After Yang Peng was introduced by Matsuura Jinshin, he bought a business store in Hirado, unloaded all the goods on the ship, stored them in the store's warehouse, and slowly sold them. If you rush to sell goods on the dock, you won't be able to get a good price. Only by selling slowly in the store can you get better profits. Yang Peng left Zheng Kaida and thirty sailors in Hirado to take care of the business store, while he led the Tianjing back to Tianjing New City.
Before returning to the voyage, Yang Peng bought some Japanese goods. He bought some of each type and returned to Tianjing New City to test the waters and see how the sales went. The commodity that Yang Peng is more optimistic about is copper. The price of copper in Japan is cheap, and it is estimated that he can make a lot of profits by selling it back to the Song Dynasty.
On July 22, Yang Peng led the Tianjing back to China. The boatmen of the Tianjing paddled to drive the ship and slowly left the port on the channel in the port. When they reached the deep water area, the boatmen started the steam engine, and the Tianjing made a loud whine and headed northwest.
No problems were encountered along the way. The Tianjing cruise sailed for six days and returned to Tianjing New City Pier. Returning to Tianjing New City, the first thing Yang Peng had to do was to expand the soap workshop and textile factory. After this trial voyage, Yang Peng knew that the most profitable sea trade products were his own soap and fine cloth. If we expand the scale of these two factories, we can earn a lot of money from Japan.
Yang Peng first went to visit Xue Yuanwai, who sold alkaline noodles, and asked him to buy more alkaline noodles. But the reply he got made Yang Peng stunned. "City Lord, I have bought almost all the surplus output of Xiangyang's alkali noodle mines and sold them all to you. If there are more, we can only raise the price to snatch the supply from other alkali noodle users, but in that case As soon as the price of alkaline noodles went up, it was more than a penny or two, which was very uneconomical."
"And even if we raise the price, we can't get much. After all, the total output is only so much." Yang Peng was very disappointed. It seems that before the invention of the industrial alkali production method, it was impossible to use soda ash in large quantities, and the supply of raw materials could not keep up. However, with Yang Peng's current industrial base, large-scale industrial alkali production is still not possible. Yang Peng's soap workshop can no longer expand.
Yang Peng thought for a while and decided that he could only make money from textile factories. Today, the textile factory has 1,770 workers, purchasing cotton to produce fine cloth, and producing 31,000 pieces of cotton cloth every month. It looks quite large. But in the face of huge ocean trade, this output is very insufficient. Yang Peng's Tianjing can carry 100,000 pieces of cloth per ship, and the cotton cloth produced by the textile factory in one month is not even half the amount of the Tianjing. The Tianjing can make a round trip from Japan once in twenty days.
Not to mention that Yang Peng still has a ship being built. Yang Peng decided to significantly expand the textile factory. This is a huge project that cannot be accomplished overnight. First of all, Tianjing New City has been filled with various buildings, and no more factories and dormitories can be built. To employ more people, new cities had to be built outside the city.
Yang Peng decided to expand the new city in the south of Tianjing New City. The north of the new city and the south of the old city are connected together, and the scale is as large as the old city of Tianjing New City. Yang Peng sent people to make a measurement plan for the new city wall, and planned to hire farmers to build the new city wall during their slack time. At the planned new city location, roads, factories and dormitories were built first. Although there is no city wall protection for the time being, Yang Peng's Huben division is enough to intimidate Chuan Xiao and protect these new construction facilities.
Yang Peng hired more than 3,000 masons near Cangzhou, expanded the cement workshop, and began to build new factories and dormitories on a large scale. The factory was built first. At the same time, Yang Peng hired more than 500 carpenters and blacksmiths to start producing parts for Jenny spinning machines and flying shuttle looms, striving to build a batch of production capacity as quickly as possible.
On August 20, a new factory building that could accommodate a thousand people had been built. The first batch of looms, spinning machines and gins were in place. Yang Peng began to recruit people. The first batch of people recruited by Yang Peng first faced the families of workers in various workshops. Many of the family members of old workers had not been looking for work outside, but were spinning and weaving at home. As a result, the income of these worker families is limited, not even comparable to that of Yang Peng's new tenant farmers' families. Yang Peng wants to liberate these idle workers' families from old-fashioned looms and spinning machines and join the ranks of industrialized production.
Gu Laoer paced back and forth in the living room of the villa he shared with the He family, anxiously waiting for news from his wife. My wife went to the expanded textile factory for an interview, but she hasn’t heard back yet. Gu Laoer is a worker in Yangpeng Textile Factory. He has been working in Yangpeng's factory since he was a child. Before entering Yang Peng's factory, his family was very poor and could not even lift the pot. Two days before Gu Laoer applied for a job in the textile factory, the three members of the Gu family were hungry for two days. Later, Gu Laoer pawned his winter clothes at a pawn shop, then bought rice and came back to eat.
But since Gu Laoer entered the textile factory, the situation of the Gu family has changed drastically. Not only did they have enough to eat, but they also rented a villa together in Tianjing New City and lived an "upstairs and downstairs" life. Over the years, Gu Laoer had eaten meat for three meals in the factory cafeteria, and he was no longer the skinny monkey he was before. Today, he is slightly fatter and has a very strong figure. The twenty-six-year-old man is very organized in everything he does and says. He looks very confident and is the backbone of the family.
Gu Laoer was waiting there, and his eldest son ran out of the room upstairs with a piece of Niujin candy in his mouth. After lying next to the cradle and watching her sister for a while, Daxi decided to go play with her father. He looked upstairs for a while, and when he saw his father downstairs, he was about to climb down the stairs. Daxi is now three years old and is Gu Laoer's first child. In the past, Gu Laoer's family was poor, and he did not dare to share a house with his wife and have children. But since Gu Laoer worked in a textile factory, Gu Laoer and his wife shared a room. Not long after they moved in together, the Gu family's wife became pregnant and gave birth to a big, fat boy. Not only that, last year, the Gu family's wife gave birth to another daughter, and now Gu's second son has a son and a daughter.
Gu Laoer has a monthly income of 20 taels from the factory, plus the money earned by the Gu family's daughter-in-law from weaving at home, the Gu family has an income of more than 30 taels a month. This money is enough to support three adults and two children, not to mention that Gu Laoer doesn't eat at home, so the family of five lives a life of food and clothing. The Gu family's daughter-in-law is naturally frugal. She not only keeps the family of four fed, clothed and decent, but also saves more than half a tael of money every month. The Gu family has saved more than thirty taels of silver in the past four years. More than thirty taels is a lot of money. Gu Laoer is very proud when he thinks of this savings.
The only thing that worries Mr. Gu is that his wife is unwilling to rent a villa alone and insists on sharing a house with another family. The son is three years old and lives in the same room with his grandmother. The one-year-old daughter sleeps in a cradle in Gu Laoer's room. The family shares the living room, kitchen and hut with the He family, which is a bit crowded.
However, it does make sense for a daughter-in-law to be frugal. When Gu Laoer saw his son climbing up the stairs, he quickly went up and hugged his son, patted his son on the head and said, "Daxi, don't crawl around, you will fall!" Daxi looked at his father and said with candy in his mouth, "Mom Where did you go?"
Gu Laoer said with a smile: "Your mother is going to interview for a job in the factory. If she gets the job, we will rent a whole villa!" After thinking about it, Gu Laoer said: "That would be great for you, you will have your own room. Yes!" Daxi clapped his hands and said, "Daxi wants her own room. Grandma snores so loudly at night!"
Gu Laoer took his son down and played with him with a paper pinwheel he made. He let him run around the table while he drank tea and waited for his wife. After waiting for an hour, the Gu family's wife came back. She was walking in the alley with a happy face and high spirits. But she also had the joy of being in charge of the family, as if she had become the master, and she deliberately wanted to make Gu Laoer, the head of the family, anxious for a while. When she entered, she deliberately pretended to be relaxed and walked into the living room calmly.
Gu Laoer asked anxiously, "How's it going?" Gu's wife didn't answer him, but walked to the table and wiped it with a rag. Gu Laoer turned around and asked, "Have you raised money yet?" However, the Gu family's daughter-in-law was a person with little scheming and couldn't hide things. After being asked a few questions, she couldn't help it anymore and burst out laughing. Putting her hands on her waist, the Gu family's daughter-in-law said, "It's time to recruit! The city lord is specifically recruiting family members of old workers this time, and I've recruited weavers! Two or three meals per month will include meat!"
Gu Laoer jumped up happily, hugged his wife and said loudly: "Okay, now it's okay! We can rent the whole villa! No! Let's borrow money from the city lord to buy a villa, and then we will have our own House!" The Gu family's wife glared at Gu Lao Er and said with a smile: "Looking at you, don't you just want to live in a big house? You want it during the day and night, and you want me to go out and work."
Gu Laoer rolled his eyes and said, "What's the point of going out to work? The wife of the He family is still looking after the shop! The 'female factory' in the textile factory is full of women, and you still have someone to talk to. It's better than weaving at home!" "The Gu family's wife smiled. She suddenly remembered the days when Gu Laoer's family had no food for two days before he entered the main factory in the city, and tears suddenly flowed down his face. She wiped her tears and said, "Okay, everything is fine!"
Gu Laoer took a breath, wiped away his wife's tears, and said, "This is a happy event, why are you crying? It's true!"
In early August, Yang Peng's second large pointed ship was built. Yang Peng named the second ship Dagou, had people install crossbows and steam engines on the ship, let newly trained shipwrights board the ship, and also mobilized more than a hundred soldiers from the Front Regiment to work as sailors on the ship.
It was impossible for Yang Peng to personally lead the team for a long time. After setting up the organizational structure once, he had to hand over the work to his subordinates. He asked Yin Mingde, the deputy leader of the selection team, to be the captain of the two ships, specifically leading the ships to travel to Japan. Yin Mingde was a crossbowman, and as captain of two gunboats he was able to unleash the firepower of the ships. Zheng Kaida was stationed in Japan and was responsible for selling goods. The two worked together to complete various tasks on the trade route.
However, the expansion of the textile factory had not been completed at this time. Yang Peng did not have a large amount of fine cloth to sell to the Japanese country, so he could only buy raw silk and other products on the market. The Tianjing and the Dagou can travel back and forth to the Japanese country once in twenty days. The two ships are large ships, each of which can carry more than 400 tons of cargo. Over the course of a few months, the large-scale purchases of two ships raised the price of raw silk in Cangzhou to 190 taels per dan, turning Cangzhou's raw silk trade into a low-profit business.
However, Yang Peng's two large ships quickly traveled between Japan and Tianjing New City, and the transportation volume was really amazing. Although the price of raw silk has increased, Yang Peng's two ships still make 15,000 taels of raw silk monthly income. Coupled with the Japanese copper brought on the return trip, Yang Peng could earn more than 20,000 taels a month, and he quickly earned back the shipping money.
Yang Peng asked Boss Wang to continue building new ships and continue to expand his maritime armament. Yang Peng made money, but the maritime merchants near Cangzhou suffered. The purchase price of raw silk has risen so high that the profit from running it once a year is too thin to make it. Fortunately, several maritime merchants near Cangzhou were unarmed and could not defeat Li Zhi's powerful crossbow ship. Otherwise, these merchants would have robbed Yang Peng's ship.
On August 27, Zha Yunke went to Yang Peng and complained about the soaring price of raw silk near Cangzhou. "City Lord, if your two big ships continue like this, our other Cangzhou merchant ships will all lose money!" Yang Peng smiled and said, "When my fine cloth factory is built, I will no longer make raw silk. business!"
Zha Yunke spat: "But City Lord, you are still building new ships. No matter how fast your fine cloth factory expands, can it be built as fast as your ships?" Yang Peng relied entirely on Zha Yunke's introduction and help to go to sea. At this time, he heard Cha Yunke complaining, and he really couldn't put a bad face on Cha Yunke, so he could only smile and said: "Next month I will buy some ordinary cotton cloth and ironware to sell to the Japanese country, and buy less raw silk. The price of raw silk in Cangzhou It can be reduced a little!”
Zha Yunke regretted introducing Yang Peng to the sea. He did not expect that Yang Peng's steam engine ship was so powerful that he could make a round trip to Japan in twenty days. This machine is so amazing that it has completely rewritten the pattern of maritime trade. Originally, Yang Peng said he would try not to engage in raw silk trading, but now he does it anyway, driven by profits. Yang Peng still wants to build new ships, so to what extent will the profits from running Japanese ships near Cangzhou be diluted in the future?
Zha Yunke sighed and secretly thought that Yang Peng couldn't help, and a group of people would kill everyone and take away everyone else's jobs. Zha Yunke was thinking about how to do this business in the future and whether he would still have a job. His face turned pale and he was speechless for a moment. Yang Peng thought for a while and secretly told Zha Yunke to help him start his own business. He couldn't cut off people and make money like this. He smiled and said: "Mr. Cha, one of my ships plus a cargo of goods costs one hundred thousand taels, plus the technical investment is priced at three hundred thousand taels." One hundred thousand taels. Why don't you come to me and buy a 30% stake in a ship. For example, if you invest 90,000 taels in this new ship I'm building, then 30% of the profit every month will be yours."
Yang Peng paused and said: "My boats run very fast. One boat makes a profit of 10,000 taels a month. The profit of 30% in a year is more than 30,000 taels, which is about the same as the profit of your four small sailboats sailing to Japan." !" Zha Yunke was stunned. He didn't expect Yang Peng to have such an idea. He said excitedly: "Is what the city lord said true?"
"How could I deceive you?" Zha Yunke thought for a while, his eyebrows lit up with joy, and he smiled: "I will send money to buy shares tomorrow, and I will not go to sea in the future. I will live solely on the city lord's dividends!" Yang Peng smiled. Laughing and saying nothing. "The city lord is indeed a loyal person!"
"Yang Peng" was stunned and asked: "Can he make it?" "By the beginning of September, more than 500 new villas had been built in Tianjing New City. With houses now available, Yang Peng began to recruit new textile workers in surrounding counties and counties. This time, in order to increase the income level of the workers, Yang Peng tried his best to The couple is hired together. In this way, the couple gets double wages and their living standards will be much higher.
However, Yang Peng's recruitment was not random. In order to prevent Khitan spies from being mixed among the new workers, Yang Peng required that the applicants must have residents of Tianjing New City as guarantors. Of course, soldiers from the Huben Division can also act as guarantees. The jobs in Yangpeng's factory are in demand and are in short supply. As soon as the nearby residents heard that Tianjing New City was recruiting new people, they all wanted to come. Therefore, the guarantee of the residents of the city became very precious.
If someone takes a guarantee and enters Tianjing New City, a good life for a lifetime will be guaranteed! Relatives and friends of the residents of Tianjing New Town came to beg, hoping that they could be sponsored and selected to work in textile factories and become members of Fanjiazhuang. Yang Peng's workers and soldiers were all busy at once, and they were all busy dealing with relatives and friends who came to ask for guarantees.
However, Yang Peng stipulated that one soldier and one household of citizens could only guaranty one household, and the competition among those seeking insurance was fierce. On this day, Lei San, the squad leader of the Polu Regiment, was eating in the cafeteria, a little absent-minded. His seven soldiers had prepared their meals and were waiting for him to sit down together to start. However, Lei San walked to another large table, picked up the white rice and swallowed it.
Lei San's seven soldiers were stunned, and sent a soldier nicknamed "Skinny Monkey" to call Lei San. "Squad leader, aren't you going to eat with us?" Lei San was stunned, and then he realized that he had thrown seven soldiers aside. He was a little embarrassed, so he quickly picked up his lunch box and walked to the table occupied by his subordinates, and sat down with the seven soldiers.
The seven soldiers then happily started to eat. While eating, the seven soldiers started chatting. "This time the city lord's new factory is recruiting people, who are you guaranteeing?" "I guarantee my brother! My family is poor, and my family will be better off with my brother here!"
"I will protect my eldest sister's family. She has begged me several times. My brother-in-law is very honest and can't grow a bowl of rice in the fields all year round. If I don't protect her family, they will eat the chaff." "I will protect my eldest brother. I will My eldest brother has been the best to me since I was a child. If I have the opportunity this time, I will let him live a good life." Lei San heard the words of his subordinates and saw that they all vouched for his brothers and sisters at home. The expression on his face became more solemn, and he just lowered his head. Eat without saying a word.
"Skinny Monkey" took a bite of meat, looked at the squad leader, and said: "Squad leader, you are an officer. People you sponsor will get extra points, and they are more likely to be recruited during the interview! Who are you sponsoring this time?" Lei San used his hand Wiping the corners of his mouth, he said, "I haven't decided yet!" Shouhou said, "You haven't decided yet! The list will be handed in the day after tomorrow!"
Lei San said coldly: "I know!" Shouhou looked at the squad leader's face, grinned, and did not dare to ask any more questions.
Lei San did not return to the barracks after dinner, but walked alone to the villa he bought with a loan. The furniture in the villa was all furnished, and Lei San used fire rods to light up the oil lamps in the four rooms. Looking at the bright house, Lei San forgot about the entanglement of the past few days, and felt a sense of happiness in his heart.
If you marry another wife, you won't lack anything, right? These are all good days given to him by the city lord. Lei San was rejoicing there when he heard someone downstairs banging on the door loudly, as if he wanted to smash the door panel. Lei San was stunned, then quickly went down and opened the door.
As soon as the door opened, Lei San saw his father, eldest brother and sister-in-law standing outside the door. When Lei San's father saw Lei San, he snorted coldly. "I knew you must be here!"
Lei San's father walked into Lei San's villa carelessly, pulled up a chair and sat in the living room. He looked up and down Lei San's villa and said to his eldest son: "Boss, Liu Zi, don't be stunned. Come sit down. Why are you and Lei San so polite?"
Lei San's eldest brother smiled and also pulled out a chair and sat in the living room. Lei San, on the other hand, stood there alone, like an unwelcome guest. Lei San's sister-in-law looked at Lei San's face, smiled, pulled out a chair, and said, "Leisan, you sit down too, this is your villa! What does it matter if you stand? Everyone sits and talks!"
Lei San frowned and turned to look at the bluestone pavement outside the door without moving. Lei San's father didn't care when he saw Lei San not sitting down. Instead, he patted the table and said, "Leisan, you were not in good health when you were a child. You fell ill every three days. Your mother and I worked hard to support you. Da, now you are making a difference! You are now the squad leader!"
"This time your city lord recruits new workers and asks for guarantees. This is your chance to repay your family." "Your eldest brother and sister-in-law farm twenty acres of the Liu family's thin farmland, and they don't even dare to have children. You can protect your eldest brother and his family this time." If you work in a textile factory, even if I didn't raise your son in vain."
Lei San glanced at his biological father and said nothing. After Lei San's father said this, the three of them waited for Lei San's answer. But Lei San didn't speak for a long time, making the scene a little awkward. Lei San's father looked at Lei San's face, was stunned, and became a little worried. He stood up, dragged the chair that Sister Lei San had pulled out in front of Lei San, and said, "Lei San, sit down, sit down and talk!"
Lei San looked at the chair but did not sit down. Lei San's father became a little angry. He looked at Lei San coldly and said, "Lei San, what do you mean? I let you speak!" Lei San took a breath and said, "I want to protect Brother Yang this time!" Lei San The third father was stunned, as if he heard a bolt from the blue, and looked at his eldest son with his mouth wide open. Lei San's brother and sister-in-law were even more nervous. When they heard Lei San's words, they stood up anxiously. They looked at Lei San anxiously, as if they had heard bad news.
"Lei San, you can't protect Yang Ming! I'm your eldest brother! You won't help me?" Lei San's father shouted loudly: "Yang Ming and you are not related! Are you protecting him?" Lei San looked at his own eyes coldly. My biological father said: "I was often sick when I was a child, and it was all caused by hunger. Every time I went to serve food, you said there was not enough food, and I never had enough food at home."
"But Brother Yang took pity on me and often gave me rice balls to eat. Brother Yang had broth at home, so he would definitely bring a bowl to me." "When I was seven years old, I had a high fever. Both you and my mother said I was going to die. Now, leave me alone. It was Brother Yang who dragged his father to buy me medicine, boiled it for me to drink, and saved me." "If it weren't for Brother Yang, I would have died of illness long ago!"
After hearing what Lei San said, Brother Lei San sat down heavily on the chair as if a basin of water poured down his head. Lei San's sister-in-law looked at her husband, then at Lei San, and was so angry that she waved her hands and walked out of Lei San's villa. When Lei San and his eldest brother saw this, they were so anxious that they chased him to the door and shouted: "Liu Zi! Liu Zi! Don't be angry!" But he was unwilling to give up on Lei San and stood at the door unable to move forward or retreat, looking at Lei San anxiously.
Lei San said: "When Brother Yang's father was alive, his family's livelihood was pretty good, but his father died a few years ago. As a result, those bad guys bullied Brother Yang, a good man, and added layers of land to his family's fields. Land tax, the grain harvested from his family’s more than 20 acres of land throughout the year is not even enough to pay the land tax. He is twenty-four and has not yet gotten married."
"Brother Yang is in such a miserable state now, I have to help him!" "I paid for the marriage of the eldest brother and the second brother. I also give my parents one tael of silver every month. I have done enough for the family. This This time I want to help Brother Yang!" Lei San's father looked at Lei San in despair. After being silent for a long time, he suddenly became furious and rushed forward to beat Lei San.
"I'll beat you to death, you treacherous son!" Lei San didn't react for a moment, so he slapped his father in the face, causing his body to tilt. Lei San's father slapped Lei San, but he still didn't understand his hatred. He waved his fist and continued to hit Lei San. Lei San frowned, grabbed his father's fist, and threw his father to the ground.
If you want to know what happens next, let’s look at the breakdown in the next chapter.
