaning and some tidying, twenty boats were moored on the water, looking remarkably grand. Da Peng and Xiao Peng were stirred to their core, more moved than if they had seen a new bride, itching to get on board and never leave.
Gu Qingcheng smiled, "I am entrusting both the people and the boats to you. Do your best."
Currently, the most significant source of "pleasure points" for Gu Qingcheng from the system comes from the reward for killing zombies in relation. The rewards for related zombie kills are at least over 10,000 points daily, but this number weighs heavily on Gu Qingcheng's heart.
For each related zombie kill, the system rewards her 100 pleasure points. Over 10,000 points a day means over 100 zombies have been eliminated. But that's not just zombies; it represents living people, meaning 100 people have been wiped out. Gu Qingcheng hopes that in the future, her method of earning pleasure points will be through saving lives, not by taking them. Therefore, she is now rapidly advancing the construction of the pharmaceutical factory.
With her substantial investment of human, financial, and material resources, the pharmaceutical factory has begun to take shape in just over a month. The small hillside west of the village has been leveled, creating a flat area of thirty mu. At the entrance, a tall bluestone wall protects the factory behind it, with only one wide double wooden door planned for future entry and exit. Once opened, the wooden door will be wide enough to allow two carriages to pass simultaneously, facilitating the transport of goods.
The foundations within the factory have been dug, awaiting the construction of the walls. Once this stage is complete, the factory will quickly take form. After inspecting the site, Gu Qingcheng said to Dai Fa, the supervisor, "Medicine is taken internally to treat illnesses and save lives. The sanitary conditions must be better than in ordinary places, so I want to build the houses with bricks and tiles."
"Young Master Gu, but we don't have bricks and tiles. Buying them now is not feasible. The town at the foot of the mountain is flooded, and there's nowhere to buy them," Dai Fa said with difficulty.
The overall construction in Phoenix Village is wooden, partly because of the abundant timber resources on the mountain, and partly because buying bricks and tiles from the town below requires significant money and labor. However, in the current situation, bricks and tiles have become scarce resources that cannot be bought even with money. Building with bricks and tiles is certainly good, but where can they be bought?
Gu Qingcheng smiled, "It's alright. If we can't buy them, we'll make them ourselves."
"This?" Dai Fa listened, pondered for a moment, and then his brow relaxed, "That would be excellent. We have a large demand for building materials anyway. It would be even better if we could fire them ourselves."
"Go and recruit artisans in the village who have experience working in brick kilns. Offer them high salaries, and start immediately. It's still not too late," Gu Qingcheng said with full confidence.
At Gu Qingcheng's command, Dai Fa indeed found three craftsmen who had previously worked in brick kilns: Master Zhuang, a man in his forties who had worked in a brick kiln for over ten years, and two brothers surnamed Lu, in their twenties, who had worked in a tile kiln for over seven years. Gu Qingcheng instructed them to find a suitable location to prepare for firing bricks and tiles, and established a brick-firing team and a tile-firing team, with Master Zhuang and the elder Lu as team leaders.
Master Zhuang and the Lu brothers were very happy. They thought they had no place to use their skills here, but unexpectedly, they could still be useful one day. Becoming a team leader in Phoenix Village is not easy nowadays; it belongs to the category of village officials, a position many villagers covet, offering a high salary and extremely high social status. This is unsurprising, given that the official-centric social system of the Great Zhou Dynasty has been deeply ingrained for so long. As long as a title has "leader" in it, it signifies having made a name for oneself. With their skills in firing bricks and tiles, they have suddenly become village officials, which truly exceeded their expectations.
Gu Qingcheng did not promote people impulsively; they underwent rigorous interviews and assessments, and a probation period was stipulated, requiring them to produce qualified fired bricks and tiles within three months, or their positions would be revoked. Of course, they were not afraid, as they were already masters of brick and tile kilns, and were experienced in building kilns and making bricks and tiles.
When Master Zhuang began making bricks, Gu Qingcheng enthusiastically observed the entire process for several days. Bricks are made from earth, and the first step in making good bricks is selecting the soil. The quality of the soil is crucial for making red bricks. Fortunately, Phoenix Mountain has no shortage of red soil suitable for making red bricks. Master Zhuang said that the large amount of red soil unearthed when leveling the pharmaceutical factory site could be utilized. This red soil is not only clean and largely free of small stones and debris but also has good adhesion, making it an excellent material for red bricks.
With the raw material issue resolved, Gu Qingcheng allocated a plot of land near the red soil pile to Master Zhuang as the site for making red bricks. According to Master Zhuang's requirements, the site needed to be spacious and sunny, with ample space to place the formed green bricks. Once these were in place, they began constructing workbenches. The workbench for making red bricks was best located between the soil-fetching area and the green brick placement area, with a height suitable for the brick-making artisans. Simultaneously, a canopy was to be erected, supported by four wooden posts and covered with straw or wheat stalks for reinforcement. The area where the mixed clay was kept also needed a canopy to prevent the clay from drying out in the sun.
Next, they prepared the dry ash. Dry ash is used when the green bricks are demolded, to facilitate the separation of the green brick from the mold and prevent them from sticking together.