Compared to the previous village, there were some interesting changes in the interface of the town territory.
The biggest change was that the basic buildings that were previously placed together were divided into five main categories: basic buildings, agricultural buildings, commercial buildings, cultural buildings, and military buildings.
After upgrading to a village, the agricultural, commercial, cultural, military, and other industries had to be clearly divided and planned in a more orderly manner. For this, the lord needed to formulate more detailed industry management standards and establish a more complete administrative system.
Ouyang Shuo began implementing this step when he was still in the village stage. It was not an exaggeration to say that the current administrative structure of the Mountain Sea Village was enough to deal with the entire village stage, if he did not have greater ambitions.
Currently, the administrative structure of more than 80% of the villages relied on the Village Head and one or two Deputy Village Heads to maintain the operation of the territory.
This extremely primitive administrative structure could barely work in the village stage. After all, there were only so many things to do at the village level. As long as the Village Head was a bit more diligent and had one or two capable Deputy Village Heads, they could manage everything. Not all territories were like the freak that was the Mountain Sea Village. When they were still at the village level, they had gradually established a relatively complete industry. From the salt industry, fishing industry, to animal husbandry, industry and commerce, they had basically everything.
For most lords, if they could complete the basic buildings required for upgrading, they would be thanking the heavens. How could they have the extra financial and material resources to develop other industries?
This was also the reason why the four indicators were set in the conditions for upgrading to a village. The system hoped that the lords would strengthen the foundation of their territory before upgrading it to a village. They did not want to wait until they were promoted to a village before trying to make up for it.
Another change was that the statistics of specific resource units in the territory's resources column were replaced by various harvesting fields.
This was an important sign of upgrading from a village to a village. The system reminded the lords that if they still paid attention to how many units of wood and stone the territory had after reaching the village level, they would not be qualified to be a lord.
At this time, the lord should have a broader view of the overall situation. As a mayor, he needed to pay attention to the resource reserves of the major harvesting fields and make long-term plans.
For example, the Mountain Sea Village was backed by a mountain range and had a large forest next to it. Whether it was stones, ores, or wood, they were all very rich, so there was no need to worry about the territory's resources in the short term.
This was the advantage of a basin. Apart from a relative lack of wood, the reserves of basic resources were also very rich. As for the higher-grade gold, silver, and diamond mines, it would depend on one's luck. It wasn't that easy to find them.
Apart from these changes, Ouyang Shuo's focus was also on the new infrastructure. Although there were eight new buildings in the Level 1 Town, he had already built most of them in the Level 3 Village. Now, only the cemetery and the orchard were left.
However, this did not mean that Shanhai Town could sit back and relax in terms of infrastructure. There were four village-level buildings that needed to be upgraded from a village to a town. They were the village toilet, the village granary, the village ancestral hall, and the village private school. The upgrade of these buildings was the same as the upgrade of the barracks. One needed to buy upgrade blueprints, which were ten times more expensive.
After checking the territory's attributes, Ouyang Shuo finally had the time to carefully size up the Lord's Mansion.
The town-level Feudal Lord's Mansion had finally changed from a courtyard house to a house with two entrances. The front yard was where the administration worked, while the back yard was where the lord and his family lived.
The furnishings in the courtyard had been upgraded to a higher level, and it began to feel like a rich family. Most importantly, the new Lord's Mansion was no longer made of wood. Instead, it was a more imposing brick building.
The layout of the front yard was basically the same as the Lord's Mansion in the Level 3 Village. The main hall was still the meeting hall, and there were two large offices on both sides of the main hall. The mayor's office was on the west side of the main hall. The financial secretary's office was on the inner side of the main hall. The two on the east side were the offices of the Administrative Department and the Supplies Reserve Department.
The wing rooms on the east and west side of the front yard, apart from one for the dining hall, had five official residences for the people in charge of the various departments to rest and live in. The front yard's main entrance was more dignified, and there was a dedicated gatekeeper on duty. On both sides of the main entrance were the storeroom, the kitchen, and the living quarters of the odd-job workers.
After passing through the back door of the meeting hall, one would arrive at the inner courtyard. The first thing that came into view was a small garden. Rockery, flowing water, fish, birds, and everything. Although the sparrow was small, it had everything.
After passing through the garden's gravel path, one would arrive at the inner courtyard's main hall. The main hall was naturally the living room used to receive guests. On the west side of the living room was a separate study, and next to the study was Ouyang Shuo's bedroom.
On the east side of the living room were two bedrooms that Ouyang Shuo intended to leave for the two sisters, Ying You and Qing 'er. On the east side of the inner courtyard were rooms for the maids and servants to live in. Ouyang Shuo was prepared to hire two maids for the two sisters to take care of their daily lives.
After touring the inner courtyard, when he returned to the front yard's meeting hall, the various department heads were already present, ready to participate in the first expansion meeting of Shanhai Town.
Ouyang Shuo smiled and greeted everyone. After sitting down, he said, "I've already explained the topic of today's meeting yesterday. After the territory has been promoted to a Level 1 Town, what's the next step? I believe that everyone here has more or less some ideas and plans. This time, I'm not going to sing a one-man show, but focus on being a listener. Let's start reporting from the financial secretary! "
Cui Ying You was the first to be called. She was clearly prepared. The newly appointed assistant of the financial secretary, Qian Lifei, stood behind her in a well-behaved manner.
Ying You sorted out her thoughts and said unhurriedly, "At this stage, the territory's financial income mainly includes the income from the sale of properties, the output of the Northern Sunset Salt Works, and taxes. Among them, the income from the sale of properties is basically transferred to low-interest loans and used to cancel the territory's vouchers. Therefore, there is no obvious income on the books. This is a process of collecting interest over a long period of time.
"As the territory's gold industry, the Northern Sunset Salt Works only sold sea salt yesterday, and it won't produce any more in a short period of time. Finally, there's the tax. Because the privatization of this area has just started, there's no need to mention the agricultural tax. It's not time to collect it yet. As for the commercial tax, only a limited number of shops, such as the carpentry workshop, blacksmith shop, and tailor shop, have limited tax income.
"Let's talk about the territory's financial expenditure. It mainly includes the salary expenditure, engineering expenditure, industry support expenditure, and military expenditure. The salary expenditure includes the salaries of government officials and the wages of the major quarries and salt workers, which are fixed expenses.
"The engineering expenditure is mainly the city wall construction and the supporting inland river excavation project. The project takes a long time and requires more than a thousand people to work. In addition, there's the industry support expenditure, including the weapons workshop, the brewery, and the ranch, which are still in the incubation stage and require the territory to continue to invest. For the time being, there is no income. Finally, there's the independent accounting of the military expenditure, which is also a large amount of money.
"From this, it can be seen that the territory's financial situation is not optimistic, and it's obvious that it can't make ends meet. The reason why it can survive now is completely relying on the early system rewards and the irregular income obtained from the annihilation of the roving bandits to maintain the territory's operation.
"Therefore, the financial secretary's next goal is to reverse this decline. To ensure that the territory's finances can operate normally without additional income and maintain a balance of payments. If you want to maintain a balance of payments, cutting expenses obviously won't work. Therefore, the most important thing is to increase financial revenue. For this reason, the financial secretary has drawn up two main measures to expand the scale of the Northern Sunset Salt Works and further stimulate the industrial and commercial exhibition.
"The Northern Sunset Salt Works is the territory's financial pillar. Expanding its scale can quickly increase financial revenue and have an immediate effect. However, there are advantages and disadvantages. A single financial revenue is not conducive to the healthy development of the territory, and the ability to resist risks is also very weak.
"Therefore, the financial secretary's main goal is to boost the territory's industrial and commercial exhibition. For this reason, the financial secretary has proposed to take out a separate support fund to encourage more skilled people to open shops or workshops. With the scale of a town, a single blacksmith shop, tailor shop, or woodworking workshop can no longer meet the demand. It's entirely possible to expand and promote the territory's commercial competition and prosperity. "
After seriously listening to the financial secretary's report, Ouyang Shuo nodded with satisfaction and smilingly said, "Very good. It seems that the financial secretary's thinking is very clear. I basically agree with the report just now. However, if we want to implement the economic stimulus policy, we must first carry out a change from the system.
"For this reason, I've decided to upgrade the financial secretary to the Financial Department, with the Tax Department and the Commercial Department under it. The former financial secretary, Cui Yingyou, will serve as the Director of the Financial Department and the Director of the Commercial Department. The former financial secretary's assistant, Qian Lifei, will be promoted to the Director of the Tax Department. The specific economic stimulus policy will be implemented by the newly established Commercial Department. "
After the promotion, the financial secretary's administrative rank was on the same level as the Administrative Office and the Supplies Reserve Department, which was conducive to the Financial Department's work.
Qian Lifei, Cui Yingyou's disciple, had been promoted two ranks in just a few days, from an ordinary clerk to the Director's assistant, and now he was in charge of the Tax Department alone. This also fully exposed the shortage of talents in Shanhai Town, and many positions had to be taken up through excessive haste.
Naturally, this was also related to Ouyang Shuo's rapidly expanding ambition. One must know that such an administrative structure was enough to support a territory at the county level, but he had created it at the town level.
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