Daqin Engineering Corps

No way... Who made the girl he liked choose geography?

As a result, this became Shen Bing's weakness in the college entrance examination, and in the end he only got a second book, and his love scene naturally fell through.

I didn't expect that these geographical knowledge would be used in Yunzhong County in this time and space.

Is there a market?

Of course there is. At this time, all countries in the Central Plains are struggling with food and clothing. Apart from fighting for land, they are farming and weaving, and almost everyone is weaving. The market demand is extremely huge.

In addition, from Houtao to the west, you enter the Hexi Corridor, which is the main throat leading to the Western Regions, and it is also a part of the Silk Road...

Why not open up the Silk Road to do business in the Western Regions?

The loom can weave cloth and of course silk!

Is there policy support?

must have.

The general Shen Bing personally arrested and also had the support of Ying Zheng. It can be said that he gave the green light all the way and gave various priorities.

The traffic will be done immediately.

The labor force is coming soon...in fact, some of it has already come and many are on the way.

Since the leaflets were distributed to Dai Kingdom, many people have returned to Yunzhong County one after another, but the number is not many.

As for technology...

Well, at this point, as long as Shen Bing is there, he will surely occupy the commanding heights of technology, and it is foreseeable that he will have a technological advantage for a long period of time in the future.

Therefore, it is difficult for Yunzhong County to develop.

Only when there is development, there will be people, and there will be everything when there are people, and this is the most important thing.

Therefore, people often come to different conclusions when looking at problems from different angles.

If you ask ordinary people what is important?

Of course, money is important and wealth is important. After having money, you can buy what you want, although not all, but most of them.

But looking at the world from Shen Bing's perspective...

Do money and wealth really matter?

Money and wealth were almost at his fingertips, as early as when he made paper, which he could use as money in this world.

However, even if there are mountains of gold and mountains of silver in the house full of food and treasures... wouldn't everything be gone with an order from Ying Zheng?

Or was it that the Xiongnu gathered soldiers and looted and lost both people and wealth?

So Shen Bing has long seen clearly that the greatest wealth in this world is not money, but power.

Only with power can one have everything, even the lives of others.

What Shen Bing is doing now is to use industrialization to make money, and then use this money to create a large number of employment opportunities, and use employment opportunities, the environment and benefits to attract "people" from other places to Yunzhong County and gather in Shen Bing's account Down.

The following situation developed steadily as Shen Bing expected.

First, dozens or hundreds of people from the Dai Kingdom sneaked back to Yunzhong County.

These people originally planned to come back to farm, but Shen Bing told them that the fields were limited and the farming season was missed, and even farming at this time could not support their families.

Why not... work for Yunzhong County?

At the beginning, many people were unwilling to accept it.

The reason is that Shen Bing is a little dumbfounded, just because the employment is unstable and the social status is not high.

This is true.

The reason for the low social status is that in this era, there are "scholars, farmers, businessmen" in the ranks. Farmers are one level higher than workers, and no one wants to lower their status to enter the work status.

The reason for the instability of migrant workers is that migrant workers in this era are generally casual workers. If one family needs to build a house, it will hire a worker to do it for a few days, and another family will do it for a few days if it needs to, wandering around and not being sure.

Relatively speaking, farmers are much more stable. As long as they work in the fields, there will be a harvest without any accidents such as disasters.

Therefore, workers in this era are almost synonymous with "doing nothing."

They didn’t realize at all that Shen Bing’s “migrant workers” after industrialization did not have the problem of “instability” at all, and even at this time, migrant workers were much more stable than farming... Regardless of spring, summer, autumn and winter, they can work in textile factories and get paid , not to mention the harvest of the sky.

However, the Warring States period was a half-slave and half-feudal country, and their understanding and concept of workers were pre-industrial, and it was difficult for Shen Bing to change them.

But this is not a problem for Shen Bing.

Fatty Tun is in charge of this matter alone... As I said before, Fatty Tun has a business mind and is good at careful calculations, and he is in charge of the entire textile workshop.

Shen Bing only asked Fatty Tun to give three conditions:

"During the probationary period, I will be paid ten dollars a day."

"Twenty dollars a day after being officially hired."

"After enclosing new land or recovering some land in Hetao, you can choose to work or farm!"

People: ...

You must know that in this era, one day of hard labor is only eight yuan, and during this probationary period, you will be given ten yuan a day, and you will be given twenty yuan a day after that?

This wage is more than twice as high as other wages.

If it is counted as food rations... Be good, two dollars can feed one person, and regular employees can feed ten people with twenty dollars.

In the past, when farming, people who got up early in the fields and waited for the dark wind and rain could barely support five mouths. If the harvest was not good, they would inevitably go hungry, but now they can feed ten people casually.

So is this even a question?

Of course work!

In the face of huge interests, what is that little social status?

But at this time Shen Bing fell in love again:

"If you don't pass the probationary period, you can arrange other jobs or farm!"

Shen Bing is actually trying to grasp the psychology of the people: the rarer something is, the more people will grab it.

For example, now that Shen Bing is using these generous conditions to ask those common people to work, those common people will hesitate instead... There must be difficulties in this matter with such generous remuneration but no one cares about it.

But now if many people are scrambling for it, and it takes hard work and competition to get it, then the situation will be different, and everyone will rush to it.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for the attitude of the people to change 180 degrees, and the migrant workers changed from no one cared about them to everyone flocking to them.

Cang is responsible for training and arranging workers.

There are workers from all walks of life, including those who make and repair waterwheels, those who operate spinning machines and looms, and those who build roads and transport...

In a word, each takes advantage of his strengths, and those who are strong will contribute their strength, those who can operate boats and cars will be transported, and women who can weave will be hired in large numbers to work in textile factories.

As for the wages, it was not difficult for Shen Bing. The working capital was obtained by transporting a batch of paper from the paper mill to the Central Plains for sale.

In fact, wages are not settled in coins but in grain.

This is also what the people hope, because what they need more is food to feed themselves and their families rather than money.

Chapter 3 Nineteen Sales

The vitality of ramie is relatively tenacious, and for the Warring States period...to be precise, it should be planted by every household in most ancient times.

In ancient times, "men farm and women weave" was emphasized, didn't they?

If there is no ramie, it means that there is no raw material for weaving. If there is no raw material, we cannot weave or can only spend money to buy it.

Ordinary poor families are reluctant to spend money to buy raw materials. They usually plant a small piece of ramie and harvest it regularly for family use. If it is not possible, they go to harvest wild ramie.

Ramie can be harvested three times a year. The first ramie is about 80 to 90 days old, the second ramie is about 50 to 60 days, and the third ramie is 70 to 80 days. Therefore, only a small piece of land and no need for much care can satisfy a family clothing needs.

In the early days of the weaving workshop, the ramie fields left by the original residents in Yunzhong County were harvested.

The original residents moved away with Zhao Wangjia, but the ramie planted by every household remained in place, and it had not been harvested for a long time and it grew very thick, but many of them were frozen to death in the low temperature in winter.

However, this does not affect its use as a raw material... Spinning requires ramie fibers, and plants that freeze to death can still be used as raw materials.

At the same time, the Xiongnu neither spun thread nor weaved cloth, so they had no interest in these ramie at all, so they left large pieces of ramie in the fields to grow together with the weeds.

For the time being, textile workshops are harvesting these ramie as raw materials.

On the other side, the land circled here in Yunzhong County was replanted with five vegetables and ramie because it missed the farming season.

Calculated on the 80th to 90th day of the first harvest of ramie, textile workshops only need to use these "wild" ramie for three months before they can become "regular".

Judging from the current situation, Shen Bing doesn't need to worry about raw materials at all, because the supply of "wild" and "abandoned" ramie is completely in excess of demand.

After the ramie is harvested and entered the textile workshop, it enters the production cycle of the textile workshop.

In less than ten days, the first batch of cloth was successfully produced. Due to the small scale in the initial stage, the daily output was only more than one hundred pieces...but this speed has already made Fusu and others dumbfounded.

As I said before, it takes more than a month to weave one bolt by hand.

And this is the result of getting up early and working late at night, weaving whenever I have spare time:

About eleven to twelve bolts of cloth are woven a year, which is just enough for a family of five to wear one set of summer clothes and one set of winter clothes.

Among them, winter clothes need more cloth, while children need less cloth, so there is not much difference in balance.

In addition, if you sew and mend old clothes from previous years and wear them for a few years, you can save a few bolts of cloth to sell to supplement your household. If you need to change a few more clothes for your son who is a soldier, you will be nervous.

This is the careful calculation of ordinary people's homes.

But now, Shen Bing has set up this textile workshop, which can easily produce one hundred pieces of cloth per day... This is equivalent to one hundred skilled women weaving for more than a month.

Moreover, after the textile workshop enters the production cycle, it will continuously produce cloth every day.

Fusu calculated casually... If it takes a year, wouldn't this textile workshop be worth the workload of thousands of women?

And this is nothing, because there are only more than [-] hydraulic looms at present. If the scale of the workshop continues to expand and equipment is added, the gap will become wider and wider.

Shen Bing did not rush to expand the scale, because he felt that some reasonable improvements could be made to the hydraulic loom before that.

This hydraulic loom actually has a lot of room for improvement.

But just like the trebuchet had to be upgraded slowly in order to maintain its technological advantage, the improvement of the hydraulic loom should also be done step by step.

However, some improvements are imminent.

For example, if a water wheel only drives one loom, there will be problems of water power and water wheel waste. It only needs to connect the main shafts in series to increase the hydraulic power, and one water wheel can completely drive five or even more looms.

On the other hand, the quality of the cloth also needs to be further tested after it is put into the market, otherwise the problem will be discovered after mass production, and the loss will be great.

So ten days later, Shen Bing asked Meng Liang to transport the produced cloth to Yanmen County for sale...

Although Meng Liang is not a businessman, but with his identity and friends everywhere, it is not a big problem where to open up relationships or even set up a retail department.

As expected, this batch of cloth was sold out within half a day after it arrived in Yunzhong County: 45 yuan a piece, and the quality is rare and high-quality, so it would be strange if they were not sold out.

As planned, after the cloth was sold, it was replaced with grain and shipped back to Yunzhong County.

This process is not even taxable...

In fact, it was difficult to collect taxes on merchants and workers during the Warring States period.

Merchants are not bad, for example, if they have fixed shops or sell in the market, these local county governments can collect if they have a way to participate.

If it is just a temporary trading place, there is no time to participate. For example, more than a thousand pieces of cloth like Mengliang are shipped and sold out in half a day... To be precise, they are not concentrated in Yanmen County for sale, but are shipped all the way to Yanmen County. Selling along the way.

It's just that most of the poor people along the way do not have strong purchasing power, and they mainly use barter... The cloth in Yunzhong County supports the exchange of grain for cloth.

It is difficult for the government to collect taxes on such transactions.

In fact, not to mention ancient times, even modern times are hard to guard against street vendors or tax evasion.

Not to mention the employment status, this place has a part-time job and gets paid and then leaves for another place. The local government does not know, is not sure, and cannot track how much money each worker earns and how much tax he has to pay.

Only the taxation of farmers is fixed and easy to implement: it is based on the fields you own, and you can't get away with it.

This is also one of the reasons why in ancient times, agriculture was emphasized over commerce and the status of industrial registration was low.

But of course, Shen Bing asked Meng Liang to take the initiative to report to the magistrate of Yanmen County and pay taxes in order to prevent people from being caught and also for long-term development.

At first everything went well.

Yunzhong County is only 160 kilometers away from Yanmen County.

There is a round trip every five days, and what is transported is cloth, and what is brought back is a cart of grain.