Villager of Daming

Chapter 1303 Cost Reduction Without Price Reduction

"Chestnuts, sugar-roasted chestnuts, fragrant and sticky sugar-roasted chestnuts, hot~~"

"Tanghulu, sweet and sour Tanghulu~~"

"Blow the sugar figure, blow the sugar figure, blow it yourself to make it vivid..."

When the weather gets cold, a large number of sugar snacks appear on the streets, including those who can only sell maltose with bamboo sticks because of their poor craftsmanship, and those who can draw sugar paintings with syrup...

Sugar-roasted chestnuts have been available for the first two months, but people are not very enthusiastic about eating them when it is hot. For example, when it gets cold today, eating sugar-roasted chestnuts will keep you warm.

It would be even better if there was a roasted sweet potato, but unfortunately the sweet potato is still under breeding and will not be available in large quantities until winter two years later.

However, the best-selling items in Nanjing at the moment are not those snacks, but popsicles and ice cream, such as sugar popsicles, cream ice cream, matcha cream ice cream...

If there wasn't so little cocoa, we'd be able to see little chocolate ice cream men now.

Compared with Zhu Wentian's era, the temperature in Nanjing is much lower now. As soon as December begins, the temperature drops below minus ten degrees Celsius.

However, the popsicles sold on the market are not naturally frozen, nor are they made from ice shipped from other places last winter, and saltpeter is also in short supply.

Recently, Zhu Wentian and his friends have been assembling air compressors. Plastic is used for the parts inside, and some are made of rubber. It can actually be made without rubber. It's not like making tires, so rubber is required.

With the advent of the compressor, refrigeration equipment became available, but it could not be miniaturized yet and was just right for use in factories.

"Ling'er! My brother is getting married and is missing a gift. This cream ice cream is good."

Everyone came out for a stroll, including Crown Prince Zhu Biao and the Crown Princess, who were still wearing silk clothes on the outside and cashmere sweaters on the inside.

If it's even colder, I'll put on a tweed windbreaker or a duck down jacket.

While walking, Zhu Chong took a fancy to a popsicle production line. This thing is delicious no matter in winter or summer. Now some people are selling it on the street. They buy it wholesale from the factory.

"Okay! When you get married, the village will give your Highness a thousand boxes of white sugar popsicles, you can eat as much as you want."

Ling'er was very generous. She asked for a thousand boxes right away, and each box contained a hundred sticks.

"Thank you!" Zhu Chong expressed his gratitude sincerely.

The others laughed. What they were eating were not ice cream or popsicles. In their hands, they were holding egg roll holders with torches on them. These were the most expensive, costing fifty cents each.

Zhu Yuanzhang, Empress Ma, and Concubine Sun were also there. It was not easy for everyone to come out at once, and the security department had the hardest time.

Zhu Yuanzhang holds a torch ice cream in one hand and a candied haws made of pear, yam, hawthorn, orange, grape and date in the other.

The vendors selling candied haws say that candied haws must be made with rock sugar, otherwise white sugar will be used. White sugar melts easily and doesn’t taste as good as candied haws.

He bit a piece of rock sugar on the candied haws. Nowadays, all the candied haws are made into big pieces of sugar. After dipping the food in syrup, he slaps it hard on a flat board, and a big piece of rock sugar appears on the candied haws. He eats this first, and then the things he is wearing.

Zhu Yuanzhang swallowed the candy and said: "I can't sell rock candy at a high price! The barbarians know that our production is high, so we have to sell it to the people at a low price and cannot let the barbarians get a bargain.

The quota is still set for the foreigners, they can buy it or not. The price has been reduced by 50%, and they say that the Ming people’s consumption has dropped by more than 90%.

What does that have to do with selling to them? As long as it is cheaper than theirs and they can make a profit, they have to buy it.

We give food to the people for free, so do we have to give it to them for free? Is that right?"

"Your Majesty is absolutely right!" "Father is right!"

The ministers who could follow called him "Your Majesty" and others, while the prince and others called him "Father". There was also Zhu Xiongying who called him "Grandpa Emperor". He also had a candied haws and had to stand while eating. People from Xiaqiu Village nearby were ready to treat him at any time. What if the bamboo stick got stuck in his mouth?
"Okay, okay, my dear grandson, eat slowly. There are a lot of them. Eat as much as you want, and don't get too hungry."

Zhu Yuanzhang values ​​this grandson the most. So far, he has only one grandson and one granddaughter, and the granddaughter is not allowed to eat candied haws.

"Father, they hope that when they trade next year, the price of soap and soap will drop, especially soap. They brought soap and said they can also produce it."

When Crown Prince Zhu Biao heard his father talking about the price of sugar, he mentioned soap.

"We know, Yichang!" Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the head of the village.

The head of the village said, "Your Majesty, they melted the soap and added spices. It seems that the roads over there are much more open, and the demand has increased. They started to use tricks to gain more profits."

"Sure enough!" Zhu Yuanzhang nodded: "If that's the case, if we don't sell them soap, we won't have enough for our own people! If the price of soap increases, we will lack spices.

They say that they have something, and we raise the price of that thing. We teach them the rules. What are the rules? What we say is the rules.

Is the cost of making our sugarcane very low? Should we give it to our people first, or should we impact their market?”

As Zhu Yuanzhang spoke, he recalled the sugar-making process. It turned out that the sugar made in Xiaqiao Village was made using traditional methods, turning brown sugar into white sugar, and white sugar into rock sugar.

Later, he said that the technology had been updated and that equipment had been used, but he didn’t understand the specific principles.

"It's much lower. We currently use centrifuges to reduce the manual steps, otherwise we won't be able to keep up with the planting capacity." The village head responded.

Hanhan draws the blueprints, distributes them to the industrial zone for manufacturing, and then assembles and debugs the messy parts.

Look at the industrial foundation. If the foundation is good, things can be produced quickly.

What is truly valuable are these craftsmen who are learning, improving and specializing in their studies.

Their social activities are limited, but their welfare is high, so high that one month's work is equivalent to several years' income for an ordinary person, which is more than many ministers.

Such craftsmen are accompanied by staff who are responsible for protecting them and preventing them from communicating with others information that may leak secrets.

When people from Xiaqiu Village go out, they can also call on others to protect themselves, so there is no need to worry about them leaking secrets.

Women who married into Xiaqiu Village would not return to their parents' home but would arrange for someone to bring them to Xiaqiu Village to live for a few days if they missed their parents or brothers.

"Yes! Not bad!" Zhu Yuanzhang nodded again: "Next year, we will continue to send troops to Qiongzhou Prefecture. It is convenient to grow crops there, but there is little land and so many mountains. Yazhou is summer all year round, which is the most suitable."

When Zhu Yuanzhang talked about planting, he said that many of the new species brought back from outside could not be grown elsewhere.

Either in Yunnan, Liuqiu Island, Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian, the best is naturally Hainan Island, namely Qiongzhou, and Sanya is Yazhou.

There is an abundance of sugarcane because troops were sent to Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian to grow them, but not in Yunnan and Sichuan.

Liuqiu Island currently has little crops, and everyone is growing food! However, there are some docks that are convenient for the Ming navy to dock.

Some of the people on the island came from Fujian and used to trade with the barbarians, but now they are blocked by the Ming navy.

If you need anything, you can send it here in exchange, and the islanders can help grow some crops arranged by us.

Mainly provide Chinese patent medicine, powder, daily necessities.

Daily necessities included ceramic utensils and ironware. There was no need to worry that the people on Ryukyu Island would want to establish a country. Without the foundation, others could not take it away.

(End of this chapter)