Chapter 1 Talking Secretly

Tan Weixin had already proven herself to be a highly skilled keeper of secrets through numerous precedents. Although Ye Tao was still very interested in the content of the brief conversation between Tan Weixin and Dai Yun that day, he wouldn't constantly pursue those details. Ye Tao wasn't particularly enthusiastic about efforts that were unlikely to yield results.

Their stay in Suiyuan City lasted a few days longer than expected. This was mainly because the consolidation of various industries seized from the Dai family after the purge of Yunzhou proved to be more complicated than Tan Weixin had anticipated. Due to the wartime conditions, the confiscation and inventory had not been conducted very thoroughly. In particular, some merchants might only have had financial dealings with the confiscated families, or simply received annual dividends, and the Dai family had not swept them all up. Some relatively prosperous industries, the people responsible for the inventory might have felt that a crude confiscation would be a pity, so they sent people to monitor the operation of the industries after a round of intimidation, without taking inventory, and so it dragged on. While some of these industries had declined due to the absence of key personnel, many maintained a reasonably good operating condition, and some even thrived due to the various opportunities after the Yunzhou war. In addition, there were some more scattered fields that were not suitable for incorporation into Rongjun farms and pastures, and some workshop-type industries that were not easy to move due to their technical nature. What Ye Tao and Tan Weixin found particularly amusing was that there were actually two aphrodisiac workshops and a complete set of raw material planting bases... Taking over all kinds of shops and workshops with completely different situations naturally required a considerable amount of time, and during these days in Suiyuan, Tan Weixin had only given some principled opinions on some more common situations.

Within the Dai family, there also seemed to be no unified opinion on which industries should be handed over to the Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner's Office for integration and diversion. The opposition was mainly concentrated in two factions. One faction within the Dai family believed that they should wholeheartedly rely on Dongping and the Tan family, and that all metal mines, forges, and workshops related to armaments should be handed over to the Tan family. The other faction clamored to retain some capacity for the Dai family to rectify military preparations in case of emergencies.

But it seemed that everyone underestimated Ye Tao's determination in integrating Yunzhou's various manufacturing resources and Tan Weixin's magnanimity.

Tan Weixin had never intended to bring all the workshops under the name of the inner court or hand them over to the increasingly Dongping-ized military of Yunzhou. Letting the inner court take charge would be improper, and besides, the inner court would not allocate funds to take over these workshops that lacked technology and manpower. And with the technical strength of Ye Tao, Qian Shun, and others participating, handing the workshops over to the Yunzhou military would still be based on Ye Tao's opinion, which would be completely redundant.

In this situation where it was necessary to focus on supporting the development of industry and commerce, and the product production was slightly inclined towards the needs of the army, Ye Tao and Tan Weixin discussed it again and again, and finally decided to establish the first relatively independent department under the Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner's Office: the Yunzhou Manufacturing Bureau. As Ye Tao and Tan Weixin had discussed before, in order for Yunzhou to have a large number of unique products to drive economic development, Ye Tao needed to let Ye's Workshop bear the responsibility of researching technology. He didn't want the Yunzhou branch of Ye's Workshop to fall into the predicament of constantly expanding production and constantly spreading its energy in production management. With such time and energy invested, it would be better to develop more new products. In Ye Tao's vision, Ye's Workshop would develop various products, and then obtain profits from the Yunzhou Manufacturing Bureau and other private workshops in the form of equity and dividends, and use these profits to continue to support the technological research and development of Ye's Workshop. Ye's Workshop would naturally still produce, but only limit production to the technologically advanced fields of this era.

So, who should manage the Yunzhou Manufacturing Bureau? This question was not easy to answer. In terms of production management and planning, there was no doubt that Ye Tao had complete confidence in his senior brother Qian Shun, but Qian Shun himself was unwilling to leave Ye's Workshop to take the position of Director of the Yunzhou Manufacturing Bureau, a position that was at least rank four. Qian Shun's reaction was that purely managing output and quality was too boring. So, Ye Tao had to look for suitable candidates from other aspects, and finally decided to have an old retainer of the Dai family, Han Yao, serve as the director.

While Ye Tao valued Qian Shun's own choice, he didn't give Han Yao much choice. When the appointment was announced, the scene was beyond description. Han Yao was not a member of the Dai family, not even a member of the vast alliance of in-law families connected by aunts and cousins, but merely a person who had grown up step by step in the Dai family's industries, and was now actually managing a considerable number of the Dai family's workshops in Suiyuan, and was nominally the fourth-in-command of the Dai family's manufacturing industry. The appearance of this name in Ye Tao's field of vision was somewhat accidental.

Since Dai Shikui was inclined to hand over all of the Dai family's workshops, as soon as he arrived in Suiyuan, he had Suiyuan list the information of all the Dai family's workshops for Ye Tao to review. This work naturally fell to Han Yao, who actually managed these industries and was most familiar with the situation. The workshop information listed by Han Yao included not only the location of each workshop, the number of craftsmen, and the type of items produced, but also more useful content. For example, in Suiyuan, the Dai family had a total of five forging houses, two large and three small, and more than twenty blacksmith shops. These industries had always been scattered, but there had never been the time or energy to integrate them. The forging house information listed by Han Yao included the quality of the steel ingots, iron ingots, or copper materials produced by each forging house. He did not have a quantitative standard, but he used the steel ingots produced by Liyang, the largest steel production area in Dongping, as the standard, and gave the relative quality of different materials. Although the blacksmith shops were not able to be integrated in terms of location, from the time Han Yao took over until now, each shop had been responsible for one or several parts and then carried out final assembly. Although the production process did not seem completely reasonable to Ye Tao, it had reached a fairly high level. While reading Han Yao's report documents, Ye Tao, Tan Weixin, Qian Shun, and Dai Shikui and others effortlessly understood the current situation of the workshops under the Dai family, and suddenly, Qian Shun asked about the author of this report, which brought out Han Yao, who could be said to be an unknown person.

For Han Yao, his appointment as the Director of the Manufacturing Bureau was absolutely unexpected. He hurriedly wanted to decline, but was told that Ye Tao had gone to inspect the factory area of Ye's Workshop. And Han Yao, who came to the door, was stuffed into a carriage by the smiling Dai Shikui, and asked him to go to the factory area to find Chief Ye...

Undoubtedly, Han Yao was somewhat apprehensive. In just a few days, he had heard all kinds of rumors, which were constantly tormenting him. Although Dai Shikui and others had told him to relax, they couldn't really let him accept the appointment of Director of the Yunzhou Manufacturing Bureau calmly. The most vicious and severe attacks did not come from the Dai family, which had always been calm and peaceful and attached great importance to real ability, but from those in-law families of the Dai family and those family servants who were not far from Han Yao's position... Han Yao himself only considered himself to be a family servant with some status.

"Where is Lord Ye?" When the carriage passed through the three blockade lines outside the factory area of Ye's Workshop and came to the completed workers' dormitory next to the factory area under construction, which was now being used as the core of engineering management, he didn't care too much about his fatigue, but first asked about Ye Tao.

"Mr. Han, please rest first. Lord Ye is currently supervising the hoisting of the factory building beams on the construction site. It seems that he will not be able to come over until the evening when work is over." A apprentice said very respectfully.

"Hoisting beams?" Han Yao asked with a frown. He didn't think that with the reputation of Ye's Workshop, Ye Tao would have to manage the beams of some factory buildings himself.

"Hehe, Lord Ye thinks our construction is too slow, and he has been helping us solve problems these two days. The factory buildings are all two-story steel beam structures with open spaces. Everyone has never done this before, so they are more careful and slower." The apprentice said somewhat embarrassedly.

"Can you take me to see?" Han Yao asked.

"Mr. Han, please wait a moment, I'll ask Teacher Qian." The apprentice seemed to attach great importance to Han Yao's request. After a while, he ran back and said to Han Yao, "Mr. Han, please come with me."

Arriving at the construction site, Han Yao saw an architectural style he had never seen before. Cement pillars and steel frames had been erected to form a complete building framework, but the content of the framework was being filled. At the two rows of factory buildings where the framework construction had been completed, hundreds of workers wearing the dark blue coarse cloth uniforms of Ye's Workshop were building walls between the frames, used to install factory doors that could be opened extremely wide and could be removed when necessary, supporting horizontal steel frames between the inclined supports on the roof to support the subsequent installation of the tile surface, and even some at the middle height of the impossibly tall buildings, installing a working layer for people to walk on. Not far away, at the door of a factory building that had been built, a large number of workers were unloading a large pile of parts from the carriage and pushing them into the factory building for installation.

The factory still continued the layout of Ye's Workshop, which combined work and rest and emphasized the beautification of the factory area. A large number of trees had been planted, and those small saplings would make the factory area full of green shade in a few years or decades. Perhaps because it was more troublesome to find stone and the cost was relatively high, Han Yao noticed that in the open space between the factory buildings, many tables and chairs were poured with cement. The very talented apprentices of Ye's Workshop even poured out large cement blocks for sculpture...

Walking forward, you could see the two rows of factory buildings that were currently under construction. The posture of hoisting the beams of the factory building was very exaggerated. On both sides of the factory building, there was a strange machine with a very huge body, as if two well-ladders were stacked together. The giant well-ladder was door-shaped, with a steel factory beam hanging in the middle of the suspended space. The two giant well-ladders on both sides of the factory building adjusted the beam to the appropriate place together, placed it on the vertical steel frame that had been built with cement pillars, and then a group of apprentices and workers climbed up to tighten the huge bolts one by one. Then, this work was repeated over and over again. Han Yao knew at a glance that this method of installing beams must be much more efficient than the traditional method. But the two giant well-ladder cranes alone took a lot of effort.

"When did Lord Ye start making those two big guys?" Han Yao asked suspiciously.

"It was the day before yesterday, Lord Ye threw down the drawings, and then everyone split up to make the parts and then put them together, it was very fast. It was done in one afternoon." The apprentice said with a smile.

"One afternoon..." Han Yao was surprised, this efficiency was terrible. "Won't you make mistakes if you make the parts separately?"

"We are Ye's Workshop! Not to mention that there are more skilled workers and technicians than apprentices in Yunzhou. Even apprentices, as long as they have seriously followed the master, will not make this kind of mistake. Everyone is used to it." The apprentice seemed to want to show that he didn't care too much, but his voice was full of pride.

"Why is this factory building built so high? Moreover, it uses so much steel, what a waste." Han Yao tutted.

"The factory building is high and big enough, so those big guys can be placed. Mr. Han, the thing you saw them installing in front is a punch press. The one in Danyang was originally because the factory building was small, so it couldn't be made big, and it could only punch one piece of armor at a time. Now this big guy can punch four pieces at a time, and with a swish, four chest armors are ready. ...Although not everything is so big now, since it can be made big, then make it bigger. If you have good things in the future, you can't tear down the house and rebuild it." The apprentice said with a smile, "Mr. Han, the one at the table over there is Lord Ye."

Ye Tao's clothes were not much different from all the people around him who were working hard, the same standard work clothes of Ye's Workshop. After all, the workshop was not an army, and it didn't pay much attention to this formal rank. When they arrived at their respective workshops to work, they didn't recognize people by their clothes. And the biggest difference between Ye Tao and the people around him was that there were a considerable number of guards standing in bright armor next to the workbench where he was studying the layout of the factory area and the progress of the construction, vigilantly looking around. Once a stranger approached, they would immediately step forward to inquire.

"Lord Ye!" After passing the guard's inspection, Han Yao came to Ye Tao's side.

"Mr. Han," Ye Tao gently placed the pencil in his hand on the table. The pencil lead currently made by Ye's Workshop was still very brittle, making it impossible for Ye Tao to throw it away casually, which made him very unhappy. "I heard that you are afraid to take the position of Director of the Manufacturing Bureau, is that right?"

Ye Tao's straightforwardness made Han Yao a little cramped. If there was such an opportunity, why wouldn't he want to try it, but after all, he was a family servant. If he took the position of Director of the Manufacturing Bureau, he would inevitably be labeled as arrogant and disrespectful to the master's family.

"Lord Ye, this..."

Ye Tao smiled and said, "I won't let my first appointment fall through." His tone would not make Han Yao feel oppressed, but it had fully shown Ye Tao's determination. "I have already told Uncle Dai Shikui about this matter, you don't have to worry about other people's gossip. Integrating the original workshops of the Dai family, and then letting all kinds of workshops operate according to the needs of Yunzhou and the orders of the Pacification Commissioner's Office, you can do this. As for the others, as your master's family, the Dai family will clarify it for you. And as an important subordinate official of the Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner's Office, if anyone makes irresponsible remarks, it's not your business. Of course, if you really don't do well, then that's another matter."

Ye Tao didn't give Han Yao any chance to explain, but gave Han Yao some guarantees. For honest people like Han Yao, this was enough. At the same time, Ye Tao also gave Han Yao the first task, integrating all the Dai family's original metal smelting and weapon manufacturing workshops and concentrating them in Suiyuan. After the craftsmen have received training, they will quickly resume production. Ye Tao required Han Yao to ensure the production of agricultural tools in the spring of next year, and to supply the basic weapons purchased by the Yunzhou tribes with guaranteed quality and quantity. This was a very heavy task. Although the Yunzhou tribes would send a large number of elite warriors to enter the Jingyun Cavalry and accept Tan Weiran's command, the original war-herding style of the Yunzhou tribes determined that they still had a considerable demand for weapons.

Han Yao gritted his teeth and said, "Then, Lord Ye, Suiyuan also needs such a factory building. The original shops and workshops were scattered in the east and west, which is really a waste of time."

"I'll give you a group of people to help you build the factory building. As for the others, when you return to Suiyuan, I will send someone to help you build the framework of the Manufacturing Bureau and give you a sum of money so that you can promote your work. Don't let me down." Ye Tao replied simply.

"I will definitely not fail Lord Ye's kindness!" Han Yao bowed deeply.