In Cai Huaishui's float glass factory, the flames formed by burning a large amount of firewood roared. The temperature in the factory was very high. Even in the middle of September of the lunar calendar when the autumn wind was picking up, Li Zhi was scorched by the heat wave in the glass cellar.
Sweating all over my head.
Li Zhi had only been standing for a few minutes and was already sweating so much. How hard would it be to work in a factory all year round? Li Zhi secretly said that he wanted to increase wages for future workers in the glass factory. The current monthly salary is three to two or seven dollars each.
Month, Li Zhi thinks that it can be increased to at least four or two or five yuan a month.
Of course, the most important thing about working for Li Zhi is not the monthly money. The allocation of farmland in Liaodong this time made the people understand that the reward from the Duke of the country is the big deal! Which of the old workers who have followed Li Zhi for many years does not have several fertile fields in Liaodong?
One hundred acres? These farms can earn at least one hundred taels of land rent in a year, which is far more than the wages of work.
Now everyone in Tianjin is looking forward to Li Zhi, the Duke of Tianjin, to expand the territory again. If he wins another place like Liaodong, it will inevitably be another reward based on merit.
Of course, although the monthly money is not as good as the income of the farm with the reward, the amount of the monthly money is an important indicator, indicating the contribution value of the workers and soldiers to Tianjin's public undertakings. The higher the monthly money, the higher the contribution value. When the time comes,
The bigger the farm is, the bigger it will be. So even though many workers’ main income is not monthly wages, they still work hard in the factory and show their enthusiasm, hoping to increase their monthly wages.
The reward system based on merit after the capture of Liaodong this time made Li Zhi's employees and soldiers very motivated. According to the words of Tianjin Daily, "Everyone works hard, everyone strives to be first, and they all want to do their best in their respective positions."
achievements”.
Li Zhi gave the future glass factory workers four to two five cents a month, believing that the workers would squeeze in and endure the high temperature.
Of course, Li Zhi came to the glass factory today not to set wages for the workers. Li Zhi came to see Cai Huaishui use the float method to make flat glass.
In the past, Li Zhi had not developed flat glass because of insufficient soda ash raw materials.
Soda ash is the main material for making glass. The largest soda ash mine in Ming Dynasty is now in Xiangyang. The size of this mine does not mean that Xiangyang has large reserves, but that the mining volume is large. Xiangyang area is densely populated and has a long history of soda ash mining, so the mining volume is in Daming.
It is second to none and was the main source of soda ash, the raw material of Li Zhi.
However, Xiangyang's mineral reserves are limited. With the continuous expansion of Li Zhi's soap factory and glass factory, Xiangyang's soda ash has been in short supply.
Moreover, the thief Li Dingguo was causing great trouble in Huguang. It was becoming more and more difficult to transport Xiangyang's ore to Tianjin, and the freight was rising.
However, with the expansion of Li Zhi's power, Li Zhi has been able to actively mine minerals in various places, and new sources of raw materials have emerged.
After the execution of the Shanxi merchants in Shanxi last year, only the Datong Wang family was left among the eight major Shanxi merchants. Wang Pu wanted to defect to Li Zhi and often came to Tianjin to get close to Li Zhi, so the Datong Wang family was always at Li Zhi's disposal. After the fall of the Manchu Qing Dynasty,
The Mongolian tribes all respected the Ming Dynasty. With the help of the royal family of Datong, the trade routes from Shanxi to Mongolia became very smooth.
After Shanxi's trade routes were opened, Li Zhi had an additional way to obtain soda ash from Mongolia.
There is an alkali lake called Chagannuoer in Mongolia, which has huge reserves of soda ash. The soda ash in this alkali lake is easy to mine and is almost open-air. However, the Mongolians have no need to use soda ash, and the amount mined has always been very small. Occasionally
Some were exported to Zhangjiakou, where they were called "kou alkaline" by Shanxi people.
When Li Xing was inspecting Shanxi merchants in Shanxi, he accidentally learned of the existence of this huge soda ash mine. After Li Zhi got the news, he naturally would not let go of this source of raw materials. At the beginning of the year, he used half coercion and half inducement through the Wang family of Datong to let him
The Mongolian tribes who occupied this alkali lake greatly expanded the amount of alkali extracted and transported large quantities of alkali from Zhangjiakou to Fanjiazhuang.
In this way, Li Zhi had the soda ash he needed to develop the glass industry.
Li Zhi therefore started the production of flat glass.
Cai Huaishui, the general manager of the glass factory, pointed to the annealing kiln and said: "What the Duke said is that the method of pouring the glass liquid on the molten tin liquid is very exquisite. The flat glass produced is thin, flat and completely transparent. As early as March,
, we used this method to produce flat glass.”
Li Zhi nodded.
Cai Huaishui continued: "The difficult thing is the control of annealing. As you said, Mr. Guo, if it is not annealed slowly in the annealing cellar, the gravity inside the glass, oh no, the stress cannot be eliminated."
Cai Huaishui obviously did not understand what "stress" Li Zhi mentioned. However, the lack of theory did not prevent the technician from eliminating stress in practice.
"We initially used the same annealing process as glass wine vessels and successfully obtained the first batch of flat glass. However, the glass obtained in this way consumed a large amount of firewood and occupied the annealing kiln for a long time, which was extremely costly. A piece of glass is one meter long and wide.
Counting glass, firewood alone costs one cent and two cents."
"For glass wine vessels, one penny and two cents are nothing. But, Mr. Guo, you have said that you want to produce flat glass that the common people can afford, so this penny and two cents is inappropriate."
"So what we have tried repeatedly in the past six months is to explore the annealing process. After countless attempts, we successfully reduced the time required for annealing by half."
"Later, Mr. Guo, you reminded your subordinates that you can add bauxite to the glass, which increases the strength of the glass. The final annealing time is reduced to a quarter of the original. In this way, one square meter of glass only needs three minutes
The cost of silver annealing, plus the cost of alkali, firing cost, and miscellaneous other costs, the total cost is only seven cents."
Cai Huaishui led Li Zhi to the warehouse, held up a one-square-meter piece of glass and showed it to Li Zhi, saying, "My lord, this is our finished product."
Li Zhi followed Cai Huaishui into the warehouse and felt a little cooler. He wiped the sweat from his head. He took the glass from Cai Huaishui and looked at it carefully. He felt that the glass was basically qualified. The whole glass was very flat, and in the dimness of the warehouse
It was also very transparent under the light. Li Zhi looked carefully and felt that it seemed to be slightly yellowed.
It is probably due to the addition of impure bauxite that the glass turns yellow, but this yellow light is not easy to detect and does not affect the daily use of the glass.
Li Zhi knocked hard on the glass surface, and the glass made a muffled sound, but did not crack.
Li Zhi nodded and said: "Okay, Cai Huaishui, you have done a good job. I announce that your monthly salary will be increased to forty taels a month! The thirteen workers who participated in the trial production of flat glass will all receive a one-level salary increase."
When Cai Huaishui heard Li Zhi's words, he was overjoyed. He thought that when Cai Huaishui first followed Li Zhi, his monthly income was only four taels, but now it has increased to ten times the original amount.
This time Cai Huaishui was allocated more than 2,000 acres of dry land in Liaodong. He leased the land to the service team, and his annual rent income was more than 800 taels. If the monthly payment is increased, the benefits he will get when he rewards based on his merits will increase.
Bigger.
Cai Huaishui and Cui'er have been dependent on each other for many years and have raised four children. The six of them eat and drink and buy things randomly every month, but they can't even spend ten taels of silver. Now that his income has increased again, he no longer knows how to spend his huge income.
.
Cai Huaishui knelt on the ground and said loudly: "Thank you so much, Mr. Guo!"
Several workers nearby were so excited that their faces flushed red and they all knelt on the ground.
Li Zhi didn't like workers kneeling down for him when they had nothing to do, but these workers were used to kneeling down to express their feelings. Li Zhi smiled, waved his hand and said, "Everyone, get up."
