Now, we can only hope that Chinese and foreign businessmen will see the potential here and traffic Indian cotton here.
"Stop, stop, let's not consider this matter now." Li Shan said with a smile, "But the smooth operation of the Nansha plant shows that our technical direction is still right!"
Zou Biao raised his eyes and said helplessly: "To be honest, resurrecting a technological zombie like hydrospinning is really not a good thing. Hydraulic power has too many limitations..."
It can be said that a place with such favorable weather, location and people as Nansha Village is rare, and probably not found in many places in Guangdong. It’s too difficult to promote.
"Furthermore, hydraulic opportunities involve the construction of rolling dams to raise the water head. If there is a need for navigation on the river, ship channels and locks must be repaired. Even if water is free, the investment in infrastructure will not save much. It is just low long-term use costs. .”
"It's running now, isn't it? In the future, when the supply of coal becomes more widespread, we can upgrade it to a steam engine. The entire equipment and process don't need major changes, and we can continue to fight for at least another twenty years." Lishan knew that his old partner was full of complaints. But my family said that my child is handsome but useless. Especially now that there are so many good-looking kids out there, there really is no advantage.
Li Shan wanted to cheer him up: "Although the technical zombies are old, they just meet our current conditions! How is the sales of Type 07?"
Type 07 is a human-driven simple spinning machine and loom specially developed by them for home users. The 07 spinning is a replica of the Qiqi spinning during the Anti-Japanese War. The earliest blueprint is derived from the Yamato spinning invented in Japan. Zou Biao improved some structures. This allows it to be connected to various power sources, including hydraulic turbines with small water heads, animal power, etc.
"Spinning machines are relatively ordinary and only a few dozen sets have been sold. On the contrary, looms are selling very well. As of last week, more than a hundred units have been sold."
This is an improved loom for home use. The principle is an improved shuttle machine based on pedals. It uses a large number of standardized wooden and metal parts. Like the 07 spinner, it can also be connected to other small power sources. .
The advantage of Type 07 is that it can be placed at home, and women in urban and rural areas can buy it back. They buy cotton or cotton yarn from the market every day for spinning and weaving, and then sell the finished products.
"I would say that Type 07 should not be sold. Although the quality of the yarn it produces is acceptable and can be used on looms, it encourages small production in disguise and competes for the raw materials of the factory." Although Zou Biao is the main designer of Type 07 , but I am not satisfied with this "small producer tool".
"There are very few local cotton plantings, farmers are not very motivated to sell cotton, and the cost is not calculated..." Li Shan said, "When large-scale enterprises grow bigger, they will inevitably rely on purchased cotton. These sporadic productions are for individual businesses to digest. Just right."
In the long run, small producers will sooner or later be beaten down by factories in terms of costs. However, this process may take ten to twenty years. After all, developing a large-scale cotton textile industry is a long process. But once it takes shape, it will give a tsunami-like boost to the entire market and industrial production. It is not without reason that the Industrial Revolution began with cotton spinning.
Lishan actually did not agree with the use of silk to develop light industry. In addition to the inconvenience of cocoon transportation mentioned before, the output was actually limited.
Silkworms can also "eat humans", but in terms of yield, silkworm cocoons or wool can never compare to cotton. Due to the energy conversion efficiency of input animal fiber, to produce the same amount of fiber, sheep or silkworms require much more land than cotton. If they are considered luxury goods, their selling price will of course be higher. However, as mass consumer goods, plant fibers such as cotton and linen are obviously more suitable for the development of large-scale industry. Silkworm cocoons are very intolerant to storage. Unlike cotton and ramie, farmers can store them for a long time after picking them and drying them. They can withstand long-distance transportation and the quality will not be greatly affected.
Just as Li Shan set foot on the land of Guangzhou, Chen Lin also arrived in Guangzhou not long after. Chen Lin did not come empty-handed. There were more than ten pieces of blue cloth and more than twenty pieces of white cloth accompanying the ship to Guangzhou.
These cloths are handwoven by machine workers using machine yarn from cotton mills. There are about two hundred horses in total. Half of them were dyed blue with dyes provided by Australians, and the other half were prepared to sell gray fabrics directly.
The blue cloth was dyed cyan blue by Zhang Laizi using dye given by Australians. The color was brighter than the blue dye used in the past. Zhang Laizi was full of praise after seeing it, saying that he had never dyed such bright cloth. And it doesn't discolor at all after rinsing.
Seventy pieces of cotton cloth were sold by several old partners who gave it to Fengshenghe. However, most of these business partners of ours are biased towards silk, and I am afraid that they are unable to sell cotton. Just when Chen Lin was thinking about finding a more suitable underwriter, An Jiu recommended her father's Rui Hexiang to Chen Lin - fortunately, they were friends who had only met once. Another fifty pieces of blue cloth were distributed and sold.
He packed up the remaining eighty pieces of cloth and shipped them to Guangzhou, hoping to try his luck and see if he could find a suitable dealer. At the same time, Mr. Wu must also be given an explanation - after all, he is the big boss of this cotton spinning factory.
When he arrived in Guangzhou, he first visited Wu Yijun and presented him with four pieces of blue cloth and four pieces of gray cloth. Wu Yijun was very happy after seeing it, and then talked about this new "Textile Textile Market of All Nations".
The uncle and nephew had more or less guessed the purpose of the Australian market, which was to create a comprehensive trading platform for raw materials and commodities.
This is a great benefit for "laymen" like them. In the case of Wu and Chen, they were not originally businessmen engaged in the cotton cloth business. If you want to change careers, it involves a very complicated "entering the industry" process. Not only does it need to be recognized by relevant guilds, but the procurement and sales channels for raw materials and products are also unclear and need to be explored from scratch. Sometimes even if you already know the specific network, it is difficult to enter.
Now with this government-run platform, there is a direct trading market, and everything sold and bought is placed directly on the table. It is very convenient for both shipping and sales merchants and producers.
"This is a good idea. Needless to say, we must occupy a place in this market." Wu Yijun said with a smile, "Otherwise, it will take a lot of effort to sell this cloth!"
"My cousin is right." Chen Lin also felt that this was a matter of public and private convenience. "It's just that the market hasn't opened yet, but there is a troublesome matter that needs to be solved now."
"What's up?"
"There is no more cotton." Chen Lin said that the factory has used up all the cotton they spent more than half a year hoarding, and now they can only stop production.
"So fast!" Wu Yijun was shocked. He knew that the Australian spinning machine was incredibly efficient, but he didn't expect that it was not ten or twenty times faster than human power, but hundreds of times.
"Nephew didn't expect that either." Chen Lin said with a wry smile, "My nephew has already sent people to search in four villages - but it is already early summer, and there is almost no cotton left in the farmers' homes. New cotton will be available in the autumn. I want to come to Guangzhou. It is a place where merchants from all over the world gather, and there is probably some cotton left to buy, so I plan to run around the city and outside in the next few days."
Wu Yijun pondered for a moment and said: "You can just take a walk around Guangzhou. But the chance of buying flowers is slim. The price of cotton has risen sharply in recent months. It has increased almost three times compared with last year when it was launched."
"Twice?!" Chen Lin was shocked. When agricultural products are out of season, stocks decline, but it will take some time for new products to appear. It is normal for prices to rise. However, the price fluctuations of cotton have been very small in the past. This increase has tripled, and even if you buy it back, you will not be able to start production. Also have to lose money?
He immediately lowered his head and calculated the cost in his mind, and then he was surprised to find that even if the price of raw materials increased three times, as long as the price of cotton cloth on the market did not fall, there would still be a profit--it was just a meager one.
"If it increases three times, as long as there are goods, there will be no loss." Chen Lin said, "What my nephew means is that as long as there is no loss, the production of this factory cannot be interrupted."
Temporarily suspending production would not cause any harm to the factory. The turbines stopped running, and the workers went home - they didn't get paid if they didn't work. Moreover, now is the busy time for farming. Workers have something to do when they return home, whether it is in their own fields or as part-time workers.
But Chen Lin had just used "thunderbolt measures" in Nansha. Keeping the Nansha cotton textile factory open was very important for him to stabilize the situation in the village and clan.
“It’s tripled and you’re still not losing money?”
"It's really not a loss," Chen Lin said, "There are 720 spindles in the factory now. If the women at home are spinning, each person can only spin one. The yarn produced in one day is not enough to equal the output of the machine in half an hour. Both Miss Li and Miss An said that if there is enough cotton, they can be divided into two shifts to weave all night, and the cost will be lower..."
Labor accounts for a large proportion of the factory's production costs. The higher the production efficiency, the lower the cost. This is the main reason why large-scale machine production in factories can defeat the handicraft industry.
"Indeed, Australians never stop their machines and weave all night long." Wu Yijun thought of what he had seen in Lingao.
"Cousin, why did the cotton price rise so much?"
"Australians now sell a lot of new looms, not the ones we use, but small ones that can be placed at home..."
"Waist machine?"
"Of course not, it's pedal-operated." Wu Yijun gestured, "Although this small weaving machine is not as good as our big machines, the gauze produced is completely different from the old earthen machines. Once it was launched, machine owners everywhere borrowed money to buy this new machine. Once there are more new machines, yarn becomes a popular commodity, and cotton will naturally rise."
"So that's it." Chen Lin thought to himself. He remembered that he had indeed seen such "improved machines" in the product exhibition room when he visited Lingao.
(End of chapter)
