Chapter 400 Folk Workshops

Chapter 400 The Folk Workshop
Mr. Erkins was up early today, and while it was still light, he began to freshen up and carefully trim his beard. After a hasty breakfast, he hurried off to his place of work-an ironworks on the outskirts of the town of Lakewood.

By the time he arrived, all the employees in the workshop had already arrived.

Erkins stood on a wooden box and said very seriously, “All give me a good performance today! Put up a hundred and twenty-thousand percent spirit!”

“Don’t worry, boss!”

“I won’t let anyone underestimate us!”

The employees at the bottom responded.

There was a big shot coming to visit today!

Erkins came from a family of blacksmiths, and in earlier years, blacksmiths were high craftsmen, a very sought-after profession. Of course now when the blacksmith is also a very good choice, but compared to the previous kind of hot pursuit is always a little bit worse.

The reason for this phenomenon is the development of technology.

First of all, it was because Count Greiman improved the iron smelting technology, and from then on, the raw material no longer became a constraint.

Then is the rapid development of the lake town machinery factory, machinery factory needs a lot of metal devices, at first from the folk blacksmith store for customization. But the folk blacksmith store is generally the kind of father and son inheritance of the workshop, dispersed in all parts of Alda, which will take a lot of time to come and go.

And Count Greiman on the size of various devices can be used “perverted” to describe the requirements, but also specially invented a kind of measuring tool called “vernier calipers”. But those small stores for various reasons, the quality of the products manufactured varies. So the machine shop began to train its own blacksmith.

As a lord, the Gladman family has some generations of blacksmiths, and can be said to be the most skilled group of blacksmiths throughout the Alda, such as Mr. Erskine’s former admiration of Mr. Herman, is the most powerful blacksmith in the lord’s house. However, in the last two years, he has not seen Mr. Herman, it is said to be the lord entrusted with important tasks, not in the town of the lake.

Now Earl Gleiman had placed all of this group of people in the machine shop, and had adopted a method similar to the way the Wis Academy educated its students, vigorously recruiting and nurturing blacksmith apprentices. Unlike blacksmiths elsewhere who required a versatile skill set, the Earl only required them to be able to build one device, but they had to hone their skills to perfection. These newly trained young blacksmiths repeated a simple set of movements day in and day out in the so-called “workshop”. Some of the more complex items are even built by several people in succession, with each person completing only a portion of the piece and then handing it over to the next person until the entire piece is formed.

But the testing of the results of each stage was also strict, with specialized people watching each part and checking it with measuring tools. Blacksmiths with too low a pass rate would have their wages cut or even lose their jobs. For civilians, the salary in the machine shop was still quite generous, so everyone worked diligently.

Not only the blacksmiths, but the carpenters in the machine shop also adopted such a way of working.

After meeting the demand for parts for large instruments such as four-wheeled wagons and harvesters, the machine factory began to produce small products such as hoes, rakes, pitchforks, and other commonly used tools for farm work, and sold them to the public at very low prices.

This greatly affected the livelihood of those traditional craftsmen.

However, they were squeezed by the workshop under the name of the noble Lord Arda, and as a commoner, no one dared to organize the craftsmen against the Lord.

As a commoner, no one dared to organize the artisans against the lord. Some of the artisans who had a strong family background began to expand their production scale, recruiting blacksmiths and carpenters to join their production team, and learning the kind of work style in the machine factory. A workshop was forced into existence.

Strangely enough, in the face of some sense of rivalry, Count Greiman not only did not hide, but also called these budding workshop owners together to visit their own machine shop, allowing them to scrutinize the workflow in the machine shop, announcing that he would encourage them to start their own business, tax-free for three years.

Erskine was one of the workshop owners who had been transformed from a traditional blacksmith.

It’s hard to think back to the time when he was just starting out. Although he has been in the blacksmithing business for generations, Erskine has some family money, but that money is not enough for purchasing a site, recruiting workers, and purchasing tools.

Erskine tried to raise money on the stock exchange in Port Fullan, but he was not a traditional businessman and did not have the fame to attract others, so he had to follow the traditional way of borrowing money from friends and family, and finally stumbled to establish the workshop.

However, due to the first-mover advantage of Huxin Town machinery factory, with its cheap and good quality features quickly occupied the market, many folk workshop is simply in the edge of life and death line desperately struggling, struggling not to go over the end of the quiet.

Erskine’s workshop also suffered such a bad luck, just when he felt that he could not hold out, discouraged to disband the workshop, and then to the lord’s machinery factory to get a job, the rest of his life to work to pay off the debt, the turnaround came.

Under the leadership of Earl Greiman, the lords of the Northwest set up a so-called company called “Northwest Industries”, whose main business was to sell armaments to the government of the Kingdom in the South.

The workshop owners who hadn’t gone bankrupt yet were called to a meeting at the lord’s palace, and the count claimed to have found a way for them to make money, that is, to join Northwest Industries and provide goods for this “company”. The Count also made it clear that the industries under his control would not be involved in the production of armaments such as swords and armor, and would not pose competition, so that they could feel free to produce boldly.

And also do not need to worry about transportation and other aspects of the Northwest Industry will be resolved, as long as the specified time delivery can be.

There are two requirements: one is to unify the shape and style, can let the customer form an impression, a glance can be seen is the Northwest Bay production of things. The second is to strictly control the quality.

As soon as Count Greiman finished speaking, the workshop owners raised their arms and shouted long live the lord. Everyone knows that war is a good opportunity to get rich, especially the piece of ordnance.

Although many of them were still cursing in their hearts why the Count’s machinery yards didn’t leave them a living when they entered the gates of the Lord’s mansion.

Erkins was in tears in the lobby at the time, nearly unable to turn over this salted fish of his own.

He was sincerely thanking the Earl Lord.

Later, when he inquired, it turned out that there was a rebellion in the far south, and the kingdom government was buying weapons all over the place.

Erkins lamented, it looks like he should pay more attention to current events, only focus on the side of the acres and thirds of land will not have the opportunity to get rich. And then pondered, the earl will not be because to find a way for us unlucky people to find a way to live before the establishment of the Northwest Industry, and then again by their own this somewhat ridiculous idea amused.

Next, a steady stream of ordnance orders from the south saved the civilian workshops, not only stood firm, but also made a fortune. Erskine also crossed into the ranks of the rich.

But with the end of the Counterinsurgency War, the demand for ordnance in the South dropped dramatically.

Continuing to look for new business opportunities became Erskine’s top priority.

Just as he was scratching his head, the lord’s house released the news that another big customer had arrived from Horn Bay.

And Eugene’s workshop, was selected to let the new customers visit, or the Earl personally lead customers to.

(End of chapter)