The next day, Cheng Ruyi rented a mule cart and took Cheng Yan and Xu Cui to the south gate. Then she set up a table, put up a recruitment sign, and officially began recruiting people.
Actually, besides them, many people have been coming here to recruit workers... or more accurately, to buy people during this period of time.
In this world, human life is worthless. When Ruyi was working at the brokerage, she saw that many servants could be bought for one or two taels of silver, and no matter how expensive they were, they would not exceed three taels. It was practically a bargain sale.
However, she is not considering buying people for the time being. Don't ask, or you'll just think she's a saint and can't get over her conscience. Besides, it's just building houses. An employment relationship is more suitable than buying people. Moreover, even if she bought people now, she wouldn't have a place for them to live!
Soon, a long queue formed in front of their stall.
Cheng Ruyi is recruiting three types of workers this time: The first type is technical workers, who have built houses before or have experience in building houses. They are paid 30 coins a day without meals, or 10 coins a day with two meals included.
The second type is physical labor, which is purely manual labor. Anyone who is tall, strong, and robust can do it. This type is cheaper, costing twenty coins a day without meals, or two meals a day if there is no job.
The third type is miscellaneous tasks. This type mainly recruits women to cook, clean, and help with chores. They are paid 20 coins a day without meals, or two meals a day if there is no job.
Considering that dockworkers in the county town earn about thirty coins a day, and taking into account the prices and the actual situation, she set this price after a long period of consideration. Although she was a saint and wanted to help these people, she was not so foolish as to lose money to support them.
These refugees included both men and women, and most of them were large families. They had been waiting outside the city gates for so long; some needed money, and some needed food, so she simply let them choose for themselves.
Moreover, according to her observation, the ratio of men to women among this group of migrants is relatively balanced. Since men have job opportunities, women should also be given opportunities. In this way, the young and middle-aged people in the family can have jobs, and the elderly can stay and take care of the children.
To her surprise, the first type of applicant had the most applicants. However, after asking around, she found that most of them were just relatives or friends in the village who were building houses and she was just helping out. Moreover, none of them were building brick houses, which did not meet her requirements at all.
After Ruyi's screening, 90% of the people were immediately eliminated, so she watched helplessly as these people went to the next queue for the physical labor type...
Even so, there were still quite a few people left in the first category. To prevent any imposters from slipping through her fingers, she had prepared in advance. She took out some professional questions that she had specially asked an old craftsman to write down and asked different people at different times. Only those who answered five questions correctly could be selected.
The second type is actually the easiest to choose because it is obvious to the naked eye. However, perhaps because they have experienced a long period of homelessness, most of them are not considered strong. In the end, the ones chosen are mostly younger adult men.
But unexpectedly, there were some oddballs among them. Two people in the crowd were very special, and there was an empty space around them, which looked quite interesting.
Judging from their appearance, the two were probably relatives. The man was in his thirties, very tall and thin, even half a head taller than the people around him. He was conservatively estimated to be at least 1.9 meters tall. Moreover, he was ugly, as if his entire face had been burned by a fire. His muscles were uneven and pitted. So, whenever he stood there, he gave off an impression that strangers should not approach him.
Standing quietly beside the man was a girl who looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old. She was also tall and thin, with a very obvious black mark on her face running from the middle of her forehead to below her right eye. Her dark eyes were completely calm.
Cheng Ruyi asked Cheng Yan, who was in charge of recruitment registration, with curiosity, "Dad, what's the deal with those two?"
“They are a father and daughter. I just checked their household registration. They used to live near Lishui County on the border. The war with the Western Jin Dynasty destroyed their entire village. The day before yesterday, the family of four fled here, and the youngest son suddenly fell ill. They wanted to go into the city to find a doctor, but because they didn’t have a travel permit and couldn’t afford the entrance fee, they have been stuck at the gate.”
"Entry fee? What's that? When did our county start charging for entry?" Ruyi was stunned. Did this damned magistrate have no moral compass?
Cheng Yan glanced helplessly at his daughter. "According to the laws of Dayue, people whose registered residence is not in this county and who do not have a travel permit have always been required to pay a city fee."
"Oh... I see. Then the entrance fee shouldn't be too expensive, otherwise how would people from nearby villages and towns get into the city?"
"It wasn't expensive at first. People registered in the same prefecture only paid five coins, while those from different prefectures paid twenty coins. But now... people from different prefectures have to pay one tael! If they want to bring their sons into the city, they'll have to pay at least two taels of silver first, not to mention the medical expenses... Sigh!"
Cheng Yan had been through it all; he knew the despair of being blocked outside by the high city walls after arriving with great difficulty. So when his daughter suggested recruiting refugees to help build a house, he felt very supportive and comforted.
After hearing this, Ruyi felt that even the most vulgar language she had ever learned was insufficient to describe the magistrate's shamelessness. However, upon closer reflection, she realized that if the magistrate dared to do this, it proved that such things were very common and that no one above would investigate. It seemed that Dayue was indeed doomed sooner or later!
There are also many women who are interviewed for miscellaneous tasks. Ruyi's primary requirement for this type of woman is that she must be clean. Whether she is responsible for cooking or cleaning, if she is not clean, she cannot be hired.
As for cooking skills, she doesn't have any requirements. After all, there will be so many people, so as long as the food is plentiful and filling, that's fine. She doesn't care about anything else.
After setting up a stall at the city gate for two consecutive days and successfully recruiting enough people, they left.
The start date was set for three days later, on October 20th. Those selected were given an "employee ID" with their names and the project they were responsible for. It was printed on high-quality paper bought from Sun's Bookstore, which was snow-white, tough, beautiful, durable, and most importantly, not easy to counterfeit.
After finishing their work each day, employees need to bring their employee ID cards to verify their identity before they can receive their wages and meals. Ruyi will also record this in the employee handbook.
If everything goes smoothly, the new house should be completed before the Lunar New Year, which is about fifty days. More than half of the workers chose to have food instead of wages. Ruyi calculated the labor cost for these refugees and found it to be about thirty to forty taels of silver, which was acceptable.
Moreover, although it is said that two meals are included, only the lunch is a proper meal. The dinner is just a large bowl of mixed grain and vegetable porridge per person, so the meal cost is not too high.
And so, construction officially began on the Cheng family's villa in Lishan Village!
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