"How many slaves are there in this officer?"

"Now there are four hundred and fifty workers and officials, one hundred and seven big slaves, one hundred and five big maids, and thirty-eight small slaves and small maids."

Ma Yanshou is still very competent, and he has a lot of treasures for the "family background" of the engineer.

At this time, a large part of the officials of the Han Dynasty were already from Confucianism, but there were still many officials who were technical officials who were proficient in a skill, and this Ma Yanshou was one of them.

"Can these slaves be sold?"

"Of course, slaves and maids, regardless of gender, regardless of age, are actually no different from cattle and horses, and since cattle and horses can be sold, of course these slaves and maids can also be sold."

Ma Yanshou said very calmly, as if he really regarded that living person as a cow and horse.

Liu He frowned slightly, but he didn't say anything, this is not something that can be changed in a few words.

"Can I buy a few slaves from the Engineers, then?"

Visiting the workshop is fake, this is Liu He's real purpose.

If the workshop of Changyi Palace wants to be opened as soon as possible, craftsmen are naturally indispensable, although Li Anding has been sent to recruit, but the fastest way is to buy it directly from the engineers.

"This ......"

Ma Yanshou didn't think that Liu He would ask this question, so there were some surprises.

"The slaves of the workers are more expensive than those on the market, and I am afraid it is not cost-effective to buy them directly."

"I'm going to set up a workshop in the palace, and the most lacking thing is experienced craftsmen, so I want to make it convenient for Ma to make it easier. The price is easy to say. ”

Liu He said it to this point, and Ma Yanshou naturally had no room to refuse.

After a few hesitations, Ma Yanshou asked, "I don't know how much I want to buy?" ”

"The more the merrier, Ma Yuanjun will do the math and see how many people he can sell to us, regardless of age and men and women, we all want it."

In order not to let Ma Yanshou regret it, Liu He turned around and said to Dai Zong beside him: "Ma Yuanjun has agreed, I believe that he is not a person who is untrustworthy, and the price we give should also be fair, and we will come and take people away tomorrow." ”

Then, Liu He said to Ma Yanshou again: "Ma Yuanjun, don't forget about this matter, no matter what, you must give me fifty people." ”

After Liu He finished speaking, he didn't care whether Ma Yanshou agreed or not, so he strode towards the inside of the worker, leaving the other party stunned in place, and he didn't know whether he had earned or lost.

After the business is discussed, the rest of the tour becomes the final link.

No matter which fang he went to, Liu He would stop and take a closer look.

At this time, he realized that the whole Gongguan was not so much a large-scale comprehensive handicraft workshop as a labor reform workshop.

Those slaves and maids did the heaviest and hardest work, but they did not have the slightest dignity.

At the slightest hesitation and mistake, the overseer's squirrel and the patrolling soldiers would strike at them, and their whips and sticks would be unscrupulous.

The old craftsmen who are skilled and old can still be treated with some kindness, while the young slaves who have no skills are not even as good as livestock.

These slaves never have a day to come, but can only wear the stars and the moon, and work without end.

When Liu He and his entourage came to the pottery workshop, they saw a gentleman pressing a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy to the ground covered with broken pottery shards, and constantly greeting him with a thumb-thick bamboo stick.

The boy rolled around in pain, letting out a terrible wail like a beast, and his bare skin outside his ragged linen coat was marked with blood by sharp stoneware shards, which was shocking.

But the tall man was unmoved, and the bamboo stick in his hand never stopped for a moment.

And all this was only because the boy dropped a clay kettle to the ground while carrying it.

Here, a living human life is probably not as precious as a clay pot.

As for the other working slaves and maids around them, they turned a blind eye to this scene, and insensitively did their work: if they hesitated or showed any intention of resisting, they would be the next to be tortured.

Dai Zong couldn't stand it and wanted to stop it, but he was stopped by Liu He with his eyes.

In addition to the high-pressure and brutal management methods, the working conditions of the workers were also very harsh, and the workshops such as the bow and carpentry workshops were said to have no other suffering than that their hands were easily cut.

And the hardest thing to suffer is the pottery and lacquer factory.

The first step in making pottery was to break up the soil, and then the stones in the soil were sifted out with a dustpan, and a dozen slaves toiled unprotected in the dusty workshop, their bodies and heads covered with dust, each like a native man.

In addition, those pottery kilns are burning all the time, and the temperature is very high.

Under the dual effect of high temperature and dust, the whole pottery workshop is like a huge oven, which is prohibitive.

The lacquer shop looks much more "decent" than the pottery workshop, and the work done looks like it is just smearing, and it doesn't take much effort.

But as soon as Liu He and Dai Zong walked in, they were almost blown away by a pungent smell - this is the smell of lacquer.

What's even more terrifying is that the paint that has just been boiled is extremely corrosive, and if it is not scrubbed off on the skin as soon as possible, it is easy for the skin to fester, and then leave unsightly scars.

Therefore, the faces and hands of the slaves and maids in the lacquer factory were full of deep and shallow scars.

The scars on the body of Hua Cheng, who is in charge of materialization in the Changyi Palace School, will make passers-by look sideways, and the rotten sores on the bodies of these slaves and maids are more than a hundred times more terrifying.

From the woodware workshop to the lacquer workshop, Liu He and Dai Zong's faces became more and more ugly, but Ma Yanshou danced as he explained how each workshop worked, as if all this was a common thing.

Living in abalone for a long time without smelling its stench, this is not to blame Ma Yanshou.

When Liu He walked out of the last lacquer factory, he stood outside the workshop and looked back at the smoky place, without saying a word.

Ma Yanshou, who had explained for a long time, thought that he would be appreciated by Liu He, but at this moment he was a little uneasy, and he secretly guessed if he had explained something clearly enough, which attracted His Highness's dissatisfaction.

Ma Yanshou came to Liu He's side and asked a little flatteringly: "Subordinates, is there anything that the subordinates haven't made clear?" ”

"No, Ma Yuanjun spoke very clearly, which benefited me a lot."

"That ......"

"Ma Yuanjun wants to ask, why do I still seem to be dissatisfied, right?"

"The subordinates are talking too much!"

Liu He looked at Ma Yanshou with some sadness and some pity.

"Mencius said: When people today see that their children are about to enter the well, they all have a heart of compassion."

"No matter what crime these slaves commit, they are lively creatures, and I hope that the horse envoy will have a heart of compassion for them."

After Liu He finished speaking, he took a step back and made a big gift to Ma Yanshou.

This sudden action frightened Ma Yanshou for a moment, and then he knelt down, paused in place, and shouted "The subordinate should die".

Liu He stood up, turned around and left, leaving only Ma Yanshou, who seemed to understand whether he understood or not, still kowtowing and pounding garlic in place.