Xinshun 1730

Chapter 794

When the woman heard the words, she smiled happily, thinking that this was not bad.Whether the machine is suitable for use or not has not been seen yet.

Even if there is, it won't be too expensive if you think about it, it's nothing more than three or five taels of silver more expensive than today's looms with shuttles.

How could she have imagined that the machine Liu Yu mentioned was not the same as the machine she was using now, how could it be as simple as paying three or five taels of silver?
The woman felt that there was no stock now, it was just a piece of cake promised by a person who really had five loaves and two fishes.

Although the imperial court has banned religion for a long time, there are too many churches before Songjiang Mansion. Although this woman does not understand the teachings, those who believe in religion often tell stories, and there are many working women who believe in religion secretly. She still hears and knows fish stories often.

It's hard to tell when others will make money.But the person in front of him is drawing cakes, at least in terms of business and industry, he has basically fulfilled it.

Thinking that if the weaving speed can be increased several times, and even skilled female workers are not needed to weave, I will make a lot of money in the future.

Now these weavers, relying on their means, ask for a "quite high" price.During the holidays, they have to give wine and cut their meat to prevent them from turning to other places.

If there is such a machine in the future, the weavers will be reduced like tenants, and they will knead as they like?

If you don't do it, some people want to do it, and when you see these people asking for prices based on technology, how dare you negotiate with yourself?
Besides, the officials of the imperial court also said that in the future, if someone would make a fuss because the machine robbed them of their work, the government would definitely send troops to arrest them all.

For a moment, the woman only felt that the future would be infinitely better, that she was really born in a good time.

…………

Outside the back hall, in the house where the machinists are busy, the sound of weaving is endless.

While the weavers are busy weaving and earning piece-rate wages, practice makes perfect to the point where they chat and weave.

Some skilled ones can even weave with half-closed eyes, which is also a skill honed by hard life.

Today Dashun does not have gas lamps or kerosene lamps, the brightest are whale oil lamps, and candles are expensive.Farmers in ordinary villages weave, mostly they gather together to build a shed, and the whole family lights up the day.

Rapeseed oil or cottonseed oil lamps are dim, and it’s okay to sit on the lamp panel, but a little farther away, in fact, it’s just relying on the feeling, with the skill of an oil seller, and weaving in the dark.

After pulling and pulling, the warp and latitude emerged, and a weaver asked the worker: "Isn't our master's family still related to the high officials of the imperial court? You have heard the name of Jing Haihou a lot on weekdays, why are you here?"

A weaver next to him turned the shuttle, and said with a smile: "Whether he has any relatives or not. We are not machinists run by the court, or we have relatives. Is it possible that we don't need to pay us wages? We only need to calculate the money by the piece." Besides, in the family of a prince, every single hair on his body is thicker than our waist. Although the emperor has three or five poor relatives, the poor family is also richer than us. If the master is really a prince Hou's relatives, do you still need to do this?"

"Nowadays, those who go overseas, invest, and speculate in stocks are the big businessmen. Just take some inside information, why do you do this business? By the way, your man will go to Nanyang when he comes back from Nagasaki this time? I heard that some ship owners going to Nanyang are recruiting sailors, and they are paying more than going to Japan.”

The female worker who asked if the master's family and the court officials were relatives shook her head and said: "I won't go to Nanyang. Nanyang is not a good place. Although it earns a lot of money, it is more dangerous than going to Japan. I thought, if he works for another two years, I will After another two or three years of weaving, when I have saved enough capital, I will also buy two looms. I will do one myself, and hire someone for the other. In three to five years, I will be able to buy six or seven looms, and I will not worry about it for the rest of my life."

The woman's accent is not the local accent of Songjiang, but has a touch of Shandong flavor.This is also a major feature of Songjiang. Many sailors from Weihai came to Songjiang Prefecture to settle down. In addition, the accent of Xinxue Academy is either Gyeonggi Mandarin or Jiaoliao accent, which gradually makes the accent of Songjiang Prefecture slightly skewed. smell.

The woman's husband was a sailor.She also knew about the sailors recruited by the ship owner who went to Nanyang these days, but she heard that Nanyang is hot and miasma-like, and that there are some cannibals. Nanyang run.

Her family was originally from Wendeng Prefecture, and she also had a few acres of land.At this time, there were few separations.Although her father-in-law is gone, her mother-in-law is still there.

My man is the fourth eldest in his family, neither big nor young, and he is not liked by the elderly.When I was at home before, I also "did not do business", and was not keen on working in the fields, but would rather run out to find work.

It is conceivable that the mother-in-law is the housekeeper, and the husband is an idler, so it is not a good life.The mother-in-law is old, and the family affairs are taken care of by the elders. Later, her husband went out to work, and she was even more angry at home.

The husband doesn't plant the family's land, and he doesn't say that the money for working is handed over to the family. It's strange that the family can give her a good face.

Her ability to weave with one hand was also developed at that time.

Every year after autumn, the mother-in-law would give her three catties of cotton after cleaning up the fields.These are the clothes of their small family for the New Year.

How can three catties of cotton make clothes for a small family?
But also simple.

Spin the three catties of cotton into yarn, then weave the yarn into cloth, sell the cloth, buy cotton with the money from the cloth sale, and then spin the yarn...

With such a cycle, by the time of the New Year, it is possible for a whole family to change their clothes for the New Year.It's easy for children to say, the big ones are dressed in small clothes and washed for the small ones, and it's enough to make do with it.

She also didn't know what a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy was, nor did she understand what industrialization would inevitably accompany the bankruptcy of small-scale peasants.

But she and her husband broke up with the family, left the house without asking for land, and moved to Songjiang Mansion. After seeing the new shuttle loom, she couldn't help but have some ideas.

Thinking that I was also a good weaver before, weaving one and a half feet a day.But the cloth is narrow, only one foot wide.

Now the flying shuttle loom is still one and a half feet a day, but the cloth width is two or three feet wide. This is one or two extra quilts of cloth out of thin air.

If there are any new machines in the future, so that this kind of workshop weaves faster... Thinking about the days before, I am afraid that three catties of cotton will not be able to make new clothes for the whole family anyway.

The prerequisite for being able to make new clothes for the family is that the three catties of cotton spun and weaved are sold for five catties of cotton; another set is exchanged for ten catties of cotton...

If the cloth in the workshop is cheap in the future, we can't make any money by weaving it ourselves, and three catties can only be turned into three and a half catties of cotton, then there will be no one to weave.

There are many such as hers.Many people's homes don't have so much cotton, they are all three to five catties of cotton, relying on the handicraft of female workers to earn that little bit of hard work by themselves.

The impact of initial industrialization on small farmers is not only on the three catties of cotton, but it is a very intuitive microcosm.

When she was in Wendengzhou, the three catties of cotton were not only the clothes of the family, but sometimes the salt for the family, the oil for the family, and the money for urgent needs...

Like her machine owner, this woman also has some longing for the future, and even thinks that this is a very good time.

After leaving his hometown, he came to Songjiang Mansion. Her husband went to sea to be a sailor and weaved cloth by himself. Although life was hard for a while, there was hope.

There is no child who died in the family, and they all study in Xinxueyi School.

The Xinxueyi School in Songjiang Prefecture does not cost money to study, but when you are twelve or thirteen years old, you should be working, but you don’t work and only eat. You have a few more mouths out of thin air, and your life is tight.

I originally thought that the eldest and second child in the family should stop going to school and come out to do things early.Even picking cotton for others, or selling cigarettes and matches at the wharf, can still supplement the household income.

Save a little more for yourself, and don't have any accidents with your husband. In two or three years, you can save up a flying shuttle loom.

At that time, relying on one's own craftsmanship and weaving speed, using two or three taels of silver as capital, weaving and selling by oneself, how can it not be better than earning piecework wages here?

After working hard for two or three years, and saving enough money, I bought another loom and hired someone.

In this way, after four or five years, one will become two, two will become four, four will become eight, and eight will become sixteen. Class leapfrogging.

But my husband has been at sea for a long time, and he has some opinions. He thinks it is better for the children to go to school, even if it costs money.

In addition to only eating and not working, since the vertical pen, ink, paper and inkstone are too expensive to go to school, you can buy a bluestone slab for writing and two chalk talc. This also needs money, right?

But the husband said that he has learned a lot in the past few years of going to sea, and he feels that there is a way out for new learning.

If you study well, you will go from lower to upper in the future, and if you can finally enter the Jinghai Palace and become a naval officer in the future, then why worry about your son marrying a wife?

Ordinary landlords, unless they are famous, look down on naval officers.But if he has no fame, he is willing to marry a naval officer trainee in Jinghai Palace.

He makes a lot of money, and his military uniform looks good. In the past few years, he is not happy to say that the navy is Qiuba, and his future prospects are good.If after a few years, you become a chief mate or captain, even if you stop working in the navy and go to various big trading companies and trading companies, wouldn't you still rush to get it?
Besides, even if you don't get into the Jinghai Palace, if you learn some new skills, go to the Chamber of Commerce to settle accounts and do shopping, wouldn't it be great?
Nowadays, these trading companies and large chambers of commerce don't want people who have a background in private schools, government schools, and classics. Instead, they like these people who learn new things.

No matter how bad it is, go to the "Barefoot Medical Clinic" established by Jinghou, learn the ability to inoculate vaccinia, and go to vaccinate people everywhere, that is also a way out for new learning: although it seems that this thing does not need to count geometry and astronomy Geography, but this "Barefoot Medical Center" only needs new students, so the card is very strict.

In addition to these expectations for the future of the child, another important reason for her husband to convince her is that better days are yet to come.

Based on what I have learned from traveling to Nagasaki in the past few years, the trade in Japan is getting better and better.Nanyang will not be bad in the future.

Even if the children go to school and have more mouths that only eat and don’t work, they can save a little. If they don’t go to school, they may be able to buy their own looms in two or three years; Not bad in recent years.

Good days are yet to come.

The good vision for the future and the expectation that the situation will get better in the future are the reasons why the woman finally decides to listen to her husband and let her children continue to go to school.

She wasn't an unreasonable shrew, and she didn't criticize her husband, saying things like if you quit drinking and buying chewing tobacco, wouldn't you save money?

I only think about my husband going to sea, and life at sea is boring. If I don’t even drink wine or chew cigarettes, isn’t it no different from a donkey pulling a mill?

Besides, what my husband said is right, if life continues to be so good, food prices are always so low, and cotton cloth is always so easy to sell, it is not a bad idea to save a little money every year and change from a mechanic to a machine owner after three or five years later. no.

But she never imagined that what was discussed in the back hall at this time might make her beautiful vision come to naught.

Three to five years later, if it remains the same, her vision and plan for the future are absolutely correct.

But this is an era of minor changes in five years and major changes in ten years.Three or five years later, it is very likely that there will be no chance to complete the class leap-at least her generation will be out of play. If the children are promising and enter the Jinghai Palace Naval Academy, then the next generation will be considered completed Class leapfrogging.

Once the steam loom appears three to five years later, her primitive accumulation dream of buying a loom, turning one loom into two, two into four, and four into eight, will be shattered.

I'm afraid that life will be worse than it is now.

At that time, I will definitely not be able to give the current salary, let alone the dream of buying looms and becoming my own boss for a few years.

How can the steam-powered loom capital be completed by the primitive accumulation of simple labor?The handicraft industry has become an industrialized production. If you want to support your family’s wages, how can you get past the thirteen or fourteen-year-old female bonded workers who just do it for a bowl of rice?
However, from another wonderful point of view, it seems to indicate that Dashun will have great advantages in foreign trade.After all, in Dashun, the money to buy a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl as indentured slave labor in the calamity year was not enough to buy a leg of an American black slave.

(End of this chapter)