Guangzhou was the only treaty port of the Qing Dynasty for hundreds of years, and there were many exchanges with the West, and in terms of substance, it was far above Shanghai, which had just opened its port.

Zhao Dagui inspected in Guangzhou and found that there were many interesting industries, such as the whole of China's clocks and pocket watches were imported from the West, but in Guangzhou, there were many Chinese craftsmen who could make their own Western clocks and pocket watches, with exquisite workmanship and excellent quality, which were no worse than the goods imported from the West.

What's more interesting is that there are special raw silk reeling factories in Guangzhou, which introduce Western machinery to reeling raw silk, and even several silk factories use steam engines to reel or reel.

(Note: There was a steam engine silk reeling factory and a reeling factory in Guangzhou during this period, and there are records in historical materials, not that they are talking nonsense)

It turns out that China's raw silk production has always been simple, silkworm farmers harvest silkworm cocoons, make a stove at home, set up a pot, soak the cocoons with water, and then use a very simple hand-cranked wooden silk reeling machine to pull out the silk little by little.

Local silk weaving mills get this raw silk and use it directly to weave and produce silk.

However, the Western silk weaving industry has always been fine, and after obtaining this raw silk, it has to be rewound and stretched several times the length before it is used to produce silk.

Therefore, the raw silk raw materials used in Western silk are finer and more exquisite, and the silk produced is more exquisite and elegant, and the living space of Chinese silk in the international market is constantly squeezed, so that the original export value of Chinese silk is higher than that of raw silk, and the export value of raw silk is much higher than that of silk.

Britain and France have relatively developed industries, so when Chinese raw silk is brought to Europe, it is to be sent to this kind of rewinding factory to be rewound, while the United States may have a poor industrial base, and it will not be pulled to the United States until China completes the rewinding.

It can be said that China's raw silk exported to the United States must be rewound in Guangzhou before being exported to the United States, which also explains why there are relatively advanced reeling factories in Guangzhou with relatively advanced technology and equipment, and the demand is born and progressive.

Zhao Dagui inquired, after the rewinding of Chinese raw silk, the price can rise by at least four or five percent, and sometimes even doubled:

Zhao Dagui sells good Jili silk in Shanghai, and he thinks it is very suitable to sell it for more than 400 yuan, but this kind of reeling raw silk can be as high as 525 yuan to 650 yuan per load, and the profit in the middle can be called a huge profit.

Zhao Dagui inspected this kind of reeling factory under the pretext of buying raw silk, and discussed with the owner of the factory whether he could open a factory in partnership, or transfer machinery and equipment or workers at a high price, but the result was almost blasted out.

"Just a few things, I can see at a glance what to do, and what kind of secrets to keep. Zhao Dagui shook his head, but he was helpless.

In Guangzhou, Zhao Dagui personally felt that he had gained a lot by attracting more Western scholars to investigate some more technologically advanced industries.

Then, Zhao Dagui took the famous thorn and letter from Qi Ying to Foshan, not far from Guangzhou, and recruited blacksmiths or something as he said before.

Foshan is one of the four major towns of the Ming and Qing dynasties, from the Ming Dynasty to the developed iron smelting industry civilization, is to the present, but also the entire Qing Dynasty iron industry and metal processing industry technology is one of the most advanced places.

Zhao Dagui has Qiying as a backer, and he can almost walk sideways in the small Foshan, and the thousands of households in the local military town try their best to provide all kinds of convenience.

During the Opium War, Foshan helped the government smelt iron cannons or something, which was once extremely prosperous, but after the war, it was a bit of a depression, and the blacksmiths may not be able to find a job, but at least it is not very satisfactory.

Zhao Dagui gave a very generous salary, and he wanted to pull people to Shanghai to work, and there were many masters and ordinary craftsmen who were interested, and many of them were famous craftsmen with experience in artillery casting.

Zhao Dagui almost has as many blacksmiths as he wants, and blacksmiths with experience in cannon casting and gun making must be pulled away;

Some old blacksmiths, who are old and can't wield hammers, but are very experienced, and who are skilled in everything related to iron, from refractory materials to the production of iron-making furnaces, are also treasures;

The rest of the coppersmiths, silversmiths, and other skilled craftsmen who were willing to go to Shanghai were also packed and taken away, even including several craftsmen who specialized in making firecrackers and gunpowder.

Shanghai's commerce is extremely developed, but the industrial level is not high, and the craftsmanship level of the local blacksmiths is far lower than that of the craftsmen in Foshan Town who have rich experience in military production, after all, the local blacksmiths in Shanghai have not even mastered the simplest clay mold casting method, while the craftsmen in Foshan are very proficient in even the most advanced iron mold casting method in the Qing Dynasty.

Still like Macau, Zhao Dagui started by himself, and then left two shopkeepers to be responsible for bringing the craftsmen recruited from Foshan to Shanghai.

In his spare time, Zhao Dagui was shopping in Foshan, and actually found a pharmacy called "Bao Zhilin", and inquired, the owner of this pharmacy was called Huang Qiying, a famous local martial artist and doctor, and then inquired, this Huang Qiying doctor has a son named Huang Feihong, but he is younger, and now he is only eleven or twelve years old.

"What is this, have you come to Wong Fei Hung's movie? Zhao Dagui secretly complained, but he understood in his heart that in the history of the original world, Huang Feihong's father Huang Qiying did run Baozhilin in Foshan during this time period, and he also relied on his martial arts to become one of the ten tigers in Guangdong, and he was as famous as Su Qi'er and others.

Zhao Dagui went in to visit Huang Qiying, had a conversation, and hoped to invite him to Shanghai to set up a medical center, the cost and salary were easy to say, but Huang Qiying was not interested, just politely refused, and Zhao Dagui could not do anything.

Generally speaking, Zhao Dagui felt that he had come to Guangdong to be a human trafficker, and from Macao, Guangzhou to Foshan, he had to recruit a large number of craftsmen and scholars to go to Shanghai to do things.

Zhao Dagui fooled too many people in these three places, and it was impossible to take everyone on the road together, so he could only sit on the "Dongfang" by himself, and take some scholars from Shanghai and Guangzhou to take the first step, and the rest of the people could only slowly gather in Shanghai under the leadership of a few noble business house shopkeepers.

When the Dongfang arrived in Hong Kong, Zhao Dagui took out the money he brought and visited the money bank opened by a merchant in Guangzhou and the bank of Westerners to exchange about a ton of gold.

Shanghai's gold exchange capacity has its limit, Zhao Dagui has exchanged gold in Shanghai many times, which has had a certain impact on the exchange capacity of Shanghai's major money banks, and it is also easy to arouse unnecessary suspicion, so he has to exchange some gold in Guangdong.

It's just that in this way, the silver dollar cash in his hand is less than 250,000, which makes Zhao Dagui really feel that the money is not enough to spend.

Then, to replenish the supplies and go north, Zhao Dagui changed his mind and took everyone to Xuwen County, Leizhou for inspection, and then went to Shanghai.

Zhao Dagui is the owner of the money, and it doesn't matter to others, just treat it as a trip.

Xuwen County in Leizhou is much more remote than prosperous places such as Guangzhou, but because it is just north of Qiongzhou Mansion in Hainan, it is much easier to find it from the map.