In order to manage his family's private money, Luo Zhixue even set up a royal assets department, which was under the Palace Affairs Department.
This organization specializes in handling various royal industries. For example, the Royal Tea Company, which was invited to serve as the general manager of a certain minister who became an official as mentioned before, is directly affiliated with the Royal Assets Department.
The agency currently owns a large number of royal family assets, mainly a large number of confiscated assets, including the feudal prince's palace and the Duke's palace, as well as a large number of confiscated treasures and other items that are difficult to realize, as well as some unreliable items. A fixed property that is too easy to handle.
"Gene Era"
Luo Zhixue asked the Royal Assets Department to manage these assets. Revitalize, and then invest in some industry and commerce. This kind of investment is mainly as a supplement to the investment of the Ministry of Industry. It is not meant to make money, or simply to bear the responsibility of industrial development on its own. It is just as a person on the road of industrial development. It’s just a supplementary means.
Now it seems that the effect is pretty good.
The few factories recently opened by the Royal Assets Division are quite good, such as a spinning factory opened in Jinling City, a tea brick factory opened in Songjiang, and a porcelain factory opened in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi.
Even though they may appear to be ordinary industries, these factories use water-powered machinery and equipment on a large scale.
Hydraulic equipment was also the main feature of many government-run factories in the Chu Empire.
These factories that use water power on a large scale and adopt flow-type production are characterized by large production capacity and better control of quality stability.
The products produced by these factories may not necessarily be the best, but they are the most stable. They are much more stable than the products produced in manual workshops.
The things produced in handicraft workshops are closely related to the technical level of the craftsmen. The things produced by skilled craftsmen are of high quality, but the things produced by ordinary craftsmen are very average. If you are a novice, you will not be able to see them.
Even if the same number of craftsmen produce things, the quality will be difficult to maintain at a high level of stability. There will always be bad ones and good ones.
After all, people cannot always stay on the same level. Taking the simplest process of forging iron as an example, when the blacksmith swings a hammer for forging, no matter how high his skill is, he cannot always let the hammer go. The falling force and position remain at the same level.
But those machines in the factory can!
This was also the main component of the armor produced in the arsenal of the Dachu Empire. Although the overall quality of the iron sheets was actually not as good as the iron sheets hammered by skilled craftsmen, they could always be used. Maintain a relatively uniform quality level.
If you zoom in on the base number and look at it, you will find that the overall level of the armor produced by the Da Chu Empire is better than that of the Ming Ting and Dongli, and the cost is also lower. More importantly, the grain output is particularly large.
This is why the Chu army was able to allow almost every soldier in the main force to have a piece of armor. Even the musketeers were able to obtain a set of light half-body armor.
Stable quality, large grain output, and low cost are the most obvious characteristics and most obvious advantages of a factory that uses a large amount of machinery for production.
This advantage has also been reflected in the civilian market. As a result, a large number of civilian products produced by these factories began to enter the private market and seized a large number of the market shares of these handicraft workshops.
Among them, the cotton cloth industry in the textile industry is especially important!
The textile industry in the Jiangnan region has always been a leading industry in the handicraft industry. In the first half of the 17th century, the textile industry in the Jiangnan region developed very well, and many medium and even large-scale textile industries had appeared. Factories, including silk industry and cotton industry.
The silk industry is doing well for the time being, and has not been affected on a large scale. The factories affiliated to the major industrial ministries of the Chu Empire have not yet entered the silk weaving industry on a large scale, but mainly focus on the cotton spinning industry.
With the large number of new looms adopted by Hantian Textile Factory and the official factories of spinning machines entering the market, these machine-made fabrics began to encroach on the market share of many traditional hand-spun and weaving workshops.
This situation became even more serious after the Chu Empire entered Jiangnan.
The weaving workshop of the Qin family in Suzhou was greatly affected.
Before the Chu thieves reached Jiangnan last year, the cloth produced by the Qin family was already not easy to sell... The cloth dealers who had cooperated with the Qin family in previous years said that the quality of the Qin family's cloth was not as good as before. Huguang's machine-made cloth is good, but the price is much more expensive than Huguang's machine-made cloth.
As a result, the Qin family had to compress their profits and reduce prices. Finally, they opened up new channels to barely maintain business.
However, after this year, as the machine-made cloth from Huguang entered the Jiangnan area without any hindrance and was transported to various places through Jiangnan, their Qin family's cloth business became even more difficult.
The operating rate of their spinning and weaving workshops is less than 30% of previous years.
Many spinners and weavers who originally worked for their Qin family's weaving workshop went to work at the newly opened Suzhou Textile Company not far away to make money because there was no work to do in their Qin's weaving workshop.
This made Qin Wanglin extremely anxious!
The Qin family is different from other gentry families. Many gentry families have their foundations in the land and in the imperial examinations.
However, the Qin family is not a traditional farming and reading family, but started as a cloth dealer. The family has never produced any Jinshi. His own imperial examination award is already the highest imperial examination award for the old Qin family in hundreds of years. , and I only got it after spending a lot of money to smoothen the relationship.
The foundation of their Qin family is in the cotton business.
The old Qin family has been making cotton cloth for hundreds of years, and they are considered famous weavers in Suzhou.
The year before last, when the Qin family's cotton business was at its peak, the Qin family only had a workshop in Suzhou city, employing more than a thousand weavers. It also had workshops in Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Songjiang and other places, each with its own unique characteristics. The number of employees ranges from hundreds to hundreds.
The cloth produced by their family is also called Su Qin cloth by the outside world, and is famous for its high quality and low price.
When outsiders talk about Su Qinbu, who doesn't know that it is produced by their family.
However, Su Qin cloth, which is famous for its cheap and beautiful products, began to be seriously impacted by Huguang Machinery Cloth last year!
Because the machine-made cloth from Huguang is cheaper and more beautiful than their Su Qin cloth.
——
Qin Wanglin looked at the large number of idle old looms in his own workshop, and the large number of idle old spinning machines in the factory next door. He knew that he had to make changes.
If there is no change, the cotton industry of the old Qin family that has lasted for hundreds of years will probably be completely destroyed in their own hands.
Thinking of this, Qin Wanglin made up his mind to make changes now without further ado!
But this change is not the result of a few bosses in the industry pooling money to smoothen their relationships and try to get rid of those mechanisms from the source.
But this idea seemed too naive to Qin Wanglin. When it came to personal connections, how could the personal connections of their gentry families be as good as those of Hantian Textile Factory.
The Hantian Textile Factory is the property of the Chu thieves.
You spend money to clear the way, find the heads of the Chu thieves and high officials, and then sue the Chu thieves for their own property... Isn't this nonsense!
——
And Qin Wanglin believes that since machine-made cloth has appeared and has proven that machine-made cloth is a better choice with high quality and low price, and the market has given sufficient feedback, there will be no benefit at all if he continues to fight against it.
He couldn't see any hope of winning.
And since the machine-made cloth can no longer be defeated, what the Qin family has to do is to turn around and join the machine-made cloth and let Su Qinbu also become a machine-made cloth.
The Su Qin cloth produced by their Qin family has always been famous for its low price and high quality, and is widely sold all over the country.
If a large number of new looms from the Chu thieves can be used, then the cloth produced by the Qin family in the future will definitely be cheaper and more beautiful.
As for those from Hantian Factory, there is no way they can compare to the Qin family in terms of quality and low prices.
The Qin family has been playing this game for hundreds of years.
After Qin Wanglin made the decision, he soon found connections with various trustees.
do what?
Looking to buy new spinning machines and new looms!
As far as he knew, this new type of spinning machines and looms first appeared in the Hantian Textile Factory in Hantianfu. However, the Hantian Textile Factory itself was not the manufacturer of these spinning machines and looms; There is another person, that is Xiangyang Machinery Factory.
Xiangyang Machinery Factory was the first manufacturer to develop and produce new imitation equipment, but their production capacity was too low, so the Ministry of Industry later handed over the main production task of this new textile equipment to Hantian Machinery Factory.
Therefore, Hantian Machinery Factory is now the main manufacturer of this new type of textile equipment, accounting for more than 80% of its production capacity.
Suzhou Textile Company, which was recently built and put into production in Suzhou, is a textile company affiliated to the Ministry of Industry. It ordered its new looms and new spinning machines from Hantian Machinery Factory.
Now what the Qin family has to do is to get in touch with Hantian Machinery Factory before others do, and then try to order these new spinning machines and new looms.
With the new spinning machines and new looms in hand, the Qin family wants to build the first purely private machine-made cloth factory outside the Ministry of Industry.
The Qin family spent a lot of manpower and material resources, but finally succeeded in contacting Hantian Machinery Factory, and sent people directly to Hantian Machinery Factory's office in Jinling City to negotiate, and proposed to purchase new spinning machines and new looms. .
However, this purchase order made people at the Jinling City office of Hantian Machinery Factory hesitate and did not dare to take it immediately.
Although many of the products of their Hantian Machinery Factory are sold externally, they are all agricultural tools and cooking utensils. For example, their iron pots are very good.
But there is really no precedent for selling various types of machinery and equipment to outsiders.
All types of machinery and equipment in their Hantian Machinery Factory are, without exception, produced directly for various factories under the Ministry of Industry and the Royal Assets Division, and have never been sold to external parties.
No one from the private sector came to them to order these mechanical equipment before.
But now people from the Qin family came to order a large number of new spinning machines and new looms, and they were very sincere.
Although our Qin family is just a poor cloth seller and is not as good as those rich families, we can still get a few silver dollars. If we even supply more, our Qin family can grit our teeth and squeeze out hundreds of thousands taels. from.
Although the words are condescending on the surface, the meaning is just that: our Qin family has plenty of money, you can set the price as you like...
