“En, Brother Shun and I discussed how to build the house earlier today and mostly figured things out. But we still need to decide on employment and wages. Brother Shun will be busy with buying materials and overseeing the construction of the house, so I want to ask Brother Qiang for a favor. Please help me decide who to hire and pay them their wages for me.”
Su Tang didn’t beat around the bush and just directly stated her request to Su Yongqiang.
In fact, the matter of who to employ and paying them could also be directly handed over to Su Yongshun, but Su Yongshun would already be very busy with the actual building of the house, and managing the wages was a job that required careful attention from the person doing it.
In addition to that, although Su Yongshun was a skilled enough person, the workers this time were all going to be members of the Su family. Thus, if they really ended up encountering some sort of problem Su Yongshun would probably have to seek Su Yongqiang’s help to resolve it anyway.
After all, if there was a dispute, one regular member of the Su family wouldn’t be satisfied with another regular member of the Su family arbitrarily resolving it. Since that was the case, why not just ask Su Yongqiang for help from the start? Anyway, it just meant Su Tang would need to pay a few taels more.
With Su Yongqiang, the patriarch of the Su family, at the helm, any potential problems brought up by the members of the Su family who were doing the work could be easily resolved.
And, most importantly, it was a method to show her attitude. After all, it had been Su Yongqiang who suggested using members of the Su family to build her new house, so it was reasonable to let Su Yongqiang choose the candidates to do the labor. Of course, this way, Su Yongqiang himself would also have to be held responsible for any problems that might arise in the middle.
At the same time, by letting Su Yongqiang take charge it would, if nothing else, show off what kind of existences Su Tang and Su Nuo were in the Su family. The other members of the family would have to take them more seriously if they knew the family patriarch was personally helping with their affairs. And to accomplish this, Su Tang only needed to invite one more Su Yongqiang.
Su Tang could easily afford this money and could use it to get the benefits she wanted so, obviously, she wouldn’t be stingy and refuse to spend it.
However, when Su Yongqiang heard Su Tang’s words he thought she was just asking him to casually take a look, so he nodded directly and agreed, “We’re all family. It’s only right for me to help.”
As the patriarch of the Su family, wasn’t this his responsibility? Su Yongqiang felt it was only right for him to help Su Tang. After all, as the family patriarch, he needed to try his best to lead the Su family to get better and better.
But when Su Tang heard him agree so casually, she knew that he hadn’t understood what she meant. Thus, she continued to speak: “Brother Qiang, you know that I am living in town now and things are very busy for me. I really can’t come back to the village to personally oversee the construction of the house. I really need someone to choose which people to employ, and I will even need to trouble you with distributing the wages.”
When Su Yongqiang heard Su Tang mention that she even needed help distributing the wages, he realized the favor she was asking for wasn’t so simple. He opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but Su Tang smiled and continued speaking before he could:
“I plan to pay the workers 22 copper coins a day. After all, they are all family members who living in the same village. I don’t care about this little bit of money, everyone can just take it with peace of mind.”
“As for Brother Qiang, I plan to pay you five taels of silver for your work over the next four months…” Su Tang finished talking about the wages for the ordinary workers and began to talk about Su Yongqiang’s wage.
But as soon as he heard that Su Tang planned to pay him so much money, Su Yongqiang immediately refused, “No, there’s no need to pay so much.”
Even if he wanted to help and agreed to accept a wage from Su Tang, she wouldn’t need to pay him so much. After all, even if he worked maganing someone’s funds in town he would make at most five taels of silver a year. But this job would only last four months, so how could he agree to be paid so much? !
Su Tang internally sighed. She really had to admit that, although there were still some scum like Su Yonggui and his branch of the family, overall the Su family was very pure and righteous. Su Yongqiang and Su Yongshun in particular were people with very high morals.
“Brother Qiang, please listen to me. Building this house will take at least four months to build, but I will be too busy during this time and won’t be able to keep an eye on things properly. I can only ask Brother Qiang to help keep an eye on it for me. Moreover, paying wages to so many workers is a big job, and Brother Qiang is really the only person I can trust to handle it for me. Since I’m asking so much of you, it’s only natural I should also pay you for your work.”
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tl begging corner: