Chapter 765 - 763: Making Things Difficult for a Minor Official
After the morning court session, His Highness Prince Fu seriously considered the manufacturing of wooden rail tracks. This matter could no longer be neglected. Now that the rail track project was showing a shortage of materials, if he continued to seek profits and use a large number of workers for personal gain, he might attract unwanted attention.
One primary reason he took control of the rail track production was to prevent the entire rail transportation project from falling solely into Jinrong’s hands. The court’s rail transportation was a major project, and should it prove significantly effective, the rail track work would continue for many years to come, with tracks spreading throughout the lands of the Great Xia Dynasty.
Such a monumental project must not fall under the control of another prince.
Taking the whole wooden rail track project into account, there was some profit to be had in supplying materials, which is why Prince Fu took on the task of producing the tracks himself, but indeed, the profits were not substantial.
Initially, he thought Qi Younian was just an old craftsman on the brink of retirement, incapable of much, and that the materials supplied by the Ministry of Works would be sufficient for him. However, he did not anticipate this current situation.
Now, it seemed that in order to keep the rail track transportation project from going astray, he needed to shift his focus and divert more workers to the production of the tracks.
As for using the court-maintained officials and craftsmen for personal affairs, that too needed to be restrained. When nothing was amiss, naturally, no one would take notice. But now was different, and it was very easy for others to detect something was off, providing a reason to criticize him.
As for his own private properties... Prince Fu was very satisfied with Wong Qiao’s performance lately. Not only were Wong Qiao’s skills excellent, but his management of manpower was also outstanding. The same resources, under his guidance, produced exceptional results. He figured that even if he withdrew some workers, it wouldn’t greatly impact the work on his private properties.
Prince Fu was somewhat displeased that he was forced to change his usual practices because of Jinrong and the artisan from a small place like Qingyuan County.
Fortunately, his largest workshop had recently produced a batch of construction tools. Not only did this use up a lot of iron materials and mines, but selling these items would also bring him massive profits, much more than in previous years.