"The largest cotton merchant in Nanjing is Li Long of Weitang."

Following the owner's side, Sun Jiaqin said.

"Wei Tang?"

I've never heard of this place.

"The owner, there is a sentence in Nanzhili that "you can't buy Songjiang cloth, you can't collect Weitang yarn", which means that there is more cloth in Songjiang and more yarn in Weitang, but Songjiang cloth is inseparable from Weitang yarn. But not many people know that Wei Tangsha is inseparable from Li Jiamian! Without the Li family's transfer of cotton from all over the world in Nanjing, Weitang yarn would definitely be less than half. ”

It's so awesome!

This person has to be visited.

However, it doesn't seem appropriate to come to the door empty-handed. When he was thinking about how to come to talk about business, he thought of an interesting story in another time and space, Shi Yiwen's eyes lit up, and he suddenly had an idea in his heart.

On this day, Li Long, who had just come back from the dock, was thinking about when to go back to Weitang's hometown and settle the old accounts, when he got home, he saw a young man in a Confucian robe sitting in his own hall, and his cousin Li Yizheng was accompanying him.

"Big brother, this is Shi Zhiyuan of Limin Oil Mill, Shi Dongjia."

When Li Yi got up to introduce, Shi Yiwen also stood up from his chair and saluted.

"Under Shi Yiwen, I've seen Brother Li!"

Li Long glanced at the young man in front of him, and secretly said that this person was too young, and he seemed to have just started to grow hair (1), at most eighteen or nineteen years old, so he said with a smile.

"Brother Xian is polite, I don't know why Brother Xian came to the door?"

When Li Long looked at Shi Yiwen, Shi Yiwen was also looking at him, in the past two days, he also had a preliminary understanding of Li Long in Weitang, the Li family has been in business for generations, and made a fortune in Weitang by trafficking cotton, and at least thirty percent of Weitang's cotton comes from the Li family. Aside from future generations, such a person is the "cotton king".

"To tell you the truth, Brother Li, this time the younger brother came here to talk about business with Brother Li."

With a smile on his face, Shi Yiwen did not directly pick out the intention.

"I don't know what kind of business it is?"

Glancing at Li Yi standing next to him, Li Long knew that he had always been steady, and since he brought it over, he would definitely not be able to be the master.

Cotton? Still is?

"The little brother didn't come here to talk to you about the cotton business, but to show you something!"

After saying this, Shi Yiwen pointed to the wooden box in the house and said.

"The little brother got a gadget and wanted to ask Brother Li to give him a long look!"

"Big brother, this is a good thing!"

Li Yiyu hurriedly added on the side, if it weren't for Shi Yiwen being here, it is estimated that he would have already said the benefits of this thing. It was just a little bit of a try before, and he was immediately dumbfounded.

"Oh, then I'll see."

As when he first came to Li's house, he directly opened the lid of the wooden box, revealing a wooden box, Li Long walked over and looked up and down the wooden box, there was a crank on the left side of the wooden box, and there were several wooden wheels on the right, and the wooden wheels were wrapped in cow belts.

"It's ......"

Seeing that there seemed to be some cotton left in the box, Li Long really became interested.

"Big brother, it's similar to the four-legged churn in our shop, but it's much better than the four-legged churn."

The "four-legged stirring car" in Li Yi's mouth is a device for rolling cotton and removing seeds, and cotton is the first to be removed by hand stripping, which is time-consuming and laborious, and has low efficiency. Around the time of the Song Dynasty, there was a rush rubbing method. The rush rubbing method uses an iron rod and a pallet, and during the operation, the seed cotton is placed on the pallet, and the cotton is rolled with an iron rod. Later, people invented more efficient rockers on the basis of the rubbing method. In the Ming Dynasty, on this basis, there was a four-legged mixer, which could be operated independently by one person, and the efficiency was higher.

"Oh, really?"

"Brother Li, this is a model of a cotton gin made by my younger brother!"

Shi Yiwen said with a smile.

This cotton tie machine is the magic weapon that Shi Yiwen used to knock on the door of the Li family, what is the most important thing for such a cotton king? Not money, but devices that are closely related to them.

The structure of the cotton gin is very simple, but it is cleverly conceived. The main body of the machine is a cylinder, and a large number of steel teeth are installed on the cylinder wall; When the cylinder rotates, the steel teeth forcibly tear the cotton wool off the cotton seeds, and use centrifugal force to filter out the cotton seeds, and throw the cotton fibers out. In another time and space, it was Whitney in the United States who invented it at the end of the 18th century, and it was Whitney's cotton gin that made cotton a competitive crop in the United States, quickly replacing tobacco as the backbone of the American economy, and likewise enabling the resurgence of slavery in the South.

"Brother Li, you see, in general, this cotton gin is similar to a four-legged churn, and the younger brother also built a cotton gin on the basis of it......"

This is not a lie, although there is no clear evidence that Whitney borrowed from the Chinese four-legged churn when he invented the cotton gin, but the two are very similar in principle, in fact, it is just an extra shell and a circle of iron nails on the rocker. In fact, while the Ming Dynasty learned Western technology, Chinese technology was also spread to Europe, and in the following hundred years, Europeans benefited a lot.

"So what's the difference between it and a four-legged mixer?"

Maybe it's a little smaller, Li Long thought to himself.

"Efficiency!"

Shi Yiwen smiled.

"The four-legged churn can ginn up to 10 catties of seed cotton a day, and the net cotton is only three to four catties, but its efficiency is higher, almost ten times that of the four-legged churn!"

"What! Ten times over! ”

Look at the machine in amazement. Li Long saw Shi Yiwen turning the handle with one hand, stuffing cotton with the other, and as he rotated, the cotton kept spit out from the other side,

"Big brother, you see, the cotton it drives out is looser and looser than the four-legged churner, and this kind of cotton spinning is better! And it can drive a hundred catties of cotton a day, and one person can drive a hundred catties! ”

When Li Yi picked up a ball of cotton and gave it to Li Long, Li Long held the ball of cotton and looked at this small cotton gin in surprise. Shi Yiwen said with a smile.

"Brother Li, this is just a model, if Brother Li is interested, you can ask the craftsman to build a larger cotton gin according to the same, and then drive it with water power, in this way, I estimate that I can roll at least a thousand catties of cotton a day!"

A thousand pounds of cotton!

That's it! It can replace a hundred laborers! Not to mention anything else, just such a thing can make the family use fewer workers and pay less wages!

Of course, more importantly, he can at least increase the family's cotton shipments several times, which is the most important thing. After all, there are many times when it is not that the cotton cannot be sold, but that there is not enough cotton in the rush.

In a moment of horror, Li Long stared at this small "cotton gin model", and in addition to being excited, he also quickly calmed down.

"I don't know what kind of business Brother Xian wants to talk about with Brother Wei!"

After a pause, Li Long said again.

"If Brother Xian wants to sell this cotton gin to Brother Wei, please make an offer, Brother Wei will never bargain."

Li Long's boldness made Shi Yiwen show a sincere smile and said:

"Brother Li is polite, this cotton gin is a gift from the younger brother to Brother Tai!"

"Ahh

Rao is used to seeing the world, and in the face of such a generous gift, Li Long was also shocked and gasped, because he knew how thick this gift was.

Surprised, Li Long laughed, looked at Shi Yiwen and said.

"Frankly speaking, ordinary people would not dare to accept such a generous gift!"

Hearing this, Shi Yiwen asked with a smile.

"Ordinary people don't dare to ask for it, but Brother Li is not an ordinary person!"

Li Long stared at Shi Yiwen and asked directly.

"What do you want from me?"

"Cotton! I want all the cotton seeds of the Li family! From now on, I can only give it to me. ”

Hearing Shi Yiwen's words, Li Long was startled at first, and pondered slightly, what else can the oil mill do if he wants cotton? Just stared at him and asked.

"You have a way to squeeze oil out of cotton, more oil."

Squeezing cotton seed oil does not make money, because it is too difficult to squeeze, time-consuming and laborious, and there is no loss, since he wants cotton seeds, there must be a way to squeeze oil from cotton seeds, and it can also guarantee profits.

Seeing that Shi Yiwen smiled and didn't answer, Li Long thought about it and said again.

"Wuwen, a load of cotton Wuwen, three years, I don't know how the virtuous brother thinks it ......"

Hearing this, Shi Yiwen had a smile on his face, and secretly thought in his heart, he really deserved to be a businessman...... A loss-making business is not willing to do it for a long time...... We can't let people lose money.

"Five is too low, I'll add five more. Ten texts, five years, what do you think? ”

(1), "Chronicles and Memoirs" mentioned the situation of young men combing their buns in the late Ming Dynasty: "Men grow their hair at the age of sixteen, and their hair is long and draped over their shoulders...... Nowadays, women dress up in general, insert hairpins with flowers, and tie up their hair, which is called 'straight head', and the crown is 20 years old. "The head is a teenager with his hair growing