Chapter 131 The Exam

Ye Tao's examination was also a performance, lasting a total of three and a half hours. When Ye Tao pulled the carving knife out of his work apron, placed it in the oil barrel used for tool maintenance, tossed the work apron onto the toolbox, and took off the thick, sweat-soaked coarse work clothes, exposing his upper body as many craftsmen in the Ye Family Workshop did when they couldn't stand the heat. Then, casually taking a large jar of tea that Sophie had prepared long ago, he gulped it down... After a moment of silence, the cheers and shouts that erupted almost overturned the factory buildings on both sides of the open space where the examination was being held.

"Did you see that? Have you practiced your fundamentals well? To pass the technician exam... you'll be doing well to pass the first-level apprentice exam." Master craftsmen were everywhere, grabbing their apprentices by the ear and giving them earnest instructions. Many craftsmen were lost in thought, reflecting, sighing...

"The technician-level examination is passed... no objections, right?" Ye Lao Geng squeezed in from the outside of the crowd, glanced at the sculpture Ye Tao had just completed, and said, "Alright, alright, the technician qualification examination is passed, no objections, right?"

Everyone laughed heartily, and all kinds of comments burst out instantly. Objections? If he couldn't pass with that, it would be a damn miracle.

"Good, Da Zhu and I will sign and stamp it, then send this document to the Ministry of Works. Once the reply comes, we'll issue the certificate." Ye Lao Geng was very satisfied with everyone's reaction and the current atmosphere. "The first batch of technicians will be issued certificates uniformly. Everyone will go to Danyang then, and the Minister of Works will present them." Ye Lao Geng opportunely revealed the recently finalized matter. In fact, this matter was not difficult at all. Ye Lao Geng and Ye Tao, father and son, both held positions in the Ministry of Works. Even if they were just giving face, the Minister would never refuse. But for everyone, this was a very attractive prospect.

Ye Tao sat on the long bench beside him, grinning. Tan Weixin, Dai Qiuyan, Sophie, and the others were all there. Although they hadn't watched the entire lengthy process, they were equally amazed by Ye Tao's performance. Perhaps only Ye Tao could make carving so performative.

"Ye Tao, you've played this trick, what am I going to do?" Zhao Da Zhu pretended to reprimand him from the side, "I still have an examination today."

"Just kidding! You should also bring out your hidden talents to show off, right?" Ye Tao said with a smile, "It's been a long time since I've seen you do any fancy tricks."

"Haha, yes, while my hands are still nimble." Zhao Da Zhu's face was full of confidence. He didn't have Ye Tao's spatial imagination, nor his solid art foundation and carving skills, but in terms of technical solidity, he was second to none. And Ye Tao's performance just now had really sparked a strong interest in him.

However, Zhao Da Zhu's show of skills still looked so simple and unadorned. Zhao Da Zhu had people bring in a huge workbench and took out his full set of tools—this was a big difference from those novice apprentices. Almost everyone at the technician level or above in the Ye Family Workshop had strict requirements for their tools, and some people even forbade others from touching them. Zhao Da Zhu carefully adjusted the workbench to level, ensuring its absolute stability, before having people carefully move the material he was going to use for his skills.

"What is this?" Looking at the unusually large door, about half a person taller and as wide as a person's arm span, Ye Tao's mouth twitched and he asked.

"The finished product will be the gate of the Iron City Governor-General's mansion... this piece is the left half." Zhao Da Zhu replied steadily.

"...Senior Brother, you wouldn't be..." Ye Tao thought of Zhao Da Zhu's superb basic skills, and then he thought of the content of his skills.

Zhao Da Zhu nodded without speaking. He checked the pads under the wooden board to ensure that the board would not move easily. Then, he very seriously, almost reverently, took out a soft cloth from the toolbox, carefully wiped his hands to remove sweat, and then his current apprentice handed him a towel soaked in shaojiu (a type of Chinese liquor), and he wiped his hands again. After that, he took out a plane from the toolbox, and only a plane.

Starting from the very center of the wooden board, Zhao Da Zhu began to push outwards in a spiral circle, leaving a gap slightly wider than the plane mark between each plane mark. The pattern was oval, with the ratio of the long axis to the short axis being exactly the ratio of the entire door panel. By the time Zhao Da Zhu had pushed the plane mark to near the edge of the door panel, the shaving was still a complete strip, without breaking...

What kind of skill was this? This was the realm of a master craftsman returning to simplicity. Everyone around who was watching carefully controlled their breathing, as if afraid that making even a slightly louder sound would disturb Zhao Da Zhu. An apprentice with a shorter stature in the outer circle stood on tiptoe, softly requesting the person in front of him, "Hey, please, let me through." However, the soft voice drew angry glares from everyone around. But this guy was still allowed to a place where he could see the scene.

The four corners naturally could not allow the circular marks to continue, and at the four corners, Zhao Da Zhu directly planed out patterns of grass flowers, but still did not let the shavings break. When he pushed to the outermost edge, about where the doorknob would be installed, he turned the plane in his hand and began to push back towards the center along the same trajectory...

If Ye Tao had just shown the gorgeous, dazzling, and imaginative side of a craftsman's skills, fully demonstrating the top level of a genius craftsman, then Zhao Da Zhu was now using his actions to demonstrate that as long as one was willing to put in the effort, all craftsmen could do it, but only a few people in the world could reach the realm: great skill is like clumsiness. If Ye Tao's performance was to make everyone marvel and sigh that there were such people in the world, then at this moment, Zhao Da Zhu's performance made many people lower their heads and look at their hands... "You can also do it!" This was the message that Zhao Da Zhu was conveying. And that shaving, which was so long that people didn't dare to imagine its length, was the best proof.

Zhao Da Zhu's performance only lasted for a little less than half an hour, and he didn't sweat profusely like Ye Tao, who had been working for more than three hours. Wiping his hands on his apron, he said to Ye Tao boastfully, "How about it? Not bad, right?"

Ye Tao chuckled, raised both thumbs, and praised loudly, "High! Really high!"

The first day of the examination ended with the wonderful performances of Ye Tao and his senior brother, amid everyone's exclamations of amazement. And the examination of Old Man Ye Lao Geng on the second day also attracted everyone's attention. Ye Tao and Zhao Da Zhu both demonstrated extreme abilities, while Ye Lao Geng showed all the skills needed by a traditional carpenter. He spent a whole day making a wooden bed... This was the exam question when he graduated as an apprentice back then, and after so many years, it was the first time he had brought out the full set of skills. Sawing, drilling, planing, chiseling, carving... a series of crafts were displayed in Ye Lao Geng's hands, making those with enough insight watch with fascination, seeing why this Yicheng's first carpenter back then could be called the first. Under the old man's hands, every technique was so solid, he rarely did useless work, rarely made unnecessary movements, and the movements were full of power and rhythm, full of artistic beauty.

The old man's body was still so strong, he was still full of energy after completing the full set of work. Although his name as the first carpenter was lost early on because of Ye Tao's sudden rise, this was a greater honor for a father. Such a performance by the Ye family completely suppressed the scene, and also made everyone who wanted to test for technician had to think twice. But in this way, the status of the technician qualification was invisibly higher.

The first to let the craftsmen in their own industry participate in the qualification examination of the Ye Family Workshop was the Shi family of Nanyang, who had tried to poach the Ye family's talent but were suppressed by Ye Lao Geng's decisive actions. Nanyang was not very far from Yicheng, and the Shi family's apprentices and workers studying in the Ye Family Workshop had never stopped. When they learned about this matter, they immediately arranged for a total of twenty-two craftsmen to participate in the training, of which two obtained technician certificates and twelve obtained apprentice certificates... Regardless of what the Shi family's original intention was in arranging this examination, they objectively did something very beneficial to the Ye Family Workshop: letting the Ye Family Workshop's grading examination move towards a larger scope.

While the examinations were constantly being conducted within the workshop, the reforms of the Ye Family Workshop were also gradually unfolding. First of all, in terms of training, the Ye Family Workshop established a Learning Department to manage all internal and external training. Since the external training was linked to the Ye Family Workshop's examination system, those who entrusted the training could clearly see what kind of results their tuition fees had, which could be said to be a win-win situation.

Then, the Dai Family Construction Company and the construction department of the Ye Family Workshop, which had always cooperated closely, merged. This merger was surprisingly simple. A few documents were sent to the ongoing construction sites, and after a notification, it was basically completed. The accounts and the income of employees at all levels were highly consistent between the two sides, and it would be no problem for Dai Yuege to spend a little more time to deal with it completely.

The Production Planning Department was more complicated. Since everyone had no experience in managing in this way, it was finally decided that the three workshops in Yicheng, Danyang, and Yunzhou would each establish local Production Planning Departments first. No unified task allocation would be carried out for the time being, but they would communicate with each other on research topics to avoid the problem of repeated investment. After everyone had been working for a period of time, such as half a year to a year, the heads of the three workshops, that is, their brothers and Ye Lao Geng, would then sort out a set of effective norms. Although this situation was somewhat helpless, it was also related to the underdeveloped logistics industry of this era. Many production tasks simply could not be allocated on a large scale. If Yunzhou wanted to build a batch of weapons and issued the task to Yicheng, that would be a big trouble.

And those reforms involving the split of shares, the sale of equity and project revenue rights, and changes in the way of cooperation with other institutions were coordinated by Jian Datong, Shi Wei, and Liu Qing. Jian Datong was responsible for conducting research, Liu Qing was responsible for coordinating the merchants of the Qihai Trading Company, and Tan Weixin assigned Shi Wei to be responsible for communicating with the merchants related to the Jiuzhou Trading Company and the Neifu. The main thing to explain to those merchants was that this one-time sale was not that the Ye Family Workshop wanted to break off relations and terminate cooperation, but to provide everyone with more efficient technical services.

And at this time, it was already August. Ye Tao had been away from the Road and Bridge Department and away from Yunzhou for more than nine months. Even though she loved her daughter and wanted Ye Tao to have time to handle things well, and even to play a role in the Nanyang layout in Dongping, Tan Xiaopei really couldn't stand Ye Tao resting for such a long time. Naturally, it was also because the first phase of deployment in Yunzhou had been completed. The old general Xu Jingtian had almost perfectly completed the reform and deployment of Yunzhou's military strength, and now it was time to enter the second phase of development in Yunzhou... And at this time, Tan Weixin, who had long been determined to sort out Yunzhou's economic affairs, should appear.

So, in early August, after Ye Tao returned from participating in the testing of the rapid-firing crossbow cannons installed on the Huya warship, a "family letter" urging Ye Tao and Tan Weixin to return to the court arrived in Yicheng.