"Chen Langzhong, at present, our iron-smelting workshops in Datang have also been outsourced to businessmen, and they are now recruiting craftsmen on a large scale, and then preparing to go to the iron-smelting workshops to process steel. Nowadays, the cost of hiring a craftsman is two or three times more than in the past, but the supply is still in short supply! Now many farmers are also beginning to wonder whether they want to learn a trade and then take the opportunity to work in these workshops. Master Liu said.

Master Liu has heard about it during this time, and craftsmen like them are in short supply in Chang'an City. In the past, it was the income of two yuan, but now it is all four yuan, and there are even some six-yuan money, and there are not only eight yuan with good technology. And those who can smelt steel have become fragrant and sweet. Those who have experience in leading craftsmen are hired by those businessmen with high salaries. The entire artisan industry is in full swing, and many craftsmen earn more than those scribes in the government. There are many skilled craftsmen who are already higher than the low-level officials, but they do not have the land and various welfare rights of the low-level officials.

In this case, it is normal for many people to want to learn a craft and then make a lot of money. In fact, this is the same as the universities of later generations, and what majors are popular have also begun to study, and the majors are for good employment in the future! And now that craftsmen have high incomes, it is natural that some people want to learn a craft and then become craftsmen.

"Master Liu, do many people want to learn the craft now?" Chen Fei asked.

Master Liu said with certainty: "This is all thanks to Chen Langzhong, you recommended the emperor to contract these iron-smelting workshops to merchants, and now merchants are hiring a large number of craftsmen!" This is the reason for the shortage of craftsmen. ”

Chen Fei realized that there was a labor gap, especially those with skills. These blacksmiths and smelters are actually skilled workers, although these skills are not worth mentioning in later generations, but in ancient times they were out-and-out skilled workers. Now the imperial court outsourced the iron-smelting workshops, and the merchants contracted at this time, and then expanded the scale. Expanding the scale naturally requires recruiting a large number of craftsmen. In this way, the market of craftsmen is also beginning to be in demand. At this time, blacksmiths and smelters were simply the emperor's daughters who did not worry about marrying, and some even sat on the ground and demanded higher wages from those merchants so that they would go to work.

"Master Liu, now that many people are willing to learn the crafts of craftsmen, is anyone willing to teach them? Or how many people can learn it? Chen Fei asked.

Master Liu shook his head and said, "Our income is passed down from our ancestors, and we are generally craftsmen from generation to generation. Even some ancestors stipulate that the craft cannot be passed on, otherwise there will be no job! ”

Chen Fei immediately had a headache, originally he thought that there would be many people who could learn from these craftsmen, but he actually found that there was such a serious view of the portal in this era. These ancestors were all craftsmen, but they all told their descendants. Don't pass it on to outsiders. This is also to avoid teaching the apprentice to starve to death of the master, but this also caused a lot of technical faults, and finally lost. It's a shame that too much of China's technology has been lost because of this problem. Therefore, Chen Fei wants them to pass on these skills, so that the more people who learn it, the less likely it is to lose it.

Moreover, some craftsmen are even more hateful, teaching apprentices or often keeping a hand, which has caused generations of technology not only not to progress, but to regress more and more. It's very speechless. So Chen Fei naturally wants to put an end to this situation.

However, Chen Fei is unlikely to force those craftsmen to inherit their skills, otherwise they are all secretly jealous of themselves, who knows if they will deliberately teach some wrong things to their students. This is also very fatal, so it is unlikely that Chen Fei will ask them to teach directly. There must be a certain interest.

"Master Liu, you said that if I want those craftsmen to teach their crafts to outsiders, how can I convince them?" Chen Fei asked.

Master Liu immediately said helplessly: "These crafts are their lifeblood, and they won't teach them casually." So Chen Langzhong still don't think about it. Because the craftsmanship of craftsmen is the foundation of their livelihood, once they don't have the foundation, then they can't survive. Artisans who are willing to teach to outsiders. Too little. In addition to this craft, they have no other livelihood to rely on. Just like the vast majority of ordinary farmers, will they casually sell their land to others? The people will not sell their fields unless they have to. ”

"Constant production? It turns out that it is the relationship between the means of production and the technical means. Chen Fei thought.

Farmers are reluctant to sell their land because it is their means of production and the foundation of their livelihood. Craftsmen do not have land, and in the absence of land, they also want to preserve their crafts as much as possible, so that these crafts and skills will not flow out of the world. As long as the scarcity of this technology is created, so that those who need it will pay a high price to hire them. The point is that these craftsmen have no means of production, and the more they don't have the means of production, the more they want to keep this craft secret, and then create a shortage of talents, so that those merchants or the government have to hire them.

This is not uncommon, and it is also the case in many skilled professions. For example, doctors in ancient times, and even those literate people who could read, deliberately created a scarcity of certain professions, so that "employers" had to invite them. If there are more people in this profession, then there will be more "employers" to choose from. And they have no means of production, so naturally once they lose their jobs, they will not be able to maintain production.

Even those officials, in fact, why not? They came to the post of official and then got a lot of land. It seems that they own the means of production, but these lands are built on the condition that they have power, and if they do not have power, they will naturally disappear. Therefore, in order to ensure their power, those big families have to block the spread of culture, so that their families can monopolize the spread of culture for generations, so that the government, the "employer", has to continue to let them be officials.

"It seems that if these craftsmen want to teach their apprentices not to leave a hand, then they must be allowed to own the means of production? Otherwise, they won't be reassured at all. Chen Fei thought. (To be continued......)