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Chapter 324 Insufficient Production Capacity

The real opportunity to realize hope came in the fifth year of Jingyang, when two major events happened. The emperor took a stake in the Huangzhuang factory to oversee the government and the private sector. The Empress Dowager's nephew Wu Qingbo Li Mingcheng took the lead in responding and secretly contacted a large number of noble generals to coke and iron in Handan, Guangping Prefecture, Nanzheng, Hanzhong Prefecture, and Wei Jianyao, Liangzhou.

In the past two years, these coke plants and iron smelting plants have brought generous returns to the shareholders. Last year, several coal mines and lime kilns were built in Beizhili and Shandong, and the demand also exceeded supply.

Only the three oil production wells in Yanchang County and Fu County in Shanxi Province have not seen any movement. However, Wang An, the chief official of the Bureau of Liturgy, sent a message. The emperor said not to worry. In two or three years, the oil wells will become silver mines, and all coking chemicals, iron smelting plants, and other oil wells will be turned into silver mines. Coal mines and lime kilns combined can hardly compare.

With the emperor finding ways to help everyone make money, and also defeating the civil servant group that had been pressuring them, most of the nobles and generals would stand by the emperor at this moment, whether it was for profit or gratitude. The unflappable royalist.

Even if someone is unable to survive because his family's business has been affected by the New Deal, he can only blame himself for being short-sighted and not following the emperor's lead in investing in the new factory. Then he hurriedly asked someone to find an opportunity to sharpen his head and dig into the new project. It was best not to mention the rebellion. Anyone who proposed it would be reported first. When the emperor was happy, he would reward a big factory so that he could become a shareholder.

The civil servants saw the changes in the noble generals and didn't take it too seriously at first. But when the road ahead was blocked, they looked back behind them and immediately discovered the New World. Since monopolizing water transportation, maritime smuggling and annexing land are no longer good business to make money, then why not follow the example of noble generals and switch careers to factories?

In fact, not only the noble military generals made the factory prosperous, but also some officials within the civil service group were the first to get there, and even entered the sequence of running factories earlier.

It can be said that the emperor was not partial. When he first proposed government supervision of private affairs, he discussed it with civil servants first and provided more projects than nobles. It's a pity that the Qingliu people who always talk about money as dirt don't really take it seriously. Except for a few, all of them see the opportunity to make big money slip by before their eyes.

But it’s never too late as long as you want to do it. In terms of influence, civil servants are still the mainstream group in this era; in terms of brains, the most important thing is their family background. I dare not say that one must have a wealth of knowledge to become rich.

In terms of strength, most officials, whether they are in the capital or outside, are rich and wealthy; in terms of connections, not to mention, they have colleagues in the same discipline, disciples and old friends, relatives and friends, any one of them is either a famous scholar or a gentleman. , there are really not many cowards.

In fact, no matter what business you do, it is essentially the same, capital, connections, and ideas are all in one. This is true for smuggling, this is true for farming, and even more so for opening a factory.

Doesn’t the emperor advocate the New Deal? Come on, it’s not enough if we don’t oppose it. Let’s all work in factories and do whatever makes money. Let’s see who can compare! At that time, it will still be this group of people who make a lot of money, and it will still be the same group of people who eat bran-pharynx vegetables. No problem, it has been like this in all dynasties. Don’t ask, this is fate!

But before the new factory was built, Xu Guangqi and Wang Zheng backed down. They very solemnly went to Emperor Shu to issue an edict to stop the courtiers from trying their best to buy the products of the machinery factory, and they would have no choice but to resign. .

Civil servants responded to the emperor's call and actively participated in government-supervised and private factory construction activities. What does it have to do with Haihe Machinery Factory? There seems to be no necessary connection, but in fact they are inseparable.

Factories, whether their products are horse-drawn carriages, glass ware, sugar, or sugarcane wine, are different from traditional private workshops of small farmers. The requirements for craftsmanship have been reduced, and the demand for machinery and equipment is increasing day by day.

If you want to reduce production costs and improve production efficiency, you must use more advanced equipment. Just relying on good craftsmanship is no longer useful. You are good at craftsmanship. It takes 5 days to build a pair of stainless steel axles. I became an apprentice and learned how to use a hydraulic forging hammer. One hammer came out in two days. In actual use, the effect was almost the same. As an operator, should you hire more master craftsmen with good skills and high wages, or should you spend more money to buy a set of forging hammers and hire a few apprentices with average skills and low wages? It should be obvious at a glance.

In this way, in addition to obtaining the emperor's permission, the most critical condition for building a factory is not the site selection and infrastructure, but the corresponding equipment and supporting operating technology. Without equipment and trained craftsmen, even if the factory was built like a Forbidden City, it would still cost money.

The emperor's permission is relatively easy to obtain. All you need to do is pay [-]% of the shares and comply with the factory construction plan. But equipment and training of craftsmen are a bit troublesome. Currently, there are only two places in Daming that can do this, Haihe Machinery Factory and Yongdinghe Foundry.

Normally, no one pays much attention to these two places, which are full of black smoke, pungent smell, and rumbling noise all day long. Now that they suddenly have to use them, they realize that it is a bit annoying to get on the sedan chair.

Due to the sudden increase in orders, which exceeds the production capacity of the two factories, the production equipment is easier. At worst, they have to work overtime, but training the operators cannot be done quickly. How many days must be required, otherwise an operating error may cause casualties. .

As soon as they heard that they would have to wait until next year or even the year after that, the scholar-officials, who had always had a high level of self-esteem, immediately became unhappy. They don't care about the operating procedures and safety systems. The first thought that comes to mind is that the relationship is not in place.

It's strange to say that there are tens of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty. The ones who preach the most about being honest and punishing corruption are the officials. However, the ones who are the most comfortable in trading power and money and playing tricks are also the officials. They are all the same group of people. . If you are not shouting lies, then you are really sick and schizophrenic in your heart.

But without the emperor's handwriting and factory badges, not to mention officials who were beyond their control, even Bingbi, the supervisor of rituals, and the commander of the Jinyiwei could not enter and leave these factories at will. If you can't even see anyone, how can you build relationships and send money through the back door?

There is really no need to worry. In addition to boasting about their increasing skills in officialdom, officials in the Ming Dynasty could not even keep up with the scholar-bureaucrats in the Tang and Song Dynasties in reciting poems and writing poems. They did not know how to stabilize the country, but everyone was familiar with various routines of money and power transactions.

Even if they couldn't enter the factory, they could still find people. As officials in charge of the machinery factory, foundry and steelmaking plant, Xu Guangqi and Wang Zheng were immediately surrounded by all kinds of care and greetings from their colleagues in the DPRK and China.

The two of them were flattered. After so many years in the official career, they had seen more smiling faces, heard more compliments, and received more gifts than in the past few days. There is no one who does not like to hear praises, is not attracted by gold, silver, jewelry, famous people’s calligraphy and paintings, and does not like delicacies from mountains and seas.

In the face of these temptations, some people cannot restrain their nature and use their public power as a bargaining chip. This is called corruption. Those who can restrain themselves by gritting their teeth, dare not stretch out their hands when they want to, or find ways to escape without seeing, can be called incorruptible.

(End of this chapter)