The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 340 Lots of Cotton
The emerging city of Chuzhou is thriving under Yue Wenxuan's careful guidance.

Tens of thousands of captured bandits, along with the remaining local people, worked together to rebuild the city with all their might.

In just a few months, large areas of wooden buildings have been erected.

There are also many buildings made of stone and mud that are taking shape.

Because of the "good governance and harmonious society" here, merchants from the surrounding areas were attracted by the local policies and flocked to the area. Many people who had suffered from the war and were struggling to survive in the Weinan region also heard about the situation here and, with their children in tow, came out of their hiding places and migrated to Chuzhou City.

The population of Chuzhou City immediately experienced explosive growth.

But this is just a new city under construction, and its population capacity certainly can't compare to those established megacities. All these newcomers will have to be supported by Yue Wenxuan…

He had to keep airdropping food into the woods outside the city, and then have the soldiers carry it into the city to feed and provide for tens of thousands of people.

This approach certainly cannot last...

Fortunately, the first person to step forward and award him credit came.

Jiang Shaohui began to take action.

He first sought out the carpenters in the city and asked them to help him build a large number of agitators, slingbacks, three-spindle spinning machines, and looms.

The carpenters were no longer "employed by the Northern Song government" but "employed by Jiang Shaohui," which meant Yue Wenxuan could support far fewer people.

The carpenters quickly figured out how to make those new machines and soon produced a large batch of them for Jiang Shaohui.

Then Jiang Shaohui began hiring textile workers...

In the Song Dynasty, textile workshops in the Jiangnan region had already begun to employ female textile workers, and the social atmosphere was very open. Therefore, Jiang Shaohui also employed a large number of female textile workers. However, he did not have enough supporting machinery at the moment, so he could not employ as many as 900 people. Therefore, his first small goal was to employ 300 people to achieve the effect of a 1% tax exemption.

Gadolinite workers, cotton carders, textile workers, porters (transportation), cloth shop owners plus their assistants, guards...

Jiang Shaohui hired a total of 332 people for all these different jobs.

By the time he had finished preparing everything, 130 days had passed!
The first batch of cotton in Chuzhou City has ripened.

In modern times, Chuzhou City (Huai'an City) could grow 20,000 tons of cotton annually. Of course, it is not as good as it is now, but under the careful guidance of the agricultural officials sent by Yue Wenxuan, Chuzhou City has planted more than 2,000 mu of cotton fields, with a yield of more than 400 tons.

Large quantities of cotton were transported into the city like snow-capped mountains, leaving Jiang Shaohui completely stunned.

Although his family was extremely wealthy, they had never seen so much cotton in their lives.

"Sir, the three hundred workers we prepared are simply not enough," the shopkeeper said, sweating profusely. "We can't even consume a tenth of this cotton."

Jiang Shaohui felt immense pressure: "Never mind, let's do our best to buy more goods. We can just take a year to slowly sell them off. We can't let the farmers not be able to sell their cotton and have half a year's hard work go to waste."

But he soon discovered that there was another textile workshop that was also buying up large quantities of cotton. The workshop was called "Chuzhou Textile Factory No. 1," and the factory manager was actually a government official.

"Official workshops!" Jiang Shaohui was startled. He thought to himself: So there are official workshops here too. If I build a private workshop here and steal the business from the official workshops, will I be punished?
Just as he was scaring himself, Yan Chengping walked over and smiled at him, saying, "Congratulations, Brother Jiang, the cotton harvest is in! Your textile workshop can now officially open for business and start making money."

Jiang Shaohui asked somewhat cautiously, "Are there official residences in Chuzhou?"

"Of course," Yan Chengping said with a smile. "Our government has been preparing for this for a long time."

Jiang Shaohui was a little confused: "Since there are official shops, why are they offering me so many preferential policies to encourage me to do this business as well?"

Yan Chengping: "This is Young Master Yue's idea. The official workshops are just setting an example for private workshops. If private workshops pay their workers too low wages, the workers will naturally leave and work for the official workshops. Similarly, if the official workshops sell their goods too expensively, customers will naturally go to the private workshops to shop... With such comparisons, business can be done better. Rest assured, the government will not favor the official workshops; we will do business fairly and justly."

Jiang Shaohui understood and couldn't help but admire him greatly; Young Master Yue was truly remarkable.

Yan Chengping lowered his voice and said, "Master Jiang, you mustn't be careless. It's not just the official workshop that's competing with you for business. This time, there's too much cotton produced, and several wealthy landowners from the south have their eyes on this business."

Jiang Shaohui: "They don't have any new machines, so I'm not afraid of them."

Yan Chengping chuckled softly: "You hired workers to copy Young Master Yue's new machine for you. After it was finished, the carpenters went home. They won't make it for anyone else?"

Jiang Shaohui: "!!!"

Yan Chengping: "The competition is just around the corner, Mr. Jiang must be on his guard."

Jiang Shaohui clasped his hands in a gesture of respect: "Prefect Yan, rest assured, the Jiang family of Xixi has always been honest and fair in business, treating everyone fairly, young and old. We have an excellent reputation, and the people from all around us respect us. We are never afraid of competing with other merchants!"

Yan Chengping smiled and said, "That would be excellent, of course."

At this moment, the manager of the Jiang family rushed forward to collect the cotton. In fact, before the cotton harvest, the Jiang family had already gone out of the city to negotiate purchase agreements with cotton farmers in several villages. The manager was now going to transport the cotton from those villages back to the city.

However, this time the cotton production was so outrageous that the Jiang family and the official workshops alone could not handle it. Even with the addition of some new small merchants, it was still a drop in the bucket.

A merchant's eyes darted around, and he quickly rushed to a large cotton cart and started negotiating prices with the man. Before long, he had negotiated prices for dozens of cartloads of cotton. He then went to the Chuzhou Wharf, got several medium-sized merchant ships, and had the cotton farmers transport the cotton onto the ships.

Judging from his posture, he wants to sell the cotton elsewhere.

Just then, Yue Wenxuan appeared out of nowhere, stopped the merchant, and said with a smile, "Brother, judging from your appearance, it seems you want to transport these cotton to the south to sell."

The merchant nodded: "There are many textile workshops in Jiangnan. They can only spin flax and silk normally. Now that there is a large amount of cotton, they will definitely be happy to consume it all."

Yue Wenxuan: "If we transport goods from here to Jiangnan, aren't we afraid of being robbed along the way?"

The merchant laughed: "Young master, you may not know this, but the southern part of Huainan is now peaceful."

Yue Wenxuan: “Oh?”

The merchant said, "Ever since Li Cheng's troops were driven away by the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhang Jun has had no rivals and has been running rampant in Huainan. Many small bands of mountain bandits and highwaymen have been crushed by Zhang Jun. And Zhang Jun's military rations have to be transported from the Grand Canal, so the Grand Canal is extremely safe. All we need to do is give Zhang Jun a small toll."

(End of this chapter)