Xinshun 1730

Chapter 997 Tailored
The situation here gradually stabilized, Liu Yu waited until the winter month of the lunar calendar, and went to some river sections supervised by the government to have a look.

It went very smoothly, and the winter was not as cold as Shanhaiguan going north, and the land did not freeze.

It was also the dry season, when there was no water, and the tide was calm, so everything went well.

The bills for exchanging miscellaneous grains every day are also increasing day by day, and he is getting closer to his plan to wipe out everything in one go.

Counting the days, before the eighteenth day of the winter month, I made arrangements for the matters here, and I left Subei directly and returned to the capital to meet those big businessmen from Shaanxi.

This time he left, this side was even more unscrupulous, needless to say.

When he returned to the capital, the Shaanxi businessman invited by him had already been waiting in the capital.

Nominally, Liu Yu is still in charge of business affairs, and he can be regarded as the "parent official" of these businessmen. Although it is not awkward or embarrassing, it is a bit like the status of the 24 yamen of the previous dynasty, not a legitimate unit under the jurisdiction of the six governments... Tianyoudian And the Sixth Government is the state government, and the emperor's direct control is not a government unit... But now the imperial power is the greatest, and he, the "parent official of the merchants directly under the emperor", makes an appointment, and these businessmen dare not neglect.

In the Xiqin Guild Hall in the capital, the Shaanxi merchants who were invited had been waiting for a few days, and none of them knew why they were looking for them.

On the contrary, the merchants in the West Qin Guild Hall who were doing business in the south told these merchants from Shaanxi and Sichuan, "You don't have to worry about it. If officials from other places come to look for them, they will either pay donations or pay for service. Xingguogong's side is different. We Over there, I hope that he will come to look for him. If you come to look for him, there will be good things."

People in Shaanxi and Sichuan have also heard about this, but it's just that the relationship between government and business is here on weekdays.

Waiting until the first day of the twelfth lunar month, Liu Yu came directly to the Xiqin Guild Hall. The merchants were shocked. After welcoming them, Liu Yu said: "I still have business in Lianghuai, and my time in the capital is limited. Today is no nonsense. , just invite you to see some things."

"The chariots and horses have been prepared outside, so why don't you go now?"

These Shaanxi businessmen had never seen such a situation before, and they were not used to it for a while, but they didn't want to ask more questions, so they had to follow the carriage waiting outside.

All the way to the north, detoured for an unknown distance, and came to the Academy of Sciences, which is considered to be a semi-suburb of the capital at this time.They only rested nearby for one night. Early the next morning, these businessmen dressed up and followed Liu Yu into the gate of the Academy of Sciences.

Here are some rare scenes, and some merchants can't understand them at all, and they don't know what to see in this shit.

But as the saying goes, there is specialization in art. When Liu Yu came to the machine shop where the steam engine was displayed because of these businessmen, several businessmen who opened salt wells in Zigong stared at the steam engine turning there, and their eyes lit up.

The roar of the steam engine was too loud, Liu Yu led them around and then went outside.

To sell something, you must find the right market and target.It must be difficult to sell a comb to a bald man, but if you get a wig, the bald man's eyes will definitely shine.

The same goes for the steam engine.

The owner of the company who invested in Yanjing in Sichuan did not wait for Liu Yu's introduction, so he couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Guo, what is this?"

"Oh, this thing is called an iron ox. Coal is used as grass and water is used as material. Once it does things, it does not stop all day long, and there is no need for a whip to drive the ox. Since this thing was first produced, I don't know how strong it is, so it is pulled by oxen. Calculated from the iron ingot in the mara well, the strength of this thing is about five oxen."

There are three or four words in a simple sentence, which is touching the G position of these Shaanxi businessmen investing in Sichuan Jingyan.

In this sentence, there are exactly three points that can stimulate these people to jump up.

One is "using coal as grass and water as material".

The second is "once you do something, you can keep going all day long."

The third is "the power of this thing is as strong as five bulls".

These three places are scratching the itch of these businessmen investing in salt wells.

A businessman couldn't help but praised: "This thing is wonderful! It's wonderful! I don't know how much this thing will cost?"

Liu Yu pretended, "Why, are you interested in this?"

The man didn't care about etiquette, and he lost his composure and said, "I'm very interested. The Duke doesn't know about it. I opened a salt well in Zigong. This thing is simply tailor-made for the Zigong salt well. It is tailor-made, and there is no material." It fits so well."

Immediately, he explained why he valued this thing so much.

With the end of the war, Sichuan's population gradually recovered.

Also with the end of the period of refinement of the founding of the country, and the end of the use of troops by the opposing side, Lianghuai Salt, which could not cure the corruption disease, embarked on a cycle of collapse.

Sichuan salt began to develop.

With the development of Sichuan well salt, some technical problems also appeared.

For example, the original salt well was only one or two inches wide.

Such a salt well can be pulled by one or two cows to extract brine.

Lifting two or three hundred catties at a time, and pulling two or three hundred catties with a pulley, isn't that like playing?

The development of technology is sometimes forced out.

And Liu Yu's intentional scratching of these Shaanxi businessmen's points is precisely the technical problem that was forced out.

These investors are from Shaanxi, not Sichuan.

The local gentry in Sichuan are landlords.

They are investors.

Capital and landowners, land rent and industrial capital are naturally opposed.This is the real essence of The Wealth of Nations.

Dashun is not a state-owned system of land, but a standard-to-extreme private ownership of land.

When these Shaanxi businessmen came to Sichuan to open salt wells, they had to pay the rent of the landlords.

There are many kinds of contracts, but one is that the lease is for a period of one hundred years, the rent is paid on a monthly basis, and a non-refundable deposit is given.

The other is to share the land rent for dividends.

The former, that is, the case of fixed land rent, was the mainstream before.

The land rent is fixed, how to get more benefits?
You don't need to use your brains. Obviously, the easiest way is to increase the original one-inch or two-inch wellhead standard to three, four, or five inches.

This is one aspect.

On the other hand, a really good well needs to be drilled six to 700 meters deep.For such a deep well, later generations can of course control the wellhead by about an inch, but with current technology, the diameter of the wellhead has to be enlarged.

Wells with a depth of 700 to [-] meters are more profitable and contain a lot of salt, and they are often combined with natural gas, which can save a lot of money for boiling salt.

Land rent forced capital to increase the production efficiency of the unit of land, and the progress of technology itself made the original one or two inches of wellheads increased to four or five inches.

The relationship between diameter and volume is not a proportional relationship, but a square relationship.

Therefore, the original two to three hundred catties of brine buckets have been expanded to seven to eight hundred catties, or even a small thousand catties.

It must be easy for a cow to pull two or three hundred catties.

But what about the cow pulling seven or eight hundred catties?
There are no bearings in this year, and the pulley block is coupled with friction. In fact, it takes at least one or two thousand catties of strength to continuously lift the brine bucket up.

Cows are flesh and blood, extremely fragile, far inferior to steel.

Cows are also tired from working.

The original small potter's wheel has been upgraded to a large potter's wheel that needs five or six big oxen to pull.

Originally, one cow could do a whole morning's work, but now it needs to raise [-] cows and work in three shifts.

Cows are not human beings, they have no subjective initiative, and three shifts of workers have to be assigned to these twenty cows.

In addition, there are those who prepare to raise cattle, those who transport grass, those who clean up cow dung, veterinarians, and so on.

This is the so-called [you must use five or six bulls, and the rate is three pumps and one is easy]

Just like the British Industrial Revolution in history, the water-powered textile machine appeared first, and then the steam engine came into use.

In Dashun at this time, if there is no Liu Yu's go-between as a matchmaker, the first to take the initiative to adopt the steam engine must be the hydraulic sawmill of the northern shipyard and the brine extraction equipment of the southern Sichuan well salt.

And Liu Yu's seemingly casual remarks when he introduced the steam engine just hit the inner needs of these people.

"Take coal as grass and water as material".

Not every well is equipped with a natural gas cooktop.

Moreover, the use of natural gas only began to rise in the late Ming Dynasty.

But before Zigong was a salt-producing area, what was it used for?
Naturally, the coal mines in nearby Rong County were used.

In the Song Dynasty, coal mines had already started to be opened in that area, and a large amount of them were used to supply salt for cooking in the Zigong area. The coal industry was the basis for the development of salt wells.

Zigong is not in the Western Regions, so naturally there will be no shortage of water.

Using coal as the grass and water as the material is exactly the same as the original system of the Zigong Salt Well.

"Once you do something, you don't stop all day long."

The contradiction between land rent and industrial capital makes it necessary for industrial capital to seize every opportunity to improve production efficiency.

Now cows and people work in three shifts, which greatly affects the operating efficiency.

At the very least, when the first wave of cows are tired, the cows have to be harnessed to rest, and the new wave of cows have to be harnessed to work, which also takes time.

Moreover, cows have to chew their cud too.

Capital for investing in the salt industry urgently needs a kind of cattle.

An iron cow that doesn't need to be fed, doesn't need rumination time, and doesn't need to take a shift break every three or five times.

If this kind of cow does not need to eat grass and feed, it will be the best.

Of course, even if you feed, if you can get some coal to confuse and work harder, that's not impossible.

"The power of this thing is as strong as five bulls."

This is precisely the right power for Yanjing Industry at this time.Precisely, it is the power that the current broken steam engine can achieve, and it was like this in the early days.

If it is too big, it will be a waste, because the matching pulley block, bamboo strips, etc. may not be able to bear it, and still can only absorb so much brine.

If it is too small, it is useless, because the width of the wellhead is determined, and the power is lower, and it cannot be pulled at all.

At the same time, because of the particularity of water extraction--lifting brine and water can be regarded as one thing. When the steam engine appeared, it was originally used to lift water. With a little modification, it can be directly equipped with a steam engine.

Its technological transformation is not even as difficult as picking two peanuts with chopsticks at the same time.

Subsequent technical transformations that are really difficult, such as replacing bamboo cables with oil silk ropes, have nothing to do with steam engines and other mechanical industries, and have to find metallurgical industries.

Therefore, the three characteristics that Liu Yu seemed to mention casually were in fact precisely the market demand accurately obtained through the news of private salt dealers.

He didn't just talk casually, he came prepared.

Liu Yu is not a person who likes to beg for the sword and sit on the sidelines.

So seeing the British Industrial Revolution, he would not lament why the Jiangnan textile area did not coincide with the coal production area.

That can't be changed by manpower, and the exclamation is also an exclamation in the style of seeking a sword.

So looking at the essence through the phenomenon, what kind of handicraft industry has developed, which is close to coal and urgently needs a power source?

These can all be counted as purely technical issues.

In addition to technical issues, another issue must be considered.

(End of this chapter)