The great hero of the Silk Road, starting from a farm farmer

Chapter 241 The Involution of the Pen Industry

After the bicycle factory established a piece-rate order responsibility system in which the master craftsman was responsible, it considered that the production of handlooms also relied heavily on the craftsmen's personal skills.Song Yingkui called Guo Kaifeng and asked him to be responsible for transforming the production of handlooms accordingly.

Since handlooms are relatively mature and sell well in the market, the craftsmen involved in production know more or less about the market conditions.As soon as he heard that the company was going to be transformed into a piece-rate contracting system, his enthusiasm immediately increased. Before Guo Kaifeng announced the restructuring plan, he couldn't wait to go to Guo Kaifeng, Qin Carpenter and others and request to form an independent production team to produce handlooms on a piece-rate basis. .

The final restructuring plan for handloom production was to divide the original loom factory into eight production groups.The Works Bureau sets a minimum ex-factory price, and each group independently accepts orders, whether they are from military suppliers, Tianshun Company, or ordinary civilian and commercial orders!In the first year of contracting, the city lord's palace will pay the basic salary of the master craftsman and workers, [-]% of the sales price as tax, and another [-]% as equipment and resource usage fees.After one year, the city lord's palace will no longer bear the basic salary of the craftsmen, and will only pay [-]% of the tax and [-]% of the equipment and site usage fees. The rest of the income will belong to the production team.

In this way, it is equivalent to an attempt to convert the handloom factory from public to private.If things go well, in two or three years, several private factories focusing on manufacturing handloom equipment may emerge in Yungu, forming a real machinery manufacturing industry chain.

Of course, the possibility of reorganizing the City Lord's factory system into a larger loom equipment manufacturing plant cannot be ruled out in the future.

To be honest, Song Yingkui's ideal factory is a large-scale assembly line manufacturing plant.However, the reality is not enough to support this ideal. Since the establishment of the handloom project, the initiative and creativity of the craftsmen group in the project have not been fully utilized.Basically, they do whatever Song Yingkui tells them to do. Problems such as slow product improvement, untimely technical adjustments, and lagging production capacity growth have always existed.

In this case, let the market make the choice and let competition promote and advance technological progress.

However, when developing industries, we cannot rely entirely on the market. We must use both policy and market means.Blind reliance on policy means will fail to stimulate creativity, while over-reliance on the market will easily lead to a severe involution and ineffective cycle.

Since the Wuying era, Song Yingkui has always had the idea and idea of ​​​​supporting the development of industry and commerce within the territory.However, in the past few years, the private industry has not formed a big climate, especially the industrial development has been very average.

There are no encouraging industries or factories. Except for a few transportation and goods sales companies with a certain scale and volume in the country, there are only a few real physical industries that have reached a certain scale.So far, Yungu's influential industries outside are almost all produced by government-run factories.Even if dried bean curd products like yuba are widely popular among the people, if we trace their origins, they were still driven by Song Yingkui.

In the minds of most people, what is called engaging in industry and commerce is still equated to doing business.The difference between businessmen and industrial and commercial capitalists, no one has yet understood it clearly!

Pure reliance on the market cannot cultivate serious industrialists. This is something Song Yingkui realized only recently.This is like the Shanxi merchants in the Manchu and Qing Dynasties in real history. Although they developed several large business houses and capital groups, they could not escape the limitations of traders.No matter how big it is, it is nothing more than a comprador.It has not played much role in promoting industrial and technological progress.

However, after clarifying the foundation and direction of industrial development, the role of the market in promoting the industry cannot be ignored.The market cannot solve the problem from zero to one, but it can accelerate and amplify the development of the future in a way that policies cannot.In the past few years, there has been a relatively successful private industry in Yungu, but it is a very small industry, and that is the pen manufacturing industry that emerged under Song Yingkui's deliberate guidance.

The pen manufacturing industry has only appeared for two or three years, but a dozen small workshops have sprung up to engage in this industry.There are three or four businesses that are doing pretty well. Among them, Shen Ji Pen Making Shop run by Shen San is the largest.

In just a few years, Shen Ji Pen Making Workshop grew from scratch, from Shen San, a polished commander, to a serious business with more than ten employees, nearly a thousand pens made every month, and an annual revenue of more than 1000 silver dollars. workshop.Shen San himself has become a legendary existence in Taoyang Gongfang District.

"The bastard Cao Erguo, whatever pen I make, he will imitate it. If he can have some potential, he will do the job of picking up people's leftovers. Erwazi, keep an eye on his family these days to see if he can I can imitate our newly made pen. If this bastard imitates it again, no matter what, I will find trouble with him!" In Shen Ji's workshop, Shen San said to Tong Zai in front of his nephew. Cao Erguo, a fellow pen maker in the workshop area, cursed loudly.

What Cao Erguo did was indeed very tasteless.After Shen San's pearl-steel fountain pens were appreciated by the city lord's palace and mass production began, Caoji Pen Factory immediately imitated them and grabbed many of Shen San's orders.

Forced to have no choice, Shen San had no choice but to improve technology and launch a copper-tube water-absorbing fountain pen. However, the Cao family copied it.Such despicable methods forced Shen San, who once had little ambition, to get angry. He worked hard to develop a new type of steel-wood absorbent fountain pen with more complex processes and finer materials. He still didn't believe it. The Cao family can continue to follow up on imitation.

"Third father, please don't be angry. Although the Cao family can learn from our family to make pens, buyers only recognize our pens. You haven't seen the patrons and students who often come to our house to buy pens. They never When I stepped into his door, I only looked for our brand. I thought he wanted to steal our business, but he didn't have the skills, so he just grabbed some cheap pearl pens." Shen San's nephew Seeing that his uncle was angry, Shen Erwazi quickly said something nice to reassure him.

After Shenji Pen Shop got a business, Shen San didn't forget his roots. He quickly asked someone to bring a letter to his hometown, and called all his relatives, nephews and brothers to Taoyang City to help him work.It is a characteristic of industrial operators in this era to attach great importance to relatives and township parties and not to hire outsiders.

"You know what I'm talking about? Although the price of pearl absorbent pens is low, they are sold in large quantities and are easy to make. It's not like the new pens we make. If the price is low, you will lose money. If the price is high, fewer people will buy it. I can't buy a few pens in a month, and the money I make is far less than the pearl pens, and it's just a waste of effort. Cao Erguo is a bastard, and he is ruining our family's financial path."

Shen San is not a businessman, but he is an old man in the pen manufacturing industry. He has still found out a lot about the pen market.Most of the people who use fountain pens are young people who have not yet reached the stage of pursuing quality. As long as they are cheap and usable.Unlike brushes, which have mature market stratification, there are corresponding user groups for both high and low.

Precisely because the market is not stratified, the competition in the pen industry at this stage can only be dominated by the involution of the low-end market. The Cao family imitates a large number of cheap pearl pens, which has a great impact on the business of Shenji Penmaking Company, causing Shenji to Third, I feel that it is getting harder and harder to make money.

(End of this chapter)