CHAPTER 294: CHAPTER 291: IN DIRE NEED OF TALENT

The progress of modern companies is very fast because everything can be rented readily. However, the efficiency of shops in the Great Tang isn’t as high. Not to mention personnel training, even just fully manual decoration is quite time-consuming.

Besides, Lin Wanwan also set up an embroidery workshop in ancient times, directly arranged in the newly purchased house in Xiaoxi Town.

Honestly, the best embroideresses in Mao County have mostly been monopolized by the nobility. It wasn’t particularly easy for Lin Wanwan to gather a team, relying entirely on her status as the Village Lady of Le’an, to receive a gift of embroideresses from the nobles with whom she had dealings.

However, Lin Wanwan didn’t place all her hopes on this group of embroideresses who came with indentures.

Although each family handed over their indentures to Lin Wanwan, she still didn’t know much about their backgrounds, so they couldn’t really be considered as her own and required further assessment.

Lin Wanwan also posted recruitment information in the town and recruited many embroideresses with freedom.

In those days, every household knew embroidery, and those living in the town without farmland had even more women weaving and embroidering.

Being able to do embroidery at the Village Lady of Le’an’s house, people didn’t have much resistance. Even if they did, they could overcome it for the sake of copper coins!

After all, Lin Wanwan played the trick of spending a thousand gold to buy a horse’s bone, offering an offer too tempting to refuse for the first town embroideress who applied—a monthly salary of 800 copper coins!

In Mao County of the fourth year of Zhenguan, that was definitely a high salary. The husband of a Madam Wu from the county government workshop didn’t earn that much per month.

Moreover, the embroidery workshop also promised one lunch!

With the addition of the first externally recruited embroideress, more and more new people naturally followed.

The embroideresses were temporarily settled, but Lin Wanwan still worried about management personnel, who were too scarce.

After all, Lin Wanwan obtained her title as Village Lady halfway through her life and had no ancestral foundation, unlike modern times where hiring people in society is very convenient.

If she were acknowledged by the Lin Clan as direct lineage in the Great Tang, she might have some house slaves and maids to help, but now the Lin Family Manor in the countryside couldn’t provide her with these.

If the embroidery workshop were set up in the Lin Family Manor, she couldn’t recruit skilled embroideresses, and now that it’s placed in Xiaoxi Town, she herself is far away, taking over half an hour even on fast horseback, and an hour and a half by carriage, making management inconvenient.

The person currently hired for management is an old nanny from Xiao Chong’s subordinates, whose embroidery skills are superb and part of the Xiao Family. Now too old with failing eyesight, she can no longer be a household embroideress and was sent to care for Xiao Chong.

Xiao Chong traded her and her family’s indenture for a few white-feathered chickens from Lin Wanwan.

Xiao Chong, usually seemingly innocent but dark-hearted, this time practically gave the nanny away, and Lin Wanwan couldn’t help but suspect he might be up to no good, possibly intending to spy on her?

After all, the old nanny can’t be fully trusted, so her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson were taken by Lin Wanwan to the Lin Family Manor as hostages.

If Xiao Chong knew his rare goodwill was met with Lin Wanwan’s suspicion, he would probably be furious enough to spit blood.

But who can blame him for being so clever and calculating, always planning before acting, whether dealing with assassins or the Yu Family.

Lin Wanwan saw with her own eyes that Mao County’s cunning old foxes were pinned down by him, and she never had any advantage over him, so how could she not be wary!

Once the shop opens, Lin Wanwan still plans to scout a clever young man from the clan to oversee it for her.

During this busy time, the first batch of white-feathered chickens Lin Wanwan brought to the Lin Family Manor in the Great Tang had also all grown up.

Their snow-white feathers first shocked the clan, and their rapid growth rate surprised everyone even more.

With the grown white-feathered chickens, Lin Wanwan eagerly went to the county government to see Xiao Chong.

She set off happily but returned somewhat downcast.

Clan Leader Lin asked Lin Wanwan with concern what the matter was, and Lin Wanwan thought for a moment and recounted Xiao Chong’s concerns about the white-feathered chickens.

Clan Leader Lin also said, "Xiao Mingfu’s worries are indeed my worries as well. These white-feathered chickens are too unusual. Having such a thing in the clan, it’s hard to predict whether it’s a blessing or a curse."

Lin Wanwan said, "Alright, since even Clan Leader Uncle says so, then let’s eat up this batch that’s grown and not hatch new chicks. We should honestly go back to raising the local chickens of the Great Tang."

Upon hearing Lin Wanwan say to eat them all, Clan Leader Lin was a bit pained. But after considering, these chickens are pure white and really shouldn’t be taken to the market to sell, they’re trouble if kept.

In reality, ever since the clan’s flock of white-feathered chickens grew every day, and their feathers gradually became white, Clan Leader Lin had held a clan meeting to strictly order the clan not to speak of how the newly raised chickens grew so fast and had white feathers.

Lin Family Manor is near the sea and usually closed off, with not many outsiders coming in. These chickens were only raised for over forty days, so it was really easy to keep the news hidden.

Information exchange in the Great Tang was very slow, and the situation in the countryside was even more so. This was a double-edged sword, but in terms of concealing information, it was certainly beneficial.

Thus, the children in the school were in luck, having chicken soup and chicken meat for several days. Only three of the remaining white-feathered chickens in Lin Family Manor survived, as they were enrolled in Qingyu’s animal legion.

The children didn’t find fast-growing chickens scary; all they needed was meat to eat! Chickens they raised themselves always tasted better!

However, adults were hesitant to eat this chicken meat, some finding the chickens eerie and refusing to eat, others seeing the snow-white white-feathered chickens as auspicious signs and not daring to eat them.

In short, adults think too much, are superstitious, and lose a lot of simple happiness.

After eating the entire batch of white-feathered chickens, Lin Wanwan completed her recruitment work in modern times.

The newly recruited financial and cashier personnel are all locals of Yongcheng.

The financial person is an old accountant who just reached retirement age at 51, with a son still in college, not wanting to just retire with a 3,000 salary, and found new work. Lin Wanwan’s e-commerce company happened to be very close to her home, making it a perfect fit.

The cashier is a young woman who just came out from college, also from Yongcheng though from the outskirts, sharing a rented room with a classmate nearby.

Apart from the financial staff, a graphic designer was also hired, a young woman who just graduated a year ago, a beautiful girl from the Northeast. She has the forthrightness and humor of people from the Northeast, making Lin Wanwan laugh just by talking, and hired on the spot during the interview.

The small Tangren E-commerce Co., Ltd., with only one boss and four employees, all women, guarding over a hundred square meters of office space, still seems a bit sparse.

On the first day of opening, Gu Jingyu was the busiest person because she had to run the businesses of Mei Ya Store and Japan Store for Lin Wanwan.

The operations work she does is indeed the lifeline requiring support for the entire company and is the most important, as all the store sales are dependent on her.