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

Chapter 640: The Mohist City
Zhang De said proudly: "It is impossible to become so rich just by farming. Yuxi Village uses the concept of diversified operations."

In those days, Xu Fan often discussed the development of agriculture with farmers and businessmen, and told scholars from farming families many times that if farmers wanted to become wealthy, it would be impossible to achieve the goal of a self-sufficient small peasant economy alone, but it was necessary to bring agricultural industries into industrialization.

When Shangnong came to Shangjun, he only developed a simple breeding industrialization, which completely shattered the self-sufficient life of the farmers in Shangjun, and scared them so much that they dared not even raise poultry.

At that time, all agricultural scholars witnessed the power of industrialized agriculture. Reality is the most educational. Since then, the concept of self-sufficiency that farmers have had for hundreds of years has been abandoned. Instead, it has been replaced by diversified operations, extended industrial chains, and the path of various industrialized agriculture.

Then Zhang De brought everyone to a small hill where there was a large chicken farm.

Zhang De said: "Chicken farms are most afraid of chicken plague. Please disinfect first and wear masks when watching from the window."

Xu Aimin said: "The guest follows the host's changes."

Then a dozen young men wearing masks and carrying disinfectants came out. They distributed masks to everyone and then disinfected again.

Then they observed the farm through the glass window. They saw rows of chicken cages made of wire inside. In front of the iron cages were a row of stone troughs with hens in them. From time to time, they sat on the feed in the troughs. Some hens screamed, and soon, a round egg appeared.

For the various schools of thought in the Han Dynasty, this scene was nothing. They had seen farms larger than this one.

But for the representatives of the Datong Association in Daqinzhou, they had never seen such a large-scale farm. Poultry represents wealth in many places in Daqinzhou, and this farm represents an unimaginable fortune for many representatives of the Datong Association.

Cornelius was thoughtful when he saw this scene. Chang'an was the richest city in the world, with a population of over one million. The city consumed a huge amount of eggs, poultry and milk every day. When he was studying abroad in Chang'an, he also heard that the Han Dynasty had large farms.

However, when they were studying abroad, they were more concerned about the ability of the Han Dynasty to create wealth. After returning to Rome, they also established some small industrial systems such as steel mills, textile mills, and machinery factories. Although they did not despise agriculture and invested a lot in it, they built advanced farm tools for farmers, helped them to open up wasteland, built canals, etc., but compared with the Han Dynasty's efficient management and investment, it was obviously far from enough. At the same time, he also discovered for the first time that good agriculture could also become a source of wealth.

He planned to invite agricultural scholars to Rome after this meeting to guide them in developing agriculture.

Zhang De said: "This farm mainly raises egg-laying hens. There are 12000 hens here, laying 110 eggs a day, with an annual output value of more than million yuan. There are three such farms in Yuxi Village, and they are located relatively far away. The main concern is that there will be chicken plague."

Then, led by Zhang De, the group came to a relatively large open space on the hill.

Zhang De said: "Your Majesty and everyone else, please come over here."

At this time, several farmers sprinkled the rice on the ground, and one of them picked up a whistle and blew it three times in succession.

Everyone was bewildered by this scene.

"What's that sound?" Everyone suddenly felt a noisy sound coming, and it was getting louder and louder.

Soon, chickens were seen flying here like birds. From only dozens or hundreds at the beginning, to a dark group later, it felt like a swarm of locusts had entered the country.

Everyone looked at the ground in surprise, which was now filled with chickens.

Xu Aimin was surprised and said, "My dear, the chickens you raise look like birds of prey. Why don't you raise them in pens? Wouldn't they produce more meat that way?"

Zhang De said: "In recent years, the production capacity of chickens raised by the Han people has been increasing, but the people have become more and more picky. People think that the chickens raised in cages are too dry, the breeding time is too short, and the chicken soup is not delicious enough. The chickens raised in Yuxi Village are called mountain chickens. They are mainly raised in the mountains with grass and insects, supplemented by rice, and they need to be raised for three years before they can be marketed. However, the price of a chicken raised in this way is 10 times that of an ordinary chicken, so it is more cost-effective for farmers to raise mountain chickens."

Zhang De then smiled bitterly and said, "Now that the quality of life of the people in the Han Dynasty has improved, it is difficult for the breeding industry to stand out from the fierce market competition by just relying on quantity. You have to build a brand to make money. In addition to pheasant, there are more than a dozen high-end brands such as black chicken and medicinal chicken in other regions. Although I don't think the nutrition of such chickens will be much worse, the rich people in my Han Dynasty don't think so."

The Han Dynasty had little external pressure, and it dealt very hard to inferior merchants. Xu Fan suffered greatly from the market where bad money drove out good money in later generations, so the Han Dynasty dealt relatively hard to those unscrupulous merchants. Every time the Han Dynasty experienced an economic crisis or production capacity crisis, the first thing the Han court cleaned up was the counterfeit and shoddy products.

Therefore, Dahan attaches great importance to product quality and brand building. Dahan has standard guilds in all walks of life. Commodities are graded from high to low based on product quality to distinguish different markets. Products with poor quality are generally sold in large quantities, while products with high quality are generally sold as luxury goods, with prices ranging from more than ten times higher. Such differentiated market segments can ensure that those high-quality products obtain excess profits.

Xu Aimin smiled and said, "It's not bad to build a branded chicken this way. It can be regarded as a secondary distribution of wealth."

Xu Aimin knew this very well. His father did the same thing. From the initial sugar glass to the crocodile bags, the Afang Palace Hotel, various perfumes and cosmetics, the cost may be only tens or hundreds of dollars, but with the royal name, the profit increased by hundreds of times, and he specialized in making money from the princes and nobles of the Han Dynasty, the wealthy and powerful. The royal inner court relied on these luxury goods industries and could make more than 70 billion yuan a year. Having such a small treasury that can be used solved many of Xu Aimin's problems.

Later, Zhang De took everyone to see the village-town enterprises established in Yuxi Village. These enterprises are also mainly supporting agriculture. There is a feed factory here, which mainly supplies chickens, ducks, geese and other poultry in the village, and of course supplies poultry raised by farmers in the whole county.

There is also a small poultry slaughterhouse that centrally slaughters chickens, ducks, geese and other poultry, and stews them. Duck feet, chicken feet, duck gizzards and duck intestines are also made into snacks. They are labeled with their Yuxi Village label and sold to thousands of households in Kuaiji County via the Yangtze River.

Yunxi Village does not waste the down of chickens, ducks and geese. Chicken feathers are made into feather dusters, and duck and goose down are combined with silk to make high-end duck down quilts and duck down clothes. Yuxi's goose down quilts and goose down clothes are among the most high-end luxury goods.

Zhang De said: "These poultry are fully developed into various products from the inside out, maximizing their value, so Yuxi Village can be so prosperous."

He emphasized, "The key is that after Yuxi became prosperous, it also led to the prosperity of surrounding villages and towns. Yuxi has 12 township workshops, employing 1500 people, thousands of whom are from other villages. These people can find high-paying jobs in Yuxi and no longer need to go out to work."

Xu Aimin said: "If this kind of advanced agricultural society is promoted throughout the Han Dynasty, the prosperous society that the Han Dynasty expects for all people will be just around the corner."

Zhang De shook his head and said, "Rural social issues are complex, and we need to analyze specific issues specifically. Especially for such a high-level agricultural society, it is not easy to succeed. We need enough talents and markets. In Yuxi alone, my family has invested 44 disciples, and only then did we build this system of extending the industrial chain. At the same time, Yuxi is close to the wealthy market of Kuaiji County, so those high-value breeding industries can be established."

Advanced agricultural cooperatives can indeed make more money, but they require higher talent and market. With the current talent of farmers, it is difficult to meet the needs of large-scale popularization of advanced agricultural cooperatives. Xu Aimin said: "It is also very good to be able to do this step. The court can continue to learn, summarize experience, and promote it step by step. As long as we move forward every day, the great harmony we expect will come."

The various philosophers of the Han Dynasty admired the way in which the farmers spent decades of hard work to climb to the great harmony society.

For the members of the Datong Society in other countries, not to mention this kind of advanced agricultural cooperative, even the primary farmhouses can greatly improve their food production capacity and wealth, so these people invited scholars from farming families to establish agricultural cooperatives in their countries or territories and develop modern agriculture.

Although Zhang De was happy, he did not agree immediately. Instead, he said that he needed to investigate before making a decision.

After Zhang De showed the achievements of the farming family, Chen Lei of the Mohist School also followed Zhang De's example and brought everyone to Chen County.

Chen Lei said: "Chen County is the industrial center of our Han Dynasty, and it is also the center of our Mohist School. Many of the Mohist School's explorations of the Great Harmony Governance were done in Chen County."

Everyone first came to Chenjun to rest for a day, and on the second day, led by Chen Lei, they came to the Chenjun Steel Plant. He pointed to the largest blast furnace in the steel plant and said, "This is a new generation of blast furnace developed by our Mohists. It can produce 2 tons of pig iron at a time. The annual output of steel from this blast furnace has exceeded 500 tons. According to the current pig iron price of 15 coins per ton, the annual output value of this blast furnace is 12000 billion coins. It only takes 18 craftsmen to create this wealth, and each craftsman creates 3000 coins of wealth. In our Mohist school, we believe that a world of great harmony is a world of great material wealth, so developing productivity is the top priority."

When the members of the Datong Society in Daqinzhou heard the numbers that Chen Lei said, they all gasped. 18 billion yuan was an untouchable number for many countries in Daqinzhou. Only big countries like Rome, Seleucid Empire (before the split), Ptolemy, Carthage and others had such fiscal revenue. As for those small countries, even if they worked hard for a year, they didn't know if they could catch up with the wealth created by this blast furnace.

Cornelius felt an inexplicable fear in his heart. In recent years, they had been reclaiming wasteland, educating the Gauls, and building a small industrial system in the north of Rome. He thought that the Roman Pax Romana was doing a good job and narrowing the gap between them and the Han Dynasty. However, this blast furnace produced more iron than the entire Rome. Only then did he realize that the gap in power between the two sides was not narrowing, but getting wider and wider.

The Han Dynasty has become an unprecedented giant, and this giant is still running forward. How can Rome catch up with this giant? At this moment, he feels a fear as if he is on the edge of an abyss.

Then Chen Lei took everyone to the tractor factory. He proudly said, "This tractor factory is the most advanced and productive factory in the entire Han Dynasty. On average, one tractor can be produced every 15 minutes, and four can be produced in an hour. This production line operates in two shifts, 16 hours a day, and produces 1 tractors a day, more than 64 a year, with an annual output value of nearly 2 billion."

After yesterday's shock at the steel plant, today's tractor plant is more indifferent, although it is more technologically advanced. However, they have a very deep understanding of the wealth of industrialized production. These two factories have created so much wealth, and Chenjun has as many as 8 industrial zones. How much wealth will this create? I am afraid that the wealth created by the entire Daqinzhou combined is not as much as that of Chenjun. In comparison, the members of the Daqinzhou Datong Association think that industrial development is the kingly way. This factory is worth hundreds of Yuxi villages.

Cornelius and others felt that it was in Chen County that they truly saw the future of the Great Harmony. To them, this was the Great Harmony already.

All we can say is that Cornelius and his men saw the best side of Chen County.

Although Chen County has been in a state of rapid development, the past ten years or so have been the fastest period of development. Since the Han Dynasty began to build railway networks in major vassal states and the World Island Railway Network, the demand for steel in the world has skyrocketed. A small part of the rails and various machines needed for these railways were obtained by Chen County. At the same time, tractors have continuously turned pieces of wild land into fertile land. Now the New World will add millions of acres of new fields every year, which has greatly driven the demand for tractors, steam engines and other various agricultural tools.

The rapid development of railways and agriculture has brought about a surge in demand for the steel and machinery industries. Over the past decade, Chenjun's industrial scale has quadrupled.

The rapid expansion of industrial scale absorbed a large number of young and middle-aged laborers in Chen County. The expansion of population led to the expansion of the urban scale of Chen County, which led to the development of urbanization. The development of urbanization in turn strengthened the industrial development of Chen County. This set of positive feedback formed a positive feedback, making the city county the wealth center of the Han Dynasty.

Without mentioning the technology, just talking about the scale, Chen County is already a highly urbanized industrial county, with industrial population accounting for 70% of Chen County. This ratio of industrial to agricultural population is the highest in the entire Han Dynasty.

The rapid expansion of industrialization brought a large population and wealth. People could see extremely large factories in Chen County, but in the city, they only saw beautiful and lively artisan communities, prosperous markets, and groups of bicycles like a torrent on the streets.

The bicycle has been invented for 10 years, but its price is not low, generally around 3000 coins. In the Han Dynasty, it was only a luxury for a few middle-class families and above. However, in Chen County, this luxury seemed to have become a means of transportation for every craftsman.

Because Chen County was too large, the various schools of thought and members of the Datong Society split into several groups to observe the various classes of scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans in Chen County.

Liu Heng looked at the busy streets of Chenjun in front of him, thinking in his heart, in terms of fiscal revenue, Kuaiji County is better than Chenjun. Kuaiji County can absorb the wealth of the world, and Kuaiji County has the most billionaires in the entire Han Dynasty. But in terms of craftsman income, Kuaiji County cannot compare with Chenjun, and the scale of industrial development is also not as good as Chenjun.

Although Kuaiji County and Chen County were both first-tier cities of the Han Dynasty, the gap between the two sides was not that big in terms of population, tax revenue, and wealth income.

However, the development models of Kuaiji County and Chen County were completely different. Chen County was a city built by the Legalists and Mohists based on their ideas.

In the entire city, there are only the strict rules and regulations of the Legalists and the concept of loving all beings of the Mohists. For the middle and lower classes, Chen County is better off than Kuaiji County. The wealthy people will be restricted. There are many wealthy businessmen from Chen County in Kuaiji County. Because the scale of the state-run economy in Chen County is too large, those wealthy people want to find their own means of production and earn all the profits, but in Chen County, they can only get a quarter of the profits at most, which is what makes people dissatisfied.

The development of Kuaiji County has been dominated by private merchants since its inception. The Age of Navigation created many wealthy businessmen. Since the land of the Han Dynasty could not be bought and sold, these wealthy businessmen were forced to invest in industries after making money. The development of the private economy in Kuaiji County was very large. It can be said that the private economy was the dominant force in the development of Kuaiji County. In terms of the level of development, Kuaiji County was no worse than Chen County, but the wealth of Kuaiji County was more concentrated in the hands of wealthy merchants and aristocrats.

Liu Heng thought to himself that Kuaiji County must find ways to increase the number of state-owned enterprises in the future.

After observing an ordinary craftsman community, Cornelius and others sighed: "The Han Dynasty is too wealthy. It has only been ten years since we returned to Rome, but the craftsmen in Chen County are wealthier than the people in Chang'an."

“Father of the Senate, is there really such a wealthy country?” Even if the members of the Roman Council had experienced it personally, they could not believe that there could be such a wealthy country in the world.

The monthly income of the craftsmen in Chen County exceeded ten thousand coins, and almost every household had a horse-drawn carriage and a bicycle. They also saw sewing machines, table clocks and other machines in the craftsmen's homes that were only available in high-ranking aristocratic families in Daqinzhou.

After dusk, Chen County suddenly came alive. There were prosperous streets and night markets everywhere. They could see craftsmen riding bicycles, drinking and partying in pubs, chatting in barbecue restaurants, and watching plays in opera houses.

The members of the Roman Datong Society originally thought that the wealth of Kuaiji County was unparalleled in the world, but now compared with Chen County, they believe that although there are many rich people in Kuaiji County, the wealthy civilians in Chen County live a better life, which even exceeds the Datong world they imagined.

A member of the Roman Datong Society was even more excited: "If there is a Rome that can be as rich as Chen County is now, the Datong world will be realized."

(End of this chapter)