In the Little Rock Cotton Chamber of Commerce, a group of dismal businessmen sat together drinking tea and complaining.

With Little Rock as the center and up the Arkansas River, more than a dozen textile towns have emerged. The textiles of these cities are distributed in Little Rock, making Little Rock the largest textile trading center in the area, and Little Rock is connected to New Orleans by waterway, and the most convenient way to use cheap textiles is to take the waterway, so New Orleans cannot be bypassed.

The Mississippi River and the Mississippi River, without this golden waterway, Little Rock would not have been able to develop.

A large number of coal mines were found in the mountains of the upper Arkansas River, which were easily transported to Little Rock by water.

Ten years ago, the year the war ended, American cotton entered in large quantities, and local cotton prices plummeted. Cai Li, a prophet of Chunjiang plumbing duck and a trader in textiles and cotton, found that it was profitable to produce low-cost woven fabrics in Little Rock with the best machines and low coal and cotton prices.

So he introduced new technology from the United States, and the cotton textile technology of the United States was imported from Britain, but the Americans did it more intensively, and when the technical level was comparable, the American factories were larger, with fewer people and more machines. Labor costs in the United States are similar to those in China and North America, and the machines introduced by Cai Li quickly paid off.

At this time, Arkansas had its own machine processing industry because of transportation and the textile of Nanjing cloth, and the new machine was soon copied locally, which was different from Cai Li's imagination, and he did make a lot of profits as the first person to eat crabs.

But soon the successor surpassed him in profit, not because his factory was not advanced enough, nor because there was a problem with his management. Rather, the successors found that spinning was more profitable than weaving. China has been importing a lot of cotton, and there is no reason not to import cotton yarn, Cai Li's textile factory is an American-style factory that integrates spinning and weaving. Local merchants began to intensively produce cotton yarn, and the scale of the mill was very large, and the cost was kept to a minimum.

The southern part of the Americas has become the center of cotton production in the world, with Americans growing cotton with black slaves, and Chinese growing cotton along the Arkansas and Colorado Rivers, which was previously transported to China by port or by water to Little Rock.

As a result, their cotton yarn was not only supplied locally, but also shipped to China in large quantities. At most, it is local consumption, because the North American territory of China is a traditional Chinese society of male farmers and female weavers, where every family has land and every family is a homesteader farmer. The agricultural output is enough for a family to solve the problem of food and clothing, but the price of other products is high, so like Cai Li's partner Cai Shi, many skilled housewives are used to spinning and weaving at home.

Machine cotton yarn was tighter than handmade cotton yarn and quickly gained popularity and spread throughout the vast North America.

With the vigorous development of the cotton yarn industry in the area of Little Rock, the machine manufacturing industry has been stimulated, the cost of machinery has decreased, the price of cotton yarn has become more competitive, and the local cotton industry has also begun to appear. Within a decade, it expelled native textiles from the central part of the Americas, and also entered the southern market of the United States, importing cotton from the southern part of the United States and exporting manufactured goods to the southern United States.

But the largest market in North America, in fact, is on the west coast of the Americas, where the population is the largest, Chinese immigrants came here first, so that the population here exceeds 20 million, but they are concentrated in the narrow coastal plain, densely populated, there are many cities, the market is large, but this market, because it is connected to the mainland by sea, the eastern textiles have not been able to enter here.

The opening of the Panama Canal was supposed to be an opportunity for them to monopolize the whole of the Americas, like the western silk industry, but the Americans abruptly closed New Orleans and refused to allow merchant ships from Panama to dock on the grounds that Panama was a disputed area occupied by China and Spanish territory, and the United States did not believe it could trade with it until the legal dispute was resolved.

"Looks like we're going to have to move to Houston."

With the connection of the railroad and the huge population size of China, Houston has become the same size as New Orleans, but the bulk commodities in the Great Plains area are still mainly through New Orleans, because the steamship on the Mississippi River is much cheaper than the railroad, and Houston has no advantage compared with New Orleans.

"Alas. You said that if the crown prince occupied the city of Aocheng (New Orleans) back then, why is he being choked by the Americans everywhere now! ”

A merchant sighed.

Cai Li sighed: "National affairs, it's not my turn to wait for businessmen to speak." ”

Cai Li is already a local merchant leader, and he took the lead in establishing the Cotton Chamber of Commerce, and he is already a leader in the business community in Arkansas. Through the Chamber of Commerce, he was often able to deal with local officials, and his social status improved, but he became increasingly dissatisfied.

A businessman smiled and said, "Your brother Cai is our leader, you can't speak?" ”

Cai Li snorted: "The head of the line is a fart, as long as he is still a businessman, he is not decent!" ”

A businessman clamoured, "That's right." Then American businessmen, do you look for trouble if you don't move? Let's not make trouble for the officials, aren't we too honest? ”

Cai Li sneered: "How do you want to find trouble?" ”

The merchant said: "We can go to the government to petition, send troops to fight the Americans, and give them some color to see!" ”

Cai Li shook his head: "You're making trouble for me!" ”

But the thought of petitioning suddenly flashed into everyone's mind, and it could not be erased.

Little Rock is not only a county seat, but also a provincial capital, and the political center of Central and Southern Province is here.

Cai Li handed over the name of the county magistrate in the name of the head of the cotton merchant bank, and was summoned three days later, and the county magistrate was an official in his thirties who had been transferred from Hubei. Compared to his predecessors, the young prefectural magistrate was quite arrogant, and his main accomplishments in Little Rock were the establishment of schools, and he did little to contribute to business. But most of the money he raised for the school was raised by businessmen.

Cai Li thought that for the sake of money, the county magistrate should also be polite to himself, but after talking to him for half an hour, let alone drinking saliva, he didn't even give him a seat.

This attitude made Cai Li a little annoyed, and he threatened that if the government ignored them, they would have to petition the government.

The county order was not threatened, and sneered and asked the housekeeper to send off the guests.

The petition was originally a joke, but at this time Cai Li took it seriously.

He consulted with the other merchants, and everyone flinched.

They all know that the class room of the government is not so easy to live in, and everyone has food and drink, so they can't get along with the government.

Cai Li's good friend, Cai, who has turned into a designer, proposed a plan at this time, if the man has no courage, then let the woman go, let the female workers in the factory go to block the yamen of the county order, he can't be rude to women and children.

Let the woman with the child hold the child and look at the face of the county order.

This is really a good way, the women are shouting that they have no food, holding their children to see the county order, but tens of thousands of female workers are scolding outside the door, where do the county orders dare to go out.

It is one way to send a telegram to ask for troops, but only the governor has the power to transfer auxiliaries, and the transfer of soldiers requires the domestic military department to write a letter. The point is that this telegram can't be beaten, telling the prefect and the governor that a group of women and children under his rule have rebelled and will be mobilized to suppress it, isn't it a joke.

Xiucai couldn't explain why he met Bing, but what he met now was a group of shrews, how could there be any reason.

The county magistrate knew why, and Leng Yan invited Cai Li from the Chamber of Commerce again, and told Cai Li that he was soft-spoken, and this kind of matter had been reported, and the adults of the Li Fan Yuan were negotiating, and they had nothing to do with him with the county order, and asked him to persuade the women outside the door to go back.

The tone of the county order had softened, and although it was still very arrogant, Cai Li was used to this, and he still wanted to take a step back.

In fact, if you think about it, sending troops to fight, this kind of thing is not done by him with a small county order, and the governor can't be the master, so it has to be the emperor to have the final say.

When I turned around, I discussed with the Cai family and withdrew everyone. But Cai's disagreed, she said that if she didn't make trouble this time, everyone's life would be even more difficult in the future.

It is required that the county order must give everyone an explanation, if he says that it does not count, he will go to the prefect's yamen, and if the prefect says that it does not count, he will go to the governor's yamen, and there will always be someone who has the final say.

Hundreds of thousands of female workers in more than a dozen county towns cannot go without food, and the government must give an explanation.

Cai Li felt that it made sense, and he negotiated with the county magistrate again, saying that the women refused to go back, because they had no work to do, and if they didn't work, they would have no food, and they wanted the government to give an explanation.

The county magistrate is about to cry, what kind of explanation do you want, what explanation can the government give, his county government can't set up a flowing water table for them to eat and drink every day.

Cai Li also said that if the county order can't be controlled, the rich people will have to go to the prefect's yamen and the governor's yamen.

This is an urgent matter, his face has been lost, if these female workers are allowed to block the prefect and the governor's yamen, he will not only be a matter of shame, his future will be over.

He immediately sent a telegram to the prefect for instructions, and the prefect strictly ordered him to persuade all the women to go back, and if they could not go, they would be allowed to stay in the county office, and resolutely not let them come to the prefect's yamen, let alone go to the governor's yamen.

The prefect put pressure on the county order, and turned around and had to ask the governor for help, explaining the seriousness of the problem.

The governor also had the same attitude, asking the prefect to keep people in the locality, and at the same time he also reported to the governor Huang Qiujiao.

Huang Qiuwei said that the lack of food for female workers is also a problem, and if they are allowed to do a good job, this year's tax will be exempted. Tax exemption is mainly a tax for factory owners, and it is easier for factory owners to communicate that they should pay their wages on time and not dismiss any female workers.

Cai Li suddenly found that his status in the business world had been greatly improved, and there were more people visiting him from cities near and far, all of whom thought that he was a person with a way, and asked him to help solve some troubles that could not be solved.

Guilds in other industries began to encourage him to form a general association, and everyone elected him as the head of the bank, and he came forward to negotiate with the government. The American merchant group, inadvertently united. A business organization called Seventy-Two Lines appeared in Little Rock, and merchants began to take on a new stage. And on the day of the completion of the Seventy-two Guild Hall, the county order even sent someone to send a plaque.