Section 152: A Trip to Foshan (18)

Recently, the Leizhou Sugar Company had found a wheelmaker in Leizhou -- almost every sugarcane farmer in Leizhou had an ox cart. However, the wheelmakers who could be found made a kind of plate wheel without spokes for the local ox carts transporting sugar cane were not bad, but they were bulky and unfit at all.

"What kind of wheel is it done? There are no spokes. ”

"Is it called a wheel without spokes?" Huang An asked suspiciously.

The person he said was named Bao Lei, who opened a wheel-making workshop in Foshan. Bao Lei is not a local, but wandered from the north and settled in Foshan more than 20 years ago.

Theoretically speaking, Bao Lei is a criminal fugitive -- his family has been an official craftsman for generations, specializing in manufacturing vehicles for the army, and has a unique skill of making wheels with one hand.

Being an official craftsman in the Ming Dynasty is a hereditary messenger. This is a kind of compulsory obligation that Zhu Baba made when he came to power, not welfare. It's not the same as the workers who cut their heads in this time and space and want to enter the power supply bureau get high welfare and high treatment - in the Ming Dynasty, the status of officials and craftsmen is a little better than that of slaves.

Bao Lei grew up in such a family of official craftsmen, and his ancestral wheel-making skills. But he soon discovered: some people say that being an official craftsman is simply a slave to the government. In fact, the life of an official craftsman is simply worse than that of a slave, and the slave owner still knows how to give the slave a few full meals to work, and the official craftsman is almost starving to death.

So one day, Bao Lei ran away.

Bao Lei's escape was not thrilling, nor did he cross barbed wire, climb over the wall or anything like that. One day, he packed a little belongings at home, loaded it into a trolley he made himself, and helped the old and the young to leave, and no one asked him where he went. After a certain stage, the official who had already responded to the story put his whole family on the list of "lost".

Abandoning the craftsman's status and not paying the service money is equivalent to running away. But this kind of thing is no longer a thing in Daming. Even so, Bao Lei's family was still very weak-hearted, and simply ran to Guangdong in one breath - this is already the southernmost point of the Ming Dynasty in their concept, if they knew that there was a Qiongzhou further south, maybe they would go to Hainan Island

However, after fleeing, Bao Lei's life was limited. He found that people here don't use cars much, they don't have good craftsmanship, but business has been very cold. Fortunately, Foshan has a developed business, and there are still some car dealers in this place, and they can barely survive.

At present, Bao Lei's life can't go on. The government didn't know why he suddenly remembered him - the whole province of Guangdong made artillery, and the demand for artillery trucks suddenly increased greatly, so all the craftsmen related to car manufacturing in the province were sent official errands, and Bao Lei's family was unlucky. He himself and his sons were also sent on official errands - the eldest son, who was originally apprenticed to a fellow company in Guangzhou and became a craftsman, was also recruited to Foshan, and inexplicably came to reunite with father and son.

"Since they are craftsmen of the official mission, how can we take him away?"

"The shopkeeper's rest assured that he bought and put it away." Huang An whispered, "I rushed to build artillery trucks here day and night, not to mention not a single apocalypse money, and even the food was deducted, I heard that many people have died." This Bao Lei sold all the workshop belongings in Foshan and bribed the prisoner, which is difficult to get out. ”

It's hard to get out, but it has also become destitute, and half a lifetime's savings have come to naught. The eldest son, Bao Boqing, still has a place to go, so he went directly back to the original workshop in Guangzhou to continue working. Bao Lei, his wife and a young son have nowhere to go, not even a place to stay.

These days, the whole family lives in a ruined temple, and the father and son are living as carpenters in the city, and they are almost unable to endure it. They were willing to go with the shopkeeper. ”

When Huang An brought Bao Lei here, Huang Tianyu looked at the man in front of him, this person was similar to the ordinary people in this time and space he saw in the Lingao refugee quarantine camp, thin and shriveled, and his skin became rough and uncovered because of his perennial labor, his eyes were cloudy and dull, and for a moment Huang Tianyu thought he was blind.

The man looked very old, and Huang An told him that Bao Lei was about fifty years old. People who are already half-cut into the earth in this plane.

"Your name is Bao Lei?"

"Yes...... Small Bao Lei. Bao Lei showed the inherent dullness of people who have worked hard all year round.

"You're a wheelmaker?"

"Yes, the small ones can make wheels," Bao Lei continued, "and ordinary carpentry work can also be done......

"Would you like to go to Lingao?"

"Yes." Bao Lei nodded, "The shopkeeper is willing to eat." ”

"What else do you want?"

Bao Lei's requirements are also simple, hoping to hire his youngest son. In this way, the whole family finally has something to eat. Huang Tianyu agreed, not only agreed to hire him, but also said that he could take his wife with him -- Lingao had a job to do.

After sheltering Bao Lei's family, Huang Tianyu recruited more than a dozen craftsmen who had nowhere to go through him among the craftsmen who bought and escaped from the craftsman camp. It's just that the foundry worker Zuihou still hasn't recruited much, but at least a complete car-making team has been recruited, and it will be of great use to the Industrial Energy Committee after sending it back.

The workers recruited in Foshan and the materials procured were all handed over to Qiwei's branch to arrange transportation. Liu San was busy visiting guests for banquets - since he was invited by Lin Baihu once, he suddenly became a local celebrity. Liu San is also happy to socialize with Yang Shixiang and the two of them, and the more this kind of business connection, the better.

"Dr. Liu is running all over the streets these days." The guy said, "But all the pills and pills are powdered and other medicines, all of them are bought." There are still a few of them when I buy them, and the small ones look at him and write them one by one. Don't know what the use is. ”

Li Luoyou sat in the study, listening to a young man reporting on the activities of Yang Shixiang and Liu San—he cared about these people far more than Lin Ming.

"A shopkeeper surnamed Huang next to Dr. Liu never went to the pharmacy store, but only went around the kiln, the foundry, and the teahouse, and his subordinates were recruiting workers everywhere......"

"Recruitment?" Li Luoyou listened carefully and asked at this time.

"The little one inquired, and it seemed that they wanted all kinds of work, the fellows of the drugstore, the potters, the foundries, the carpenters, the cartilers, ......," said the fellow, "and he would take all the craftsmen he did not want." Even the family members promised to take them with them. ”

The old business habits, the larger font size, the employees are all in the store, usually not allowed to go home for the night, a few days off every month, and some even only a few days off every year. For those who are far away from home, it will take about three years to take a leave of absence to return home. Not only ordinary guys, even if they are the head cabinet, steward, and shopkeeper, as long as they are not the "owner", they are no exception. So it's quite a peculiar thing for a guy to bring his family.

Li Luoyou nodded, rewarded the man with five coins of silver, and let him go. It seems that Australians are setting up their own workshops and workshops in Lingao. That's why it doesn't matter about the industry's large number of recruiting craftsmen. The so-called Australian goods are actually Lingao goods - at least not for long.

The purpose of the family was to allow the craftsmen to work in Lingao with peace of mind, and to prevent them from escaping.

"I want to see what they are going to sell in this gourd of Lingao-medicine."

"Sell-drug-?" Outside the door came the voice of Quark poor. When he came back from outside, he went to see the new silk samples and chose a few.

"yes, somebody wants to sell - medicine-." Li Luoyou said, "Have you chosen?" ”

"I've chosen." Quark is poor and has little capital, and he is a typical British small businessman similar to Swift's pen. With a capital of a few hundred pounds, he crossed the ocean to find wealth. People are very shrewd, every time they buy goods from Li Luoyou's hands, they are thousands of choices, and they are not the goods that can get the greatest profit.

Li Luoyu used him to communicate with the British East India Company and even the British mainland. He was no longer satisfied with just doing business with the Portuguese. As for the Spaniards in Manila, Li Luoyou was extremely disgusted, believing that this group of people was exactly the same as the style of Jiannu, which was rude and barbaric, and blindly oppressed and exploited the Han Chinese, and always restrained and hostile them. It's just like Jiannu, and the Manila massacre in the Wanli period made Li Luo even more angry. So he never did the business of the Manila route.

Quark's direct connection with England also gave him the possibility of buying European books and instruments directly. You can get these things from the Society of Jesus, but it's clear that Jesus won't buy books for him that the church doesn't like. In contrast, Protestant England is more relaxed.

"You're talking about the Australians."

"It's them." Li Luoyou said with a smile, "This group of Australians is really unexpected. As he spoke, he told him what the guy had heard.

“…… It's okay to build a camp in Lingao, so I'm afraid I'm going to start a workshop in Lingao. Li Luoyou shook his head and said, "I really don't understand, if it's for trade, set up a merchant hall and build a fortress." Why recruit so many workers? ”

Quark shook his head and said, "I'm afraid the Australians don't come here for trade. It's a bit of a colony. ”

"Colonization?" Li Luoyou was taken aback, he knew a little about colonization, which basically meant immigration and reclamation.

"No, it won't." He shook his head, "If you are colonizing, you must find an open wilderness place, like what you told me last time, what is it called Amei Zhou?" ”

"America......" Quark said poorly.

"Yes, I heard that the land is fertile, and it has always been uninhabited, and there are only some wild people. It makes sense to go to the resettlement settlement. Lingao is a subordinate county of the Ming Dynasty, and it has been a state and county of the imperial court since the Han Dynasty, where do you want outsiders to colonize! ”

"It's hard to say." "I've heard that they are of the same language as China, and maybe they think they have this power." ”