Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 104 Running a Big Factory ([-])

Shanxi Town, Kelan Bingbei Road West Road, Piantouguan.

Piantouguan is separated from the Mongolian tribe by the Yellow River. Outside the pass, there are Fengzhou Beach, Guihua City, and Bansheng.Piantou Pass has an important terrain, and together with Ningwu Pass and Yanmen Pass, they are collectively called the Three Outer Passes.

Piantou is about the construction of Tucheng in the 23rd year of Hongwu, and the bricks in the second year of Wanli. It is 310 and 21 steps high on Friday, and it is three feet and five feet high. At the beginning, there was a garrison, a deputy commander and a guard of thousands of households. Baodezhou Tongzhi and Ambassador Benta supervised the collection of money and food, and later added a member of the Guanliang General Judge. In Jiajing [-] years, he was changed from the deputy general to the general and moved to Ningwu. Lan Bing Bei Dao is stationed here.

Pianguan used to be the place where the Mongols must pass through. In the early days of Longqing, our chieftain led the people to enter from the donkey skin kiln at Piantouguan, passing through Kelan and Lanxian County, falling into rocks and plundering Fen, and the whole Jin Dynasty was shaken.However, after the Longqing peace talks, the area has not been attacked by war for many years.

Now in the Pianguan area, there are many civilian markets opened by the Mongols, and the merchants converge. There are Western merchants and Mongolian merchants. There is cause.

Now in the city, there is Mr. Yang Xihe, the governor of the west road, and Mr. Gao Qi, the deputy envoy of the procuratorate, and Mr. Li Li, the general who guards the side pass of the west road.

In the city of Piantouguan, the mansion of the military official.

"That's really the case..." After listening to the words of the two confidants, the imperial envoy's deputy envoy Gao Qi fell into deep thought.

After listening to the description of the situation in Wuzhai Fort by his two confidants, Gao Qi was moved by his heart, but if he wanted to make a move, he realized that it was not as simple as he imagined.In name, Gao Qi was the deputy envoy of Shanxi's procuratorate and the military preparation officer of Kelan West Road.But the real power in his hands is only the more than a hundred servants in his hands, and the other military power is actually in the hands of the generals of the military forts.

For Wuzhai Fort, the strength and means he can use are limited. Although it is temperance, it is a different system after all. One army and one soldier cannot use the tried and tested method of cutting off food.It is also troublesome to move the defense, because according to the military system of the Ming Dynasty, if there is no war, if you move an army of more than a thousand people, you must ask the Ministry of War to move the defense without authorization, and you will be punished for treason. Such a thing.

Moreover, in the hundreds of years of the Ming Dynasty, I have never heard of the military households in the guard station moving to defend. They are all stationed in one place for generations.The only way to move the defense is to let Wuzhai Fort become a battalion, but this is also difficult. The recruitment of the Daming battalion is in the hands of the Ministry of War, and those who recruit without authorization will be punished as treason.

According to the military system of the Ming Dynasty, only the pacesetters in the hands of the chief soldier, the extraordinary soldiers in the hands of the deputy general, the reinforcements in the hands of the generals, and the guerrillas in the hands of the guerrillas can be regarded as battalion soldiers, also known as combat soldiers.In the entire Shanxi town, except for the two battalions under the command of the general army and the third battalion of Qiyouyuan in the town, the other tens of thousands of people are all soldiers from the guards. Except for wars, the soldiers of the guards are Unmoved for hundreds of years.

It is not easy to turn Wuzhaibao into a battalion soldier. Once it becomes a battalion soldier, the household department will have to distribute food, weapons, clothing and quilts. The expenditure is huge, and the household department will not agree.Although Wuzhai Fort had recruited some civilian households to supplement Wuzhai Fort sergeants before, they all joined the Wuzhai Fort military household registration, which can be regarded as a normal replacement for the guards.

Gao Qi thought to himself: "On this matter, first discuss it with General Li Shen, and then send his confidants to Ningwuguan to hear what the commander-in-chief thinks."

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Wuzhai Fort, by the Qinglian River.

In the sound of "creaking and creaking", the stone grinder of the hydraulic mill by the river is making a busy sound under the impact of the river water.

This hydraulic mill is very large and is called Huanglaifu large hydraulic mill. There is a large shed above the mill and it is covered with thatch.On the side of the shed, along the stone-built riverside, and beside the wooden fence of the shed, there is a row of wooden chairs for people to rest. Huang Laifu's big water truck, at this time, the river is full of boats and boats, and it is very busy.

There are many stone mills in the mill. Although it was built not long ago, the business is very good, and there are people coming and going, which is very lively.There are often merchants who come here with cartloads of grain to shell the wheat or grind the rice into flour.
Some military women from Wuzhaibao also come here to shell and grind noodles, or come here directly to buy rice.Affected by this, several rice shops were built next to the water mill.

Earlier, after the bumper harvest in Wuzhaibao, Huang Laifu noticed the problem of wheat husking and milling. It turned out that most military households still used the original method of husking chun rice and raising rice by hand. There is an animal power milling method. Although the merchants of Wuzhai Fort also built several animal power rice milling shops in the fort, the efficiency is still too low.

In view of this, Huang Laifu drew the blueprints of the Chunmi waterwheel, the rotary fan cart, and the water mill based on the data in his computer, and ordered Wuzhaibao Minqifang to make these objects, and finally communicated with Qu Together, Yuanrui invested several hundred taels of silver to build this hydraulic mill.

At this time, the mill was full of people, and there was a lot of laughter. Apart from the rice merchants in the fort, there were also many big girls from Wuzhai Fort. Busy, coming and going, and some children playing here.There are also some people who came here to watch the excitement. After all, this water mill is also a new thing, just like the Huang Laifu Water Wheel, it has attracted many people's curiosity.

Driven by the water flow, the big millstone kept turning, and it didn't take long for a bag of wheat to be milled, which aroused everyone's admiration: "It's so fast." The speed of shelling or shelling with animal power is really incomparable.

After the wheat was milled, immediately the workers in the mill, as well as the older girls and the younger wives, took out some clean brooms, carefully swept the bran together, packed it with a dustpan, and then went to the side of the cart Fan rice.

Soon, after putting the bran into the grain hopper of the cart and turning the handle, the rice automatically falls into the pocket at one outlet, while the bran is fanned out from the other outlet. It doesn’t take long. When the faces of the workers were covered with fine powder, the bran rice in the dustpan was fanned, and everyone was amazed: "It's so fast. In the past, my hand-made rice raising method was really incomparable..."

With this kind of cart, the work of separating the chaff of the residents of Wuzhaibao has been greatly reduced. This kind of cart appeared in northern China during the Han Dynasty, but was lost later. It only existed in southern China and was used until the 21st century. Due to the reason of Huang Laifu, the galleys that are still used in some remote mountainous areas in China have shown a new style in Wuzhaibao.

At this point, if you want to process flour, you can go to the hydraulic stone mill on the side and grind the wheat into flour. The speed is also very fast. It doesn't take long for a bag of wheat to be ground, and the mill The flour produced is of good quality.

Because of its convenience and low processing costs, this hydraulic mill has enjoyed a booming business since it was built. Except for a few in the fort that have their own animal-powered rice mills, most of the grain merchants in Wuzhai Fort, They all transport their own grain to the Huanglaifu large hydraulic mill by the Qinglian River, and pay some processing fees to get rice noodles easily.There are also military households in Wuzhai Fort, who also transport their grain to Huanglaifu Dashui Power Mill, or come here directly to buy rice noodles. Anyway, the fort is not far from here, and it takes only a few minutes to walk. Arrived.

Because of the booming business, it attracted the attention of some businessmen in Wuzhai Fort. They asked Huang Laifu and Qu Yuanrui whether to allow them to build a water mill by the Qinglian River, but for the purpose of monopoly, Huang Laifu did not approve anything else. People built this kind of waterwheel mill in Wuzhaibao, but they can form a joint venture with Huang Laifu to make the waterwheel mill bigger and bigger.

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Stone mills are the most numerous in Huang Laifu's large hydraulic mill, because Huang Laifu not only uses stone mills to grind flour, but also uses stone mills to extract oil, or to pound wool and grind leather in the future.

No, at this time, not far from the Huanglaifu Water Power Mill, there is also a large shed with a long row of stone mills in it. These stone mills are specially used to extract the soybeans and rapeseeds from the bumper harvest in Wuzhaibao. .

This year, Wuzhaibao has a bumper harvest, and the harvest of soybeans and various rapeseed is quite large, so the processing of various types of vegetable oil and the production of beans have started one after another.In order to extract oil, Huang Laifu built a large oil extraction workshop next to the big hydraulic mill, which is specially used to make various oils for Wuzhai Fort.

Still according to Huang Laifu's prior arrangement, Huang Laifu will provide raw materials, land and part of the funds. Qu Yuanrui will cooperate with some businessmen to provide funds, provide management personnel, recruit employees, etc., to be responsible for future sales, and start to build various workshops and factories. Of course, in the dividends at the end of the year, although officers such as Huang Laifu paid the least, the dividends were the largest.

Similarly, for the purpose of monopolizing and maximizing profit margins, there can only be one Wuzhaibao oil-pressing workshop, called the Great Wuzhaibao Oil-pressing Workshop. How much dividends will be paid, and the Dawuzhaibao Oil Press Workshop will be made bigger and bigger, forming a one-stop process of planting agricultural products, purchasing and processing raw materials, and finally selling finished products, reducing many unnecessary losses and maximizing profit margins.

In the former Wuzhai Fort, there was also an oil extraction workshop, which was opened by a Wuzhai Fort military household, but it was just a low and old bungalow. There are several cauldrons and some grass to make oil.Now that oil-pressing workshop has long since closed down, and the owner has devoted himself to various farms in Wuzhaibao.

After the bumper harvest in Wuzhai Fort, after the rapeseed in the field was harvested and dried, the big Wuzhai Fort oil pressing workshop also opened. Since the former Wuzhai Fort military households have already been attracted by various farms, the employees now recruited , are refugees from various states and counties who came to Wuzhaibao.

When the Dawuzhaibao oil-pressing workshop was recruiting staff that day, it could be said that refugees flocked in. The salary of a few dollars a month was very attractive.Finally, some workers were recruited, some master craftsmen with experience in oil extraction.

When the gate of the workshop opened on this day, it became a place that also attracted attention in Wuzhai Fort.

Pressing rapeseed, under the guidance of a master chef, first fry it in a few large woks. This requires strength, and the workers work hard, while the master master controls the heat.When the frying is about the same, the master chef will order the rapeseed to be poured into the trough of the stone mill or stone mill. In the past, the rapeseed was rolled by oxen, but now it is used by water power.

After the rapeseed is crushed, it is steamed in a pot. Here, the master chefs need to observe the heat in person. Once the heat is reached, they used to use a thick layer of iron cover on the head to squeeze the wood and hit it with some strong men. They used to squeeze the wood and hit it manually, but now it is driven by water power, which saves a lot of effort.However, the impact of the hammer and stick was still very loud.

Under the impact of the hydraulic iron set wood press, the oil cake began to gurgle and flow, and the oil was slowly squeezed out. The more it flowed, the more oily fragrance permeated the workshop. After several rounds, the oil output began to decrease, and finally drained slowly. This work is over.

After the oil is produced, it is collected by the workers and transported to the warehouse for storage, and then the shareholders of the Dawuzhaibao oil pressing workshop either provide food for the soldiers and civilians in Wuzhaibao, or transport it to various places for sale. People come every day People were coming, and there was a constant flow of vehicles and horses transporting oil, forming a busy scene.

(End of this chapter)