"Fuel is something you'll only ever find too little of, never too much." Phield snapped his fingers cheerfully. "In a couple of days, I'll give you new blueprints. I want bricks fired. And once we start mining iron ore, the charcoal can also be used to smelt pig iron."
"My lord, but we've run into a problem," one craftsman said timidly.
Phield nodded calmly. "If there were no problems, that would be the biggest problem. Go ahead."
"We don't have enough manpower. If we start firing… um… what was it… right, bricks—then what about the charcoal?"
"You can teach some apprentices."
Phield answered instinctively. But when he saw the troubled looks on their faces, he immediately understood the root of the problem.
In this era, there were craftsmen's guilds. The guilds would recruit children from poor families and then sign contracts with professional masters—mutually beneficial arrangements. Masters generally would not bypass the guild and teach privately.
