The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 261 Suggestions for Adjusting the Firearms Workshop

After the old man finished recounting the story of the mine in front of him in a cheerful tone, he suddenly lowered his voice and whispered, "Your Highness, I recently took a stroll through some of your old mines, and our old servants from the Qi family also went to check them out. It seems that your mine management is somewhat lacking; you need to add a few more clerks to manage the following aspects..."

After he finished speaking, he listed a bunch of details, all of which addressed the loopholes in the current management.

This old man once served as a vice minister in the Ministry of Personnel, and he was quite adept at personnel matters.

After listening to him for a while, Yue Wenxuan suddenly realized that although the old man did not say it explicitly, he was actually implying that the mines lacked supervision due to several key positions being vacant, and that some people were seriously embezzling, which affected the mines' output.

"I have learned a lot. Your words, Minister Qi, have enlightened me greatly." Yue Wenxuan said, "I think it is best to trouble Minister Qi to take care of these matters."

Qi Chongli had always been a "guest advisor" wandering around the Jiaodong Peninsula, but now, Yue Wenxuan's words were tantamount to him joining directly.

The old man stiffened slightly, but immediately shook his head and said, "No, no, I am only suitable to give advice to the prince and act as an advisor, but it is not appropriate for me to come out and take charge."

Yue Wenxuan: "Then how about this, I'll let Ji Menghan manage this matter, and Qi Aiqing, please help Ji Menghan and give him some advice."

Qi Chongli: "That's excellent."

Ji Menghan, who was standing next to her, was overjoyed. She thought to herself: "Then I'm practically the Minister of Personnel, and I even have a real bigwig from the Ministry of Personnel to be my advisor. Damn, I really made the right choice to be a loyal minister."

After touring the mine, everyone returned to the glue-producing city.

As soon as they entered the city, the magistrate of Jiaoshui County came up to them and bowed to Yue Wenxuan: "Your Highness, the first craftsman assessment has ended. Here are the test results of all the craftsmen. Please take a look."

He handed over a sheet of paper filled with the exam scores of various craftsmen, divided into two categories: their "skill level" and their "education level".

Yue Wenxuan picked it up and laughed. Li Tiezhu's academic level was 5 points, but his technical level was 95 points, totaling only 100 points.

He didn't bother to look at anything else, handed the page to Ji Menghan, and said with a smile, "It's your job now. Select a group of people who are good at both technical and liberal arts studies and make them ninth-rank engineering officials. Then select another group of people who are good at technical studies to make ninth-rank deputy engineering officials. As for those who are not good at technical studies but are good at liberal arts studies, have them hone their technical skills and take the exam again next year."

Ji Menghan smiled and agreed. She quickly picked out someone who was good at both literature and art. It turned out that this person was the former "craftsman" who was the sycophant who made the craftsmen practice reciting poems. Unexpectedly, he was not only good at flattery, but also had technical skills and was passable in the humanities.

Ji Menghan smiled and shook her head: "No wonder he was able to become a master craftsman before, and he is still the official in charge of the School of Engineering now."

Yue Wenxuan: "Summon him here, and I will personally offer him a few words of encouragement."

Before long, the craftsman was summoned to the temporary royal palace.

This man used to be just a nobody, but this time he was summoned to see the prince. He felt immense pressure. When he entered the temporary prince's residence, he saw the prince sitting in the head seat, with Steward Ji sitting next to him, and Marquis Gaomi sitting next to him... What kind of lineup was this?
The young craftsman had never seen so many important people speak to him in his entire life; he was completely overwhelmed with excitement.

This was different from the last time he met the True Lord. The True Lord was a deity, famous for his benevolence and love for the people. Although the craftsman flattered the True Lord, he was mostly respectful. But this time, facing the prince and the marquis, he was mostly afraid.

The craftsman knelt down with a thud: "This humble subject...this humble subject...pays respects to Your Highness!"

"Don't be like that!" Yue Wenxuan waved his hand: "Get up. I called you here today to talk to you about the exam."

Craftsman: "Huh?"

Yue Wenxuan said, "Congratulations on passing the exam. From now on, you are a ninth-rank engineering official."

Upon hearing this, the craftsman's eyes glazed over slightly, and he felt a brief moment of dizziness, but it quickly turned into ecstasy. He almost burst into song, but fortunately, he still knew where he was. He forced himself to suppress his joy and said in a trembling voice, "This humble subject... ah... Your humble official... is overwhelmed with fear and trepidation."

Look, in just a moment, his title changed from "commoner" to "lower official," and his posture straightened considerably, showing that his sense of self-identity had improved.

Ji Menghan said, "I just looked at your liberal arts exam paper. In the paper, you said that the most urgent task for the firearms workshop is to increase the number of craftsmen?"

Upon hearing this, the engineering official's eyes lit up. This was an interview! It was equivalent to the "palace examination" in the imperial examination. If he answered well here, he would be favored by the prince.

The engineering officer immediately replied, “Yes! I believe that the biggest weakness of our Royal Guard is the shortage of skilled craftsmen. Due to the influx of refugees from neighboring counties and prefectures, most of them have been assigned to work in the mines, which has greatly increased our mineral production. Every day, a large amount of iron is continuously delivered to the workshops... The production of saltpeter and sulfur has also increased significantly. However, we do not have enough skilled craftsmen.”

Qi Chongli interjected, "They can't train them that quickly, can they?"

The engineering officer nodded: "Miners have low technical skills, so we can just pull any refugee from the pool. But craftsmen are a different story, especially those who make muskets. Just learning how to make a barrel takes a very long time. And after Mr. Kasper Korner arrives, we'll have to assign some skilled craftsmen to make the rifling."

At this point, the engineering officer looked embarrassed: "Rifling is too difficult and time-consuming. It requires top-notch craftsmen to do it... and even top-notch craftsmen have a high chance of failing to rifling and needing to redo it, which is both time-consuming and laborious. Many top-notch craftsmen are consumed by the process of rifling."

The engineering official clasped his hands and said, "In my opinion, we need to find a way to replenish the number of craftsmen immediately, or abandon the production of rifling to save manpower, so that we can make use of all the ore. Otherwise, the ore will only pile up more and more."

Qi Chongli asked, "We recently defeated those damned Jin bandits and captured many craftsmen from those bastards. Are these people any good enough to use?"

The engineering officer said, "They have been working hard to learn how to make muskets, but this group of people also has to start learning from 'barrel making,' so it's still a long way off. The only way to save a lot of manpower is to stop making rifling for now."

Qi Chongli said, "I also watched the battle last time. Those rifled guns, are they the guns used by skirmishers? The kind of weapon that hit that damned Meng'an in the face with one shot at a distance of twenty zhang and made a great contribution? If we stop production, wouldn't we lose a great weapon?"

(End of this chapter)