"If there is a home, there is a Foshan brand."

This is a proud advertising slogan compiled by Foshan in order to create its own city image, from which it is not difficult for us to see the development of the manufacturing industry in Foshan and even the entire Pearl River Delta.

Now, Li Shouhan also wants to start from the manufacturing industry and revitalize Foshan.

"Now that the Central Plains is swinging, and Liaodong is after the Great War, after the expansion of our Southern Guangdong Army, we have to go north to quell the chaos and appeasement. The land of Foshan, located on the side of Guangzhou, if it can't be a quiet place, how can I feel at ease? ”

"What's more, as soon as the army moves, it is a massive consumption of materials, if you give up these mature and skilled workshops and craftsmen in Foshan, and go north from thousands of miles away from the river to the sea and save the capacity of these thousands of miles of sea routes, let's transport other items, okay?"

In the mansion that Ye Qichang temporarily built for Li Shouhan in Sanshui Zhi County, Li Shouhan, Li Peiting, Huang Qiying, Duan Yihong and others gathered together to listen to Li Shouhan expound his thoughts.

In Li Shouhan's blueprint for the revitalization of the manufacturing industry in Foshan, he planned to take out a considerable part of the various materials needed by the troops going north, as well as a large amount of equipment required by the sailors, sails, anchors, iron nails, etc., to be manufactured in Foshan. Through the downstream demand, the revitalization and technological transformation of the upstream smelting industry will be stimulated, and then a new manufacturing base will be created, which will decompose the pressure of Hejing.

"Lord, what are the various materials you mentioned in the land camp?" Huang Qiying, who opened a porcelain kiln in Ha Jing and made a lot of money by using rich kaolin resources to produce and burn bone porcelain, is no longer the middle-aged man with a thin face, but a rich man with a fat brain and a big belly, and has followed Li Shouhan all the way for more than 20 years, and he has formed a deep-rooted concept in his mind like others: "As long as you follow our lord, it will be the result of making a fortune!" ”

Now. There is another golden avenue in front of him, how can Huang Qiying not be happy or excited?

"Lao Huang, in addition to the items with relatively high technical requirements such as guns and cannons, other things like helmets, military uniforms, sleeve spurs, cotton armor, leather armor, and cuirass. Knives, cooking cars, pots and pans, etc., can be ordered to be purchased in Foshan! As long as these folks of yours can produce according to the requirements and standards of our Nanyue Army, the money will naturally be earned! However, Lone is also a greeting ahead, if you use some crooked brains on quality and taxes, hehe! The cells and killing fields of the law enforcement department have just been cleaned up in the provincial capital. Preparing to open! ”

Ye Qichang of Sanshui Zhixian County felt a little shuddered when he saw Li Shouhan's cruel smile, but Huang Qiying and others were as happy as if they saw the light of the good wealth boy, and some people couldn't help but start thinking in their hearts: "Now that the army is expanding everywhere, it is said that some people have brought silver to Gannan, Biyuan and other places to recruit soldiers." It is said that at least two or three towns of soldiers and horses should be recruited, and if there are not many soldiers and horses in one town, there will be 15,000 more recruits, just armor, clothing, shoes and socks, bedding, sleeves, stabbing knives, bowls, chopsticks, cooking cars, and other so-called general materials. That's the number of mountains and reclamations. How many people do you have to feed? How much money do you have to make from this? ”

Relying on a good and strict fiscal and taxation system, it is a reckless act of military force in the eyes of others. In the jurisdiction of the Nanyue Army, it is a matter that can make the economy prosperous and all industries prosperous. There are many similar things and actions, such as building water conservancy, building roads and bridges running through various state capitals and counties, which one is not a huge amount of money, grain and rice into it? However, through taxes. The money and grain have quietly returned to the treasury, and as for the economic and social benefits generated in the process of circulation, it is not a simple number that can be summed up.

Although Li Peiting is currently serving as a seemingly idle errand to provide arguments for Li Shouhan's strategic decision-making, his mind is still running rapidly, carefully calculating such a move. How many benefits can be brought to Longshengxing, and what changes can be brought to Foshan and the entire Pearl River Delta.

Not to mention anything else, in a single iron-smelting industry, according to historical records, during the Qianlong period, there were no less than 20,000 or 30,000 iron-smelting craftsmen in Foshan. Judging from the above statistics, Foshan's iron smelting industry was very prosperous at that time, and it was the main economic pillar of Foshan at that time.

Foshan has also become the most important iron-smelting base in Guangdong, with an annual output of more than 45.9 million catties. At that time, the families that operated iron smelting were called "furnace households". The furnace household is not only a basic production unit, but also a basic servitude unit, and can also refer to the furnace owner. A furnace household can have several furnaces. The iron furnace is a production tool, the Qing Dynasty iron furnace existing in the Foshan Museum, more than 80 centimeters high, 70 centimeters in diameter, and 40-60 centimeters in diameter. From these data, it can be seen that the stove seat in Foshan at that time was very small, "the shape of the furnace is like a bottle, its mouth is out, the mouth is wide and Xu, the bottom thickness is three zhang and five feet, and the body is half of it, and the body thickness is two feet strange"

In terms of size, it is the earthen blast furnace that we are familiar with.

In addition to the local smelting industry, there are a large number of foreign iron imports, Foshan alone, the annual import of foreign iron is as high as 10 million catties. It can be seen that in addition to the well-developed smelting industry in this region, there is also a strong manufacturing industry.

"Lord!" Ye Qichang, the county magistrate of Sanshui, was pale, sweat trickled down his forehead, and he knelt on the ground. "The lord has the world in his heart and intends to benefit eastern Guangdong. The subordinate is the pastor of the Sanshui side, and he also feels the same way. However, if the furnace industry is prosperous and a workshop is opened, it is bound to be a gathering of displaced people, and the good and the bad are mixed. And the farmer does not want to farm, but only wants to make profits. Tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of young and middle-aged men gathered here, which will inevitably lead to high prices and chaos in public order. For the sake of local tranquility, please also ask the lord to take back his life! ”

There are two sides to the so-called affairs, and what the magistrate sees is only the shortage of agricultural production labor that may result from the concentration of a large number of laborers in the smelter and various factories for industrial production. In turn, the daily needs of a large number of laborers have led to soaring prices and social unrest.

If it had been someone else, I was afraid that this official who dared to disobey his will would have been dragged out long ago, and it would have been possible to scold and whip him at best, or kill him on the spot. But Li Shouhan was smiling, for this official who can think and find possible problems. Instead of being annoyed, he admired it. At least, this guy is willing to use his brain, the so-called level of finding problems, and solving problems is ability.

"Taizun is worried about this? These many young and strong men and hedgehogs are gathered in one place, which is naturally easy to induce incidents. Moreover, the demand for grain, vegetables, and meat is naturally extremely huge. But. Huang Caidong, you also employ a lot of people in those porcelain kilns, how do you manage them? ”

Li Shouhan did not answer directly, but kicked the ball to Huang Qiying.

Huang Qiying opened a large-scale porcelain factory in Ha Jing and other places, and hired more than 10,000 workers to open kilns, working day and night, producing various colors of porcelain in units of 10,000 pieces every month.

"The decaying little bit of industry, where can it get into the eyes of the lord, but it will make the lord laugh! But. When it comes to the things of daily life, the old man can pat his chest and say that the public security situation and the prices of goods in the vicinity are also stable. It didn't make too many waves, but it gave the villagers in the left more ways to make money. Huang Qiying also responded to Li Shouhan's proposal with a smile.

"Sanshui County, if you are worried that the re-establishment of the iron industry in Foshan Town to build military utensils will affect local security and cause food price fluctuations, you might as well go to Hejing for a while. Go and see how the security and supplies are going to be there. ”

With such a dispatch from his grandfather, Ye Qichang of Sanshui Zhixian County naturally did not dare to slack off. After sorting out all the affairs in the county, it will be handed over to the county to be handled. But he didn't dare to make too many mistakes, so he just went to Foshan Town to ask to see Huang Qiying, trying to get some support from this knowledgeable old horse.

In the courtyard-style Huang Mansion, which is full of rich Cantonese residential characteristics, Huang Qiying ordered the maid to bring Shixin fruits and exquisite refreshments, "The old decay has been in Nanzhong for a long time. In addition to the New Year's festival, he rarely stayed in his hometown, and was taken care of by his old parents. Thank you in advance. After speaking, Huang Qiying got up and slammed it to the ground.

"What does the old gentleman say! The old gentleman pioneered the trend and took the lead in opening a porcelain kiln in Nanzhong. Let my Sanshui children be thousands of miles away and have honor. This is all the credit of the old gentleman. Sanshui Zhixian adheres to the traditional principle of not offending the local officials of the giant room for the sake of government, and is naturally very polite to Huang Qiying, the current leader in Foshan's business community. It's even quite jealous.

"The old parents are polite!" Huang Qiying didn't pay too much attention to etiquette, and took a sip of the teacup in his hand: "Old parents, please!" ”

The tea is a good tea, the tea set is also quite exquisite, and the snacks and fruits are very exquisite. But how can Ye Qichang have the mind to taste tea? He just wanted to find out from Huang Qiying's mouth as soon as possible how to make Foshan stable and normal in the future.

"My parents are worried that in the future, there will be a lot of labor in Foshan, and these people will breed trouble when they have nothing to do. Second, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of sturdy men swarm here, and the price of grain, meat, vegetables and other things will skyrocket, making the villagers uneasy. Is old decay right? ”

"The old gentleman's words are exactly what the students are worried about." Ye Qichang couldn't help but feel a little shy, what he was worried about was as transparent as a bowl of water in front of this old guy.

"That's why Grandpa Guo wants his parents to go to Hejing and go to all parts of Nanzhong! If the old parents had gone through this experience, they would not have such thoughts. ”

"What do you mean, old gentleman?"

"Although the laws practiced by the Guogong in the two places have been widely criticized, they have only repaired and reformed the laws of the national dynasty. If my parents had visited Nanzhong, they would have known that the system of finance, taxation, money and food there was completely different from that of the mainland. Grain, oil, and salt are all purchased and sold at prices set by the government, and businessmen can only act within the scope of these regulations. Grain, after paying the land endowment, the peasants can choose to sell it to grain merchants or choose to sell it to officials. In order to prevent the peasants from being hurt by the low grain, the officials often collected surplus grain from the peasants at two or three times or even four times the market price. The surplus grain that the old man said is the surplus grain in addition to the rations, seeds, and the righteous warehouses in the villages and towns! ”

"Quadruple the price?" Ye Qichang was so shocked that his jaw almost dislocated on the spot, so wouldn't the official family go bankrupt? "Sir, please make it clear."

"Ha Jing's smelting industry, acting in conjunction with several mines on the left, uses hundreds of thousands of people? Mining ore and burning coke around the clock, the blast furnace is day and day non-stop, and the furnace fire reflects half the sky! The scale of Hejing alone is several times better than that of my Foshan, and I have never seen what my old parents said and worried about! ”

"How could such a miracle happen?" Ye Qichang, who is full of poetry and books, thinks that he also knows how to learn from the world, even if he wants to break his head, he can't understand how Grandpa Guo achieved such a level.

"It's so simple! The official family has food. It is supplied cheaply to workers in various factories. The villagers in the vicinity of the village even sell the meat, poultry, fish, shrimp and vegetables they raise to factories and mines, and these workers will work hard to make money when they have a stable grain. How can there be any idle things happening? ”

Huang Qiying said foaming at the mouth, quite rising, seeing that Ye Qichang was still a little like falling into the clouds, even if he ordered someone to take pen, ink, paper and inkstone. Written and drawn for this old parent on paper, he sketched a picture of the industrial area of Hejing.

Under Huang Qiying's pen, Ha Tinh Industrial Zone gradually appears on paper.

With the blast furnace as the core, the periphery is dotted with the General Administration of Mines, which is responsible for mining iron ore, the coal mine responsible for mining coal and the coking plant for smelting coke, and next to the blast furnace for smelting high-speed rail, there are several large-scale manufacturing plants, arsenals, research institutes, and then a large number of small-scale steel processing enterprises. The nearby family area is like a series of small towns, except that there are no city walls, and the rest is no different from the provincial capital of Guangzhou. Tea houses, restaurants, wine shops, inns. In order to give those energetic workers a place to put out the fire, there are even a bunch of various halls of different grades opened by Hu Dan and Professor Lin in the depths of the alley.

Then the family area of the steel mill belongs to the management of Ha Jing Fu, called Hegang District, and the district head is at the same level as the county order, except that there is no city wall, the others are no different from the county seat. Then the government was gone, replaced by the police, the fire department and the city management. The police are responsible for law and order. The fire department is responsible for fire prevention, while the urban management is responsible for street and market management.

Moreover, the expenses of the police, fire protection, and urban management should be uniformly allocated by the state government. It is no longer the officials of Ha Tinh or Ha Gang District who use fire to feed.

"In this way, if Foshan recreates the grand occasion of the year, it will be a great thing?" Ye Qichang's eyes gradually shone brightly.

"Yes! As the saying goes, where there is demand, there will be supply. Not to mention, the three meals a day of all kinds of food consumed by these workers every day is a big enough business to make the farmers in the nearby counties happy! ”

Huang Qiying shook her head and introduced her experience to Ye Qichang without showing off: "My porcelain kiln." However, more than 10,000 people were used, and the daily food and rice needed to provide three meals a day plus supper for the night shift workers who took care of the stove fire required hundreds of stones, as well as all kinds of meat and wine. The diet of leaders and craftsmen at all levels is even more costly. Roughly calculated, the daily food expenses are hundreds of silver dollars to spend! But my brother-in-law who is responsible for procuring vegetables, meat, grains and rice is busy! ”

Huang Qiying's appearance, as a passerby, suddenly made Ye Qichang see a way to make money. Since you can let your cheap brother-in-law be responsible for the food procurement of your porcelain kiln, then this official can also let his henchmen be responsible for the food of the entire Foshan iron industry!

"Good is good. But where should we find the food and rice of these hundreds of thousands? Ye Qichang was a little sincere and pretended to be confused.

"Old parents, don't play tricks on the old man. Now that the whole Hejing, and even the entire Nanzhong, have bumper harvests year after year, I'm afraid that the lord is worrying about how to deal with those old grains every day, and you are still worried that the grain will not come from? Just ask the lord to allow Nanzhong Grain and Rice to enter Foshan without being affected by the quota. In this way, I am afraid that the entire land in eastern Guangdong, not only will the grain price not rise, but I am afraid that it will fall slightly. When those farmers see that they can't make any money from growing grain, they will naturally find ways to raise fish, feed chickens, raise pigs, and grow vegetables. If the old man were you, he would have built a number of houses in Foshan to provide shops for those merchants from all over the world! ”

Intentionally or unintentionally, Huang Qiying pointed out Ye Qichang a means to make a fortune without moving.

In fact, this is not the only way to make a fortune.

When Ye Qichang returned to Foshan after an investigation from Ha Jing, he was pleasantly surprised to find that in fact, if Foshan is managed according to Ha Jing's municipal management model, it is a good deal to clean up the street garbage!

"A large number of outsiders have caused a lot of garbage to be generated, and if the population gathering area is not hygienic, it is easy to break out of the plague. Therefore, we must do a good job of drainage, sewerage, garbage cleaning and sanitation. In order to prevent the spread of the plague, the official planned to build a number of public toilets, build sewers, and open garbage stations in Foshan and other places. ”

And garbage is actually a misplaced resource as well, and a lot of household waste seems to be mostly available as fertilizer. Truckloads of garbage and manure were taken out of the city by contractors, sold to farmers, or burned to landfills. Of course, these are all subject to cost.

"Brother-in-law, this is the usual money this month." Ye Qichang's distant cousin, who was a deacon in a stall opened by Professor Lin, stuffed the silver ticket in the envelope into the boots of Ye's parents.

Ye Qichang, who was an honest official, refused to look at it, so he just wrote the bookcase, and sent a letter to the lord Li Shouhan, requesting that railroad tracks be laid on several riverside wharves in Foshan and transported by four-wheeled carriages. In order to achieve the purpose of smooth flow of goods!

"After the trial between the iron yard and the arsenal, the effect was extraordinary, and the subordinates were dull, and the merchants and citizens requested that they be handled in the docks and other places."

This was two years later. At that time, Li Shouhan had already gone to Nanjing. (To be continued.) )