Paul's words from Hansel had struck a nerve.
Faced with the widespread illiteracy throughout his territory, Paul had suffered in silence.
The various workshops needed to expand, and training apprentices could not always rely on word of mouth; the number of craftsmen was steadily increasing, so the managers at every level needed to be able to at least read the rosters; the territory's revenues and expenditures were becoming increasingly complicated, and Old Chief Steward Philip alone was no longer capable of managing the accounts; the intelligence system needed improvement, which clearly required a large number of people who could do more than merely recognize written characters; he also planned to establish a modern administrative system, which required even more clerks.
The "Talent Recruitment Decree" had actually been posted long ago, and quite a few people had come to apply, but it still could not meet the territory's current needs.
Before setting out for Franklin Harbor, he had sought out Dean Leonard of North Shore Monastery, hoping to recruit a group of educated monks to serve him. However, Leonard had rejected him at first on the grounds that monks did not interfere in worldly affairs.
Paul had no choice but to change tactics. He said that, in order to spread the gospel of God, he planned to establish a school to teach the people of his territory to read, so that they could all understand the Holy Book.
Dean Leonard had been somewhat tempted by this. Paul then promised that his workshops would supply North Shore Monastery with unlimited quantities of New Type Paper free of charge. In the end, he got the dean to agree: Leonard would not interfere with the individual choices of the monks in the monastery, and how many people Paul could recruit would depend entirely on