86_86695Why did Wang Shuhui choose the cotton cloth trade and the private salt trade as a means of primitive capital accumulation in the late Ming Dynasty? Wang Shuhui has a sober and clear view on this point.

In his view, the products of modern society, no matter what they are, had a consumer market in ancient times. However, those high-end and high-grade luxury goods trading can only be operated by people who have a large number of connections in the upper echelons of society in the late Ming Dynasty. And Wang Shuhui is very aware of his shortcomings, that is, he is not good at dealing with others in feudal relationships. This is the same in both modern and ancient societies.

Moreover, Wang Shuhui believes that it was very difficult to buy and sell people's biological goods other than cloth and salt in ancient society. Because some products that did not exist in ancient times, if they appeared in ancient times, then many people with a heart will focus on the shipper, thus causing a lot of unnecessary trouble for themselves.

Cloth and table salt are different. These two products are not only necessary consumer daily necessities for ancient people, but also used in huge quantities. Moreover, in the late Ming Dynasty, the output of these two products itself was very large. What's more, most of the people involved in the production and sales of these two products are nobles like Zhu Youzi or landlords and bureaucrats at all levels.

As Zhu Youzi's son-in-law, Wang Shuhui is engaged in this kind of business, which is not abrupt at all in the eyes of outsiders.

More importantly, for the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the dumping of these two products was carried out. It will not affect the financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty government itself, nor will it affect the historical process at the national level on a large scale. You must know that whether it is the owners of the major weaving and dyeing workshops in the Jiangnan area, or the big businessmen who control the production and sale of salt. The vast majority were clan nobles or landlords and bureaucrats. Their business basically relies on family relationships, and they will not pay a single tax to the imperial court.

Wang Shuhui felt that even in the days that followed, the massive amount of cloth and salt from modern times impacted and defeated these two industries at the end of the Ming Dynasty. This kind of result is not a big deal. Anyway, after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, those salt merchants and Jiangnan wealthy families were either slaughtered, or most of them became traitors and slaves. Whether they are dead or alive is not within Wang Shuhui's consideration at all.

For the vested interests of the late Ming Dynasty, no matter what kind of fate they ended up with, it was too merciful to them. Even if Hitler treated the Jews the same way they did, it would have to be called revolutionary humanism.

Whether it is a group, an organization, a state, or a class, their collapse begins from within. In the words of Jia Tanchun in "Dream of Red Mansions", you will make trouble, make trouble. Outsiders didn't copy it, so you copied your own people first. Wang Shuhui is a practical person. He knew that it was simple to directly pull the flag and rebel at the end of the Ming Dynasty, but it was not easy to launch reforms at the end of the Ming Dynasty. If you want to destroy a class or a system, you must first put on makeup and dress up and penetrate into the enemy's interior. It's like Sun Dasheng, he has to change first, and after getting into the demon's stomach, he will make his stomach flow. That would be easy and easy.

After being lured by the interests of the light yì and the entanglement of Sima Feng, Wang Shuhui did not continue the topic of private salt, but turned the topic to the field of cloth trade.

"Mr. Sima also runs a weaving workshop, and our local cotton cloth is worth something."

Sima Feng was still able to adapt to this kind of divine transition, and he jumped out of the entanglement more smoothly and replied, "It's strange to say, our local cotton cloth is not as cheap as Songjiang cloth." Songjiang cloth is sold locally for four dollars of silver, but the quality of local cotton cloth is not as good as Songjiang cloth, and it is sold at the same price as Songjiang cloth. ”

"Oh, if that's the case, wouldn't it be a loss to sell the local cloth?" Wang Shuhui asked.

"That's not it, like a villain, he has a few river boats in his hands, and he has some connections in Jiangxi, and he can buy cotton directly from Jiangxi. The cost is lower than that of pure local cloth, and the selling price is cheaper. It's going to make some money. Sima Feng was afraid that Wang Shuhui would make another moth, so he introduced the cotton cloth business very carefully, and he didn't have any private hiding.

"In that case, I'm afraid that not many local people can weave cloth at home." Wang Shuhui said.

"The guest of honor has seen thousands of miles, and this is indeed the case. If the people weave cloth at home, it is to sell it to earn some flowers. Since the quality of the cotton cloth spun by himself is not as good as that of Songjiang cloth, and the selling price is higher than that of Songjiang cloth, who can weave cloth. Therefore, there are not many local people weaving cloth. ”

"Oh, in this way, Songjiang cloth is really marketed all over the world. But I don't know that this Songjiang cloth is woven by the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Wang Shuhui asked knowingly.

"Not really. The small people have limited resources, and the amount of cloth and silk produced is not much. However, in the area south of the Yangtze River, every household is engaged in cotton spinning, and each household does not produce much, but the total amount is huge. There are also powerful giants, rich in wealth, employing weavers and weavers, often thousands. Most of the cotton cloth that can be exported to other places is from the homes of these powerful giants. They either run their own weaving mills, or buy out the cotton cloth produced by small households by virtue of their power, so that they can earn millions of dollars. Sima Feng replied.

Wang Shuhui heard this, thought about it carefully, and felt that this was indeed the case. The huge output of Songjiang cotton cloth in the Ming Dynasty is probably not really contributed by those large-scale weaving mills. According to later generations, it is probably the shackles of the traditional small-scale peasant economic model of male ploughing and female weaving that led to the lack of full development of capitalism in the late Ming Dynasty. Coupled with the destruction of the economy in Jiangnan after the entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, China's capitalist development was nipped in the bud.

When Wang Shuhui thought about it, he felt that dumping cotton cloth at the end of the Ming Dynasty was simply a mission that he had to carry out. Although the dumping of cheap cotton cloth will inevitably have an impact on the economy of Jiangnan, it will even cause great damage to the interests of many ordinary people. However, this impact will definitely make the textile industry in the south of the Yangtze River passively seek to reduce costs and market competition, which is definitely an objective promotion of the industrialization of the textile industry.

Under the impact of cheap cotton cloth, the textile industry in the Jiangnan region at the end of the Ming Dynasty had only two ways to go. The first is to carry out technological upgrading and industrialized operation, so as to reduce production costs and improve competitiveness. The other way is to be completely destroyed by Wang Shuhui's cotton dumping.

Wang Shuhui naturally hopes that the textile industry at the end of the Ming Dynasty can embark on an advanced road. But even if the industry doesn't survive the shock and collapses completely, that's not a big deal. Wang Shuhui was originally prepared to establish a modern textile industry with advanced technology and perfect management system at the end of the Ming Dynasty. In Wang Shuhui's eyes, the ancient textile industry, with chaotic management and backward technical level, only has the difference between early death and late death, and there is no problem of whether you die or not.

Thinking of this, Wang Shuhui said to Sima Feng, "My world friend is afraid that it is the powerful giant family in Mr. Sima's mouth. His family not only ran a salt business, but also had several weaving mills. The price of his family's cloth is also very low. It seems that each piece of cloth is only two pennies of silver. Moreover, his family has an ancestral weaving secret method, and the cloth produced, whether it is thickness or color, is better than Songjiang cloth. ”

No matter how numb Sima Feng's head was, he understood what was going on when he heard this. Pondering the connection between Wang Shuhui's words about private salt and cloth and his words of repaying the favor of help, Sima Feng thought of a possibility that made his blood gush. This Wang Yibin is probably going to repay Sima Feng's help to the palace in the past with low-cost private salt and cheap cloth.

Sima Feng couldn't help but be ecstatic when he thought of this, if this was the case, Sima Feng would become the powerful giant clan that he envied in his mouth, but it was just an idle matter. When Sima Feng, who understood, looked at Wang Shuhui, his eyes were full of fiery enthusiasm.

After Wang Shuhui saw Sima Feng's reaction, he knew what Sima Feng thought. In this case, he was not ready to delay his efforts with his cloud and mountain fog shroud. He directly told Sima Feng that he could send a boat to the newly built riverside wharf in Zhijiang Wang Beiyuan next month to pick up the first batch of goods, and Liu Huaiji would be responsible for the specific matters.

In addition to these things, Wang Shuhui also entrusted Sima Feng to help him recruit various craftsmen. And let him help buy fifty children under the age of fifteen and over the age of eight to send to the house. This group of people can cover half of the value of the goods.

Wang Shuhui knew that in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, buying an ordinary little maid was only four or five taels of silver. This is based on the story in the long vernacular "The Legend of Marriage in the Awakening World" by the family Xi Zhousheng at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The thirty-sixth chapter of the book said that there was a tailor named Shen Shanle, who made clothes for others and made them bad, and there was no way, only to sell an eleven-year-old daughter Sister Xi to repay others with silver, and the Shen family "asked for seven taels of silver", who knew that "I received a few families, and the one who came out of four taels was the best one", because later the good woman Mrs. Chao "liked it, first out of four taels, and added five taels", which was already sold at a good price. It can be seen that human life at the end of the Ming Dynasty was not very valuable.

Wang Shuhui's request is that the children he buys should be mainly boys as much as possible, and of course girls are also fine. It's better to buy from those who are homeless. If you have parents and relatives, you can bring them back with you if you want to, and the government will also sign a contract with them and hire them to work. For this point, Wang Shuhui's heart is relatively dark. The purpose of his family-wide containment is, of course, to ensure that the people in the custody can be loyal enough to him. In ancient societies, this kind of family-style situation of several generations serving a family, although it was a slave-like and backward personal dependency, could indeed guarantee the loyalty of these people to the greatest extent.

After explaining the matter to Sima Feng, Wang Shuhui took Zhu Weiyan and Liu Huaiji and a few children, under the protection of Jiading, and embarked on the return journey in a carriage. Wang Shuhui leaned on the back of the carriage tiredly, thinking to himself, "It's really troublesome to deal with the ancients." It's just to reach a basic transaction intention with someone, and how much effort will be wasted on yourself. It took a whole afternoon to do such a thing, and the efficiency was too low. ”

Zhu Weiyan, the little radish head sitting next to Wang Shuhui, had another thought in her heart, "My guest of honor is really a resolute person. In just one afternoon, from the county seat to Dongtankou, a distance of dozens of miles, I met so many people and talked about so many things, not only to find out the market of the merchants, but also to finalize a helper, which is really amazing. ”。