After Li Zhi confirmed the power of each lens, he made a new mold and made 28 lens molds with different powers in units of 25 degrees. The new lenses were polished by craftsmen to make a set of standards
After adjusting the lenses, these standard lenses are used to make fine molds for the molds to reduce the workload of polishing.
Finally, after the standard molding machine is ready on February 15th, each jade craftsman can grind out one pair of lenses per hour, and five people can make thirty pairs of glasses per day.
After the product was made, Li Zhi started selling it. Li Zhi sold reading glasses at the price of ten taels per pair in the Li family store in Acropolis, Tianjin.
Li Zhi set the price of reading glasses at this price to prevent others from imitating them. After all, it is relatively easy to imitate reading glasses. The glass used in a pair of reading glasses is only one-twentieth of a set of glass tea sets. The price is too high.
If the price rises, some people will use Western glass to make imitations. Imitations will be irresistible, so the price cannot be too high. Secondly, Li Zhi also hopes that more people will buy reading glasses and expand profits. Isn’t it too much to say ten taels?
Many wealthy families could afford this price. If sold at this price, many families in the Ming Dynasty could afford glasses, and the sales volume of reading glasses would increase.
In terms of product confidentiality, Li Zhi kept it secret by controlling the raw materials of the lenses.
The colorless glass on the market is basically produced by the Li family. The wine glasses of glass wine sets are relatively small and cannot be used to grind glass lenses. The bottom of the glass tea set can be ground into glass lenses, which is not conducive to the confidentiality of the glasses industry.
Fortunately, the sales of tea sets were not very good, so Li Zhi simply stopped producing this kind of glass tea sets, cutting off the possibility of other craftsmen imitating glass lenses from raw materials.
As for the large pieces of colorless glass shipped across the ocean by Westerners, it is very expensive. It is obviously not cost-effective to use large pieces of Western glassware to grind into a pair of twelve taels of reading glasses. Do not sell the glasses for twenty taels.
, the high price of thirty taels, the cost cannot be recovered.
By controlling the raw materials, Li Zhi blocked the possibility for others to imitate reading glasses.
The Li family's shop in Tianjin has long been expanded. Now the other two shops on both sides of the shop have also been bought by Li Zhi, and they look very decent after luxurious decoration. Li Zhi sells soap in the easternmost shop.
A store with the most upscale decoration on the far west side sells reading glasses.
It is said that everything is difficult at the beginning, and there are always very few customers for a new product at the beginning. Li Zhi hung a big "Cure Presbyopia" banner on the store, hoping to attract the first batch of customers. What Li Zhi can do now is,
Just wait for this product to slowly ferment and bring you profits.
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Ding Youdi's father hoped to have a son again, so he gave him such a silly name. However, he did have a younger brother later, which made him doubt whether his name was really useful.
He was originally a farmer in Dingjia Village, sixty miles west of Fanjiazhuang. In April of the eighth year of Chongzhen, he came to apply for workers when he heard that Fanjiazhuang was recruiting workers. He was very lucky to pass the interview with his uncle Li Dao and entered the Fanjiazhuang Glass Workshop.
Work. At first, he was lighting firewood to light fires. Later, Lord Conduct, who was still Lord Defender at that time, asked him to do purchasing. He specially went to Yuan Xue’s store in the west of the city to buy alkali noodles, and then he poured the alkali noodles every time he burned a furnace of glass.
Into the crucible, each pot weighs nine pounds.
He just does this simple and easy job.
After the first glass kiln in the glass workshop was officially put into operation, there were seventeen employees. Cai Huaishui, the head of the kiln, led three people to heat the furnace. Three people, including Ding Youdi, purchased goods and added goods to the crucible. One employee was responsible for adding the boiling water to the crucible.
Saltpeter is added to the crucible, two employees are responsible for adding salt to the crucible and stirring the melt, one person is responsible for annealing, and four people are responsible for molding.
According to the rules of ethics: each employee is only responsible for his or her own business. No one knows what materials others buy and use, nor how much other people’s materials cost. Employees are not allowed to discuss their own processes with other employees, let alone
Leak the details of the process to the outside world.
Cai Huaishui, the head of the kiln, is responsible for enforcing order and suppressing employees who violate discipline.
Cai Huaishui is a simple and responsible kiln leader. When he was in charge here, the entire kiln ran very smoothly. Most of the employees abided by discipline and no one talked about other people's processes. Ding Youdi was very grateful to Master Cheng for giving him such a job. Two days a month
Two silver coins a month, three meals with meat, easy and simple.
Ding Youdi rented a villa on Heming Street in the north of the city. The monthly rent was only seventy cents. He ate and drank in Fanjiazhuang for free and had meat and vegetables for every meal. After half a year, Ding Youdi felt that he had grown a lot stronger and became more courageous.
Moreover, the monthly income in Fanjiazhuang was so high that he could save one to eight taels of silver every month. After half a year, he already had more than ten taels of savings.
Ding Youdi's good job increased his net worth, and matchmakers would come to his house from time to time to talk about matchmaking, which made him very proud.
But the good days passed quickly. When Master Cheng was building the second glass kiln at the end of November, he transferred the original kiln head Cai Huaishui to the second kiln. The first kiln was headed by Huang Huang, the original furnace worker.
.Since Huang Huang became the kiln head, the atmosphere in the glass kiln has changed.
In the first month, everyone could still abide by the rules. But after returning after the New Year, several workers began to inquire about other people's recipe secrets.
At the beginning, the three workers who were close friends with the kiln head Huang Huang kept asking around in the kiln, asking about the names and quantities of other people's raw materials, and peeking at other people's process operations. For example, the annealing workers were originally in a cubicle when doing annealing.
It was operated alone, and Huang Huang's people ran in to watch, and quarreled several times with the workers in charge of annealing.
Huang Huang not only did not stop those few people from violating discipline, but also punished employees who were unwilling to reveal the secret of the formula from time to time. As the head of the kiln, Huang Huang had the power to eliminate meat and meat from employees’ meals. For example, Chen San, who was responsible for adding saltpeter, was responsible for the operation.
At that time, the people on the left and right were supposed to be dismissed, but Huang Huang's people wanted to see it. Every time there was a quarrel, Huang Huang would cancel Chen San's meat and meat.
Huang Huang's family was very poor. I heard that his father was gambling and owed money. He was very short of money. Everyone suspected that Huang Huang had colluded with outsiders to obtain the glass formula.
But the people who work in this glass workshop are all honest farmers. Without evidence, no one dares to offend Huang Huang and report him!
However, everyone knows that their jobs are hard-earned. Once they leak their formula to Huang Huang's people, Master Cheng will not let them go easily. At the least, they can cancel their jobs, and at worst, they can be punished by being imprisoned. Thinking of this,
The workers kept their processes secret and did not allow Huang Huang's people to have a chance to see into the details.
Soon, Huang Huang found that he couldn't force it with his limited power, so he began to change his strategy. He began to invite the kiln employees to the restaurant one by one for dinner, saying that he wanted to discuss important matters. Huang Huang entertained several guests
Later, Ding Youdi discovered that many employees in the kiln began to mingle with Huang Huang.
