Qin Official

In early July of the twenty-sixth year of the First Emperor of Qin, when the five ministers of the Shaofu gathered in the official office, they talked about the strange things that had happened recently.

"The newly appointed fake Prime Minister Heifu..."

The Shaofu General Zuocheng deliberately prolonged his words and waited for several colleagues to come over before continuing: "He sent people to take away all the hemp, rags, and scraps from the East and West Weaving Rooms!"

All the prime ministers looked at each other in confusion. The young man in charge was the first to laugh dumbly: "What does he want with these wastes?"

The Shaofu Nei Cheng is in charge of the palace, clothes, treasures, treasures and food. He deals with Wanzhu hairpins, Fu Ji's Er, Ajin's clothes and brocade ornaments plundered from the six countries all day long. He does not pay attention to ordinary silk, silk and linen. What's more, in his opinion, hemp heads, rags, and scraps are all useless.

"Is it going to be used to make hundreds of clothes?"

On the side, the Shaofu Prison Superintendent was in charge of the prisoners. Seeing that the poor officials and concubines had nothing to wear, he sewed together the rags collected from bits and pieces to make clothes, which he called "Bainiyi". There is even a custom in his hometown of Yongdi: children who are often sick and suffer disasters must eat thousands of meals and wear hundreds of robes, so that they can cure diseases and disasters and grow up smoothly.

Besides, they really couldn't think of what Heifu would do with collecting a bunch of rags?

Everyone was a little repelled by Heifu, who temporarily came to the Shaofu to take charge of papermaking, especially General Jiang Zuocheng. The bamboo slips and silks used in the palace were all made under his supervision. Even if His Majesty wants to make new things, he should be the one to take the lead. But His Majesty asked Heifu, a layman, to start a new one. What kind of thing is this?

Jiang Zuocheng did not dare to question Qin Shihuang's determination, so he put his grievances on Hei Fu. Although he asked for everything Hei Fu wanted, he secretly wanted to see Hei Fu's jokes...

He sneered: "For more than ten days, the black man has done nothing except asking Yuan Cheng to soak trees in water and collecting rags from everywhere. I want to see what he will come up with by the end of September. Please report to the Shaofu Superintendent and His Majesty!"

…

On the seventh day of July, although autumn has entered, the sun is still scorching hot. According to the custom in Qin, today is the day for families to dry clothes, cloth and bamboo slips.

Neishiteng's family was no exception. Her stepmother was sick, and Ye Zijin took care of everything in the house. She had people move the cloth clothes and the heavy bamboo slips from her father's study to the yard to be exposed in the sun, but she heard something coming from outside the mansion. There was a long shouting sound...

"Put away the rags!"

As soon as he heard this voice, Zi Jin knew that it was Hei Fu's subordinates who were coming.

This matter has become a joke in Xianyang City. Heifu, who became the fake Shaofu Cheng, did not do his business, but sent people to collect rags in Xianyang City. It is really funny.

"This gentleman never does things without aim. A few years ago, he proposed the construction of public toilets and a large-scale fertilization in Nan County, and he was often laughed at. But when the clock came to the end of the year, the fact that the yield per mu had doubled made everyone speechless..."

Some people think this is luck, but in a few years, either by virtue of military merit or by taking advantage of the current situation, he has gradually transformed from a small official in Nanjun to a close minister of the emperor, and ranked as a junior minister. How can a mediocre person do it?

Therefore, this matter seemed to be pointless, but Ye Zijin couldn't help but be curious. He wanted to know what Hei Fu had in mind, so he asked the people around him: "Fu Mu, are there any rags or pockmarks at home?"

Neishi's mansion was huge, with more than a hundred people including retainers, ministers, maids, cooks, and craftsmen living in it. There was also a special weaving room where high-quality fabrics were bought from outside to make clothes. Ordinary maids also wore silk clothes. , only the grooms and men wear linen.

But no matter how good a tailor is, there will be errors when cutting cloth, so there are quite a lot of rag scraps in the house. Mrs. Naishi is so luxurious that she doesn’t want to see her servants patching them up. She thinks it is a shameful thing, so she uses rag scraps. No one cared about them, and the tailor was reluctant to throw them away, so he piled them up in the warehouse. There were several baskets.

Zijin asked two Fumu and maidservants to follow him, and asked the officials to carry the scraps of rags out of the mansion. He happened to see the soap-coated clerk who collected the cloth parked the oxcart in the inner courtyard, and followed the people who came after hearing the news. The woman peddler explains the price of rags...

The clerk said: "rags, corners, and hemp heads, one penny per catty."

"One penny!?"

A woman in a Jingchai cloth skirt made an exaggerated voice, and her smiling face suddenly became full of displeasure:

"My family is no more noble than a wealthy family. We are just ordinary public servants and superiors. There is a saying in our neighborhood, called Xin Bozi, Jiu Zhongzi, and Po Shuji. It means that one piece of clothing can be worn by four brothers, brothers, Zhongzhong, and uncle Ji. Wear them from winter clothes to summer clothes, from wide sleeves to sleeveless, from major repairs and patches, from new clothes to old clothes, then to rags, until you can no longer wear them. Until then, you have to cut off your shirts At the end of the day, I’m going to be a maid..."

"That's why, this rag is also useful, but you want to buy it for a pound, I might as well keep it as a rag!"

After saying that, he twisted his waist and left.

The young officials in the Shaofu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. They fiddled with the abacus that Zhang Cang had taught them on the spot and made an account for the shrewd Xianyang woman: "A big brown coat costs eighteen pounds of hemp. A medium brown coat is worth sixty yuan. Fourteen kilograms of hemp is worth forty-six yuan. A small brown coat is worth ten kilograms of hemp, worth thirty-six yuan."

"Calculated in this way, a pound of good linen is only more than three qian. Now buying a pound of tattered linen scraps for one qian is like exchanging three unwearable rags for a new one. Is it still a loss? Can’t do it?”

The shrewish woman thought about it carefully and realized that the clerk's words seemed to make sense. The linen was rough and even cutting it to make a small coat made her chest hurt. Instead of making do with it, she might as well exchange the rags for money to buy new cloth. So he weighed several kilograms of rags found at home to the clerk, and went home happily with a few pennies and a half taels of money.

Looking at the small official's car, there are already a lot of rags and scraps loaded on it.

He actually didn't quite understand why the Shaofu Prime Minister wanted to do this, but since the orders were given, and the Internal History and the Xianyang Order had given permission, he had no choice but to do it.

In the huge city of Xianyang, there are many similar bullock carts for small officials. Along with the jingling of cowbells, the officials leading the cows shouted at the top of their lungs, "Collect the rags and hemp heads!" It also echoed in the village... …

When dusk is approaching, most of the ox carts collecting rags return home with full loads. They meet the carriages from Shaofu near Weiqiao and drive towards the Hao Chi together.

…

In late July, Cheng Shang, Zhang Han and others were amazed when they saw the rags and scraps piled up into several hills beside the pickaxe pond, but Hei Fu was not surprised.

As the capital of the empire, Xianyang has 150,000 households. Recently, 120,000 households have moved to the customs. Half of them are settled in the suburbs of Xianyang. What does it mean to have more than 200,000 households? If each family collected half a catty of rags, they would still have one hundred thousand catties!

Not to mention that the Shaofu also sent a large amount of leftover materials. Since the raw materials are complete, Heifu plans to make hemp paper in August first, and then start making bark paper in September after the craftsmen are familiar with the process.

The plan was on track, and Hei Fu was in a good mood, until Zhang Cang, who was staying in Xianyang City to settle accounts, also rushed to the workshop and happily told Hei Fu that he had a new nickname.

Zhang Cangpang's face was full of a narrow smile, and he bowed to Hei Fu with his chubby hands: "Congratulations, Hei Fu, didn't you complain before? You are just pretending to be a young man with no clear authority. That is not the case now. You have been called Shaofu Pobu Cheng by all Xianyang people!"

Zhang Han couldn't help laughing and turned away to smile, while Cheng Shang felt sorry for Hei Fu.

"Using rags to make paper is a waste of money, and the people's morality is not labored, and new profits can be made. This is an act of saving money and benefiting the country and the people, but it has been misunderstood by the people. I really feel sorry for the Young Master!"

The Mohists pay great attention to "frugal use". Taking clothes as an example, they do not require everyone to wear brown clothes like the Mohists. As long as the cyan clothes worn in winter are warm and the Xige clothes worn in summer are light and cool, this will That's it.

The Qin State was indeed like this in the past. Even Qin Xiaogong and Qin Hui Wang wore linen clothes to the court, and they were extremely people-friendly and frugal. This is why generations of Mohists were deeply attracted by Qin and chose to take root here.

But this is not the case now. After the demise of the Six Kingdoms, all their wealth and silks were transferred to Qin. The emperor's palace was full of hairpins made of pearls, earrings of fuji, clothes of Ajin, and embroidered ornaments, and they were thrown away without hesitation. With the emperor taking the lead, pride and extravagance has spread in Xianyang. The maids of the officials' families all wear silk shoes and beautiful ornaments...

Mo Zhe felt sad and felt that this was no longer the simple and frugal Qin he knew.

In such a general environment, Cheng Shang admired Heifu's ability to do the opposite, turn waste into treasure, and reuse the rags and scraps that had been abandoned in the palace. He decided to inform Tang Dynasty about what happened here. Master, Tang Duo and other Qin Mo asked all the Mo masters to assist Hei Fu. This must be done!

Heifu thanked the process developer for his kindness, and he was not depressed at all. Compared with the various nicknames he had received before, what was this?

"Babu Cheng, just Babu Cheng."

He smiled faintly, picked up the long knife used to cut linen, and took the lead towards the hemp heads and rags that had been soaked in the pool for a long time.

"I will laugh and scold you, but I am the one who will do this for future generations!"

…

At the beginning of August, as raw materials were fully prepared and the papermaking workshop officially started work, the pickaxe pond began to become lively and attracted the attention of many people in Xianyang City.

The young master Zao Mengtian, who had just returned from Qi, even came to Haochi in person to see what the "Shaofu Pobu Cheng" was up to...