A transport ship belonging to the Bank of Taiwan has just sailed into the Ningbo Dinghai Port Terminal from the north and has begun the intense unloading work. In addition to standard-size ship boards, rigging, lead pipes, skins, wood tar, sulfur and other necessary parts for the maintenance of ships, there are also many urgently needed materials including machinery and munitions.

Among them, the arms were to be transported to Madang, Hukou, Yuezhou and other places to be handed over to the Shun army to support their war with the Qing state. Some of the machinery and equipment had to be used for their own use, and some of them had to be exported to the territory of Shunguo, so that they could put coal mines, brick kilns, timber processing factories and other enterprises into operation, and produce all kinds of materials urgently needed at the front to keep the war going. Considering that the Shunguo side might not have enough cash to pay for the purchase of these equipment and military funds, the Southern Pioneer Team even instructed the Bank of Taiwan to come forward and give them a certain amount of loans, so that they could transport the above-mentioned batch after batch of materials to Huguang as soon as possible.

Of course, many of these machinery and equipment are ordered by Ningbo, mainly some textile machinery, designed and produced by Heishui County, and the introduction of domestic early technology. However, even the early technology is still commendable in the Far East, which can greatly improve the efficiency of spinning and weaving, so that the cost of a piece of cloth is greatly reduced, and the competitiveness is growing rapidly.

The main reason why the local government agreed to set up a state-owned textile factory in Ningbo and lifted the ban on some corresponding textile technology and equipment is that the Europeans have also made a breakthrough in this regard, and there is no need to keep the technology secret: the breakthrough is the British textile enterprises, who have made a breakthrough through their own painstaking research and digestion of the technology of the Netherlands on the other side of the strait, and at the same time combing all kinds of textile information from the east coast, and finally invented a spinning machine similar to the Jenny spinning machine, which is of great significance. At the same time, weaving technologies such as shuttles, which had been invented for a long time, suddenly made revolutionary progress in England's textile technology, and industrial expansion was imminent.

And for the East Coasters, after enjoying nearly fifty years of technological dividends, it is finally over. From now on, the East Coast and Europe textile technology in principle is not much different, the East Coast leading, nothing more than more optimized design, larger scale, more mechanized production, better quality management system, the difficulty of product competition is much higher than in the past, they need to redouble their efforts in the future - of course, since ancient times there is no dying dynasty, the East Coast textile people have enjoyed fifty years of good times, if the future can not compete with the Europeans, then there is nothing to say, they deserve to have no food.

The State Textile Administration, considering that the English had made a breakthrough (in fact, this is a matter of time), felt that it was no longer meaningful to do a technical blockade, but to tie the hands and feet of its colonies, so it happily approved the transfer of textile technology to the three places, including Xinhuaxia (cotton textile), Australia (wool textile), and Ningbo, and sold textile machinery, and immediately began to put it into practice.

The machines will be installed at the Cixi River plant in Dinghai County, near the wharf. There is no doubt that this is a water-powered plant, for which Dinghai County has invested in an additional reservoir and power canal to be used as a power source for all spinning and weaving equipment in the factory. In order to improve the efficiency of the use of these powers, the government of the Southern Pioneer Team plans to invest in an additional semi-mechanized silk reeling factory, which has not yet been officially put on the agenda.

With the investment of the government of the Southern Pioneer Team in the establishment of these textile enterprises, this also means that the Ningbo Prefecture, which is increasingly populated and has less land, has begun its economic transformation, that is, under the condition of continuing to maintain a certain scale of traditional agriculture (providing a certain amount of grain, which may not be enough to consume, but to stabilize the lower limit), it began to open up a large number of cotton fields and mulberry fields as it did in the late Ming Dynasty, develop the cotton textile industry and the silk weaving industry, and make a profit from exports - the export market still seems to be dominated by the three feudatories of the Far East, and silk fabrics may be sold to Korea, Japan and other places. But cotton textiles can only be digested by themselves.

Some people may say, why not sell these cotton cloths to the territory of the Qing Kingdom? Ahem, this is a bit embarrassing, just as the British in the last years of the Qing Dynasty could not explain why the cotton textiles produced in Bengal could not compete with Chinese native cloth, the people on the east coast are currently facing a somewhat embarrassing situation, that is, the cotton textiles smuggled into the territory of the Qing Dynasty (shipped from the mainland) are relatively small, one is the comprehensive cost is relatively high, and the other is actually due to the quality.

Yes, you heard it right, it's the quality! According to later historical records, at the end of the 19th century, the compradors who acted as agents of foreign cloth preached "seven or eight out of ten clothiers" (such as the big comprador Zheng Guanying), but foreign businessmen complained to the consuls of various countries that it was difficult to enter the Chinese market, even the textiles produced by machines around China could not be sold, for the simple reason that "the power of the hand-weaving industry is the main obstacle preventing every Chinese from wearing Lancashire cotton cloth."

But why?

According to the later Blackburn Chamber of Commerce in Lancashire, "it is well known that the thousands of lower classes who toiled in 18 provinces and other large lands Chinese passed on their native cloth without wearing foreign cloth...... The poor wear homespun cloth because it lasts three to five times longer than foreign cloth, because it is not easily torn, and because it is much warmer in winter. Thus, when a wealthy merchant wears three or four sets of beautiful foreign cloth garments, the workers, peasants, porters, and boatmen will be satisfied, and will be satisfied, with a set of clothes that are coarse, but in fact of a better texture. ”

The British at the end of the 19th century could not solve this dilemma. Because of the nature of machine weaving, it is difficult for them to achieve the ultimate in the same way as craftsmen, not to mention that they have a greater problem in terms of cost. You must know that cotton cloth from India to China, to transport costs, insurance costs, import and export duties, to give compradors enough profit margins, this cost is already very high, if the cost of increasing the product's woven fabric, it is unacceptable to them.

In contrast, spinning and weaving are completely the sideline business of Chinese farmers, that is to say, they do not calculate their own time and labor costs, which makes the cost of homespun cloth to an outrageous degree, coupled with the importance of Chinese to cash, they are not very willing to spend cash to buy daily necessities, so the homespun cloth that can be exchanged for eggs, grain, fruits, salt, leather, medicinal herbs and other items has a high competitive advantage, and it is normal to beat foreign cloth to the ground. At this time, the British had no choice but to resort to non-economic and market means, as they had historically done.

The East Coasters will have the same trouble as the British in history. Therefore, the cotton cloth shipped from the local area, for many years, is often only marketed in the Far East three feudatories, but some woolen products will have some sales in the Qing Dynasty, this point, the southern development team has long been clear, so they set up factories to produce, mainly facing the local market, for the Qing territory to obtain profits, is really not too confident.

Of course, the textile industry is a special case to some extent. In this industry, the machine textile industry on the east coast was humiliating and could not compete with the native cloth, but in industries such as steel and metal products, the people on the east coast could easily beat the Manchus, Nanming and Dashun, and the iron and steel bars produced by Heishui were sold everywhere, and even the Qing were trying to smuggle them back from Denglai or Ningbo, because they were so useful.

In addition to setting up textile enterprises in Ningbo, the East Coast people have also attracted foreign and private capital through patent licensing, joint stock fund-raising, etc., and invested in a number of small-scale workshop-type enterprises, such as Fenghua Xikou Paper Mill, Yinxian County West Felt Carpet Factory, Dinghai Brick Kiln Factory, Simingshan Roasted Tea Factory, Southern Printing Factory, Ningbo Gas Company (a wholly-owned subsidiary of East Coast Gas Company), Yinxian Water Plant, etc.

Basically, these enterprises were set up in recent years on the basis of the lifting of the technological ban, just as factories have sprung up on both sides of the Jiaoyan Line in Shandong and in port cities such as Yantai, Weihai and Jiaozhou, which are the result of the Executive Committee's relaxation of restrictions on the development of the Far East San Francisco. Although most of the daily necessities produced by these enterprises are related to the daily life of the people, and the enterprises with technological content are basically still locked within the confines of Sakhalin Island (especially those that use steam power to produce products), they are quite good compared to the past.

The establishment of these enterprises is undoubtedly crucial to the prosperity of Ningbo's local economy and the increase of jobs. Taking the coastal garment factory in Dinghai County as an example, this year it has received an order to make more than 3,000 sets of woolen military uniforms for the Li Shun regime (custom-made for officers), and at the same time, it has also undertaken an order to provide 2,000 sets of military uniforms for the newly recruited non-commissioned officers of the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army.

Another example is the Simingshan Roasted Tea Factory, which was jointly invested by the government of the Southern Pioneer Team, the Fenghua County Government, the Bank of Taiwan and some Ningbo businessmen with a huge investment of 250,000 yuan, which employed more than 700 workers to produce more than 50 kinds of brick tea, with a daily output of more than 9,000 baskets.

The government invested more than 20,000 yuan to set up the Yinxian Southern Printing Factory, employing more than 30 workers, with an annual output value of more than 10,000 yuan. There are also many workshops engaged in lead printing and lithographing that follow the trend of the people in the county, often only investing thousands of yuan, employing 5-10 small workers, you can open a carving hall, and the profit is not bad.

The Zhaoxing Rice Mill in Cixi County, with an investment of 75,000 yuan, employs nearly 100 workers, produces an average of about 500 quintals of rice per day, and the annual output value is about 1.5 million yuan;

The Ningbo government's large amount of idle capital and a population of 1 million or hundreds of thousands provided good conditions for these industrial enterprises that seemed to have sprung up overnight, and these were naturally not original, but the wealth accumulated by the people on the east coast after 30 years of hard work in Ningbo. This kind of wealth has been accumulated for 30 years, and once it was taken out of the shackles, it immediately developed explosively under the guidance of the government, which in turn provided a new impetus for the development of the local economy.

As Ma Wenqiang pointed out at the cadre work conference he chaired: "Mechanized large-scale industrial production is a landmark product of human beings getting rid of the Middle Ages and entering a modern society. Although Ningbo cannot achieve the same level as the mainland, it can give priority to the development of some basic industries related to people's livelihood, and at the same time provide local governments with sufficient financial resources to make various responses to the increasingly elusive situation in Chinese mainland. ”

In fact, as Ma Wenqiang said at the meeting, the most direct benefit brought about by the lifting of the ban on the civilian industry of the Far Eastern San Francisco is the great increase in the level of productivity in the San Francisco, which naturally corresponds to the enhancement of the ability of the pioneer government to allocate resources, because they have more wealth at hand. And the increase in wealth, in addition to improving people's livelihood and developing infrastructure, can naturally support more troops, and can better carry out their innate strategic task while maintaining their own security - to collect more people to immigrate to the East Coast, the more the better!

According to the local government's recent diplomatic relations to the Far East, in the future, the area under the jurisdiction of the Southern Pioneer Team will basically be dominated by light industry and the production of daily necessities, and the area under the jurisdiction of the Denglai Pioneer Team will be dominated by manufacturing industries with a certain content such as mechanical processing. As for the most eye-catching area of the Heishui Pioneer Team, there is no doubt that the most advanced and sensitive technologies are still given priority to settle here, and it can be said that it is dominated by high-tech heavy industry, which seems to be inconspicuous, but it is the basis for the development of industry in Ningbo and Denglai.

There is undoubtedly a certain degree of technological generation gap between these industrial enterprises and the local area (for example, the core power is still not the steam engine, which makes the machine performance impossible to be very good), but for Chinese mainland and Europeans, it is still breathtaking, especially the beauty of industrial production they show, which is even more impressive.

Their existence is not an opportunity for the ancient continent of China, and it depends on whether they can take the opportunity to change their thinking and attitude, and learn with an open mind. After all, this kind of opportunity is not common, and the Manchu court did not open its eyes until the end of the Qing Dynasty, but now the Chinese have received this opportunity 200 years in advance.