By the end of May 1874, two new commodities had appeared in the markets under the Manchu rule - matches and soap. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Matches, people at this time may not be very familiar, if you change the name everyone will know, foreign fire, as early as 1865, foreign fire appeared in China, and China's first match factory until 1879 to create, now the Chinese themselves production of matches appeared five years in advance, the price is cheap, small households can also afford to use, it is very convenient to make a fire.

Soap has many uses, whether it is washing clothes, washing hands, washing face, washing hair or bathing, soap can be used, not only can be washed cleaner, but also conducive to hygiene, but the latter role you tell others, others do not understand, in addition to the cheap public can afford to buy ordinary soap, there are slightly expensive soap with aroma for sale, this soap is the choice of large families.

Through Gan's firm has spread all over the country, matches and soap quickly spread to the whole country, low prices so that the sales of matches and soap increased rapidly, but because of the output, matches and soap can only be sold in the provincial capitals, completely unable to meet this big market.

It is estimated that every month matches and soap can bring nearly 60,000 taels of silver to the Yan family business house (mainly the income of soap and soap is high), this income is not low, hearing this news, the six old people of the Yan family are full of wrinkles and old people are also smiling, seeing that everyone is smiling, and at the same time, their identification with Yan Xueyi, the young patriarch, has been further improved.

The production of matches and soap in the Yuanhe Industrial Zone alone was far from meeting the needs of the national market, and Gan's firm needed to add new factories and at the same time set up factories with other forces to deepen its relationship.

The match factory is good to say, the soap factory is going to be in trouble, because the manufacture of soap requires electricity, and now there are few places in the country with electricity in the Manchu Dynasty, so the soap factory can only give up, and the Yuanhe Industrial Zone is not ready to add a new factory, but the match factory can continue to cooperate.

According to market calculations, matches are far from being able to meet the market with low prices, and at least dozens of match factories must be opened in the country, and the income of match factories is far less than that of glass factories, so a match factory Yan's firm is only ready to find a partner, and if there are fewer partners, Yan's firm will choose those with the best relationship and the bad relationship, then forget it.

This time, Gan's firm also only took technology, but it should account for 30% of the shares, which should be within the acceptable range of partners.

Soon the Yan's firm will be all over the country match factory partners to find a good good, around the match factory under construction, is expected to the country's match factory construction is completed into production, every month to the Yan firm can bring more than 20,000 taels of silver income, far less than the glass factory income, after all, the profit of the match is relatively low, there is this income is good, and the Yan family's shares have also increased from two percent of the glass factory to three percent of the match factory, obviously the foundation of the Yan family has increased, and the confidence to negotiate with other forces is also increasing, In addition, this is also a simple technology investment of Gan's, and it does not need to be responsible for the cost of building a factory.

When the construction of match factories across the country is completed and put into use, plus the income of the glass factory and the soap factory, as well as the business of the Gan firm itself, almost the income of the Gan business bank can reach 200,000 taels of silver a month, which is 2.4 million taels of silver a year, which is really a huge income, of course, this is only for the Yan family whose assets have just reached 1 million taels of silver.

Qiao Zhiyong, one of the most famous businessmen in the late Qing Dynasty, expects that the assets of the entire Qiao family will reach tens of millions of taels of silver, and there is a red-top businessman Hu Xueyan, whose assets are as high as 20 million taels of silver at the highest time, and the Yan family is less than one-tenth of the assets compared with them, and the top businessmen of the Manchu Dynasty at this time do not pay much attention to the Yan family's firm, at most, it is because of the glass products that the Yan family fell into their eyes, and then they may forget, well, the current Yan family is just a dispensable small role, Yan Xueyi, the young patriarch, has to work hard to make the Yan family a behemoth.

Although the glass factory, match factory, and soap factory of Gan's firm are very profitable, in fact, the output of these factories is not high compared to the modern factory, and the factory established by Gan's firm can only be said to have advanced production technology, but the production process is still ancient, and the whole factory has very little iron machinery and equipment, mostly some wooden tools, plus a lot of manpower to produce and manufacture, can the output of such a factory be high?

It's a pity that this is also a way to do it, Yan Xueyi can also come up with higher production technology, but there is no such condition, compared to the secondary industrial leather. In the Western world, the level of science and technology and productivity have greatly improved, while the scientific and technological development of the Manchu Dynasty does not dare to be complimented.

However, the Qing Dynasty was not completely without progress, from the 60s of the 19th century, the Westernists launched a "self-improvement" and "wealth-seeking" movement to introduce Western military equipment, machine production and science and technology to maintain feudal rule -- the Westernization Movement, under the auspices of Li Hongzhang and others, a number of large-scale modern military industries such as the Jiangnan Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, the Jinling Manufacturing Bureau, the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, and the TJ Machinery Bureau came out one after another. In just a few years, China has developed the capacity to cast iron, make steel, and produce a wide range of military products, including new weapons such as cannons, firearms, ammunition, mines, and steamships.

However, this is useless, not to mention that all the construction is military industry, and after they are completed, they are already lagging behind the Western countries, which is equivalent to the Western countries taking their backward technology to the Manchu Qing and selling it for a large price, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty is a big wrongdoer.

Although the military industry has made great progress compared with before, there is little progress in the civilian industry, and the civilian industry of the Manchu Dynasty only started in the 70s of the 19th century, and there was basically no civilian industry or foreigners before that.

The glass factory, match factory, and soap factory of Gan's firm can also buy various machines from Western merchants to increase production, but if you think about it, these machines need to be shipped from Europe, how long does it take to ship to China, at least half a year back and forth, fortunately there is now a cable telegraph, so it will take several months to ship the machines from Europe, and a series of problems such as the production time of the machines, I don't know how long it will take to install the machines needed in the factory. Therefore, the production process that Yan Xueyi took out was mostly to reduce the use of machinery, and to use a large amount of manpower, and the labor cost of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was very low, compared with the use of more machinery, the cost did not increase much, but the output was less.

Even so, Gan's firm and its partners are still making money.