Under the pressure of Zhang Xuezeng, Cao Zhende failed to set off any waves at all, so he directly relented.

Afterwards, Cao Zhende only sent his confidants and family members to Zhu Dadian to give Zhu Dadian a message, explaining the practical difficulties faced by Suzhou to Zhu Dadian. By the way, he also said that this year's transportation and military rations in the Susong area will never be misplaced.

Cao Zhende is very ghostly, he doesn't even want to leave paper evidence, just let the messenger carry a token to prove his identity.

In the following 10 days, the counties of Suzhou Prefecture and Songjiang Prefecture smoothly started the work of delivering grain.

Shen Shuren didn't break his promise, and said that "whoever pays the grain first will have benefits", and he cashed in full.

He took out some small mechanical inventions that had just been made by Fang Yizhi and Dong Xiaowan in recent months, which really won people's hearts.

To the surprise of outsiders, the first person to respond to Shen Shuren's call was not the local gentry of Suzhou Mansion, but the people of Songjiang Mansion next door, the Xu family of Huating County, that is, the descendants of Xu Guangqi.

But if you think about it, it makes sense. At the banquet that day, Shen Shuren said that he had many innovations to increase production and benefit the people, which was inspired by Xu Guangqi's "Complete Book of Agricultural Administration".

Since this is the case, Shen Shuren made a full set of plays and pulled the Xu family to his chariot. Only by using the power of the Xu family can we better protect our rights and interests.

Who let the Ming Dynasty not have a patent law, and it is impossible for new technologies and new inventions to be absolutely not copied. The only way to do this is to form an alliance with local authority leaders and rely on unspoken rules to maintain the sphere of influence.

……

Xu Guangqi has been dead for six years, and even his son has retired from his retirement.

Now in charge of the Xu family's industry is a grandson of Xu Guangqi, named Xu Xilie.

Five days ago, he saw a machine converted from a traditional loom in Shen Shuren's mansion. At that time, I just watched from a distance, and I couldn't see the details of the machinery.

However, Shen Shuren asked Dong Xiaowan to demonstrate the effect of weaving cloth and silk with the new machine, which is much faster than ordinary looms, and can weave six-shuttle wide cloth, which is twice as wide as the widest three-shuttle cloth on the market.

The moment he saw the machine, he learned that Shen Shuren said, "The Xu family only needs to take the lead in paying taxes on the grain that was overstocked before, and urge other gentry in Songjiang Mansion to follow up." You can get the Shen family's teaching, copy this machine for your own use for free, and also get the right to distribute the new technology within the scope of Songjiang Prefecture."

Xu Xilie immediately betrayed his fellow villagers and became the Shen family's "strategic partner" in Songjiang Mansion, plus the most vicious accomplice.

As the Xu family transferred the grain stored by the family and the grain ship that is still returning at sea to Liujiagang in Taicang for transshipment, Shen Shuren also kept the promise and personally sent the first weaving prototype to the manor of Xu Jiawei (she).

Xujiawei is a township-level division under Huating County, which was named after Xu Guangqi who set up a manor here, and was renamed Xujiahui in later generations. In other words, Xuhui District is now the Zhuangtian of Xu Ge's hometown.

The land along the coast of Songjiang is relatively saline, so it is impossible to grow mulberry and silkworms, and cotton is not so picky. Therefore, relying on the method of "Sankey Fish Pond" alone cannot attract the cooperation of the Xu family, and only the new cotton loom is attractive enough.

After the thing was in his hands, Xu Xilie's eyes lit up, and he stroked the body of the bamboo and wood structure, carefully as if he was stroking a beautiful woman.

Shen Shuren didn't hide his secrets, and directly pointed to the key explanation of the loom:

"This loom, to put it bluntly, has two improvements, one is to double the width of the longitudinal warp lifting mechanism, and also double the lifting foot. It's stupid kung fu, there's nothing to say.

The real trick is in the second point: a chute guide is added under this shuttle, and from then on, the weft shuttle is no longer held by hand, but is drawn around the guide rail.

There are also two pieces of bent and charged bamboo at each end, once the machine is unhooked, the shuttle can be ejected, but it is not very stable at present, and if the bullet is not in place, it is necessary to manually dial the connecting rod above to reset. But as long as you can bounce nine times out of ten, it also saves a lot of effort. Originally, two weavers were required to operate the three shuttles, but now only one person is needed for the five shuttles......"

Xu Xiyeol did not inherit his grandfather's talent in science and engineering, and it is estimated that he did not even finish reading "Geometric Original", so he did not understand the design principles too much. But it doesn't matter, I've intuitively felt the usage, and I'll leave the rest to the craftsmen in the house.

Later, Shen Shuren took the trouble to talk about more, no need to repeat it, anyway, it is similar to the shuttle made by the British in the 1730s.

At present, the reliability is poor and manual reset is often required, and it is only because the metallurgical technology at the end of the Ming Dynasty is not good, and the spring steel required for the British shuttle cannot be built after 90 years.

The adjustment of the structure of the loom was made by Dong Xiaowan under the order of Shen Shuren.

And the shuttle locking material is Fang Yizhi's idea. Fang Yizhi has never seen a "spring", after listening to the description of the function, he used the idea of a bow, relying on bamboo and wood bends to accumulate elastic power, and the reliability is naturally far worse than the real spring, which can only be regarded as barely usable.

(Both Japanese bows and English longbows rely on the elastic deformation of bamboo and wood to store energy, and the bowstring material they use is only hemp fiber, which lacks elasticity.) The Mongolian and Chinese composite bows mainly rely on the elastic deformation of the strings to provide potential energy. ）

After Xu Xilie thoroughly figured out the efficacy of the new machine, he very eagerly discussed with Shen Shuren how to make a profit from this thing: "Brother Shuren, how do you think this new machine should be better?" ”

Shen Shuren had already thought about it: "If your family wants to use it, you can build it yourself, or you can let our Shen family's craftsmen make it, and after it is built, each one will only be calculated according to the price of two old-style looms."

For takeaways, each one is twice as much as the old loom and adds ten taels of silver - these ten taels of silver are the money for shuttles, circlips and guides, I know the materials are cheap, but this idea is expensive, isn't it? If you can save a weaver's manpower, you can earn it back in a few months.

Although we can't control the field, but on the boundary of Susong territory, our two families have joined forces to unify the law to the outside world, and it is still possible to control more than half of the gentry.

If others want to make their own and make it, and give a few taels of silver for each unit, if they have to steal it, then our Shen family will not be able to transport their silk and satin cloth. I will also discuss with the young masters of the Zheng family in Fujian, so that when they come to Susong to buy goods, they will not enter the cloth of those people who are not long-sighted. At that time, Daming water transportation and sea trade will all be in our hands, so that they will not be able to eat and walk around. ”

Xu Xilie also gasped when he heard this.

Indeed, if the Shen family can persuade the Zheng family to unify their attitude, as the main customers of Susong textile merchants, the textile merchants really don't have the ability to mess around.

In this way, at least the big ones can be grasped and let go of the small, and all the big businessmen who have thousands of looms can be controlled. To be stolen without restraint, that is, the kind of poor peasants and middle peasants with only a few dozen machines.

Shen Shuren's hand can be regarded as robbing the rich and helping the poor, only earning the "patent fees" of rich businessmen, and not charging patent fees from individual poor users.

Shen Shuren also said: The Xu family came forward to handle the authorization of the new machine on the boundary of Songjiang Mansion, and the sales profits were divided between the two sides, and the Shen family was six and the Xu family was four.

The Suzhou market is naturally handled by the Shen family itself, and the profits all belong to the Shen family, which has nothing to do with the Xu family.

Xu Xilie is only responsible for sales, plus he can get forty percent of the final net profit by dealing with the stunned young people who don't believe in evil on the ground in Songjiang, and he is also very satisfied.

In addition, Shen Shuren also has great respect for the actual developers of technology.

For this matter, he gave Fang Yizhi a thousand taels of silver, as well as a small house in Suzhou City, so that Fang Yizhi could often come to Suzhou as a guest in the future and have a place to live by himself.

For Dong Xiaowan, he burned Dong Xiaowan's deed of sale with a stroke of his pen, and told Dong Xiaowan that he would not have to regard himself as a slave in the future, and could stay in the Shen family as a guest, or accept her as a concubine in the future.

And the property right of the old house of Dongjia Xiuzhuang, Shen Shuren also returned the deed to her. The grange, mulberry garden and workshop do not need to be returned.

……

As more and more Su Songhao gentry joined in soft service, Shen Shuren collected tens of thousands of taels just for the deposit of the new loom. At the same time, hundreds of grain ships have also come to the Liujiagang wharf in Taicang one after another to concentrate on the delivery of the grain and military rations that need to be paid this year.

The Shen family is also waiting for this matter, slowing down other businesses a little, squeezing out enough large sand boats, and queuing up on the dock every day to enter the port to load.

Shen Tingyang even placed an order for his own shipyard to build more sea ships.

On the last day of October, Xu Xilie personally arrived at Liujiagang with a large number of grain ships for delivery.

On the dock, there was already a large group of eyeliners sent by other Su Song gentlemen, who also came to quietly observe.

One is to see how much Xu Ge's hometown cooperates with Shen Shuren. Second, it was also because they heard that Shen Shuren had also tinkered with some very useful things in terms of port loading and unloading technology.

There are quite a few berths on the wharf, which have been surrounded by curtains and scaffolding for the past two months, and appear to be under construction.

Now that the fences have been removed, many of the berths of the trestle can be seen widening and sinking deep into the river. At the end of the trestle, there are also some large things like water wheels, with winch, hemp rope, and hooks on them.

Piles of wooden lattices are piled up on the dock. If a visitor from later generations sees it, he will find that these wooden lattices are similar to the forklift pallets in the warehouse, except that there are many fixed places on the sides with hemp rope and hooks.

As loading and unloading begins, it is finally clear how these machines work.

I saw a few dock workers stacking the bags of grain on the wooden lattice, and then putting hemp hooks on them.

In the wheel-shaped machine of the trestle, there are also several workers who step on the edge of the wheel with their weights, and add the principle of labor-saving pulleys to twist the entire pallet-shaped wooden lattice of the forklift.

Then, under the operation of another worker, the direction of the cantilever was twisted half a circle, loaded onto another boat at the parallel berth on the other side of the trestle, and the barge of dozens of stone heavy goods was easily realized.

This improved version of the squirrel cage crane was used by Europeans until the advent of steam cranes.

Shen Shuren relied on the thinking of modern people, added some "modularization and standardization" thinking, and cooperated with the forklift pallet, which easily saved most of the labor carried by dock workers one by one.

In order to make full use of this technology to save costs, Shen Shuren even laid out thousands of miles away in advance - the military rations he transported to Yang Sichang and Shi Kefa were shipped from Suzhou and unloaded in Luzhou.

If the original production method is still used in Luzhou, it means that at least half of the loading and unloading costs cannot be saved.

Therefore, in fact, as early as a month and a half ago, as soon as Shen Shuren figured out about the crane, he had quietly sent his family to Luzhou by boat.

I also found my cousin Zhang Huangyan, who was an official in Tongcheng, Anhui Province, and the Shen family paid for it and Zhang Huangyan came forward to help organize the people to renovate the Hefei wharf facilities on the banks of the Weishui River. Ensure that after the grain arrives in Hefei, it is also directly unloaded by forklift pallets.

The size and capacity of these wooden lattice pallets have also been carefully calculated by Shen Shuren, and a tray is just the weight that an ox cart can pull.

Therefore, when unloading the boat, put the wooden lattice directly on the ox cart, and you can run with a whip. This idea is similar to "precise docking of container ships and container trucks".

After using so many modern logistics management optimization ideas, Shen Shuren finally calculated that the "silver across the river" he needed throughout the whole process could be done with only nine cents of silver, and there was no need to make fake accounts.

In previous years, the "cross-river silver" collected on the surface of the Ming Dynasty reached one penny and three cents, but in fact, because of the rise in prices, rising wages, and excessive apportionment in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the real collection of cross-river silver in the local area has already reached four coins of silver.

Shen Shuren used a quarter of other people's silver to get things done, and he also transported an extra 200 miles of waterway mileage in vain, which cannot be said to be not beautiful.

Of course, the wharf trestle was renovated, cranes were built, forklifts were built, and wooden lattice pallets were built...... The cost of these "fixed assets" investment was not included in Shen Shuren.

Fortunately, there were no accounting standards in the Ming Dynasty, and there was no provision that "the depreciation of fixed investments must be amortized into costs". As long as Shen Shuren said that these things were the fixed assets of the Shen family, there was no "depreciation of use", and no one could catch him.

Seeing the Shen family's fleet carrying the grain from Xu Ge's hometown to Hefei, Cao Zhende of the River Yamen was completely dead.

He knew that the errand given to him by Governor Zhu had been completely messed up.

"Brother Zhu, you should still ask for more blessings, if Your Majesty knows, after the number of loading and unloading of Caoyun is simplified, you can save so much silver. And you have obstructed Caoyun and changed the sea for so many years, can Your Majesty give you a good look? ”

Thinking about it this way, Cao Zhende is not afraid. As long as Zhu Dadian is no longer a popular person in front of the emperor, he will not be able to retaliate against his subordinates who are ineffective.

It seems that he should bet on both sides in time to repair the relationship with the Shen family......

——

PS: Ask for votes, and now I know why the new book list is so miserable. Now even the number of live fans is not so important, and the website ranking list only looks at the chasing rate, and the weight of the chasing rate has been increased to an infinite extent.

As soon as there are many fattening people, the book will immediately fall to a hundred people, and it is useless to have an alliance leader, and there is no exposure.

According to the current New Deal, future books must be crazy to speed up the rhythm of the beginning, for example, it is best to shoot Huang Taiji in the first three chapters of the Ming Dynasty, otherwise most people will be fattened, and then the book will disappear from the list.

Everyone looks through the current list of new books, and there is not a single book that has been fattened.