Over the following period, as the cleaver of "cutting fiscal expenditures" continued to fall, the pace of development and construction within Great Zhou slowed sharply. However, it had not actually affected the people's lives in any substantial way.
Throughout this process, the fiscal pressure within the state visibly eased as well.
Zhou Xu had, at least recently, been engaging in some self-reflection.
As an efficiency-minded man, he had always pursued maximum efficiency.
That was also one of the fundamental reasons Great Zhou had maintained full-speed operations in development and construction for so many years.
With that in mind, Zhou Xu had in fact taken the physical condition of the laboring people into consideration.
He pursued efficiency, but he generally did not exploit his own people.
They worked when the sun was up and rested when it went down, with a midday break arranged as well.
His core method of making the people work hard was simple: pay them!
The underlying logic of working in Great Zhou was: the more work you did, the more money you received; the more you did, the more you earned!
That was the fundamental reason the people were so enthusiastic about working.
Under these conditions, whether they wanted to earn more or less was up to them to regulate.
The people were not fools, either. Life in Great Zhou was not difficult, and everyone lived and worked in peace. When they truly could not go on, they would rest on their own. Generally speaking, no one forced them to keep working.
But what Zhou Xu had not expected was that, during this development process, compared with the people's physical condition, it was Great Zhou's purse that ran into trouble first.
Still, Zhou Xu did not brood over the matter.
*Perhaps this is also an opportunity.