African Nationhood

Chapter 82 Money Spreading Journey ()

Lyon was the silk capital of Europe for three centuries, the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

But after the rise of the cotton textile industry, Lyon's silk industry began to decline.

Because of its proximity to Italy, the printing and dyeing industry here is very developed.

After Shi Jintang brought Alice here, he found that many silk workshops here were in a dying stage.

So he bought several workshops without spending much money, and then gathered the female workers from these workshops to train them on sewing machines.

Yes, he plans to open a garment factory in Lyon to produce clothing.

In the past two years, he has visited the clothing industry in various parts of Europe and the United States and found that people at this time have not yet entered the era of intensive clothing.

Most of people's clothes are sewn by hand, and tailor shops are popping up all over the world.

In terms of clothing, the clothing of this era is still at the end of the old era.

Men still wear knee-length coats, similar to long tuxedos, old-fashioned and boring.

Although the suits that are common in later generations have taken shape, they have not yet become popular on a large scale.

Women's clothing is still dominated by solemn and straight skirts, and they have to wear tights that tighten their waists and squeeze their breasts every day.

At the same time, women have to wear gauze skirts with heavy bustles. This kind of clothing makes women depressed and painful.

So much so that at the beginning of the 20th century, Paris fashion designer Paul Poiret shouted: There are no tights in the clothes I designed, which caused French women to rush for it.

Shi Jin Tang planned to create a new fashion in the late 19th century.

In addition, the garment factory model is still a new concept at this time.

Therefore, one-size-fits-all sales of a single model are also new.

If you can create a hit, it will be a huge profit.

These are not difficult for Shijintang, and you can easily achieve your goal by choosing just a few.

The garment factory here in Lyon focuses on three styles in the early stage.

Cropped suit suits for men, hoop skirts for women, and jackets for men.

Regarding manufacturing ready-made clothes, Shi Jintang remembered two more invention patents, zippers and electric irons.

At this time, zippers and similar inventions had not yet been invented. He was the first to try it.

Someone wouldn't try to make an electric iron until next year at the earliest, and he just took care of it all.

The new garment factory uses assembly line operations and division of labor to facilitate efficiency improvement and cost reduction.

At the same time, sewing machines are used in large quantities, and products are wholesaled.

At the same time, we also need to recruit fashion designers who specialize in women's clothing, focusing on simple and bright women's clothing.

As for women's modern underwear, we have to wait until the scale of garment factories is established before proceeding. We really can't take care of it at this stage.

Alice is the owner of the garment factory. She is a woman and has accounting skills.

After Shi Jintang provided her with clothing styles, she could just continue to produce them.

What she has to do in this factory is to control costs. In this era, there is no such thing as workers' rights. Workers generally work 12 or 14 hours a day.

Therefore, no one will say anything if we squeeze the labor force to the maximum extent, and we won't feel bad if we just throw it away when we make enough money.

As for the Chinese tunic suits and Lenin suits he promotes in Southwest Africa, when the production capacity of the Walvis Bay factory increases, they can also be promoted in Europe.

Anyway, everything is new in this era, and it might even trigger a new trend.

The factory was built very quickly, and production could start just by ordering a batch of Singer sewing machines.

In the early days, there were only more than 100 female workers in the factory, and they were still a little skilled in the production of new clothing, but they became more and more skilled in the assembly line process. Production efficiency has improved rapidly.

In just one month, more than 3000 linen short suits were produced.

Because it is a trial production, it is only put on the market after simple ironing.

Because of their low price, these linen clothes were sent to various tailor shops for sale. The tailor shop owners were happy to sell such low-priced ready-made clothes.

The first batch of goods was sold out. Shi Jintang and Alice were very happy and immediately decided to increase the scale of production.

The principle of an electric iron is very simple, and the power-off function is also easy to design.

Just find a college student who knows electricity and he can make it.

The only flaw is that this thing has just been invented and its quality is very unstable. It needs further research in the future.

In this way, Shi Jintang's garment factory and two new inventions alone were enough to establish three companies.

With these three companies, garment factories can quickly achieve profitability. The zipper factory directly provides support to the garment factory.

The electric iron company still needs some time to tackle the problem.

Shi Jintang hired dozens of physics college students and handicraft workshop apprentices with high salaries directly from university campuses in Paris.

Let them perfect the electric iron together, and then let them develop other household appliances.

Such as refrigerators, electric kettles, rice cookers, etc.

In these three companies, Shi Jintang invested almost 20 francs in the early stage.

This move promoted France's employment rate, saved Lyon's textile industry, and drove GDP growth.

Shi Jintang, who had done a good deed, did not stop, took Trudeau and a few escorts, turned around and headed straight to Stuttgart, Germany.

Given that Germany and France are in a state of competition, there are no connecting railway lines between the two sides.

Therefore, Shi Jintang and his party took nearly ten days of land transportation before arriving in Stuttgart.

Stuttgart is located in the Neckar Valley in the central state of Baden-Württemberg in the southwest of the German Empire, close to the Black Forest.

It is not only the state capital of the state, but also the capital of the state administrative region and the Stuttgart region and the largest city in the state.

It has convenient transportation and is close to the Ruhr area, the industrial heart of Germany, so the industrial machinery manufacturing industry is very developed.

In addition, with developed education and dense population, it is very suitable for the development of high-tech manufacturing industry.

The bicycle factory of the brothers Müller and Bender was located on the edge of the city, next to the Black Forest.

This area, which should have been called an industrial park, is dotted with various handicraft workshops and machinery manufacturing workshops.

The Benz Iron Foundry and Machinery Factory founded by the temporarily unliterary Carl Benz is also nearby, and the Porsche brand will also be founded here in the future.

Judging from the industrial layout here, the Germans have long understood the location factors and the advantages of industrial clusters where supporting facilities are concentrated together.

When Shi Jintang walked into the Muller Brothers' bicycle court with the design drawings of a new bicycle.

I found that although this factory is not big, there are almost no idle people in the factory, and everyone is working meticulously and seriously.

Seeing the pragmatism and diligence in this factory made Shi Jintang very emotional. No wonder the Germans could not be defeated despite repeated defeats.

After waiting for a long time, someone finally came out and asked them, who are you looking for?
  Shi Jintang glanced at the middle-aged man in front of him. He smiled and stretched out his hand: "Hello, I am Henry Shi. I am the holder of the new bicycle patent. I would like to discuss it with the manager of your factory."

The middle-aged man smiled and extended his hand.

"I am Muller Sebastian, one of the managers of Sebastian Bicycle Factory."

Shi Jintang chuckled, "That's easy. Let's talk about new cooperation."

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  (End of this chapter)