At dinner, Zheng Man came up again, and while eating, he looked at Li Tai with a resentful look in his eyes, which made Li Tai a little embarrassed.

The matter has come to this point, no matter how much you worry, it will not help. The only remedy for the moment is to develop the handicraft industry with all its might, so that this huge debt hole can be filled. If you just farm, there is no way to do it.

"Zheng Zhi came in, I want to ask the county government if it collects twine? If I buy, I can lose to the current price at a discount of 20%. ”

Li Tai put on a kind and honest smile, looked at Zheng Man and said.

"Twine, what does the county want this miscellaneous material for? Lang Jun, do you want to use twine to counteract? It's impossible! ”

After hearing this, Zheng Man shook his head again and again: "The county's textile industry has its own, and there is no need for private collection and transportation of miscellaneous materials. ”

"Don't accept it, is there any hemp in the county? If the hemp material is stored for a long time and the tendons are broken, it will become a waste, if there is a surplus, can it be loaned out on credit? ”

Li Tai's smile became more innocent and asked again.

Zheng Man directly put down the dishes and chopsticks, looked directly at Li Tai and said in a deep voice: "Lang Jun, what are you going to do?" Do you want to spin linen and weave cloth and buy grain to make up for the reproduction? 10,000 stone of grain, at least 50,000 pieces of cloth, how many artificial materials are needed, has Lang Jun calculated? How could the county be ...... again"

"It's true that it consumes a lot of materials and labor, but it's man-made, so you always have to give it a try."

Li Tai also felt that his request was a bit excessive, no matter how much the county government was pinched by himself, it was impossible to provide him with hundreds of thousands of catties of hemp spinning raw materials.

Before, he imagined everything too simple, thinking that as long as there was a large spinning wheel to improve the efficiency of spinning, he would be able to brush the weaving cloth and print money.

But now, the efficiency of spinning hemp has been improved, but the raw materials and weaving labor have been stuck.

Although weaving is only a basic industry, there are several links, and improving the efficiency of one of them is still not much to improve the entire industrial process. In the final analysis, it is land and population that restrict industrial development.

"Well, I'll go back to the city tomorrow and give it a try. Hemp is only cheap material, textile is cumbersome, there is indeed a lot of surplus in the county warehouse, and the county respects Langjun today, and he should take care of it. ”

Zheng Man had already guessed that the manor property alone would not be able to satisfy the huge debt, but now that he was in the same boat with Li Tai, he still sincerely hoped that this matter could be settled.

"That's great, you can also do it on credit, I buy hemp material at the current price, spot cloth, Tong Su is not deceived!"

The current situation of the textile factory is that the raw materials cannot meet the production capacity of the spinning wheel, and the weavers cannot consume the spun twine. The two little short legs are no longer pulling the eggs, but rubbing the eggs painfully.

Li Tai's plan was to solve the problem of raw material supply through Zheng Man, and then recruit a group of weaving women from the countryside through Zhou Changming to work, and expand the output of cloth as much as possible.

Although running away is also an option, Li Tai is just thinking about it. If he really wanted to run away, he would not have invested a lot of labor in the civil construction of the manor in the early days of the business.

Early the next morning, Zheng Man rode back to the city, while Li Tai led people to carry two hangs of dried meat to Shangyang in the south.

On the flat square in front of the fort, Zhou Changming was leading more than 200 township soldiers to exercise. The folk customs of Guanzhong are pragmatic and tough, and after the summer, the township soldiers hoe for half a day and practice for half a day, and they do not waste their time at all.

After a drill was completed, Zhou Changming invited Li Tai into the fort, and after they sat down, Zhou Changming frowned and said: "But the villagers also have their own farming and weaving operations to do, and I am afraid that there will not be much leisure ......."

"In the summer, most of the fields are diligent hoeing, men are enough, and women also have to be household weavers. I invited them to work in the village, but they just changed the place, and they didn't need to spin, they only needed to weave. Of course, the workmanship is not done in vain, two meals in the morning and evening, how about a piece of cloth in ten years? ”

Li Tai explained with a smile that the villagers have to dry and comb the linen at home, and finally weave it into cloth, which is very inefficient. It often takes several months to weave the cloth needed throughout the year.

Li Tai's price of a piece of cloth for ten years is not a high remuneration, but it does not require the villagers' own hemp cost, and it can also save one person's rations, which is also a cost-effective and affordable choice for the villagers.

"If so, I can try to lobby the villagers. But please Lang Jun must ensure that these weavers are safe in and out! ”

Zhou Changming was also very moved when he heard Li Tai's conditions.

"Of course, it's three points out of the house. The weaving girls in the village work in a single courtyard, there will be no rogue harassment, and I will send someone to guide me when I enter and leave, and I will definitely not be scattered and injured. ”

There are scoundrels rampant in the city of Huazhou, and there is no absolute safety in the countryside. Moreover, the folk customs in Guanzhong are relatively conservative, and there must be higher requirements for etiquette and defense for women to go out to work. Li Tai also considered and arranged these aspects.

"In and out, the township soldiers can do it for them. But if you are not harassed when working, you must be controlled by Lang Jun. If we can ensure it, I am also happy to see that the villagers can work instead of farming. ”

Zhou Changming still believed in Li Tai's character, and after making a decision with each other, he was ready to visit the township. Li Tai was worried that the villagers might still be hesitant, so he followed suit and gave a more detailed explanation.

There are quite a few villages near Shangyuan, with 100 large households and more than a dozen small households. Although there are only more than 1,000 households in the entire Wuxiang County, they are the households that have been granted land, and there are more households outside the average land households, mainly because there are not many acres of land in the county, and a large piece of land has been divided among the powerful nobles.

These households who have not been granted land are tenant farmers, or shady households, as well as township soldiers, and there are as many as thousands of households in one Shangyuan Township alone, not including those who eat, live, and work in the large estates.

The group visited several villages, and most of the villagers hesitated when they heard this, and only relented when they saw that Zhou Changming, the famous warlord of the township, patted his chest as a guarantee.

When Li Tai saw this scene, he couldn't help but sigh that he was fortunate that he didn't have a bad relationship with Zhou Changming, the head of the township, if he relied on himself, even if the commission doubled, the villagers might not be willing to take care of him, and he couldn't send money if he wanted to.

"What is this doing?"

Wandering around several villages, Li Tai found that many villagers had two beams and beams pressed together horizontally in their courtyards, with some cake-like things sandwiched in the middle, and stones pressed on them, which smelled of oil.

"That's pressing the oil, stir-frying, steaming and steaming all kinds of seeds such as flax, making cakes, and squeezing out the oil."

Zhou Changming explained with a smile.

"Isn't there an oil mill in the township, but there is not much oil produced under such pressure! These cakes still have a lot of oil and water that have not come out. ”

Li Tai knows about the soil method of oil extraction, but such a soil method of oil extraction is unheard of.

"There is an oil mill in Luoshuiqu, but the rent is too high, and the villagers have three buckets and five buckets of seeds, which is worth going to the oil mill to press. Squeeze like this, do not work in error, serve bread in the morning, and collect oil in the evening. The leftover meal can still be used for food and cooking, and it is not a waste. ”

Zhou Changming explained casually, but Li Tai was a listener.

The weaving of linen cloth is so widespread that profits are very transparent, and even if there are large spinning wheels to improve the efficiency of spinning threads, it is necessary to expand the scale of production to maintain a significant profit.

However, oil extraction is not, oil is not only the maintenance of ordnance, fire siege of city defense of military supplies, but also daily food seasoning, lighting and anti-corrosion daily necessities, the market is large, the profit is high, the efficiency of small production and centralized operation has an essential difference, it should be very interesting.

A few catties of hemp and a piece of cloth are all approximate rations. But the oil production of a bucket of seed material is geometric, and the difference is very large!

Although such an idea was born in his heart, Li Tai also learned the lesson of spinning hemp before, and planned to take a detailed look at the upstream and downstream supporting facilities before deciding whether to do it. In particular, in terms of the supply of raw materials, if only small households are harvested, no matter how advanced the oil extraction technology is, the output will not be able to rise.

followed Zhou Changming to wander around the township for an afternoon, and initially said that nearly 100 villagers would come to work after agreeing. Li Tai is quite satisfied with such a result, and it is normal for villagers to hesitate at present, and when the industry is ripe, there will be a mass base for recruiting workers and expanding production, which will be much more convenient.

When Li Tai returned to the manor, Zheng Man also came back from the city, and his expression was a little unpleasant: "Originally, the county zun had been moved, but today it was Shi County Lieutenant who was on duty to collect the warehouse, but he didn't need to abuse the raw hemp materials to the township, and in the end he only asked for two thousand catties of raw hemp materials." These old materials do not need to be bought, they have already been depleted in the book. ”

Li Tai liked the atmosphere of collusion between officials and people in the Western Wei Dynasty, but when he heard that it was only more than 2,000 catties, he couldn't help but feel a little worried. After 2,000 catties of raw hemp are cooked and degummed, it is difficult to say whether there are 1,000 catties of clinker left, which is not enough for five large spinning wheels to turn for two days.

The county lieutenant of Nashi made an obstacle from it, Li Tai was not very angry, this old boy had already offended him, one account was also recorded, two accounts were also counted, and he always had to make him call his father when he got the opportunity.

Visiting those villagers today, if they come to work, it will be useless to store hemp at home, and they can collect it again, but at most it is only a few thousand catties.

"Shi County Lieutenant asked Lang Jun what he was doing when he searched for so much hemp, I didn't tell him the truth, but he also said that there were tens of thousands of catties of hemp stored in the household, and if Lang Jun really needed it, he could go to negotiate the price, but as long as the spot was delivered."

Hearing Zheng Man say this, Li Tai sneered again, but he couldn't help but sigh that these big families in the township are really well-off, and even raw hemp, which is a low-value material that occupies a large storage space, is stored so much.

However, Li Tai doesn't plan to send it to the door to be a fat sheep, who doesn't have two generous friends?

"Prepare some local fresh food for me, and I'll go back to the city tonight."

After thinking about it, Li Tai commanded again.

The biggest landlords in Huazhou City today are not the township tycoons who have lived and operated here for generations, but the outsiders such as the Wuren of Beizhen. Even if you want to buy raw hemp raw materials at a high price, it is better to cheapen those local tyrants who don't like him, and it is better to cheapen the people you know.