9 The situation is better than expected. The mill has been open for half a month, and there are still many people who come to mill rice and noodles, and there are more and more trends.

"It seems that there is still less water milling." Zhou Dao thought, but if you want to build it again, you have to wait until the winter when the water is low. There are five mills in Zhoudao, usually like this kind of large mill with a grinding pan can grind two quintals of rice (two stone rice) at a time, those that use animal power, according to the size of the ox or donkey and animal power, milling (i.e., grinding and hulling) a trough of rice plus blowing chaff to dehull, roughly one or a half hours (an hour is two hours). Generally, the amount of water used depends on the size and speed of the water flow, which is roughly only an hour or faster. Four quarters up and down an hour, a total of eight quarters of an hour, the thoughtful water mill depends on the rapid and sufficient water potential, less than six quarters of an hour can grind a trough of rice, blowing chaff husking is another arrangement to do at the same time, do not delay the rice, but the people will increase. The price of their rice milling and flour grinding is half of the market price, and there are so many people here that they wait in line all day long. Zhou Dao instructed Xu Waer to divide the milling workers into three shifts, and rotate the rice milling every day, and the people changed and the milling did not stop, and he gave this a name, called "three shifts".

The millers work every day, each shift is four hours, and people stop grinding. Except for the short gap between going to the mill to the millet and collecting the milled rice bran, or oiling the axle, the mill in the mill is constantly rolling. Six quintals in two hours, twelve quintals in four hours for one shift, and a mill can grind up to thirty-six quintals of rice in three shifts. In other places, even if it is a water mill, it can grind up to 20 taels of rice every day, except for a peak season after the autumn harvest, where to find so much grain to grind on weekdays.

What Zhou Dao wants is that the food will flow here by itself! The Zhuxi River can lead to the Tuojiang River, which is an important place for merchants to and from the river, its water flow is calm and deep, and it is very convenient for boats to travel up and down. This area and Chengdu Fu Road in the west are all grain-producing areas, the upstream forty miles is the county seat Ziyang, and the downstream seventy miles is the water and land wharf of Zizhou City, where the grain merchants gather.

Although the common people eat most of their own grain, they eat as much as they eat for a few days, firstly, because white rice is not as easy to preserve as millet, and secondly, it also saves money. However, large households, grain merchants and large merchants who use a lot of grain are different, and the labor of the people who eat grain and rice is not counted as the cost of the effect, and the amount of rice milling and flour grinding by large households is not small, which must be counted as expenses. The cost of using one's own long-term workers to mill rice is much higher than the cost of making a mill house to grind rice, and it is slow and delayed, even the common people also have a lot of rice to the mill to grind rice, otherwise there will be no water milling industry.

Grain ships are transported to and from the market town by river, and the water mill in Zhoudao is very close to the river, and there is a simple wharf to dock and transport, which is more convenient than grinding rice in other places, saving time and effort. Other water mills are close to navigable rivers or are located near rivers, and often the water flow is gentle and cannot raise the speed of the mills. The water of the Zhou family is also blessed with a unique topography, it is made up of a waterfall diversion, the drop is large, and the water potential is sufficient. In addition, the length is also good, and it is possible to build a row of mills at the same time without affecting the flow rate of water. The price of Zhou Dao is half that of other mills, and each quintal of grain is harvested in three to four liters of grain, that is, less than five quintals are harvested in four liters, five to twenty quintals are collected in three and a half liters, and more than 20 quintals are collected in three liters.

The price was set. No one can do any mill. When the pricing was discussed, Xu Waer said to Zhou Dao. I'm not anyone. Zhou Dao thought, with an imperceptible smile on his face. At this price, each water mill has to grind 18 quintals of rice per day to cover the cost, and this is about the same as the maximum amount of other water mills per day, to the top! Livestock milling is more expensive, and there is no need to mention it. In other words, at present, other people's water mills are milling rice at a reasonable price, and the best result is that it is dry in vain, while livestock mills will definitely lose. The water mill is limited by the terrain and must be close to water and land transportation, and at present, the boundary around this Qiuxi town is far more livestock mills than water mills. They couldn't do it, but Zhou Dao did, and he observed it for more than half a year. It's all about quantity! He wants to use the efficient and saturated amount of rice milled and the advantage of scale to offset the cost! For this reason, he cut the price in half, just to make it impossible for everyone else to do it. Coupled with his convenient transportation, he was able to attract a steady stream of customers. "I'm going to kill all sides!" He thought.