Chapter 59: The Life of a Little Man
He Xi stood with his arms crossed and a frown on his face.
Yao Guangxiao hesitated for a while and said: "My lord, it is better to let the county governments recruit people directly. Send them to Beijing City. This is the most convenient way."
He Xi said: "But it is also the method with the most hidden dangers."
How was conscription for labor done? He Xi also knew something about it, so I won’t mention the twists and turns inside. These are not the hidden dangers He Xi mentioned. But a free labor market.
Yes. He Xi actually felt it too. Ming Dynasty seems to be very free, but it is not free in many places. If you set up a factory, as more manpower is needed, things like this will happen. Although the new Ming Dynasty laws have allowed people to migrate.
As long as you go out and lead the way, the entire Ming Dynasty can go wherever it wants to go?
The problem is, first, the people don’t know.
Second, the matter of opening a road seems to be very simple. But it's not simple.
With the speed of information dissemination in this era, it is normal for people not to know. It is abnormal if the people know about it. Today's newspapers are mostly circulated in the hands of government officials and gentry, and the number of people they can influence is actually limited.
As for opening the way. The yamen door opens to the south. If you have no money, don't come in. This is not just about the case.
There are other things.
For many people, setting up a road guide is a matter of words, but for many ordinary people, it is more difficult than climbing to the sky.
He Xi needs so many workers this time, if he orders the local governments to recruit them. For prefectures and counties in Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong, each county will be allocated a thousand places, and they will be available immediately. But what will happen if other people open factories in the future?
He Xi even had an unspoken thought, that is, He Xi did not want to put back the manpower he needed to build Beijing this time. After all, the Beijing He Xi wants to build is an industrial city and needs many workers.
A complete method of recruiting workers. It must be there.
But how to recruit?
This is somewhat difficult.
Does the government need to intervene or not?
How involved is it?
Wang Qianli, who had been serving as the background behind He Xi, suddenly said: "Sir, I think you are worrying too much."
He Xi said: "What are you worrying about?"
Wang Qianli said: "All you have to do is give money. Someone will come. Some people will do the beheading business, but no one will do the loss-making business."
Yao Guangxiao listened to Wang Qianli's words and said: "Yes. Sir, I am confused by you. How about we release the news and take a look. Don't worry here out of thin air. If it doesn't work, think of other ways."
He Xi said: "Releasing the news?"
Yao Guangxiao said: "I remember that the brick factory has been built. Have the needed manpower been recruited? Why not, let's recruit directly and see if there are any people."
He Xi said: "Not bad. Let's see if there are any problems."
He Xi did what he said.
He immediately took people to Zunhua.
At this moment, Zunhua already looks a bit like an industrial zone.
With iron ore and coal mines as the source, first the Zunhua Iron Works, then various machinery production, and the latest brick factory is even more spectacular.
Among the brick factories, there is a three-story building. It's the water tower. There is a huge steam engine on the first floor of the water tower. The water lifting arm on the top of the steam engine lifts the water below one by one. A little further back is the boiler workshop. Several people are burning boilers here. Hot weather.
There is a water outlet on the other side of the water tower. Water flows out of the water outlet at a constant speed and drives several machines. From mixing the live mud to finalizing the bricks, he walked all the way and was finally sent into the kiln by a dozen workers on small carts.
When He Xi saw all this, it was like seeing a huge chemical factory in later generations. Because in chemical plants, this kind of large machinery with a height of two to three meters can be seen everywhere. It’s just a place where I don’t want to make bricks. He Xi actually had an impression of the brick factory.
I remember seeing when I was a kid that a brick breaker didn't cost much at all. It also occupies a small area. It seems that a diesel engine will do the trick.
Where is the need for such a big battle?
Ge Tiangong seemed to be a little embarrassed and said: "Teacher, this thing is actually not practical. Because of the water flow, the maximum number of bricks that can be laid is hundreds of thousands per day, and no more can be done. And the cost of building this place is about one thousand taels." Above. A thousand bricks only costs a few cents. You can earn a few cents at most, and that doesn’t include the cost of coal.”
"If you ask me, it's really better to find more people and fight it yourself."
"Now in terms of quality, there is no difference. Even the players are better."
The shock in He Xi's heart was brought back to reality by Ge Tiangong's words.
I have to admit that what Ge Tiangong said is right.
The cost is a bit high. Bricks are not valuable, and many people build their own houses by firing bricks themselves. And the bricks are difficult to transport over long distances. Because the price of long-distance transportation is more expensive than the bricks themselves.
This is even an important reason why China did not have an industrial revolution.
That's the price/performance ratio.
Labor is too cheap.
This will lead to a result, that is, many technological reforms are not as good as adding a few more people. The same is true for steam engines. The steam engine was not complete from the beginning. It can be used as a power unit to intervene in various production fields from the beginning.
Not really. His production efficiency has improved a little bit. There were improvements before Watt, and there were still improvements after Watt.
There's never a one-step approach to success. From a historical perspective, the Industrial Revolution is naturally a revolution. But from the perspective of technological history, it is more of a gradual change than a revolution. There were a lot of problems from the beginning. It couldn't be used at all, and it turned out to be almost a product of another era.
It was improved step by step.
What force drives so many people to invest their energy in this.
Because of interests and lack of manpower.
If machines replace manpower, even a little bit, it will still be profitable for capitalists.
But it was different in Ming Dynasty.
What He Xi created was not much different from the effect of adding a few more people, so why not add a few more people?
Of course, He Xi also knew.
Ge Tiangong's statement is also problematic.
The first question is the price of the steam engine. The cost of more than one thousand taels is not the price of the steam engine. It is the price of steam engines produced at Zunhua Iron Works. After all, it is a new factory and many things have to be started from scratch. Naturally, this comes with significant costs. In other words, the more steam engines are produced, the lower the price will be. If we only produce this one unit and charge more than 1,000 taels, that is already a small amount.
He Xi said: "First of all, this is built for the construction of Beijing City. The Beijing City project is very urgent. I want to complete it within one or two years. There are too many bricks needed for Beijing City. How many bricks are needed using traditional methods? . In addition, the city wall of Beijing is going to be big. You must have an idea of how big it will be."
Ge Tiangong said: "Beijing's city wall needs to be made of bricks? Isn't it just strips of stone?"
He Xi said: "Are you going to dig? You can check with Kuai Dagong to see how many bricks are needed in total and what style they are. Then we start preparing for production." He Xi was silent for a moment and said: "For a factory like this, come first Twenty seats, maybe.”
"However, I only give you ten thousand taels. Is that enough?"
Ge Tiangong had a lot of thoughts in his mind. He thought, "That's enough."
He Xi said: "How to solve the problem with personnel?"
He Xi looked at this small factory. It also takes dozens of people. See the machines, porters, boilermakers, etc. There were ten or twenty people in total. Not to mention, these people are not fixed and may change positions as needed.
Twenty workshops have about five to six hundred people.
Ge Tiangong said: "As long as you say hello to the people here, they can bring them back when they go home."
He Xi said: "Bring it back?"
Ge Tiangong said: "In any case, here we eat from the imperial court and are paid every month. It doesn't matter whether we work for one day or for a year. This kind of thing is usually wanted by the people below. What are four or five hundred people? When Zunhua was rebuilt, there were only a few people. Now there are more than a thousand people."
He Xi said: "Where do all the people here come from?"
Ge Tiangong said: "They are all local."
He Xi said: "How many of these counties near Zunhua will come to work?"
Ge Tiangong originally wanted to say, take as much as you want, but something moved in his heart and he did not dare to say this sentence.
