Chapter 190 — Hetty's Work Assignments
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
Hetty nodded vigorously. "What the Ancestor says is true!"
Gao Yang curled his lip and glanced at Hetty. "But I must remind you of something."
Hetty was all trepidation. "Please tell me, Ancestor!"
"Your dark circles have run," Gao Yang said helplessly, looking at this great-grandniece of his. "The sweat soaked them and the color ran off."
Hetty: "..."
A moment later she bowed low once again. "I'm sorry, Ancestor, I was wrong!"
Gao Yang's eye twitched. He worried inwardly whether the pressure he was putting on Hetty really was too great, so much so that this eldest granddaughter, unable to bear the burden, was gradually losing her mind—Rebecca, after all; the two shared the same blood. A look at Rebecca's way of doing things made it clear that this bloodline was mostly recklessness and buffoonery...
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed, and he could only sigh and say with a helpless laugh: "Fine, your work pressure really has been a bit heavy lately... But it's all right. The most important winter construction projects have been settled, and each now has a craftsman leading it. Those clerks and administrative apprentices you've been training should be able to make themselves useful now. So take a bit of a rest—I'm giving you two days off."
Hetty blinked, and amid her delight there was a touch of unease. "No... Ancestor, I'm actually fine. Right now is the critical period for the territory's development—"
"Every day of the pioneering period is critical, but people can't go without rest forever. Even Nikhil's Egg gets a special holiday to bask in the sun, so you should rest too," Gao Rong said, glancing at the conflicted Hetty. "But after your holiday ends, I want you to assess all the intern apprentices in the various departments of the territory as soon as possible and compile a report on the results. If they're usable, then we should consider implementing that administrative structure I drew up a few months ago."
All along, Gao Yang had been striving to establish a complete, scientific, and efficient administrative system in the New Cecil Territory. But the scarcity of educated people in this era left the relevant talent stretched thin. Key departments like agriculture, internal affairs, military, and medicine had always been run entirely by just one or two people—one could almost say that everything from department head down to the lowest clerk was piled onto a single person's shoulders. Though such division of labor was already far better than the chaotic management of most noble territories, it still fell far short of what Gao Yang envisioned.
Therefore, whenever "intellectuals" who could read and count appeared in the territory, Gao Yang would immediately select the best of them to fill out the staff of each department head. These people had never encountered advanced concepts of organizational management, so at first they could only start as apprentices. Even the down-and-out scholars and bankrupt knights hired from Tanzan Town had to serve honestly as apprentices here.
And precisely because these apprentices came from such mixed backgrounds, Gao Yang did not believe they would all successfully complete their "transformation within the organization."
Especially the bankrupt knights and scholars.
Now the "internship period" had passed, and those apprentices who could not withstand the pressure or adapt to the new system should already be on the verge of running off. Gao Yang felt it was time to give them an assessment, to screen out the truly capable talent and push the territory's management one step further.
Hedy accepted Gao Song's arrangements with great seriousness, but just before leaving the study she seemed to recall something and said, none too certain: "Ancestor, I noticed earlier that the Tier Two arcanist who came from the royal capital has been loitering near the lord's residence. Would you like me to bring him in?"