At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 502: Good Entrepreneurial Environment and Old Friends
Zhao's mother cried and screamed, and even took out the rope to hang herself. If Zhao Wu wanted to leave the steel mill, Zhao's mother would really hang herself.

After Zhao's mother made such a fuss, the whole Zhaoli knew that Zhao Wu was going to leave Bashang Steel Plant. All the villagers were puzzled. The steel plant was such a good job. Zhao Wu's annual salary was enough for them to work for more than ten years. They didn't even have the qualifications to work as ordinary craftsmen in the steel plant. Now Zhao Wu didn't even want to be a master craftsman. The villagers thought that he was crazy, so they all advised Zhao Wu to think twice, because such a good job would never be available in his family for three lifetimes.

Finally, the village headman Jiang Tao, the pavilion chief Song Wen, and the master Fusu all came. These three had the highest prestige. They were the ones who presided over all the conflicts, big or small, in the village, and the whole Zhaoli was convinced by them.

When the three of them arrived, Zhao's father looked at them as if he had seen a savior and said, "Village head, pavilion head, and teacher, please come and persuade this unfilial son."

Village chief Jiang Tao asked Zhao Wu, "Why don't you take this good job? The Bashang Steel Plant is the best workshop in the world, and many people can't get in even if they try their best. Why do you just give up like this?"

Zhao Wu said: "I want to go out and try my luck. It's better to be my own boss than to work for others."

Zhao Wu naturally couldn't say that the factory director was dissatisfied with him. Of course, he himself also had the idea of ​​leaving, which was the most crucial thing.

The environment of the Han Dynasty at this time was different from that of later generations. An increasingly larger world was discovered by the Han Dynasty, and the barbaric world was reclaimed by the Han Dynasty into a civilized land. Not only did the Han people have more resources per capita, but they were also in a constant state of improvement. The market of the Han Dynasty was increasing every year. This was an extremely large incremental market.

Under Xu Fan's maintenance, the entrepreneurial environment in Dahan was also very good. This good entrepreneurial environment did not mean that the officials of Dahan were all honest and incorruptible and would not treat merchants like pigs. If someone really said this, Xu Fan himself would not believe it.

In fact, the Han Dynasty court has always treated merchants like pigs, and the merchants know this. Every time a crisis breaks out in the court, they are slaughtered first. In the 21 years since the establishment of the Han Dynasty, taxes have been increased three or four times, and each time the taxes were imposed on them. How could people with such profound experiences not know their situation?

But even though the merchants of the Han Dynasty knew their situation, they still dared to start businesses and invest. Faced with any possible money-making opportunities, they dared to invest money without mercy. This was because they believed that they could make money in the Han Dynasty, and the money they invested now could pay back to them many times over.

Being ripped off is not scary, the key is to make people make money. This is the situation in the future. All industries are involuted, and all the involuted industries cannot make money. The atmosphere of the whole society will tend to be conservative, and not losing money will be regarded as making money. Stable jobs will be so popular, because everyone is uncertain about the future, and everyone can only find ways to hoard funds to survive this winter of uncertainty.

Don't even think about investing or spending. Rich people have no motivation to invest, and poor people have no money to spend. This is the real case of being stuck in both ends.

At this time, the Han Dynasty was in an environment of growth as a whole, and all walks of life could make money. In this environment, the people of the Han Dynasty would have the idea of ​​starting a business. Even the son of a farmer like Zhao Wu was unwilling to be just a wage earner, and would have the idea of ​​replacing him.

The head of the pavilion, Song Wen, advised: "How many merchants can earn 20 yuan a year? You, a master craftsman, live much better than ordinary merchants. You can't just watch those merchants eat meat while they get beaten. Even Hu Hai fell into poverty several times, and he was lucky to turn things around."

Zhuzi said dissatisfiedly: "You can give examples if you want. Why use Brother Hu Hai as an example? Besides, you stay in Chang'an. Do you know how powerful our Fei Hai Bank is? All the major vassal states in Nanyang treat Brother Hu Hai as a guest of honor."

"Zhao Wu, Brother Zhuzi supports you to go for it. You are also an elite talent that comes out once every 10 years in my Zhaoli, and you are also the first student to graduate from the academy. Your knowledge and experience far exceed these people. Do it according to your own ideas and don't pay attention to their opinions."

Zhuzi's remarks were immediately criticized by most of the villagers.

But Zhuzi retorted: "Are you more knowledgeable or Zhao Wu more knowledgeable? Are you more knowledgeable or Zhao Wu more knowledgeable? You are inferior to Zhao Wu in everything, so why should you plan Zhao Wu's life?"

This made most of the villagers speechless. Indeed, Zhao Wu was already the most learned person in Zhaoli in the past few decades.

"Besides, there is nothing wrong with being a merchant. The Han Dynasty is not like the pre-Qin period. The emperor said that industry is the foundation of the Han Dynasty, and merchants have a high status. Zhao Wu only makes a few hundred thousand or even tens of thousands of dollars a year in the steel factory, but a merchant can make hundreds of thousands or even tens of millions. Stopping Zhao Wu today would only delay his future."

The villagers in Zhaoli immediately hesitated. If it were villagers from other places, they would definitely sneer at them. It is not that easy to be a trader, and it is not that easy to make money. But Zhaoli had a man named Hu Hai, who really made a group of people rich. Not to mention a businessman like Hu Hai, who has a family fortune of billions, even Zhuzi is a millionaire, with an annual income of hundreds of thousands. There are more than a dozen such people in Zhaoli. Zhaoli has truly experienced the benefits of being a trader.

At this time Fusu said: "An iron rice bowl does not mean working in a factory, but having excellent skills. This is the real iron rice bowl. If Zhao Wu really wants to make a breakthrough, let him go. Even if he fails, with Zhao Wu's skills, he will have a good life in the future. But if we don't let him go, I'm afraid Zhao Wu will blame us."

Blocking someone's future is a serious matter. For a moment, the villagers in Zhaoli did not dare to speak carelessly and everyone dispersed in twos and threes.

Zhao Wu persuaded his parents at home for three days before finally getting their consent.

Then Zhao Wu submitted his resignation application, and the manager of Bashang Iron and Steel Plant readily agreed.

Only Zhao Wu's teacher Zhang Ying asked: "After leaving your job, do you also want to open your own steel mill?"

Zhao Wu smiled bitterly and said, "Teacher, I want to do that too, but now a medium-sized steel plant requires an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. Where can I find such a huge amount of capital? I want to build a sewing machine factory. The demand for sewing machines is particularly high now. Every household needs one. According to the household registration system of our Han Dynasty, this means a population of tens of millions. It is still possible to make money by making sewing machines in the next ten years."

Zhang Ying said sadly: "You studied steel for several years, but in the end you can only make sewing machines. What a pity."

February 15th, the 21st year of the Han calendar. Guanzhong, Du County.

Zhao Wu walked into the Du County government office and found a Han official and said, "I want to register a workshop in the Du County Industrial Zone and would like to ask the county government to approve a piece of land to build the workshop."

"Fill out the form!" said the Han official, taking out a form.

At this time, Zhao Wu was surprised and asked, "Mr. Cao, why did you come to Du County to work as a minor official?"

The man called Master Cao is Cao Qiu, the eldest son of Cao Shen. After the money house incident broke out, Cao Qiu was not implicated because Cao Shen managed it strictly. Although he also caused a lot of bad debts, this was only caused by the crisis. He himself did not enrich himself, so it had little to do with Cao Shen.

But Cao Shen felt that the temptation of the money house was too great, and worried that his eldest son would follow in the footsteps, so he simply let him withdraw from the money house system and found him a job as a minor official in Guanzhong. He planned to let him gain experience in Guanzhong for a few years, and then transfer him overseas to establish a country.

Xu Fan still gave preferential treatment to this group of rulers, secretly telling them that the matter of closing the country could wait, as there might be an unexpected surprise when the two fleets returned to the Han Dynasty.

Xu Fan remembered that the Spanish were able to develop America in history, and the silver mine there played an indispensable role. It was said to be the largest silver mine in the world. In order to transport the silver, the Spanish also organized a fleet with a resounding name called the Silver Fleet. The Ansa people were able to make a fortune by robbing the Silver Fleet.

Xu Fan was not a history student, so he didn't know how big the silver mine was, but he knew that silver had always been a decoration in China's 5000-year history. The silver that the Spanish burned, killed, and looted all flowed into the Ming Dynasty, and silver officially began to become the mainstream currency in this land. As for how much silver flowed into the Ming Dynasty? Xu Fan didn't know, but he knew that Li Zicheng extorted 7000 million taels of silver just by roasting the capital, and the main force of maritime trade at that time was in the south. The Ming Dynasty's poor management ability basically could not collect taxes from the south. In addition, Zheng Zhilong, a pirate, could collect 2000 million taels of pirate tax a year. It is estimated that the silver in the south was between tens of billions and tens of billions.

Therefore, Xu Fan planned to use this large silver mine to attract the domestic marquises to explore the beautiful Yinzhou. After all, if he wanted to let these marquises who had already governed their fiefdoms to explore, it would obviously not work without spending a lot of money and having great temptations. He hinted to the heroes to wait until the fleet came back from exploring the world before making a choice.

So Cao Shen was waiting for the return of the North and South fleets, and this period of waiting was naturally a time to polish his successor.

Cao Qiu had some impression of Zhao Wu, but he couldn't remember where he had seen him.

Zhao Wu immediately said, "I am Xiao Zhao from Bashang Steel Plant. I went to Gongshang Bank to get loans from our steel plant." Cao Qiu suddenly realized, "So it's Xiao Zhao."

Bashang Steel Plant was also a big client for Industrial Bank, and he personally handled every loan. Only then did he remember that Zhao Wu was the person who handled the loan for Bashang Steel Plant.

"You don't want to be a bank manager anymore?"

Cao Qiu said unhappily, "My old man said he wanted to train me, so he put me here as a minor official."

Cao Qiu was very dissatisfied with his father. He had clearly done nothing wrong, but he was sent to such a rural place, and the idea was to train him so that he could govern a country in the future.

He felt that he was out of his mind. All the good locations in Nanyang had been occupied by others, and now he was trying to build a vassal state. That was just too much fun.

Then he looked at Zhao Wu and said, "It seems that Bashang Steel Plant has no branch in Du County. Why did you come here?"

Zhao Wu said: "I left Bashang Steel Plant. The restrictions in the plant were too great, so I wanted to try my luck."

Cao Qiu was a little surprised and said, "I didn't expect that Xiao Zhao you have such great ambitions. You know, that is the Bashang Steel Plant, the best factory in the world. Even the children of meritorious servicemen find it very difficult to get in."

Zhao Wu smiled and said, "I feel that I am more than just a master craftsman."

"If you have ambition, I will arrange a good location for you." Cao Qiu took out a document from a pile of documents and said, "This is the factory building of Jinxiu Textile Factory. It closed down last year due to the economic crisis. The factory was insolvent and all the machinery was sold to the Industrial Bank. Only an empty factory building was left. It has an area of ​​about one acre, which is suitable for a newly established workshop like yours."

Zhao Wu said gratefully: "Thank you, Master Cao."

Then Cao Qiu asked curiously, "Your parents agree that you want to do business. You should know that the job at Bashang Steel Plant is the best in the world. If my father knew that I did such a thing, he would definitely beat me to death."

Zhao Wu smiled and said, "At first they disagreed, but I spent three days convincing them."

After hearing this, Cao Qiu said enviously, "Your parents are so reasonable. That stubborn old man in my family should really learn from them."

Zhao Wu could only smile awkwardly. How could he listen to such words?

In Du County, Cao Qiu finally met a familiar person from Chang'an. Perhaps because he envied Zhao Wu's treatment, he was very concerned about his workshop and quickly helped Zhao Wu to get various documents.

Then Zhao Wu recruited craftsmen to buy machinery. Because of the relationship with the steel mill, these things went very smoothly, and he bought a batch of machine tools at a low price.

The economic crisis of the Han Dynasty had just been resolved, and a large number of craftsmen could only make money by relying on the court's construction projects, so it was not difficult to recruit high-quality craftsmen. He quickly recruited 30 experienced craftsmen. The salary of craftsmen in Du County was only one-third of that in Chang'an City. It was because of this that he came to Du County to open a workshop.

In this way, Zhao Wu was busy for more than two months, and the sewing machine workshop officially started operation, and Zhao Wu also produced the first batch of sewing machines.

It is said that sewing machines have appeared in Dahan for five years, but the expansion speed is relatively slow. One reason is that the technological content of sewing machines is relatively high. The eccentric wheel and wiring parts alone require extremely high geometric knowledge to set a reasonable route. All the parts inside require improved precision, and only a specialized machinery factory can produce qualified parts.

With the development of the Han Dynasty's steam engines and various machine tools, mathematics has become a bottleneck hindering the development of the machinery industry.

The operating routes of various machines require advanced knowledge of geometry. In particular, the more complex the operation of the machine, the more geometry and algebra knowledge is needed.

The original arithmetic talents of the Han Dynasty were sufficient to meet the needs of the feudal era. After all, the feudal era did not require too complicated calculations. Most of the main tasks were to calculate the area of ​​​​land. Only a few top people could calculate the trajectory of stars. Of course, these mathematical talents were not used in the right way. They were led astray by Dong Zhongshu and their celestial energy sensing became a tool for political struggle.

Later, in order to reduce the influence of the interaction between heaven and man on imperial power, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang simply enacted law to prohibit ordinary people from studying the stars. The key point is that he did things in a simple and crude way, and the astronomy of the Ming Dynasty regressed hundreds of years.

Because maritime trade flourished during the Song Dynasty, historical documents show that Song Dynasty ships followed geometric lines, which shows that people in the Song Dynasty had mastered the art of star movement and could use the stars to locate ships. In the Ming Dynasty, although Zheng He made seven voyages to the West, most maritime trade was conducted along the coastline, which shows that the Ming Dynasty had lost the art of star movement, or at least no one in the public knew how to use it to locate.

The more the steam engine machinery industry in Dahan developed, the greater the demand for mathematical talents. Therefore, Xu Fan established the School of Mathematics ten years ago. In the past ten years, several thousand talents have been trained, but it still cannot meet the current demand for mathematical talents in Dahan.

A sewing machine is a machine that has very high requirements on geometry, so although it looks simple, it is actually very difficult to manufacture.

At the same time, the price of a sewing machine was also very high. A Plum Blossom brand sewing machine cost 9000 coins, which was almost half a year's salary for a Chang'an craftsman.

Sewing machines are obviously suitable for ordinary people to sew clothes, but the price is so high that ordinary people cannot afford it. Even the rich families who can afford it do not have enough demand for sewing clothes.

This resulted in an extremely small market for sewing machines, and initially only some specialized tailors would buy them because it would greatly improve their efficiency in making clothes.

Later, the Shaofu directly purchased thousands of machines and built a factory specifically for producing clothes to help the hundreds of thousands of Han officials in the Han army make their work clothes.

It was with the guidance of the Han Dynasty that the merchants in Chang'an discovered that making finished clothes was also a lucrative industry. In the past, inferior clothes cost three or four hundred coins, but there was no upper limit for expensive clothes.

Now, a sample can be made with a sewing machine, and the cheapest short-sleeved shirt only costs 100 coins. All the merchants who run those finished clothing factories have become rich. Of course, the textile industry in the Han Dynasty has only developed in the past two or three years. The main target is the wealthy craftsmen in the Han Dynasty. There are probably more than 30 of these people. Their salaries generally exceed coins, and they have sufficient consumption capacity.

The rise of the garment market has also driven the expansion of the sewing machine market. The Bashang Iron and Steel Plant where Zhao Wu works is upstream of the machinery factory, and the machinery factory is upstream of the sewing machine factory because they are in the same industrial chain.

So when others hadn't realized that the sewing machine market would explode, he had already keenly noticed this information. He believed that the sewing machine market would have huge development, so Zhao Wu first purchased the patent for sewing machines and invested all his only start-up funds into the sewing machine industry.

Apparently, his bet paid off. The first batch of 100 sewing machines he manufactured were snapped up by many merchants because of their low price (only two-thirds of the number in Chang'an City). In less than three days, all the sewing machines were sold out.

Zhao Wu immediately purchased sewing machine parts from Changan Machinery Factory and at the same time recruited ten craftsmen to continue expanding production capacity.

(End of this chapter)