The chirping of cicadas summoned the midsummer of the thirteenth year of Wanli, and watermelons began to be planted in every well.
And in Songjiang Prefecture, where the cotton industry is developed.
Nü Juan of the Xu family, a large textile company, also took the watermelon out of the green well, cut it into several pieces, put it on a large porcelain plate and brought it to the weaving workshop for the weavers to relieve the heat.
The development of the cotton textile industry has promoted the greater liberalization of weavers, and the relationship with the owners who run weaving mills has mostly changed from a master-servant relationship to an employment relationship, or even a partnership relationship.
Especially skilled weavers will be treated well.
In order to win over more mature weavers to produce cotton cloth for themselves, the master will prevent them from choosing to resign because other masters are better because they are free workers and have no personal dependence with themselves. This also requires daily work. Give some care at work, such as care to relieve the heat.
The same goes for the Xu family, a wealthy businessman in Songjiang.
For this reason, in recent years, almost every summer, the Xu family provides their weavers with watermelons from the well every day.
This is different from before the fall of the Xu Jie family.
Before the fall of the Xu Jie family, half of the Songjiang cotton industry was controlled by the Xu family, and the other half was controlled by other wealthy families. Even the land was controlled by the Xu family and several major gentry families. In addition, the employees of the Hongzhi Dynasty went on strike or voluntarily resigned, which constituted the following crimes: conspiracy and treason. Sin means that whether they are employees in weaving workshops or tenant farmers on the land, they all have a strong personal dependence relationship with these employers and landlords.
In fact, local people will not be able to get jobs and rent opportunities unless they take the initiative to serve as domestic slaves!
Even if they are given the opportunity to work and rent, because they are domestic slaves, they still have to perform other tasks for the master's family every year, such as accompanying the young master to take exams, or taking on security roles and carrying sacrifices during sacrifices.
But what is different now is that the big bureaucratic family like Xu Jie, who monopolized local industry and land, has fallen. In addition, the New Deal has allowed the Ming Dynasty to actively expand externally, including Nagasaki and Hirado, the main destination for overseas trade. The trading rights were controlled by the imperial court, and the imperial court also changed the entire trade with Japan from only big smuggling and monopolizing trade to allowing civilians and even helping civilians to trade with Japan to increase tax revenue. This also made Songjiang cotton, which relied on foreign trade, Not only wealthy families like the Xu family can participate, but also ordinary people can participate, which further makes it difficult to form a monopoly.
What's more, Zhu Yijun also abolished the system of the Hongzhi Dynasty that severely restricted workers' freedom and restricted the growth of the working class.
Therefore, today's Songjiang cotton industry has many ordinary merchants involved. There are many large workshops mixed with many small workshops. This has resulted in greater competition and management competition, which has also led to the improvement of production relations. , not only the degree of freedom of employees is increased, but also the employer can be asked to increase benefits for themselves, such as cooling off in the summer, having charcoal fires in the winter, and even giving them rest time every month, etc.
This way.
There are even fewer people who are willing to be slaves. Even those from poor families are rarely willing to sell their children. They are more willing to let their children work as apprentices in various government-run or private workshops, because that way they can not only earn income but survive. Be more like a person, unless the price is enough.
It can be said that the collapse of big bureaucrats, big landowners and big merchants like the Xu Jie family who monopolized local industries could really lead to the phenomenon of "one whale falls and all things survive".
What Ming Dynasty gained was not only the money gained from ransacking houses, but also a more active commodity economic market, and more free workers and civilian wealthy businessmen emerged, making the entire national economy healthier, and this was directly reflected in the tax revenue, which increased year by year. More than years.
But because of this, if the landlords and gentry wanted to increase the number of slaves, they had to increase the financial cost and even the spiritual cost.
Lu Shude wanted to buy a girl and take her into his house as a concubine.
After all, his appointment as an official in Nanjing was equivalent to being relegated to leisure. He had no intention of catering to the rule. He just wanted to improve the quality of life and enjoy the life of an old man and a young wife. If you want to buy it as a concubine, you will have to spend 5,000 taels of silver dollars, but you have to stay away.
And when he was gathering with Nanjing Zuotongzheng Yang Yingkui, eunuch Zhang Jing, Sun Dexiu and other Nandu celebrities, he also said with emotion:
"Now that the Holy Emperor reigns,
It is true that the sea, rivers and rivers are clear, and the world is in great order! "
"There are fewer and fewer people selling their sons and daughters because they can't survive, and there are also fewer people who look down on themselves. If I want to take a concubine, it will cost several times more silver dollars, so I can only give up this idea for the time being. , don’t think of a pear tree weighing down begonias.”
"You're right, sir. It's hard to buy girls now. The price is second. The key is that they're also hard to buy. Although Japanese slaves are better to buy, they won't be much cheaper after being shipped from there! You still have to spend money. More time for training and training.”
Yang Yingkui also talked about this at this time.
Jin gentry Xiao Yinze choked up at this moment, waved his hands and said, "Sir, please stop talking! Thinking about this makes me feel uncomfortable!"
"Why do you feel uncomfortable?"
Zhang Jing asked at this time.
Xiao Yinze said in detail: "Isn't this the implementation of new etiquette? Although it is a good thing for the country and the people to be peaceful, but unfortunately my Xiao family has been a Confucian family for generations, not a business family, and is not good at financial management, so I have not managed a large family business. As for the eldest grandson, although he finally has one, he can only have five maids to serve him, while his father always had more than ten maids back then!"
"When I think about it, I feel sorry for my eldest grandson! Woohoo!"
"How can five maids take good care of him!"
Lu Shude and Yang Yingkui both nodded, showing sympathy for Xiao Yin and feeling the same.
At this time, Yang Yingkui followed up and said: "I have three sons, but each of them has two married couples. How can this help the continuation of the descendants? Sometimes I think about whether the so-called policy of promoting new etiquette is too broad, making it impossible to distinguish between high and low. In this way Are the etiquette really in line with the teachings of saints?"
"This is how common people behave under etiquette. What the current government wants is for everyone to know etiquette! Therefore, the current situation is unavoidable. If everyone in the world really knows etiquette and there is long-term peace and stability, our Jinxi clan will suffer more from poverty. , it’s nothing!”
"But, can this really last long?"
"Is it really good to make people enjoy leisure and work and not know their dignity?"
"Is it really helpful for the emperor to rule all the people?"
Lu Shude chatted for a few words at this time, and asked questions repeatedly, and then said: "No way?"
Zhang Jing, on the other hand, looked at each other and smiled with Sun Dexiu and Sun Hai.
Zhang Jing felt that he was quite outstanding among the eunuchs. Otherwise, he would not have gone as far as superintendent Bingbi, the Superintendent of Ceremonies, to supervise the East Factory. However, he did not feel how pitiful it was to have only five maids around him to serve him. He felt how poor it would be to have two bedrooms in each room. After all, when he was still studying in the inner study hall, he didn't even have anyone to serve him. He even had to serve eunuchs who were older than him, but he could still study well. When he grows up and becomes a talented person, he can also participate in the power struggle among the high-level officials in the imperial court and win more than he loses.
Zhang Jing suddenly felt that his eunuchs were in a different world from these scholar-bureaucrats.
He felt that people like him had to cut off their descendants and serve others for many years before they could be served by others, while others had been served since they were young, and even if they only had five to serve, they would be pitiful.
"No wonder His Majesty wants me to come to Jiangnan and integrate into the circle of scholar-bureaucrats. I really don't know if I can't integrate into Jiangnan!"
"It turns out that people are so different."
"It's just that they feel that they are very pitiful and miserable, but it is nothing to our family, let alone the people. I'm afraid the people will hate them even more because of this!"
Zhang Jing said.
"Even I hate their pretentiousness!"
"I wish I could let them do what our family did back then, washing clothes and fanning the people who take care of me in the hot summer, and then reading and memorizing articles in the middle of the night, so that they know what it means to be pitiful!"
[An app that has been running stably for many years, comparable to the old book-chasing tool, used by all old bookworms.
a loss? "
