Looking at Jiang Liu's fearless appearance, Xu Chen suddenly laughed, and then asked: "In my opinion, it is better to do it like this, let Shopkeeper Liu compete with Master Jiang, the winner will stay in charge of the shipyard, and the loser will be at the disposal of the winner." ”

Jiang Liu was silent for a moment and asked, "Than what?"

Xu Chen continued: "Shopkeeper Liu and Master Jiang are both craftsmen, so naturally they have to see the truth under their hands!

Jiang Liu was overjoyed when he heard this, and hurriedly asked, "How can you compare?"

Xu Chen said with a smile: "Master Jiang thinks that the drawings designed by Shopkeeper Liu are not usable, and Presumably Shopkeeper Liu is also very unconvinced. ”

Saying that, Xu Chen looked at Liu Jin, and Liu Jin nodded naturally cooperatively, still with a frosty face.

So, Xu Chen continued: "In this case, the two of them will simply compare the last one! The two of them each brought their subordinates, the shopkeeper Liu took the guys, and Master Jiang led a group of boatmen, and the two sides took ten days as a limit, according to their own drawings, to build a favorite sea ship, and after it was built, choose a time to compare, and finally compare the performance of their respective sea ships according to the speed, load, flexibility, and solidity of the sea boat. As for how to identify the performance of sea vessels, Master Jiang is an expert and knows it at a glance. ”

After Jiang Liu heard this, he thought in his heart: "It seems that this Liu Jin has a lot of weight in the hearts of the owner! Hmph, what if you want to do more? If you don't have the ability, you don't have the ability, I want to see what kind of ship you can build as a carpenter!"

Thinking in his heart, Jiang Liu replied to Xu Chen: "No problem! In addition, for the sake of fairness, the old man will allocate half of the shipwrights for the shopkeeper Liu to send, after all, when it comes to shipbuilding, how can those guys compare to these skilled shipwrights?"

As he spoke, Jiang Liu turned around and shouted to a busy boatman not far away, "Boy Ma, come here!"

When the boatman heard the call, he hurriedly put down his work and ran over: "Boss, what are you looking for?"

Jiang Liu then ordered: "Go! Pick half of the boatmen out, and from today onwards you will follow Shopkeeper Liu!"

When the boatman surnamed Ma heard this, he immediately became anxious: "What? Boss! Can you not leave us? I will not leave! I will resolutely not leave!"

The boatman surnamed Ma stiffened his neck and held his head high, looking like he would rather die than obey. When Jiang Liu saw it, he stretched out his old hand, crossed his five fingers, slapped it with a slap, and scolded at the same time: "Fuck you, what are you talking about! Lao Tzu just asked you to work with Shopkeeper Liu for a few days, and when the competition is over, you will naturally come back!"

"What's the competition?" asked the boatman surnamed Ma.

So, Jiang Liu shared the test with him.

"Haha!" When the boatman surnamed Ma heard this, he immediately burst into laughter and said: "Chief, I heard you right? I want to test shipbuilding with you? Haha, it's really funny! Don't they know that you are the top craftsman in our Hongzhou shipyard? When it comes to shipbuilding skills, I am afraid that few people dare to say that they can beat you today! Who said that they want you to compete? This is too ridiculous!"

When Jiang Liu heard this, his heart was greatly affected, but he also knew that Xu Chen was beside him, so he hurriedly reprimanded: "Shut up! This matter was raised by the owner! In front of the owner, he dared to chew his tongue indiscriminately, and his skin was itchy, right?"

After finishing speaking, Jiang Liu hurriedly turned around and apologized to Xu Chen: "The owner forgives the sin! This kid just has a bad mouth, not intentionally! The owner can rest assured, the old man will definitely discipline and discipline the owner well in the future!"

"You're done talking, what else are you talking about?" Seeing Jiang Liu's obvious protection, Xu Chen naturally didn't like it in his heart, but he also knew that these boatmen had left their hometown and followed him from Yuzhang to Shengzhou thousands of miles away, and they naturally had contempt for him, a strange owner, and wanted to subdue these people, but blindly using force would definitely not achieve the effect.

For this reason, Xu Chen had no choice but to smile and say, "It's okay!

Jiang Liu got the expected reply, so he happily pretended to be generous, pointed to the boatman surnamed Ma and said, "Why don't you come over and accompany the owner!"

The boatman surnamed Ma didn't look at people honestly, and his heart was also flexible, so he hurriedly got off the donkey, bowed down and ran over, and apologized to Xu Chen: "Thank you, the owner!"

"Okay! This matter is settled! You will go to the dockyard in a while to select a generally capable boatman, and then report to the shopkeeper Liu. In these days, you must treat Shopkeeper Liu as you treat me, work honestly, if you dare to be a little lazy! Lao Tzu breaks your legs! Do you understand?" Jiang Liu then shouted at the boatman surnamed Ma.

The boatman surnamed Ma naturally nodded his head in front of the owner and said, "Remember! Boss, don't worry! The small one will never disgrace you!"

Jiang Liu listened, and hurriedly nodded with satisfaction: "That's good!"

After speaking, he came back to his senses and asked Xu Chen, "What do you see?"

Xu Chen said with a smile: "Master Jiang is very respectful!"

Jiang Liu hurriedly said modestly: "Where, where!"

After the matter was explained clearly, Xu Chen and the others left the shipyard.

Looking at Xu Chen's departing figure, the boatman surnamed Ma asked Jiang Liu: "Boss, what you just said was the opposite, right?"

Looking at the boatman surnamed Ma pretending to be smart, Jiang Liu shook his head and said, "Do you think Lao Tzu will lose if he goes to test the shipbuilding competition with the surnamed Liu?"

When the boatman surnamed Ma heard this, he immediately said urgently: "How is it possible? We have all seen your craftsmanship! How can we lose?"

Since Lao Tzu is winning, why do we have to use these little tricks? Our owner is not a stupid person, not to mention that only by defeating the surnamed Liu in a dignified and upright way can the owner completely hand over the shipyard to me, otherwise I am afraid that they will find some other reasons to come out, in that case, if it drags on all the time, the shipyard work will be missed, and I am afraid that the owner will give up the idea of shipbuilding, at that time, how should we deal with ourselves?"

"Alas, after all, we are in a foreign land, so we must be patient in everything!"

Jiang Liu sighed and said, as if he had been wronged endlessly.

"The owner, these people are simply too deceitful! What does it mean that you can't say the owner's in person, and you can talk about it behind your back?" On the way back, Liu Jin couldn't help but complain to Xu Chen.

Lu Hao, who was on the side, was also worried: "Big brother, these shipwrights are very grouped! Especially with Jiang Liu, the leader, it seems that they have made up their minds not to let outsiders get involved in the shipyard!"

"The second owner is right! This Jiang Liu clearly has the drawings in his hands, just like using this to blackmail the owner. What is hateful is that these boatmen also vented their anger with one nostril surnamed Jiang, and they refused to listen to me at all! The drawings handed down by the owner have not started until now!" Liu Jin thought about the exclusion he had received from Jiang Liu these days, so he was angry, and simply vented it all in front of the owner.

"Are you finished?" Xu Chen listened quietly until Liu Jin was relieved of his breath before he asked coldly.

Liu Jin noticed the unhappiness of the owner, how dare he continue to complain, and quickly nodded stupidly.

Xu Chen glanced at him, then didn't look at him, just thought quietly.

Lu Hao waited for a while before asking, "Big brother, what are you going to do?"

Xu Chen looked at the scenery outside the car and boat, and said slowly: "Actually, I don't care who is in charge of the shipyard, after all, I can't come in person, if this river is really capable and can perfectly implement my idea, what if the shipyard is handed over to him?

"This river was an old fritter when it was in Hongzhou Shipyard! Now that we are here, there is no craftsman with the same qualifications around us to check and balance, so it is inevitable that there will be no fear. As for the shipwrights who came from afar, they were inevitably worried and uneasy in the face of the unfamiliar environment, and it happened that there was only such a familiar person as Jiang Liu around them, and he was a former leader, so he would naturally take him as the leader. Xu Chen's habit is that when he encounters a problem, he will analyze the problem thoroughly, and then seek a solution from it.

Jiang Liu, this person, old and strong, and thinks too highly of himself, is afraid that ordinary co-optation and suppression will only backfire, so I will mention yì and let him compete with Lao Liu. His biggest bargaining chip is just the drawings in his hand, if he understands that the things in his hands are worthless in our eyes, this person will naturally have no confidence, he is a good-faced person, once he loses, he will naturally not cheat. ”

And if you want him to understand this, you can only go through a competition, so that he can truly understand the difference in design between the two sides, otherwise it is impossible to convince this old stubbornness by just lip service. ”

Xu Chen said like a cocoon.

Lu Hao nodded again and again after hearing this, and then said: "The eldest brother said that the battle of ideas is the most boring, because no one is destined to say anyone! Those so-called verbal battles are just entertaining themselves! Just imagine that a person who can't even stick to his own ideas, and only relies on the other party's words to persuade them, so as to give up his own ideas to believe in the ideas of others, what good ideas can such an undetermined person have? Those victors, winning so many people, what can be proud of?"

Xu Chen bowed slightly, and then said about what happened just now: "As long as he defeats Jiang Liu in the competition, not only will Jiang Liu's confidence be gone, but even his image in the minds of the workers will collapse in an instant." The workers are always the most realistic, especially the workers in the shipyard, who will listen to whoever is good. Therefore, for these boatmen, we can't be hard, we can't dry them first, concentrate on winning the competition in the river, and when they are leaderless, it will be much easier to deal with them. ”