The person who came was a clerk from the Yu Department. He said he wanted to discuss a business deal. Baijiaxing took him into the reception hall, served tea, and then went to invite Chu Qing. When Chu Qing came in, the clerk only glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

He didn't even raise his eyelids once.

"Excuse me, what is your name?" Chu Qing asked politely.

"Uh-huh!" The clerk cleared his throat: "I can't talk to you! I'll find your boss!"

Haha! Who are you looking down on! Knowing that the master here is the one Baijiaxing invites, who are you giving authority to?

Originally, he planned to ask, salute, and then sit down and talk. After all, Chu Qing's current identity is a merchant. But now... Chu Qing didn't ask any questions, and sat directly on the main seat to serve tea!

This is a farewell ceremony! What a direct slap in the face! This little official couldn't bear it! "You are brave!" he shouted.

Chu Qing stood up and was about to leave. The clerk took a step forward and stretched out his hand to stop him: "Wait a minute!" He came with a mission, and he had to complete it first before saying this.

"Huh?" Chu Qing asked through her nose.

"You! Let me ask you, can you be the master of this place?" The clerk endured it first.

"This is our boss!" Bai Jiaxing replied politely. Chu Qing dared not show off his face, but he did not dare. He was afraid that his master would offend the official.

"Oh? I'm looking down on you." The clerk said disapprovingly, "I'm here today to discuss a business deal!"

"Please speak." Since we were talking about business, Chu Qing calmed down a bit.

"You know that the imperial court is going to build an armory here, right? You need to buy some bricks and stones. How much does a cart cost here?" The one who paid is Party A. Look, Party A is bossing around everywhere.

Without Chu Qing's instructions, Baijiaxing directly quoted prices for all three types of bricks.

When the clerk heard that there were actually three types of bricks, he asked to see them. Baijiaxing brought sample bricks and explained their characteristics and uses one by one.

The clerk weighed, touched and knocked the sample bricks and compared them repeatedly. He was satisfied with the quality. In comparison with the No. 2 bricks, the No. 1 bricks, which are ordinary green bricks, were much inferior, while the No. 3 refractory bricks were inferior.

Bricks are not available yet and are too expensive.

"Let's take brick No. 2!" the clerk decided, "500 yuan per cart!"

Baijiaxing was speechless! Not to mention that the clerk didn't pay for the freight, just the ordinary blue bricks used to build Chuqing's house cost nearly 50,000 pieces. The bricks here are much larger than the modern red bricks.

, calculated based on the price of one penny per brick, Chu List spent fifty taels to buy the bricks.

Furthermore, there were no rubber tires or flat roads in this era. Even if a horse-drawn cart was used, how many bricks could be pulled? Not to mention that it had to go into the mountains, and a cart only cost 500 yuan! The money for selling bricks was not enough for the horse.

Buying fodder! Not to mention that a cart of bricks costs 2,000 yuan including shipping.

"We can't do this business." Chu Qing finally spoke.

"What?!" The clerk felt incredible. What do you want to do if you don't do the business that comes to your door? This is a brick used by the imperial court. I'm giving you face, isn't it?

"Our workshop is small and we can't produce many bricks. Our orders haven't been completed yet. So, you should choose another merchant." Chu Qing said.

"Don't you already do a lot of work outside? There are so many brick kilns, it's enough!" the clerk scolded. This was completely taking Chu Qing as the enemy.

"I told you, this is an unfinished order. It can't be used by you." Chu Qing was a little irritable again.

"I am buying your bricks on behalf of the imperial court! Don't be disrespectful!" the clerk shouted.

"Send off guests!" Chu Qing said.

"Master, please come this way!" Bai Jiaxing asked, feeling uneasy.

"Humph!" The clerk walked away with a puff of his sleeves.

It wasn't that Chu Qing chose to be tough, but that she didn't know how to deal with it. This person aroused his disgust as soon as they met.

His pretentious and bossy attitude, coupled with the fact that he was able to offer such an unrealistic price after hearing the quotation, clearly meant that he was either serious about business negotiations or was using official pressure to pressure others.

If you were really frightened by him and made this deal with him, all of Chu Qing's existing assets would be tied up and the granary contract would be delayed. Instead of losing all your money, you would lose your head.

So when the clerk's price was obviously unreasonable, Chu Qing resolutely stopped talking and didn't give any chance to go deeper.

"Boss, have we offended an official?" Bai Jiaxing was very uneasy.

"Well, I'm offended."

"That……"

"I heard that even if a petty official can be admitted to the official position, he is only below the eighth rank," Chu Qing said. "Our orders are received from the Zhizhou, and the Zhizhou is the fifth rank."

"Oh." Baijiaxing felt much more at ease.

"Have we opened the kiln twice now?" Chu Qing asked.

"Yes, one kiln produces bricks every four days. It has been ten days now, and there will be another kiln the day after tomorrow. Each kiln produces 4,200 bricks, and the twenty kilns produced two bricks for a total of 168,000 yuan.

No. Brick." Baijiaxinglie Digital Report.

"Also, our kiln is built with No. 2 bricks this time, using kaolin mud to seal the gaps. It is no longer the adobe kiln before. The kiln body has always been stable, and the quality of the bricks produced is much better than the test bricks."

"Very good." Chu Qing was satisfied.

"Although casual work is very late now, the workers have not delayed the construction period and their mood is no longer low. Judging from the current progress, we can almost complete the order more than half a month in advance. They are still laying the foundation."

"Continue to maintain the progress. When we leave the kiln this time, we will leave two free kilns for me to bake No. 3 bricks." Chu Qing ordered.

In order to smelt iron and buy and sell iron ore, Chu Qing had made a big detour, and now there was hope that he could return to his destination.

"Send someone to deliver something to our parent and ask about the situation in the mining area." Chu Qing added. We should pay attention to the mining area, when the mine can be mined, and what supervision procedures are in place. Also, will the clerk know?

Will cause trouble.

It is really difficult for ordinary people to do something. They often encounter unexpected troubles.

mine.

After the clerk returned, he felt angry. Not only did the business fail to be negotiated this time, the bricks and stones were not delivered, but a woman was also very angry.

"How's it going?" asked another official responsible for construction supervision and records. He looked older and calmer.

"Don't mention it!" the clerk said angrily, "The owner of the brick kiln down the mountain is a bitch! For such a big project of the imperial court, she refused to buy some bricks and stones! You tell me, what if this was done by someone else?

All the merchants are eager to take over this business."

The old official said calmly: "The common people in these places have little knowledge. You can't compare them with our capital. Besides, what can a woman know? If you scare her, she will understand everything."

"But..." The clerk wanted to speak, but was interrupted by the unusual noise outside the door, "What happened?"

"Let's take a look." said the old official.

Outside, the laborers who were working on the construction were filled with indignation. They were holding sticks and hoes, and several supervisors were wielding whips and canes. They were shouting abuse at each other, and the two sides were about to clash with force.

"What's going on?!" The old and junior officials shouted at the same time. But the noise was too loud and it was useless.

"What's going on?!" The old and junior officials trotted all the way, and asked again when they got closer. This time they finally heard it, and the noise was reduced. But the supervisor did not dare to move without permission, so he had to stand where he was and shouted: "

Sir! These unruly people are going to rebel!"

Finished! This sentence aroused the anger again! The crowd quarreled again and began to curse. "You are outrageous! Shut up!" the old official shouted, not knowing who was being accused of outrageousness, "What is going on?"

"Sir, these unscrupulous people insist on giving us rice and grain. When will we be given rice and grain as a corvee? A corvee is not a hired worker!" said the impulsive supervisor.

"You fart! We were given rations a few years ago! It's just that they haven't been given out in the past few years. If they haven't been given out, they haven't been given out, and we admit it. But you make us work for more than eight hours a day, and you don't even let us go to the toilet.

! So tired, we have run out of food for a long time. I beg you to give me some, but you still crack the whip!" The soldiers shouted in a hurry, and even pushed out an injured young man with bruises on his shoulders and face.

There were whip marks and large shoe marks on the clothes on his abdomen.

"We are serving as corvees, not prisoners! Why do you beat and curse people?" someone shouted again.

"If you don't work and just yell, you just deserve to be whipped!" The supervisors were not to be outdone.

"Shut up! You didn't bring enough rice. That's because you didn't think well. How could you make such trouble?" shouted the old official.

"Besides, we are going to mine here, and everything must be carried out simultaneously. You are a little tired, I understand, but this is a major event for the court, a major event for the country, the country, and a great thing that benefits the country and the people!"

Being an official is different from ordinary people, everything they say is on the line.

"Sir, what you said is unjust!" someone in the crowd shouted, "No matter how capable the cows and horses are, they still need to be fed grass, right? You can't let the horses run without giving them grass, right?"

"That's right! The rations we bring are the same as when we serve in normal service, but this time there is too much work and the physical exertion is so great that there is simply not enough food to eat! Who can bring as much food as we do! Just calculate it and eat it all

Not enough. What work will we do if we don’t have enough to eat?” someone shouted again.

"Besides, our village works in the brick kiln and has to take care of two meals! One meat and one vegetarian. Although the meat dishes are not big fish and meat, you can still see slices of meat! Even if we don't care about rice here, we have to give out some rations, right? Morning

You didn’t tell us to do the work for eight hours!” Among the laborers were people from Wushu Village.

"That's the reason. We don't want you to take care of the food, and we don't need you to give out food every day. We just want to consider how much physical effort is required to give you less food. After two days, we can go down the mountain and go home on our own.

Take it. This won't work! Who do you think we are? Are we prisoners or animals?" The crowd went crazy again.

These days, the laborers have heard a lot about Chu Qing's "Baolu Group". The more hungry they are, the more they hear about it. These laborers are all from nearby villages.

The service rotation starts near the mine and rotates from near to far. So many people know the brick kilns of Baolu Group.

Among them, there are many people in Wushu Village and Zhang Village and Li Village. The more tired and hungry they are, the more they miss the days of working for Chu Qing. It was so good in those days. You can get paid for every job you make. When it’s time to eat,

, you can have a meal on time, with both meat and vegetables, and you can see the oily smell.

In some families, the whole family came to work. The men dug and transported soil, the women made clay bricks, and the elderly and children weaved straw curtains or dried adobe bricks. After half a month, the whole family had received one or two taels of silver.

"Even if we have Widow Ma's house, she works alone, and she paid 130 yuan last time!" The laborers often hear this.

There is no harm without comparison. Especially when you are tired and hungry.

Therefore, when everyone had almost eaten all the food, and there were still two days before the holiday, when they begged the supervisors for some food rations today, but were beaten and scolded when they came back, the crowd became angry.

Supervisors are usually temporary workers who are called here and there. When they finally get a job of managing people, they are naturally very showy and show off their power. They feel that they are superior to others. They don't treat their labor as a human being, and they just wave their whips to show their authority.

No, there will be a complete conflict today.

Unfortunately, if the laborers went on strike, the old officials would feel that they would not be able to live with the situation. So they had to calm down for the time being and then think of a solution.
Chapter completed!