In the past ten days, in addition to trial production of soap, Gao Pragmatic also made some arrangements for its future production. For example, the location selection of the future "factory area" has been in progress.
Although Gao Jingshi had a "huge sum of money" on hand, it was not easy to live in the capital. The housing prices in the capital of the Ming Dynasty were not much cheaper than those in the capital before he traveled. Anyway, with his little money, he could only buy a remote place in the capital. 's small courtyard. It doesn't matter if it's remote. After all, the soap production process has to be kept secret at least for a period of time. The remoteness may be an advantage, but just a small courtyard is obviously not enough. Although making soap is not an industry that requires a large area, if it is only supplied to the palace, the production area of a small courtyard should be about the same. However, Gao's pragmatic goal was to achieve industrialization rather than workshop refinement, so production in the capital city had to be abandoned.
It is not very convenient to buy land and houses outside the capital city. Over the past one hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, noble officials and nobles have already occupied half of the good land near the capital. Counting the royal estates, there is almost no available land. Land purchased at will. It stands to reason that Gao Gong's identity is here, so he can actually find a way to buy some land, but Gao Pragmatic doesn't dare to do it under the guise of Gao Gong. After going back and forth, he has no choice but to put the plan on his uncle Zhang Siwei's head. .
After sending Gao Xiaozhuang to inquire, he found out that, coincidentally, although the Zhang family did not have much land around the capital, they did have several mountain manors, both large and small, for the prominent figures in the Zhang family to relax. It was built for this purpose and is located in a quiet place, but the transportation is relatively convenient.
When Gao Pragmatic heard this, he was overjoyed and went to the door in person, intending to beg for nothing and tell his uncle that he wanted to buy a land. As for the cost of buying the land, he would deduct the first month from the monthly payment he received. .
I don't know if it's because pure manors without much land in the suburbs of Beijing are not very valuable. Zhang Siwei didn't ask much at all, he just told the location of these manors and asked Gao Pragmatic to choose one by himself.
Gao Pingshi listened carefully and decisively chose a manor near Mentougou for later generations.
Zhang Siwei was actually quite pleased after hearing this: because that manor was the farthest from the capital among the Zhang family's manors. Although it occupied a large area, it was quiet and cheap because it was far away from the capital. Of course, given the huge wealth of the Zhang family, Zhang Siwei would not feel bad about giving his nephew a manor. He was mainly pleased because the manor was secluded - he thought that Gao Pragmatic wanted to find a quiet manor to study in peace, although he felt a little sad in his heart. The place was a bit far away from the capital, but he thought that the quietness was an obvious advantage for studying, so he nodded and agreed on the spot without thinking too much.
Mentougou was certainly not far from the capital in later generations. Although the capital during the Ming Dynasty was probably the largest city in the world at that time, even so, how could it be as huge as the capital of the Celestial Dynasty after so many years of reform and opening up? At this time, the Mentougou area was already in a very remote location in the "Beijing Suburbs" area, a proper outer suburb, so the manor occupied a relatively considerable area.
Gao Jingshi was brought to the capital by Gao Gong and kept by his side for personal training. Naturally, he could not go to the "wilderness" as far away as Mentougou at will, so he could only send Gao Xiaozhuang and the groom Gao Mo to go for on-site inspection. The two men went there for two full days and came back to report that Gao Pragmatic said that the manor was not a large area of land at all, but a huge area - of course, they only thought it was huge - their original words were: "In addition to the land area, In addition to the manor itself, which is more than a hundred acres, my uncle has also given the large forest attached to the manor to you, the eldest young master."
No wonder people say that gardens in southern China are about exquisiteness while northern manors are about grandeur. The area of this manor is not only equivalent to the size of two Humble Administrator's Gardens in Suzhou, but it also has a large forest attached to it. How can it not be grand?
But this is exactly what Gao Pragmatic means - isn't one of the main reasons for choosing Mentougou because in later generations Mentougou was a famous coal mine producing area?
The coal mine is not valuable at the moment, but it will be of great use in the future if Gao Pragmatic comes. Although it is unclear whether there are coal mines on the ground near the manor, this place will definitely become an industrial base for Gao in the future. With this place in hand, even if there is no coal mine, you can still find a way to buy coal-producing land in the future - there are many mountains and few fields near Zuomentougou, and the noble forces will not interfere much. It is the kind of useful but inconspicuous place.
According to Gao Xiaozhuang's description, the manor adheres to the consistent style of northern manors, which is majestic and majestic. Although there are two ponds, the overall style is still relatively simple, especially because for some unknown reason, three rows of warehouses have been built in the manor, and each warehouse is It's not too small, there must be more than twenty rooms in total.
This is good news. It means that basically no additional money is needed to build the production workshop and storage room of the soap "factory". For Gao Pragmatic, who has limited financial strength, it is of great significance to spend less and do more.
Even though the factory site has been decided, it is obviously not finished, because the problem of workers has not been settled, nor has the problem of transportation, and neither of these two problems is easy to solve.
Gao Pragmatic believes that workers in soap factories can be divided into at least two categories, those who need to be exposed to certain soap manufacturing techniques, and those who only need to work hard. It shouldn't be difficult to deal with those who work hard, just recruit workers in the surrounding areas. There is no shortage of people in Ming Dynasty who are willing to work hard. The real difficulty lies in where the skilled workers who need to be exposed to certain soap manufacturing processes and even recipes come from.
This problem is more troublesome, although Gao Pragmatic will definitely adopt the principle of segmentation process and divide the manufacturing process into several parts, such as weighing, fragrance mixing, water-soluble water-soluble, mold sealing, and sorting. Picking, observing saponification, observing saponification, etc... But the trouble is that the soap making process itself is not troublesome. The person in charge of some of the processes is actually very likely to see two processes, which is not good for the confidentiality of the process. It poses certain challenges. Even if we consider the worst case scenario, we only need to bribe one person on each process line, and the soap manufacturing process will be stolen.
Transferring a group of domestic slaves, servants, and children from the Gao family in Xinzheng can certainly be considered, but after all, the Gao family is just a family of officials, not a wealthy and powerful family like the Zhang family. Although they have some manpower, After all, there are still limits. Even if the soap factory can rely on the slaves of the Gao family to survive this time, won't other industries in the future also have to be blinded? Therefore, Gao Pragmatic felt that it would be appropriate to come up with a longer-term solution for this matter.
