"Thank you very much, Zhongcheng. Thank you very much, Zhongcheng." The Tiju wanted to kowtow to Wu Shilai again.

"Don't thank me." Wu Shilai pointed at Zhao Hao and said, "It was Director Zhao from Jiangnan Company who placed the order with you."

"Uh..." Although Jiangnan Company is quite famous in Suzhou, Yang Tiju has never heard of this Jinling shipyard.

"Thank you very much, sir, for the meal. I am grateful!" However, he still expressed his gratitude to Zhao Hao obediently.

"You're welcome. I should be the one thanking you." Zhao Hao smiled and said, "Because you will be busy from now on."

"Hehe, we prefer to be idle rather than busy." The supervisor, whose name was Yang Fan, rubbed his hands and said with a smile, "Excuse me, sir, how many pieces do you want to order, and how much material?"

"Four hundred pieces, one thousand materials." Master Zhao reported the number and specifications.

"Four, four hundred, one, one thousand pieces?!" Yang Tiju asked stutteringly with his eyes wide open.

"Are you stuttering?" Wu Shilai glared at him.

"No, no, I am just using this method to express my inner surprise." Yang Fan responded quickly, his face still full of shock.

"Don't worry about anything else, just tell me if it's possible." Wu Shilai said in a deep voice.

"Yes, yes, we can. We can build it." Yang Fan nodded excitedly and said, "Our Baochuan Factory is a place that builds big ships. The bigger the ship, the greater our advantage."

"Oh, what are your advantages?" Mr. Zhao asked with a smile.

"Sir, we have advantages in many aspects." Yang Tiju boasted, "First of all, our Baochuan Factory has a history of more than 200 years. The warships of the Ming Dynasty were all produced by our factory. So a ship of 1,000 tons is nothing to us."

"Then, we have thirteen construction ponds, each of which can build eight thousand-ton ships at the same time. So if there are enough workers, we can build a hundred thousand-ton ships at the same time!"

"Besides, our factory has two thousand craftsmen who have been engaged in shipbuilding for generations. If necessary, we can recruit another two thousand people from their families. With four thousand craftsmen working together, we can build at least two hundred thousand-ton ships a year!" Yang Tiju said with saliva flying.

"Oh?" Wu Shilai looked at Yang Tiju in surprise. He thought that the Baochuan Factory could only build a hundred or eighty ships a year at most.

"Do you dare to issue a military order?"

"This..." Yang Tiju was choking like a duck being pinched by the neck. "I mean to recruit another 2,000 craftsmen."

"Just recruit, our company will pay you enough money." Mr. Zhao said lightly.

"Well... the new craftsmen still need to be guided by their master. In the first year, one hundred and fifty ships should be no problem." Once the military order was about to be issued, Yang Tiju became cautious.

"One hundred and eighty ships." Wu Shilai said in a deep voice: "If you can't build them, then don't do it."

"Hey, I'm capable and can do it." Yang Tiju wiped the sweat off his forehead and agreed with gritted teeth.

"How much does a ship cost?" Young Master Zhao then asked about the price.

"There are two types of ship prices. One is for labor and materials. Each ship with 1,000 tons of materials will cost 600 taels of silver." Yang Tiju answered cautiously:

"Other shipyards would charge at least fifty taels more. Because our Baochuan shipyard has a 200-year-old lacquer garden, tung garden, and palm garden in Zhongshan, with tens of thousands of trees planted. There has been very little loss over the years, so we don't need to purchase auxiliary materials such as tung oil and palm cables for shipbuilding, which can save a lot of money."

Zhao Hao had naturally learned about the prices before coming. There were seven or eight shipyards in the Ming Dynasty that could build a thousand-ton ship, and the largest Qingjiang shipyard quoted a price of one thousand taels... Of course, that was because they couldn't even build enough ships, so they wouldn't squeeze out the work hours if they didn't pay enough silver.

The Suzhou Shipyard in Taicang and the Hangzhou Official Shipyard both quoted prices of eight hundred taels.

Of course, these are all single-ship quotes. If you order hundreds of ships at once, there will definitely be discounts. But if you want the price to be as low as 600 taels, I'm afraid it's impossible.

"What about the other kind?" Zhao Hao asked calmly.

"The other option is to only provide the labor but not the materials. This way, each boat will cost... two hundred taels of silver." Yang Tiju gritted his teeth and said, "Of course, your company will have to transport the required wood yourself."

"Hmm." Young Master Zhao nodded without comment and asked, "Which method do you prefer?"

"This... let's split it in half." Yang Tiju hesitated, "Of course we hope to do both the work and the materials, so that we can earn more. But one hundred and eighty ships a year require too much wood, and the shipyard is under too much pressure to prepare the materials alone..."

"There are so many pine, fir, and nanmu trees on Ma'an Mountain outside. Aren't they enough to build 180 ships?" Wu Shilai said in disbelief. "Those were used to build treasure ships. They have been there for more than a hundred years, right?"

"Most of them have been illegally cut down..." Yang Tiju wiped his sweat and said, "We should keep some for the court, right?"

"Humph." Wu Shilai was not easy to fool, and sneered, "I think most of them were sold privately by you!"

"Sometimes when we really can't make ends meet, we'll chop some for emergency use..." Yang Fan whispered.

"What does the famous Longjiang Coffin Shop in Jinling have to do with you?" Wu Shilai asked again.

"Yes, it's the sideline business of the Tijusi..." Yang Tiju wanted to shrink into the ground.

"Okay, take this century-old ship material and use it to make a coffin!" Wu Shilai was so angry that he kicked him on the butt.

"Calm down, Prime Minister. The shipyard has no income, and thousands of craftsmen cannot just starve to death." Yang Tiju huddled on the ground.

"Hmph! You're lucky. Young Master Zhao is still waiting for the ship to be built, so I'll let you stay for now and make meritorious contributions!" Wu Shilai didn't really want to deal with him. He just wanted to deal with these lazy petty officials so that they would fear his power rather than his virtue.

"Thank you for your kindness!" Yang Tiju kowtowed and said to Zhao Hao, "Don't worry, Mr. Zhao, I will do my best to build your company's ship as quickly as possible!"

"Quality is more important than speed." Zhao Hao said calmly, "Someone will come to discuss the specific contract with you in two days, but I will give you two hundred taels of guarantee for each ship in addition to the ship price."

"Warranty deposit?" Yang Tiju looked at Mr. Zhao in confusion.

"But I won't give you the money right away." Zhao Hao said in a deep voice, "I'll give you fifty taels every year. So if you want to get the full warranty money, you have to at least guarantee me that there won't be any problems for four years!"

According to the experience told to him by Elder Ma of the Sand Ship Gang, the quality problems of seagoing ships will be exposed one after another two years before they are launched.

As long as there are no problems in the first two years, there will basically be no more problems. Mr. Zhao added another two years of warranty to the shipyard for the sake of caution.

"Ah, so that's it..." Yang Tiju was overjoyed and looked at Zhao Hao as if he were the Good Boy Sudhana.

Building a boat and getting double the profit is like pie in the sky!

"Do you have confidence?!" Wu Shilai asked with wide eyes.

"Yes, absolutely!" Yang Tiju nodded heavily and said, "The ocean-covering ships of our Longjiang Factory have thick planks, tight rigging and strict regulations. They can be used for 30 years under normal circumstances. Even if they are used for sea transportation, 15 years is absolutely no problem - so I will definitely take the warranty money!"

"That's the best." Mr. Zhao nodded slightly with satisfaction. If the mine is built every fifteen years, the financial pressure can be ignored.

ps. This is the first of three consecutive updates. Sorry everyone, I almost went blind while looking up ship information today, so I can only write three chapters.