Chapter seven hundred and seventy third unsold soap
Yu Dayou wanted to lead his troops to evacuate Quanzhou, which was naturally not something that Wang Chaohong could resist. After all, the troops led by Wang Chaohong were still some distance away from Quanzhou, so they could only watch Yu Dayou leave.
At this time, Wang Chaohong himself did not actually know what was going on. Due to the limited communication level, the troops led by Wang Chaohong and the troops led by Cai Erhu were actually fighting separately, and they just agreed to finally meet in Fuzhou.
However, although Wang Chaohong didn't know what happened specifically, he saw that Yu Dayou left in such a hurry, and even Quanzhou didn't have time to destroy it. He could vaguely guess that something major had happened to the Ming army.
Otherwise, it would be impossible for Yu Dayou to abandon Quanzhou and evacuate directly, let alone leave in such a hurry.
It's just that although Wang Chaohong guessed what might have happened to the Ming army, he didn't expect that the change turned out to be because the Shaowu Mansion was defeated by the Sixth Infantry Division.
Although Wang Chaohong had never been to Shaowu, he judged from the intelligence that Shaowu Mansion was a tough one. He believed that the 6th Infantry Division could capture Shaowu Mansion, and he believed so firmly.
But he never thought that the 6th Infantry Division could capture Shaowu Mansion so easily and quickly!
War is always full of surprises.
At least now, the development of the situation has actually deviated from the plans made in advance by Wang Chaohong, Cai Erhu and others, and deviation from the plan represents uncertainty and risk.
And all this was because the Ming army was defeated too quickly!
After capturing the second city on the way north without any bloodshed, Wang Chaohong still led his troops to continue the pursuit, and this time they were going directly to Fuzhou.
While generals from the Tang and Ming Dynasties such as Wang Chaohong, Cai Erhu and Yu Dayou on the Fuzhou side were fighting each other tit for tat, there was no hint of war on the Zhaoqing side.
At this time, in Zhaoqing, there are no traces of the wars in previous years, and even the original appearance of Zhaoqing City is no longer visible.
In the past two years or so, Zhaoqing City has undergone earth-shaking changes. Although the city wall is still the same city wall and the urban area is still the previous urban area, many buildings have been built on the outskirts of the city.
And close to the bank of the Xijiang River, there are even more large-scale buildings. These buildings are almost all factory buildings of various factories. There are Zhaoqing Arsenal, Zhaoqing Machinery Factory, which was just independent from Zhaoqing Arsenal, and
The first textile factory under the Ministry of Industry to use mechanical water power, and the Zhaoqing Shipyard, the first large-scale shipyard under the Ministry of Industry, etc.
Zhaoqing at this time was the real core of the Tang Dynasty. It was not only the capital of the Tang Dynasty, but also the political center and the industrial center.
Here, almost a quarter of the various ordnance products produced by the Tang Dynasty were produced, and the production of large-caliber artillery of more than nine kilograms accounted for half of the total production.
However, although this is currently the most important industrial center of the Tang Dynasty, this status will soon be replaced by Guangzhou Prefecture.
After all, the current Guangzhou Prefecture is the real commercial and economic center of the Tang Dynasty. The transportation is far more convenient than Zhaoqing. Both sea and river transportation are quite developed.
This is also the reason why the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty, or rather Li Xuan, decided to suspend large-scale industrial construction in Zhaoqing and transfer its energy to Guangzhou.
In Guangzhou Prefecture, there is the Foshan Iron and Steel Plant, a very large-scale steel plant that is under construction and is expected to be officially put into production in winter. There is also the Guangzhou Shipyard, which is currently the largest and most technologically advanced shipyard in the Tang Dynasty.
At the same time, the scale of the Foshan Arsenal is continuing to expand. Today, the output of muskets and iron artillery is almost catching up with the Zhaoqing Arsenal.
At the same time, the Foshan Arsenal also owned the ammunition factory with the largest scale and output in the entire Tang Dynasty. Relying on the convenience of the port city, the Foshan Arsenal could easily obtain a large amount of saltpeter, sulfur and other raw materials. It was very convenient to produce gunpowder. Its gunpowder output
, already accounting for half of the total output of the Tang Dynasty.
The above are still a few typical factories directly under the Ministry of Industry. However, in fact, there are many factories of various kinds throughout Guangzhou. What is interesting is that quite a few of them are private factories or workshops.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, in addition to factories directly under the Ministry of Industry, Guangzhou has many other private factories, including royal industry, because the royal industry is technically a private industry.
Among them, there are three factories with more than 1,000 employees, two of which are textile factories, and the remaining one is the Shamian Shipyard. There are more than a dozen factories with less than 1,000 employees and more than 500 employees.
Interestingly, most of these factories are also concentrated in the labor-intensive textile industry.
As for factories with more than 100 people and less than 500 people, there are dozens of factories, there are hundreds of small factories with less than 100 people, and there are countless family workshops with only a few or more than a dozen people, and even
There are no accurate statistics anymore.
These private factories alone pay more than one million taels in taxes every year!
Although these factories and workshops are found in all walks of life, quite a few are concentrated in light industries such as textiles, wood furniture, papermaking, etc. Among them, the textile industry is the largest.
Here, I have to talk about the situation of mechanism distribution under the Tang Dynasty!
In terms of technology and quality, these machine-made fabrics are not much different from homespun fabrics, but their output and cost are unmatched by traditional hand-woven fabrics!
These textile mills that make extensive use of water power can use water power and mechanical equipment to spin and weave a large amount of fabrics. Their output is large and the cost is low. Even if the quality does not exceed that of traditional hand-woven fabrics, the quality is very uniform.
After these cheap machine-made cloths entered the market, they instantly aroused the welcome of the broad masses of citizens. What's interesting is that in addition to being popular within the jurisdiction of the Tang Dynasty, these machine-made cloths were also transported by maritime merchants to Jiangnan and even Shandong.
They are sold in Beijing and other places. Because of the good quality and low price, the sales volume is very good.
However, it is worth noting that even though the prices of these machine-made fabrics are cheap, they still cannot open up the rural market!
Because even if it is cheap, it still costs money, and in rural areas, people don't have much money left to buy cloth, so what they wear is cloth woven by rural women themselves.
Because the output is getting larger and larger, but sales are always limited to cities, so in order to open up sales, those textile factories also spare no effort to promote to those maritime merchants.
These cheap cloths also attracted the attention of maritime merchants, who then purchased and transported them to various places, especially North Korea, Japan, and indigenous countries in Southeast Asia for sale. Some merchants even transported them to India for sale.
This also made the cloth of the Tang Dynasty quickly become the fourth largest export commodity after porcelain, silk, and tea!
At the same time, daily necessities represented by soaps, toothbrushes, and toothpaste also became the export tools of the Tang Dynasty.
However, the current export of tea and daily necessities is limited to East Asia and Southeast Asia. As for the market in Europe, it has not yet opened up.
Although some European merchants tried to bring tea back and sell it, there was no reply for a while. As for soap and other daily necessities, except for the initial attention of these merchants, there was no further information.
At first, officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce didn't know why, but something as good as soap has now become a necessity for the powerful in the Tang Dynasty, even the powerful in the Ming Dynasty, as well as the powerful in North Korea and Japan.
, you have more or less come into contact with and use such a great product as soap, why don’t you Europeans.
When I asked, they said that because of the spread of diseases such as the Black Death and syphilis, European doctors said that if you take a bath, your protective film (that is, the layer of dirt) will be washed away, and you will be invaded by diseases.
Therefore, most Europeans these days do not like or dare not take a bath.
But what is very interesting is that a few European merchants bought a small amount for their own use and brought a small amount back to Europe to give to friends and the like. Why? Because they have been traveling in Southeast Asia and other places all year round and have a wide range of knowledge.
After arriving at these places, I found that everyone else was taking a bath, and some people also tried to take a bath. After taking a bath, they found that they were not sick, so they naturally continued to take a bath.
At the same time, not everyone in Europe does not take a bath. Some nobles still use private bathrooms at home to take baths, but large public bathrooms have completely declined.
But even if there are such a small number of people, basically don't expect soap to become a bulk commodity exported to Europe.
In this regard, people from Zhaoqing Soap Company, the soap manufacturer and the royal industry that owns the exclusive patent for soap, are a little disappointed, but it is just a small disappointment. After all, the only people in the world who don't take a bath are the weird ones in Europe. In other places
Most people in China still take baths, so this soap is not worried about sales.
After all, there are so many people in the world, and we can’t do without Europeans who don’t like to take baths. Their Zhaoqing Soap Company will stop doing business, right?
Let’s continue to make a lot of money!
But with this money, no matter how much you make, it is never too much, so the Tang Dynasty has been working hard to create more export products, but those are the traditional products, and the only ones that are competitive are porcelain and silk.
, If you want to expand exports of things like tea, attract more maritime merchants to trade with the Tang Dynasty, and contribute to the Industrial Revolution of the Tang Dynasty, you need more products with unique competitiveness.
This task cannot be accomplished by ordinary private businessmen. It can only be accomplished by the royal industry, which has always been at the forefront of the world and does not get involved in traditional industries, but only enters various new industries.