In years of famine and drought, their village even rejected fatty meat.

Chapter 775 Wei Zijie's Visit

Everyone kept imagining the future, as if they could already see the wonderful scene of their families becoming rich after Tian Yu's death, with warehouses filled with mountains of gold and silver and all kinds of rare herbs.

…………

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Inside the conference room of the Chencun Building in Chenjia Village.

A meeting is being held, attended by: Chen Dao, the head of Chenjia Village, Chen He, the village chief of Chenjia Village, and a group of managers of Chenjia Village.

The meeting was quite simple. The road from Chenjia Village to Taiping County and the Second Chenjia Village opposite Chenjia Village were nearing completion. A group of senior officials from Chenjia Village gathered here to discuss how to resettle the thousands of temporary workers after the completion of the project.

"Rice Brother".

Chen Hou, who was in charge of the project, was the first to ask, "Now that the Second Chen Family Village and the official road are about to be completed, apart from a few workers who are lazy and shirking their duties, most of the workers are quite diligent and hardworking. Should we convert all these workers into formal workers in the village?"

Upon hearing this, everyone in the meeting room frowned. The number of temporary workers exceeded one thousand. If all of these workers were to be converted into formal employees of Chenjia Village, the economic pressure on Chenjia Village would be enormous.

It should be noted that the regular workers in Chenjia Village were paid very well. Even the lowest-ranking regular workers could earn 800 coins a month, and some skilled craftsmen could even earn 1 tael of silver or more than 2 taels of silver a month.

Based on this figure, employing 1000 workers would require Chenjia Village to spend at least 1,000 taels of silver per month, not even including the various benefits provided by Chenjia Village...

Of course, Chenjia Village could afford to support a thousand workers, but with the completion of the official road and the second Chenjia Village, Chenjia Village no longer needed so many workers to pave roads and build houses. Under this premise, it would not be cost-effective to rashly add a thousand formal workers.

However, when recruiting workers, Chenjia Village had promised that those who performed well could be promoted to permanent positions, so no one objected to Chen Hou's proposal.

"What Chenjia Village promised cannot be broken..."

Chen Dao did not intend to break his promise to the temporary workers, but the proportion of them who would be promoted to permanent positions would probably have to be reduced. Otherwise, if so many workers were hired for nothing and there were not enough projects for them to do, it would be as if Chenjia Village was supporting a large number of idle people.

"Rice Brother".

Just as Chen Dao was about to announce his decision, Chen Cheng, who had been standing at the door, suddenly knocked and came in, saying, "Someone outside requests an audience."

"Who?"

He claimed to be Wei Zijie, the prefect of Liangzhou.

"Wei Zijie?"

The people in the meeting room were slightly surprised. As Chenjia Village and Yang Zheng reached a cooperation agreement, the exchanges between Liangzhou and Chenjia Village became more and more frequent. Naturally, everyone also got to know Wei Zijie, Yang Zheng's right-hand man.

However, prior to this, Wei Zijie's interactions with Chenjia Village were mostly conducted through letters, and this was the first time Wei Zijie had personally visited Chenjia Village.

"Let him in!"

Chen Dao gave the order, and Chen Cheng accepted and left.

Before long, Chen Cheng led Wei Zijie into the conference room.

Upon entering the conference room, Wei Zijie looked around at everyone in the room, a look of surprise flashing in his eyes. Through Yang Zheng's description, he knew that Chen Dao, the head of Chenjia Village, was very young, but when he actually saw Chen Dao, he couldn't help but be surprised, because Chen Dao was really too young, looking like he wasn't even twenty years old.

However, Chen Dao, at such a young age, led the entire village of Chenjia to a prosperous life and also accomplished the earth-shattering feat of killing the Green King, which is truly astonishing.

"Mr. Chen, my name is Wei Zijie."

After a brief moment of surprise, Wei Zijie bowed to Chen Dao, his posture very humble, showing no airs of officialdom whatsoever.

Chen Dao nodded in response, then gestured with his hand, saying, "Prefect Wei, please have a seat."

After Wei Zijie sat down, Chen Dao asked curiously, "Prefect Wei, you have come from afar. What brings you here?"

Upon hearing this, Wei Zijie replied without hesitation, "I have come here because I have a favor to ask of you!"

After a pause, Wei Zijie stated his purpose: "Liangzhou hopes to cooperate with Chenjia Village to jointly build an official road from Chenjia Village to Yongliang County!"

The saying goes, "To get rich, build roads first." Although the Xia state did not have a similar saying, Wei Zijie, as a capable official, naturally understood the importance of good transportation conditions for a region.

Especially now that Liangzhou is heavily reliant on Chenjia Village and Taicang County for supplies, building an official road from Chenjia Village to Yongliang County would be of great benefit to Yongliang County and even the entire Liangzhou.

This would allow goods from Chenjia Village and the entire Taicang County to be transported to Yongliang County more quickly, and then, using Yongliang County as a hub, goods could be transported to the entire Liangzhou, so that all the people of Liangzhou could benefit from this and enjoy the high-quality and inexpensive goods from Chenjia Village and Taicang County.

In addition, good road conditions can also promote commerce in Yongliang County and its surrounding areas, making Yongliang County's commerce more prosperous and thus allowing the people to earn more income.

In short, cooperating with Chenjia Village to build an official road from Chenjia Village to Yongliang County was an idea that Wei Zijie had thought about carefully.

Having personally traveled all the way from Liangzhou Prefecture to Chenjia Village, Wei Zijie knew firsthand how terrible the official roads were these days. Due to lack of maintenance, the roads had fallen into disrepair over the years, riddled with potholes and muddy when it rained. Whether it was an army or a caravan, if they weren't careful, their wheels would sink into the soft mud, and even livestock like cattle and horses could slip and fall.

Therefore, whether it was to maintain Yang Zheng's rule in Qingzhou or to allow Liangzhou to develop better, Liangzhou had a need to build this road.

"Oh?"

Chen Dao asked with a surprised expression, "Does Prefect Wei intend to build a brick and stone road like the one in Chenjia Village?"

"Exactly."

"Is Prefect Wei aware of the exorbitant cost of this road?"

"Nature knows."

Wei Zijie nodded. In an agricultural country like Xia, where productivity was low, even building a traditional dirt road would cost a lot of money and grain, let alone a brick road.

"As far as I know, Liangzhou is not wealthy. Can Governor Wei afford the money and grain to repair the road?"

It is common knowledge that Liangzhou is impoverished, especially after the war. Liangzhou was filled with starving people, and with Yang Zheng's light taxes and levies, the government's revenue in Liangzhou was also low.

Under these circumstances, Chen Dao found it hard to believe that Liangzhou could afford the funds and provisions to build an official road.

"Mr. Chen, you can rest assured about that."

Wei Zijie smiled confidently and said, "Although Liangzhou is poor, it can still afford the money and grain to build a road."