Lord of Industrialization

"Investigate! Investigate strictly! The source must be found!"

At the monthly meeting in Wessonland, Frederick stood directly on his chair and roared like an angry lion.

Recently, a rumor appeared in the territory, involving Baron Wesson. The content was both outrageous and somewhat unreliable, so it spread very quickly and widely. Even Maria knew about it.

After the rumors emerged, Baron Wesson attached great importance to them and immediately issued instructions to organize capable forces to quickly identify the source and seriously investigate those responsible. He immediately organized and carried out refutation work to further publicize and explain the rumors to prevent further spread of rumors. Currently, Wesson is having a hard time holding back laughter while leading the senior management.

This matter should be handled by the newly formed police department. Dominic tried his best to keep a straight face and prevent the smile from appearing on his face.

"Sir...hahahaha!!!"

He still couldn't hold it in. It was okay not to speak, but he immediately started laughing when he spoke.

As soon as someone started, the whole conference room burst into laughter.

Giovanni entered this circle as a bank president not long ago. At first, he felt that even if he thought it was funny, he shouldn't laugh in front of his boss, but everyone laughed and he couldn't help it.

Frederick's new administrative secretary, Giovanni's niece Vanessa, was sitting at the small table behind Frederick taking minutes of the meeting. She also covered her mouth with her notebook and laughed, attracting the second-generation knight on the other side of the conference table. They looked sideways.

Frederick jumped off the chair, sat down on it, and stared at the guys angrily.

All Might coughed twice, letting his smile disappear, and said to Frederick seriously: "Principal, why don't you let the reporter interview you and let everyone know that those women are here to help research textile machines, then there will be no You like the rumors about mature married women.”

As soon as he finished speaking, there was laughter again in the conference room.

Frederick sighed deeply and was too lazy to pay attention to this group of unscrupulous people.

Nowadays, weaving is done independently by women at home. According to the previously planned plan, after the schematic drawing of the textile machine was completed last month, a group of skilled weavers were recruited to the blacksmith shop to assist in the development of the machine.

The skills of spinning and weaving are passed down from generation to generation between mothers and daughters. To be skilled in these crafts requires rich experience, which makes the age of these weavers at least 30 years old.

Weaving is an important source of income for a family. Girls who can spin yarn and weave good cloth will not worry about getting married, so these weavers are mothers of children, and many of them are grandmothers.

But people don't know that much. Everyone only knows that Baron Wesson recruited many wives from the entire territory, starting at age 30 and capping at 55.

As for what these women were recruited for, don't expect those people to come to any good conclusions.

When Frederick learned of this rumor, he was so angry that he almost smashed his astronomical telescope.

This kind of rumor cannot be spread and must be refuted in newspapers as soon as possible.

"How is the research on the machine going now? How much is the estimated processing cost?" He turned to Ogilvy and asked Ogilvy. Textile machinery is currently a key project of the Industrial Bureau.

All Might coughed twice and said first, "What I'm going to say next is confidential, please don't spread it outside."

People in the conference room instantly became serious.

Ogilvy continued: "Cotton gins, cotton openers and carding machines are relatively simple. They mainly use rotating rollers. The effect can be achieved with wood. It is very simple to make a prototype, but there is still a need to improve efficiency and quality. More experiments.”

"The spinning machine made a prototype according to the schematic diagram, but the yarn was still not up to standard and often broke down. Each component still needs further research and optimization."

"We did not improve the loom exactly according to the principal's wishes. We started with it bit by bit, starting with the shuttle that can maximize efficiency."

"Let me talk about the cost of cotton cloth first. The price of seedless cotton with the cotton seeds removed is about 6 to 10 times that of wheat in southern coastal areas such as Constantbulum. When shipped to us, the price is about 8 to 12 times that of wheat. The further north you go, the more expensive it is. The colder the winter, the higher the price, and the price in the dark north is even 10 times higher than here."

"The weather is cold now, but the price of seedless cotton here has dropped because everyone knew that there was a large amount of stocking not long ago. Currently, 1 kreuz can buy about 5 kilograms."

"But all we have in the warehouse now are cotton bolls with seeds, which are never sold here. The price on the southern coast is about twice that of wheat of the same weight."

"Cotton seeds must be removed from cotton bolls before they can be stuffed into clothes, spinning threads and weaving fabrics. In the past, this step could only be done by people bit by bit. One person could peel out half a kilogram of cotton bolls from one and a half kilograms of cotton bolls in one day. Seedless cotton.”

"Removal of cotton seeds is the simplest. It has no technical content and the wages are the lowest. It is more than half less than the labor digging the canal. It is barely enough to make a living. It costs about 4 copper coins a day. It is equivalent to the cost of processing 3 kilograms of cotton bolls into 1 kilogram of seedless cotton. 8 coppers."

"According to our cost here, if I buy 1,500 kilograms of cotton bolls for 60 kreuz now, it will cost 40 kreuz to process them into 500 kilograms of seedless cotton. Lend leather to every household. The yarn weaver then takes back the finished product and pays labor. The cost of spinning is 40 Kreuz and the cost of weaving is 80 Kreuz. The final cost of cotton is 220 Kreuz and the cost of raw materials is 60 Kreuz. , the processing cost is 160 Kreuz.”

Everyone nodded. Everyone here was rich and could afford cotton-padded clothes, so they were aware of the price.

Everyone knows that the machines developed by Ogilvy and Mather under the guidance of the master are best at reducing the cost of manual labor. The cost of processing is the largest part of the cost of textiles. If Ogilvy and Mather's machines can reduce the processing cost by 50%, then Wei Wei The price of cotton in Senling will be more than 60% of that in other places, which is enough to make a big profit.

Everyone is waiting to see if it can meet their expectations.

Ogilvy opened the thermos cup unhurriedly, took two big gulps of milk tea, and then slowly closed the lid.

Seeing that the murderous aura in the conference room was about to reach its peak, he said: "The efficiency of our cotton gin in removing cotton seeds is 300 times that of manually stripping cotton seeds."

"How much?" Giovanni was particularly sensitive to numbers and asked immediately, "How many times?"

"It is currently 300 times, and it is expected to reach 1,000 times or even higher after optimization." Ogilvy said with certainty, "In other words, in the example just mentioned, the 40 Kreuz can be almost saved, only Use a little machine depreciation, boiler fuel and a small amount of workers’ wages.”

Giovanni shouted: "This is impossible..."

All Might interrupted him with a smile: "This is not the first time this has happened to the principal, you just get used to it."

Many people in the conference room nodded in agreement. They felt that this was not magical enough compared to eating fresh vegetables on a snowy day.

Ogilvy continued: "The current manual spinning machine can only spin one spindle at a time. With the cooperation of the cotton opening machine, carding machine and new spinning machine, the current design is to drive 200 spindles at a time, and in the future it can drive 2,000 spindles. "

Giovanni rubbed his temples and asked, "What about the loom?"

All Might shook his head slightly and said: "Alas... we have failed the principal's expectations. The efficiency of half-baked looms is only 40 to 50 times that of manual looms. There is still a long way to go."

His tone was so helpless, but his expression was very proud.

With trembling hands, Giovanni finally unscrewed the newly purchased thermos cup and drank some tea to calm down his shock.

Ogilvy continued: "Actually, most of these machines can be used on wool, but the focus now is on cotton."

Giovanni put down the cup and asked doubtfully: "Why is this? Isn't wool bad?"

Frederick answered this question: "There are too many people in the surrounding areas who make a living by spinning at home, and most of them use wool."

"If we suppress the price of wool products all at once, those people will have no way of living and will vent their anger on us."

"So we develop the cotton textile industry first, and at the same time I will give those people another way to survive."

He remembered that the family of a man who invented a spinning machine was smashed, and he didn't want to suffer the same kind of treatment.

The torrent of history will ruthlessly wash away some people. The least he can do is prepare people and prepare a lifebuoy.

The only life preserver that Frederick could think of was cross stitch.

Embroidery in this era was so expensive that only nobles and wealthy businessmen could afford it, and it was synonymous with nobility.

After the cotton textile industry spreads, the raw material cost of cross-stitch will be greatly reduced, and the entry barrier will be low, and it will not overlap with the existing mid-to-high-end embroidery market. There will be a good market among the civilian class, enough to support their families.

Frederick instructed Ogilvy: "Find a newspaper and ask them to report that we are researching new textile machines. The efficiency improvement will be reduced to single digits. Don't scare other people."

"At the same time, we should report more on the textile workers who came to help, so that everyone knows the role they play, and don't always think about it."

What he said at the end was the key point, and everyone laughed again after hearing it.

After everyone finished laughing, Frederick waved his hand and dismissed the meeting.

At the same time, he said to old Franz: "Let's go to the military camp together tomorrow afternoon."

Old Franz asked: "Do you want to inform them over there?"

Frederick nodded.