Song Yao's intentional friendship was not only reflected in the shipping reform and giving the Wang family a share of the pie, but also in their interactions with each other.
In the next few days, Song Jue would invite Wang Dafa every day to attend reception banquets held for him by various wealthy families.
After a while, they became familiar in front of everyone, and the Wang family also began to come into the sight of wealthy families, merchants, and gentry in Liyang County.
Looking at the old man who was in high spirits and calling out friends every day, Wang Xu was still neither sad nor happy as always.
At the end of April, the glass factory was completed. The silica sand, soda ash, feldspar, dolomite, limestone, and thenardite required for making glass were also found sellers below. Everything was ready and all it took was the east wind.
As for the Xiu Niang incident, there was no commotion at all. Who else would care about a little maid except Ning Qing.
Ning Qing was quite angry. When she learned that Xiu Niang had been sold, she packed up her things overnight and chased after her.
I don’t know whether he caught up with Wang Xu. I only know that after Ning Qing left without saying goodbye, the Ning family caused a fuss for several days, even the three elders in the town were alarmed. In the end, the Ning family’s debts were forgiven, and the turmoil was over.
.
In a blink of an eye, May is here.
On this day, Wang Dafa was clamoring to move the Wang family to the county town, when a mute monk came outside the door.
The mute monk looked very old. He was wearing a hundred-year-old robe and brought with him a letter written by the leprechaun monk, the abbot of Jinshan Temple.
The leper-headed monk said in the letter that he was building a temple at Jinshan Temple, and he also had to teach young monk Fa Hai that he could not come to the Wang family to sit in charge.
He recommended his senior brother, Monk Mo Fa, to take over his job, and told Wang Xu that Monk Mo Fa practiced Buddhism's magical power of closed-mouth meditation. He was shaped like a dead tree and kept silent. He was a truly eminent monk.
Wang Xu knows a thing or two about silent meditation.
Buddhism emphasizes meditation. There are five types of Zen, which are divided into lay Zen, ordinary Zen, Hinayana Zen, Mahayana Zen, and the Supreme Vehicle Zen.
Closed-mouth Zen, outside the Five Zens, cannot be practiced by people without great wisdom and perseverance.
Wang Xuguan, the monk Mofa, obviously has a very deep meditation and has touched the threshold of the Arhat Path and Fruition.
Once he breaks through this layer of film, he will immediately become a fifth-level Buddhist Arhat. The depth of Buddhism is still higher than that of a leprous monk. The only drawback is that it is difficult to deal with.
Close-mouthed meditation, also called cessation of speech meditation, is silent and silent, which can reduce verbal karma, eliminate sins and avoid disasters, and reduce one's own sinful karma.
Some people practice closed-mouth meditation, keep their mouth closed but their heart is not closed, and use the tapping sound of wooden fish instead of speaking to let others understand their meaning. This is a lower level.
A true master of closed-mouth meditation does not speak, speak, think, or defile, and his lifestyle is the same as that of plants and trees.
Wang Xu told Monk Mo Fa his request, but Monk Mo Fa showed no response. He was like a zombie and did not communicate with him at all.
Wang Xu knew that this was not the mute monk pretending to be profound, but that he had practiced closed-mouth meditation intensively, and had reached a state where the inside and outside were one, his body was in the five elements, and his mind was outside the three realms, just like a cold-eyed bystander.
Of course, this cold-looking attitude does not mean that you really don’t care about anything.
Buddhism talks about practicing in the world, which is different from Taoism. You can't achieve enlightenment by hiding in the mountains and forests.
Otherwise, the mute monk would not have come down from the mountain and personally stayed at the Wang family in order to offer him one hundred thousand taels of silver a year.
They sent someone to drive a carriage to take the mute monk to Fengxi Village, and built a small temple for him on the hill outside Zhuangzi, so that the mute monk could stay.
As a fourth-level monk, the mute monk's spiritual thoughts can spread over a hundred miles, and he can't hide all the troubles in Fengxi Village. With him sitting in the glass factory, there is no need to worry about the threat of evil heretics for the time being.
Everything was ready, and the east wind was blowing. Wang Xu gave the order to officially start firing glass.
The method of firing glass is easy to say but difficult to say. It's not a big deal to pierce the window paper.
First, there was a one-week training. After the training, Wang Xu spared no effort in raw materials and started letting the workers try to make it.
For the first batch of glass products, Wang Xu chose to make the simplest glass beads.
As long as the proportions are good, mix the various materials, put them into a high temperature to liquefy them, then pour them into a grinding tool to cool, and a glass bead will be ready.
The first batch of fired glass beads, because the proportions were not well controlled, did not look as crystal clear as those of later generations, and there were many impurities in the middle.
After subsequent grinding and polishing, Wang Xu was not satisfied with the finished products.
The effect he wants is that as soon as the glass beads appear on the market, it will immediately cause an airport of tens of thousands of people.
Glass beads with impurities have no aesthetic value at all except for the selling point of the glass itself, which is far from what he wanted.
In addition, the abrasive tools do not meet the specifications. These abrasive tools are too rough. The surface of the glass beads made with this abrasive tool will not be as smooth as jade. Secondary polishing will affect the beauty of the glass beads.
Wang Xu ordered all the first batch of finished products to be destroyed and re-refined, leaving no one behind.
Upon hearing this order, the workers burst into tears and said that this was an unprecedented treasure, no less than a pearl.
Wang Xu shook his head and said nothing. Could it be that he would tell these people that when glass first came out, it was traded as jewelry.
The first people who came to North America with glass beads even exchanged one box of glass beads for three boxes of gems from the Indians.
The love for glass beads once caused Indians to go to war with each other, and European countries that regarded themselves as civilized people rushed to report on it.
One batch, two batches, three batches
Within a month, the glass manufacturing plant carried out twelve firings.
On this day in early June, after a month of repeated attempts, the first batch of products that Wang Xu recognized as qualified finally appeared in his hands.
They were a thousand glass beads the size of fingernails. Their appearance was similar to the marbles of my childhood. They were crystal clear, like crystals.
In ancient times, when he had never seen glass and didn't know what glass was, Wang Xu said it was natural crystal and a gem, but who dared to say otherwise.
"Simply making glass beads, my factory can produce at least 100,000 glass beads in a month. However, things are rare and expensive, and in order to avoid large trees attracting wind, the monthly outflow of glass beads must be controlled to 10,000.
Up and down, it makes people feel more and more precious, and it will not be too conspicuous."
Wang Xu comes from modern times and knows what hunger marketing is and what self-protection is.
In the market, pearls have always been a hot-selling item. There is a saying that pearls from the east are not as good as pearls from the west, and pearls from the west are not as good as south pearls.
It is recognized that the pearls from Zhejiang Prefecture are the best. The white jade pearls from Zhejiang Prefecture, which are the size of a grape, can be sold for at least three hundred taels of silver.
Mrs. Li Zheng in the town has a string of white jade pearls, consisting of 32 pearls. The quality is not very good, but when she bought it, she also spent 8,000 taels of silver. It has always been Mrs. Li Zheng's favorite, and she can only sacrifice it.
I was willing to wear it when I was an ancestor.
From the appearance point of view, pearls are not as good as glass beads. Modern people do not think glass beads are beautiful, but glass beads are too common. In fact, when glass beads first appeared, the value of glass beads was equivalent to that of gemstones.
For such a good thing, Wang Xu felt that the price of one hundred taels a piece was too close to the people.
No, no, how can it be so cheap? Five hundred taels cannot be less. No matter how little it is, it will not show how precious the glass beads are.
In order to verify the value of glass beads, Wang Xu selected twelve glass beads, strung them into a bracelet, made a box made of gold wire wood, and decided to take a trip to the county.
Although Liyang County is not big, it borders Jiaozhou, and there are many merchants passing by.
From these people, it is not difficult to test the value of glass beads. If it can become an instant success here, people will flock to glass beads in other places in Jiangnan.
The cost of glass beads is almost nothing. The price is 500 taels per piece, and almost all of them are made in profit.
Release 10,000 pieces a month, which is an income of 5 million taels of silver, and 50 million taels a year.
This is because the Wang family is small in size and is afraid that it will end badly if it gets too big. Otherwise, the glass factory operates at full capacity and can produce 100,000 glass beads a month. Without expanding the scale, it can still make a steady profit of 500 million taels of silver a year.
After all, there are many people who can afford five hundred taels of glass beads each.
Scattered all over the world, looking at the world of Kyushu, there are millions of glass beads a year, and I'm afraid they won't even be able to set off a wave.
But right now, 100,000 glass beads a year cannot be any more.
One hundred thousand glass beads is equivalent to a big business of fifty million taels of silver. Although it will make people jealous, with the reputation and backing of the Wang family, it can still be managed.
No matter how high it is, I am afraid that the benefits contained in it will make even Xue Mushan moved by it, and it will definitely tear the Wang family into pieces.
After all, the imperial court's annual tax revenue is only 60 billion taels of silver. Anyone who can spend hundreds of millions of taels of silver can be called a big family, and it is also top-notch in a single government.
Before the power expands, the Wang family's business must not get any bigger, otherwise it will be a disaster rather than a blessing.