Of course Li Zhi knew that the capital in the late Ming Dynasty was a dangerous place. Every few years, Jin would break through and plunder the capital. Tianjin was located near the capital, and it would definitely not be able to escape the Jurchen attacks in a few years.
However, the Jurchens had always broken through the Great Wall Peak in the west, and it would take a certain amount of time to reach Tianjin. Once the police arrived, Li Zhi had enough time to withdraw the loom into the city.
As for the factory building, it is not worth anything. Let the Tatars burn it when the time comes. After the Tatars leave, Li Zhi can rebuild it. Compared with buying a luxury house in the city, the cost is still much lower.
After making up his mind, Li Zhi went to Fang Ya Liu Shigui and bought twenty acres of cheap yellow mud land through his intermediary. The yellow mud land was located in the east of the city, 45 feet long and 27 feet wide, only half a mile away from Li Zhi's house.
It was quite convenient for Li Zhi to manage the three-hour journey.
After buying the land and getting the title deed, Li Zhi went to Yingfang Street to find fifteen carpenters and ten masons, and asked them to buy wood and lime, and start building a factory on the yellow mud land outside the city. Li Zhi planned the orientation and size of the house himself.
, the plan is to build ten large houses of 120 square meters each, with a two-meter-high wall surrounding the outside.
The leader of the craftsmen told Li Zhi that the factory could be built in one month. Including materials and labor costs, it would cost about a little over one hundred taels of silver.
One hundred taels of silver was not a big sum for Li Zhi now. Li Zhi paid thirty taels in advance and gave each of the craftsmen a silver reward, which made the craftsmen beam with joy and work very hard.
The craftsmen selected a house site on the yellow mud ground, tamped the land, and then placed cypress trees in the tamped soil as pile foundations. On the basis of these pile foundations, carpenters built beams, and masons could lay the ground and build
The walls of the house are covered with tile roofs.
Timbers, bricks and tiles were shipped in batches and piled up like a hill on the yellow mud floor.
After finishing the layout of the factory building, Li Zhi contacted the blacksmith and the carpenter who made machine furniture, and began to make four hundred shuttle looms. Li Zhi needed the machine in a hurry, so he hired more people. As for the blacksmith, it was okay.
It only takes four blacksmiths to work separately for more than ten days to build four hundred sets of flying shuttles. A lot of carpenters are needed. Li Zhi hired more than 80 carpenters in Tianjin, all of which produced the frames of the new loom. He hoped that in one
Four hundred units were built in a month.
However, while Li Zhi was busy in the weaving factory, something happened in the soap workshop. On this day, Li Xing found Li Zhi at night and told him something that alarmed him.
"Brother, there are a few people sneaking around outside the soap workshop these days. They stood in the alley early in the morning and counted the raw materials we brought in. Once they even climbed up the wall of the next door house, as if they wanted to peek into our workshop.
Condition"
"What?"
When Li Zhi heard this, he became alert. Although Li Zhi claimed that the key production link of soap was not his, some cunning businessmen may not believe it, and even saw through that Li Zhi completed the entire production in the soap workshop. If these
If someone is tempted to seize Li Zhi's soap formula, they will obviously send someone to the workshop to spy on information.
These sneaky people may be commercial spies sent by these greedy people.
Fortunately, Li Zhi had always paid attention to confidentiality. He placed all the steps of soap in the room and asked the workers to only operate the individual steps. I guess these spies couldn't find any information.
Although the amounts of various raw materials Li Zhi bought to make soap can be found out, if you don’t know the specific production method, you can’t produce soap by just boiling those raw materials together. For example, calcium carbonate can’t be removed without precipitation and filtration.
, what is produced is not soap but stone paste. In addition, the two steps of salting out and alkali precipitation are also indispensable. Without these two steps, what is produced is just a paste mixture mixed with a large number of impurities, which is completely useless.
Only by carefully understanding every step of Li Zhi's soap production can we truly master the soap formula and produce qualified soap.
However, although there was no immediate risk of the formula being stolen, Li Zhi thought further - since someone now wants to steal the soap formula through peeping, will these people use more drastic measures after the peeping fails? In the face of greed
What can Li Zhi do to resist the attacker's more drastic measures?
Li Zhi needs to build a force that can protect his industry.
Li Zhi thought about it all night and decided to let Fa Xiaozhong Feng take the lead in building a security team. Or as it was called in this era, it was called recruiting a group of servants.
Zhong Feng grew up with Li Zhi since he was a child, and he also helped Li Zhi teach Xiao Guangwei a lesson. He is a reliable person. Moreover, he likes to wield swords and guns and worships force, so he is more suitable to be the servant captain.
With your own weapons, you will have more strength when dealing with those who covet the soap formula.
The next day, Li Zhi found Zhong Feng who was busy operating the saponification reaction in the soap workshop.
"Zhong Feng, are you happy doing this job?"
Seeing Li Zhi asking himself, Zhong Feng used a stick to stir the solution in the deep-bottomed furnace and said, "Brother Zhi, to tell you the truth, I'm about to fade away if I stir this iron furnace all day long and do the same thing every day.
Here comes the bird. I feel very depressed when I think of having to stir by this stove all my life." Sighing, Zhong Feng added: "But don't worry, Brother Zhi, in order to be worthy of your wages, I will do it no matter how much I don't like it.
Made with care, it won’t cause any trouble for you.”
Li Zhi smiled and teased him: "This is for you to get a wife. How can you make money and start a family if you don't work hard?"
Zhong Feng nodded vigorously and said: "Yes! I understand too! As long as I persist, I will be able to save more than twenty taels of silver to marry a wife next year! When the time comes to give birth to a baby, we will have a wife and children who are on the hot bed.
day?"
After saying this, Zhong Feng laughed heartily, as if he was looking forward to his future life, and he stirred the stove with a little more force.
Li Zhi looked at Zhong Feng with a smile and said slowly: "What if I let you get rid of this stove and become a warrior who uses swords?"
"What?" Looking at Li Zhi in surprise, Zhong Feng stopped holding the stick in his hand and said with a smile: "Brother Zhi, you are joking. If I become a warrior, will you still pay me this salary?"
"I will pay! It's still twenty taels a month, and there's meat for three meals!"
Hearing this, Zhong Feng was stunned, and it took him a long time to react. "Brother Zhi, what is this good thing you are talking about? Could it be that you want me to be your servant?"
Li Zhi nodded and said: "By the way, I just want you to be my servant, but the captain of the servant. From now on, you will lead a team of servants to follow my orders and deal with enemies with ulterior motives."
When Zhong Feng heard this, he put the stirring stick on the stove and said loudly: "I'll do it, Brother Zhi, I'll do this! I will be a good servant captain and bring you a team of good servants."
No matter what kind of monster he is, I will bring people up to beat him!"
