A sailboat returning from a long voyage shook a few times and then dropped anchor, its sails moving. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoThe tide has risen and the gale has subsided. The estuary of the Pearl River stretched out in front of Li Zuoyi's eyes, as if it were the beginning of an endless waterway. On the water in the distance, the sea and the sky are the same color, and there is no gap. Under the clear sky, several boats slowly sail through the tide. The beach is shrouded in a cloud of smoke, winding flat towards the sea and disappearing into the smoke and waves. The sky was overcast, and the further you went, the darker it became, condensing into a haze.

This wharf at the mouth of the Pearl River is a wharf that has just emerged in recent years. In the past two years, the once silent, declining Pearl River once again lively, prosperous, especially the rise of the Pearl River on both sides of the machine reeling silk factory, so that it regained the status taken away by Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Lake silk, although the quality of the lake silk is superior, but the production of soil silk does not meet the needs of foreign businessmen, in contrast, the quality of the silk is slightly inferior to the lake silk, but it is the quality of the machine reeling factory silk.

The rise of machine silk reeling has also brought an unprecedented impact to the traditional silk reeling industry, and some handicraft workshops have gone bankrupt. After its rise, the most serious setback was the "nylon hall". As the largest handmade silk reeling industry association in Lingnan, "Nylon Hall" brings together hundreds of handmade machine households, with more than 10,000 handmade silk loom workers and at least 5,000 machines. In the era of handicraft workshops, the strong production scale of "Nylon Tang" and the good reputation of Guangzhou silk, its products easily climbed the white marble steps of the Forbidden City thousands of miles away, and became the imperial treasures of the Manchu emperors and their favorite concubines.

For the "Nylon Hall", its real glory began with the trade policy of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The geographical advantage has enabled them to form a close cooperative relationship with the business bosses of the Thirteen Banks. Their products arrived at Guangzhou, the largest and even arguably the only trading port in East Asia at that time, and then set sail to the sea, dominating the markets of South Asia and Western countries for a long time. With the increase in trade volume, "Nylon Tang" has subdivided five major trading houses based on its sales market: Annan Cargo Company, Singapore Cargo Company, Mumbai Commodity Company, Silk Zhuang Company and Fuzhou Commodity Bank. The place where the parties negotiated the price and discussed the rules was set up in the "Nylon Hall" not far from the "Thirteen Lines".

However, the glory of "Nylon Hall" failed to last, just like the "Thirteen Lines", after the Opium War, the five-port trade made Guangzhou City no longer the only protagonist of China's foreign trade, and lost the geographical advantage after the "Nylon Hall" was rapidly immersed, and after ten years of trade with Wukou, "Nylon Hall" has no advantage in the international market, especially after the rise of machine reeling in the Pearl River area, the "Nylon Hall" that still adheres to the original management and production mode has fallen into unprecedented difficulties.

If you insist on putting it first, that is, the number of unemployed people attached to it can be regarded as the highest in South China.

Faced with a livelihood crisis, many weavers in the "Nylon Hall" attributed the shortage of raw silk to the existence of steam engine weaving. It is believed that mechanical silk reeling enterprises bought and hoarded silkworm cocoons in large quantities, robbing the livelihood of hand-weavers. Under the impetus of the Zhuang Hu and others of the "Nylon Hall", for a time, all kinds of slander and slander against the steam equipment were scattered. Some people even listed the four major "crimes" of steam engine silk reeling: first, the Chinese descendants used the strange skills of Westerners, which was suspected of treason; 2. The safety of steam equipment is poor and easy to hurt people's lives; 3. Men and women working together is immoral; Fourth, the chimney is towering and has feng shui.

Much of this deliberate agitation takes advantage of the lack of mechanical knowledge among the general population and the entrenchment of traditional morality. Steam silk reeling machine as a foreign item, in the eyes of a large number of ordinary people is nothing more than the "yellow-haired devil" of the tricks, regardless of its efficiency, the product is specially sold to the "ghost", since it is a ghost thing, then the descendants of China should stay away.

When craftsmen are just getting in touch with the machine, due to the lack of skill, the machine often hurts people. After propaganda and exaggeration, it did make many Chinese people resistant to steam reeling. At that time, the behavior of male and female workers was still despised by the traditional concept, and each mechanical silk reeling enterprise recruited about 400 female workers, while there were only more than 100 male workers, and the mixing of men and women was obviously contrary to traditional etiquette, which was undoubtedly a blatant provocation of the moral bottom line of ideological conservatives.

The Lingnan region has always paid the most attention to feng shui, and there are also a lot of attention to choosing a place to build a house, the steam machine is rumbling on weekdays, the whistle is like a ghost crying wolf, and the chimney is towering, which is often considered a bad thing by feng shui gentlemen.

However, for the dissatisfaction of the outside world, it seems that the owners of those machine silk reeling factories have never cared, on the one hand, they have all been supported by the government without exception, and even most of them have received loans from the official bank, and on the other hand, the profits of the factory silk are much higher than that of manual silk reeling, and it is precisely because of this that they have never worried about the dissatisfaction of the people.

But they did not notice this year because of the failure of the cocoon, the lack of soil and silk on the market, for a time the price of raw materials for silk reeling soared, many last year had barely made a living of the handmade machine owners have gone bankrupt, it is difficult to make a living, and without exception the reason is attributed to the machine reeling, almost every day there are bankrupt machine owners to go to the "nylon hall" to ask to sit in the hall for the machine owners to support, for this reason, as the president of the "nylon hall" Zhao Cunnan had to ask the government for help many times, after all, he knows the government's support for machine reeling.

"Lord Li, this year, silk factories all over the Yangtze River have rushed to buy silkworm cocoons, raising the price of silk, this rural machine owner can be said to have suffered a lot, in Guangzhou, the machine owner is tens of thousands, now five or six out of ten machine households are bankrupt, but also ask the adults for the stability of Guangzhou, limit the price of the silk factory to raise the price ......"

Zhao Cunnan, as the chairman of the "Nylon Hall," knew very well that it was impossible for the government to order the factory to close down and stop production when the government was fully supporting, but he had to tell the government that there were tens of thousands of people in Guangzhou whose livelihood was difficult to maintain, and if it continued like this, there would be chaos.

"Raise the price? If I'm not mistaken, this year's silk silkworm harvest is not good, the price is only two percent higher than in previous years, the price of cocoons is high, the price of raw silk is also high, the two offset should still be profitable, why is this handmade reeling household not livelihood? Why is it so hard to maintain? ”

Li Ziyuan did not pay attention to Zhao Cunnan's "threat", but asked the reason directly.

"This, this ......"

The governor's inquiry made Zhao Cunnan's words suddenly stammer.

"This, the quality of handmade silk reeling is not as good as the factory silk, the price is three percent lower than the factory silk, in previous years, when the price of cocoons was normal, it was natural to make a living, and now the price of cocoons is high, it is naturally difficult to maintain ......"

"Yilin, you're a businessman!"

Zhao Cunnan's answer made Li Ziyuan sneer, and then put down the teacup and looked at him and said.

"Since you are a merchant, how can you buy poor quality silk? The price of soil silk is low, and the cost is high, the price of factory silk is high, the cost is low, although the price of cocoon has risen this year, the profit of factory silk is still more than one percent higher than that of soil silk, the official wants to ask you, in this case, why does the official want to limit the price of silk factories? ”

In a sneer, Li Ziyuan glanced at Zhao Cunnan, in the past two years, "Nylon Hall" has always had the opportunity to establish a silk reeling factory, but they did not do it, not only did not do it, but spread all kinds of rumors among the people, what four major crimes of the machine, what machine eats people and other rumors made him really headache, fortunately, at that time, the gendarmes had maintained order in various places, if there was no deterrence of the gendarmes, these rumors would not know what chaos would cause.

"The price of cocoons has risen this year, but it is only because of the lack of harvest of silkworm cocoons, what is the cause and effect of the factory price increase? As the parents of the people of Guangdong, how can this official not save the profits of millions of cocoon farmers! ”

"My lord, don't you ask about the livelihood of tens of thousands of machine households in Xiguan, Guangzhou?"

Maybe it was because he was anxious, Zhao Cunnan directly expressed his confidence - tens of thousands of machine households in Xiguan!

"It is a matter of course that factory silk eliminates earth silk, just as guns eliminate broadswords and spears......"

After saying this, Li Ziyuan picked up the teacup, but he didn't speak, but just lowered his eyes, and didn't even glance at Zhao Cunnan, the president of the largest silk guild in the provincial capital.

"Adult ......"

Zhao Cunnan's words were not finished.

Li Ziyuan's brows frowned, and he said dissatisfiedly.

"Yilin, you are also a person who has read books, why did you even forget the etiquette!"

Zhao Cunnan, who was trained like this by the governor, heard this, his eyes suddenly widened, he looked at the teacup in the adult's hand, how could he not understand the truth of "serving tea to guests", but now, he can't care so much.

"Adult, villain, please think twice, if the price of cocoons is allowed to rise, when the livelihood of Xiguan Jihu is difficult to maintain, it will be the day of chaos in the provincial capital!"

Zhao Cunnan's words were heartfelt, but when they reached Li Ziyuan's ears, they were exchanged for a sneer.

"President Zhao, are you threatening this official?"

"How dare a villain threaten an adult!"

Zhao Cunnan shook his head.

"The villain is just telling the adults a fact, the adults are from other provinces, I am afraid that I don't know that there are no less than 30,000 households in Xiguanji, no less than 670,000 people, if 670,000 people have no livelihood, then Guangzhou will be in chaos!"

Zhao Cunnan seems to be reminding, but how could Li Ziyuan not know what this "reminder" means? "Nylon Hall" is the hall of the weavers in the provincial capital, there are many bachelors in the workers, seven or eight out of ten to win, the private fighting cases in Xiguan in the past two years, eight or nine out of ten are related to it. The successive governors of Guangdong in the Manchu Dynasty have always had headaches on the surface as coolies at the Guangdong wharf, but in fact, the biggest headache is the Xiguan households, because there are too many of them!

"Chaos in Guangzhou?"

With a sneer, Li Ziyuan looked at Zhao Cunnan.

"When steam cranes were installed on the docks in Guangzhou, there were guilds who came here for the first time and warned the officials with the same words, but do you know what happened to them in the end?"

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