53 Financial Services (1/2)

The township interface had some interesting changes, as compared with that of a village.

The biggest change was the former massive list of basic buildings was now divided into five categories - basic, agricultural, commercial, cultural and military.

After upgrading to a township, the industries were more divided, requiring more orderly planning. To this end, the lords needed to develop more detailed industry management practices, forming a more comprehensive administration system.

Ouyang Shuo had already begun to implement this in the village stage. It was no exaggeration to say that Shanhai’s administrative structure was enough to deal with the entire Township stage, even if he had no greater ambitions.

At present, more than 80% of the villages had basically the village head for their administrative structure, plus one to two deputy heads to help maintain operations.

That very primitive administrative structure could just barely work in the village stage. After all, affairs at the village level were few enough that a diligent lord could manage them with one or two effective deputies. Not all territories were going to be like Shanhai, basically forming a perfect industry base from salt panning, fisheries, animal breeding, industry and commerce, simply all-encompassing.

Most of the lords could upgrade the necessary infrastructure. They had to pray and hope that they could get excess funds and resources to develop other industries.

There was also the need to satisfy the requirements of the township level, which was the purpose of the four indices. The system was set to encourage lords to develop a solid foundation at the village level, before upgrading to a town, instead of trying to remedy their shortcomings afterwards.

Another change was that it no longer reported the specific numbers of resources available to the lord, instead just reporting what level of gathering fields they had.

This was another important sign of moving from village to town. It was set so to remind the lords that he or she is now progressing forward, specific numbers of resources shall not concern them anymore. Focusing only on the numbers would indicate you are not qualified as a lord.

By this time, the lord should have a broader view of the overall situation. As a town leader, it was time to focus on upgrading resource collections and storage capacity, and doing long term planning.

Shanhai, for example, on its back was a mountain, and was next to a large forest. Whether it be stone, ore, or wood resources, it was rich in them, and for a short time he didn’t have to worry about raw resources in his lands.

This was the advantage of the basin. In addition to the large amount of wood, the basic resources of the other types also had high reserves. However, the more advanced resources, like gold, silver, or diamond mines, would depend on your luck and weren’t so easy to find.

In addition to these changes, Ouyang Shuo focused on the new infrastructure. Although there were eight new buildings in the township, he had already built most of them at the village level, and now only needed building blueprints for the cemetery and orchard to finish them up.

But that didn’t mean he could sit back and relax about updating Shanhai’s infrastructure. From village to township, four village buildings needed upgrades: the public baths, the granaries, the ancestral hall, and the private school. Upgrading these buildings, like doing the barracks previously, required him to buy the building blueprints, at ten times the previous prices.

After viewing the statistics for his lands, Ouyang Shuo finally had the time to take a serious look at the upgrade to the Lord’s Manor.

After the upgrade, the manor had moved from the traditional Chinese quadrangles courtyard into a courtyard of 2 segments. The front segment were the government offices, while the back segment were the manor's living place.

The furniture in the whole building had received an upgrade, it was now beginning to feel like a wealthy home. Most importantly, the Manor was no longer all wooden, but now included masonry in its construction.

The frontal area layout was basically the same as before, with the lobby still serving as the main hall for chamber meetings.

There were two large offices on each side of the main hall. On the west side was the Mayor’s Office, as well as the office of the Financial Division. On the east side were the offices of the Administration Department and Material Reserves Department.

In addition to a dining area, there were five small rooms for the officials to rest in. The main entrance in the front was more dignified, and there was a porter on duty now. On either side of the main entrance, there were the storage, the kitchen, and a living area for the servants.