Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 84 Wuzhaibao Handicraft Factory

Lao Niu: Sorry, I took a day off yesterday because I was too tired, and I will make up for it today.Generally speaking, this book is updated every day. If it was not updated the previous day, it will be added the next day or a few days later.

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September 1590, 9, Wuzhai Fort.

"Brother, sister is here again."
In the afternoon, when Huang Laifu returned to Qianhu House, he was delighted to find that the sisters who had gone out in June had returned today.They came this time to attend Huang Laifu's wedding on September 9.As soon as they came, the Qianhu House became much more lively. It could be seen that Huang Sihao and Yang's family were very relieved, and they laughed happily.

Seeing Huang Laifu, several nephews and nieces gathered around Huang Laifu, calling sweetly: "Uncle."

Huang Laifu smiled all over his face and said, "Okay, you guys are good."

The eldest sister, Huang Zirou, sat beside Yang Shi, and said to Huang Laifu with a smile: "Brother, sisters are here again, are you happy?"

Huang Laifu said with a smile: "Of course I'm happy. The sisters can go home often and talk to their parents. That's the best."

Yang smiled at the side and said: "You, I don't know what kind of plan is going to come back this time. Laifu has a sister like you, so he is unlucky."

The eldest sister giggled and didn't take it seriously.The second sister Huang Wanrou and the third sister Huang Birou sat aside and smiled.

The elder sister Huang Ziju said: "My sister heard about it in Bajiaobao. This time, Wuzhaibao had a good harvest and received hundreds of thousands of shi. Your sister was fine at that time. Your brother-in-law was very surprised when he heard that Wuzhaibao and Wuzhaibao. Bajiaobao is also a small place, but it can produce so much food. He couldn't figure it out. This time your wedding, he said that you must come and see it on the 8th. First, come to drink your wedding wine. The second is to see what is going on in Wuzhai Fort."

Huang Laifu said: "Brother-in-law, how is he?"

The eldest sister said: "What's so good, he is a poor guard, and he gets some dry salary every year, and he has always been like that ghost."

She sighed, and said: "Oh, Wuzhai Fort is better. It's getting busier and busier. It's not like that ghostly place called Bajiao Fort. It's deserted. Look around, it's just some poor soldiers. What does your sister think?" When laying cards, you can’t even find someone to find a platform.”

Among Huang Laifu's three elder sisters, the eldest sister, Huang Zirou, married Xu Xueshi, the guard of Bajiaobao. Bajiaobao is actually just a house of thousands of households.The second sister is married to Li Yingchun, the defenseman of Baode Prefecture, and the third sister is married to Tian Dafu, the defenseman of Shenchibao.These places are not far from Wuzhai Fort, and you can go back and forth in a day on a fast horse.

Huang Laifu's heart moved, and he said: "Elder sister is also bored in Bajiaobao, why not move back to Wuzhaibao in the future, wouldn't it be better, and I can accompany my parents, you know, brother, I am busy with business all day long, so I don't have time to accompany you Er Lao."

The eldest sister patted her thigh and said: "Look, people say that sisters and brothers are united, it's really good. When your sister comes back this time, she has made up her mind to move that family to Wuzhaibao. gone."

Huang Laifu said happily: "That's a good relationship. If there are more people in the family, it will be more lively." After a while, he hesitated: "But, brother-in-law, does he agree?"

The eldest sister said disapprovingly: "What does he disagree with? Your sister is in charge of that family. If I agree, you mean he agrees."

Huang Laifu laughed and said: "Brother-in-law is an honest man, don't bully him." He knew that his brother-in-law's parents-in-law were easy-going, and his wife was honest, so the eldest sister was indeed the biggest in that family.

The elder sister laughed grinningly, which drew a burst of laughter from Yang, saying that it would be bad luck for the eldest son-in-law to marry her.

Huang Laifu also suggested that the second and third sisters move back, and both of them said they meant it.
The eldest sister said: "Brother, have you thought about it, if everyone moves back to live, then this family will not be able to live in it."

Huang Laifu said: "I also thought about it, this house is indeed a bit crowded now, but now it's autumn, and those villagers are bored, so they will be recruited to repair the house, anyway, there is no shortage of these in the house now Money and food."

The eldest sister giggled, pointed at Huang Laifu and said, "Look, people with riches and powerful speech just speak differently. With this younger brother, my elder sister is definitely settled."

Everyone laughed, Yang scolded the eldest sister with a smile, and said: "At that time, you can call all the in-laws to live together, it will be so lively."

Everyone said a few words, Huang Laifu saw that the third sister seemed to be in a bad mood, so he paid attention to her, thinking what was on the mind of the third sister, he took the time to ask, could it be her husband's family bullying her again?
The next thing everyone talked about was Huang Laifu's marriage. In the marriage of a product official in Yiming, in addition to satisfying the parents' order, the matchmaker's words and the conditions of the engagement contract, the marriage process must also follow the six rituals: accepting the lottery, asking the name, The procedures of Najib, Nazheng, requesting a date, and welcoming the relatives are carried out, and the six rituals are complete, and the marriage relationship is established.

Huang Laifu didn't understand these things, and he had to be busy with the autumn harvest and military training, and his own wedding preparations, etc., so he left them to the elders.Now a few sisters are here, just in time to help.

After discussing about Huang Laifu's marriage for a while, the eldest sister finally clapped her hands and said, "Okay, okay, anyone who wants to hit the horseshoe will come to the stage." Immediately, mother Yang, second sister, and third sister all surrounded her .

A few girls in the emotional family are about to start playing mahjong again, but Huang Laifu can't play it, because he has a lot of things to do.

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Now Huang Laifu's schedule is usually to lead the sergeants to practice in the field in the morning, and to practice the formation, flags and orders.In the afternoon, I patrolled the Wuzhai Fort and was busy with other things.

Sometimes in the morning, Huang Laifu would not be in the contest. Anyway, Deputy Qianhu He Ruzhen is an honest person. Although he is not smart, he is responsible for his work.Huang Laifu entrusted him with the camp exercise, don't worry.Anyway, now there is a training booklet, Huang Laifu doesn't need anyone to innovate, he just needs to follow the booklet and train meticulously.

"My lord, this folk utensil workshop is like this. Look, are you satisfied?"

When he came out of Qianhu House, Huang Laifu went to inspect Wuzhaibao Minqifang.

At the beginning of August, Huang Laifu ordered Liu Tianlu and General Banner Liu to divide the craftsmen of Wuzhaibao into the folk crafts workshop and the military crafts workshop.The military workshop is in the same place, and the civilian workshop is not far from the military workshop. It used to be a wasteland pond in the fort, but it dried up, so it was used to build a factory.After a period of hard work, a factory building has been built here, including a field, warehouses, canteens, etc., which are dedicated to making various waterwheels, pear utensils, etc. needed by various farms in Wuzhaibao.

There are 200 people in it, divided into supervisors, stewards, craftsmen and workers, etc. Supervisors, stewards and craftsmen will be paid higher, and workers will be slightly lower.Of course, the various reward mechanisms of the folk instrument workshop are the same as those of other farms. Anyone who does not work hard will be punished.And if you do a good job, you will be rewarded.

Wuzhaibao Minqi Workshop is managed by Liu Tianlu and Zongqi Liu, but Sun Tianzheng, a small banner of a former military craftsman, is in charge. In fact, Sun Tianzheng is in charge here, and Zongqi Liu is busy with the military workshop. , I was so busy that I didn't have much time to come to Wuzhaibao Minqi Square.

When Huang Laifu brought a few servants into this place, he saw that the workers here were doing their work in full swing, and everyone was concentrating on it. Some supervisors were patrolling around, eyeing everyone.In fact, there is no need for supervisory supervision, and the various workers work very hard.

Some of the craftsmen in the Wuzhaibao Civil Artifact Workshop were diverted from the former military craftsmen of the Military Artisan Workshop. Most of these people are now the craftsmen, supervisors, and stewards of the Wuzhaibao Civil Instrument Workshop.

They are the people who are most grateful to Huang Laifu of Qianhu, and they are also the first to realize the benefits of the reward mechanism. For those who do well, on a piece-by-piece basis, at most one person can earn more than two stones of monthly rations.I remembered that when I was a military craftsman in the past, I worked hard and only had two or three buckets of monthly rations. The family was hungry and cold, and they couldn’t get enough to eat every day. They cherished the good life now.

As for the other workers, many of them are from households outside the fort, or refugees from various places who came to Wuzhai Fort.It may be difficult for these people to have the gratitude to Huang Laifu of the original Wuzhaibao military households and military craftsmen.However, under the strict reward and punishment system of Wuzhaibao Minqifang, they can only work hard.

And compared to the previous days when I could not get enough to eat all year round, now in the workshop, as long as I work hard, I can eat and wear clothes.In addition, the craftsmen in the workshop always instilled a sense of crisis in them. How many refugees have come to the fort today, where disasters have occurred, and where the whole village has fled. If they don’t work hard, Wuzhai There are many migrant workers in the castle.

Think about the hard life at home before, now the work is easier than in the field, and there is a guaranteed five buckets of monthly grain, just let you and your family have enough food.And the more you do, the better you will be rewarded, so all the workers cherish the good life now.

When Huang Laifu entered the Wuzhaibao Civil Artifacts Workshop, everyone was busy working hard, no one looked around, and many people did not notice Huang Laifu's entry.Only Sun Tianzheng, the steward at the side, saw Huang Laifu and the others, and rushed up to meet them.

Under the leadership of Sun Tianzheng, Huang Laifu inspected various places in Wuzhaibao Minqifang, working places, canteens, etc.To be honest, this folk implement workshop is somewhat similar to the small factories of later generations. Many places are very simple. When working, the workers sit on the ground in a long and large room. There are piles in the east and west. busy.

However, the Minqi Workshop at this time was considered a large workshop in the northern Jin area of ​​the Ming Dynasty. Even in the Jiangnan area at this time, handicraft workshops with hundreds of people like this were not everywhere.In fact, compared with the rest of Ming Dynasty, where most of them are family workshops, specialized handicraft factories like Wuzhaibao Minqifang are already very advanced.

The cafeteria, like every farm, is a large room with tables and chairs. It is run by some families of military craftsmen, selling some meals and the like, and some workers’ families are also here to help. Earn some money to spend every month.

There are still many varieties of meals, including noodles, rice, fish, meat, vegetables, carrots, etc.However, Huang Laifu discovered one thing, that is, compared to the military craftsmen, the workers eat very frugally, try not to eat meat, eat more, and the food is only some vegetables and the like.There are also many workers who leave the factory and return to their rented places to eat with their families.

As for housing, the Wuzhai Fort military craftsmen have houses in the fort. Although they used to be some dilapidated houses, after a few months, everyone has basically repaired them.And some workers want to rent the houses of the former military households in Wuzhai Fort. As more and more merchants and refugees come to Wuzhai Fort, the housing prices in Wuzhai Fort have been rising steadily.

Huang Laifu is considering whether to build some workers' houses so that these workers can live in some cheaper houses.And in the future, there will only be more and more factories in Wuzhaibao, and the matter of the workers' houses will have to be brought up.Just like the various farms in Wuzhaibao, each farm has a settlement house for the settlements and some family members to live in, and there is no charge, or only a small fee.

But obviously, there is no place to build the workers' houses of Wuzhaibao Minqifang in the fort. There are more and more people in Wuzhaibao, and the place is too small. It seems that I should move Wuzhaibao Minqifang to the fort. If there are factories in the future, they should also be built outside the fort.

The place outside the fort can be said to have everything that one expects to find, suitable for building a factory, but there is one point, safety issues.Wuzhai Fort is close to the frontier, what if one day the Mongols come to rob?In addition to strengthening one's own force, it seems that the city wall should also be expanded by then.

After seeing the Wuzhaibao Minqifang, Huang Laifu, with his head full of considerations, was escorted by the steward Sun Tianzheng, and left the first civilian handicraft factory in Wuzhaibao, and then went to Wuzhai, which is not far from the Minqifang. Fort army workshop.

There are more than 200 military craftsmen and military men here, which is relatively quiet compared to the Minqifang, but it is clanging and lively here.The military craftsmen are seriously making some armor weapons.After seeing Huang Laifu, Liu Tianlu and Liu Zongqi rushed to greet him.

Huang Laifu asked about the work achievements of this month, and Mr. Liu said that he had made three sets of armor, five bronze handles, and two hundred waist knives and long spears in this month.As for the bird gun, Liu Zongqi secretly tried it, and after a month, after hard work, he finally made a bird gun. After the test shot, the quality was good.

Huang Laifu nodded, this result is not bad.According to Qi Jiguang's "Ji Xiao Xin Shu": "The original hole of the bird's gun is very small, and it is drilled with a steel drill. It can be drilled for an inch in a day, until it reaches the bottom, and the light is drilled in one month."

According to the technology of the Ming Dynasty, the production of bird guns, commonly known as matchlock guns, is not easy. The upper part is only the part of the bored barrel, and this process alone takes a month.Considering other processes such as barrel forging, jointing, trigger group processing, etc., it takes about 2 months in total to make a bird gun.Of course, if there are thousands of military craftsmen, if they are familiar with it, and if they specialize in making bird guns, they can produce an average of 40 pieces per month, but the process of one batch will take at least one month.

Huang Laifu said: "We must pay attention to the quality of the weapons, and there must be no problems."

Liu Zongqi respectfully agreed.Then he complained again, saying that the stock of wrought iron was running out.There are also various raw materials for making weapons, and the inventory is not much.

Huang Laifu pondered, a clever woman can't cook without rice, and without iron and other raw materials, naturally don't want to make weapons.But who should I buy this iron from?Thinking about some information about Daming, there should be a strong ethos of private iron management in Daming at this time.

According to the ironware trading system of the Ming Dynasty, in the early Ming Dynasty, the management was stricter, and most of them were government-run iron smelters, and most of the iron produced was sent to the Armament Bureau, Baoyuan Bureau and related government handicraft workshops.But after Xuande, the government-run iron smelters declined rapidly, and most of them were closed. By the time of Wanli, even the largest government-run mining and metallurgy in Daming, the Zunhua Iron Works, went bankrupt, and replaced them with widespread ones after the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Various private iron smelting workshops.

These private iron smelting workshops, with the approval of the government, can mine as long as they pay a certain mining fee.It is also because of this that the people in Ming Dynasty had a very strong custom of dealing in ironware. Where there was iron produced, merchants from all over the place used cattle to transport it and transported it to various places for sale.After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, many people made a living by transporting iron, and many of them made a fortune because of this.In particular, many folks evade taxes and steal iron ore without permission, and there are countless people who have gotten rich because of this.

Shanxi is rich in resources such as salt, iron, and coal, and the business of folk ironware is also very prosperous.

In the end, Huang Laifu decided to buy some iron materials from his adoptive father to see if he had any in stock, and to see if any of the merchants in Wuzhaibao were selling them.

(End of this chapter)