Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 1638
The first month of the third year of Tongguang (918) was unremarkable, just like this huge empire.

But Shao Shude likes such ordinary days.

With each passing year, the inertia of history changes a little.

The chariot of the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties heading towards the abyss of history, under the continuous braking of his old driver, the speed has been greatly slowed down, and it has turned quietly, getting closer and closer to a better, smoother and brighter road.

As for why he didn't step on the brake to the bottom, and then slammed the steering wheel, because Shao Shude was afraid of overturning the car.

Things like social ethos do not work just by issuing an order or establishing a new system. It has inertia, there are vested interests who are accustomed to this ethos, and there are internal stresses that need to be released in a certain way.

Either it is a big bang-style concentrated release, or it takes a lot of time to spend a little bit of time.

Be a friend of time, and let the cage of the system tame the monster Fengqi little by little with the addition of time.

Every year that passed, Shao Shude seemed to see the monster locked in a cage, howling and bumping repeatedly.

In the 18th year of the founding of Daxia, the physical strength of monsters has been greatly weakened, and the atmosphere has changed visibly with the naked eye.

What is this called?
This is called turning the tide and helping the building to collapse.For another person, the cage was broken long ago, and he was devoured by monsters to pieces.

On the second day of the first lunar month, when the New Year was in full swing, Shao Shude had already started working.

He found Wang Heizi, who had risen to fame at sea and was awarded the eighth grade Shangxuanjie Captain.

Don't look at Wang Heizi's vigor and majesty in the sea, but after entering the palace, he is very reserved.As the saying goes, "If you don't see the emperor's residence, you can know the emperor's dignity." His previous vision was still too small, he had never seen the world, he was shocked by the majestic palace, and he was shocked by the guards with long halberds. Consider him brave.

"Is Wang Qing satisfied with Colonel Xuanjie?" Shao Shude asked softly, sitting on top with beauties surrounding him.

Wang Heizi took a sneak peek, then lowered his head, and replied: "The minister returned home, the county lieutenant saw me, and we talked about friends of the same generation. The master spoke very politely, and invited me to have tea. The county magistrate and the county magistrate met. , and exchanged a few pleasantries. I am very satisfied."

"You sacrificed your life for this, and it's normal to have this kind of treatment." Shao Shude said, "How old is Wang Qing?"

"Thirty to three." Wang Heizi replied.

"It's the prime of life, so it's too early to enjoy wealth and honor here. Colonel Xuanjie is a little too young for a talent like Wang Qing." Shao Shude said something, then changed the subject, and said: "Thirty At the next year's age, don't you want to seal your wife's shade?"

Wang Heizi was a little surprised.

There are two possibilities for conferring a wife and son. One is to be a high-ranking official for a lifetime with diligence, and there may be one or two places when you are old. Enough, you can seal your wife and son.

Don't even think about an eighth-rank loose official like him, unless he makes extraordinary achievements.

"Why don't you want to, I have no chance." Wang Heizi said honestly.

"I have a chance today, would you like it?" Shao Shude asked.

"I am willing." Wang Heizi quickly replied.

It's not that he was fascinated by fame and fortune.In fact, for little people like them, it is very difficult to accumulate enough credit to seal their wives and children, and they often need to fight with their lives.

He had just been awarded a dismissal official by hunting whaling, and before he had fully enjoyed it, he was going to fight for the chance of getting rich and honor by narrowly dying, and he was reluctant in his heart.

But since the sage said so, how could he refuse?I could only bite the bullet and agree.

"Very good." Shao Shude said: "I need you to go to Dengzhou quickly, bring your old brothers from the original class, and pick up a new ship."

Wang Heizi listened silently.

"Ping Haijun will also send a ship to go south to Guangzhou with you." Shao Shude continued: "After arriving in Guangzhou, take a rest, replenish supplies, load the goods, and then leave with a big food merchant ship. Don't worry, The Ministry of Internal Affairs has already made an agreement with the owner of this ship and promised various benefits. He is willing to take you back to Dashi and leave in about March. Time is running out, so you should leave Beijing as soon as possible."

Wang Heizi was a little confused.

He sailed to the east coast of Kishu, which can already be called a long voyage.Where is Dashi?Tens of thousands of miles away?How many winds and waves, and how many difficulties and obstacles?Is it really safe to go back and forth?

"I obey the order." Wang Heizi had no choice but to comply.

Shao Shude nodded and waved him away.Next, our own officials and Wang Heizi elaborated on the details.

He didn't do it on a whim.

In fact, it has long been planned to visit various countries by sea.It's just that today's navigation technology is too backward and the risk is too great, so I haven't made up my mind.

But after guiding ocean fishing for so many years, I dare not say how much progress has been made. At least the level in the heyday of Tang Dynasty should have been reached, and even improved.

A big misunderstanding is that many people always think that our ancestors once had such-and-such things and such-and-such technologies, and then they default that it has always existed.

But in fact, technology has progress and decline.It is people who carry technology. Without people, technology will regress.

Even if you have relevant technical books preserved, the effect is very limited, because you have no talents engaged in this industry.

The consequences of talent shortage and industry shrinkage are still common in the 21st century.The Russian technology relies on archaeology, and it has been tossing for 30 years. Let alone aircraft carriers, surface ships are almost out of order.

The so-called lighting up a certain technology, and then you will always have it, that is something that only appears in the game.

In the real world, lit technology will go out and technology will regress.

In the past, it was possible to build a ship with a displacement of [-] tons, but now it takes more than ten tons, because you have no related industries.

The industry is gone, the talents are gone, the experience is lost, and the production tools are scrapped. When people want to recover later, they can only reinvent the wheel while archaeological.

The water wheel, which was reinvented many times in ancient China, is a good example.

When Daxia was founded, why was it urgent to introduce Dashi and even Silla's shipbuilding and sailing talents?Because your technology has regressed to a certain extent, you just can’t do it anymore, and you have to be taught by others.

After so many years of painstaking efforts, marine-related industries have grown from sprouts to seedlings, and then gradually began to grow.

Near the major ports, a whole industrial chain of logging, drying, cutting, processing, and shipbuilding has been gradually cultivated. More and more people are engaged in this industry, and the production capacity is also increasing, because the market demand exists.

If one day, the market disappears, these industries will gradually become unsustainable, shrink gradually, lose personnel, and everything will return to zero.The talk left for future generations is how prosperous a certain port used to be and how advanced the shipbuilding technology was. It is believed that a traveler who passes by can definitely reverse the decline and recover, because these technologies were mastered by our ancestors.

But the cruel reality is that the old craftsmen who have already entered the grave will not crawl out to tell you the tricks of processing wood, and the young workers who were once young are too old to lose their teeth. You have worked hard to find three or five. At that time, a small number of technical juniors were still at a very low level. It would be impossible to rely on them to revive this industry in this life, unless relevant talents from other places or even foreign countries could be introduced.

Industry is always more important than technology.

Without industry, technology will become a grassroots without roots.And with industry, technology can even innovate and make continuous progress.

******
At about the same time, Su Liman, a big food businessman, was resting in his house in Guangzhou.

As a "Tibetan chieftain" - a position that ordered foreign merchants to self-govern in the Tang Dynasty - Suleiman had a certain status in Guangzhou. , prestige is also very high.

Last year, the governor of Guangzhou called him into the government office for secret talks, and he became very silent after returning.

Yes, according to the request of the governor of Guangzhou, he needs to bring two official ships of the Xia Kingdom back to the voyage, which puts him under a lot of pressure.

However, this is also impossible.

In the past few years, his caravan sank several ships in a row, and the losses were huge, which made him owe a lot of debt.

He has been hiding in Guangzhou for two years and cannot hide any longer.People always have to face the reality, the money that should be paid still has to be paid back, and only Xia Ren can help him.

In fact, the Xia people arranged for him very thoughtfully.

Not only did he give him a large amount of silk and porcelain on credit, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs also stepped in to help him establish new ways to make money, such as finding land to build a joint venture rose dew production workshop.

Rosewater is a very strong perfume.Collect special flowers from Baghdad, Damascus and other places, soak them in water, steam the juice out of fire, then pack them in glass bottles, and transport them sealed with paraffin wax.

It sounds simple, but in fact, the details of the specific craftsmanship are more complicated, and craftsmen who have not been infiltrated in this way for many years cannot see the whole picture.

In addition, it also involves a complete set of advanced glass distillation equipment - this is another reason why it is difficult for Tang or Xia people to master, they can't make more transparent glass vessels.

Rose dew was first introduced to the Tang Dynasty more than a hundred years ago. As soon as it entered, it immediately swept the entire market, from the royal family to the nobles, and everyone rushed to buy it—as for ordinary people, they still couldn’t afford it because it was too expensive.

"Liu Zongyuan got the poem sent by Han Yu, and washed his hands with rose dew..."

"In the Longhui Hall of the Later Tang Dynasty, there is a fake landscape shop, agarwood is the mountain mound, rose water and Suhe oil are the river pond..."

"(Later) in the fifth year of Zhou Xiande, the state of Kunming presented fifteen bottles of rose water, which were obtained from the Western Regions, sprinkled on clothes, and made the fragrance immortal..."

This kind of incense has a thorough and strong taste, which is completely different from the incense used for tormenting and burning that was popular in the Tang Dynasty. It is also a liquid type, which is very convenient to use. The output is not large, so there is no obvious cost difference between sea and land transportation. Up to now, many rose waters are still transported by camels, and enter the Xia Kingdom through the Western Regions.

Suleiman also wanted to do this kind of business, because he knew how big the profit would be.

After the Ministry of Internal Affairs asked him to return to Dashi, he secretly searched for craftsmen, and then used various methods to get Xia Guo, and everyone set up workshops and made money together.

He was a little afraid of this. After Gein did such a thing, the consequences were completely unpredictable, and the Creator might not necessarily protect him.

But people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs also made it very clear that Du Huan met Fan Shu and Liu Wei from Jingzhao in Dashi in his early years, and Lu Li and Le Huan from Hedong were helping them improve their textile technology.How did these people get there?It may be a prisoner of war, or it may be a skilled craftsman who was hired by a big food merchant. Datang didn't mind this kind of thing. Now you have a few craftsmen who make glass, distillation equipment and perfume. What's the matter?
Su Lieman knew that this was a sophistry, but he really had no choice but to give up and do it to the end.

Big deal, I won't go back to Dashi in the future...

******
On the Lantern Festival on the 15th of the first lunar month, there is no curfew in Chang'an.

After a joyful dinner, Shao Shude summoned Zhongye, the supervisor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the Pearl Mirror Hall.

"How much profit did the Ministry of Internal Affairs make last year? How long will it take to figure it out?" he asked.

"Your Majesty, close the accounts at the end of the twelfth lunar month, I urge you, and it should be cleared before the Spring Festival." Chu Zhongye replied.

"Just give an approximate number."

"Roughly around 30 min."

"The Changxia Commercial Bank is the most profitable, followed by hunting sea beasts. I know that." Shao Shude said: "The earning power of the industries you have built is a bit weak. The fur workshop can't catch big fish, seals, What happened to the hunting industry such as sea lions? Four-wheeled carriages have also opened several workshops, and it is only now that they can barely pay back. I won’t mention glasses and the like, and the movement of soap workshops is too slow , I heard that you are going to set up a rose dew workshop, how many years will it take? I reckon that in five or six years, Bohai Trading Company and Annan Trading Company will be more profitable than them, will you be ashamed by then?"

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has now developed into a very large organization. It has both commerce and manufacturing. It produces almost all kinds of products: carriages, furs, woolen cloth, glasses, soap, sugar, etc., and even recently went to the Western Regions. Business is very messy.

But in these businesses, except for a few commodities such as carriages, most of them are competitive.

For example, in the whaling industry, besides the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Bohai Trading Co., Ltd. is currently qualified to purchase and process whale products.

It is true that the Bohai Trading Company is currently dominated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but because the saints attach great importance to it, they have spent a lot of thought and transferred a lot of profits to the Bohai Trading Company-such as the salted fish bought by the Bohai Trading Company. The commercial bank sells at a small profit, which is a way to transfer profits.

"Let's integrate all the businesses." Shao Shude said: "Don't do anything that doesn't make money, or think of other ways. Your woolen cloth workshop can't beat the peasant women who are fighting alone. It's so expensive. How many people buy it?"

"Your Majesty's words are very true." Chu Zhongye said coyly.

Chu Zhongye did not understand the tortuous history of the handicraft industry and the machine industry in later generations, but as far as he observed, the woolen cloth woven by the peasants in the countryside was too cheap, and they really couldn't do it——

In the late Qing dynasty, the British opened cotton textile factories in India, and then shipped the produced cotton cloth to China, preparing to dump it with confidence, but the result was very dismal.

One is that the market positioning has not been identified.The cloth they weave is relatively light and breathable, but as an agricultural country, what the Chinese need is thick, wear-resistant cotton cloth, which is not considered light and breathable, and may even be considered inferior.

Another reason is that the cost of cotton cloth produced by large-scale industrial machinery is higher than that of homemade cloth woven by farmers in the Qing Dynasty.

It sounds unbelievable, but it is true.The cotton raw materials obtained by farmers in the Qing Dynasty were cheap, and at the same time they did not count their own labor time as the cost. The British also added freight, tariffs (although not much) and sales costs. Therefore, the cost of foreign cloth produced by machines was higher than that of the Qing Dynasty. From a big spectrum.

It was the chaotic situation in the Qing Dynasty that finally defeated Tubu.In addition, the prevalence of likin increased the cost of homespun cloth, but no one dared to accept likin for foreign cloth transported by ships.At the same time, Indian factories are also upgrading their industries, improving efficiency and reducing costs, and finally gained the upper hand and started their dream dumping.

The Daxia Household Department employs weaving households for wages.But rural people don't count their labor time as cost, they only count the cost of raw materials, and then add a meager profit, and sell them directly in the market.For them, the most important thing is to cash out the wool at home and get cash, and whether they make money or not is second.

Shao Shude was keenly aware of this fact, and taking advantage of the fact that the woolen cloth workshop of the Ministry of Internal Affairs still had a small amount of profit—because of the incremental market—he gave them two options, either not to do it, or to find ways to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

The latter is probably unlikely, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs probably chose to close its doors in the end.

Technological progress cannot be counted on them, but ultimately depends on the general public.

The meaning of the existence of various industries in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in simple terms, is nothing more than the word "fire".That is, they created an industry, made the products of this industry well-known to the world, used by people on a daily basis, and eventually blossomed all over the country, never to disappear again.

This is their mission.As for the others, with the virtues of those bureaucrats, they are not very optimistic.

"Recently, the Shaofu is making ink and stencils. It's a bit of a sign. You can invest some money. After the things are produced, they can be used by you. Go to print books. Taking advantage of this shareholder wind, you can make a wave of quick money. As for the past After that, I don't count on you anymore." Shao Shude said.

"I obey the order." Chu Zhongye hadn't heard of this, but he immediately complied.

"Send some of your people to participate, and I will reward you after the results are produced." Shao Shude said again.

If the wax paper and ink are successfully developed, the Xi family and his son will of course be promoted, and the officials in charge of this matter will also be promoted.

As He Shen said, disaster relief must first rescue officials.If only first-line skilled craftsmen are rewarded, and officials are not rewarded, then there will probably be no inventions and creations in the future, because it has nothing to do with officials. They are not interested in approving money and things, so why waste it?
Only by allowing officials to benefit from it can they have the motivation to approve projects and use human and material resources within their own capabilities to support the inventions and creations of craftsmen.

Government-led inventions and creations are such a pain in the ass.

But if people want to engage in inventions and creations, they don't have the capital and soil at present, which is very painful, as if they have entered a dead end.

It is true that the era he is living in now is much more open than that of the later Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are not a few businessmen and officials, and literati and bureaucrats also highly respect business, but it is still a little bit short.

New subjects such as agriculture and mathematics are still not favored by traditional scholars, and their first choice is still classics.

Shao Shude was surprised. Those classics that have been written for hundreds of years or even 2000 years have not changed their content and are not suitable for today's social productivity. It is outrageous that they are still taking exams.

An official in the Tang Dynasty pointed out that the "Book of Rites" had been written for a long time, and it was no longer suitable for the society of the Tang Dynasty. The exam textbook is still the one from the Western Han Dynasty.

In the later Ming and Qing Dynasties, the "Book of Rites" has been written for almost 2000 years, but the content has not changed and is still being tested.

This is a bit magical. Is the "Book of Rites" 2000 years ago really suitable for the level of social productivity after 2000?The Western Han Dynasty wrote this book to serve the Western Han Dynasty. Why do you join in the fun in the dynasty after 2000?Shouldn't we innovate, keep pace with the times, and test other content?

Shao Shude somewhat wanted to take advantage of this favorable opportunity when a martial artist became a country, update the exam textbooks, and continue the unfinished work of "New Book of Rites" once proposed by the Tang Dynasty.

"Let's set up a book printing workshop as soon as possible. I want to print books." Thinking of this, Shao Shude said: "This batch of books can be printed without making money, and can be printed vigorously with profit subsidies from other industries. You will be able to print them in a while." Go to Shaofu, borrow the engraving of "On Population", and print tens of thousands of copies, so that more people can read it."

"I—" Shao Shude stood up, and said, "I want to find great Confucian scholars to debate the scriptures and come up with a few new books."

(End of this chapter)