Foshan Town, Song Zhai.
Song Siyuan quietly looked through the account book in his hand, while a young man in front of him said with a smile: "Uncle Third, this is only more than half a month. In just half a month, the profit is more than the usual two months." money."
"Not to mention, these Chu thieves are really generous with their money. If there are so many orders in the future, our family's workshop can earn at least two to thirty thousand taels in a year, which is comparable to making iron pots." too much."
Song Siyuan looked at the account book and listened to his nephew's words. After looking through it briefly, he said: "The cost is still a bit high, especially the cost of materials needs to be controlled."
After hearing this, his nephew looked worried and said: "Third Uncle, the iron material we are using now is already second-grade. If it is worse, we can only use third-grade material. The armor produced in this way will probably be..."
Song Siyuan interrupted him directly and said: "It doesn't matter, what we are making is armor, not guns, and it won't explode if we use inferior iron materials, and the iron pieces in this armor are all in the sandwich." , Those Chu thieves won’t take apart the cloth armor and look at the iron pieces inside.”
As Song Siyuan said this, he directly pulled up an abacus and made some calculations on it. "Just use third-grade materials, and the cost can be reduced by at least another 20%."
After that, Song Siyuan stood up and walked to the window, looking out the window with his hands behind his back: "This kind of good time will not last long. You have also heard that the Chu thieves have been building a large-scale construction project in Guangzhou. They have built some kind of arsenal. , I heard people say that the arsenal in Guangzhou covers an area of thousands of acres."
"That's thousands of acres. The size of the factory built by these Chu thieves is beyond ordinary people's imagination. Once the Chu thieves' own Guangzhou arsenal is completed and put into production, the various ordnance orders that follow will also be a matter for us people. ah!"
"So, let's make more money while we can during this period. By next year, I'm afraid we will have to go back to our old business of making iron pots!"
"It's just that this iron pot is not easy to sell. Han Guo is now very popular. Not only our family, but also the iron pots of several other iron pots in the whole town are not easy to sell."
Song Siyuan's words made his nephew think deeply. Although he also said: But... But after all, he still didn't say anything. He could only say: Then I will give the order later, and the follow-up armor list. Use third grade ingredients.
At the same time, on the other side of Foshan town, the Li family's workshop was also engaged in the iron products business and supplied a large amount of iron armor and even guns to the Chu army.
The head of the Li family, Li Guangsheng, is calculating with his son.
After a while, Li Guangsheng put down his calculations, and then said: "Although this Chu machine is expensive, as long as it is done well, the production capacity of our factory will be greatly increased, and the cost will be lower. This purchase As for the machinery, I think we can do it."
Li Guangsheng's eldest son said: "Dad, I have already been to Guangzhou and talked with people from the Guangzhou Machinery Factory. Although the Guangzhou Machinery Factory has just started construction, it is expected to be put into production in half a year, and their production capacity is estimated to have to be tightened first. They use it in their own factory, but they also promised us that they would give us part of the equipment when the time comes."
"With this batch of equipment, we will be able to successfully transform next year!"
Li Guangsheng nodded and said: "Today's ordnance business seems to be booming, but it will definitely not last long. When the Guangzhou Arsenal is officially put into operation next year, not only us, but the entire Foshan factory will not lose orders for ordnance. By then, we will start from I made up my mind in other businesses."
"As for Chu Ren's acquisition, there is no need to mention it again. Although the price they gave is good, this ironmaking workshop is our Li family's century-old foundation. There is no way I will let this foundation be destroyed in my hands. Let's do it this year We are doing the Chu people’s ordnance order, the price they gave us is pretty good, and the checkout is quick and easy. If we work hard for a year, it will be enough for us to accumulate a batch of funds to support next year’s transformation!”
"Wait until next year, we will fully transform into cookware. Their Hantian Machinery Factory's Hanguo is not mechanically produced. It is cheap and of good quality. Huh, wait until next year. We will also use mechanical production to reduce costs. In addition, our Li family's unique I don’t believe that the Guangguo pots made with their own craftsmanship can’t beat their Chinese pots.”
The Song family and the Li family, as the first echelon of iron-making families in Foshan Town, each have large-scale iron-making and iron-making workshops, and they were also the ones who purchased all kinds of ordnance on the spot after the Chu army entered Guangzhou. The first and second largest suppliers of supplies.
But these two large suppliers soon fell down.
On June 23, a group of policemen dressed in black came to the door and arrested dozens of members of the Song family on charges of passing off goods with inferior goods and bribing public officials.
When the patrolmen came to arrest people, Song Siyuan, who had been living a good life for decades and had seen how big the storm was, shook his hand and broke the jade beads he was playing with. Then when the patrolmen started arresting people one by one, Song Siyuan still managed to stay calm. Saying that you are a good family and an important arms supplier to King Division has offended our Song family and undermined the overall military supply situation. You can't live without it.
But as soon as he finished speaking, a young major wearing a dark blue military uniform came out from behind a large number of patrol policemen. The young major came up and slapped him in the face: "The one I caught is you, bastard, for selling me to the army." Even the armor dares to be inferior."
"Damn, it's twenty-five taels of silver a pair of full-body heavy armor. When the samples were delivered, they were of good quality, but when they were officially delivered, one batch was worse than the other. If it was a little worse, we would tolerate it. , but the iron sheets in the latest batch of armors you sent over are thinner than paper."
"Don't say that you are just a businessman, you are a bunch of bastards from the Ministry of Industry. You dare not do this to our army. If you don't kill your whole family, how can outsiders think that our army is a fool?
As he said this, the major got excited and wanted to draw his knife on the spot... Fortunately, the director of the Guangzhou Prefecture Patrol Bureau next to him stepped forward and pulled him out!
Although this arrest operation was strongly requested by the military after discovering the problem, it is their patrol police who are performing the arrest task now, and the military people are here only to supervise.
If the army men were to kill the suspect, the case would still not be tried... The superiors were still counting on this case to demonstrate the judicial authority of their Great Chu Empire and to deter those who There are a lot of private businessmen.
The patrol police arrested the man, but not long after, the Guangzhou Taxation Bureau also got involved, saying that the Song family had evaded taxes...
Ever since, this Song family incident has turned into a joint review by multiple departments.
The case was very simple and not too difficult. Soon, the Song family's problems of substandard goods, bribery, tax evasion and other issues were thoroughly investigated. By the way, they also found out a bunch of other Song family's persecution of workshop workers and forced them to do so. There are a series of problems such as seizing other people's land and workshops, raping women, and killing slaves.
After the investigation was clear, the censors of the Guangzhou Prefecture Supervisory Office immediately filed a public prosecution against the Song family, and the Guangzhou Prefecture Court conducted a trial.
After trial, more than ten members of the Song family headed by Song Siyuan and more than 20 middle- and senior-level managers in the Song family's ironmaking workshop were sentenced to death. The remaining more than 100 people were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from several years to several years. All the Song family members were sentenced to death. All assets were confiscated.
The Song family was completely uprooted overnight, with not a single hair left.
And it's not just the Song family. There are more than 20 iron-making workshops in Foshan town, large and small, that supply military supplies to the Chu army. Sixteen of them are shoddy, and these families are all without exception. His family was confiscated and his family was exterminated.
The Dachu Empire has always been very skilled in confiscating families and exterminating clans, but in the past, most of the confiscations and exterminations were due to tax issues, or because they were stubborn rebels who wanted to defend the land life and death in an attempt to fight against Dachu. The super landowners of land policy.
In fact, the Dachu Empire would not take action against businessmen who abide by the rules, because there is no need.
This time in Foshan was the first time that the Chu Empire officials took action against merchants. It was really the merchants in the iron-making industry in Foshan who went too far this time.
Many merchants send goods that are shoddy. When signing the contract, they clearly wanted high-quality goods and were given the price of high-quality goods, but when they are delivered, they are shoddy.
The quality of the armor was so poor that it couldn't even stop a bow and arrow, let alone a musket bullet.
Guns and cannons look good, but they explode when fired.
Those people, even things like military bandages are shoddy. Bandages are used by soldiers to save lives. They need to be made from high-quality cotton and need to be sterilized. However, there is a workshop that uses them directly. It was made from moldy and rotten cotton and the disinfection process was omitted. Some soldiers on the front line used this rotten bandage, resulting in serious wound infections.
As a result, Army Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin ordered a thorough investigation into the matter within the military, and it was discovered that the local military suppliers in Guangzhou were not genuine and were passing off inferior goods.
I don't know if the civilian government can tolerate this kind of thing, but the military certainly can't tolerate it.
If it weren't for the separation of military and political affairs in the Chu Empire, and the handling of merchants within its jurisdiction had to go through administrative agencies, the military would have directly sent troops to kill all the illegal merchants of the Song family on the spot!
Later, the matter was notified to the Guangdong Governor's Yamen, and the matter was handled by the civil service system.
As a result, there was a situation where more than half of the many iron manufacturers in Foshan Town were killed in just a few days.
And this situation has made the Li family in Foshan Town worried...
The several workshops owned by the Li family, together, are now the Chu army's largest supplier in Guangdong, including guns, armor, and swords.
Although they did not do anything shoddy, they were doing business honestly, hoping to make money through a large number of orders in the short term to prepare for the purchase of machinery and equipment next year for transformation.
However, even if they didn't do these things, they were still worried!
