After the improvement of the Ming Dynasty pedal spinning wheel, the work efficiency has been very close to the Jenny spinning machine, the former can spin five spindles at the same time, the latter can spin eight spindles at the same time.

Both of these things are actually very rubbish.

As early as the end of the Southern Song Dynasty in China, there was already a large water-powered spinning wheel, a spinning wheel with as many as 32 spindles, which is four times that of Jenny's spinning machine, and can spin more than 100 catties of yarn day and night!

Unfortunately, this thing is mainly used for spinning hemp yarn and silk, and is not suitable for cotton with short fibers and low tensile force. After cotton yarn became the mainstream of the market in the Ming Dynasty, the water-powered spinning wheel was gradually abandoned, not because of the loss of technology, and now there are many water-powered spinning wheels that specialize in spinning.

As for why cotton yarn has become the mainstream of the market, it is only because it is cheap, light and warm. The Europeans could not spin cotton at this time, and cotton cloth would become another core commodity of the Ming Dynasty's exports.

China's smallholder economy is fragile, and there are two serious consequences if textile efficiency is exponentially increased. First, home textiles have been destroyed, and countless small people have lost important financial resources; Second, cotton cultivation forces grain planting, which will cause famine in special years.

To solve this problem, the imperial court had to open the sea and allow a large number of textiles to be exported to foreign markets.

Wang Yuan can only come step by step, and start a textile workshop first.

Wang Yuan can't do business himself, it's a waste of time, he has to find a professional manager, and he has to be very reliable.

"I wonder what Mr. summoned me?" Wang Wensu bowed. He is almost fifty years old, he has not formally apprenticed, and his relationship with Wang Yuan is also a teacher and friend, but he usually holds a disciple ceremony when he meets.

Wang Yuan smiled and said, "Shang Bin, please take a seat." ”

Wang Wensu sat down upright.

Wang Yuan asked, "How do you feel in the household department?" ”

Wang Wensu shook his head and smiled bitterly: "The official is small, there are many things, the power is low, and the responsibility is heavy." ”

This is the normal life of large institutions and small bureaucrats, there is no oil and water to fish, but there are a lot of things, and if something goes wrong, you have to take the blame.

Wang Yuan said: "Listening to Shang Bin's meaning, it seems that he is not very happy in the household department? ”

Wang Wensu sighed: "Because I studied arithmetic, I even gave up the business left by my late father, and I didn't want to be an official than a business." Alas, if I had known this, I should not have promised Your Majesty to be this inspector! ”

"After all, it's an official." Wang Yuan said.

"Indeed." Wang Wensu nodded in approval, if he hadn't been reluctant to be an official, he would have resigned a long time ago.

Jiupin Sesame Official, he is also an official.

Wang Yuan asked: "I want to open a textile workshop, I don't know if I can recommend a reliable person to be the workshop manager for me." ”

Wang Wensu frowned and said, "It's really hard to say. I can recommend several people to my husband, but whether they are trustworthy or not will have to be observed over time. And I think trustworthy people can never be the treasurer of others, they all have their own opinions. ”

Wang Yuan said it was understandable.

Wang Wensu said with a smile: "Why should Mr. be reluctant to seek the near and far, Du Liangyu (Du Jin) has been in business for generations, he has been exposed to it since he was a child, and it is very easy to be a small workshop shopkeeper." ”

Wang Yuan shook his head and said: "People come all the way to study with me, and they don't even want the fame of a student, how can I be embarrassed to let him help in business?" ”

"Then go to other businesses to poach people," Wang Wensu came up with an idea, "We must dig up the second and third shopkeepers of that kind of big business, they pay attention to reputation and ability, and they will not easily betray the owner." ”

Wang Yuan worried: "I'm just a small workshop, can I dig up the shopkeeper of a big business?" ”

Wang Wensu reminded: "Mr. is a bachelor of Hanlin Academy, also known as Dongzhili. If this person has a child under his knees, he may wish to accept him as a personal student, so that he can easily recruit talents. ”

Wang Yuan didn't know anything about the business in Beijing, so he went to discuss the matter with Gu Yingxiang.

Gu Yingxiang laughed: "Why bother so much, you just open a workshop." Go directly to the household department to ask for an account, and then go to the Ministry of Industry to ask a person responsible for management and a person responsible for receiving, and sell the spun cotton yarn to foreign merchants. ”

"Wonderful!" Wang Yuan clapped his hands and praised.

There are many miscellaneous officials and officials in the Sixth Department, and the miscellaneous officials will definitely not be invited, but the officials can be easily recruited. As long as Wang Yuan accepts their sons as students, these officials are eager to help Bachelor Wang work for free.

Management talents may be troublesome, but management talents are everywhere.

Take the Weaving and Dyeing Institute of the Ministry of Industry as an example, the number one weaving and dyeing ambassador is also a petty official of the ninth grade. They have a lot of management talents under them, and they are starting to lose their jobs one after another, and they don't need Wang Yuan's promise to accept students, and they can get them to be production directors with a little money.

During the Yongle period, the Beijing Weaving and Dyeing Institute had nearly 1,000 employees, and now there are only about 200 people left, and a large number of unemployed people don't know what to do.

The main reason for the decline of official weaving and dyeing is not official corruption, but the inability to keep up with the transformation of commodity structure.

In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the cotton spinning industry was underdeveloped, and the official weaving and dyeing institutes mainly manufactured silk fabrics. However, during the Zhengde period, cotton textiles have become the mainstream, and sericulture farmers have switched to planting cotton. The government-run project can't be completely changed, you can't let the emperor, concubines and officials all change to cotton clothes, so the weaving and dyeing factory is gradually short of raw materials, and can only be forced to continue to reduce the scale.

Now, the main silk weaving base of Daming is in the south of the Yangtze River, followed by Shanxi, then Sichuan, then Fujian and Guangdong, and finally Henan.

However, cotton cultivation in Beizhili is extremely prosperous, which may be the reason why Hebei is too cold. Hebei and Shandong are the number one cotton planting belts in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and many cotton textiles in the south of the Yangtze River need to purchase raw materials from Hebei and Shandong.

It was not until the rise of maritime smuggling that the cotton planting area in Jiangnan continued to expand, and its trade objects were Southeast Asian and European customers.

Wang Yuan recruited five assistants from the household department and the ministry of works, and accepted their sons as students.

One is named Chang Xing, who serves as the chief treasurer, similar to the general manager;

One is named Li Delong, who serves as the director, similar to the factory director and workshop director;

One is named Fei Yuming, who serves as the bookkeeper, similar to the financial director;

One is named Chen Gui, who is in charge of purchasing, similar to the Minister of Purchasing;

There is also a man named Chen Chun, who is in charge of sales. In fact, it is to contact the merchants, and they don't have to transport them themselves, and the merchants will come to the door to take the goods away.

There is some embarrassment in time, there are still three or four months before the cotton harvest period, Wang Yuan's cotton yarn workshop can not find raw materials, and last year, the cotton in Hebei and Shandong was already collected by Jiangnan merchants.

Then buy land to build a factory first, and not build it in Beijing.

First, the land in Beijing is too expensive, and second, there are too many high-ranking officials and nobles, so I don't know what kind of trouble will happen in the future.

Wang Yuan sent the five assistants to Tianjin Wei to investigate, and soon selected a piece of land.

The place is sparsely populated, because it is all saline-alkali land, and even the officers of the guard station are too lazy to occupy it - during the Zhengde period, the salinization of the Tianjin area was very serious. It was not until the Wanli period that Wang Yingjiao, the governor of Denglai, treated alkali and organized the military and civilians to hoard fresh water and wash salt, so that the wasteland that could not grow crops could produce more than four stones per mu of paddy fields.

After selecting the land, Wang Yuan can actually ask for land, anyway, it is deserted, and he can directly ask the emperor to reward him. But Wang Yuan did not covet cheapness, but spent 100 taels of silver to buy 500 acres of wasteland from Tianjin Wei.

There were also a small number of farmers and fishermen in the 500 acres of land, and Wang Yuan paid for them to relocate. Those who are willing to relocate, Wang Yuan will help them settle down; Those who don't want to relocate, it's okay to stay temporarily, anyway, the initial plant area is very small, only occupying a fraction of the land.

The money stolen from the horse bandits, the booty from the battlefield, and the silver taels rewarded by the emperor, Wang Yuan is now very rich, and he can do whatever he wants.

Five factory officials became site leaders, first building a factory that could accommodate 300 people, building a simple small riverside wharf, and then renovating a shantytown-like residential area.

I am not afraid that the remote places will not be able to recruit workers, and now the northern Zhili is full of displaced people, and the imperial court is worried about how to resettle it.

Wang Yuan asked Du Jin and Bao Chaozhen to go out of Beijing to meet Wang Qiong, the right attendant of the household department, and go to the construction site to check the accounts to prevent corruption.

Wang Qiong was in charge of the relief work of the entire Northern Zhili, and it was also within his scope of responsibility to pacify the displaced people. Hearing that Wang Yuan wanted to beckon the homeless people to set up a workshop, he immediately hit it off, and directly threw six or seven hundred to Wang Yuan, and also implemented the household registration problem.

Most of these displaced people can bring their families with them, women can be recruited to work as weavers, men can do manual work such as transportation, and having a family can also reduce the possibility of trouble.

During the construction of the factory and the wharf, the men could work as construction coolies, while the women were responsible for washing and cooking. It's just that the grain consumption is a bit large, and the price of rice is too expensive, at least after the summer grain harvest can be lowered.

Although the factory is remote, the transportation is very convenient.

To the east, you can go to Tianjin Wei along the river, and take the Grand Canal to the north and south; It goes west along the river and directly into the sea, so if the sea can be opened in the future, it will be very convenient for maritime trade.

The procurement of raw materials is simpler, Hebei and Shandong belong to the number one cotton-producing areas, and Chen Gui, who is responsible for procurement, has already begun to place orders. You must place an order at a high price in advance, otherwise it will be difficult to buy it at that time, after all, they are cotton spinners who have just emerged, and Hebei and Shandong have suffered from military disasters - this year's cotton production will inevitably drop sharply, and the purchase price will rise exponentially.

Before the factory in Tianjin was completed, good news came from the front, as if to celebrate Wang Yuan's business activities.

The uprising of Liu Liu and Liu Qi was completely quelled, and the main force of the thieves had been completely wiped out, leaving only sporadic thieves still wreaking havoc in the place. This is much earlier than in history, and Wang Yuan has made great contributions, after all, he has killed a few hard bones.

Once the thieves are eliminated, business will naturally be better.