Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

During dinner, Zheng Man came over again and looked at Li Tai with resentful eyes while eating, which made Li Tai a little embarrassed.

The matter has come to this, no matter how much you worry, it will not help. The only remedy at the moment is to fully develop the handicraft industry to make up for this huge debt hole. It is no longer possible to rely solely on farming.

"Zheng Zheng came here. I would like to ask the county government whether they will accept the twine? If it is purchased, I can lose it at a price that is 20% lower than the current price."

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

"Tianxian, what does the county want with this miscellaneous material? Mr. Lang, do you want to use hemp thread to offset the loss? This is impossible!"

After hearing this, Zheng Man shook his head repeatedly: "The county has its own textile manufacturing industry, so there is no need for the private sector to import miscellaneous materials."

"If you don't accept it, is there any hemp stocked in the county? If the hemp material is stored for a long time and breaks the tendons, it will become waste. If there is some left in the store, can it be loaned out on credit?"

Li Tai's smile became more honest and he asked again.

Zheng Man directly put down his bowl and chopsticks, looked straight at Li Tai and said in a deep voice: "Mr. Lang, what on earth do you want to do? Do you want to spin linen and weave cloth and buy grain to make up for the loss? Ten thousand shi of grain, at least. Fifty thousand pieces of cloth, how many artificial materials are needed, has Lang Jun calculated it? How could the county..."

"It is true that it consumes a lot of materials and labor, but it depends on the human effort. You have to give it a try."

Li Tai also felt that his request was a bit excessive. No matter how much he strangled the county government, it was impossible for him to provide him with hundreds of thousands of kilograms of hemp spinning raw materials.

Before, he had imagined everything too simply, thinking that as long as he had a big spinning wheel to improve the efficiency of spinning linen, he could weave and print money.

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

Although weaving is only a basic industry, it also has several links. Improving the efficiency of one link will still not greatly 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. Linen is a cheap material and weaving is cumbersome. There is indeed a lot of surplus in the county warehouse. The county magistrate has something important to do now, so he should take care of it."

Zheng Man had already guessed that the manor's properties alone would not be able to satisfy the huge debt, but now that he was on the same boat as Li Tai, he still sincerely hoped that the matter could be settled.

"That's great. You don't need to take out a loan. I'll buy the linen material at the current price, and I'll make the cloth as it's available. I'll be honest with you!"

The current situation in textile factories is that raw materials cannot meet the production capacity of spinning wheels, and weavers cannot consume the twine spun. The two short legs were no longer pulling at the balls, but were rubbing against them so much that they hurt.

Li Tai's plan was to solve the supply problem of raw materials through Zheng Man, and then recruit a group of weaver women from the countryside to work through Zhou Changming to expand the output of cloth as much as possible. Even if it still could not satisfy the huge debt after the autumn, at least it would be enough. First increase your cash flow.

Although running away was also an option, Li Tai just thought 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 stages of his business.

Early the next morning, Zheng Man rode back to the city, while Li Tai took two hangings of dried meat to Shangyang in the south to garrison.

In the square in front of the garrison, Zhou Changming was leading more than two hundred rural soldiers to practice. The folk customs in Guanzhong are pragmatic and tough. After the summer, the village soldiers spent half the day hoeing wasteland and the other half drilling, and they did not waste their time at all.

After a drill was completed, Zhou Changming invited Li Tai into the garrison. After everyone sat down, when he heard Li Tai explain his purpose, Zhou Changming frowned and said, "But the villagers also have their own farming and weaving work to do. , I’m afraid I won’t have much free time…”

"After summer, most of the work in the fields involves hoeing. Men only need to do it, and women also have to do weaving. I invited them to work in the village, but they just changed the place. They don't need to spin, just weave. Of course, the work is not How about making it for nothing, breakfast and dinner, and a piece of cloth for ten days?”

Li Tai smiled and explained that the villagers were weaving at home, which required retting, drying and combing the flax before finally weaving it into cloth, which was very inefficient. It often takes several months to weave enough cloth for a whole year.

Li Tai's price of ten ten days per piece of cloth is not a high reward, but it does not require the villagers to pay for their own linen materials, and it can also save one person's rations. This is also a very cost-effective price for the villagers. High affordable option.

"If that's the case, I can try to persuade the villagers. But please make sure that these weavers come in and out safely!"

Zhou Changming was also greatly moved when he heard the conditions offered by Li Tai.

"Of course, there is a three-point risk when leaving the house. The weaver girls in the village work together in a separate courtyard. There will be no harassment by rogues. I will send someone to guide them when they come in and out. There will definitely be no stray injuries."

There are scoundrels running rampant in the cities 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 etiquette requirements for women who go out to work. Li Tai has also considered and arranged these aspects.

"Country soldiers can do the work for ushering in and out. However, if we are not harassed while working, we must rely on our husbands to control us. If this can be ensured, I would also like to see country women working instead of farming."

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

There are quite a few villages near Shangyuan, with hundreds of large households and dozens of small ones. Although the number of registered households in Wuxiang County is only over one thousand, those are the equal-land households that have been granted land, and there are even more households outside the equal-land households. The main reason is that there are not many acres of land that can be granted in the county, and large pieces of land are Divided up by powerful nobles.

These households that have not been granted land are either tenant farmers, shady households, or rural military households. There are thousands of households in Shangyuan Township alone, not counting those who live, eat, drink, and work on large estates. The Warriors' Steps.

The group visited several villages. Most of the villagers were hesitant when they heard about this. It was only when Zhou Changming, a well-known garrison leader in the village, patted his chest as a guarantee that he agreed.

When Li Tai saw this scene, he couldn't help but sigh that he was lucky that he didn't have any enemies with Zhou Changming, the chief minister of the village. If he were to do it on his own, even if the commission was doubled, the villagers might not be willing to pay attention to him, and they wouldn't be able to give away money even if they wanted to.

"What is this doing?"

After visiting several villages, Li Tai found that in the courtyards of many villagers, there were two square beams squeezed together horizontally, with some cake-like things sandwiched between them, with stones pressed on them, and they smelled of oil.

"That's pressing oil. Seeds such as sesame are stir-fried and steamed to make cakes, and the oil is squeezed out."

Zhou Changming explained with a smile.

"Isn't there an oil mill in the countryside? The pressure is so high but not much oil is produced! There is still a lot of oil and water in these cakes."

Li Tai knew about the crude oil extraction method, but he had never heard of such a crude oil extraction method.

"There is an oil mill in Xiaqu, Luoshui River, but the rent is too high. The villagers have three to five buckets of seed material, which is not worth going to the oil mill to get it. With such squeezing, there is no delay in working, making cakes in the morning and collecting oil in the evening. . The remaining meal can be used for cooking, so it’s not a waste.”

Zhou Changming explained casually, but Li Tai listened carefully.

The weaving of linen is too popular, so the profits are very transparent. Even if there is a large spinning wheel to improve the efficiency of spinning, the production scale will need to be expanded to maintain considerable profits.

But oil extraction is not the case. Oil is not only a munition for maintaining ordnance and fire defense, but also a daily necessities for daily diet seasoning, lighting and anti-corrosion. The market is large and the profit is high. There is an essential difference between the efficiency of small-scale production and centralized operation. It should be very There is a head start.

A few kilograms of linen and a piece of cloth are all approximate quantities. But the amount of oil produced by a bucket of seed material makes a huge difference!

Although this thought came to mind, Li Tai also learned from the previous experience of spinning hemp and planned to carefully observe the upstream and downstream supporting facilities before deciding whether to start it. Especially in terms of supply of raw materials, if small households only rely on individual harvests, no matter how advanced the oil extraction technology is, the output will not be able to increase.

I followed Zhou Changming around the countryside for an afternoon, and initially persuaded nearly a hundred households to agree to work later. Li Tai was quite satisfied with such a result. It was normal for the villagers to hesitate at the moment. When the industry was mature, there would be a mass base for recruiting workers and expanding production, which would be much more convenient.

When Li Tai returned to the manor, Zheng Man also came back from the city, looking a little unhappy: "Originally, the county magistrate has been persuaded, but today it is the county captain Shi who is on duty to close the warehouse, but there is no need to indiscriminately use hemp materials to the countryside." , In the end, I only got two thousand kilograms of raw hemp materials. There was no need to buy these materials, which were already marked as consumption in the book."

Li Tai liked the collusion between officials and people in the Western Wei Dynasty, but when he heard that it was only more than two thousand kilograms, he couldn't help but feel a little worried. After two thousand kilograms of raw sesame was cooked and degummed, it was hard to say whether there would be one thousand kilograms of clinker left, which would not be enough to run five large spinning wheels for two days.

Li Tai wasn't too angry when Lieutenant Shi was causing trouble. The old boy had offended him a long time ago. He kept an account and settled two accounts. Whenever he got the chance, he would always call him daddy.

I visited the villagers today. If they came to work, the hemp stored at home would be of no use. They could collect it again, but it would only be a few thousand kilograms at most.

"Liu Shi asked the gentleman why he was searching for so much hemp material. I didn't tell him the truth, but he also said that there were tens of thousands of kilograms of hemp stored in the house. If the gentleman was really in urgent need, he could go and negotiate the price, but he only needed Spot delivery.”

Hearing what Zheng Man said, Li Tai sneered again, but he couldn't help but sigh that these big families in the countryside were really well-off, even storing so much of raw hemp, a low-value material that took up a lot of storage space.

However, Li Tai didn't plan to send him to his door to be a fat sheep. Who doesn't have two wealthy friends?

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

After thinking for a while, Li Tai ordered again.

The largest landowners in Huazhou City today are not the powerful villagers who have lived and worked here for generations, but outsiders like the Beizhen Wuren. Even if he has to buy raw hemp raw materials at a high price, it is better to buy it cheaply for the wealthy people who don't like him, rather than buying it cheaply for the people he knows.