Great Qing Dynasty talker

In 1782, spring arrived late.

Major coal mines are continuously going into production and increasing output.

Cheap honeycomb coal finally became popular among all urban residents, all factories, most workshops and wealthy households in rural areas south of the Yangtze River.

Some people in the empire enjoyed the fruits of industrialization.

At the same time, they consumed less firewood (charcoal), and the people in the vast countryside had more firewood resources.

The fuel revolution has taken a big step forward.

However, Li Yu was not satisfied.

He did a simple division based on the reported total coal production, and came up with a pitiful result.

This shows that the empire's per capita coal consumption was pitifully low.

If the South, which has been operating ahead for several years, is still like this, one can imagine that the per capita coal consumption in the North is infinitely close to 0.
This is not okay.

Coal and iron consumption are related to the depth of the industrial revolution~
Li Yu pondered for a long time at the three-meter-wide and two-meter-long desk in the palace, and finally came up with a solution.

……

Changzi County, Shanxi Province.

The county magistrate has not yet taken office.

There were three soldiers stationed in the county government office. They patrolled the city with guns every day to show their presence and did not care about other matters.

A group of people gathered at the city gate.

A scholar was reading the imperial edict:
"From now on, the imperial court will completely lift the ban on private coal mining."

"Without government approval, all villages can mine local coal on their own. Coal is a gift from nature, and villages should jointly mine it and benefit from it together. The coal briquettes produced can be sold to the public in addition to their own use. The honeycomb coal technology is also made public with this announcement to benefit the people."

"The village-run coal mine is tax-free in the first year."

"Starting from the second year, taxes will be paid at a fixed rate of 50 taels per year. If production dries up, no taxes will be collected the following year after the official closure."

……

Everyone was silent and stretched their necks.

The person who read the imperial edict said in an excited voice:
"Everything is prepared, and without preparation, it will fail. Therefore, before opening a mine, regulations must be drawn up and everyone must abide by them. The format of the operating regulations of the village-run coal mine is as follows."

"This order will be effective for 10 years, and the court will not make any amendments. People from all over the country can work hard. In addition to paying taxes on time, the government cannot interfere in the management of coal mines under any pretext. Those who violate the order will be exiled with their entire family."

Everyone was silent.

The new emperor is really generous~
After a while, someone muttered, "If this is true, it's a great thing. The overwhelming wealth is distributed to the people of the world."

People around him nodded.

……

There is no technical requirement to open a coal mine.

All you need is one person, a basket and a pickaxe, and you can start digging.

However, anyone with a little social experience understands a logic - things that seem simple are actually the most complicated, and things that seem complicated are actually very simple.

Li Yu understands
So he wanted to completely simplify the simple task of coal mining.

The miners of the empire said sourly:
Your Majesty is too kind.

It's a sin to give black gold to poor people.

However, if Your Majesty is determined to do so, who dares to stop him?

Once the mining order is issued, the profits of large coal mines will be affected to a certain extent, but it will not be a serious blow.

The most affected are the honeycomb coal sales companies in various provinces.

Closed overnight.

Decades later, people commented:
1782: The fuel revolution accelerated and the Industrial Revolution took off.

……

In Xiaoan Village, Changzi County, Shanxi Province, the people here live a tight life.

After the imperial edict spread throughout the county,
The people of Xiaoan Village discussed it together and elected Zhao Shangyuan as the village grain manager and mine manager.

Zhao Shangyuan is literate and can do accounting.

He worked as an accountant apprentice in a shop in Taiyuan Prefecture for four years. Later, the Shanxi merchant master disappeared, and he lost his job. He packed up his bedding and returned to his hometown.

The imperial court announced the formula for honeycomb briquettes.

To be honest, it's not difficult at all.

The main thing was to take out the "Regulations on the Village-run Coal Mine in Xiaoan Village, Changzi County". After everyone arguing for a day, they finally filled in the content according to the format.

The three most important ones are work, distribution and pensions.

Work and distribution are related items. The more you dig and the more you work, the more you get. In addition, people who dig coal get more, and people who make coal briquettes get less.

The pension was set at 10 taels.

When you take food from God's mouth, it is hard to avoid death.

Ordinary people don't care:
People live in this world, just to exchange life for money and money for life. There is nothing to be hypocritical about, it is the same for all eternity.

……

Xiaoan Village coal briquettes were a hit.

After meeting the fuel needs of the entire village, it is sold to the outside at a very cheap price.

The market is flocking to it.

The reason is simple: it’s cheap.

Baskets and pickaxes are ready-made, wooden blocks are homemade, mud is free, and coal is from God.

None of the above costs anything.

Only labor costs.

The labor cost in Xiaoan Village and even the entire county is shockingly low.

Farming is the main job and mining is a part-time job.

Every day, women and children could earn 10 coins from this part-time job, and men could earn 50 coins, and they would be very satisfied.

It feels like a gift from nature.

Labor is worthless.

Even at the end of the 20th century, rural labor was still worthless.

Earning a high daily wage for doing dirty and tiring work is a phenomenon that only exists in industrial society and does not exist in agricultural society.

This was the case at the end of the 20th century, let alone the end of the 18th century.

When the agricultural society was slowly transforming into an initial industrial society, the price of labor in the vast rural areas was so low that it could be said to be outrageous and astonishing.

……

The mentality of the villagers in Xiaoan Village is that making money is all that matters.

Every penny counts.

It feels so good to make money right at home.

From the 18th to the 20th century, the living environment in the north became increasingly harsh and the surface vegetation gradually disappeared.

To get a bundle of firewood, the woodcutter needs to walk very far.

Moreover, the calorific value of firewood is almost incomparable to that of coal briquettes.

Therefore,
The coal briquettes from Xiaoan Village became very popular once they were launched.

Saving money is king.

Cheap is king.

The villagers of Xiaoan Village were overjoyed. They spent a huge sum of one tael of silver to buy a faded portrait of Emperor Wu from a soldier in the county town and enshrined it in the village ancestral hall, where incense was burned day and night.

However, the coal dust is too thick, and if it is not wiped for half a day, the portrait will be covered with a layer of dust.

……

Just two months later, a wave of village-run coal mines swept through Changzi County and the entire Lu'an Prefecture.

Your village can dig, but my village can’t?
There is coal everywhere in the vast province of Shanxi.

Why should you earn this money?
Countless people followed suit and tried it out.

In just half a year, the coal briquettes in Xiaoan Village were in serious oversale.

The villagers go down to the well less and less frequently, some only dig a small amount once every two weeks, just to meet their own needs.

No solution~
Things are rare.

Briquettes are in abundance and cannot be sold at any low price. Ordinary people will never spend money to buy a product that they can get with a little effort.

……

Zhao Shangyuan suddenly realized a simple conclusion of market economics: scarcity makes things valuable.

He divided the surplus of more than 200 taels of silver from the village-run coal mine among the people, handed over the post of grain chief to his younger brother, and bid farewell to his fellow villagers in tears.
He figured out a way to make money.

Go to an area with relatively scarce coal resources, partner with local people to open a coal mine that is unique within a hundred miles, and you can do business for a long time.

Not in Shanxi.

There is plenty of coal and it is cheap.

……

He first went to Heilongjiang, where there were many immigrants from Shanxi.

result,

The result was a huge disappointment.

There are forests everywhere, cut down and burned at will. Obviously, there is no market for coal briquettes here.

then,

He went to Henan again. This time he found a suitable location, Yiyang County, Ruzhou Prefecture.

There is coal here, but not everywhere. Also, the area nearby is a plain with a dense population, so there is a big fuel shortage.

……

After repeated surveys, he finally set his sights on a marginal area of ​​the Ruzhou coalfield.

There are four villages on the surface of the coalfield and a river flowing through it.

At his invitation.

More than a dozen elders from four villages sat together.

Looking at each other.

They sent someone to the county to read the imperial edict, which confirmed that the stranger was not lying. But new things often contain great risks.

An old man asked:

"Uncle, is there any risk in mining?"

"Yes, of course." Zhao Shangyuan dressed like a respectable man and put on the black silk gown he had saved up to buy when he was an apprentice in Taiyuan.

"How dare you~"

"Ahem, there's someone above me."

"Oh~"

Everyone suddenly realized that this was the right thing to do.

……

"It's definitely risky for you to do this business on your own. There's no risk if you work with me." Zhao Shangyuan repeated the rules again skillfully, and then asked, "Is it okay?"

Everyone said in unison: "Hit!"

Then I found a pen and paper and signed the contract.

Everyone put their bright red fingerprints on it.

The next day, Zhao Shangyuan quietly went to Ruzhou Prefecture and borrowed 100 silver dollars from Sihai Finance as start-up capital.

The manager of the Ruzhou branch is a fellow Shanxi native brought up by General Manager Liu Jinxin.

When fellow villagers meet, they are in tears.

then,

The loan process went exceptionally smoothly.

The manager also used his personal connections to pay for a soldier to escort Zhao Shangyuan back.

……

Anyone with a little social experience knows the risks involved when a foreigner contracts land in a strange place to do business.

In the worst case, the body will be buried in a foreign land.

The four-year apprenticeship in Taiyuan City taught Zhao Shangyuan a lot.

He won't gamble on human nature.

The connections above and the escorting soldiers that he often mentioned were all means he used to intimidate the locals.

The men went down the mine, the women made coal briquettes, and the old people and children went out to sell them.

Farming and mining can be done at the same time.

He went to the county town every few days and got drunk.

Come back and brag:
"~I went to give a gift to the county master."

The people from the four villages were in awe of him.

There was an extreme shortage of fuel in the Central Plains, so the sales of coal briquettes were extremely successful.

Saving money is the best way.

The price of coal briquettes produced by low-cost small coal mines is much cheaper than firewood with the same calorific value.

……

Just half a month later, the coal mine began to make a profit.

The wages were never delayed, the accounts were kept clear, and the people in the four villages were in high spirits and full of energy.

According to prior agreement:
Zhao Shangyuan took 3% of the profit, and the remaining 7% of the profit, if any surplus after deducting various costs, would be used to repair the ancestral hall.

Everyone approves!

even though,
Occasionally, young people would mutter that there was actually no need for a foreigner like Manager Zhao, as everyone could open a mine on their own and the business was not difficult and even a fool could do it.

But the elders of the tribe severely suppressed such voices of "eating alone".

They were afraid of incurring severe revenge from the "master" behind Manager Zhao.

After decades of survival experience, they have summed up two simple survival principles:
It doesn't matter, I can't move an inch.

It may seem like a simple business, but the story behind it is not simple.

……

The villagers are also content.

If you put in some effort, you can get some cash. Women and the elderly can also get a share of the profits. It's really wonderful.

After working for a few years, you can build a tiled house.

What a wonderful world!
However, in the fourth month, a mine collapsed, killing two people and injuring one.

According to regulations, the family will be given a pension of 25 taels of silver.

In addition, Zhao Shangyuan added 10 taels each in his personal name, and persuaded everyone to take out 10 taels from the surplus funds.

in this way,

A life is 45 taels.

The family members are in a stable mood.

Everything in this world has a price, including human life.

The accident did not scare the villagers.

On the contrary, the reinforced mines are blooming everywhere. Poverty is 100 times more terrible than death.

……

Zhao Shangyuan was ecstatic, he finally discovered a blue ocean. In order to expand and become stronger, he visited the manager of the Fucheng branch of Sihai Finance several times, and finally the coal mine had a powerful partner.

Small mining businesses are flourishing everywhere.

once,
After drinking a lot of wine, the two of them sighed privately:

Henan, Hebei, Shandong and Jiangsu are not major coal-producing provinces, but many smart people have become rich from mining. They have even successfully expanded the coal briquette business to neighboring counties, states and prefectures through water transportation through the Grand Canal.

Although Shanxi is a good place, it has too much coal reserves.

Every village has it, but there is no market for it.

The villagers have thought about selling the coal briquettes to save money, but the high transportation costs make them despairing and they do not have a price advantage.

However, the rich business experience gave rise to a large number of Shanxi merchants who moved south.

……

Under Li Yu's encouragement, the empire's mining industry ushered in an unprecedented wave of brutal development.

The daring people eat too much and get fatter than usual.

People with great connections eat so much that their mouths are drooling.

Well-informed people have a lot of food.

Shanxi and Zhejiang businessmen benefited the most from this wave of land grabbing.

The former started from scratch, relying on courage and information asymmetry.

The latter has greater advantages, including financial information and connections.

If it weren't for Wu Ting's strict order that the village-run coal mine could not bypass the local people, the matter would have turned out to be a mess.

The effect is remarkable.

In coal-producing areas, farmers can harvest an extra seven or eight taels of coal every year.

"Ambitious miners" from other places earn more. A large number of households with an income of 1,000 yuan have emerged in Shanxi and Zhejiang provinces. In this era, the middle class is definitely rising.

……

Zhejiang people are keen on supporting each other.

One person eats meat, the whole village drinks soup.

If one person gets rich, the whole family will benefit.

According to incomplete statistics, in just one year, the increase in coal production exceeded the production of the past five years.

The tax specialists stationed at the factories can attest that the coal furnace production lines of large iron products factories are working overtime. The pig iron coal furnaces that go with coal briquettes are always out of stock.

Every coal stove sold meant that a family in the empire used coal briquettes.

The light of civilization bathes the earth.

According to this trend~
After three to five years, the fuel revolution can be declared to have achieved initial success.

In the Empire,

All groups that have the conditions to burn coal are caught in one fell swoop.

For those who don’t have the conditions to burn coal, there is no need to think about it in the short term! No money, no solution~
……

Li Yu is open-minded. He does not have moral obsession and never pursues 100% perfection.

As a feudal emperor~
On the progress chart, 30% is qualified, 40% is excellent, and 60% is a perfect saint.

If it is 90%, then we can choose a day to crown Emperor Yuhuang. (End of this chapter)