107: Chapter 107: The Qin Empire Weekly Begins Sales

Zhao Fusu was supporting a million laborers in Xianyang City.

Three hundred thousand laborers were constructing the tomb for the First Emperor at the Lishan Mausoleum, and as many as fifty thousand were working on construction in the Industrial Zone.

At least one hundred thousand laborers were working on the road from Xianyang City to the Industrial Zone.

Fifty thousand people were responsible for transporting hexagonal boron nitride and producing components for steam threshers within the Great Qin Academy of Sciences.

In other words, Zhao Fusu was still supporting five hundred thousand laborers.

Previously, Zhao Fusu had these laborers produce primitive fertilizers and collect natural fertilizers.

However, there wasn't enough natural fertilizer for them to collect, so a large number of laborers were idling about.

Therefore, Zhao Fusu notified these five hundred thousand laborers that they no longer needed to collect fertilizer.

As soon as this notice was issued, the five hundred thousand laborers panicked.

By working for Zhao Fusu, their families had saved a significant amount of grain.

If Zhao Fusu no longer needed them to work, the burden on their families would become heavy.

However, Zhao Fusu quickly notified them to go to the Epang Palace to build workshops.

The Epang Palace covered a vast area, enough to build a large number of workshops.

Zhao Fusu decided that once these five hundred thousand people finished building the workshops, they would produce Iron Pagoda barding and buren armor.

He had Wang Li lead over a thousand soldiers to manage these five hundred thousand people.

Wang Li and his men were responsible for transporting the steel armor plates, auditing their quantities, and preventing them from being stolen.

Originally, Zhao Fusu had recalled Wang Li to establish the Ministry of State Security.

But seeing that Wang Li was not particularly skilled at underground work, he abandoned that idea.

Without suitable personnel for underground work, Zhao Fusu could only put it aside for now.

Zhao Fusu decided to use an assembly line method to produce the breastplates, leather armor, and tassets for the Iron Pagoda and buren armor.

This would not only speed up the production of the breastplates, leather armor, and tassets but also prevent the complete manufacturing process of the Iron Pagoda and buren armor from being directly leaked.

It took Zhao Fusu a full two days to arrange the production matters for the Iron Pagoda and buren armor.

At the Great Qin Empire Academy of Sciences, thousands of people were carrying crucibles filled with glowing red molten steel.

Carrying the crucibles, they carefully poured the molten steel into the molds for the steam threshers.

Most components of the steam threshers were left to cool on their own.

However, parts with higher hardness requirements, such as gears, needed to be quenched in cold water to increase their hardness.

After several days of three-shift production, three thousand sets of steam thresher components had been produced.

Looking at the steam thresher components piled up in the warehouse, Zhao Fusu knew it was time to assemble them into complete steam threshers.

From the fifty thousand laborers assigned there, he selected over a thousand to learn how to assemble the steam threshers from Elder Mos Team.

Zhao Fusu also selected another thousand clever laborers to have Elder Mos Team teach them how to perform repairs when the steam threshers malfunctioned.

Once the summer harvest began, these repairmen would be sent to the countryside to train users on how to safely operate the steam threshers and to repair any malfunctions that might occur during use.

Zhao Fusu arranged everything methodically, and with the grease of money, everything went quite smoothly.

It was just that he had too many matters to handle, leaving him feeling a bit overextended.

Life had become exceptionally full.

Right!

Zhao Fusu remembered the steam tractor.

Elder Mo was leading the majority of his team in debugging the steam tractor.

After these days of research and development, the outline of the steam tractor had already emerged.

However, there were many technical problems to solve.

Such as the brakes, steering, and the gearbox.

Zhao Fusu was not a mechanical engineer; he could understand the principles of the steam tractor, but developing it himself was not his strength.

The R&D for the steam tractor was better left to professionals like Elder Mo.

His responsibility was simply to provide the funding.

As Zhao Fusu was preparing to return to the Xianyang Palace, Li Si found him in high spirits.

“His Majesty the Head of State, one thousand copies of the newspaper have been transcribed.”

These thousand copies were naturally transcribed by the thousand Confucian Scholars who had dared to cause trouble outside the Xianyang Palace.

They had each transcribed one copy, and there were still 9,999 copies left to transcribe.

In the place where the Confucian Scholars were held, Shu Botong stared at Sun Daping with bloodshot eyes and said, “Brother Daping, I really want to strangle you!”

If Sun Daping hadn't incited him, would he, Shu Botong, have waded into these muddy waters?

Besides Shu Botong, hundreds of other Confucian Scholars were also glaring at Sun Daping.

After transcribing just one copy of the newspaper, their wrists were agonizingly sore, their eyes were dry, and their heads were swimming.

“And 9,999 copies haven't even been transcribed yet!”

They couldn't imagine the scale of it.

One newspaper had twenty-four pages!

Each page had at least two thousand words!

They transcribed until they wanted to scream hysterically.

Sun Daping didn't dare to make a sound.

Instigated by Zhang Liang, he had gathered a thousand Confucian Scholars in front of the Xianyang Palace to force Zhao Fusu to implement the enfeoffment system, hoping to use the opportunity to make a name for himself.

In the end, Zhao Fusu alone had lectured the thousand scholars into stunned silence.

He had indeed made a name for himself.

But as a laughingstock.

Sun Daping felt incredibly bitter.

Zhao Fusu didn't care about Sun Daping's bitterness; to him, Sun Daping had caused trouble for him at his most difficult time.

If not for Zhao Fusu's own eloquence, he really wouldn't have known how to handle it.

Had Sun Daping succeeded in swaying the narrative, the people might have been coerced into demanding the restoration of the enfeoffment system.

If he had resolutely opposed it, the powder keg that was Great Qin—already on the brink of explosion—would have been ignited.

Therefore, the more painful it was for these Confucian Scholars to transcribe the newspapers, the happier Zhao Fusu became.

“Very good!”

Zhao Fusu said, “Starting tomorrow, we will begin the sale of the first issue of the Great Qin Empire Weekly.”

“Understood!”

Li Si replied.

The next day.

Right next to the paper shop, people from the Great Qin Empire General Administration of Press and Publication had set up a stall to sell newspapers.

The vendor looked to be in his forties or fifties, wearing a faded cotton robe and sporting a goatee.

“Newspapers for sale!”

“Get your newspapers!”

“Three coins per copy!”

His shouting immediately attracted the attention of many.

These were nobles who had come to buy Magic Box Napkins.

They looked over curiously.

These people were the target audience for the middle-aged man's newspapers.

The commoners at the bottom of Great Qin's society were illiterate; there was no way they would buy a newspaper.

“Give me a copy.”

Just as the middle-aged man finished shouting, He Zhi, the leader of the First Emperor's Shadow Guards, appeared before him and produced three coins.