Zhao Jinxi took out a silver ingot worth ten taels and put it on the table and said, "Shopkeeper, my master will give you ten taels. You can find some experienced craftsmen!" The jade owner looked at Zhao Jinxi's silver and said with a wry smile. : "My lord, if you hire away the jade craftsman, the shop will close. Even if you give me fifty taels, I can't let you hire my jade craftsman." Zhao Jinxi and Yang Peng looked at each other. , Yang Peng said: "Shop, you gave us the old master, you can train a few new people to polish jade."
The shopkeeper said: "Master, these jade craftsmen's skills are passed down from ancestors, and are passed down from son to son, not from son-in-law. When the old jade craftsman is gone, it will take a new jade craftsman who knows how many years to learn the skill. How can it be cultivated overnight?" For the sake of the small profit of the small shop, please don’t rob the jade craftsmen of the small shop." Yang Peng heard this and asked: "These jade craftsmen are skills passed down from ancestors, not the skills you taught them?" Then The shopkeeper didn't react for a moment, and nodded and said: "The shop also hires these jade craftsmen for monthly money. They are all skills passed down from their families. What is the skill of the shop?"
After saying this, the shopkeeper realized that he regretted a little, and secretly thought that the official had to skip him and directly hire a jade craftsman. Yang Peng smiled and said, "In that case, we won't talk to you anymore." Yang Peng led a group of people out of Jade Alley and stayed at an inn. After resting for a while, Yang Peng found the shopkeeper in the inn and said, "Shopkeeper, I have something to ask you!"
When the shopkeeper saw Yang Peng's official uniform, he knelt down to salute, but Yang Peng helped him up. "I want to hire some craftsmen who are good at polishing jade, do you recognize them?" The shopkeeper asked honestly: "What kind of jade craftsman does the official want? If he is the top craftsman, he can do some skillful work, and he can polish the jade. Those who work on flowers, drills, and flowers are very expensive, and it is not easy to hire. If it is an ordinary jade craftsman who only carves out jade and ties jade, it is much more in our county, and it usually takes two taels a month. money."
Yang Peng asked: "Can ordinary craftsmen polish the edges and polish jade?" The innkeeper said: "Of course they can. How can you be considered a jade craftsman?" Yang Peng nodded and said, "Then you So I found some ordinary jade craftsmen who are skilled in craftsmanship and have good polishing skills. I want to hire five people, and I will give each person three taels of silver per month. They will provide three meals a day, and three meals will include meat. Give them fifteen taels of silver each for moving expenses and let them go to Tianjing New City near Cangzhou to work!" After saying this, Yang Peng took out two taels of silver and put it on the table and said, "This money is for you, it's an introduction fee. ."
The shopkeeper's face suddenly burst out with a smile and he said, "I will help you now!" Zhao Jin was delighted to see the shopkeeper's face beaming with joy and added: "Shopkeeper, you must find the right person! If you are looking for a craftsman who doesn't know how to do things, Come on, my official is not easy to deal with!" The shopkeeper said quickly: "You know, the common people know!"
The next night, the shopkeeper brought nine jade craftsmen to the inn and introduced them to Yang Peng. Yang Peng glanced at the nine people and said, "Why did you find so many people?" The shopkeeper said, "They are all willing to come after hearing the official's monthly payment. These nine people are all veterans, and the official will pick five Just one person." Hearing the shopkeeper's words, the nine jade craftsmen all looked at Yang Peng nervously, fearing that Yang Peng would not want them. Yang Peng glanced at the nine people and said, "How many of them are getting married?"
Then six older jade craftsmen stood up and said that they were married. Yang Peng glanced at the six people, nodded, eliminated the oldest one, and selected the other five. These five jade craftsmen are rich and married, which shows that their current income level is good, and they are naturally skilled craftsmen. The other three bachelors have no money to get married, so their level is hard to estimate. Yang Peng could not test the level of these jade craftsmen for the time being, so he could only use this rough method to simply evaluate.
Five well-established jade craftsmen were selected by Yang Peng. They were overjoyed and secretly thought that their income had increased by half. The new owner also provided three meals with meat. Where could such a good thing be found? Yang Peng found the craftsmen, immediately paid fifteen taels of moving fees, and urged the craftsmen to move to Tianjing New City immediately to organize the production of reading glasses.
In July of the first year of Xianping, the jade craftsmen moved their luggage and jade grinding tools from Yutian to Tianjing New City and began to produce reading glasses for Yang Peng. The first step in making reading glasses is to make a mold. Yang Peng drew the drawings and hired a blacksmith to make twenty glass lens molds with different curvatures. Glass craftsmen poured hot annealed glass into these molds to press out convex glass sheets, and then handed the convex glass lenses to jade craftsmen for processing.
Jade craftsmen have to polish the rough-pressed glass pieces into convex lenses with a single focus. The operation of jade craftsmen polishing glass pieces is called grinding in jade making. Craftsmen use tools like grinders to finely grind the surface of the glass. During the specific operation, the jade worker holds the glass with his left hand and presses it against the edge of the rotating steel plate. There was a basin filled with water and red sand at one end of the table. The jade worker used his right hand to scoop up the sand and pour it on the glass. The hard jade sand, coupled with the rotating and sharp edge-cutting blade, can grind away the unnecessary parts of the glass.
The lens is not finished until it is ground, it still needs to be polished. Polishing is divided into two steps: wood polishing and leather polishing. Muqi is usually made of gourd pulp. The structure of the tool used during operation is a board connected to a wooden shaft, which drives the circular wooden hammer to rotate, and the lens is polished with the help of stone and sand. The stone sand used in this step has a relatively low hardness, usually quartz sand.
Then there is leather grinding: during leather grinding, a round wheel made of cowhide is used to rotate and rub the lens to grind it into a smooth and translucent glass lens. After polishing, the reading lenses are ready. Li Zhi asked the craftsmen to put the lenses into the wooden frame, and they became reading glasses. The power of reading glasses is based on the length of the focal length. Yang Peng deduced the approximate length of one meter from his own height, made an iron meter ruler, and then multiplied the reciprocal of the focal length of each lens by one hundred to get the power of each lens.
The lenses made for the first time range from 100 degrees to 800 degrees. Yang Peng found several literate old men to conduct experiments and asked them to try on reading glasses of various degrees. After these old people put on reading glasses with appropriate prescriptions, they found that they could see documents clearly at close range, and they all exclaimed that it was magical.
The things invented by this city lord are always so incredible.
After Yang Peng confirmed the power of each lens, he made the molding machine again and made twenty-eight lens molding machines with different powers in units of twenty-five degrees. The new lenses are polished and polished by craftsmen. After making a set of lenses with standard power, these standard lenses are used to make fine molds for the molds to reduce the workload of polishing. Finally, after the standard molding machine is ready on February 15th, each jade craftsman can grind out one pair of lenses per hour, and five people can make thirty pairs of glasses per day.
After the product was made, Yang Peng started selling it. Yang Peng sells reading glasses at the price of twelve pairs at the Gaojia store in Cangzhou City. Yang Peng set the price of reading glasses at this price to prevent others from imitating them. After all, it is relatively easy to imitate reading glasses. The glass used in a pair of reading glasses is only one-twentieth of a set of glass tea sets. If the price is too high, some people will use the glass they sell to grind the imitations, and the imitations will be It is irresistible, so the price cannot be too high; secondly, Yang Peng also hopes that more people will buy reading glasses and expand profits. Twelve taels is not much, but even the heads of wealthy families can afford this price. At this price, many people in the Song Dynasty could afford glasses, and the sales of reading glasses would increase.
In terms of product confidentiality, Yang Peng maintains confidentiality by controlling the raw materials of the lenses. Colorless glass on the market is basically produced by Tianjing New City. The wine glasses of glass wineware are relatively small and cannot be used to grind glass lenses. The bottom of the glass tea set can be ground into glass lenses, which is not conducive to the confidentiality of the glasses industry. Fortunately, the sales of tea sets were not very good, so Yang Peng simply stopped producing this kind of glass tea sets, cutting off the possibility of other craftsmen imitating glass lenses from raw materials.
By controlling raw materials, Yang Peng blocks the possibility of others imitating reading glasses. The Gao family's shop in Cangzhou City has already expanded. Now the other two shops on both sides of the store have also been bought by the Gao family, and they look very decent after luxurious decoration. Yang Peng sells soap in the easternmost store, and the Gao family sells reading glasses in the most luxuriously decorated store in the westernmost store.
As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning. There are always very few customers for a new product at the beginning. Yang Peng hung a big banner saying "Cure Presbyopia Guaranteed" on the store, hoping to attract the first batch of customers. All Yang Peng can do now is wait for this product to slowly ferment and bring profits to himself.
Ding Youdi's father wanted to have a son, so he gave him such a silly name. However, he later did have a younger brother, which made him doubt whether his name was really useful. He was originally a farmer from Dingjia Village, sixty miles west of Cangzhou. In the third year of his arrival, when he heard that Tianjing New City was recruiting people, he came to apply for workers. He was very lucky to pass the interview with Li Dao, the city lord's confidant, and entered the Tianjing New City Glass Workshop to work. At first, he was lighting firewood to light the fire. Later, the city lord asked him to do the shopping. He specially went to Xue Yuanwai's shop in the west of Cangzhou City to buy alkali noodles. Then every time he burned a furnace of glass, he poured the alkali noodles into the crucible. Each pot cost nine catty.
He just does this simple and easy job. After the first glass kiln in the glass workshop was officially put into operation, there were seventeen employees. Cai Huaishui, the head of the kiln, led three people to heat the furnace. Three people, including Ding Youdi, purchased goods and added goods to the crucible. One employee was responsible for adding the boiling water to the crucible. Saltpeter is added to the crucible, two employees are responsible for adding salt to the crucible and stirring the melt, one person is responsible for annealing, and four people are responsible for molding.
According to the rules of the city lord: each employee is only responsible for his or her own business. No one knows what materials others buy and use, nor does they know how much other people’s materials cost. Employees are not allowed to discuss their own processes with other employees, let alone leak process details to outsiders.
Cai Huaishui, the head of the kiln, is responsible for enforcing order and suppressing employees who violate discipline. Cai Huaishui is a simple and responsible kiln leader. When he was in charge here, the entire kiln ran very smoothly. Most of the employees obeyed discipline and no one talked about other people's processes. Ding Youdi was very grateful to Master Cheng for giving him such a job. It cost him two taels of silver a month and had meat for three meals. It was easy and simple.
Ding Youdi rented a villa on Heming Street in the north of Tianjing City, and the monthly rent was only seventy cents. There is no charge for eating and drinking in Tianjing New City, and every meal has meat and vegetables. After half a year, Ding Youdi felt that he had grown a lot stronger and became more courageous. Moreover, the monthly salary in Tianjing New City was so high that he could save one to eight taels of silver every month. After half a year, he already had more than ten taels of savings.
Ding Youdi's good job has increased his net worth, and matchmakers come to his house from time to time to talk about matchmaking, which makes him very proud. But the good days passed quickly. When the city lord built the second glass kiln at the end of July, he transferred Cai Huaishui, the original kiln head, to the second kiln. The first kiln was headed by Huang Huang, the original furnace worker. Since Huang Huang became the kiln head, the atmosphere in the glass kiln has changed.
In the first month, everyone can still observe discipline. But after returning after the Chinese New Year, several workers began to inquire about other people’s recipe secrets. At the beginning, the three workers who were close friends with the kiln head Huang Huang kept asking around the kiln about the names and quantities of other people's raw materials, and peeked at other people's process operations. For example, when the annealing workers were doing the annealing, they were supposed to be operating alone in a cubicle. Huang Huang's people ran in to watch, and they quarreled several times with the workers in charge of annealing.
Not only did Huang Huang not stop those few people from violating discipline, but he also punished employees who were unwilling to tell the secrets of the formula from time to time. As the head of the kiln, Huang Huang had the power to remove meat from employees' meals. For example, Chen San, who was in charge of adding saltpeter, originally had to screen out the people on the left and right during the operation, but Huang Huang's people had to watch. Whenever there was a quarrel, Huang Huang would cancel Chen San's sexual behavior.
Huang Huang's family was very poor. I heard that his father was gambling and owed money. He was very short of money. Everyone suspected that Huang Huang had colluded with outsiders to obtain the glass formula. But the people who work in this glass workshop are all honest farmers. Without evidence, no one dares to offend Huang Huang and report him! However, everyone knows that their job is hard-won. Once they leak their formula to Huang Huang's people, the city lord will not let him go easily. It ranges from canceling one's errands to being in jail. Thinking of this, the workers kept their processes secret, preventing Huang Huang's people from having a chance to see into the details.
Soon, Huang Huang found that he couldn't do it forcefully with his limited power, so he began to change his strategy. He began to invite the kiln employees to the restaurant one by one for dinner, saying they wanted to discuss important matters. After Huang Huang entertained several guests, Ding Youdi found that many employees in the kiln began to mingle with Huang Huang.
They whispered while operating, discussing the secrets of their processes. When doing key operations, I no longer turned my screen to Huang Huang, I just showed him the operations in front of Huang Huang. Ding Youdi said that these people must have taken advantage of Huang Huang and started to sell the secrets of the process to Huang Ming. Ding Youdi wanted to report Huang Huang, but he suffered from the lack of evidence and was afraid that he would offend other employees in the brothel who had taken refuge with Huang Huang, and would be framed by them collectively in the future.
Finally, on July 7th, Huang Huang found Ding Youdi and invited him to have a drink at Jixianlou, the largest restaurant in Tianjing New City. At the wine table, taking advantage of the strength of two bowls of soju, Huang Huang leaned into Ding Youdi's ear and whispered that he would pay him a hundred taels for the secret of this process. As long as Ding Youdi agreed, Huang Huang immediately gave him fifty taels of silver. Then Ding Youdi told Huang Huang what materials were added to the crucible, how many kilograms at a time, and what the key was! After all is said and done, the operation will be done in front of Huang Huang tomorrow, and Huang Huang will give another fifty taels of silver to Ding Youdi.
One hundred taels of silver is enough for Ding Youdi to buy two small villas in Tianjing New City. Ding Youdi was also shocked by Huang Huang's generosity. He was in a daze for a few seconds, but soon he found his backbone: This can't be done! In this time of war and chaos, what can you do with a hundred taels after betraying the city lord?
To buy dozens of acres of dry land? These days, the gentry, the royal family, and their relatives do not pay land taxes, and all the land taxes fall on common people like Ding Youdi. You can't grow a few taels of money by digging in the soil all year round, and you have to be exploited by your subordinates. You work so hard that you go hungry every year during the lean period! Find a job elsewhere? Who would hire someone who betrayed the city lord? Even if others don't know your details and hire you, getting one, two or five dollars for an errand these days is considered a high-stakes job. Generally such errands are strenuous and can wear people down. Errands like the one provided by the Lord of the City will never be found again.
What's more, the city lord is not easy to get along with. If he betrays him, he will not be able to survive in Cangzhou, and he will have no choice but to fly away! Ding Youdi is not a greedy person. He is very calm. He knows that he is harming himself by taking the one hundred taels of silver. But Huang Huang was very arrogant. He patted Ding Youdi on the shoulder and said coldly: "The secret recipe we spent so much on you is really serious. If you think about it, you will know that we have a lot of background! If you don't cooperate, I guarantee that you will not have a good life. We can’t touch you in Tianjing New City, and I guarantee that your hands and feet will be cut off as soon as you leave Tianjing New City!"
After listening to Huang Huang's words, Ding Youdi felt a chill in his heart and sweat broke out on his back. Could it be that I really couldn't keep such a good job, so I could only take the one hundred taels of silver and fly away. Ding Youdi was not a weak person. He held a wine glass and thought about a cup of tea before making up his mind. He was determined to keep his good life and fight this Huang Huang to the end. He pretended to agree to Huang Huang, accepted Huang Huang's fifty taels of silver, and told Huang Huang that what he purchased was arsenic, and he added fifteen kilograms of arsenic to the crucible at a time.
Huang Huang was overjoyed and kept serving wine to Ding Youdi. Finally, he was half drunk before going back. Ding Youdi took the money and did not return to his villa. He walked around Tianjing New Town to make sure no one was following him, then rushed into Yang Peng's official hall. The soldiers guarding the door refused to let Ding Youdi in at first, but when Ding Youdi took out fifty taels of silver from his arms and said that someone wanted to steal the secret recipe of the Lord's glass, the soldiers quickly went in and reported it. Soon, Ding Youdi saw the city lord walking out in person.
The moment he saw the Lord of the City, Ding Youdi understood that his good life in Tianjing New City had been saved! Looking at the fifty taels of silver, Yang Peng believed Ding Youdi's words that someone was stealing his formula. Yang Peng never imagined that even though he was fortified at all levels, someone would still try his best to steal his formula. I gave this kiln head three to two months of money, but I didn't expect that he would not be grateful to me, and instead joined forces with outsiders to obtain the glass formula. Who is coveting their own formula and trying to produce hugely profitable glass?
Yang Peng asked Ding Youdi and Huang Huangxu to deal with it, while he sent people overnight to secretly follow Huang Huang to see who was in contact with him. Two days later, there was news. Four outsiders pretending to be in the rice and noodle business contacted Huang Huang every day to spread news outside the city. Yang Peng asked people to keep an eye on these fake rice noodle merchants to see where they were spreading the news.
After following for several days, the whistle finally figured out that these rice noodle merchants had entered Lu Siqi's home. Lu Siqi is the boss of Long Shengxing, one of the eight major businesses in Bianjing, and the cousin of Pan Hu, a general in Bianjing. It turned out that Pan Hu's people wanted to produce glass that was a copycat of his own. This Lu Siqi usually likes to make friends and watch movies, and he looks like a knight, but he didn't expect to be so ruthless when he stole the formula, and thousands of taels of silver were spilled. This energy is obviously to prepare the glass formula in one go. Yang Peng didn't want to fall out with the court at this time and couldn't touch Lu Siqi, but he could still deal with the unruly people in his territory.
Yang Peng gave the order, and the servants went out to arrest Huang Huang and the fake rice noodle merchants, and put them in jail for interrogation. Under torture, several unscrupulous people quickly revealed the main messenger and the employees who had been bribed. The main messenger was indeed Lu Siqi, and several fake rice and noodle merchants reported directly to Lu Siqi's younger brother and took money to do things. With this money, Huang Ming has bribed eight workers in Kiln No. 1 of the glass workshop.
Yang Peng immediately arrested the eight workers who were suspected of betraying him and tortured him for interrogation. In the end, the executioner confirmed that these eight people had indeed sold their work secrets. These secrets have been passed to Lu Siqi through Huang Huang. Fortunately, the three core purchasers have not been bribed, nor have the workers who add saltpeter and remove color. Lu Siqi cannot produce glass with limited information.
But the result of the interrogation still made Yang Peng very angry. I support these workers with high wages, but these workers repay themselves by eating outside. Yang Peng ordered Huang Huang, the fake rice noodle merchant, and eight workers who sold the formula to be shot collectively. The crime was to communicate with the Khitans and leak military information. Yang Peng made some arrangements and produced some false evidence pointing to the fact that the nine workers and Lu Siqi's personnel were having an affair with the Khitans. Relying on this evidence, Yang Peng sentenced thirteen criminals to death.
Yang Peng had the power to catch the thieves and kill the lawless ones. The crime of revealing the secret recipe of the merchant was too small to warrant beheading, so Yang Peng simply said that these people were Khitans. It's not that Yang Peng is cruel, it's not that he can't scare Zuixiao without being cruel. These nine workers, including Huang Ming, knew the steps of glass production and had dissent. It was impossible to stay in the glass workshop and continue working, and it was impossible to dismiss them and let them spread the production methods of the glass workshop outside. Can silence.
With Yang Peng's high salary, he naturally has to take responsibility. Leaking secrets is what ends up happening. When Lu Siqi heard that Yang Peng had sentenced four of his fake rice noodle merchants to death, he didn't say anything. He didn't seem to want to reveal that he had stolen Yang Peng's formula, and he didn't want to break up with Yang Peng.
If you want to know what happens next, let’s look at the breakdown in the next chapter.
