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Chapter 25 Cao Zhende: Sent!I'm completely open!

Under Zhang Xuezeng's pressure, Cao Zhende didn't make any waves at all, so he just gave in.

Afterwards, Cao Zhende only sent his confidants to send a message to Zhu Dadian, explaining the actual difficulties faced by Suzhou to Zhu Dadian.By the way, he also said that the water transportation and military rations in the Susong area this year will never be delayed.

Cao Zhende was a ghost, he didn't even want to keep paper evidence, he just asked the messenger to bring a token with him to prove his identity.

In the following ten days, the counties of Suzhou Prefecture and Songjiang Prefecture all started the grain delivery work smoothly.

Shen Shuren didn't break his promise, and he agreed that "whoever pays the grain first will benefit", and he cashed in full.

He took out some small mechanical inventions that Fang Yizhi and Dong Xiaowan had just tinkered with in recent months, and really won people's hearts.

To the surprise of outsiders, the first family to respond to Shen Shuren's call was not a local gentry from Suzhou Mansion, but a person from Songjiang Mansion next door—Xu's family in Huating County, that is, Xu Guangqi's descendants.

But if you think about it carefully, it makes sense.At the banquet that day, Shen Shuren said that he had many innovations to increase production and benefit the people, which were inspired by Xu Guangqi's "Complete Book of Agricultural Politics".

That being the case, Shen Shuren played a full set and pulled the Xu family into his chariot.Only by using the power of the Xu family can we better protect our own rights and interests.

Who told the Ming Dynasty that there was no patent law? It is impossible to prevent people from copying new technologies and inventions.The only way to do this is to form an alliance with local authority figures first, and rely on unspoken rules to maintain the sphere of influence.

……

It has been six years since Xu Guangqi passed away, and even his son has retired for retirement.

Now in charge of the Xu family property is a grandson of Xu Guangqi named Xu Xilie.

Five days ago, he saw a machine transformed from a traditional loom at Shen Shuren's residence.At that time, I just looked at it from a distance, and I couldn't see the mechanical details clearly.

However, Shen Shuren asked Dong Xiaowan to demonstrate the effect of using the new machine to weave cloth and silk. The speed is much faster than ordinary looms, and it can weave cloth with a width of six shuttles, which is wider than the widest three-shuttle cloth currently on the market. times.

The moment I saw the machine, I learned that Shen Shuren said, "As long as the Xu family takes the lead in paying the taxes on the overstocked grain and urges other gentry in Songjiang Prefecture to follow suit, they can get the teaching of the Shen family and copy this machine for their own use for free." , and can also obtain the distribution rights of the new technology within the scope of Songjiang Prefecture",
Xu Xilie immediately betrayed his fellow countrymen and became the "strategic partner" of the Shen family in Songjiang Mansion, as well as the most vicious accomplice.

As the Xu family transferred the stored grain stored by the family and the grain ship that is still returning at sea to Liujiagang in Taicang for transshipment, Shen Shuren also kept the promise and personally sent the first weaving prototype to Xujiashe (she) manor.

Xujiashe is a township-level division under Huating County. It was named after Xu Guangqi set up a manor here, and later changed its name to Xujiahui.In other words, Xuhui District is now the farmland of Xu Ge's hometown.

The land along the coast of Songjiang is relatively saline, so it is impossible to grow mulberry and silkworms, but they are not so picky about growing cotton.Therefore, relying on the method of "mulberry fish pond" alone will not be able to attract the cooperation of the Xu family. Only the new cotton loom can be attractive enough.

After getting the item, Xu Xilie's eyes lit up, and he stroked the bamboo-wood structure of the fuselage, as carefully as if he was stroking a beautiful woman.

Shen Shuren didn't hide his secrets, and pointed directly at the key explanation of the loom:

"To put it bluntly, this loom has been improved in two aspects. One is to double the width of the longitudinal warp lifting mechanism and double the lifting feet. This is stupid work, and there is nothing to say.

The real key lies in the second point: a chute guide rail is added under the shuttle. From then on, the weft thread picking shuttle is no longer held by hand, but drawn back and forth on the guide rail.

There are two curved bamboo pieces at both ends. Once the power expander is undone, the shuttle can be ejected. However, it is not very stable at present. If the ejection is not in place, you need to manually reset the upper connecting rod.But as long as nine times out of ten can be played, it saves a lot of effort.Originally, two weavers were required to operate the three-shuttle cloth, but now only one person is needed for the five-shuttle cloth..."

Xu Xiyeol did not inherit his grandfather's talents in science and engineering, and he probably didn't even finish reading "Elements of Geometry", so he didn't understand the design principles very well.But it doesn't matter, I have experienced the usage intuitively, and leave the rest to the craftsmen in the house.

Later, Shen Shuren took the trouble to talk more, so there is no need to repeat it. Anyway, it is similar to the principle of the flying shuttle made by the British in the 1730s in history.

At present, the reliability is poor and manual reset is often required. It is only because the metallurgical technology in the late Ming Dynasty is not good enough to make the spring steel needed for the British flying shuttle 90 years later.

The adjustment of the loom structure was made by Dong Xiaowan under Shen Shuren's guidance.

The locking material of the shuttle was Fang Yizhi's idea.Fang Yizhi had never seen a "spring" before. After listening to the functional description, he used the idea of ​​a Japanese bow, relying on the curved pieces of bamboo and wood to accumulate elastic force. Naturally, the reliability was far worse than that of a real spring, and it could only be considered barely usable.

(Both Japanese bows and English longbows rely on the elastic deformation of bamboo to store energy. The bowstring materials they use are only hemp fibers, which lack elasticity. The composite bows of Mongolia and China mainly rely on the elastic deformation of tendons to provide potential energy.)
After Xu Xilie thoroughly figured out the function of the new machine, he eagerly discussed with Shen Shuren how to make profit from this thing: "My dear brother Shuren, how do you think this new machine should be sold?"

Shen Shuren had already thought about it: "If your family wants to use it, you can make it yourself, or let our craftsmen from the Shen family make it. After it is finished, each one will only be calculated at the price of two old-fashioned looms.

For takeout, each loom is twice as expensive as the old loom plus ten taels of silver. The ten taels of silver are the cost of the shuttle, retaining ring and guide rail. I know the materials are cheap, but isn’t this idea expensive?A weaver's manpower can be saved, and the wages can be earned back in a few months.

Although we can't control the other places, but in the Susong area, the two of us joined forces and unified the view to the outside world, and we can still control more than half of the gentry.

If others want to make it themselves, that's fine too, and they will give you a few taels of silver for each one. If you have to learn by stealing, then our Shen family will not fail to transport their silk and satin cloth.I will also discuss with the young masters of the Zheng family in Fujian, so that when they come to Susong to buy goods, they should not buy the cloth of those who don't have eyes.At that time, Daming's water transportation and sea trade will all be in our hands, so that they can't afford to go around. "

Xu Xilie also gasped after hearing this.

It's true that changing someone really doesn't have such power, but if the Shen family can persuade the Zheng family to unify their attitude, they are the main next customers of Su Song's textile merchants, and the textile merchants really have no ability to mess around.

In this way, at least the big ones can be grasped and the small ones can be controlled, and all the big businessmen with thousands of looms can be controlled.Those who want to use it without restraint are the small workshops of poor peasants and middle peasants with only a few dozens of machines.

Shen Shuren's move can be regarded as robbing the rich and helping the poor. He only earns "patent fees" from rich and big businessmen, and does not charge patent fees from individual poor users.

Shen Shuren also said: The Xu family has come forward to handle the authorization of the new machine in the territory of Songjiang Prefecture.

The Suzhou market, of course, is handled by the Shen family themselves, and all the profits belong to the Shen family, and have nothing to do with the Xu family.

Xu Xilie is only responsible for the sales work, and he can get [-]% of the final net profit after taking care of the unbelieving young people on the ground in Songjiang, which is also very satisfying.

In addition, Shen Shuren also respects the actual developers of the technology.

For this matter, he gave Fang Yizhi 1000 taels of silver and a small house in Suzhou City, so that Fang Yizhi could often come to Suzhou as a guest in the future and have a place to live.

As for Dong Xiaowan, with a swipe of a pen, he burned Dong Xiaowan's deed of prostitution, and told Dong Xiaowan that he would not need to be a slave in the future, but could stay in Shen's house as a guest, or take her as a concubine in the future.

As for the property rights of the old house in Dongjiaxiuzhuang, Shen Shuren also returned the house deed to her.There is no need to return the farm mulberry garden and workshop.

……

As more and more Su Song gentry joined in, Shen Shuren collected tens of thousands of taels just for the deposit of the new loom.At the same time, hundreds of grain ships also came to Taicang Liujiagang Wharf one after another to deliver the grain and military rations that need to be paid this year.

The Shen family is also preparing for this matter, slowing down other businesses a little bit, squeezing out enough large sand ships, and waiting in line at the dock every day to enter the port for loading.

Shen Tingyang even placed an order with his own shipyard to build more seagoing ships.

On the last day of October, Xu Xilie personally brought a large number of grain ships to Liujiagang for delivery.

On the pier, there was already a large group of eyeliners sent by other Su Song gentry, who also came to observe quietly.

One is to see how well Xu Ge's hometown cooperates with Shen Shuren.Secondly, it was also because they heard that Shen Shuren had also tinkered with some useful gadgets in terms of port loading and unloading technology.

There are many berths on the pier, which have been surrounded by curtains and scaffolding for the past two months, and it seems that they are being covered under construction.

Now that the barriers have been removed, you can see that the trestle bridges with many berths have become wider and deeper into the river.In the center of the end of the trestle, there are some big guys that look like water wheels, with winches, hemp ropes, and hooks on them.

There are piles of latticework on the pier.If visitors from later generations see it, they will find that these wooden grids are similar to the forklift pallets in the warehouse, except that there are many fixing positions with hemp rope hooks on the side.

As the loading and unloading began, it was finally clear at a glance how these machines worked.

I saw a few dock workers neatly stacking the large grain sacks on the wooden grid one by one, and then put them on the hemp rope hooks.

In the big water wheel-shaped machine on the trestle bridge, several workers also stepped on the edge of the wheel with their weight, coupled with the principle of labor-saving pulleys, twisted the entire forklift pallet-shaped wooden lattice.

Then, under the operation of another worker, the direction of the cantilever was reversed half a turn, and it was loaded onto another ship at the parallel berth on the other side of the trestle bridge, and the transfer of tens of stones of heavy cargo was easily realized.

This improved version of the squirrel cage crane was used by Europeans until the steam crane appeared.

Relying on the thinking of modern people, Shen Shuren added some "modularization and standardization" thinking, and cooperated with the forklift pallet, which easily saved most of the labor of dock workers carrying up and down one bag after another.

In order to make full use of this technology to save costs, Shen Shuren even arranged thousands of miles away in advance - the military rations he shipped to Yang Sichang and Shi Kefa were shipped from Suzhou and unloaded from Luzhou.

If Luzhou still uses the original production method, it means that at least half of the loading and unloading fees cannot be saved.

So, in fact, as early as one and a half months ago, Shen Shuren had just figured out about the crane, and he had already quietly sent his servants to Luzhou by boat.

He also found his cousin Zhang Huangyan, who was an official in Tongcheng, Anhui Province. Shen's family paid for it, and Zhang Huangyan came forward to help organize civilian husbands to renovate the Hefei wharf facilities on the banks of the Feishui River.It is ensured that after the grain arrives in Hefei, it is also directly unloaded with a forklift on a pallet.

The size and capacity of these wooden grid trays were also carefully calculated by Shen Shuren, and one tray was exactly the weight that an ox cart could drag.

So when unloading the ship, put the wooden grid directly on the bullock cart, and you can run away with a whip.This idea is almost the same as "precise docking of container ships and container trucks".

After using so many modern logistics management optimization ideas, Shen Shuren finally calculated that the "Guangjiang Bank" he needed for the whole process can be settled with only nine cents of silver, and there is no need to make false accounts.

In previous years, the "Guojiang silver" collected on the surface reached one cent and three cents, but in fact, due to rising prices, rising wages, and excessive consumption of apportionments in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the real amount of Guojiang silver collected by the localities had already reached four cents. silver.

Shen Shuren used a quarter of other people's money to get the job done, and even transported two hundred miles of water for nothing. It cannot be said that the job was not beautiful.

Of course, Shen Shuren did not take into account the cost of investing in "fixed assets" such as transforming the wharf trestle, building cranes, and building wooden pallets for forklifts.

Fortunately, there were no accounting standards in the Ming Dynasty, and there was no regulation that "depreciation of fixed investment must be amortized into cost".As long as Shen Shuren said that these things are the fixed assets of the Shen family, there is no "use depreciation", and no one can catch him.

Cao Zhende of the Hedao Yamen was completely ashamed when he saw the Shen family's fleet escorting the food from Xu Ge's hometown to Hefei.

He knew that the errand entrusted to him by Governor Zhu had been completely screwed up.

"Brother Zhu, you should ask for more blessings. If His Majesty knows that the simplified loading and unloading times of water transportation can save so much money. But you have blocked the change of water transportation to the sea for so many years. Can Your Majesty give you a good face? "

Thinking about it this way, Cao Zhende is not afraid anymore.As long as Zhu Dadian is no longer a celebrity in front of the emperor, he will not be able to take revenge on his subordinates who are ineffective.

It seems that I should bet on both sides in time to repair the relationship with the Shen family...

(End of this chapter)