On May 12th, the owner of a "cottage" harvester workshop was kneeling on the ground, sweating all over his head. He was lying on the ground and did not dare to speak.
Li Zhi, the Duke of Jin, came to inspect his copycat harvester workshop, bringing many high officials with him.
The reason why the workshop owner was frightened was that he had copied Li Zhi's animal-powered wheat harvester.
Currently, in the markets of Liaodong and Tianjin, the demand for animal-powered wheat harvesters exceeds supply, and a large number of imitators have appeared.
"Mechanized" wheat farming in Liaodong mainly consists of animal-drawn drills and animal-drawn harvesters, supplemented by the construction of irrigation canals, and other small machines, which can hand over all the heaviest farm work to machines and irrigation facilities. In this way
Now, the tenant farmers who could only cultivate 20 acres of wheat can cultivate 100 acres of dry land, and the incomes of both landlords and tenant farmers will increase significantly.
Under the propaganda of "Tianjin Daily" and "Shandong Daily", and under the guidance of officials at all levels in Liaodong, farmers and landlords in Liaodong generally accepted Li Zhi's new machines and placed large orders with Li Zhi. Spring wheat sowing in Liaodong in February
, ninety-five percent of the fields were purchased and used seed drills.
The production of seed drills can be said to be orderly. This kind of machine was invented by Li Zhi last year, in March of the 18th year of Chongzhen. In April, Li Zhi established a seed drill factory in Fanjiazhuang, employing 5,000 people to produce seed drills.
The output of the seed drill factory is about 3,000 units per month, and it has produced enough machines to meet the market demand before spring plowing in Liaodong.
Judging from the usage, the response from farmers has been very good. The drill is easy to operate and not easy to be damaged, which is especially suitable for the vast plains of Northeast China. Landowners have prepared money and are ready to buy Li Zhi's power harvester.
However, the production of accumulating harvesters has not kept up with the progress. Production of harvesters began in December last year, and now in early May, Li Zhi's factory has only produced 18,000 units. Calculated in this way, the wheat harvest in July
At that time, Li Zhi could only produce 24,000 harvesters, which was still 6,000 units short of the market demand of 30,000 units.
This is a serious gap.
Theoretically, without mechanized harvesting by harvesters, mature wheat ears may fall off and fall to the ground, making it impossible to harvest. The large wheat fields planted in February in Liaodong may have to be sown with white seeds.
Of course, the actual situation may be slightly better than the theory. Because in Liaodong Province, in addition to hundreds of thousands of tenant farmers using agricultural machinery, there are also 200,000 Liao laborers who are opening up wasteland, and more than 200,000 adult Jurchen slaves. If harvesting
Since the machine has not yet arrived, Li Zhi can hire and organize these laborers to work on harvesting wheat.
In fact, the water conservancy facilities in cultivated land in Liaodong are not perfect now. The irrigation work of more than 10 million acres of dry land in Liaodong was also completed by the labor force organized by Zheng Yuan, the governor of Liaodong. A highly systematic irrigation system on the existing "cooked land" may not be built until next year.
good.
However, if these labor forces are mobilized to harvest wheat, it will involve the redistribution, relocation and housing resettlement of personnel, which is very costly. For the meritorious landowners in Liaodong, using these emergency manpower is not cost-effective compared to using machinery.
.
If these emergency manpower are used again, this year's harvest and expenditure may have to be offset, and there will be no profit at all.
Therefore, there is a batch of unsatisfied demand for harvesters in the markets of Liaodong and Tianjin.
Where there is demand, there is a market. Many businessmen and wealthy people saw this demand and began to organize blacksmiths to imitate Li Zhi's harvesters. In just a few months, at least six harvester imitation workshops have emerged in Tianjin. Li Zhi inspected today
This one is the largest one among them.
Li Zhi looked at the counterfeit workshop and asked the workshop owner on the ground: "How do you produce cutting parts?"
The workshop owner raised his head and said with fear: "Go back to my father-in-law, we bought crucible steel from his steel factory, and then relied on the blacksmith to use a big hammer to forge the cut parts into shapes, and then grind them with a grinding wheel."
Li Zhi frowned when he heard the workshop owner's answer. The production technology of this workshop was at a very low level, and the so-called "big" simply meant the number of people.
Li Zhi asked: "How much does it cost you to produce a harvester?"
The workshop owner wiped the fine sweat from his head and said: "It costs fifty-two taels of silver per unit. The quality of our machines is not as good as that of Guogongye's factory. We can only sell it for sixty-five taels. Calculating, the profit for each machine is ten
Three taels of silver."
Li Zhi shook his head.
Li Zhi's official harvester factory extensively uses assembly lines and steam engine forging hammers. The production efficiency is much higher than this workshop. The cost of producing a harvester is only thirty-five taels of silver. Because of its good quality, the official price of the machine is eighty
Two taels of silver, and the profit is as high as forty-five taels of silver.
This copycat workshop stole Li Zhi's invention, but can only produce inferior imitations. If such black workshops spread, it will eventually reduce the reputation of the entire harvester machine, and even cause farmers to lose because of the poor quality and effect of the inferior machine.
and landowners abandoning mechanized farming.
Li Zhi looked at the blacksmiths kneeling on the ground and shook his head again.
The workshop owner looked up at Li Zhi and summoned up the courage to ask: "Master Guo, can we continue to imitate Duke Guo's harvesters in the future?"
Li Zhi said calmly: "You can imitate it, but you have to pay a patent fee!"
“What are patent fees?”
"The patent fee means that I invented the harvester and enjoy the production rights of this invention. If others want to produce it, they must purchase a production license from me. The patent fee set by me for this harvester is forty taels of silver per unit.
."
Hearing Li Zhi's words, the workshop owner who was kneeling on the ground said with a sad face: "Master, the common people cannot afford such a high patent fee."
Li Zhi nodded and said, "You really can't afford it, so be prepared to sell the workshop!"
"My lord, who will buy this workshop?"
Li Zhi ignored the workshop owner's plea and walked out of this "black workshop".
"Han Jinxin, find a workshop with higher technical content and check it out!"
"There is a family. I will take the Duke to see it right now."
Li Zhi followed Han Jinxin to the east of the Tianjin suburbs and saw a small workshop. The workshop was built on a well-drained hillock, connected to the official road from Tianjin Acropolis to Dagu Port.
There were loud knocking sounds coming from inside.
As soon as Li Zhi walked into the workshop, he saw three huge steam engine forging hammers moving up and down continuously, beating the steel forgings on the anvils.
Seeing Li Zhi walking in with his guards, the workshop owners and craftsmen in the workshop panicked and knelt on the ground. However, Li Zhi ignored them. He stood next to the steam engine forging hammer and looked carefully.
Take a look.
Steam engine forging hammers are not new, Li Zhi now sells finished steam engines at high prices. The Ming Dynasty already had water-powered forging hammers, and any blacksmith with a little bit of brain would think of using a steam engine to drive the forging hammer.
But what Li Zhi stopped to take a closer look at was: the levers of the hammer arms of the steam engine forging hammers in this workshop were well designed. The power of the three small steam engines was slightly amplified by the levers, and they hit the forgings of the harvester's cutter just right.
Seeing these steam engine forging hammers, Li Zhi had a feeling that this workshop could afford its own patent fees.
