open sea

Chapter 1270 Elimination
The management of the craftsmen in the Steam Yamen is extremely strict. In this era, few people can afford to work in three shifts, and people have no experience of not sleeping at night.

But in the face of rich income and alternating vacations, people can learn and try to accept.

The assembly of steam engines in the nine factories has nothing to do with each other. The workers in the factories have no salary, but after a steam engine is sold, they will get a share after deducting the cost, which makes them have extremely high jobs. enthusiasm.

Zhou Sijing was not born as a technical craftsman, he was born in Macheng, and was born as a Jinshi in the second year of Longqing. Even if there was no new department like the Steam Bureau, he might be able to reach the rank of servant, and he might even be sent to six other departments with his talent and learning. Division.

It was only because the imperial court had this department, and he did a good job in a few years, and when Wanli was in power, his official position was promoted again and again, but he remained in the Steam Bureau.

Wanli has great trust in 'his people' and does not hesitate to entrust him with important tasks, but what is 'his people'?Wanli may not have the answer himself.

At least for now, it seems that this scope is extremely broad, and those who are promoted by him or who work hard for him are all his people.

As for his people, Wanli has always been generous and trusting.

This may be because...he has never tried what it feels like to be betrayed.

The orthodox Jinshi background made Zhou Sijing very concerned about the financial situation of the yamen, and this is actually the direct reason why Zhou Sijing urgently needs to develop a method that can be widely used in farmland or ordinary roads...they are running out of silver reserves.

It stands to reason that the Steam Bureau is rich and powerful, even if the steaming machines needed by the government are not apportioned, there are many models of factory machines sold to the private sector, and the price of a single machine ranges from 120 taels to 9000 taels. In 90, more than 26 rows of big green dragons, more than [-] sets of military basalts, and [-] sets of red dragons for ships were built for the imperial court.

These more than one hundred steam engines are of different models, but they are all large-scale steam engines. Except for civilian use, each factory produces eight sets a year on average, and has extremely terrifying productivity... And the civilian steam engines that were eliminated were let the steam office give to the imperial court, A total of 36 taels of silver was paid in the internal treasury, and 25 taels of silver were retained for maintenance.

In common sense, steam yamen should not be short of money.

But Zhou Sijing is a person who is prepared for danger in times of peace. He analyzed from the contracts in recent years that the upsurge of private procurement of basalt and black cattle is coming to an end. To use a more modern word, the demand is becoming saturated.

The places where steam engines were used in the Ming Dynasty were too concentrated, basically Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, South Zhili, and North Zhili; there were not many industries that could use steam engines, and the three most affected industries were weaving, metalworking, and mining and metallurgy. , and this so-called 'biggest impact', to a certain extent, just allows one person to do all the work in the past and subdivide it internally.

For example, the extremely prosperous silk spinning industry in Suzhou and Hangzhou, when the cotton weaving industry was gradually merged and monopolized by large steam engine factories, the hand weaving silk weaving industry was able to compete with the machine weaving silk industry.

There is no other reason. Silk weaving is complicated. Complexity means that while the original efficiency is low, the required skill threshold is high, and practitioners have relatively higher skills, so it is less likely to be eliminated by social change, so there is an opportunity to join this change.

Nowadays, the silk weaving industry in Suzhou and Hangzhou is actively carrying out industrial division of labor under the condition of widespread use of small basalt. Some weavers who used to weave half a piece a day in the countryside without saving their capital can no longer make money, so they give up the loom to catch up. Traveling in ox carts and mule carts to various villages and even Linxian County, buying cocoons from farmers and selling them to family members outside the city to earn some money.

Their previous family was also an old weaving household. The difference is that in the past they were independent small producers. They boiled the silkworm cocoons they bought, and bought a small Xuanwu connected to the original spinning machine to turn the silkworm cocoons into a coil. The silk thread is rolled and sold directly to the upper family without further weaving.

The Shang family is a small workshop owner who hired weaving households to produce in the past. They have a small family fortune and the capital to buy a few small Xuanwu. Produce bolts of silk and satin and sell them to the upper family.

The most Shang family hired a large number of workers to boil the new silk collected in alkaline water, soak pig pancreas, and clear water. Because the newly woven silk is very hard, it takes a lot of manpower to make it soft and comfortable. The process can be sold to various tailor shops and big merchants who sell overseas.

What's interesting is that neither the lowest family nor the highest family in this process requires much technology. The lowest family needs a lot of manual labor and rural connections. This process does not involve the participation of steam engines; the highest family requires a lot of labor and labor. Sales network, they are often the largest silk and satin workshop owners in the past, and the only participation of the steam engine in this process is to beat with a mallet with precise strength after the water is cleaned.

The whole process is benign. Cocoon collectors can open factories to make silk yarn after obtaining a certain amount of capital; thread spinning households can also open silk spinning workshops after obtaining a certain amount of capital; silk spinning households can hire a large number of workers with capital and contacts Complete the final process for sale.

What Zhou Sijing likes most is this kind of industry, which means that his little Xuanwu will always be in short supply.

But this is not the case in the weaving industry where steam engines are most involved. Weaving is not as complicated as spinning silk, and the profits are not so high. They all have to run out of food; or the large cloth sellers have a lot of property, and once the steam engine is involved in the small weaving households, there is no chance to participate in the process. Often, two or three medium-sized basalts are ordered by a merchant in a county.

Most of the practitioners in the silk weaving industry are weavers, and they are professional; most of the practitioners in the cloth weaving industry are farmers, and they work part-time.

Next, cotton and linen textiles in this county were monopolized. The huge increase in production made it difficult for other weavers to compete. The owner of the workshop who first used the steam engine soon had new funds to continue to purchase steamers and hire weavers. , and other people with extraordinary skills can do jacquard, but more people are eliminated before the competition starts, and they don't even have the opportunity to go to the countryside to harvest cotton, and they directly degenerate to go home to grow cotton.

Although he has been in charge of the machine factory for so long, Zhou Sijing has long realized that steam engines can be used for everything. Who can control the use of horse-drawn steam engines to mount sickles to harvest wheat in the Huangzhuang of the Shuntian Mansion of Lord Wanli?

But common people in this world have to consider practicality and cost-effectiveness. Even if your steam engine is as cheap as 30 taels of silver, my whole family can buy a few new clothes for 30 taels of silver for a year. Is it true that an iron ox goes home to make offerings?

And what Master Zhou of the steam yamen saw was this sad situation-the weaving industry in this county no longer needs steam engines.

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)