"Li Yao, the machine has been fixed. When are you going to go take a look?"
"I'll go now."
Li Yao came to Xia Xian's blacksmith workshop and found that this guy hadn't just fixed it, but completely remade the steam engine.
Compared to the previous version 1.0, this new steam engine 1.01 looked much more refined. It didn't leak steam everywhere when started up, and the transmission mechanism was also much smoother. It was clear he had put a lot of effort into it.
Seeing the satisfied look on her face, Xia Xian said, "What do you think, boss? Will it work?"
"It should be good enough for now. Let's use it to make steel balls and the like. There's still room for improvement," said Li Yao.
More improvements?
Xia Xian felt a little frustrated.
He hadn't slept for days, racking his brains to come up with various methods, and finally produced the most precise, best machine in the world. But it was still only barely good enough? He was having a hard time keeping up with the boss's train of thought.
Li Yao could see his distress, but there was no helping it. It really was just barely adequate.
The steam engine was too bulky, the seals still weren't tight enough, though she knew this was the limit of handcrafting.
To make a more advanced steam engine, they needed more advanced manufacturing equipment. It wasn't just craftsmanship, but equipment too.
Going from agriculture to steam power certainly wasn't something that would happen just by artisans tinkering away. Indeed, she had been too naive.
It was time to start making lathes.
So she took out a stack of very thick blueprints and put them in front of Xia Xian.
"What...what's this now?"
"Don't ask, just make it according to the requirements."
Looking at the densely packed small parts, Xia Xian felt his head would split open.
He really missed the old days of swinging a big hammer to forge farming tools...
Back then, he had felt that making these things was meaningless, a waste of his skills and talents.
Now he only felt that it had been pretty good...
...
"Sister-in-law, the first bicycle has been assembled!"
Wang Yuanbang pushed a brand new bicycle over, bursting with excitement as he arrived at Li Yao's home.
He was now the manager of the bicycle workshop.
"Come take a look, what do you think?"
Li Yao tried riding it around a few laps, and felt it was decent.
"Start hiring workers and begin production," she said.
"Oh!"
The bicycle workshop needed carpenters and blacksmiths, and people specialized in making steel balls and springs. Technically, it demanded much more than the soap workshop.
So this time when hiring, people with skills and education were given priority in recruitment, and wages twice as high as the soap workshop.
This reminded the villagers of what Li Yao had said before - that in the future, her workshops would only hire educated people.
A vague sense of urgency rose in their hearts.
With the workers in place, after half a day of training, everyone had basically gotten the hang of it.
As head manager, Wang Yuanbang was already itching to get started. "Sister-in-law, training is done."
"Let me emphasize again, safety first."
"Got it."
Li Yao took out some blueprints and gave them to Wang Yuanbang. "These are the blueprints for tricycles, luxury tricycles, and bicycles. Make 100 of each in two weeks, then launch them together at the boutique shop."
"Oh!"
With workers, orders, and materials, what was there left to wait for?
"Let's start work!"
...
The bicycle workshop got busy. Li Yao personally observed for two days.
Although the production methods for every step could be crude, under the strict rules and systems everyone worked in an orderly fashion.
Especially for safety - Li Yao had specially hired two people as safety officers, constantly patrolling the workshop and firmly preventing any accidents.
Just after leaving the workshop today, Village Head immediately came to find her.
"Li Yao, I want to discuss something with you. The village school still has two empty rooms right? I want to invite two more teachers to come back and give lectures in the evening to anyone who wants to study," he said.
What?
Li Yao looked at him in surprise, momentarily stunned.
Was he thinking of running a night school for the villagers? Eradicating illiteracy in the whole village?
"No good? Then forget it..."
"No," Li Yao quickly said, "I was just wondering, how many people would be willing to attend night school?"
"Probably a few dozen, all young people in the village."
"That's too few."
Since it was about eradicating illiteracy, it would only have meaning if the whole village participated.
After hearing Li Yao's thoughts, Village Head was a little confused.
"You mean, everyone under 50 should attend school? That...that would cost a fortune! And there definitely wouldn't be enough classrooms."
"We can use the existing schoolrooms first, and build more later if needed," said Li Yao. "We don't need to specially invite teachers, just have Lv Xiucai, Wang Er, and Song Zhe teach part-time. And we don't need to specially buy books, I'll get people to compile them."
"Can that work?"
"We'll see when we try it."
Dong dong dong -
Village Head rang the big gong again, gathering the villagers together to tell them about the night school.
Hearing that everyone under 50 could attend for free, the young people in the village were eager to give it a try.
Because only being able to read and do arithmetic could get them into Li Yao's workshop to earn money. Most importantly, with night classes, it wouldn't interfere with their work.
But the older folks didn't have much interest, and none of the young women and daughters-in-law volunteered either.
After all, nothing like this had ever happened before!
"At our age, what's the use of studying?"
"Right, we're too stupid to learn anything."
"We're exhausted from working and taking care of kids every day, where do we have the energy?"
...
"Who says old folks can't learn?" Hearing this pessimism, Wang Xueshi stood up, "Count me in, I want to study too."
The crowd: ...
Shen Shi wished she could dig a hole and crawl into it, this was too embarrassing.
"Mother, what nonsense are you spewing?"
"I'm not spewing nonsense, I'm serious," said Wang Xueshi. "After joining Li Yao's workshop I realized how important being able to read and do sums is."
"But you're already so old..."
"So what? Li Yao said, learn for life," said Wang Xueshi. "Plus I know more characters than you now, and I'm better at arithmetic too. What right do you have to stop me from going?"
Shen Shi: ...
Shen Shi truly had no rebuttal, because her mother-in-law spoke the truth.
But she also had a competitive streak. "Fine, I'll go study too. I won't believe I can't beat you!"
"Don't boast before you've surpassed me."
...
Led by this mother and daughter-in-law pair, some of the older women also tentatively signed up.
In the end, the first batch of students totaled about 300.
Li Yao was very satisfied with this result.
Slow and steady.
With 300 illiterate students, Village Head was prepared to go out and buy lots of textbooks, but Li Yao felt that wouldn't work.
Eradicating illiteracy was different from normal schooling - the goal wasn't to write essays. Using traditional materials to teach would be too inefficient.
It would be better to model it after the 9-year compulsory education system.
So first she made a pinyin chart, then extracted 2,000 common characters to make tens of thousands of words and phrases for Lv Xiucai to neatly handwrite.
Math was even simpler - first learn Arabic numerals, then basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
A simple elementary textbook was quickly compiled.