The improved pedal-operated spinning wheel of the Ming Dynasty has a working efficiency that is very close to that of the spinning Jenny. The former can spin five spindles at the same time, while the latter can spin eight spindles at the same time.
These two things are actually very rubbish.
As early as the late Southern Song Dynasty, large water-powered spinning wheels appeared in China. Each spinning wheel had as many as thirty-two spindles, four times as many as the spinning Jenny, and could spin more than one hundred kilograms of yarn day and night!
Unfortunately, this thing is mainly used to spin linen yarn and silk, and is not suitable for cotton with short fibers and low pulling force. After cotton yarn became the mainstream of the market in the Ming Dynasty, the large water-powered spinning wheels were gradually abandoned. It was not because the technology was lost. Today, there are still
There are many large water-powered spinning wheels specialized in spinning silk.
As for why cotton yarn became the mainstream in the market, it was simply because it was cheap, light, and warm. Europeans did not know how to spin cotton at this time, and cotton cloth would become another core commodity exported by the Ming Dynasty.
China's small-scale peasant economy is very fragile. Once the textile efficiency is doubled, there will be two serious consequences. First, household textiles will be destroyed and countless small farmers will lose important financial resources; second, cotton cultivation will force food cultivation to retreat, and in special years,
will cause famine.
To solve this problem, the imperial court must open the sea to export a large amount of textiles to foreign markets.
Wang Yuan could only take it one step at a time, starting with building a textile workshop.
It is impossible for Wang Yuan to do business himself. It would be a waste of time. He must find a professional manager, and he must be very reliable.
"I wonder why you have summoned me sir?" Wang Wensu bowed his hands and saluted. He was almost fifty years old and had not formally become a disciple. His relationship with Wang Yuan was that of both teacher and friend, but he always treated him as a disciple when meeting him.
Wang Yuan smiled and said: "Shang Bin, please sit down."
Wang Wensu sat down upright.
Wang Yuan asked: "How does it feel to be in Hubu?"
Wang Wensu shook his head and smiled bitterly: "As a small official, there are many things to do, with little power and heavy responsibilities."
This is the normal life of small bureaucrats in large organizations. There is no profit to be made, but there are a lot of things to do. If something goes wrong, you still have to take the blame.
Wang Yuan said: "From what Shang Bin said, it seems that you are not very happy working in the Ministry of Household Affairs?"
Wang Wensu sighed: "Because I studied arithmetic, I even gave up the business left by my late father. I never thought that becoming an official would be more busy than doing business. Alas, if I had known this, I shouldn't have agreed to be this inspector!"
"After all, he is an official." Wang Yuan said.
"Indeed." Wang Wensu nodded in agreement. If he hadn't been reluctant to leave his official position, he would have resigned long ago.
The ninth-grade sesame official is still an official after all.
Wang Yuan asked: "I want to open a textile workshop. I wonder if I can recommend a reliable person to be the shopkeeper of the workshop."
Wang Wensu frowned and said: "It's really hard to say. I can recommend several people to you, sir, but whether they are trustworthy or not will have to be observed over time. And I think people who are trustworthy will never be the shopkeepers. They
Everyone has their own opinions."
Wang Yuan said it was understandable.
Wang Wensu said with a smile: "Sir, why should you abandon the near and seek the far away? Du Liangyu (Du Jin)'s family has been doing business for generations. He has been exposed to it since he was a child. It is very easy to be the owner of a small workshop."
Wang Yuan shook his head and said: "This guy came all the way to study with me, and he doesn't even want to be a student member. How can I have the nerve to ask him to help me do business?"
"Then go to other shops to poach people," Wang Wensu suggested. "You must poach the second and third shopkeepers of those big shops. They value their reputation and are capable, and will not betray their boss easily."
Wang Yuan said worriedly: "I am just a small workshop, how can I recruit the shopkeeper of a big company?"
Wang Wensu reminded: "Sir, he is a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, also known as Dongzhili. If this person has children, he might as well take them in as his direct students, so that he can easily recruit talents."
Wang Yuan knew nothing about the Beijing business name, so he went to discuss the matter with Gu Yingxiang.
Gu Yingxiang laughed loudly: "Why bother, you just open a workshop. Go directly to the household department to hire an accountant, then go to the work department to hire a manager and a goods collector, and sell the spun cotton yarn to other places.
Just a merchant."
"Wonderful!" Wang Yuan clapped his hands and praised.
There are many miscellaneous officials and assistants in the Six Ministries. The miscellaneous officials will definitely not be hired, but the assistants can be recruited easily. As long as Wang Yuan accepts their sons as students, these assistants will be eager to work for Bachelor Wang for free.
Management talents may be troublesome, but management talents are everywhere.
Take the Weaving and Dyeing Institute of the Ministry of Industry as an example. The top weaving and dyeing ambassador is a junior official of the ninth rank. They have many management talents, and they are starting to lose their jobs one after another. They don’t need Wang Yuan to promise to recruit students, just give them some money.
Get him to be the production director.
During the Yongle period, the Beijing Weaving and Dyeing Institute had nearly a thousand employees, but now there are only about 200 people left, and there are a lot of unemployed people who don't know what to do.
The main reason for the decline of official weaving and dyeing was not official corruption, but the failure to keep up with the transformation of the commodity structure.
In the early Ming Dynasty, the cotton textile industry was underdeveloped, and the official weaving and dyeing institutes mainly produced silk fabrics. However, during the Zhengde period, cotton textiles had become the mainstream, and sericulture farmers switched to cotton one after another. The government-run projects could not be completely changed, and you can't let them
The emperor, concubines and officials all wore cotton clothes, so the weaving and dyeing institutes gradually lacked raw materials and had to continuously reduce their scale.
Now, the main silk weaving base of the Ming Dynasty is in Jiangnan, followed by Shanxi, then Sichuan, then Fujian and Guangdong, and finally Henan. There are few farmers in Beizhili raising silkworms.
However, cotton planting in Beizhili is extremely prosperous, which may be because Hebei is too cold. Hebei and Shandong were the number one cotton planting belts in the mid-Ming Dynasty. Many cotton textiles in Jiangnan require raw materials to be purchased from Hebei and Shandong.
It was not until the rise of maritime smuggling that the cotton planting area in Jiangnan continued to expand, and its trading targets were Southeast Asian and European customers.
Wang Yuan recruited five assistant officials from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Works, and took their sons as students.
One is named Chang Xing, who serves as the chief shopkeeper, similar to a general manager;
One is named Li Delong, who serves as the general director, similar to the factory director and workshop director;
One is Fei Yuming, who serves as an accountant, similar to a financial director;
One is called Chen Gui, who is responsible for purchasing, similar to the purchasing director;
There is also a person named Chen Chun who is responsible for sales. In fact, he is in contact with merchants and does not need to transport the goods himself. Merchant will come to the door and take the goods away.
The timing is a little awkward. There are still three or four months before the cotton harvest, and Wang Yuan's cotton yarn workshop cannot find raw materials. Last year, the cotton in Hebei and Shandong was confiscated by Jiangnan merchants.
Then buy land and build a factory first, and not build it in Beijing.
Firstly, the land in Beijing is too expensive, and secondly, there are too many high-ranking officials and nobles, so we might as well cause trouble in the future.
Wang Yuan sent the five assistants to Tianjin Wei to investigate, and soon selected a piece of land.
That poor place is sparsely populated, because it is all saline-alkali land, and even the guards officers are too lazy to occupy it. During the Zhengde period, the salinization of Tianjin was very serious. It was not until the Wanli period that Wang Yingjiao, the governor of Denglai, organized the army and civilians to stock up on fresh water for alkaline treatment.
Salt actually made the wasteland and paddy fields that could not grow crops produce more than four stones per mu.
After selecting the land, Wang Yuan could actually ask for the land. Since the land was deserted anyway, he could just ask the emperor to reward it to him. But Wang Yuan did not take advantage of it. Instead, he spent one hundred taels of silver to buy 500 acres of wasteland from Tianjin Wei.
There are also a small number of farmers and fishermen in these 500 acres of land, and Wang Yuan will pay for them to relocate. Those who are willing to move, Wang Yuan will help them settle in; those who are unwilling to move can stay temporarily. Anyway, the initial factory area is very small, only occupying
To a fraction of the land.
With the money stolen from the horse bandits, the trophies taken from the battlefield, and the silver rewarded by the emperor, Wang Yuan was now very rich and could do whatever he wanted.
Five factory cadres became the person in charge of the construction site. They first built a factory building that could accommodate 300 people, and then built a simple small dock by the river, and then built a residential area similar to a shantytown.
There is no need to worry about the remoteness of the place and the difficulty in recruiting workers. Now there are refugees all over Beizhili, and the court is worried about how to resettle them.
Wang Yuan asked Du Jin and Bao Chaozhen to go out to the capital to meet Wang Qiong, the right minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and to go to the construction site to check the accounts to prevent corruption.
Wang Qiong was responsible for the relief work of the entire Northern Zhili, and it was also his responsibility to appease the refugees. When he heard that Wang Yuan wanted to recruit the refugees to set up workshops, he immediately hit it off and directly gave Wang Yuan six or seven hundred, and also asked about household registration issues.
and implemented.
Most of these refugees have families to look after. Women can be hired as textile workers, while men can do physical work such as transportation. Having a family can also reduce the possibility of trouble.
During the construction of factories and docks, men could work as construction laborers, while women were responsible for washing and cooking rice. However, the food consumption was a bit high, and the price of rice was too expensive. It would have to wait until the summer grain harvest to come down.
Although the factory is remote, transportation is very convenient.
To the east, you can go along the river to Tianjin Wei, which is connected to the north and south by taking the Grand Canal; to the west, you can go along the river directly to the sea. If the sea can be opened in the future, it will be very convenient for maritime trade.
Purchasing raw materials is simpler. Hebei and Shandong are the top cotton-producing areas. Chen Gui, who is in charge of purchasing, has already started to place orders. Orders must be placed at a high price in advance, otherwise it will be difficult to buy them. After all, they are a new cotton spinning merchant.
Moreover, Hebei and Shandong suffered from military disasters again - this year's cotton output will inevitably drop sharply, and the purchase price will increase exponentially.
Before the factory in Tianjin was completed, good news came from the front line, which seemed to be celebrating Wang Yuan's business activities.
The Liu Liu and Liu Qi uprisings were completely put down. The main force of the bandits had been wiped out, leaving only sporadic bandits still wreaking havoc in places. This was much earlier than in history. Wang Yuan took the greatest credit, after all, he killed a few tough ones.
Now that the thieves have been eliminated, business will naturally get better.