Chapter 389 Civil Engineering, the Hottest Industry at the Moment

Halkin patted his butt and stood up, looking at the surprised eyes around him, but he didn't feel ashamed at all.

When he was chased to his doorstep by those hooligans, he endured much more contemptuous looks than he does now.

As a new generation of Dragon Cult dwarves, Halkin is highly secularized and does not have the sense of honor that the older generation of dwarves attached great importance to.

Otherwise, he would not have chosen the business career.

Halkin led the pony out of the stable, but did not ride it. Instead, he led it towards the town hall.

After visiting his father and giving away the refined gold and secret silver, he took the opportunity to take away the list of craftsmen from Huilu Town who were giving to the Holy Casting Department.

Walking on the main street of Huilu Town leading the pony, Halkin looked around and felt that this place was completely different from the Huilu Town he came to that year.

The original glamorous gambling houses and technical colleges were all demolished and renovated, with part of them turned into workers' dormitories and the other part into public buildings and shops.

The garbage and illegal buildings on the roadside were cleared away, leaving a wide road wide enough for two carriages to run side by side.

On the road, there were teams of stonemasons everywhere, carrying hammers, wooden boards, and mortar in iron buckets.

Halkin walked and stopped, and found that at least three out of ten houses along the road were being renovated, rebuilt or demolished and rebuilt.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Halkin couldn't help but click his tongue as he stopped beside a busy construction site.

The construction site in front of him was originally the gambling house that had swindled him of all his fortune.

As time passed, the owner behind the gambling house was hanged in Jeanne d'Arc, and the gangsters who controlled the gambling house went to Daze Township to dig mud.

And what about Halkin himself? He became the head of the Holy Casting Department and was respected wherever he went.

This fate is like a wild donkey, it just keeps running.

Wherever Halkin looked, he saw teams of stonemasons building new houses and roads.

Pieces of green and red bricks were stacked together and reinforced with mortar, and the wooden frame protruded from the plaster.

Masons in open vests sat on the rafters, laying large sheets of shale shingles over the roof panels.

"Left, left, hey hey hey, all right, all right!"

"We still need another batch of bricks and stones. Go to the nearby villages and have them work overtime to make another batch."

"Ouch, ouch, my leg is broken."

The stonemasons holding rulers and ink lines roared and directed the pulley cranes, and occasionally a few unlucky bricklayers fell from the roof.

Several alchemist priests from the construction team placed their hands on the wall to reinforce the newly built mortar exterior, while laborers pushed carts to dump building materials on the ground.

As the turbulent environment ended, a huge amount of grain flooded into the market after the harvest season, and the original tense atmosphere gradually faded.

So the reconstruction work of Huilu Town and even the entire Kush Territory started again.

The reason for such a lively scene, in addition to the encouragement from the people, is also the official promotion from Horn.

Not only are newly built houses exempt from tax for three years, but there are also substantial tax incentives for various building materials.

Some relatively low-end building materials industries with easy access to materials have become the preferred extra income for large rural areas.

For example, there are brick kilns in almost every district with good quality clay nearby.

In the past, a medium-sized town house would cost between 5 and 20 pounds, but now it would cost no more than 10 pounds.

The most outrageous thing is that it is not just the price of building materials such as mortar that is low, but even the price of labor costs.

After the Labor Law is abolished, there will be no upper limit on workers' wages, and there will be no prevention for workers to buy better clothes and accessories.

In the early days after the abolition of the Labor Law, market labor prices did see a wave of increases.

However, with the end of the harvest season, the farming off-season began. The repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act allowed farmers to move around, resulting in a large number of rural youths entering the labor industry.

As a result, the price of labor wages plummeted, and city residents all wanted to take this opportunity to quickly build a new house or renovate an old one, or take the opportunity to invest in a house or shop.

Some retired veterans of the Salvation Army or farmers who had participated in the construction of previous forts formed a civil engineering team after returning.

The stonemasons were responsible for the design, and the civil engineering team was responsible for the main construction work. The stonemasons who led the construction felt that they had made a profit, the farmers who worked there felt that they had made a profit, and the citizens who paid for it and the Salvation Army government felt that they had made a profit.

I'm afraid the only ones who feel they've been at a loss are the old workers.

After passing a closed road where a mortar surface was being constructed, the town hall appeared before our eyes.

The town office is a three-story building covering an area of ​​nearly two acres.

The town hall is more than ten meters high and ten meters long and wide. The dark orange lime walls are covered with relief panels with gear patterns.

Halkin did not take the long way around and enter through the main gate, but led his horse to the side door.

It was deserted under the arched door. A lame old soldier doorman was dozing on a recliner. He lifted up his linen shirt, revealing his hairy belly.

But as soon as Halkin approached, the snoring stopped immediately. He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Halkin in front of him.

"Who... Lord Halkin?"

"Go and inform them and have your clerk bring down the updated list of craftsmen. I won't go up there." Halkin said to the old soldier with a smile, "I caught you taking a nap on duty."

"Hey, this is not the population registration as before. No one comes to the town office. I'm just taking a nap. Ah--" The old soldier put a wooden support on his left foot and walked towards the second floor with his body swaying.

The first floor of the Gray Furnace Town Hall is the town registration office, warehouse and night watchman's office, the second floor is the financial office and courtroom, and the third floor is the meeting hall and archives room.

The entire Huilu Town basically operates within this small space.

Although the old soldier had a limp, he moved quickly. Within a few minutes, a clerk came jogging down the stairs.

"Sir Halkin, this is a list of craftsmen." The clerk, wearing a black woolen coat in the middle of summer, handed over a stack of thin paper books. From the short and hard hair on his forehead, it could be seen that the clerk was once a low-level monk.

"Oh." Halkin picked up the list and glanced at it. After confirming that it was correct, he signed the clerk's receipt document.

After putting away the list, Halkin said hello to the clerk and the gatekeeper, then mounted his pony and walked towards the main entrance from the side.

Two meters away from the main entrance facing the street, there are two pedestals. On the pedestals, the sphinx statues of Hoge are gazing at the passers-by with majesty on their faces.

There are two of these statues in almost every town hall, and it is said that they are to show that the Saint Sun has the majesty and courage of a lion.

Although there are currently eight towns in Kush Territory, only three of them have town halls, namely Ashforge, Sour Melon, and Clay.

These three towns and Fort Jeanne d'Arc are the administrative centers of the 363 hundred-household districts of Kush Territory.

The rest of the towns are either too small or have overlapping administrative divisions, so they are simply allowed to elect their own mayors, sheriffs and other personnel to manage the towns.

Of course, although it is a self-election, the opinion of the Salvation Army government is also very important.

The list of candidates they elect needs to be signed and verified by the superior town office, and they have the right to request the re-election or removal of the mayor.

The number of officials of all ranks in the town government is not large, basically maintaining between 15 and 25 people.

It is usually composed of five main public officials: the mayor, clerk, treasurer, tax collector, and night watch captain, as well as some temporarily hired messengers and clerks.

At present, these public officials are basically inherited from the previous ones or hired, so their levels are uneven, which has been criticized by Joan of Arc.

Riding on his pony, Halkin staggered out of the gate of Grayfurnace Town, but he was still thinking about other things.

According to previous news, some kind of "bureaucratic" reform may be carried out in the future.

It is said that this is for the purpose of providing welfare benefits. By then, it will probably be harder to get these jobs in the town office.

I heard that future salaries will be distributed according to the level of the department. Then how much can I, the head of the Holy Casting Department, get?

Riding on the back of a pony, Halkin looked straight ahead with a dazed look in his eyes, but his thoughts couldn't help but drift elsewhere.

15 gold pounds or 20 gold pounds per year, it can't be lower than that of the war monks, right?
As he walked, Halkin smelled a strange odor, and it seemed that the pony under him was getting slower and slower.

Waking up from his fantasy of the future, he looked down suddenly and found that the pony was trembling.

"Damn it." Halkin dismounted and looked at the horse manure dripping all the way, then realized, "I told you to feed hay, feed hay!"

(End of this chapter)