After the party, Song Erniu brought samples of canvas workwear to visit Manager Li of Dongyang Trading Company on time.
The negotiation went smoothly, and Manager Li was very satisfied with the canvas work clothes produced in Song Erniu's small factory.
After all, this stuff is cheap and very wear-resistant, making it suitable for use as work clothing.
He immediately placed an order for 500 sets of work clothes on behalf of Dongyang Trading Company and asked Song Erniu to deliver them as soon as possible. He also said that this was just a trial order. If the subsequent trial response was good, then Dongyang Trading Company would need more.
By that time, it will no longer be a small order of a few hundred sets, but a large order of thousands or even tens of thousands of sets.
After walking out of the small office building of Dongyang Trading Company, Song Erniu finally couldn't help the excitement in his heart and waved his fists in the air several times.
After returning to his small workshop, he arranged the order tasks so that he could produce the order and deliver it to Dongyang Trading Company as soon as possible.
After processing the order, he went to the Shuanghe branch of Jinshan Machinery Trading Company, which he had cooperated with twice, and asked them to buy a pedal sewing machine again.
Nowadays, the sales of canvas workwear are increasing, not only from orders from Dongyang Trading Company, but also from the general private market. Just the number of workwear needed in Shuanghe County in the short term, Song Erniu estimates There are tens of thousands of sets or more.
In addition to Shuanghe County, Jinshan Prefecture also has other areas. At the same time, the North American governor of the Great Chu Empire has not only Jinshan Prefecture, but also many other prefectures and counties.
All of these add up to a lot of potential demand.
Now his small workshop cannot meet such a huge market demand.
However, people from Jinshan Machinery Trading Company said that they now have no inventory of pedal sewing machines and need to transfer goods from Jinshan City or even Xiayang City.
After all, Song Erniu's demand is relatively large, and he plans to place an order for 40 units this time.
As for the pedal sewing machine, it has rarely been applied to the industrial field before. It is only needed by a few domestic factories that produce various uniforms, tents, quilts, etc. In fact, the main market for pedal sewing machines is in numerous countries. tailor shops and middle and upper class home markets.
At the same time, this thing is not cheap, and it is not a consumable. In fact, the scale of daily sales is not large.
Song Erniu had purchased more than a dozen units in a row before, and now he suddenly needed an order for forty units. It was really difficult for them to deal with it for a while. They could only transfer goods from all over North America, which was expected to take some time.
After finalizing the order for the pedal sewing machine, Song Erniu continued to recruit people.
This time he needs to recruit at least fifty people, not only sewing machine operators, but also people for various processes such as cutting, packaging and moving.
Because it was expected that the number of people would increase rapidly and the demand for factory space would also be relatively large, Song Erniu ran around again and finally rented a large-area factory building.
While the production matters were finalized, he did not forget the sales matters.
In addition to continuing to sell at stalls in the mining area, he also opened a store in Shuanghe County, specializing in selling canvas work clothes produced by himself, and using his newly applied brand name: "Songhe" brand.
Song He, Song is naturally his surname, and He is taken from Shuanghe County.
For Song Erniu, Shuanghe County is his blessed place in life. Only when he came here did he truly get rid of poverty and even achieve the stage of getting rich quickly in his life, quickly transforming from a poor boy to a The owner of a small garment factory with dozens of people.
Song Erniu had never dared to think about such a thing before!
After all, he was just the second son of a farmer who graduated from high school. The first half of his life was basically directly linked to poverty. He spent several years in the big city of Songjiang and achieved nothing.
But when he came to Shuanghe County, he began to change his life.
In Song Erniu's view, Shuanghe County is his blessed land, and there are opportunities to make a fortune everywhere.
In this shitty place, you can make a lot of money even selling tea!
There are not many tea stalls in the mining area. They look inconspicuous, and a bowl of tea only costs a few cents. However, the cost is extremely low, and when you add up, it is still very profitable.
So when you see those gold diggers, they may be lucky enough to dig out a lot of gold, and then spend it in various ways, looking like they are superior to others, but in fact these so-called lucky people are basically paupers, even if they are not now They are poor, but they are used to spending a lot of money. In a few days, they will spend all the money they earned from gold mining and eventually become paupers again.
However, those seemingly inconspicuous tea stall owners are worth much more than these gold diggers.
Many people have a lot of money in their bank accounts at Finance Bank and have purchased various properties in Shuanghe County.
Song Erniu himself is like this. Today, he often takes a subordinate and rides a four-wheeled carriage between the county town and the mining area, shouting and selling canvas work clothes in the mining area stall.
But how did those gold diggers know that when Song Erniu went to a business party, a traditional dress would cost more than 70 yuan, and he also opened a small factory and a shop in the county town, employing dozens of people? Where are the workers?
The same goes for Boss Chen next door. He doesn't look very good. Ordinary people think he is just a grocery seller... Well, he is actually just a grocery seller.
But people really make money.
There is also a large-scale grocery store in Shuanghe County, and there is also a small independent house with a front and rear garden in the city.
It's just that whether Boss Chen or Song Erniu, they are actually relatively low-key, making a fortune quietly in the mining area, and constantly earning the gold that the gold diggers worked so hard to find.
Many gold prospectors have been working in the mining areas for months or even years. They did find a lot of gold in the process, but in the end there was no gold left.
Zhao Gantong is one of them!
In March of the 31st year of Chengshun, when he walked out of the finance bank, he looked lonely.
He has been coming to Shuanghe to hunt for gold for more than a year, but in the end he only saved a mere thirty yuan!
Others say that gold mining in Shuanghe is very profitable. Well, in fact, it can be said that. During the gold mining process for more than a year, he had good luck several times. In one of them, he even dug up a gold nugget the size of a child's fist. Woolen cloth.
There are also a lot of daily little sprinkles.
But in the end, not much of the money gained from gold mining was saved.
The various expenses in the mining area are too great.
In daily life, you have to spend money to drink hot tea, and eating is also expensive. The wooden houses rented in the mining area are more expensive than the houses in Shuanghe County.
Food and drink expenses, etc., the daily expenses alone are not small.
In addition, gold mining also requires tools, and these tools are also very expensive.
Occasionally I make some money, but I have to spend some to satisfy myself. I go to restaurants in the city to eat and drink, and occasionally I go to a small green building to have fun for a while.
Not only gold diggers came here smelling gold, but also some brothel ladies.
You can earn more and faster by doing skin and meat business in such a place where gold is produced than in other places.
After hanging out here for a few years, these young ladies can return to China with a lot of savings, and then they can make up a set of inspirational stories about their past struggles, open a shop of their own to start a small business, and dress themselves up as the heroines in the inspirational stories.
Sometimes some of them can find a good and respectable young man to marry and live a life as a respectable middle-class wife.
Many men really do this.
After all, although this kind of woman's family background is a little poor, she is young, beautiful, and knows how to listen to others' words and serve others. She also has her own small business and has a lot of savings to help with family expenses.
Even a few can help you with a certain amount of money in your career.
From time to time, he also has an innocent and shy expression, as if when I meet you, I have met love...
Let me ask you, are you excited?
In his gold mining career of more than a year, Zhao Gantong has often helped the young ladies with their businesses, but as a result, saving money has become even more difficult.
Obviously I made a lot of money from gold mining, but in the end, it was not as good as the money I saved working for those shady bosses in China.
Although the wages given by the black-hearted bosses are not much, they don't give you any time to spend. They work in the factory all day long and work overtime every day. Even if you have money in your pocket and want to go to the green building, you won't be able to do it. Time to go…
】
I have been panning for gold for more than a year, I don’t have much money saved, and my health is not doing well either.
When panning for gold in mining areas, the living conditions of these individual gold panning personnel are still relatively difficult, the work intensity is also high, and the physical burden is also heavy over a long period of time.
Recently, Zhao Gantong thought about it for a long time, and finally decided not to pan for gold. This place is poisonous...
With the dozens of Chu Yuan he finally saved, Zhao Gaantong went to Shuanghe County's government office to apply for a piece of free land, preparing to farm his own land like many gold diggers.
Although Zhao Gantong is only a single dog, he still received hundreds of acres of free land. Although these lands are still wasteland, there are no indigenous activities nearby, so it is considered relatively safe land.
This is also the main type of land officially released for free.
In fact, if you have a large number of people and dare to go to more remote places and colonize areas with active indigenous people, this number can be increased several times.
Anyway, those lands are still within the indigenous control area, so it doesn’t hurt at all for the government to give them to them for free.
This number can be increased if you pay for the land.
Although a very strict land control system is implemented in the home area, this is an exception in the overseas territories, where the amount of privately owned land is very large.
Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Chu people were cultivating overseas. Because there was a lack of labor and there was a lot of land, in order to develop as much land as possible, the government encouraged farmers to cultivate more land. Basically, you can cultivate No matter how much, the government dares to approve it for you.
The premise is to cultivate it. If it is not cultivated for a long time, it will be recycled.
Therefore, overseas immigrants, especially those in the Americas who are willing to farm, generally use horse farming, which is simple and trouble-free and can cultivate more areas of land.
What matters is not the output per acre, but the output per person.
The land Zhao Gantong applied for is located about ten kilometers northwest of Shuanghe County, where there is a newly developed small immigrant settlement: Songxi Village.
At present, there are not many people, only more than two hundred people, but these two hundred people have cultivated a large area of surrounding land.
Zhao Gantong has now become a member of more than two hundred people. After arriving in Songxi Village, he successfully joined the local militia and received the militia gun for free, a 13-year-old model that looked very new. A flash cap percussion gun modified from a flintlock musket.
Over the past many years, the Dachu Empire has produced a large number of Thirteen-year-old series flintlock guns, with many sub-models, widely equipped with the army, navy, patrol police, and militia forces.
Later, after the percussion-fired guns appeared and were put into mass service, many of these 13-year-old series flintlock guns were modified, from flintlock to percussion-fired guns.
These modified old guns are generally called 21-year-old percussion guns, and some of them are still in heavy service in the military.
In fact, these modified Type 21 rifles are no different from the newly produced Type 21 rifles... because the Type 21 rifle itself is an improved firing of the Type 13 rifle. It comes from the organization, and other structures are basically the same.
The real difference is the 23-year-old flash cap percussion gun, but the overall improvement is not big, especially the barrel. Even if the blue and anti-rust technology is introduced, overall it is still a very mature and cheap old gun. Old technology.
After all, this thing was only used by the Army as a transitional weapon at the beginning, and it was never expected to be used for such a long time.
As a result, many years have passed, and the rifled gun has been difficult to produce. As a result, the 23-year-old rifle that should have been used for transition and casually produced one or two hundred thousand units was continued to be produced for eight years, and is now in use. It is still in production, and the total output has exceeded one million pieces.
I have to say, this is a very embarrassing situation.
What’s even more embarrassing is that the quality of the barrel of the 23-year-old rifle, which was originally positioned as a cheap transitional weapon, is still not very good. There is no essential difference between the barrel of this thing and the barrel of the 13-year-old rifle. It is difficult to rifling and convert it to a muzzle-loading rifle.
This is also the reason why the Chu army has not converted those muskets into mini rifles until now. It's not that they don't want to change, but they can't.
At that time, if the Chu Army could make certain concessions in price and improve the quality of the barrels in purchasing Type 23 rifles, they would not end up with the same results as now.
But there's no point regretting it now.
The Army simply gritted its teeth and stopped developing muzzle-loading rifles. It planned to directly equip breech-loading rifles in one step.
After all, the Hebei Weapons Company's Type 18 rifles have undergone rigorous testing, and are currently being produced in small batches to supply the Guards and the Army's test troops for preliminary experimental equipment.
Not to mention rifled rifles, but today’s Type 21 rifles include more than one million modified ones and hundreds of thousands of newly produced ones, for a total of about 17.8 million Type 21 rifles. Currently, Some are equipped for the B and C divisions of the regular army, and some are equipped for militia organizations, mainly overseas militias.
What Zhao Gaantong got was an old modified 21-year-old flash cap percussion gun assigned to the North American militia organization.
After getting the gun, he participated in several training sessions with dozens of other militiamen in Songxi Village to become familiar with the use of guns and basic tactics.
When doing farming in overseas territories, it is impossible not to know how to use a gun, otherwise it will be easy for the natives to cut off your head!
While conducting militia training, Zhao Gantong took root in the small place of Songxi Village, Shuanghe County, while using the two newly purchased old draft horses to open up wasteland for farming.
He also planned to reclaim and plant the 100 acres of free land before applying to the government to purchase a batch of land.
Then buy a few horses, including mares, and raise some cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, etc., and this small farm will basically be enough.
Not long after we settled down, in June of the 31st year of Chengshun, in the middle of summer, we suddenly heard a burst of intensive gong beating.
This kind of intensive and rapid gong sound is usually sounded when there is urgent matter, especially when there is an invasion of foreign enemies.
Zhao Gantong was a little anxious, so he walked out quickly and saw two militiamen riding horses on the dirt road in the middle of the village. One of them beat a gong, and the other shouted: "The natives are attacking, all militiamen should be brought up immediately." Horses and weapons must be assembled urgently!”
When one of them saw Zhao Gantong, he immediately said: "Brother Zhao, gather quickly, hundreds of indigenous people are coming!"
After Zhao Gaantong heard this, he felt a little panicked, but he still managed to calm down and replied: "I'll go right away!"
Immediately walked back to the room with a small step, picked up the 21-year-old flash cap percussion gun, and put on the armed belt. There were several leather ammunition boxes in the armed belt, which contained flash caps and paper. Pack ammunition.
After grabbing the pole weapon, he picked up a revolver and loaded it with flash caps and paper bags of ammunition.
Then there are other odds and ends, such as kettles, and some spare biscuits that serve as dry food.
He usually keeps these things together, including firearms, just so that he can get them quickly in times like this and avoid forgetting anything.
After bringing everything together, he went to the backyard to pick up a newly purchased Spanish horse. Although this horse was used for farming, it could also be ridden. Zhao Gantong often rode this horse every day.
After everything was ready, Zhao Gantong led the horse out and gathered directly in the small mud square in front of the village.
At this time, there were more than thirty people there, and there were others arriving one after another like Zhao Gantong.
Even though Songxi Village is small and has few people, it has a lot of young people, because many of them are gold diggers like Zhao Gantong... They are all young people, and those who are young will basically be incorporated into the militia. .
In such a small Songxi village, more than 70 militiamen were gathered together, accounting for almost one-third of the total local population... Moreover, most of these militiamen were equipped with horses and their hands were equipped with poles. Flash cap percussion gun, some people also carry an extra revolver like Zhao Gaantong.
Not only the militiamen were gathering, but many strong women in the village, even the elderly and some teenage children were holding pistols or shotguns to prepare for the incoming sporadic natives.
In this poor place in North America, because there are many indigenous people and the Chu State's colonial policy is relatively radical, conflicts between the Chu State and the local indigenous people are very severe and frequent.
Under such circumstances, the local Chu people, especially the immigrants in some small settlements, regardless of gender, old or young, basically have a gun... Without these guys to defend themselves and defend the settlements, these immigrants would have been killed by the locals. The natives scalped people and used their skulls as urinals.
After Zhao Gantong arrived at the small square of the village, he saw a middle-aged man in front of him wearing an old-style military uniform. He was also the patrol police stationed in the village and the captain of the militia team Wu Jintang said loudly: "Those damn natives showed up. Five miles away, our wheat is about to be harvested, and we must not let them break in and destroy our wheat fields!"
“This is where everyone’s harvest this year comes from!”
"The fifth team and the sixth team stayed to defend the village. The other men came with me to fight out and let those damn natives know that Songxi Village is not a place for them to come just as they please!"
