After understanding these situations, it is not difficult to analyze future development.
"In my opinion, even if the Ming Dynasty learns to use machines, they will not adopt the same method as us." He told Theodora: "Of course, this may not be a problem... They are too big. It just takes a little bit of effort to get used to it.”
"I don't know how they solve the cost problem." Theodora hesitated.
"Maybe there is no need to solve it." Guo Kang asserted: "According to businessmen's point of view, only by lowering the price of hiring labor can they gain a competitive advantage, but in fact this may not be the case - at least for Siris."
"Oh? Is there an example of this?" Theodora asked curiously.
"Their work is the same as fighting." Guo Kang gave an analogy to make it easier for her to understand: "The money given is small, and although the cost is low, the craftsmen have no motivation, and the things they make are a waste of materials. It seems that there is Competitive advantage is actually very inefficient and may even be worth the loss.”
"That's it..."
Guo Kang nodded confidently.
It is still not visible in the current Ming Dynasty, but in the late Ming Dynasty, this can be regarded as the most typical situation.
The ordnance produced by the imperial court itself was simply unusable. One reason why the muskets could not be replaced was that the quality of the barrels was too poor. A matchlock gun replaced with a long and thin tube would directly become a "blasting barrel." Armor, artillery, etc. also have their own problems.
In response, some officials proposed going to Macau to buy firearms from the Portuguese. For this reason, the Ming Dynasty purchased several batches of ordnance from the Bugalao Cannon Foundry in Macau, which was very popular because of its good quality.
But what’s more funny is that the Bugalao Artillery Factory is not actually an “authentic” purely Western-style ordnance factory. At that time, the metallurgical technology of the Ming Dynasty had advantages over Europe in many aspects, especially in cast iron. Therefore, the Bugalao Cannon Factory not only absorbed a lot of Ming Dynasty technology, but many of the craftsmen in the factory were hired directly from Guangdong.
Their weapons, especially iron guns, were the Ming Dynasty's own technology. The workers who produced ordnance were also craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty. Why did the quality become so good in another place, and it was sold well in East Asia and even sold back to Europe?
The reason is actually very simple, because the Portuguese were relatively "simple" at that time, and they basically did whatever they wanted as much as they were given. As for the Ministry of Industry's own ordnance factory, after a series of complex profit sharing and exploitation by the court officials, there is no money left to distribute to the grassroots. If you don’t give enough money, you won’t be able to make reliable things.
The same goes for armor. The armor technology of the Ming Dynasty was not lagging behind, and the armor of Zheng Chenggong left a deep impression on the Dutch. According to Dutch accounts, Zheng soldiers wearing heavy armor were even able to shoot at Dutch soldiers despite constant bullets. However, the Ming army's own armor never performed well, and its biggest role was to hold it back during war.
In the final analysis, this situation is not a technical problem, but a simple matter of money being greedy too much and not being given enough...
In the end, the Portuguese in the south, the Zheng family in the southeast, the Houjin in the northeast... they were all forces anyway, and they all did better than the Ming Dynasty itself.
This example came easily to Guo Kang - because the phenomenon was so famous at the time.
"On the other hand, if enough money is given, they won't be afraid of the cost problem." Guo Kang thought for a while and found that the other direction also made sense: "The method of reducing labor costs is for the useless European slave labor. It may be the most appropriate thing to say, but for the large number of professional craftsmen in the East, this is probably not the case.”
European factory owners tried to keep labor costs as low as possible and also used machines. But even so, in the early stages of industrialization, their production efficiency was at a disadvantage, and could not even compare with the craftsmen in Jiangnan.
In 1844, a British man came to Fujian to investigate, collected samples of various local cotton cloths of different textures, recorded the prices, and sent them back to England for comparison. After returning, the British businessmen were surprised to find that according to the price they quoted, the factory in Manchester could not produce it. Fujian was not yet the place with the most developed and efficient textile industry at that time.
If this is the case in the UK, other countries are even worse. For example, in the 19th century, the United States could only rely on exporting large amounts of gold and silver in exchange for Chinese goods.
From 1805 to 1844, the trade deficit between the two countries was as high as 39%. In the ten years from 1805 to 1815 alone, the United States exported 22.7 million US dollars of gold and silver to China, while only 10 million US dollars of goods were exported to China during the same period. US dollars, and almost all are low-end products such as crops and minerals.
In addition, at that time, the United States was introduced to the Qing Dynasty by France (Louis XVI had a good relationship with the United States and the Qing Dynasty). The Qing Dynasty even believed that the United States was a vassal of France and an African country that specifically provided raw materials to France.
Compared with British goods, American textiles were inferior. In 1850, the American consul was still complaining to the country, saying that a large amount of American fabrics were backlogged at the port and could not be sold at a high price.
Therefore, this leads to a very counterintuitive conclusion: the production efficiency of sweatshops is actually very low. Even though the wages of Jiangnan craftsmen are much higher than those of English workers, they are still not significantly behind in terms of cost. Although this idea of forcibly reducing labor costs is in line with the simplest and most direct thinking, like many other "common senses", it is not correct.
"In this way, we can actually maintain promotion channels in the slave labor factory." Thinking of it, Guo Kang added: "Don't push too hard. With incentives, it will be more efficient than simply driving slaves. More efficient.”
"Even an English slave?" Theodora asked doubtfully.
"Even if it's from England." Guo Kang nodded affirmatively.
Owen, an Englishman in the early 19th century, conducted an experiment. He purchased a piece of land in the United States and tried to build a utopian settlement. In the settlement, there is a factory. According to Owen's vision, people only work here for 10 hours a day. In other factories of the same era, this time may not have an upper limit.
The utopian settlement ultimately failed due to its overly idealistic design. But this factory was the only one that not only continued to operate, but also made money. This surprised people at the time. It was also on the basis of this discovery that Irving continued to experiment, which led to the idea of the eight-hour work day.
"This conclusion is a bit strange." Theodora said frankly: "If reducing working hours actually improves overall efficiency, why do all businessmen like to let their employees work more?"
"Because this conclusion is drawn through scientific analysis, and science is often contrary to common sense." Guo Kang replied: "And if a person only does business to make money, then he is a saint in the business field. Usually, it is There can't be such a person."
"Ideal businessmen will accept everything in order to make money, but real businessmen..." Guo Kang spread his hands: "They may make decisions just for their own pleasure. Many incredible decisions come about like this - having said that , If you don’t like being a boss, then you have become a slave to money.”
"It seems to be the same...it seems to be similar to ruling a country." Theodora thought for a while and sighed: "Perhaps, a perfect businessman should be a slave to money and should not consider other things. Perfect rule Or... shouldn’t it be similar?”
(End of chapter)
