At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 408: The First Patent Lawsuit and an Independent Kingdom
The tenth year of the Han Dynasty, December 15th, Chang'an City, Brothers Textile Factory.

Xu Fan led Shaofu Ling Chen Chui to inspect here. The factory building of Brothers Cotton Mill is huge, with more than 300 new looms inside, constantly weaving cloth.

Xu Fan stroked a piece of freshly woven cloth. It had the smooth and comfortable feeling of silk and the soft feel of cotton. It looked like both cotton and silk.

Factory Director Ai Qiang said excitedly: "This is a new type of fabric we wove based on your suggestion, Your Majesty. It is a silk-cotton fabric. It has both the softness and warmth of cotton and the comfort of silk. It can be said that it combines the advantages of silk and cotton. Now the ex-factory price of this new type of fabric has reached 3000 coins per piece, but it is still in short supply."

Chen Chui smiled and said, "It looks like your factory is going to make a lot of money again."

Xu Fan and Chen Chui knew this just by looking at the long line of horse-drawn carriages outside the Xiong Brothers Textile Factory.

The Brothers Cotton Mill was originally a textile mill that mainly produced cotton cloth and supplemented it with woolen cloth. The raw material of cotton was controlled by the Brothers Textile Mill of the Han Dynasty. At that time, the ex-factory price of a piece of cotton cloth from the Brothers Textile Mill was 6000 coins.

Even so, the caravans that came to the Brothers Textile Factory to place orders still begged Ai Qiang to give them more cotton cloth. At that time, even ordinary craftsmen from the Brothers Textile Factory were rushed to be treated to dinner by the caravan members just to get more cotton cloth.

At that time, the craftsmen of Brothers Cotton Mill were also the highest paid craftsmen in the entire Chang'an City, because the craftsmen of Brothers Cotton Mill held 49% of the shares of the factory. In addition to their salaries, they also received dividends several times higher than their salaries at the end of the year.

In the most profitable month, ordinary craftsmen of Brothers Textile Factory earned 5000 coins, which shocked the whole Chang'an City, because even in Chang'an City, this figure made them one of the highest-paid people.

Countless craftsmen in Chang'an City wanted to become a member of the Brothers Textile Factory, but unfortunately the old employees were unwilling to do so, so the Brothers Textile Factory wanted to increase the number of craftsmen.

Because the Brother Textile Factory does not talk about establishment, but equal pay for equal work, although the income of craftsmen will be different due to different technical positions, the income of craftsmen in the same position is the same. Their dividends are distributed according to the number of people. The more craftsmen there are, the less money they get.

They are also considered to be the hardest-working craftsmen in Chang'an City. They will push themselves to the limit for their own salaries. Each of them is a jack of all trades. They use the least number of people to do the most things, thereby reducing the number of craftsmen in brother textile factories and obtaining the most profits. Some of them feel like the Huawei model of later generations.

This model is always better than the later model where regular employees do nothing, and then a group of low-level temporary workers are hired. Those who do work do not make any money, but those who do not do anything are treated well.

Therefore, Xu Fan took a try-it attitude towards this model to see if he could make it. After all, by squeezing himself out of the brother textile factory, most of the profits would belong to him.

But the technology of the textile industry was not very advanced. The amount of cotton planted in Dahan increased several times every year. By the eighth year of Dahan, the area of ​​cotton planted in Dahan exceeded one million acres.

Cotton was not a scarce raw material, and textile mills everywhere began to weave cotton cloth. The huge increase in the amount of cotton cloth caused the price to drop rapidly. It took only five years for a piece of cotton cloth to go from being priced higher than gold to now costing only a thousand coins. The tragedy of the sugar industry happened again in cotton cloth.

The Brothers Textile Factory quickly fell from a luxury factory to an ordinary textile factory in the Han Dynasty. The income of the craftsmen in the factory also dropped rapidly, and was only about one-fifth of the original. Although this was still 30% higher than that of the textile factory in Chang'an City, the gap caused by the salary cut was huge.

Many gossipers in Chang'an City used this to mock the craftsmen in the brother textile factory. After all, they earned several times more than themselves, but did the same thing. Many people were jealous of them. Now that they were in trouble, naturally many people would gloat over their misfortune.

Faced with this situation, Ai Qiang did not sit still and wait for death, but looked for new profit growth points. At this time, Xu Fan also gave Ai Qiang an idea, which was to combine cotton yarn and silk to make a new fabric, which is now called silk-coated cotton. He learned about this cotton fabric from novels read in later generations.

This kind of cotton cloth is not difficult to make. The warp is made of cotton yarn and the weft is made of silk. It can be woven without even modifying the machine.

As soon as this cotton cloth appeared, it was snatched up by the upper class of the entire Han Dynasty for its unique texture. The price of a piece of cloth once approached 5000 coins. It became one of the top-quality cloths in the Han Dynasty.

At the same time, this incident also led to the first patent lawsuit in Dahan. Silk-laminated cotton cloth was just an idea and did not have too much technical difficulty. It can be said that any textile factory in Dahan could produce silk-laminated cotton cloth.

So less than a month after this new fabric appeared, the textile workshops in Chang'an City began to copy it.

This made the people at the Brother Textile Factory furious. They thought these copycats were going to destroy their jobs, so they surrounded the textile factory that copied their fabrics, sparking a gunfight involving hundreds of people.

Eventually, this incident attracted the attention of the entire Han Dynasty, and the Chief Justice Wu Jun personally tried the case.

This case also attracted the attention of the people of the Han Dynasty. There were innumerable textile factories in the Han Dynasty. Several textile factories in Chang'an City had already produced silk-coated cotton cloth. If the verdict was not in their favor, the cotton cloth would not be sold. Among them were many large textile factories, and even government-run textile factories of the Han Dynasty.

Finally, under the watchful eyes of Chang'an City, Wu Jun determined that the copycat textile factory was at fault based on the Han Dynasty's Patent Law and ordered it to compensate for the losses caused by the conflict and to compensate the brother textile factory for patent losses of 10 coins.

This verdict shocked the entire city of Chang'an. It was the first time that people knew about patents. However, many people remembered that when the Han Dynasty was just established, there were opera troupe owners who copied the court's plays. In the end, patents had to be created to protect the interests of the opera troupes.

But the people of the Han Dynasty didn’t care about it. Now they know the importance of patents for the first time.

Because of the patent, Brother Textile Factory has protected its own interests. If other textile factories want to survive by making this silk-lined cotton fabric, they can only consult Ai Qiang and decide how much patent fee is appropriate.
Ai Qiang also asked for a huge amount of money without any hesitation. The patent fee for a piece of cloth was 200 coins. These workshop owners thought Ai Qiang was too greedy. He had not done anything, but just came up with an idea and wanted 200 coins in patent fee. Even robbery was not as good as this.

However, Ai Qiang assured the workshop owners in Chang'an that his patent would only be granted to the workshops in Chang'an City in order to protect their interests. If they did not agree, he would produce it himself.

Finally, the workshop owners of these textile factories calculated that if only Chang'an City could produce silk-coated cotton cloth, they could control the price and make thousands of coins per piece of cloth without any problem. Compared with this profit, the patent fee of 200 coins was nothing.

As a result, hundreds of textile factories in Chang'an City were authorized by the Brothers Textile Factory to produce silk-laminated cotton cloth. Because of the patent for silk-laminated cotton cloth, the Brothers Textile Factory earned tens of millions of dollars in patent fees, which caused a sensation throughout the Han Dynasty.

Many smart people also began to think about coming up with a valuable patent. Some even thought about whether they could use linen thread, silk and cotton yarn to make linen cotton cloth, or silk linen cloth, etc. For a while, many more people applied for the major.

Because of the new fabrics, Brothers Textile Factory's profits increased greatly. Of course, after learning from the lesson of cotton cloth, Ai Qiang did not dare to share too much money, but hoarded some money to deal with the crisis. Although the income of Brothers Textile Factory's craftsmen now does not reach the peak of 5 to 6 coins, they can still earn 2 to 3 coins a year, which is also a high-income group in Chang'an City.

After seeing the new silk-coated cotton cloth, Ai Qiang led Xu Fan to a small workshop, where they could hear the "thump thump" sound of a steam engine and saw a simple steam spinning wheel running continuously. Driven by steam power, thirty spinning spindles were constantly running.

The steam spinning wheel laboratory was placed next to the Brothers Textile Factory, mainly to verify the efficiency of the new steam spinning wheel.

Li Lei, the master craftsman who was conducting the experiment, saw Xu Fan and said in surprise, "Your Majesty, why are you here?"

Xu Fan was surprised and said, "The steam spinning machine has made such rapid progress."

Li Lei said with a smile: "It's not easy to get money from merchants. It's been a year. If there is no progress, those merchants who invested will kill me."

With sufficient experimental funds, Li Lei made dozens of steam engine models over the past year, continuously improving horsepower, reducing costs, and increasing stability, resulting in the current experimental product.

Li Lei smiled and said, "This new spinning machine uses cast iron as the cylinder. The cost of each component is greatly reduced, but the horsepower is three times greater. Now such a steam engine costs only 5 yuan, and it can run continuously for a month without any problem. It has reached the practical standard and can compete with large water conservancy spinning machines." Ai Qiang said, "If your steam engine can really run well for a month, I will buy 20 units."

Ai Qiang also knew about steam engines. They were indeed more efficient than water-powered spinning wheels, but frequent accidents prevented Ai Qiang from buying one.

Li Lei said: "If there is no smooth transportation within a month, we will refund you."

Ai Qiang said: "Then give me twenty."

After experiencing a sharp depreciation of cotton cloth, Ai Qiang had a strong sense of crisis. He was afraid that the Brother Textile Factory would go bankrupt and let down the hundreds of craftsmen in the factory. He asked the emperor how to avoid the crisis of the Brother Textile Factory going bankrupt.

Xu Fan told him two answers. One was that he had to have his own unique products and be able to define his own prices. The other was that the cost of producing a piece of cloth should be lower than that of other textile workshops. This way he could make more profits. Even if they were to go bankrupt, it would be the workshops with higher costs that would go bankrupt. When these workshops went bankrupt, the vacant market would be occupied by the surviving workshops.

Silk-coated cotton is a unique product that allows brother textile factories to earn huge profits without even having to do the labor themselves. In order to create new fabrics, Ai Qiang even set up a special research and development team.

The steam spinning wheel allowed Ai Qiang to see an opportunity to reduce costs. Because the Brothers Textile Factory was established too late, the land of Weishui had long been occupied by other textile factories. The efficiency of their spinning wheels had always been inferior to those workshops with water-powered spinning wheels. Now Li Lei's invention allowed Ai Qiang to see the hope of surpassing those old factories.

Then Xu Fan visited the kindergarten, primary school and clinic affiliated to the Brothers Textile Factory.

Ai Qiang said proudly: "Our workers can just leave their children at work and they will be taken care of. They don't even need to spend money on medical treatment. This greatly alleviates the worries of the craftsmen and allows the brothers to work wholeheartedly."

Because Brothers Textile Factory is a high value-added factory with annual profits of over tens of millions, their kindergarten and primary school are extremely well built, with brand new brick buildings and new tables, chairs and benches.

Don’t underestimate this simple point. There are only a few primary schools in Chang’an City that can do this. Most primary schools ask students to bring stools from home to school.

The Han Dynasty's education budget has exceeded 7 gold, but for the large number of children in the Han Dynasty, this amount of education funding is still a drop in the bucket. They can barely complete six years of primary education. Most students can only use old textbooks, and for rural students, the teacher can only write the textbook content on the blackboard and the students can only copy it by themselves. Education in this era focuses on saving, and various educational resources are recycled as much as possible.

Chen Chui said: "Brother Textile Factory has helped Chang'an Ling a lot. Half of the students here are poor children in Chang'an City. If it weren't for the help of Brother Textile Factory, these students would not even be able to afford to go to school."

Ai Qiang smiled and said, "This is what we Mozi should do."

To be honest, because of the lessons of later generations, Xu Fan actually did not want too many such factory-run schools to appear in the Han Dynasty, and use the money from the workshops to provide public service facilities.

Because such workshops have no good reputation in later generations. They are called closed independent kingdoms, workshop diseases, large and bloated, inbreeding, and all kinds of bad reputations. It may be that Xu Fan is the son of a farmer and did not enjoy the benefits of the workshop, so he naturally does not miss that time.

But the world will not think that one's will has changed. Xu Fan doesn't like this, but the big workshops under the Han Dynasty have started this model one after another, and the Brothers Textile Factory is nothing.

Chang'an Chariot and Horse Factory was an independent kingdom. They occupied a city block with an independent primary school, middle school, library, theater, clinic, and even a small market run by family members. There was a factory protection team to maintain order in the city block occupied by Chang'an Chariot and Horse Factory. If this place was divided into a separate county, even Han officials would not need to be sent. They could form their own system.

The same is true of other giant workshops in the Han Dynasty. They all built large and comprehensive facilities, many of which were not even necessary for them.

However, the main responsibility for this situation lies with the Han Dynasty court. Although the Han Dynasty developed rapidly and the court's financial resources increased rapidly every year, the Han Dynasty court had more things to do, such as maintaining the entire Han Dynasty's highways, repairing city walls, building canals, and establishing docks.

If it were other feudal dynasties, they could use corvée to maintain these infrastructures at the lowest price, but the Han Dynasty could only hire civilians, and the cost was naturally much higher than that of other feudal dynasties.

The Han Dynasty court had to invest huge amounts of money every year to maintain infrastructure and build new canals, railways and other facilities. The Han Dynasty's investment in infrastructure was always in short supply, and local governors always had countless projects that required money, and each one looked very urgent.

Even though Xu Fan was the emperor, he could not favor one over another. He could only try his best to maintain relative fairness in the entire Han Dynasty. This led to the fact that even the city of Chang'an, under the emperor's feet, was very short of money for basic investment.

After all, the richer the county, the higher the demands of the local people for infrastructure, and the greater the cost. For example, Sanchuan County wanted to learn from Chang'an and comprehensively transform Luoyang City. The relatively poor Dong County also wanted to build a bridge across the Yellow River. Even the already transformed Chang'an City still had dozens of city districts to be renovated.

Under these circumstances, local Han officials would naturally not just wait for transfer payments from the court. They could only turn their attention to the local giant workshops with abundant wealth and use their money to help solve local infrastructure problems.

Therefore, even if Xu Fan said too much, the main responsibility of the workshop was to make profits, and the responsibility of the court was to maintain local development.

But those workshops are located in local areas. They do not want to offend local officials, and they also like to expand their influence in the local area through this method. Both sides benefit mutually.

So, those small workshop social models that Xu Fan had seen on TV blossomed all over the land of the Han Dynasty.

Xu Fan knew that there was nothing he could do about it. This was already the case in all the counties of the Han Dynasty. Unless the Han Dynasty court could provide sufficient transfer payments to the local governments, the local government offices would take over the task, but it was obviously difficult for the Han Dynasty to do so now. He could only watch as a large number of workshops in the Han Dynasty took on tasks from the court.

Xu Fan said to Ai Qiang, "You should be cautious in expanding in the near future. Collect the payments from outside as soon as possible, and try not to do business with customers who owe you money."

Ai Qiang hesitated and said, "Your Majesty, haven't you always wanted us to expand this model?"

Xu Fan thought for a moment and said in a way that Ai Qiang could understand: "Remember the grain prices when our Han Dynasty just killed Guanzhong?"

Ai Qiang said: "Remember, at that time, the price of grain in Guanzhong exceeded one thousand coins per stone. If it weren't for your aid, Your Majesty, I would have starved to death long ago."

Xu Fan said: "Even with the court's achievements, the price of grain in Guanzhong was still over 50 coins. But in less than two years, if it weren't for the court's large-scale purchases, the price of grain in Guanzhong couldn't even maintain coins. Do you know why this happened?"

Ai Qiang said: "My Han Dynasty has stabilized the world, and the people can farm with peace of mind. The grain production capacity has increased greatly, and the price will naturally drop."

Xu Fan said: "I am more used to saying that there is an overcapacity in grain production, and now the textile industry may also have an overcapacity. Cloth is different from grain. Even if there is too much grain, it can still be used as feed and brewing.

But cloth is produced for people to buy. If no one buys it, the workshop owner will have no money to buy raw materials and no money to pay the craftsmen. The unsold cloth cannot be called a commodity, and the economic cycle will stagnate. At this time, whoever has more money in his hands will be more likely to survive. The more goods he has, the easier it is to go bankrupt. "

Ai Qiang was somewhat shocked by the emperor's words, but he still nodded and said, "Yes!"

(End of this chapter)