Lu Bu: My wife comes from two thousand years later

Lu Bu now lives a very leisurely life. The task of mobilizing troops and training them is left to Xu Huang and Hua Xiong, the miscellaneous affairs are handled by Jia Xu and Chang Lin, and the matter of recruiting Black Mountain bandits to cultivate land is handled by Han Hao. Apart from listening to reports every day and occasionally taking time to inspect Yanmen, Xihe and Hedong, he spends the rest of his time at home with his wife and children. Of course, he also sometimes bullies Sima Yi, the bad boy.

Zhang Mo is also very leisurely. Apart from eating, drinking, taking care of the fetus and entertaining the little baby, she also makes some small inventions and gives Wang Ding some advice.

Wang Ding's current goal is the Zhen family of Jizhou, but before Yuan Shao's downfall, it is impossible to completely squeeze out the Zhen family. Wang Ding can only have an advantage in some special products, such as food, cloth, salt and other basic necessities. The Wang family cannot compare with the Zhen family at all.

However, with the successful introduction of the water-powered spinning wheel, Bingzhou's cloth production would far surpass that of other provinces. Given sufficient raw materials, the spinning wheel could produce textiles nearly a hundred times more efficiently than before, greatly improving efficiency while also freeing up labor.

In this era of low productivity, cloth was almost the same as money and could be used to barter for other things, so the spinning wheel was actually equivalent to a printing press.

After seeing the large spinning wheel weaving cloth quickly and efficiently, Zhang Mo couldn't help but have a crazy idea in her mind.

What would happen if Wang Ding went to Jizhou to buy up hemp in large quantities now?

Although she did not study economics, she knew about the tulip bubble in history. At that time, tulips had just been introduced to Western Europe from Turkey. Because of their small quantity and high price, they were regarded as a symbol of wealth and glory by the upper class. Then speculators saw the business opportunity and began to hoard tulip bulbs, pushing up prices. The craze for buying tulips spread to become a national movement.

Then one day the tulip market suddenly collapsed, prices plummeted, and many people lost all their money because they bought tulips at high prices. This incident caused the Dutch financial industry to decline rapidly, and the commercial economy also began to decline.

If we send people to Jizhou now to purchase a large amount of hemp, or even find the Zhen family or some big merchants to reserve a large batch of hemp with a deposit, it will inevitably lead to an increase in the price of hemp. Next year and the year after, all the families in Jizhou will compete to plant hemp. If there is another major disaster the year after that, what will happen to Jizhou?

Grain prices skyrocketed and hemp became worthless. If Wang Ding continued to sell grain at high prices and buy hemp at low prices, he could squeeze out 70 to 80 percent of Jizhou merchants.

Then, when the famine is over, Bingzhou can use the linen it has purchased at a low price to make cloth, and it can occupy the entire Jizhou market.

Not only Jizhou, she can even extend her hand to Qingzhou, Youzhou, Yanzhou and other places.

No, no, your ambition is too big, too big!

Not to mention the Wang family, even if the entire Bingzhou was mobilized, it would not be able to bring down half of the Han Dynasty. If such a large-scale operation were to take place, coupled with famine, it would lead to the collapse of the entire northern economy. No matter how much grain Bingzhou stockpiled, it would not be able to accommodate the people of several states. By then, there would really be thieves everywhere and bones in the wilderness.

Moreover, doing so will inevitably intensify land annexation everywhere. Although it can squeeze out many business families, it will also cause more people to lose their land and become refugees. Those wealthy aristocratic families will become more and more wealthy, including herself and the ruling class of Bingzhou.

However, in troubled times, all military and economic means ultimately serve political purposes. She cannot control the entire world now, but it is still no problem to control Jizhou. Although she does not necessarily have to destroy it, as long as she cripples it and then absorbs more population into Bingzhou, the purpose of this economic means will be achieved.

When Zhang Mo told Wang Ding about her idea, Wang Ding understood it and was so excited that he wanted to pick her up and spin around. However, after receiving Lu Bu's cold gaze, he suppressed the idea.

After the decision was made, the next step was to determine the distribution of profits within the textile factory.

The costs of building the textile factory and manufacturing textile machines were paid by Zhang Mo, and the cost of purchasing hemp raw materials was first paid by Wang Ding. The daily operation and management and sales were all handled by Wang Ding. According to Zhang Mo, she was the chairman and Wang Ding was the general manager. After making a profit, the initial investment costs and taxes were deducted, and the profit was divided into 28 parts, with Zhang Mo getting 80% and Wang Ding getting 20%.

Despite these two components, Wang Ding could already foresee that in the near future, the cloth produced by Bingzhou Textile Factory would squeeze out the entire North, and even the entire Han Dynasty's small peasant textile industry, with its absolute price advantage. This industry would be far more profitable than paper.

Moreover, although he did not enter the officialdom, he knew that the textile industry, like grain, was the economic lifeline of a country. He could have a larger share in other areas, but not in textiles, grain, and steel.

After years of doing business, Wang Ding has already become a wealthy man. What he enjoys most now is not how much money he makes, but the sense of accomplishment he gets from squeezing out his opponents, especially wealthy businessmen like the Zhen family of Jizhou and the Mi family of Xuzhou.

In addition to building a textile factory, the medical school that Zhang Mo had previously promised Zhang Ji has also been built.

Given that this medical school also has the function of experimental research, she chose a relatively remote place at the foot of Longshan Mountain in the west of the city and built two earthen buildings and a factory. One earthen building serves as a classroom and dormitory for teachers and students, the other is used as a research laboratory and also as an inpatient department for patients, and the factory is used to produce medical products such as facial masks, medicinal wine, and ointments.

Zhang Ji selected a group of children who were interested in studying medicine from the village and the earthen buildings. Classes could begin as soon as the infrastructure was complete.

In addition to the medical school, the largest library in Bingzhou and even in the world is also under construction. Since Zhao Zi came to Jinyang, he has been very busy. He copied the bamboo slips from Lantai into paper books one by one, classified them, compiled a catalog, and so on.

Of course, he could not copy all the books in his lifetime, so Lu Zhi mobilized the students in the academy to help, and everyone's daily homework was copying books.

…………

Compared with the vibrant Bingzhou, Yecheng at this time was in a mess, with almost every household in poverty and sorrow.

Yuan Shao was eager for revenge and marched very quickly. He returned to Yecheng in just a few days.

All the civil and military officials who lived in Yecheng returned home. When Yuan Shao returned to Yuan Mansion, he found that his house had been burned to ashes, and not even the bodies of his children were left?

Yuan Shao was so heartbroken that all the anger and grief accumulated in his heart turned into a mouthful of blood and gushed out.

"My Lord...My Lord, I mourn for you!"

The counselor Guo Tu supported Yuan Shao, his face full of sadness, but he was glad in his heart that his family was not in Yecheng.

"Zhang Yan—Yu Du—"

Yuan Shao squeezed out the two names from between his teeth, gritted his teeth and stood up from the ground. He held Guo Tu's hand and staggered into the ruins. The charred corpses had been gathered together. Yuan Shao looked at them one by one, but couldn't tell who they belonged to. But after seeing a small corpse, this noble, majestic and proud man could no longer hold back and fell to the ground crying.