Feng Jun flatly refused Bao'er's request.
He could give up one or two commanderies for her to operate and refrain from developing any more production plants, but nationwide monopoly was just wishful thinking.
Bao'er was deeply disappointed by this answer, because she truly thought highly of the project. Even if it was not particularly high-end and not the sort of business someone at her level ought to run, it concerned people's livelihoods and had huge volume!
But Feng Jun was right as well. Cement was cheap per unit, and once transportation distances grew too long, costs rose sharply. The best approach was localized production.
Since Bao'er had accepted the cement plant, she considered looking into other factories, and then she discovered the glassworks—the equipment for glassworks was particularly popular on Feng Jun's shelves.
That was perfectly normal. Glass was crystal-clear and utterly unlike dull gray cement; one glance showed how high-class it was, and it had enormous room for use. Most households still pasted hemp paper over their windows, while glass products were exceedingly rare.
Feng Jun said she need not even think about a glassworks, but there was a factory suited to her—how about an agricultural vehicle assembly plant?
Assembly plants were not easy to sell. They placed rather high demands on the workers' overall qualifications; literacy was the most basic requirement, and literacy rates on this plane were truly limited. Forget ordinary people—even in great clans, there were plenty who could not read.
Bao'er held a relatively high position and thus knew people of correspondingly higher quality. One only had to look at Dream of the Red Chamber: even the maidservants' maidservants could compose poetry, using quite a few obscure characters. But how high had literacy rates actually been in that era?
One had to know that the