Zhao Jinxi took out a silver ingot of ten taels of silver and put it on the table, and said, "Shopkeeper, my master will give you ten taels, you can find a few experienced craftsmen!" The jade boss looked at Zhao Jinxi's silver and said with a wry smile: "Official, if you hire a jade craftsman, the shop will be closed." Even if you give me fifty taels, I won't let you hire my jade craftsman. Zhao Jinxi and Yang Peng glanced at each other, and Yang Peng said: "Shopkeeper, you gave us the master, and you can train a few more newcomers to grind jade." ”

The shopkeeper said: "Official, these jade craftsmen are all ancestral skills, and they are not passed on to sons-in-law." The old jade craftsman is gone, and the new jade craftsman doesn't know how many years it will take to learn the skill, how can it be cultivated day and night? For the sake of the small shop, don't rob the jade craftsman of the shop. When Yang Peng heard this, he asked: "These jade craftsmen are ancestral skills, not the techniques you taught?" The shopkeeper didn't react for a moment, nodded and said: "The shop is also hired by these jade craftsmen with monthly money, and they are all skills passed down from their families, where is the ability of the shop?" ”

After saying this, the shopkeeper reacted, regretted it a little, and secretly said that this official had to skip himself and hire a jade craftsman directly. Yang Peng smiled and said, "Since that's the case, then we won't talk to you." Yang Peng left Jade Hutong with his group and found an inn to live in. After resting for a while, Yang Peng found the shopkeeper in the inn and said, "Shopkeeper, I have something to ask you!" ”

When the shopkeeper saw Yang Peng's official uniform, he wanted to kneel down and salute, but was helped up by Yang Peng. "I'm going to hire a few craftsmen who can polish jade, do you recognize?" The shopkeeper asked honestly, "What kind of jade craftsman does the official want?" If the top craftsmen can do some clever work, and can spend on jade, drill, and penetrate flowers, then the salary will be high, and it is not easy to be invited. If it is an ordinary jade craftsman, just opening jade and tying it, there will be more in our county, and it is generally two taels of monthly money. ”

Yang Peng asked: "Do ordinary craftsmen polish edges and corners and polish jade?" The innkeeper said: "Then it will be, this will not be considered a jade craftsman?" Yang Peng nodded and said, "Then you will find me a few skilled ordinary jade craftsmen, who have good polishing skills." I want to hire five people, and I will give each of them three taels of silver per month, provide three meals a day, three meals with meat, and give each of them fifteen taels of silver for moving expenses, and let them work in Tianjing New Town near Cangzhou! After saying this, Yang Peng took out two taels of silver and put it on the table, and said, "This silver is for you, which is considered an introduction fee." ”

The shopkeeper's face suddenly filled with a smile and said, "I'll go for the official!" Zhao Jin saw that the shopkeeper was full of joy, and added: "The shopkeeper, you can find the right person!" If you find a craftsman who can't do things, my official is not easy to get along! The shopkeeper hurriedly said, "I know, I know!" ”

The next night, the shopkeeper took nine jade craftsmen to the inn and introduced them to Yang Peng. Yang Peng glanced at the nine people and said, "Why did you find so many people?" The shopkeeper said: "When they heard the official's monthly money, they were all willing to come." These nine people are all veterans, so let's pick five people. Hearing the shopkeeper's words, the nine jade craftsmen all looked at Yang Peng nervously, for fear that Yang Peng would not want him. Yang Peng glanced at the nine people and said, "How many are there who have become relatives?" ”

Then six older jade craftsmen stood up and said that they had become relatives. Yang Peng glanced at the six people, nodded, eliminated the eldest one, and selected the other five. These five jade craftsmen are rich and married, which shows that their current income level is good, and they are naturally craftsmen with good skills. The other three bachelors have no money to marry, and the level is difficult to estimate. Yang Peng couldn't test the level of these jade craftsmen for a while, so he could only use this rough method to make a simple assessment.

The five jade craftsmen who became a family were selected by Yang Peng, and they were overjoyed, and secretly said that their income has increased by half now, and the new owner also provides three meals with meat, where can I find such a good thing? Yang Peng found the craftsman, immediately paid fifteen taels of moving expenses, and urged the craftsmen to move to Tianjing New City immediately to organize the production of reading glasses.

In July of the first year of Xianping, the jade craftsmen moved their belongings and tools for grinding jade from Yutian to Tianjing New Town, and began to produce reading glasses for Yang Peng. The first step in making reading glasses is to make a molder, Yang Peng drew the drawings and found a blacksmith to make 20 glass lens molders with different arcs. Glassmakers poured annealed glass heat into these molders, pressed the convex glass sheets, and then handed the projected glass lenses to the jade craftsmen for processing.

The jade craftsmen had to polish the coarsely pressed glass pieces into convex lenses with the only focal point. The operation of jade craftsmen to polish glass pieces is called grinding in jade production. Craftsmen use a tool called "grinding" to finely grind the surface of the glass. During the specific operation, the jade worker holds the glass with his left hand against the edge of the rotating steel plate. At one end of the table was a basin filled with water and red sand, and the jade worker scooped the sand with his right hand and poured it on the glass. The hard Jieyu sand, combined with a rotating and sharp edge piercing edge, can grind away the unwanted parts of the glass.

Grinding out the lens is not finished, but also polished. Polishing is divided into two steps: wooden and leather. Wooden skulls are generally made of gourd pulp. The structure of the tool used in the operation is that the board is connected to the wooden shaft, which drives the round wooden pillar to rotate and polishes the lens with the help of stone sand. The hardness of the stone sand used in this step is relatively low, and quartz sand is generally used.

Then there is the leather: when the leather is made, the round stool made of cowhide is used to rotate and rub the lenses, and the lenses are ground into smooth and translucent glass lenses. After polishing, the reading lenses are ready. Li Zhi asked the craftsmen to put the lenses into a wooden frame, and they became reading glasses. The power of reading glasses is based on the length of the focal length. Yang Peng inverted the approximate length of one meter from his height, made an iron meter ruler, and then multiplied the reciprocal of the focal length of each lens by one hundred to get the power of each lens.

This is the first time that lenses have been made, ranging from 100 to 800 degrees. Yang Peng found a few literate old men to do experiments and let them try on reading glasses of various powers. After wearing reading glasses with the right prescription, these old people found that they could read the text clearly at close range, and they shouted magically.

The things invented by this lord are always so incredible.

After Yang Peng confirmed the power of each lens, he re-made the molder and made 28 lens molders with different powers in a unit of 25 degrees. The new lenses are polished by craftsmen to make a set of standard power lenses, and then these standard lenses are used to make a fine molder for the mold, reducing the amount of polishing work. Finally, after the standard molder was completed on February 15, each jade craftsman could grind a pair of lenses per hour, and five people could make 30 pairs of glasses a day.

When the product was made, Yang Peng began to sell. Yang Peng sold reading glasses at the price of ten taels and one pair in Gao's store in Cangzhou City. Yang Peng set reading glasses at this price, firstly, to prevent others from copying them. After all, the imitation of reading glasses is relatively easy, a pair of reading glasses used in glass glass is only one-twentieth of a set of glass tea sets, the price is too high, some people will use their own glass to grind imitations, imitations are irresistible, so the price is too high; Second, Yang Peng also hopes that more people will buy reading glasses and expand profits. Ten taels is not much, and the heads of wealthy families can afford this price. Selling at this price, there were many people in the Great Song Dynasty who could afford glasses, and the sales of reading glasses would go up.

In terms of product confidentiality, Yang Peng controls the confidentiality of the raw materials of the lenses. The colorless glass on the market is basically produced by Tianjing New Town. The glass glasses are relatively small, so it is impossible to grind glass lenses. The bottom of the glass tea set can be ground into glass lenses, which is not conducive to the secrecy of the glasses industry. Fortunately, the sales of tea sets were not very good, and Yang Peng simply stopped producing this kind of glass tea sets, cutting off the possibility of imitation glass lenses by other craftsmen from raw materials.

By controlling the raw materials, Yang Peng blocked the possibility of others copying reading glasses. The Gao family's shop in Cangzhou City has already expanded. Now the other two shops on both sides of the store have also been bought by the Gao family, and they look very decent after luxurious decoration. Yang Peng sells soap in the easternmost store, and the Gao family sells reading glasses in the westernmost storefront, which is the most upscale in decoration.

The so-called everything is difficult at the beginning, and the initial customers of new products are always few. Yang Peng hung a big pennant on the top of the store, hoping to attract the first batch of customers. What Yang Peng can do now is to wait for this product to slowly ferment and bring profits to himself.

Ding Youdi's father wanted to have a son, so he gave him such a stupid name. However, he did have a younger brother later, which made him wonder if his name was really useful. He was originally a peasant in Dingjia Village, 60 miles west of Cangzhou, and after three years of Taoism, he heard that Tianjing New City was recruiting, so he came to recruit workers. He was very fortunate to pass the interview of Li Dao, a close confidant of the city lord, and entered the glass workshop of Tianjing New Town. At first, he did what he did to light firewood, and then the city lord asked him to do the procurement, and he went to the store outside Xue Yuan in the west of Cangzhou City to buy alkaline noodles, and then every time he burned a furnace of glass, he poured alkaline noodles into the crucible, nine catties per pot.

He did the easy job. After the first glass kiln of the glass workshop was officially put into operation, there were 17 employees, the kiln head Cai Huaishui took three people to be responsible for heating the furnace, three people, including Ding Youdi, respectively purchased goods and added goods to the crucible, one employee was responsible for adding saltpeter to the boiling crucible, two employees were responsible for adding salt to the crucible and stirring the melt, one person was responsible for annealing, and four people were responsible for molding.

According to the rules of the lord of the castle: each employee is only responsible for his own business, and no one knows what materials others buy and use, nor how much other people's materials are needed. Employees are not allowed to discuss their own processes with other employees, and they are not allowed to leak process details to the outside.

Cai Huaishui, the head of the kiln, is responsible for the implementation of order and suppresses employees who violate discipline. Cai Huaishui is a simple and responsible kiln head, when he is in charge here, the whole kiln runs very smoothly, most of the employees abide by discipline, and no one talks about other people's processes. Ding Youdi is very grateful to Master Ethics for giving him such a job, two taels of silver a month, three meals with meat, easy and simple.

Ding Youdi rented a villa on Heming Street in the north of Tianjing City, and the monthly rent was only 70 yuan. There is no money to eat and drink in Tianjing New Town, and there are meat dishes at once, and Ding Youdi feels that he has grown a lot stronger and bolder in half a year. And there is such a high monthly money in Tianjing New Town, he can save one or two or eight dollars of silver every month, and he has more than ten taels of savings in half a year.

Ding Youdi's good errand made his worth rise, and from time to time, a matchmaker came to his house to talk about matchmaking, which made him very proud. But the good days passed quickly. At the end of July, when the city lord built the second glass kiln, he transferred the original kiln head Cai Huaishui to the second kiln, and the first kiln was served as the kiln head by the original furnace worker Huang Shu. Since this Huang Shu served as the head of the kiln, the atmosphere in the glass kiln has changed.

For the first month, everyone was still able to follow the discipline. But after returning from the New Year, several workers began to inquire about the secrets of other people's formulas. At the beginning, the three workers who were good with Huang Shu at the head of the kiln kept knocking on the side in the kiln to inquire about the names and dosages of other people's raw materials, and peeked at the operation of other people's processes. For example, when the annealing worker operated the annealing, he was originally operating alone in a compartment, and the Huang Shu people ran in to watch it and quarreled with the worker in charge of annealing several times.

Huang Shu not only did not stop those people from breaking discipline, but also punished employees from time to time who were unwilling to tell the secret of the recipe - Huang Shu, as the head of the kiln, has the power to cancel the meat in the employees' meals. For example, Chen San, who was in charge of adding saltpeter, was supposed to retire the left and right personnel when he was operating, but Huang Shu's people wanted to go to see it. Every time there was a quarrel, Huang Shu canceled Chen San's meat.

Huang Shu's family is very poor, and when he heard that his father was still gambling outside and owed money, he was very short of money, and everyone suspected that Huang Shu was colluding with outsiders to get the glass formula. But the people who do things in this glass workshop are honest farmers, and there is no evidence, and everyone does not dare to offend Huang Shu to report him! However, everyone knows that their errand is not easy to come by, and once they leak their recipe to Huang Shu's people, the city lord will not let him go easily. At the worst, he canceled his errand, and at worst, he sat in prison and beat the board. Thinking of this layer, the workers are stubbornly keeping the secrets of their own processes, and not allowing Huang Shu's people to have the opportunity to gain insight into the details.

Soon, Huang Shu found that he couldn't do it with his limited power, so he began to change his strategy. He began to invite the employees in the kiln to the restaurant for dinner one by one, saying that he wanted to discuss important matters. After Huang Shu invited guests a few times, Ding Youdi found that many employees in the kiln began to mingle with Huang Shu.

They whisper during operation and discuss the secrets of their processes. When doing key operations, he no longer opens the Huang Shu, and operates in front of Huang Shu to show him. Ding Youdi said, these people must have taken the benefits of Huang Shu and began to sell the secrets of the process to Huang Ming. Ding Youdi wanted to report Huang Shu, but he was afraid that he would offend the other employees in the kiln who had already taken refuge in Huang Shu, and he would be collectively framed by them in the future.

Finally, on July 7, Huang Shu found Ding Youdi and invited him to Jixian Building, the largest restaurant in Tianjing New Town, to have a drink. On the wine table, taking advantage of the strength of the two bowls of soju, Huang Shu leaned into Ding Youdi's ear and whispered that he would pay a hundred taels to buy him the secret of this process. As long as Ding Youdi agreed, Huang Shu immediately gave him fifty taels of silver, and then Ding Youdi told Huang Shu what the materials to add to the crucible were, how many catties at a time, and what the key was! After saying everything, I will operate it in front of Huang Shu tomorrow, and Huang Shu will give another fifty taels of silver to Ding Youdi.

One hundred taels of silver, enough for Ding Youdi to buy two small villas in Tianjing New Town. Ding Youdi was also shocked by Huang Shu's generosity, and he was in a trance for a few seconds, but soon he found the backbone: this thing can't be done! In this chaotic year, he betrayed the city lord, what can he do with a hundred taels?

To buy dozens of acres of dry land to plant? In these years, the gentry and the royal family did not pay the field endowment, and the field endowment was all pressed on commoners like Ding Youdi. I can't grow a few taels of silver in the soil all year round, and I have to suffer from the exploitation of the officials, and I am tired and tired, and I have to go hungry every year when the green and yellow are not harvested! Looking for an errand elsewhere? Who will hire someone who betrays the lord of the castle? Even if others don't know their details and hire themselves, the errand that can get one or two or five dollars in these years can be regarded as burning high incense. Usually such errands are heavy physical work and can exhaust people. An errand like the one provided by the lord of the castle will never be found again.

What's more, the city lord is not easy to get along with, betraying him, he can't get along in Cangzhou, he can only fly away! Ding Youdi is not a greedy person, he is very calm, he knows that taking this hundred taels of silver is harming himself. But Huang Shu was very arrogant, he patted Ding Youdi's shoulder, and said coldly: "We spent this lot of money on your secret recipe, we are really moving, if you think about it, you know that we are not small!" If you don't cooperate, I promise you won't have a good life. We can't move you in Tianjing New Town, I guarantee that you will break your hands and feet as soon as you leave Tianjing New Town! ”

Listening to Huang Shu's words, Ding Youdi's heart was cold, and a fine sweat broke out on his back. Could it be that he really can't keep such a good job, so he can only take the hundred taels of silver and fly away. Ding Youdi is not a cowardly person, he took a wine glass and thought about the time of tea, and then made up his mind. He is determined to keep his good life and deal with this Huang Shu to the end. He pretended to agree to Huang Shu, accepted Huang Shu's fifty taels of silver, and told Huang Shu that he was purchasing arsenic, and adding fifteen catties to the crucible each time.

Huang Shu was overjoyed, kept saluting Ding Youdi's wine, and finally went back after being half drunk. Ding Youdi didn't go back to his villa with the money, he went around in Tianjing New Town, and after making sure that no one was following him, he rushed into Yang Peng's official hall. The soldiers guarding the door did not let Ding Youdi enter the door at first, but when Ding Youdi took out fifty taels of silver from his arms and said that someone was going to steal the secret recipe of the city lord's glass, those soldiers hurriedly went in to report. Soon, Ding Youdi saw the city lord walk out in person.

The moment he saw the city lord, Ding Youdi understood that his good life in Tianjing New City had been saved! Looking at the fifty taels of silver, Yang Peng believed Ding Youdi's words, someone was stealing his own formula. Yang Peng couldn't imagine that he had layers of defense, and there were still people who tried their best to steal their own formulas. I gave the first three or two months of money to this kiln, but I didn't expect him to be grateful to himself, but instead joined forces with people outside to get the glass formula. Who is coveting their own recipe and wants to produce profitable glass?

Yang Peng asked Ding Youdi and Huang Shu to be with him, and he sent people overnight to secretly keep an eye on Huang Shu to see who was in contact with him. Two days later, there was news at the whistle, and four outsiders who pretended to be in the rice and noodle business contacted Huang Shu every day to spread the news outside the city. Yang Peng asked people to keep an eye on these fake rice and noodle merchants to see where they were spreading the news.

After following the whistle for a few days, it was finally figured out that these rice and noodle merchants had entered Lu Siqi's house. Lu Siqi is the boss of Longsheng, one of the eight major firms in Bianjing, and the cousin of Pan Hu, a general in Bianjing. It turned out that it was Pan Hu's people who wanted to produce their own glass. This Lu Siqi likes to make friends and watch dramas the most on weekdays, and he looks like a Ren Xia, he can't imagine stealing the formula to start so ruthlessly, and thousands of taels of silver are sprinkled in like this. This momentum is obviously to prepare the recipe for glass in one go. Yang Peng didn't want to turn his face with the court at this time, and he couldn't move Lu Siqi, but it was still okay to deal with the Diao people in his territory.

Yang Peng gave an order, and the family members went out to arrest Huang Shu and the fake rice and noodle merchants, and put them in prison for interrogation. Under the torture, several Diao people quickly confessed to the main messenger and the employees who had been bribed. The main messenger was indeed Lu Siqi, and several fake rice and noodle merchants reported directly to Lu Siqi's younger brother and took the silver to do things. And with this silver, Huang Ming has already bought off eight workers in the No. 1 kiln of the glass workshop.

Yang Peng immediately arrested the eight workers suspected of betraying him and tortured and interrogated. In the end, the prosecutor determined that these eight people had indeed sold the secrets of their work. These secrets have been passed on to Lu Siqi through Huang Shu, but fortunately, the three core procurement personnel have not been bought, and the workers who add saltpeter to remove color have not been bought, and Lu Siqi can't produce glass with limited information.

But the outcome of the interrogation still made Yang Peng very angry. He supports these workers with high salaries, but these workers repay themselves with food and pickpockets. Yang Peng ordered Huang Shu, the fake rice noodle merchant, and eight workers who sold the recipe to be shot en masse. The crime is to communicate with the Khitans to leak military information. Yang Peng arranged it a little and came up with some false evidence, pointing to the nine workers and Lu Siqi's personnel fornicating with the Khitans. Relying on this evidence, Yang Peng sentenced thirteen criminals to death.

Yang Peng has the power to kill lawbreakers because he has the right to kill the lawless. The crime of revealing the secret recipe of the merchant was too small to kill the head, Yang Peng simply said that these people were Khitans. It's not that Yang Peng is ruthless, it's really not that he is not fierce, and he can't deter the crumbs. The nine workers, including Huang Ming, knew the steps of glass production, and they had already had different intentions, so it was impossible for them to stay in the glass workshop to continue their work, and it was impossible to dismiss them and let them spread the production methods of the glass workshop outside.

With Yang Peng's high salary, he naturally has to take responsibility. Leaking secrets is the end of it. Hearing that Yang Peng sentenced his four fake rice noodle merchants to death, Lu Siqi didn't say anything, and didn't seem to want to expose his stealing of Yang Peng's formula, and he didn't want to tear his face with Yang Peng.

If you want to know what happens next, let's see the next breakdown.