national surname chiming

Chapter 18 Hometown Exam Revealed
After taking Dong Xiaowan by his side, Shen Shuren was not in a difficult situation.Anyway, he has no shortage of women, and the girls around him can get them if they want, so there is nothing much to say.

In the last ten days before the township examination, he still focused on riding, shooting and exercising every day, and he was very happy.

However, Dong Xiaowan's statement of "willing to serve him first by writing and calculating, and doing odd jobs in weaving and embroidery" inspired Shen Shuren.

Let him realize that there is not nothing to do right now, he can arrange some idle chess for farming and technology, and arrange some resources in advance for future magistrates.

People who have no long-term worries must have near-term worries.

Thieves are rampant. In the final analysis, too many people have no food and clothing. Everything that can improve productivity must be accelerated as soon as possible.

Moreover, although the Shen family is rich, the speed of promotion that Shen Shuren hoped for by making meritorious service and buying an official position is definitely unimaginable for his father Shen Tingyang.Therefore, the money prepared for him by the family may not be enough in the future.It is also necessary to climb up the technology and get some private houses.

Today's Shen Shuren has basically figured out the size of his family's wealth.The wealth of the Shen family is nothing more than two to three million taels, which is less than one-tenth of that of the Zheng family next door.

Anyone who has done business knows that more than half of the family property is fixed assets.For example, the Shen family's more than 100 large-scale ships each cost several thousand taels on average, so the ships alone accounted for [-]% of the family's property.

After excluding other manor farms and workshops, the cash flow should not exceed 50 taels at most.In order to pilot the transformation of water transport to sea this year, my father has to leave a considerable amount of funds for management and advance operations.It would be great to be able to allocate 10 taels to Shen Shuren's side to buy the official operation and subsidize the term of office.

Before Shen Shuren entered the Guozijian, although Yang Sichang greeted him, he still had to give the money, and it cost more than 2000 taels of silver—this money was not received by Yang Sichang, nor by Wu Weiye, it was clearly marked by the court.

As for the money needed to buy an official in the future, Shen Shuren has also inquired about it. The donation of an official by a supervisor, even if it is an official with an eighth-rank false title without real power, is about 4000 taels.Due to factors such as a large inflow of silver and rising prices, officials in the late Ming Dynasty were still relatively expensive.

If you want the deputy county level to hold real power, then at least 6000 taels will start.

At the county level or even at the deputy government level, there are tens of thousands of taels depending on the amount of power.

……

Shen Shuren was a liberal arts student in his previous life, and he was not good at making steel, making guns and burning glass.

However, he knows the truth that a gentleman is not a good man. He only needs to learn how to find talents and value talents. The specific research and development work can be handed over to the people below, and he only needs to control the general direction.

Therefore, after riding and archery training every day, when he returned to his house in the afternoon, he would spend two or three hours in his study to make plans, listing all the farming projects that were relatively urgent and suitable for the layout.

The first thing Shen Shuren thought of was to develop some military technologies such as steelmaking and new gunpowder, after all, these things would work the fastest.But after thinking about it for two days, it was temporarily shelved.

Doing these researches in the city of Nanjing is too much noise, and the status of a student supervisor is not suitable for recruiting talents.It's better to wait until there is a base in the future, and the sky is high and the emperor is far away, before advancing to military technology.

What's more, he has already set a small goal. After becoming a magistrate, the first thing he will deal with in the future is only the Fifth Battalion of Ge Zuo.

If we don't engage in military industry, what we can engage in right now is technology for people's daily food and clothing. These thresholds are relatively low, and the Shen family's own resources can be used as much as possible.

After Shen Shuren sorted it out, the first stage first set the goal on two general directions: layout and introduction of various high-yield varieties, and improvement of textile labor efficiency.

The former is the easiest to think of. The end of the Ming Dynasty was the outbreak period of the introduction of American crops. Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty in history failed to spread quickly and fully enjoy this dividend. Instead, it was taken advantage of by the Qing Dynasty.

Corn has been introduced to the Central Plains for 80 to 20 years, and potatoes have been introduced for nearly [-] years.However, other American vegetables with perishable fruits, such as tomatoes, are not available in China, but peppers do exist, mainly because peppers are easy to dry and ship by sea.

But even for the American food crops that already exist in the Central Plains, it is beneficial to continue to introduce selected varieties and cross-breed to increase production.

In addition, Shen Shuren is familiar with history and knows that there are still many animal species worth introducing at this juncture in the late Ming Dynasty.

For example, pigs in the Ming Dynasty were generally black-haired soil pigs.Although black pork is more expensive, more fragrant and more delicious in later generations, its growth rate and meat production efficiency are obviously not as good as British white pigs.

Even the European and American white pigs in the 17th century were not scientifically selected, but it would certainly be helpful to introduce the breed, hybridize it, provide more genetic diversity, and select the best from the best.

The same principle is also applicable to the breed of chicken.On the earth at the end of Ming Dynasty, although there was no white-feathered chicken with extremely high meat production efficiency, some natural genetic sources of white-feathered chicken must have existed.

Historically, in the 1800s, on the basis of the Indian fighting cock, the British made a breed with particularly fat breast meat and faster growth.

Although Shen Shuren didn't know where to find these varieties, as long as he had the right direction and focused on bringing in varieties with particularly thick chicken breasts like the original KFC finger-licking chicken nuggets in later generations, he could always find them.If chickens want to produce meat efficiently, the only way out is to have thick chicken breasts, and other parts cannot be developed any more.

As for the fact that Chinese people don’t like to eat chicken breast, and think it is too dry, this is not something that should be considered in the troubled times of the late Ming Dynasty. The first goal is to keep more people alive, and the taste can be sacrificed.

In addition to pigs and chickens and ducks, there are also some varieties of fish that can be improved.Shen Shuren thought about it for a while, as long as Daming doesn't raise those large pieces of fat fish steaks with no bones that future generations will eat, he must try his best to introduce them.

Whether it is the dragon fish and saba fish in Southeast Asia, the tilapia in Africa, or the Qingjiang fish in America.Regardless of whether the meat is good or not, as long as it meets the requirements of fast growth and no ecological hazards, we must try our best to introduce it.

Moreover, in this field, the room for manipulation is also the largest.Because transporting freshwater fish across continents was something that previous navigators hardly considered.It is too expensive to keep live fish alive and to change fresh water frequently on sea ships.

Only Shen Shuren understands the great value of the introduction of species. Even if they don't hesitate to spend money at the beginning, as long as they are planted, the subsequent geometric progression will definitely make a lot of money.

After listing them in a circle, grains, vegetables, pigs, chickens, ducks, and fish were all on the list of efforts to import, but he didn't consider cattle and sheep.

Cattle were used for farming in Daming, and eating meat was too wasteful.But the price of sheep is high, much more expensive than pork. In the late Ming Dynasty, sheep was no longer considered a common food, so there was no need to import it.

What's more, cattle and sheep are the strengths of the pastoral peoples in the northern grasslands. Shen Shuren is also afraid that he will spend too much energy on improving cattle and sheep too early.

After sorting out all the things to be done in this area, Shen Shuren was not polite. On the one hand, he found Zheng Sen and discussed with the Zheng family, asking them to find a way to find overseas species that meet these conditions. Once found, the Shen family is willing to pay a lot of money to buy them. Or the two sides develop together and share the benefits.

On the other hand, Shen Shuren is also thinking about getting a few new-style large ships for his family, and he can even ask the Zheng family or Hongmao Yangyi to buy them, and then hire some sailors from the Zheng family to serve as pilots, with the Shen family's own manpower, to go out. trade expeditions.

If this road was reversed for half a year, it would be impossible for the Shen family to get through.Because since the early years of Chongzhen, Ming's maritime trade territory has been clearly divided. The north of the Yangtze River Estuary belongs to the Shen family, and the south of the Yangtze River Estuary belongs to the Zheng family.

But now, Zheng Sen has been coaxed by Shen Shuren and even taken to Nanjing as a hostage.Under the combination of grace and power, he asked the Zheng family to allow a small number of Shen family's sea ships to explore the south, and Zheng Zhilong dared not refuse even if he wanted to come.At worst, the Shen family will also give some flag money to make Zheng Zhilong look good.

Calculate the voyage, even if everything goes well, it will take at least half a year to return to India to find new species, at least one year to Africa, and two to three years to Europe and the United States.

After Shen Shuren made a plan, he wrote to his father to buy a new ship and transfer sailors, and at the same time discussed with Zheng Sen.

Zheng Sen is also a hot-blooded young man now, knowing that this kind of thing is beneficial to the country and the people, he tried his best to borrow family resources to help Shen Shuren do it together.

Anyway, the Zheng family is not at a loss. They can reproduce themselves after they get the new species.

……

The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, and the next best time is now.

Although some things are slow to bear fruit, they will never have results if they don't start.

After arranging the idle game of species introduction, there is nothing to do in terms of agricultural innovation for the time being.In the remaining time, Shen Shuren turned his attention back to the handicraft industry.

If you don't know how to make steel and cannons, then start from the field with the most abundant resources and talents.

Shen Shuren has no one else to use at the moment, only Dong Xiaowan, who was born in Kaixiuzhuang, is idle, so Shen Shuren set his sights on the textile industry.

During the Little Ice Age at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the climate was a little bit colder than normal, and the textiles of the poor must not be enough to wear, and there was no overcapacity.If the production efficiency can be improved a little and the labor force can be liberated, more people can be sent to fight wars and farm.

Of course, Shen Shuren will not let Dong Xiaowan think about those high-end Suzhou embroidery, and the progress of those luxury goods is of no value to troubled times.If we want to improve the textile industry, we have to start from the clothing fabrics of ordinary poor people such as Songjiang cotton cloth.

Shen Shuren asked people to bring samples of various fabrics sold at home, as well as existing looms, to observe the production process and finished products every day.In just a few days, he also discovered many problems.

Cotton cloth in the Ming Dynasty was generally narrow, and the normal cotton cloth was only one foot and eight inches wide. Among Songjiang cotton cloths, there was a kind of "Sanshuo cloth", which was only four feet wide, but it required a very cumbersome loom to weave. Come out, a female worker still can't handle it.

A piece of cotton cloth one foot eight inches wide and five feet long costs two dollars in silver.

The area of ​​the four-foot-wide three-shuttle cloth is about [-] times that of ordinary cloth, but the price can reach six qian silver, which is three times that of ordinary cloth. It can be seen that the extra [-] times the premium is for the price of cloth. Extra width pays for it.

When making clothes and quilts with wider cloth, less cutting and sewing processes are required, and there is less waste at the corners, and the utilization rate is high.

After seeing this situation, Shen Shuren inevitably asked Dong Xiaowan to think of a way to discuss with him every day to see if he could improve the machine.

After all, Shen Shuren also asked a tailor to make clothes in the 21st century and saw the cloth of the 21st century.There is no width limit for the textiles of later generations, and you can weave a roll of cloth a few meters wide.

According to history books, it was the first "flying shuttle" to appear in Britain in the 1730s, which solved the problem that the width of the cloth was restricted by the length of the hand-picked shuttle.

As long as the cloth is widened, the number of finished textile products that can be produced by the weavers at the same frequency of picking and lifting the warp can be doubled, which is a good thing for the country and the people.

Shen Shuren roughly arranged the idea of ​​​​inventing the "Flying Shuttle", and he himself became the shopkeeper, letting Dong Xiaowan think about it on his own.

……

After handing over all the tasks of farming and climbing science and technology in a circle, more than ten days passed quickly.

The 12-year provincial examination in Chongzhen also passed in Shen Shuren's busy schedule.It wasn't until the day when the results were posted on the list that Shen Shu remembered it, and accompanied Zhang Huangyan, Gu Yanwu, and Guizhuang to watch the list.

In history, Zhang Huangyan should have been elected in Chongzhen for 15 years, but perhaps after making friends with Shen Shuren, Shen Shuren provided him with a lot of new ideas, making Zhang Huangyan's answering style and political attitude more in line with this year's admission tendency.

All in all, Zhang Huangyan made a mistake, and he really won the election three years in advance.

Gui Zhuang's knowledge is good in the first place, not as shocking as Gu Yanwu's, and he passed the exam as usual.

As for Gu Yanwu, just like in history, he failed the exam. After he failed the exam, Gu Yanwu was still very indignant, feeling that the current stereotyped style was too rigid, and complained to Shen Shuren that he would never take the exam again in the future.

Shen Shuren was overjoyed in his heart, Gu Yanwu didn't take the exam, so he happened to pull him to be his assistant.

As for his cousin Zhang Huangyan, who passed the exam, he can also find a way to buy an official for Zhang Huangyan, first go to Shi Kefa to find an errand, and help Shen Shuren establish a foothold in the Anhui area as a base for fighting against the bandits in the future.

"Congratulations to my cousin's high school, Brother Gu, don't be discouraged, you have passed all the exams, let's go to the Qinhuai River to drink and relax for a few days. In this troubled world, no matter whether you get in or not, you have the opportunity to serve the country and save the people."

While pondering, Shen Shuren also comforted Gu Yanwu who failed the exam.

(End of this chapter)