89: Chapter 89 His Majesty the Head of State's sentiments are worth a thousand pieces of gold!

"We take meticulous care of our 'family,' ensuring that they feel our sincerity as manufacturers."

"We hold our family in our hearts and give them our full sincerity. Setting the price of 'Heart-to-Heart' paper at ten coins isn't too much, is it!"

Zhao Fusu's gaze swept over Li Si, Feng Quji, and Feng Jie.

"Not at all, not at all."

Li Si was the first to speak up: "His Majesty the Head of State's sincerity alone is worth a thousand gold!"

"Ayo, not bad!"

Zhao Fusu said, mimicking Director Zhou's tone.

This old fellow Li Si really knows how to suck up!

Zhao Fusu also planned to create floral-scented paper specifically for noble young ladies later on.

If he could extract floral essential oils, couldn't he create Perfume as well?

Zhao Fusu's eyes lit up at the thought of Perfume.

The market for Perfume was massive; women would love it, and men would too!

Spray enough Perfume on yourself, and you'd smell fragrant even if you didn't bathe for days.

Perfume became a must-do project in Zhao Fusu's mind.

He intended to earn heaps of money from the nobility.

Since these nobles used unregistered households to evade taxes, they couldn't blame him for using paper to harvest their wealth.

If these nobles bought paper in large quantities, they would have to sell more grain.

With more grain on the market, grain prices would drop significantly.

This was also one of Zhao Fusu's major methods for controlling grain prices.

The more grain prices dropped, the more grain he could buy with the same amount of money, allowing him to cut expenditures and reduce his fiscal pressure.

Zhao Fusu had too many matters to handle, involving various aspects of state affairs, so he had to organize them and plan what needed to be done before the summer harvest in order of urgency.

The first issue of the Great Qin Empire Weekly was in preparation and would be published once his brother-in-law, Wang Li, arrived in Xianyang with his belongings.

The Great Qin Empire Bank was also in preparation; besides bank personnel learning the Mental Abacus and interest rate calculations, painters were also being recruited.

The painters Zhao Fusu sought were for realism, not impressionism. It would be best if it were similar to sketching; he didn't want them to be so abstract that people were unrecognizable.

The Great Qin Empire Bank also had relevant rules and regulations to be formulated.

Customer records needed to be backed up, with a schedule for re-backing them up to prevent paper aging and the loss of customer information.

How the Bank Card numbers should be arranged and how the Bank Cards would be manufactured.

Where the money collected by the bank would be stored, how it would be transported under guard, and how to respond to bank robberies?

It was impossible for the bank to be staffed entirely by soldiers whom Zhao Fusu had branded with the Thought Steel Seal; outsiders would inevitably join. How to supervise these people and prevent internal theft had to be thought out in advance.

There were still many areas to consider.

Zhao Fusu was a cautious person.

He had always avoided fighting battles he wasn't sure of winning.

The pre-ordered quantity of steam threshers was still too low; according to Li Si, at least ten thousand units needed to be sold to offset the labor shortage caused by a large number of commoners entering commerce and industry. Furthermore, after-sales service had to be handled well; if they broke, they needed to be repaired promptly, or agricultural production would certainly be delayed.

It seemed he needed to organize enough maintenance personnel to go to the countryside and repair steam threshers that malfunctioned during agricultural production.

Although this would result in additional expenses for Zhao Fusu.

But Zhao Fusu felt this was about building a reputation.

He didn't want his customers to feel that the steam threshers he sold were unreliable; if a steam thresher broke and the customer didn't know how to fix it, it would just become a pile of scrap metal.

Then, selling more steam threshers wouldn't be so easy.

Conversely, if his steam threshers built a good reputation and everyone knew that Zhao Fusu didn't just abandon them after the sale.

They wouldn't have reservations when buying, which would be a huge help in opening up a larger market.

If the reputation of the steam threshers he sold in Xianyang City was terrible, how could he promote them to the various commanderies and counties in Guanzhong?

Not to mention expanding the market beyond the passes.

He absolutely had to establish a good reputation for the steam threshers.

He wanted every user of a steam thresher to have a high opinion of it, rather than thinking it was just a pile of scrap metal.

Zhao Fusu placed this matter as a top priority.

He had to train a large number of repairmen and teach them how to fix the steam threshers.

Then, he would open Maintenance Points near the production sites of the users who bought the steam threshers.

If a user's steam thresher broke, they could carry it directly to a Maintenance Point for repair, or they could have the maintenance personnel come directly to their door.

Zhao Fusu began to consider how many maintenance personnel needed training.

steam threshers were actually not that easy to break.

It was usually just gear wear, requiring replacement parts.

Or the boiler pressure becoming too high, causing it to explode.

Right!

Speaking of boiler explosions, Zhao Fusu suddenly realized that safety was a key issue!

If the boiler pressure of a Steam Engine is too high, it will explode.

Although they were equipped with Safety Valves and Pressure Gauges as standard, it didn't mean the Safety Valves wouldn't fail or that the operators would know how to read the gauges.

It seemed the number of maintenance personnel couldn't be too small.

To prevent accidents, Zhao Fusu decided that this batch of maintenance personnel sent to the countryside would start at a thousand people.

Besides being responsible for repairing malfunctioning steam threshers, these maintenance personnel would also act as safety officers and trainers, gathering the farmers who operated the machines for training.

They needed to explain in detail to the operating farmers how the steam thresher worked and how to add fuel and water.

They had to constantly observe the boiler's Pressure Gauge; if the pressure was too high and the Safety Valve didn't open normally, they had to release the valve manually. When the drum's rotation slowed and the Pressure Gauge reading was too low, they needed to check if the water level in the boiler was running low. Water had to be added promptly to prevent the boiler from dry-firing and burning out...

Zhao Fusu's thinking was very meticulous.

One shouldn't assume people are too stupid, but one shouldn't assume they are too smart either.

Some people don't even know how to clean up the junk on their computer's C drive, and some don't even know how to extract compressed files.

Therefore, when conducting training, it must be done very clearly, training the users as if they were idiots.

Zhao Fusu took out paper and pen, wrote these points down, and pasted them in front of his desk to remind himself.

With so many repairmen going to the countryside, they would need Maintenance Workshops and places to stay.

This was another additional expense.

Was there a way to compensate for this additional expenditure?

There actually was a way.