Aunt Tao met Yang Fan and his wife at General Zhengxi's Mansion.
Yang Fan was in the lobby of the second hall, receiving Aunt Tao's visit. Aunt Tao's identity is extraordinary. She is a first-class female official. This person is responsible for the daily affairs of the cooperation between the Yang family and the Queen.
The courtyard of the General's Mansion is the hall where military affairs are handled and a place where confidentiality is kept. All confidential military affairs are handled there. The place was heavily guarded, with soldiers standing guard with guns.
The courtyard of Ertang is Yang Fan's office and bedroom. The reception here is more in line with Aunt Tao's identity.
After listening to Aunt Tao's words, Yang Fan nodded and said: "This is normal. Industrial development is like this. When a breakthrough is made in one link, other links need to follow. Otherwise, it will be affected by the lag in the upstream and downstream. The breakthrough point.”
Xiao Niangpi asked: "Sir, how can you solve the cotton yarn problem? If there is never enough cotton yarn in the woolen mill, it will affect the expansion of reproduction."
After all, the Yang family is second only to the royal family and owns 30% of the shares. She is the second largest shareholder.
"The thing is, only by providing technology to spinning farmers. Let them improve the efficiency of spinning, improve quality and output. Only then can we purchase more cotton yarn in the market. We are in Shandong and Northern Zhili provides new spinning machines to support farmers. We also provide support to private gentry who have funds and are willing to invest in the construction of spinning mills. Only in this way can the current problem be solved," said Yang Fan.
Aunt Tao asked: "Uncle Dingyuan, do you have such a machine here?"
"Yes, there are several types, but only the smallest one is suitable. It can be operated by one person," Yang Fan said.
Yang Fan now has several spinning machines from the early industrial revolution. However, the most suitable one for each farmer is the spinning jenny, which is the least technically difficult.
The current shortage of cotton yarn is caused by Yang Fan's use of technology and equipment to invest in the wool spinning factory. Yang Fan's wool spinning equipment was equipped with a flying shuttle, which greatly improved the weaving efficiency. Indirectly leading to insufficient supply of cotton yarn.
After all, there was no such large-scale textile factory in the entire world at this time.
There are more than 7,000 workers. They are respectively engaged in the procurement, transportation, cleaning, sorting, spinning and other work of wool. There are also six dedicated weaving workshops. A woolen workshop. A printing and dyeing workshop. Two garment workshops. A mid- to low-end garment workshop responsible for blending cotton and wool. A woolen garment workshop.
The shuttle is actually a shuttle with small wheels installed in the chute. Spring is installed at both ends of the chute, so that the shuttle can travel back and forth extremely quickly. So the invention of the flying shuttle made weaving faster. The use of shuttle greatly improves efficiency.
Historically, in 1733, mechanical craftsman John Kay invented the "flying shuttle".
A loom equipped with this flying shuttle can not only weave wider pieces of cloth, but also double the weaving efficiency. Then, his son Robert Kaye improved it and made it more convenient to use.
Due to the increase in weaving efficiency, eight to 12 spinners must spin yarn to supply the needs of one weaver using a flying shuttle loom. Cotton yarn was in short supply, and there was an extremely serious yarn shortage at that time.
There are historical records that in 1760, Manchester weavers had to walk five or six kilometers every day to collect cotton yarn from five or six spinners to supply themselves with weaving for one day.
If a weaver wanted to get more cotton yarn, he had to bribe the spinner with a coat or a new ribbon.
The long-term shortage of cotton yarn caused the price of cotton yarn to rise continuously, and the owners of cotton cloth factories found it intolerable. Some cotton factories have stopped production due to lack of yarn.
The weaving equipment that Yang Fan provided to the woolen mill was this kind of loom with flying shuttle.
What the royal family gave was land and factory buildings, as well as hundreds of thousands of acres of imperial land to grow long-staple cotton whose seeds were provided by Yang Fan. The nobles provided the funds.
How to look at this investment? The royal family takes 40%, so it is an advantage. However, having the royal family as the largest shareholder will greatly promote this business.
No one is looking for trouble in their factory.
Product marketing is also very smooth everywhere. The royal gold-lettered signboard is also valuable. Not even bandits dared to rob the Royal Textile Factory's fleet.
Because cotton cultivation in the Ming Dynasty was carried out on a household basis. The price of cotton has increased this year, and growing cotton is more profitable. Therefore, more people will plant cotton next year.
Landowners who own a lot of land are also considering whether to reduce the area planted with grain and change it to cotton land. No matter what time it is, cash crops are more profitable than growing food.
Therefore, landowners and farmers are willing to reduce the area planted with grain and switch to cash crops. That is, the government has many restrictions and tries to maintain the grain planting area.
The woolen mill was so large that it had three thousand looms with flying shuttles. This requires 40,000 spinning workers to produce enough cotton yarn.
And there are only so many spinners in Beizhili. And many of them are housewives who spin and weave their own yarn. They only took out part of the cotton yarn that they could not use up and sold it. Others are woven.
There is not even a single specialized spinning mill in Beizhili. This also leads to the need for brokers to organize the purchase of cotton yarn.
The Jenny machine is a spinning wheel that drives eight spindles. This is equivalent to increasing the efficiency of the spinning machine eight times. This thing does not require steam power or hydraulic power, only human power can be used. Therefore, it is a machine that is very suitable for promotion among the private sector. .
Yang Fan took Aunt Tao, Factory Manager Zhou who followed him, and the management of the woolen mill to the courtyard of Ertang.
On the cement-hardened floor here, there is a Jenny machine. Yang Fan asked a female worker to demonstrate to everyone.
"Aunt Tao, look, I call this machine a Jenny machine. It uses a roller to feed fiber strips. It is suitable for spinning cotton, wool, and linen fibers. This equipment only requires manpower to use. One person can spin eight pieces at the same time. Yarn." Yang Fan introduced.
Roller is a cylindrical rotating part in textile machinery that plays the roles of feeding, drafting, output, etc. It is the transliteration of the English word "roller" and has the meaning of roller and shaft.
Aunt Tao, Director Zhou and others' eyes lit up. This is really good stuff.
After modern looms are equipped with shuttles, one weaver requires twelve spinners to supply cotton yarn. Now this somewhat complex spinning machine can actually do the work of eight people, which will greatly alleviate the current shortage of veil supply in Beizhili.
They observed the device carefully and found that it was basically made of wood. Except for some metal parts made of copper and iron, the rest was all wood. The cost is not expected to be too high.
Aunt Tao asked: "Uncle Dingyuan means to let the weavers buy this Jenny machine to increase production, and we will buy it again."
Yang Fan shook his head and said: "Not many people will buy it. This equipment costs two taels of silver. Many spinning households have old spinning wheels available, and they will not spend money to purchase equipment."
Aunt Tao asked, "What do you mean?"
Yang Fan said: "Let the woolen mill invest in setting up an equipment leasing company. Go directly to the spinning mill to sign a contract, and the leasing company will provide the equipment and pay it off in three years. After the repayment, the equipment will be owned by the spinning mill. The spinning mill purchases the cotton by itself and uses it. The Jenny machine spins yarn, and then sells the cotton yarn to the equipment leasing company according to the contract. The equipment is purchased on loan and then repaid in installments. We underwrite the products and purchase as much as they produce, and the money and goods are settled at that time. It does not affect Orito’s cash flow. Only in this way can Orito be interested.”
Aunt Tao is also very familiar with business routines. She calculated it carefully and said: "According to the output and repayment settings of this equipment. After the spinner buys the Jenny machine, in addition to the repayment, there will be a residual profit of one tael of silver every month. This is very objective. Yes. There are a lot of people willing to do it.”
