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Zhang Chu's schedule was very tight, and he did not stay much at Liuheng Island, and came ashore by boat early the next morning to Ningbo, to meet Zhou Jialin, and by the way, to see the situation of Zhou Jialin's textile factory in Ningbo.

After several rounds at noon, the factory site was carefully selected by Zhou Jialin, in a small valley outside the city of Ningbo, there is a small stream flowing through to provide the power to drive the machine, and at the same time safe and private.

Zhou Jialin received the news that Zhang Chu was coming last night, he didn't sleep well all night, he was anxiously waiting at the factory gate, Zhang Chu saw Zhou Jialin from a distance urging the team to speed up, and Zhou Jialin also greeted him.

After greeting each other with excitement, Zhang Chu observed the factory with great interest, the high wall enclosed the entire factory with the help of the terrain, and towers were set up at the four corners, on which there were sentry posts to look at the surrounding situation, unlike the factory more like a strong fortress.

Passing through the wide gate, the factory area is lined with rows of factories and busy workers.

"This factory is divided into two parts, here is the men's area responsible for heavy physical work such as handling, loading and unloading, and inside is the women's area, the women's area is responsible for spinning and weaving, and men are not allowed to enter the women's area in normal times." Zhou Jialin introduced the situation in the factory.

"Then I won't be able to enter the women's work area, I can't see so many beautiful women." Zhang Chu was in a good mood and joking.

"No, you can go in, and you have to go in." Zhou Jialin also smiled.

"Why?" Zhang Chu felt a little strange, how could he be different.

"Because these people are your goddaughters." Zhou Jialin explained.

"What do I want so many goddaughters for?" This startled Zhang Chu.

"This is the law of the Ming Dynasty." After Zhou Jialin explained, Zhang Chu understood. These female workers were all bought by Zhou Jialin, and human trafficking was carried out in all Chinese dynasties, and in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, due to famine, there were more cases of selling children and daughters in various places. According to the law of the Ming Dynasty, human trafficking is illegal, in order to circumvent the law, when signing the deed of sale, do not write the sale and purchase, but write the successor to who is the son or daughter. In this way, the people who are nominally sold are the children of the master's family, but in fact they become slaves for life, and not only do they have no freedom, but even their children are called domestic children and become the slaves of their masters.

After Zhou Jialin arrived in Ningbo, he was about to open a factory, and first encountered the problem of difficulty in recruiting workers, not because there were no workers, but because the workers did not leave their homes. In Songjiang Prefecture, there are many families engaged in weaving, and many women spin and weave cloth at home and sell it, but it is not allowed for them to work intensively in the factory from their homes. Spinning and weaving work is still most suitable for women. There is no way for Zhou Jialin to spend money to buy young women in the name of buying slaves, which is not a deception, and they all have to work, but the content of the work is different. Up to now, there have been more than 100 female workers, all of whom were bought with money, and since the money belonged to Zhang Chu, it was all recorded in Zhang Chu's name, and Zhang Chu suddenly had more than 100 goddaughters.

The word "body worker" quickly entered Zhang Chu's mind, which is a negative example of human exploitation of people. He crossed over and did not liberate the toiling masses but became an exploiter, which made Zhang Chu a little uncomfortable all of a sudden.

In fact, the status of these people is even lower than that of "contract labor", and here Zhang Chu almost turned back the clock of history and used slavery to achieve industrialization, which does not seem to be very logical. But there is really no way, Chinese feudal etiquette is extremely powerful, powerful enough to kill people, can strangle all new things. Zhang Chu had no better way, so he could only take one step at a time.

Zhang Chu and Zhou Jialin entered the women's factory at the back, and the foreman hurriedly came over to greet Zhou Jialin.

"This is Lord Zhang, the head of your family." Zhou Jialin introduced.

"I've seen the master." The foreman immediately knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Zhang Chu to say hello. It was the first time they had seen Zhang Chu, Zhou Jialin was a good owner compared to others, they had no way of knowing how Zhang Chu was, they only knew that he was a general who led troops to fight, and he must be very strict when he thought about it. Zhang Chu's sudden arrival didn't know what impact it would have on their fate, and they were very uneasy.

Zhang Chu was not very comfortable all of a sudden, waved his hand to let them get up, and asked them to get busy after a few simple questions.

Zhang Chu and Zhou Jialin walked around the factory and had a general understanding of the situation in the factory.

With the efforts of craftsmen in the past two years, the idea provided by Zhang Chu has become a reality, spinning and weaving have been driven by water power, and the spinning machine has approached the level of the "mule machine" of later generations, and the combination of water spinning and "Jenny loom", and the use of "shuttle" in the loom has greatly improved the efficiency. Zhou Jialin's purchase of the population also had an unintended effect, as the factory's technical secrets would not be revealed.

Looking at the immature faces of the female workers who were nervously operating in front of the machine, Zhang Chu recalled that he was still unhappy when he was studying in school in his previous life, and he really didn't know how to be blessed.

The female workers were busy and peeking at Zhang Chu, only to see that Zhang Chu was dressed plainly but very neatly, not very old, only in his twenties, and looked very kind. I thought that my lord should be an old man who was dozens of years old, and the military attache who led the troops to fight must be very vicious. Now it seems that it is not like that, and everyone is a lot more relieved, because no one cares about the use of violence by the head of the family against the slaves and maids, and according to custom, they all have the possibility of becoming Zhang Chu's concubines.

Zhang Chu didn't have the heart to think about this, he was just thinking about how to improve the working and living environment of these girls as much as possible. The word "goddaughter" made Zhang Chu always feel that they were his real family, and he didn't want them to live too miserably. Zhang Chu also understands that the development of real society always has to go through this step, and civilized society is accumulated by many laborers with blood and sweat.

"Invest a little more in food, try to keep them fed, and build a bathroom so they can bathe regularly." Back in Zhou Jialin's office, Zhang Chu first arranged for the improvement of the treatment of female workers.

It's all Zhang Chu who spends money, and Zhou Jialin naturally has no reason to object, so he promises it.

"In addition, I will draw a picture for you, ask the craftsmen to make some beds on the upper and lower levels, and then give them some cloth to make a cloth curtain, so that everyone can have their own independent space." The group life at school made Zhang Chu understand the importance of an independent space.

Zhou Jialin looked at the appearance of the bunk bed drawn by Zhang Chu, thinking that Zhang Chu really didn't know what else was in his mind, and something strange came out as soon as his brain moved. It is impossible for so many people to live separately, and they could only sleep in a large bunk before, but it would be much better if they were converted to bunk beds.

"How are the sales of yarn and cloth now?" Zhang Chu is very concerned about whether the factory can make a profit, and if it can't make money, the factory can't survive.

"That's fine. The yarn we spun is fine and strong. The woven cloth is wide and strong. With the new machine, the efficiency is high and the cost is low, and the cloth of other small workshops cannot compete with us. Speaking of sales, Zhou Jialin said proudly.

"That's good, I originally wanted to expand the scale of the factory, but the factory is not safe on land, and it is built on Liuheng Island but it can't hire enough workers, but you have also found a solution to the problem for me, so you can find a way to buy more people and send it to Liuheng Island to open a new factory, so that the local textile factories can't find a target if they want to destroy it." The problem that had plagued Zhang Chu for many days was finally solved.

"You've got more goddaughters that way." Zhou Jialin joked. The two couldn't help but smile at each other.

The things in the factory were almost arranged, and Zhang Chu and Zhou Jialin talked about the purpose of his trip.

"Pack up and dress up, your clothes must be luxurious, and you can take me to visit the brothels in Nanjing."

"I've never been to that kind of place once, so you have to go yourself." Zhou Jialin thought that Zhang Chu was joking, and hurriedly showed his innocence.

"I'm really going to a brothel this time, and I'm going to the biggest and best brothel." Zhang Chu said solemnly.

Two big men hide in the house and sneak around studying a day to a brothel.

Early the next morning, Zhang Chu and Zhou Jialin set off with their people, targeting the best and largest brothel in Nanjing.

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