Ding Kui stayed in Zhennan City for a day and found that no one came to see him. He wanted to leave early on the third day, but he never wanted to bump into Long Kun who was rushing towards him at the entrance of the Zhongmo Branch.
"Don't leave yet, come and sit in my courtyard." Long Kun had a separate courtyard in Zhennancheng, so he dragged Ding Kui away regardless of whether he wanted to or not.
"That's one of Brother Kui's father-in-law, Long Kun, the commander-in-chief of the equipment department." Li Fei explained to Cha Yang, who released his fist in his sleeve.
"There is an unfamiliar guard." Long Kun noticed the movement behind him.
"Promise, the new chief worshiper of my family."
Long Kun turned around and nodded to Cha Yang as a greeting. The ministers were different from the guards. The masters had to be polite when they saw him, and the chief minister recognized by Ding Kui would not be any worse. Naturally, Long Kun wanted to treat Cha Yang
Look at it differently.
"You are a master. You are so lucky. When will you recommend me an offering?" He was quite jealous.
You must know that Ding Yu is not the chief worshipper, so how powerful is this newcomer!
"Are you kidding me? The Long family has more offerings than my bodyguards!"
"Forget it if you don't want to. Don't be so exaggerated."
Soon a carriage arrived and took them to the other courtyard.
When they arrived at the other courtyard, their servants took Li Fei, Cha Yang and Ao Yu to the side hall to rest. Long Kun led Ding Kui straight into the study.
"What agreement did you reach with An Guogong?" Long Kun got straight to the point.
"Hey, you are so well-informed. We just settled the matter with my uncle the day before yesterday and you are here today. Isn't it your uncle who told you?" Ding Kui asked tentatively.
"Don't worry about this, okay?" Long Kun was very cunning and could not be easily fooled.
"Yes, my son-in-law, how dare I hide it from you?" Ding Kui deliberately stopped and gave it a try.
"Railways and railcars are more important to the Long family. We spend a huge sum of money every year just to transport raw materials, not counting the cost of maintaining official roads. No matter what conditions Jiang Li gives you, the Long family can afford it.
In short, you must help the Long family build the railway." Long Kun is bound to win.
"I only promised the Jiang family to build the railway in Anguo County. The Long family's needs are not limited to Weiguo County. The same conditions are not suitable." Ding Kui was noncommittal.
"First tell me how you discussed it with Jiang Li." Long Kun felt that something was interesting.
Ding Kui elaborated on the terms he and Jiang Li had negotiated, not expecting Long Kun to believe them all, but just laying the foundation for the subsequent negotiations.
"I can't give you the officer, how about the weapons and equipment? Or you can replace them with raw materials. You will definitely lack these things if you want to form a new army, and the Long family can give it to you." Long Kun felt confident.
"It can't be calculated like this. If I buy it with money, won't the Long family sell it? I don't care about things that gold coins can buy. I want people and technology." Ding Kui started to ask for a price.
"The Long family will help you build a shipyard and send you the best shipbuilder." Long Kun counter-offered as appropriate.
"My navy can protect itself. Building big ships will cause unrest in Meng and our country. I want shipbuilders but I can't use them. So, I want craftsmen."
"Craftsman?" Long Kun was very surprised. "You have a master craftsman of ink tools, and Master Qingyangzi is also there. What kind of craftsman do you need? I can't give you a master craftsman."
"No, no, no, it's too much to ask for a master craftsman. My son-in-law is not that greedy. I want to open an engineering college and need senior craftsmen as professors. Oh, don't mention Moji and Qingyang Zi. Their family inheritance does not teach outsiders.
, I can’t force them."
"Engineering college? You want to teach civilians to become craftsmen?" Long Kun couldn't understand.
"You can say that training craftsmen will be used by me, no, by the court." Ding Kui accidentally let it slip.
Long Kun sat upright and said: "I have to explain this matter to you.
You run a military academy to train officers for your own army. This is no problem. Even if there are spies among them, and you can send people to hunt them down if they defect in the future, you can at least control most of the students.
But cultivating craftsmen is different. Not all of your factories are under military management. Most of your craftsmen are easily accessible to the outside world, and there is no guarantee that no one will pay a lot of money to poach them in the future.
As for craftsmen, they will work with whoever pays them more. This has been true since ancient times. You cannot send people to hunt down a craftsman just because he ran away with someone else. If there is no such rule in the world, you will offend all the craftsmen in the world.
I’ll give you some craftsmen to help you run that, what, engineering college. It’s not a big problem, but there will definitely be people picking peaches in the future, and it’s you who will suffer the consequences.”
Ding Kui also sat up straight and said seriously: "What you said makes sense, but I have a different view.
Those who can make money are not afraid of spending money. If an engineering college can cultivate craftsmen, they are not afraid of being poached by others. The more others poach, the greater the reputation of the college, and the more people will be willing to come to study in the college. Naturally, the more craftsmen the college will train.
, this is a virtuous circle.
Let’s go back and see, what places are most attractive to skilled craftsmen?
The Equipment Department is responsible for supervising the production of weapons and equipment and various ordnance for the entire army. It can provide long-term and stable job opportunities, and there is no need to consider profits and losses. Any craftsman is willing to work in the Equipment Department and earn an iron rice bowl.
There is no workshop in the world that can match the scale of my factory. In time, I can build a large factory with thousands of people, and it is an exclusive business. No one in the world can compete with me. I believe that my factory will also be very valuable to craftsmen.
Attraction.
Who will students from the School of Engineering choose to work with after graduation? The Long family and the Ding family must be their first choice.
Of course, I don’t rule out that some people will be poached and it will return to a virtuous cycle. For me, the advantages still outweigh the disadvantages.”
Long Kun fell into thinking and digested Ding Kui's theory.
Vocational schools are still too new for people in this world, and Long Kun cannot understand them all at once.
"I can give you the man. What happens in the future is your business. In short, you have to send someone to guide us in building the railway. It will be built in Weiguo County first. The rail car operation will be based on the proportion given to you by the Jiang family. If we want to expand, we will discuss it later.
." He is much more straightforward than Jiang Li.
Railway transportation is indeed more important to the Long family. There are countless workshops in Weiguo County. All kinds of raw materials are continuously transported into Weiguo County every day, and countless handmade finished products are shipped to various places.
The roads in Weiguo County need to be repaired every year. The transportation line is the lifeline of the Long family, and the railway is the artery with strong transportation capacity.
After the rail car started running in Juyang City, the Long family fell in love with this kind of transportation at first sight, but they knew that it was Ding Kui's pet peeve. Before the Nanqiu County railway network was built, Ding Kui would not share this technology with others.
After Jiang Li reached an agreement with Ding Kui, he immediately ordered Anguo County to prepare for the construction of the railway. This alarmed the Long family. After hearing the news, Long Kun immediately rushed to Zhennancheng.
"Okay! When the railway in Anguo County is built, I will send someone to Weiguo County." Ding Kui was inconvenient to blackmail his father-in-law, and regretted not taking a step earlier.
"No! We can't fall behind the Jiang family."
"Well, you can't embarrass my son-in-law. There is always a sequence for everything. The agreement between me and the Jiang family comes first, why don't you get ahead of it?" Ding Kui was dumbfounded by Long Kun.
"Hey, this is what the old man meant. If I can't deal with the old man when I get home, I won't let you go." Long Kun passed the blame to Duke Wei.
Ding Kui thought to himself: If you promise, there is no guarantee that you will not be slapped to death by your grandfather when you go back.
"There is something I didn't want to say, but now I need to report it to you." He recalled the urgent information sent by Shaodian Mi last night, and combined with today's events, he no longer felt entangled in his heart.
"If you have something to say, just say it. If you have something you can't say, is it related to the Long family?" Long Kun looked surprised. What he said in the end was really possible.
"That's right."
Ding Kui received a secret report last night that people from the Long family were involved in the dispute between Zhong Wei and Musen, which was tantamount to inciting discord between Ding Kui's wives and concubines.
Long Kun's face became more and more ugly as he listened to Ding Kui's story.
The Long family has a great business, and the direct line of the family is divided into Long Yuan, and there are countless people in the collateral branches. There are many people who Long Kun has never heard of even if he doesn't know him, but he can find them out by looking up the family tree.
.
The people who participated in the dispute over Ding Kui's backyard came from a branch of the Long family, belonging to the lineage of Lao Long Sheng, and their background was not small.
Long Sheng is a powerful clan elder who is in charge of the family's important industries. He has a high status in the clan. He is also one of Long Dang's childhood playmates and has won Long Dang's trust.
His direct descendants went to Ding Kui's territory to cause trouble, and what they did was not good. However, they fell into Ding Kui's trap again and were caught by others. They took advantage of it and couldn't deny it.
"I haven't moved for the time being. Originally, when I went back this time, I wanted to ask myself, how did I, Ding Kui, offend them? Or was it that I didn't give them any benefits and didn't let them make money from me, so they had to collect it from my house?
, interfere with my family affairs."
Ding Kui's tone was not kind, and he must have had murderous intentions towards those people.
"Leave this matter to me. I will give you a satisfactory explanation. You should hurry up and deal with the railway matter. The sooner the better." Long Kun did not mention the matter of getting ahead of the Jiang family.
"Okay, I'll hand the person over to you after I ask clearly."
"Stop asking, save some face for the Long family, and save some face for me, my father. This will be good for Long Yan and Long Tan." Long Kun did not dare to leave the person to Ding Kui to ask.
Firstly, he did not want to expose the scandal of the Long family; secondly, he was worried that those people would anger Ding Kui and seek his own death; thirdly, he wanted to prevent more people from knowing about it.
"Well, this is the first time. My son-in-law has taken the overall situation into consideration and saved some face for everyone. I will treat this matter as if I don't know about it and please handle it thoroughly.
If there is a next time, my father-in-law, my son-in-law is a man who cares about face and has a quick temper. Sometimes he is afraid that he cannot control himself." Ding Kui said the ugly words first.
"Humph, that's it. If you have nothing to do, you can go back. Do you want me to see you off?" Long Kun issued the eviction order.
He felt very unhappy, because of Ding Kui's threat, because of the unsatisfactory tribesmen, and because it was difficult to tell Long Dang when he went back that the dignified commander of the equipment department was going to suffer here.
Arriving in front of the Central Demonic Branch again, Cha Yang suddenly proposed that he would go to Juyang City via the official route. The reason was that he did not want Ding Kui to spend more demonic cores.