Chapter 587 - 586: Peasant Woman 15
Tan You: "This is the first batch. The workshop will have a daily output from now on. Will you send someone to pick up the goods every day, or once every ten days? The fixed daily output will be around eight hundred bars."
Xue Guanglin: "We’ll come every day, of course, Ma’am. If the goods pile up for even a day, that’s a day of lost earnings. We’re not afraid of the trouble."
Tan You: "Then we’ll do as you wish, Proprietor Xue. By the way, we’ve also accumulated a lot of mosquito coils recently. Would you like to take them all at once?"
Xue Guanglin replied without hesitation: "Naturally, I’ll take them all. Who in town doesn’t know how good the mosquito coils are now? The amount of soap and mosquito coils I need is truly substantial. I sent a batch to the prefectural city, and now there’s a huge shortage."
Tan You understood. "I see. We will increase the supply as appropriate."
As soon as Xue Guanglin left, the clan members grew restless. Tan You placed the fifteen taels of Silver she had received into a wooden box. "The workshop pays out the previous month’s wages on the first of every month. There’s no need to be anxious."
Aunt Hua swallowed hard. "Ma’am, our wages... how are they calculated?"
Tan You: "For the first month, we’ll first see the workshop’s output. As for the rest, I’ll discuss it with the clan elders. Just wait for the announcement."
"This is the clan’s own workshop. The profits will ultimately be used for the clan members themselves. We will absolutely not exploit our workers."
Seeing that everyone was still uneasy, Tan You decided to say a little more.
Cuihong’s Grandma smiled. "We’re not worried about that. We were just calculating... if the workshop ships out goods every day, how much Silver will that be in a month?"
Tan You: "We still need to calculate the costs at the end, but it will definitely be more than what you’d earn working in town."
Aunt Hua, ever the chatterbox, was the first to shout, "As long as it’s more than two hundred wen, I’ll be satisfied!"
"It will definitely be more than that," Tan You said with a smile. "Everyone, dismiss. I’m going to have a meeting with the clan elders."
By now, everyone knew what Tan You meant by "having a meeting." Besides, with the workshop earning Silver, who would want to be idle now?
The able-bodied men strapped on their back-baskets and began procuring raw materials from all over. The other workers continued with their tasks, while the children ran all over the mountains. It could be said that almost everyone had found their place here.
Once the soap shipments began, the supply became a continuous stream. Later, as the young men grew familiar with the various butcher stalls, the amount of pork leaf lard they collected daily stabilized within a fixed range.
But this amount of raw materials, compared to the sheer volume of supply required, was just a drop in the bucket.
Tan You couldn’t help but frown. "We have to find a way to develop new products. We can’t rely solely on pork fat. We need to choose other types of oils, or we’ll easily be bottlenecked by our raw material supply."
Chen Tianshui was puzzled. "Are there other ways?"
Tan You: "Of course there are. Vegetable oil can also be used to make soap. The key to soap making is the saponification reaction. The raw material doesn’t have to be pork fat, but not every kind of vegetable oil will work."
"I’ll go ask around later. If we can secure a steady supply of vegetable oil, our output will be even greater in the future."
The clan elders didn’t say much more. It seemed that they would believe anything Tan You said. Now that she wanted to develop new products, it was, in the end, for the good of the workshop.
Little did they know that Tan You was comparing the Silver they were earning now to modern wage levels. ’Based on fifteen taels of Silver a day, that’s only four hundred fifty taels a month.’
’And because of the seasonal availability of mugwort leaves, the mosquito coils can only be made for a few months. That means the workshop’s stable monthly income might only be around five hundred taels.’
’That’s only about five hundred thousand RMB. The workshop needs to support the entire clan, which currently has a little over five hundred members. To keep everyone fed, this is just a drop in the bucket.’
’So, in the end, we still have to increase the workshop’s production. Only when everyone earns more money will their lives improve.’
’Plus, a chaotic era is coming in just a few years. I have to take advantage of the present to hoard more Silver, and even more grain. These will be our capital for survival later on.’
While everyone was working hard together on the business, a month had passed for the clan members at the workshop. The moment Tan You arrived at the workshop that morning, she heard the low murmur of discussion. After listening for just a moment, she knew what they were all talking about.
Thinking this, Tan You didn’t deliberately keep them in suspense. She exchanged a look with Chen Tianshui, who then struck the bronze gong used in the workshop to signal the start and end of work.
As the gong sounded, everyone put down their work and hurried to the open space in front of the workshop.
Tan You didn’t beat around the bush. After Chen Xi brought the account book, Tan You quickly summarized, "Everyone has now worked at the workshop for a full month. The mosquito coils started shipping twenty days ago, and we’ve received a total payment of one hundred eighty taels."
"The soap started shipping half a month ago, with cumulative sales reaching two hundred thirty taels."
The crowd couldn’t help but murmur, "Ma’am, that’s so much Silver?"
Tan You patiently explained, "The mosquito coils are seasonal; they can only be produced for a few fixed months each year. But the soap is different. As long as the raw materials are supplied, soap can be made anytime."
The clan members nodded in understanding. "I see. So soap is a long-term business."
Tan You said seriously, "Actually, the mosquito coils can also be made year-round, as long as we have the mugwort floss. But let’s not talk about that for now. First, let’s discuss everyone’s wages."
Since this was all within the clan, there was no need to worry about things like privacy. Tan You simply wrote out everyone’s wage levels. The highest, naturally, went to the able-bodied men who went out to procure the various raw materials.
One tael of Silver per month. The wages for those working inside the workshop, depending on the type of work, ranged from six hundred to eight hundred wen. Honestly, when setting these wages, even Tan You herself felt they were too low.
’In modern society, where could you find a monthly salary of five or six hundred? The minimum wage for workers is almost over two thousand. Of course, a feudal society can’t be compared to the modern world.’
But in the eyes of Chen Tianshui and the other clan elders, these wages were already extremely high. Currently, besides the mosquito coils which could be made continuously, the soap workshop workers basically worked for half a day and rested for half a day. The elders already felt this was a very easy job.
Third Grandpa: "Ma’am, don’t you always talk about bonuses and dividends? We can give those out as rewards during various festivals. Let’s keep the base salary at this level. Giving too much at once could raise their expectations too high."
"Besides, if the Silver stays within the clan, it’s easier to ensure it benefits everyone."
Tan You raised an eyebrow slightly. "Oh? And how do you plan to do that, Third Grandpa?"
The elders exchanged a glance. "Build houses. Since the money is to be used for the clan members, we should naturally improve everyone’s living conditions. The clan plans to build houses. Ma’am, will you be the first?"
Tan You’s eyes curved into a smile. "I’m not in a hurry for now. If we’re going to build houses, let’s start with the families in the most difficult situations. If we’re going to take care of our clan, we should naturally prioritize those who need it most."