Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 589
Xiao Jiu responded, turned around and left the house.

When Xiao Jiu went out, Li Jing smiled and said, "Xiao Jiu already knew about our relationship, and Madam also knows about it, so you don't need to worry about it."

Zhang Yan was startled when she heard the words, and hurriedly asked, "Husband... what did Madam say?"

Li Jing shook his head, looked at Zhang Yan and sighed, "What do you think Madam would say? If it were you, what would you say?"

Zhang Yan nodded silently.

After a while, Zhang Yan suddenly said: "My lord, I have an idea about being a concubine in military uniform."

"What do you think, let's hear it." Li Jing said with a smile.

Zhang Yan said: "It's the style of the clothes. I feel that the current military uniforms are a bit fat, especially the sleeves of officers and soldiers are very different. Some sleeves have arrow sleeves, some have open sleeves, and some even have pockets inside.

The concubine thought that soldiers should not carry those useless things when they are fighting, so there is no need to sew pockets inside the sleeves.If you don't need to sew pockets, you can save fabric and save several processes. "

Li Jingjing nodded: "Well... that makes sense. Our military uniforms are indeed too loose. It is indeed very inconvenient to march and fight in such clothing. Your proposal is very good! I just wonder if you have thought about what style you should adopt. ?”

Zhang Yan shook her head: "This concubine doesn't understand much, and she doesn't dare to make decisions for the Duke."

Li Jing nodded slightly, thought for a while and said, "Have you seen the armor worn by the officers and soldiers before?"

"I've seen it." Zhang Yan said hurriedly.

Li Jing continued: "Then what do you think of the military uniform adopting the armor style? Don't want the draped style, but the double-breasted style."

"According to the style of the armor, it's much simpler. If it's just the breasts, the chest will be filled with wind in winter, right? Can the soldiers stand it?" Zhang Yan pondered.

Li Jing waved his hand: "This is easy to handle, let's divide it into two pieces, make a lined jacket inside, still use the right lapel, and put a formal suit on the outside, using the double lapel."

After thinking for a while, Li Jing said, "The two of us can't see any effect, so how about it, you can find a tailor to make me one first, and I'll wear it and see how it goes."

Zhang Yan said with a smile: "Why bother to find a tailor, I can also sew clothes. Just wait, I will get a ruler right away."

Li Jing said with a smile: "How can I ask you to sew clothes for me."

Zhang Yan shook her head and said in a low voice: "Why not? It is my blessing to be able to sew clothes for the Duke. In fact, I have long wanted to sew a robe for the Duke, but I am afraid that the wife will find out. Not happy. Now with that excuse, no one else will say anything."

Li Jingwen listened silently.

Although a woman's mind is difficult to guess, Li Jing can still see Zhang Yan's mind.

Due to her limited status, Zhang Yan will not compete with Li Jing's other women for favor. All she can do is to try her best to please Li Jing and let Li Jing come to her place more times.

It can be said that among Li Jing's few women, she lived the hardest life.

Li Jing knew Zhang Yan's thoughts and understood Zhang Yan's thoughts, but he couldn't come to visit Zhang Yan often, he was worried that if he came here often, people would see his relationship with Zhang Yan.

In fact, there are not a few people who know the relationship between Li Jing and Zhang Yan. Wang Chengen knows, Shen Ying knows, Xiao Wu and Xiao Jiu and several personal guards around Li Jing know, and now the maid serving Zhang Yan in Fengyi Residence knows. , the eunuchs who were on duty in Dongnuange may also know about it.

Among these people, the eunuchs in Dongnuan Pavilion who may have leaked the secret were the eunuchs, but those eunuchs had already been secretly executed by Wang Chengen. According to Wang Chengen, even the maids serving Zhang Yan in the Palace of Compassionate Ning were executed together. Fortunately, Zhang Yan noticed Wang Chengen's intention was to plead for these court ladies to keep them.

Apart from the maids from the Compassionate Palace, the rest of the maids serving Zhang Yan in Fengyiju are carefully selected by Wang Chengen. It is impossible for these maids to leave Fengyiju in this life, and they don't even want to see outsiders.

Li Jing is very clear about what Wang Chengen did, but there are some things that Li Jing can stop, but there are some things that Li Jing can't stop.

In Li Jing's current position, he must not act emotionally. Taking the risk of leaking the secrets to keep the lives of those little eunuchs and let those maids out of the palace, such kindness can only be called stupid.

Because this incident not only involved Zhang Yan's reputation, but also the dignity of the royal family, if the news of Li Jing and Zhang Yan's affair spread, the entire Ming Dynasty would be in an uproar.

In fact, Li Jing sometimes thought about cutting off contact with Zhang Yan, because the relationship between the two of them was too much to worry about, but Zhang Yan did her best to promote Li Jing's New Deal, and what Zhang Yan is doing now It is also helping Li Jing. With the former queen in charge, it is much easier to recruit female workers for the Royal Garment Factory in Beijing than it was when Pingyang Prefecture was planning to build a garment factory.

Moreover, with the help of garment factories, it is much easier for other factories that need female workers to recruit workers.

Recruitment seems to be a small matter, but it actually plays a huge role.

From a small perspective, women's income equals to an increase in family income and solves a large part of the family's burden.

You know, if these women work, they may not be able to do their original jobs.For example, in farming, husband and wife used to farm together, but now the wife does the work, and the husband may not be able to do it alone. At this time, people have to be hired to help farm the land. Those hired workers are equivalent to having an extra job and an extra income. .

On a larger scale, women come out to work, changing the traditional life pattern of men farming and women weaving. .

Although it is still too early to develop from an agrarian society to an industrial society, with the advancement of science and technology, this trend is only a matter of time, and Daming is starting to move in this direction now, and it will undoubtedly be many years ahead of other countries .

If it is said that Li Jing only wanted to eliminate the Manchu Qing in the past, so as to prevent China from gradually weakening under the rule of the Manchu Qing, and even being humiliated by Western countries.Then when the Manchu Qing Dynasty was destroyed, what Li Jing thought about was how to make China strong.

Whether a country is strong or not depends not only on its military strength. The Mongols were invincible across the Eurasian continent, but they were overthrown by Zhu Yuanzhang after they ruled China for only 90 years.

Could it be said that after the Mongols occupied China, they began to corrupt, so that their combat power declined rapidly?
Obviously not.In the final analysis, the Mongols do not know how to govern the country. This nation on horseback can't wait to turn the whole of China into their pasture. The damage to China's agriculture is so serious that when the peasants revolted, the Mongols found that they actually There is no food to support the army to counter the rebellion.

Fighting is about logistics. No matter how advanced the weapons are, they cannot be used as food, clothing, medicine, wind or rain.

Any army is inseparable from the necessities of life such as food, clothing, housing and transportation.That is to say, to fight a war, we must first solve the living materials that can sustain the war.

But these living materials did not fall from the sky. If there is food to eat, we must first farm.To make clothes, cotton must first be grown, then spun into threads, then woven into cloth, and finally made into clothes.With food and clothing, there must be vehicles and boats to transport supplies, tents should be used to provide shelter from the wind and rain when camping, and doctors should be required to take medicine when sick, and all these things are related to people's livelihood.

In other words, if you want to develop military power, you must first develop people's livelihood.Only when the people's livelihood is developed can the military be truly strong.

Li Jing came from a later generation, and some of the weapon technologies he mastered were more than three centuries ahead of this era, but limited by the current technology, many weapons could not be produced at all.The weapons currently used by the Ming army are already at the limit of what current technology can achieve.As long as Ming's weapon manufacturing technology is not leaked, at least there will be no problem leading foreign countries by a century. Therefore, there is no need to waste energy on weapon development now.

At this time, Li Jing's energy was mainly focused on the development of science, agriculture, and industry.

Among them, before the emergence of more advanced technological achievements, the development speed of agriculture will not make much progress. At most, it is to strengthen animal power and increase the efficiency of cultivated land.

Only industry can develop rapidly. In fact, there is no real industry at present. It can only be called handicraft industry. Even the handicraft industry is still in its infancy, because the handicraft industry at this time is mainly based on the family. The production model is small workshops, and there are Great room for development.

What Li Jing wants to do is to turn the small workshop into a big workshop, and turn the big workshop into a factory.

The garment factory undoubtedly turned the family workshop-style production and processing method into a factory.

Although the current garment factories still rely on manual work, Li Jing introduced the advanced flow-through operation method of later generations, which greatly accelerated the production speed.

Normally, if a woman cuts and sews her own clothes, it would take at least two days to make one piece of clothing. At this speed, 2000 people can make [-] pieces of clothing in two days.

However, after adopting the assembly-line operation method, the division of labor is clear and each person performs their duties. Since they only do the same job and only process one part, these people are becoming more and more proficient. Now 2000 people can make [-] to [-] pieces a day. Clothes, the efficiency has increased by three or four times.

Li Jing is going to make great efforts to promote this model. Not only garment factories, but other factories also need a large number of female workers, so the role of Zhang Yan, the former queen, is very important.

Zhang Yan is helpful to Li Jing in carrying out administrative affairs, and has feelings for Li Jing, so Li Jing can't cut off his relationship with Zhang Yan whether it is in terms of human relationship or work.

However, considering the impact, Li Jing could only come once in a while, and he had to find a reasonable excuse.

Li Jing knew Zhang Yan's thoughts, and Zhang Yan also knew Li Jing's difficulties.

But after all, women are more emotional, and Zhang Yan knows that if Li Jing really wants to come, she can find any excuse, but Li Jing often doesn't show up once a month or two, and Zhang Yan will inevitably have other things in her heart. thoughts.

Sometimes Zhang Yan often wonders if Li Jing doesn't like her because she is getting old.Or maybe it's because he didn't do well enough, Li Jing was dissatisfied with himself.

Because of this thought, Zhang Yan took care of herself more deliberately, did what Li Jing told her to do well, and tried to please Li Jing even more.

(End of this chapter)