Chapter 11 He Who Laughs Last

Ye Tao didn't haggle over the price with Shan Zeying. He raised the land acquisition price by ten percent and then put his mind to the method of payment. Coincidentally, the person who had lent money to Shan Zeying was a fairly low-level member of the Jiuzhou Trading Company, so he took over Shan Zeying's debt plus interest as part of the payment. At the same time, he took into consideration Shan Zeying's desire to start some businesses other than grain and grain products for the Shan family, and converted a portion of the payment into orders for some of the member companies of the Jiuzhou Trading Company and the Qihai Trading Company. For Ye Tao, this was actually a deferred payment to Shan Zeying, after all, the Grand Canal Governor's Office simply didn't have enough funds to allow almost all sections of the canal to begin construction simultaneously. However, for Shan Zeying, this was a huge opportunity. He had never imagined that through Ye Tao he would be able to connect with those big merchants in the Jiuzhou Trading Company and the Qihai Trading Company. For him, a rookie in the business world, such an opportunity was even more rare than making money on real estate.

Such a large land transaction and Shan Zeying's sudden change of attitude could not but attract the attention of local wealthy households and large landowners. But the chain reaction caused by the surrender of a super-landlord like Shan Zeying was huge. On the one hand, some small and medium-sized landlords came to test the Governor's Office's policy on land and real estate.

Although he was still somewhat dissatisfied with the previous collusion between the landlords, Ye Tao still presided over a briefing session on the Grand Canal project. At the meeting, he clearly stated the method of acquisition of the land and property involved, and the principles followed in the acquisition price, as approved by the imperial court. When they heard that the land would be acquired at a reasonable price, and that even the land along the river, which would be affected by the project, would be compensated to a certain extent, and that the people attached to the land and the tenant farmers of each family would be given priority in recruitment during the project, in order to supplement the shortage of corvée labor conscripted by the corvée system, this part of the employment fee would be much higher than the income of these people and tenant farmers from farming. After the project was completed, those among these people who had learned stonemasonry and carpentry techniques would be properly settled, and the rest would coordinate with the various families to find resettlement methods.

In addition to this basic information, Ye Tao also brought in several large merchants from Dongping and officials from the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works to introduce to everyone what role the completion of the Grand Canal would play, how much logistics and traffic it would gather, and how many business opportunities it would bring.

This kind of briefing session was, in terms of form, already very close to the briefing sessions for many large-scale projects in Ye Tao's memory, but due to the limited conditions, there was no way to use a projector to show a large number of charts in the Sufeng Town like in the Yizhan Building lecture hall in Danyang.

Once the land issue was resolved, a large amount of work could be carried out by the Governor's Office. A large number of land properties needed to be assessed, priced, contracted for transfer, paid for, and received. The people who had been working on the land were also quickly organized. The young and strong began to build sheds along the planned river channel and leveled out material yards. Adult women could undertake some auxiliary work such as cooking and washing, and could also earn a wage. As for the elderly and weak, they were placed in nearby villages in separate groups. Quite a few children were concentrated in Sufeng Town to learn to read and write and learn basic arithmetic in the temporary Mengxue (private village school) in Sufeng Town.

Ye Tao only set out reasonable procedures for all the paperwork and formulated the principles for coordination between departments, and then began to relax. The entire Grand Canal project was divided into a total of twenty-two work sections, and construction began in sections. Since the main shipping sections of the Grand Canal were all located on the Qingluo Plain, there was very little need for engineering such as locks, and Shi Xiu, who had decades of experience in managing river channels, was much more experienced than him in organizing a large amount of manpower for basic earth and stone work. Ye Tao did not covet the authority to issue orders at all, and gave almost all the power to the Deputy Governor Shi Xiu, whom everyone had originally regarded as an idle position, to command. Although Shi Xiu was exhausted, he understood that in this way, from the proposal of the Grand Canal to the excavation of the Grand Canal, this peculiar canal system would be entirely to his credit. Although he did not have the ambition to enter the decision-making center of Dongping in the future and never thought that he had the talent of a prime minister, he could still have his name recorded in history. For an official like him, this was the best reward.

Ye Tao, on the other hand, smiled wickedly as he drew up a rough design for the expansion of Sufeng Town into a city. The current Ye Tao, of course, did not need to take on all the design work himself, as he had done when he first started building gardens with the construction teams of the Ye Family Workshop and the Dai Yue Pavilion a few years ago. In the past few years, the number of construction teams under the Dai Yue Pavilion had increased from one to ten. Although each construction team had a different area of expertise, they were all able to stand on their own. The two construction teams that were best at city-type buildings had played a huge role in the construction of the Blood Kirin Army barracks and the Iron City project. Although the large-scale project of Iron City was still in full swing, another construction team could be transferred to use. And in the construction team in Iron City, people with experience in construction design could also be transferred to assist in the detailed design of Sufeng City.

The original plan to plagiarize Stormwind City now seemed to meet the requirements. The original scale of Sufeng Town was not very large, but the city defense system was relatively complete, and there was no need to start from scratch completely. Under Ye Tao's design, Sufeng City would be divided into five major parts in the future: the old city, the Grand Canal area, the trade area, the residential area, and the administrative area. In order to better control the river channel, the location of Sufeng City must allow the future river channel to pass through it. Therefore, these five major parts would be located on both sides of the Grand Canal channel, and the different areas would be connected by huge stone arch bridges. For the needs of city defense, each area would have relatively independent city walls and watchtowers. Ye Tao was working hard to solve how to make the different functional parts of different cities relatively independent, but also maintain a unified style and close connection with each other, so that people in different parts of Sufeng City would not feel like they were living in different cities. When the draft that took into account all aspects of the needs was finalized, and Shi Xiu was amazed and it was approved in a very short time in the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Personnel, and even by the Lord of the Nation, Tan Xiaopei, Ye Tao almost burst out laughing. This urban construction plan was very different from the urban system construction of Dongping, and even the entire East. It was indeed more like the Stormwind City in Ye Tao's memory, where he had run back and forth countless times in that game, only countless times larger. After all, what would fill this city in the future would be hundreds of thousands of permanent and floating residents.

As soon as the Sufeng City plan was approved, Ye Tao busily arranged the construction work. Since it was still an expansion project after all, Ye Tao did not make the city too modern. The large-diameter hollow ceramic pipes buried underground were mainly for drainage, and did not form a sewage pipe system that was densely distributed to every street and every household. Besides, this era did not have such habits for the time being. However, the gradual infrastructure construction still made the residents of Sufeng Town excited. In this era, population movement and the development of various places always proceeded at a fairly slow pace. Although there were still many cities on the entire continent with hundreds of years, hundreds of years, or even thousands of years of history, for ordinary people, unless they encountered huge historical changes, the possibility of seeing a village upgraded to a town or a town upgraded to a city in their lifetime was very low. Not to mention that an unimportant town would suddenly leap to become an extremely important economic and military stronghold on the Dongping map.

While solving the land problem, it seemed that the local officials and local gentry also saw the Grand Canal Governor's wrist and courage. Local officials and people gave great enthusiasm for the construction of the city and provided assistance in various aspects.

If anyone was dissatisfied and depressed when Ye Tao smoothly fulfilled his duties as governor and gradually implemented various tasks, it would probably be Lu Dan.

As the person in charge of military affairs in the Grand Canal Governor's Office, he had a solid 10,000 troops in his hands. Among them were even the Imperial Guards and the Blood Kirin Army, which were even more powerful than the Imperial Guards in everyone's mind. However, Ye Tao had never mobilized the Imperial Guards and the Blood Kirin Army, except for allowing the 5,000 city defense troops transferred from various places to undertake some simple labor work such as digging and building sheds before the corvée labor was organized and before the work of hiring laborers was on the right track. Lu Dan thought that with Ye Tao's temperament and status, he was definitely not afraid of not being able to mobilize the Imperial Guards and the Blood Kirin Army. On the contrary, as the actual person in charge of the Blood Kirin Army for a long time, he played a crucial role in the Blood Kirin Army becoming the recognized strongest army in Dongping. The indoctrination of some veterans and senior non-commissioned officers and officers in the Blood Kirin Army to the new recruits made this group of new recruits who had just joined the Blood Kirin Army at the end of last year extremely eager for the Governor's direct command and deployment of training. Tan Xiaopei stuffed the Imperial Guards and the Blood Kirin Army together under Ye Tao's command, obviously also meaning to strengthen the training of the Imperial Guards and not let the Imperial Guards be too useless.

"Lord..." Seeing that Ye Tao didn't pay much attention to him, Lu Dan was a little anxious. He raised his voice and reported, "Lord!"

Ye Tao, who was drawing a picture, looked up at Lu Dan a little impatiently. He didn't mind that Lu Dan's address to him was a little estranged now. This guy, in more modern terms, was very formalistic. On his first day as the chief manager of Ye Mansion, he had forcibly changed his address from "Little Ye Brother" to "Young Master." However, Lu Dan should be someone who knew Ye Tao's habits very well. It was really unpleasant to disturb him when he was drawing carefully.

"Is there something? Just say it if there's something. We're so familiar." Ye Tao said helplessly.

"Lord, how are you going to arrange the 5,000 troops of the Blood Kirin Army and the Imperial Guards? It's been so many days, you should give a definite answer." Lu Dan asked anxiously.

Ye Tao frowned and asked, "How are you arranging it now?"

Lu Dan reported, "Sufeng Town is a bit small. Now the Blood Kirin Army is stationed in Linjia Town, which is close to Iron City, and the Imperial Guards are stationed in Xiye Town, which is north of Sufeng Town. The current training is being carried out according to the original training plans of the two armies... It's very stable..."

Ye Tao said with a smile, "Since it's very stable, why did you come to me? Isn't this something you can decide?"

Lu Dan was stunned for a moment and said, "But, whether it's the Blood Kirin Army or the Imperial Guards, aren't they brought under your command, Lord, so that they can quickly improve their strength?"

Ye Tao shook his head and said, "Do you really think I know much about military affairs?"

Lu Dan was stunned. Ye Tao continued, "When I was in charge of the Blood Kirin Army, what I was really doing was to find out all the things that could be compared and competed. Marching, camping, archery, and horsemanship can certainly be compared, and all kinds of small things can also be compared. There is a saying circulating in the Blood Kirin Army: A perfect victory is condensed from countless perfect details. But so many messy things are not what I taught everyone. Everyone constantly competes, racking their brains to think about how to do better, how to overwhelm their opponents, how to learn from their opponents' strengths to make up for their weaknesses, and then everyone exchanges their experiences, which has formed the unique temperament of the current Blood Kirin Army. The reason why the Blood Kirin Army is so powerful is because from the beginning, the Blood Kirin Army was an army that regarded competition and the pursuit of victory as the only pursuit. In constant competition, everyone strives to do every detail to the best. Originally, even lining up for meals had to compete with each other for discipline, but now there is no such low-level competition, right? With different perspectives, they will naturally think about more advanced victories. For example, live-fire exercises, or thinking about breaking the Dongping fastest marching record and so on. I really know very little about military affairs. After all, playing military chess is just talking on paper."

Lu Dan asked with some understanding, "You mean, arrange the competition subjects and then let them start practicing?"

Ye Tao smiled slyly and said, "No. Not some subjects, but all subjects. Then give a total score. Everyone has their own strengths, and not all problems can be generalized. But the final total score can be very telling."

Lu Dan was very familiar with the method of quantifying abstract standards for comparison that had become extremely popular in the Blood Kirin Army. He thought about the situation that this kind of competition might cause, and the scoring weight issues that needed to be considered as an arbitrator. He smiled and said, "This time, both sides will really be turned upside down."

Ye Tao laughed and said, "Then you can arrange it. After I finish drawing the detailed drawings of these sluice gates, I will take some time to go to both sides to take a look. To light a fire."

Lu Dan laughed. Both the Blood Kirin Army and the Imperial Guards were eagerly looking forward to the Governor's visit and inspection. The Governor would indeed come, but the result would probably be different from what everyone expected.