The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 131 The Charm of The Wealth of Nations
"Xunbao" is positioned as a newspaper for the citizen class, and what is important is that it is easy to understand.

Although the literati of Wushan Society were highly talented, many of them were born into famous families, and their tastes and styles were different from those of ordinary people. Moreover, these talented people who admired the wind and the moon rarely had the ability to do the hard work of editing between cases.

On the contrary, literati like Xi Langxian, who had experienced hardships in the world and had a high level of cultural literacy, were more likely to be qualified for the position of editor of newspapers and periodicals.

Wang Wenlong plans to take Xi Langxian back to train him carefully. If his ability is good, he might be able to give him to Deng Zhimo as his deputy, with one responsible for content selection and the other responsible for editing and typesetting.

……

After the Dongyuan Cultural Conference, Yuan Hongdao had to set off again. His hometown was in the Hubei Public Security Bureau. The journey back was not too troublesome. He only needed to take a Yangtze River boat from Zhenjiang to Nanjing, and then go all the way up the river. .

In the past few days of the Dongyuan Cultural Fair, Yuan Hongdao sang with the literati in the Dongyuan, while Yuan Hongdao's servants purchased a large amount of local products in Zhenjiang, Suzhou.

All these things will follow Yuan Hongdao's ships up the Yangtze River, because Yuan Hongdao is still an official in the Ministry of Rites, and almost no bankers dare to stop him in the official line.

From this trip, Yuan Hongdao can earn at least a hundred taels of profit.

The Yuan family is a wealthy family in Hubei, with a large amount of property. They often run river boats between Hubei and Nanjing all year round. Yuan Hongdao and his brother Yuan Zongdao have blessed countless river boats since they became officials, saving a lot of money for the family industry.

Even Yuan Hongdao doesn't need to pay for the goods he purchases in Jiangnan. He just pays them in exchange for free. After a while, his merchant ships from Hubei will transport Hubei goods to Jiangnan and he can use the goods to offset them, which is equivalent to purchasing goods at zero cost. .

The wealthy families of this era were so tyrannical. Freight and tax costs were several percent lower than those of other businessmen who had to transport goods from Jiangnan to the Hubei Public Security Bureau. How could the Yuan family not be developed?
In fact, eunuchs in various places can recruit minions instantly, and the rise of eunuchs in the future is also related to the monopoly of these aristocratic families.

It is impossible for ordinary small businessmen and literati to compete with a wealthy family like the Yuan family. Only by clinging to eunuchs and officials can they have some opportunities to compete with aristocratic families.

However, this kind of struggle did not make the cake bigger. The power wrested from the aristocratic families was transferred to the hands of eunuchs and newly rising literati. It only exacerbated the internal strife of the Ming Dynasty.

For the people at the lowest level, both eunuchs and aristocratic families exploited each other in order to accumulate strength, and then used the proceeds from the exploitation to fight against each other.Not only did it not alleviate the hardship of the people at the bottom, but an extra group of people came to squeeze them, which only made their lives even more miserable.

……

Wang Wenlong's participation in the Wushan Literary Society has collected a large number of poems and prose, enough to fill the pages of "Xunbao" for a long time.

At this time, Ye Chengxue came from Nanjing and invited him to give lectures in Donglin after a while.

Wang Wenlong is already indispensable for this. He now has a certain reputation and his ideological system has been revealed to the world through a large number of expositions. He will no longer be easily labeled as Donglin Academy.

Going to Donglin to give lectures will only enhance his reputation.

Wang Wenlong was already well-known, and this was his first trip to Donglin Academy. Several big guys from the Donglin Party were going to attend this lecture. It would take some time for everyone to come back, so Wang Wenlong simply stayed in Suzhou to continue his career. Composition of "The Wealth of Nations".

At the beginning of "The Wealth of Nations" Wang Wenlong discusses the principle of division of labor improving productivity.

Wang Wenlong took porcelain production in Dehua, Fujian as an example.

By searching Fujian official historical data, Wang Wenlong pointed out that the population of Dehua was not much different between the Southern Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. However, when Dehua porcelain was in its heyday during the Southern Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty, there were only a dozen kilns in Dehua. But there are already more than 40, and the porcelain output is more than five times that of the Song Dynasty. "The same population can produce five times the difference in production. What's the reason?"

“Because the division of labor increases production efficiency.”

In the Song Dynasty, the Dehua kilns themselves were responsible for all the processes from digging the soil to shaping and firing. In this dynasty, "the clay was dug in the field, the clay workers made clay, the craftsmen pulled the clay, the carvers carved, and the kiln "Every process is connected end to end, the corresponding craftsman only needs to polish one skill, and all the production equipment is only prepared for one process, which is naturally more efficient than one person doing multiple jobs."

After explaining the principle of efficiency improvement brought about by the division of labor, Wang Wenlong pointed out the impact of the size of the market on the division of labor.

"Before Longqing, Dehua porcelain could not be exported. The annual output could only be satisfied by a dozen kilns, which was not enough to support the specialized soil fields, so each kiln owner had to dig the soil by himself."

"After Longqing, sea trade gradually emerged, and export sales of Dehua porcelain flourished. The number of kilns reached [-], and the owners of the earth mines had enough profits to hire workers."

"Miners make specialized tools for digging. With the right tools, professional miners can dig three times as much soil in one day as they did 20 years ago. Those who originally expected to spend three days can now do it in one day."

From this, Wang Wenlong explained to readers why the level of commercial development in big cities is always higher than that in small villages and towns. This is because “big markets bring diversified demands and scale effects, which reduce costs. The same business has lower operating costs in big cities. More efficient.”

Then "extend this to the scope of a country". The larger the market, the more extensive the country can carry out division of labor, and the greater the potential for productivity development.

Wang Wenlong thus explained why the Ming Dynasty’s various technologies were always better than those of the surrounding small foreign countries.

"In terms of navigation, this is the other way around. Because Europeans have the need for ocean trade across continents, their navigation technology is improving day by day. However, the Ming Dynasty's ships only took the short-ocean routes in the East and West, so the ocean trade Technology has no chance to grow.”

"After more than 100 years, Ming Dynasty's long-distance navigation technology fell behind Europe."

Wang Wenlong wrote the first two chapters in a few days and gave it to Ye Chengxue to read. Ye Chengxue read it and delved into it.

The next day, with a dark circle under his eyes, he reported back to Wang Wenlong: "Thought-provoking, mysterious and magical."

People of this era were also discussing economic phenomena, but no book could describe the relationship between the various elements of the market economy so clearly.

Wang Wenlong took the book and shared it with the owner of the house, Xu Shupi, and then both Ye Chengxue and Xu Shupi read it.

Both of them felt that the book was a good book, but it was very difficult to read. It was not the difficulty of finding chapters and excerpts to understand the charm when studying the articles of various scholars, but the kind of difficulty of struggling to keep up with the author's ideas when reading science books. difficult feeling.

Obviously there are no difficult words in Wang Wenlong's manuscripts, and I can understand every sentence and every word. However, I often get confused while reading and suddenly find that I can't keep up with Wang Wenlong's ideas, and I can only go back to the front and start again. read.

While the two were studying hard, Wang Wenlong was also immersed in the world of creation.

It wasn't until three days later that Ye Chengxue came to him in a hurry early in the morning: "Reading your book all day makes me dizzy and I almost forget important things. Gentlemen, Jianyang will be here in the next few days. Come with me to Wuxi!"

(End of this chapter)