I practiced magic in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 149 Open the door, free trade
There are many shrewd peddlers like him in front of Qiqiao Pavilion. Thanks to Wang Jing's blast furnace iron-making technology, the cost of metal products produced by Qiqiao Pavilion has been greatly reduced. For example, metal products such as scissors, kitchen knives, hoes, shovels and plowshares are not only of better quality and very durable, but also cheaper than similar competing products.

After all, the iron smelted in a blast furnace saves a lot of working hours, and its output is dozens of times more efficient than the purely manual smelting method of the imperial blacksmiths.

Therefore, various iron products were immediately welcomed by the market once they were launched.

Not only in Luoyang, but in recent days, even traveling merchants from nearby counties have come to Mengjin Port to purchase goods, so that Qiqiao Pavilion is crowded with customers every day and products are in short supply.

When Wang Jing arrived, this was the magnificent scene he saw.

The merchants around saw Wang Jing's carriage and were inexplicably excited: "Marquis Qi is here!"

"May our ancestors bless you and may Marquis Qi live a long and healthy life!"

The businessmen seemed very excited about Wang Jing's arrival, and those who didn't know might have thought they were engaging in idol worship.

Over the past six months, although the Northern Army has not carried out any large-scale military operations, it has never stopped small-scale punitive operations. Not only have they sent troops to eliminate bandits and open up trade routes, they have also prohibited officials under their jurisdiction from setting up checkpoints and collecting fees. Once caught, their properties will be confiscated and their heads will be executed, no matter who is backing them.

Through these measures, the commercial development and trade in Luoyang area were greatly promoted. All kinds of goods from Hedong County and even Bingzhou further north were continuously transported to Luoyang, which promoted the economic prosperity of the capital. Wang Jing also won the favor of merchants because of this.

"Owner!"

Hearing the noise, Lu Fang, who knew Wang Jing was coming, immediately came out to greet him: "I didn't know the master was coming, and I am sorry for not coming to greet you from afar. Please forgive me."

"Haha, how dare I punish you? Everyone knows that you, Lu Zhengliang, are the God of Wealth of our Northern Army."

Wang Jing was in a relaxed mood and even joked with Lu Fang.

Lu Fanglian said he didn't dare, but there was still a proud smile on his face. The poor boy who was born in a carpenter's family in Chenliu and had an uncertain future was now full of vigor and became a leading figure in Luoyang's business community.

The wealth and glory of many people depend on his word, and the amount of money he handles every day alone is no less than tens of millions.

Previously, Wang Jing's income came entirely from transporting salt from Hedong to Luoyang for sale. Although this was a huge profit in terms of profit margin, he has now been surpassed by Qiqiao Pavilion in terms of total profit.

This is understandable. Although the salt production in Hedong is high enough, the market is extremely limited. Now it can only be sold within the area controlled by the Northern Army and cannot be sold anywhere else.

However, many iron tools of Qiqiao Pavilion were sold smoothly, and even other princes secretly sent people to Luoyang to buy them, and their spending was very generous.

It was precisely because of the strong financial source of Qiqiao Pavilion that Wang Jing was able to launch the war calmly without having to worry about the morale of the army being affected by food and salary issues.

You know, even when the imperial dynasty's anti-rebellion troops went out to suppress rebellious armies in various places, in order to maintain the morale of the troops, they generally had to rely on allowing the soldiers to rob property.

For example, Cao Cao and Gongsun Zan both condoned their armies' massacres and looting. Cao Cao was also the originator of the tomb-raiding lieutenant, who learned from Dong Zhuo's practice of digging up imperial tombs to generate income. When he first started his army, he dug up people's ancestral graves everywhere. All the famous princes of the Han Dynasty were dug up by him, and even Emperor Xian of Han cried over this.

Even the unparalleled benevolent and righteous Emperor Liu Bei was not immune to this. The first thing he did after entering Shu was to order the looting of the people. The soldiers looted for several days and were still not satisfied. They looted more and more fiercely, causing the people to complain. In the end, it was Zhao Yun who stood up and gave advice to stop this.

Wang Jing naturally disdained this, so he promoted industry and commerce and made money for himself to spend. What kind of ability was it to rob ordinary people?
It is precisely because of the financial independence that the Northern Army under Wang Jing's command can maintain strict discipline and never harm the people under its rule. Therefore, even though many aristocratic families secretly slander him, Wang Jing's name for benevolence and righteousness is still widely spread.

After all, the people have the most say in whether life is good or not.

However, Qiqiao Pavilion has had a lot of troubles recently. Because the efficiency of blast furnace iron smelting is too high, many local blacksmiths have lost their jobs and gone bankrupt, so there have been many voices against Wang Jing, who are believed to be competing with the people for profits.

"You say I'm competing with the people for profit?"

Wang Jing frowned and said in a rather unhappy tone: "Do you know who is secretly spreading rumors and maliciously slandering me?"

Lu Fang smiled bitterly and said, "It should be the Li family in Yanshi County who did it. Since the establishment of Qiqiao Pavilion, their family's industry has been the most affected."

After Lu Fang's introduction, Wang Jing finally understood who was the mastermind behind the scenes.

The Li family mentioned by Lu Fang is actually a wealthy family in Yanshi County, whose members have been rooted in the local area for generations. One of the ancestors of the Li family served as an official in the court and served as a chief craftsman. It was from that time that the entire Yanshi Li family mastered the smelting technology and made profits by making ironware for generations.

The Yanshi Li family initially sold iron products to the government, but later gradually began to sell them to the public, and they did so successfully and on a large scale.

If Qiqiao Pavilion had not appeared, the Li family would probably still monopolize most of the ironware market in Luoyang.

Even when Xu Huang was guarding Hulao Pass, he purchased arrows, swords, halberds and other weapons from the Li family. Because the Li family took the opportunity to raise the price, the Northern Army spent a lot of money in vain.

A monopoly business naturally makes money. The Yanshi Li family made huge profits by relying on the monopoly of the iron trade. They not only took over several mines, but also owned many industries in Luoyang city. They made a fortune every day.

This situation continued until Qiqiao Pavilion rose to prominence at an astonishing speed and in an unstoppable manner. In the early days, the Yanshi Li family did not attach much importance to Qiqiao Pavilion. After all, Qiqiao Pavilion was originally mainly engaged in wooden products and had no competitive relationship with the Li family. The family even purchased a large number of iron tools from the Li family, and their relationship was once very harmonious.

The situation did not change fundamentally until Wang Jing asked Wang Ling to recruit blacksmiths from Bingzhou in Hedong and developed blast furnace ironmaking technology according to his memories of his previous life.

The imperial dynasty's iron-making technology system inherited the annealing and decarburization technology of the Warring States Period, and then further invented the steel-making method on this basis, using pig iron as raw material to make steel.

Pig iron is easier to produce and has a lower cost than smelted iron.

However, most of the steel obtained through the steel frying technology is just low-carbon steel, which needs further processing and polishing to become real steel, which requires a lot of working hours and manpower.

Wang Jing's blast furnace ironmaking technology came from 1,800 years later. The technological gap alone was enough to crush the inherited skills of the Yanshi Li family.

Although the quality of the Yanshi Li family's hundred-refined steel and cloud-patterned steel is far superior to ordinary steel, and they are precious materials that can be used to refine precious armor, the production of such special steels is scarce, and the price is calculated by "liang". How can they be used to make ordinary tools such as scissors and hoes?
Therefore, the Li family's mid- and low-end businesses were squeezed out by the Qiqiao Pavilion and could no longer be done. Although the profit margins of these businesses were not high, they were the bulk of the Yanshi Li family's income!
Qiqiao Pavilion's move was tantamount to completely cutting off the Li family's financial resources. Blocking someone's financial resources is like killing their parents. If the Yanshi Li family had not been afraid of the Northern Army's strength, they might have even started a rebellion at this moment.

The Li family had thought about resisting, but no matter whether it was a price war or any other war.

But Wang Jing not only had blast furnaces for smelting iron, he also asked the Mohists to build a large number of buildings such as hydraulic forging hammers along the rivers. With the assistance of machinery, the production efficiency obviously crushed the traditional manual laborers of the Li family. The two sides were simply not comparable at all.

The factory price of Qiqiao Pavilion's iron products is much lower than the cost of the Li family. Under such circumstances, how can the Li family compete with Lu Fang?

Seeing that their own business was about to close down, the Yanshi Li family spread rumors everywhere, trying to create public opinion and force Wang Jing to back down in this way.

They were sure that Wang Jing valued his reputation and reputation, so they were so fearless.

If it were Dong Zhuo, how would they dare to provoke him?

Wang Jing was naturally aware of Yanshi Li's little thoughts. He narrowed his eyes and couldn't help but sneered, "If a tiger doesn't show its might, do you think I'm a sick cat?"

When Wang Jing heard that someone actually wanted to blackmail him, he didn't know how to complain.

It can only be said that people die for money and birds die for food.

When blinded by greed, many people can do such stupid things that it is truly astonishing and makes one sigh that there are so many fools in this big world.

"You want to play unfair competition with me? Fine, let me show you how I'll kill you."

Wang Jing directly asked Lu Fang to expand the scale of Qiqiao Pavilion: "If there are not enough people, recruit more. The industry run by the Li family should employ many blacksmiths, right? Increase their salaries and recruit more people. If the Li family dares to cause trouble, report it to the government directly, and I will let Shi A send people to suppress it."

"Yes, Master!" "By the way, didn't you say before that the new workshop has been built? Take me over to have a look!"

"Okay, I'll prepare it right away."

Lu Fang immediately went down to arrange the itinerary, and then personally led the way, accompanying Wang Jing to the newly built riverside workshop.

Because of the shortage of its products, Qiqiao Pavilion had originally planned to expand its production scale. In addition, according to Wang Jing's request, it specially marked out a piece of land on a wasteland near the river to build a special production workshop.

These production workshops are different from traditional Chinese buildings. They do not have too many decorations. They look square like bricks from the outside, but are open and spacious inside without partitions.

The rectangular production workshop is spacious and bright with very high visibility.

Wang Jing took a look around and was very satisfied with the relatively clean and tidy ground and the neatly arranged materials.

This type of workshop has low construction costs, fast construction speed, and can be put into use quickly.

There will be constant wars in the future, and production in the rear must not stop, but must continue to increase its efforts. Therefore, Wang Jing immediately ordered Lu Fang: "Immediately gather 300 craftsmen and prepare 400 sets of tools to get this place up and running as soon as possible."

This order made Lu Fang a little confused, so he had to ask: "Master, if you do this, it may affect the current production task."

Wang Jing waved his hand and said, "A little loss doesn't matter. Just find the people for me first and train them as soon as possible. The higher the production capacity, the better."

The entire empire is a huge blank market. Wang Jing has no worries about not being able to sell the goods he produces. The worst that can happen is he can just go to the other party and ask for free trade.

Lu Fang had no choice but to bow his head: "As you command, I will do it right away."

Soon, the craftsmen who had put down their current work were called to the new factory, and even their tools were moved there.

When moving to a new place, we naturally had to familiarize ourselves with the new environment, and many large machines had not been installed in time, so the original production line had to be stopped.

But Wang Jing didn't care at all, because he had a more important task that needed Lu Fang to do.

At the moment, the battle of the Northern Army is not a problem, but logistics and transportation are. For one soldier fighting on the front line, he often has to be accompanied by five civilians to transport food and supplies. As the battle line lengthens, the pressure on logistics is increasing exponentially, which is a headache.

"The Art of War by Sun Tzu" says: If you fight for advantage within a hundred miles, you will capture three generals, the strong ones first and the tired ones last. The rule is that eleven will arrive. If you fight for advantage within fifty miles, you will defeat the top general. The rule is that half will arrive. If you fight for advantage within thirty miles, two-thirds will arrive.

Therefore, if the army has no baggage, it will perish; if it has no food, it will perish; if it has no reserves, it will perish.

It can be seen from this that the quality of logistics often determines the combat effectiveness of the army and even the outcome of the war.

Now Wang Jing had to solve the problem of food and grass transportation. He handed a drawing of a bearing to Lu Fang and said, "Develop the above thing as soon as possible. It will be of great use to me."

After Lu Fang got the design drawings of bearings and several types of machine tools, his eyes lit up immediately and he could not take his eyes away from the paper.

"These designs are so ingenious! The owner is really a scholar, and he has such wonderful ideas!"

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the famous carpenter Lu Ban had already invented the early woodworking lathe, which used manual wire pulling and a rotating mechanism to cut materials.

As Lu Ban's old rival, Mozi would naturally know nothing about machine tools, a mechanical production tool. In fact, the reason why the Mohist school was able to mass-produce a large number of heavy crossbows during the Qin Dynasty's war of unification was because they applied lathes to actual production and processing activities, greatly improving work efficiency.

Therefore, Lu Fang now came into contact with the Mohist school and learned a lot of knowledge about mechanical engineering from Senior Mo Shi, so he could see at a glance how wide the uses of the machine tools provided by Wang Jing were and how amazing their efficiency was.

After receiving the new blueprints, Lu Fang couldn't let go of these "new things" in front of him, but he did not forget the task assigned by Wang Jing. The first thing he did after returning was to arrange his men to go to the Li family to poach people.

After all, all the craftsmen of Qiqiao Pavilion have been called to the new factory, and the old factory is in urgent need of labor, so it is a good opportunity to invite people here to take over the shift.

"If you have connections, find a way to recruit people. If you recruit an apprentice, you will be rewarded with 2,000 coins. If you recruit an experienced worker, you will be rewarded with 5,000 coins. If you recruit a master craftsman, you will be rewarded with 100 coins!"

One string of money is equivalent to one thousand coins.

One hundred strings of cash is one hundred thousand coins!

There will always be brave men when there is a big reward, and many people are tempted.

You know, the monthly income of an ordinary technician in Qiqiao Pavilion is only about 400 coins, which is considered a high income for ordinary people.

After all, the lives of farmers in the imperial dynasty were often extremely hard. Their total annual income was only a little over 11,000 coins, while their expenditures often exceeded 10,000. They could not save much at all, and in years of famine they had to borrow money to barely get by. If they could not pay it back the next year, they might even go bankrupt.

And now, by recruiting a craftsman to Qiqiao Pavilion, you can earn a farmer’s total income for ten years?
It would be strange if everyone wasn’t crazy!
For a while, everyone stopped working and became full of energy. They rolled up their sleeves and ran to the Li family to poach people.

It doesn't even matter whether they are craftsmen from the Li family or not, as long as they are brought over, they will be paid.

In the Qiqiao Pavilion, some Mohists saw this situation and approached Lu Fang with great concern: "Will we lose money by doing this? Especially for hiring a craftsman, the price we pay is too much. If Marquis Qi blames us, how can we afford it?"

Lu Fang laughed loudly: "Loss? As long as people come, we won't lose money, we can even make a lot of money. Civilian craftsmen are so rare. What's more, I didn't intend to let them do odd jobs when I found them. I hope they can train apprentices and participate in the research and development of the machine tool design drawings given to me by the master."

Upon hearing this, the Mohists were attracted by the design drawings. After reading the contents above, they were all delighted: "Such a design saves time and effort, it's really clever!"

"Zhengliang, you are really smart. With these machine tools, are you still worried about not being able to make money in the future?"

After learning that they would not lose money, everyone was very happy. After all, the Mohist School was now cooperating with the Northern Army, and Wang Jing’s interests were the interests of these Mohists.

…………

A hundred miles east of Luoyang is Yanshi.

This place was once the old capital of the Shang Dynasty. After Shang Tang conquered the Xia Dynasty, he established his capital in Xibo. Afterwards, the Shang Dynasty moved its capital several times, but this place remained prosperous and flourished for thousands of years.

At the beginning of the Yanhan Dynasty established by Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty, he re-established the county of Anmin on the old site of Xibo City. It has been nearly 400 years since then. Because it was under the jurisdiction of Henan Yin, backed by Luoyang, and occupied an important transportation route, its business was very prosperous. Moreover, because it was close to Hulao Pass, the weapons smelting industry was quite developed.

And the Li family is the best among them.

However, recently the head of the family, Li Wei, was very unhappy. He slammed the account book full of loss figures on the table and cursed: "What happened to this month's account? Why did I lose so much?"

The managers below also looked aggrieved and complained: "Master, this is not our fault."

"Yeah, that damn Qiqiao Pavilion sells things cheaper than Shuangshu, and we can't sell our goods at all."

Li Wei was furious, his eyes widened: "You mean, I am to blame for this?"

"How about we try to lower the price?"

Someone in charge made a suggestion, but he had no better idea.

(End of this chapter)