Li Feibai said: "I have a job here, I don't know if you can lead the forced labor to do it." When the work is done, you can also make some money. ”

Liu Yangming said happily: "What kind of work? Is there a shortage of manpower in the stone carving factory? ”

Li Feibai shook his head and said, "No! I want to build a road from Xiapan Village to Wangwu Township. ”

Ma Kun and Liu Yangming were stunned at the same time.

Building roads was originally a matter for the county, and it was necessary to spend a lot of money to buy paving stones, and then organize a large number of people to start construction. Manpower is not valuable, and it is enough to organize the labor of various townships to do it, but it is a huge amount of money to buy paving stones.

A piece of stone three feet long and one foot wide, polished, about one or two. To build a road that is one foot wide, it will cost about three taels per foot. One mile is about 1,500 taels, and ten miles is about fifteen thousand taels.

This is still a road built by the government, and the price of private road repair is higher. No manpower is required to level the road? Waste removal and landfill do not require manpower? It doesn't take any manpower to place the stones and make the road surface flush?

This is all hard work, who will do it if you don't open a tael of food and silver a month? With Li Feibai's urine, how can he get two taels of silver for a month's work and food, and use a hundred people to repair it, plus food and drink, he can't get three or five hundred taels a month?

From Xiapan Village to Wangwu Township, the straight-line distance is not far, but only twenty or thirty miles. But it went up and down the mountain, and it went around the east and west for a full seventy miles.

The mountain road doesn't need to be as wide as one zhang, but it needs to be five feet! The mountain road is smooth and not as easy as the flat road, the difficulty has increased several times, one mile plus artificial food, how can it be more than 2,000 taels, and more than 70 miles have to spend 1440,000 taels!

What does Li Feibai think? Just with the business of 60,000 taels a year of stone carving, is it worth spending 140,000 taels of silver for it? Worth! Besides, where did Li Feibai go to use 1440,000 taels of silver to build roads!

Liu Yangming smiled and said, "Master Li said he was joking!" ”

Li Feibai said: "Just when I'm joking." Can you help me calculate how much it will cost to build the road from Xiapan Village to Wangwu Township? How long will it take? ”

Liu Yangming said: "It's up to Master Li." ”

Li Feibai said: "How do you say this? ”

Liu Yangming said: "Master Li's stone carving factory, if you can provide paving stones for free, then it doesn't cost a penny, and the road can be repaired!" He smiled and continued: "Forced labor, it was originally to repair roads, and we will repair them for free." ”

Li Feibai said: "You don't have to take care of the paving stones, and you can't let you repair the road in vain." Just say that you will work hard to build the road and repair the road from Xiapan Village to Wangwu Township, how long will it take, and how much will it cost. ”

Liu Yangming stretched out three fingers and said, "It will take three years." ”

Li Feibai smacked his tongue. Why does it take three years to build a 70-mile-long mountain road? It's been too long! He originally built the road just to be able to quickly transport the stone carvings from Xiapan Village, if the road is to be repaired for three years, it will not be possible to transport things out within three years, so delayed, the road is better not to be repaired.

He said, "Is it possible to repair the road in advance?" ”

Liu Yangming thought for a while and said, "No! ”

Li Feibai smiled: "Liu Lichang's answer is too absolute. The solutions are all thought up by people, how can there be none? After a pause, he said, "A road is seventy miles long, and it takes three years to repair it from the beginning to the end, so it only takes one and a half years to build it from both ends at the same time?" If it blooms in the middle and divides into two ends, it will only take half a year. If the seventy miles were divided into sections and marched hand in hand, the road would have been repaired in less than three or five months! ”

Liu Yangming is 49 years old this year, and since he became an adult, he has participated in the construction of roads in the county and township not eight times out of ten, and a road has always been repaired from beginning to end, and he never thought that it could be repaired in sections. After listening to Li Feibai's words, his eyes lit up, although there are still many problems to be solved in road construction, it can definitely greatly shorten the time for road construction.

He said: "It's not a fluke that Lord Li can become a friend of the county commander, and it seems that this kind of road construction method is not something that a stupid person like me can come up with." After complimenting him for a few sentences, he said without worry: "Such a cultivation method cannot be cultivated by the forced labor of a mere Wangwu Township, and a large number of people must be hired." ”

Li Feibai said: "Then you calculate how much money you need!" ”

Liu Yangming lowered his head and thought deeply, and said after a long time: "According to a person's one tael of silver a month, I am afraid that it will only take about a thousand taels per month." According to the three-month repair, a total of 3,000 taels is needed. ”

Li Feibai shook his head and said, "That's not right! ”

Liu Yangming hurriedly said: "Master Li Mingjian! Although it is now the season of slack, the strong labor of the peasant households, in addition to coping with the average salary, still has to do a lot of farm work such as leveling the land. Building roads is heavy physical work, and eighty percent of them can't hire people without a tael of silver a month. And adults want to build the road in three months, and it is impossible to complete it without hiring a thousand people. After a pause, he added, "This is still the result of excluding the food and silver of the 180th forced laborers in our Wangwu Township, if you want to count them, it will cost more!" ”

Li Feibai smiled: "I'm not right, it's not that Liu Lichang spends too much, but that Liu Lichang spends too little." What I want to ask Mr. Liu is that under normal circumstances, how much does it cost to build such a long road privately, without paving stones. ”

Liu Yangming said: "Generally, private individuals don't spend a lot of money to build such a long road, most of them spend a lot of money to build a road that is one or two miles long. Excluding the paving stones, the cost of building such a long road should be about 7,000 taels to 12,000 taels. ”

Li Feibai roughly calculated, in addition to the cost of each worker's two taels a month, it is reasonable for the contractor to earn fifty percent of the profit, and said: "Seven thousand taels should be the price code for repairing on the flat road, and 12,000 taels should be the price code for repairing on the mountain road, the price is very fair!" In this way, Liu Lichang, I will give you 12,000 taels of silver, and you will build this road for me! ”

Liu Yangming repaired the road, but he did not preside over the road repair, but only quoted a price code. But he also knows that whether it is a public road or a private road, the oil and water in it is huge, and the biggest paving stone kickbacks are needless to say. The second is to deduct the silver of the worker's food, such as the monthly food silver of each worker, report three taels or four taels, and send hundreds of documents up to one tael, which alone is not a small amount of oil and water. There is also a delay in the construction period, which can be repaired in a month and a half, but if you have to delay it for three or five months, the oil and water will be even greater.

If Li Feibai really took out 12,000 taels of silver, and he would preside over the road repair, it would not be a problem to get 8,000 taels of silver. He couldn't believe his ears, and he couldn't believe that Li Feibai was telling the truth. After all, he and Li Feibai met for the first time today, and he was not Li Feibai's father, why did Li Feibai give him eight thousand taels of silver flowers, and said, "Lord Li said that he was laughing, come, let's drink another one." ”

Li Feibai didn't serve the wine and said, "Do you think I'm joking?" ”

Liu Yangming looked carefully, Li Feibai really didn't mean to joke. He is not the kind of person who can exploit the people and fat themselves, and with Jiang Guoxian's experience, after becoming the lieutenant governor, he has a headache all day long, and he is afraid that if he works for three or five years, his belongings will be lost. Now that he saw that there was a way to make money, he was confident that he could do a good job of building roads, and after drinking, his mind was hot, and he said: "Thanks to Lord Li, I will definitely repair this road." But ......"

Li Feibai said: "But what? ”

Liu Yangming said: "But it doesn't cost as much as 12,000 taels of silver." First of all, shouldn't the construction period be as long as three months? Labor only needs one tael, and labor does not take money, at most two or three thousand taels. ”