Fu Changfeng only learned of this news after the New Year. Even the prefect was shocked. He had thought that Fu Changfeng would be transferred to another wealthy place to serve as an official, but he never expected that he would still be under his command.
However, this is not a bad thing. Fu Changfeng is a reliable and capable person. As long as he can stay in Shaoming County with peace of mind, I will not make things difficult for him in the future.
Therefore, the prefect wrote a letter to persuade him. Although Fu Changfeng did not expect this outcome, he had no choice but to accept his fate. Sure enough, offending those important figures always made life more difficult.
Knowing that he had no hope of being promoted in the short term, Fu Changfeng was not discouraged. Fortunately, there were still many things waiting for him to deal with in Shaoming County. By solving them one by one, he could be considered to have done something practical for the people.
Three years have passed, and now it is the time for the results of the county-level examination to be released. Fu Changfeng received a letter that a total of ten candidates in Shaoming County have passed the examination and become scholars.
Ten students passed the exam at once, which is unprecedented in Shaoming County. If one or two students pass every three years, that would be considered remarkable. So when Fu Changfeng received the news, he was stunned for a while before he summoned the instructor.
"Instructor Huang, come and see this letter. This is the list of this year's successful candidates." Fu Changfeng handed him the list. Instructor Huang counted the names and was surprised to see so many people had passed. A smile appeared on his face.
"Congratulations, sir. Since you came to Shaoming County, our county has been developing in a positive direction. Now the academic atmosphere is thriving. I have truly lived up to the expectations of the scholars in our county." Instructor Huang has also devoted himself to improving the academic atmosphere over the years, but he has always been unable to achieve anything significant on his own.
He has only been following Fu Changfeng for a few years, yet he has already managed to significantly improve the academic atmosphere in the county. He is extremely grateful to Fu Changfeng.
"Huang Jiaoyu also deserves credit for this. County Magistrate Li, please make arrangements to have someone inform the relatives of these families of this good news."
"Yes, sir, the person who comes to deliver the message will also receive a reward." Magistrate Li was just joking. In recent years, life in Shaoming County has improved a lot, and those families will naturally pay this amount.
Everyone rushes to do good things, and Magistrate Li naturally wouldn't favor anyone, so he had them all divided into groups to deliver the news.
"Boss, a bowl of snail rice noodles, please. I haven't had this taste in so long, I really miss it." A tall and burly customer walked into the shop and called out to a family who were busy in the kitchen.
"Hey, you've come all the way from the north. I remember you had snail rice noodles at my stall a few months ago."
"Yes, Shaoming County is quite famous now. We've come to buy goods to sell in the north. People there really like them." These were merchants from the north. When Fu Changfeng first heard Xichun talk about attracting investment, he was a little puzzled. However, when he saw that they had indeed brought many merchants and were transporting their local cloth, tea, bamboo fungus, bamboo shoots, bamboo weaving, and a series of other mountain products to sell elsewhere, Fu Changfeng naturally saw the business opportunities.
Therefore, every year they would send people out to promote the benefits of their place, so that merchants would take a detour. Over time, a special trade route for transporting goods was actually established. Year after year, more and more people knew that this place had good things, and they all came to visit.
"Hehe, you've come to the right place. Our things are cheap. I've heard that many merchants come here to buy low and sell high. It's a really good business. If I didn't have a family to support, I would want to come and do this job with you."
"I see your stall is doing quite well. Your family was the first to open one, right? People say you're a well-established brand. It would be even better if you could open a shop."
"Yes, yes, sir. Look, this is the shop we just rented across the street. We'll be moving in soon." The speaker was Qian Qiaoqiao's younger brother. His family had also received help from the county magistrate's wife, which allowed them to start this snail rice noodle business. Now their lives were getting better and better.
"Oh dear, then I wish you great fortune."
As guests continued to arrive, the eldest brother of the Qian family stopped being polite and busied himself cooking noodles for them.
“Madam, our dyeing workshop business has stabilized now, with several hundred taels of silver coming in every month. We are still a bit short-handed, so I’m planning to hire more people. But quite a few people are eyeing our workshop’s work.” Yang Cuiniang came to report this to Xichun.
"Alright, I'm very relieved to leave the dyeing workshop to you. By the way, have you discussed the nursery? Do you want to run it together with the other workshops?" There are many female workers in these workshops, and many of them have several children at home. Sometimes it's troublesome when the lady of the house is not at home and they can't take care of them all.
Seeing this, Xichun made this suggestion: several workshops should contribute money to build a place specifically for children to read, play, and keep them in check. Careful women could be hired to take care of them, which would also free up parents' hands so they could have time to do other work.
"It's been discussed and everyone thinks it's a good thing. However, we all feel that if we don't charge a penny, some people might take advantage of us or cause trouble. So we've decided to charge each child twenty coins per month, based on the number of children. Twenty coins isn't much, and it will cover the children's lunch and someone will take care of them."
"That works too. You guys discuss it and I'll come over to take a look once the park opens."
A few days later, Taozi returned. This time, he took Qian Qiaoqiao and the children with him. Xiaofeng and Azhao were taking exams this year, so they had to go back to their hometown to take them.
"Sister Xichun, I've really brought back two pieces of good news this time!" Taozi said excitedly.
"Oh, could it be that both children passed the exam?" Xi Chun knew it was about that as soon as he guessed, since that was what he was doing.
"You guessed right. Xiaofeng ranked twentieth and Azhao ranked first, even the top scorer. However, they haven't been home for a long time, so Grandpa Fu and Aunt Wang said they should stay at home for a while longer before coming over."
"That's good. I've been on edge all these years, so I'll let the two of them go out and gain some experience. I was worried that A-Zhao would become too proud at such a young age." A-Zhao is not even ten years old yet, and she has already won first place. This is something Xi Chun did not expect. She was afraid that the child would end up like Zhong Yong, who was wasted his life.
"My brother-in-law told me about this beforehand. He must have known that Ah Zhao would achieve what he has today." Taozi was naturally proud of Ah Zhao's achievements, which he had watched grow up.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
