"Besides personnel, there was the matter of supplies," Molly said evenly. "The construction site had been consistently short on many materials, especially stone and lumber. Lumber was hardly produced locally in Shalin and could only be bought from elsewhere at high prices and transported in. As for stone, Shalin did have local sources, but limited by productivity and quality, they could at most meet half the demand. The other half still had to be bought elsewhere and transported in. That clearly was not a long-term solution. After all, once New City was completed, there would still be expansion plans.
"Your subordinate named Lynn had decided to expand the existing quarry to solve this problem. As for me, I wanted to do something bigger. I planned to invest a large sum to survey the entire Shalin region for sources of high-quality stone and open eight to ten large quarries. The stone produced would not only meet local demand but could also be sold elsewhere. In addition, I wanted to gradually build roads between the various cities in Shalin to ensure smooth transportation in the future and promote commercial development.
"And..."
Molly had much to say, and she went into great detail. Richard listened attentively throughout, occasionally speaking up to ask about a few details.
Molly spoke for over half an hour before finally finishing.
"Whew—"
Letting out a breath, Molly put away the scroll, looked at Richard, and summarized, "That is more or less the situation. I know you said New City only needed to be completed within half a year, but the original plan was four months. Two of those four months have already passed, so there are only two months left. It may be difficult, but I think it is not impossible to finish within two months. As long