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After a difficult day, Zhuge Min returned home with a heavy heart. His concubine Chen came up to help him take off his official robe, but she was a little slow and was immediately scolded by him coldly. Frightened, Chen turned pale and quickly knelt on the ground to apologize.
After washing his face, Zhuge Min hurriedly called his aide Li Qingshang to his study. Seeing that he looked worried, Li Qingshang asked in surprise, "Lord, didn't Ma Weizhong and Shen Qingyang lead all the officials to make suggestions together? The King of Qin has always been good at accepting suggestions. With so many ministers opposing him, according to the King of Qin's character, he should be willing to accept the advice. Could it be that something else happened?"
"I have made a mistake this time too." Zhuge Min's face was still gloomy as he briefly recounted what happened in the court today.
After listening to the advice, Li Qingshang thought for a while and said, "This time, the King of Qin only said that he would treat the advice of all the ministers with caution and hurriedly left the court. This is indeed unusual and unlike his previous temper of correcting his mistakes. However, since the King of Qin promised all the ministers to treat it with caution, there may be a turnaround."
Zhuge Min said solemnly: "No, there will be no turning point, and if things go wrong this time, I'm afraid there will be a huge thunderbolt."
"Your Excellency is probably worrying too much. It is the duty of the imperial officials to make suggestions. Even if there is a thunderbolt, it should be directed at the Left Imperial Censor Shao Hua."
Shao Hua is in charge of the Censorate, and the censors are attacking him. Logically, Qin Mu should vent his anger on Shao Hua first, but is it really that simple
The sky outside the window gradually darkened. The dim light reflected on Zhuge Min's face, which was faintly purple and blue, making his tense face even darker. He leaned back in the armchair and said in a deep voice: "You don't know that when such a big storm was set off in the court, the King of Qin did not summon the cabinet ministers to discuss countermeasures, but instead summoned Liu Boquan, Xu Yingjie, Yang Shen, and Song Yingxing to meet him. There is a lot of mystery in this."
After hearing this, Li Qingshang's hand that was stroking his beard trembled and he almost tore his beard off. His face instantly became solemn. At this time, the King of Qin summoned the ministers instead of the cabinet. Did he become suspicious of the cabinet ministers
"Lord, according to what you said, the one who opposed most fiercely in the Imperial Study that day was Sima An. Could it be that the King of Qin was dissatisfied with Sima An, so he abandoned the cabinet and summoned the ministers?" Li Qingshang said with the last glimmer of hope.
Zhuge Min sipped his tea slowly. He hoped that this was the case, but it was just a hope. With his political sense, he could sense that things were not that simple.
This time I wanted to direct the blame on Sima An, but I didn't expect things to turn out like this just after I took the first step. I might end up losing more than I gain.
Thinking of this, Zhuge Min's eyelids could not help but twitch, and he hurriedly said to Li Qingshang: "Go immediately and send Huang Mengliang and Qian Chen away, and let them leave the capital as far as possible... Wait. You can't go by yourself, just send someone insignificant. Also, from today on, the house will be closed to visitors. As for Du Yinxi at the Imperial College, let him make as much trouble as he wants."
"Yes, I'll do it right away."
***
In the imperial study, candles were already lit, and Qin Mu had some snacks brought in. After everyone had some snacks with hot tea, they continued their discussion.
On how to solve the problem of manpower, Song Yingxing, Yang Shen, Liu Boquan and Xu Yingjie remained silent.
There is manpower. Due to the war, there are many people who have lost their families and relatives and are lonely and helpless. Women make up the majority of them, which makes them suitable for working in the textile industry.
The problem was that Qin Mu wanted to build a large-scale intensive textile factory, not a small one run by individual households. If anyone proposed to gather so many women in the factory, it would violate the moral norms that women should abide by and would most likely attract attacks from the imperial censors.
Qin Mu didn't force them. Let them take responsibility for it themselves and do it first.
Qin Mu insisted on building a large textile factory, naturally wanting to see if he could use the opportunity to promote an industrial revolution.
According to Yang Shen, the Songjiang Prefecture Chronicle clearly states that in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the Songjiang Prefecture alone sold as many as 150,000 pieces of Songjiang cloth every day, while the country produced about 600 million pieces of cloth each year, with a total value of 100 million taels of silver. More than half of them were sold as commodities in the market.
In other words, the gold and silver trading volume generated by cotton cloth alone in the Ming Dynasty reached more than 50 million taels per year. This is an astonishing output, 6 times greater than the output during the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
As we all know, the first industrial revolution in Britain started with the textile industry.
So why didn't the Industrial Revolution occur in the Ming Dynasty, whose production capacity was six times larger than that of Britain
Qin Mu personally believes that the key lies in the fact that although the output of cotton cloth in the Ming Dynasty was large, it was mainly produced by individual households in a scattered manner. This is a typical small peasant economy model. It did not form intensive enterprise production and could not give birth to the Industrial Revolution.
According to Yang Shen, the people in the four counties of Songjiang Prefecture, apart from farming, mainly engaged in spinning and weaving. Most families had a spinning and weaving machine, a chariot, a bow, and a spinning and weaving machine.
Villagers go to the market to buy cotton, and then return to the women to weave. They work here all day, even those in their sixties and seventies. Some people finish spinning at night and make cloth in the morning, which is called cockcrow cloth. When there is no farming season, men, women, old and young work together, weaving by firelight, day and night.
Perhaps this is exactly what Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born as a peasant, pursued: men work in the fields, women work in the weaving fields, and the families have enough food and clothing. Everyone is content with what is in front of them, never leaving their hometowns, and never interacting with each other until they die. They are like grass in the countryside, growing and dying on their own. The empire will thus last for hundreds of generations, for thousands of years...
And this concept of Zhu Yuanzhang is exactly what Qin Mu must break.
Intensive enterprise production, the most important technology, in terms of textile technology, Yang Shen and Song Yingxing both have in-depth knowledge. When Qin Mu asked about it, Yang Shen replied: "The cotton ginning machine used by the people of Songjiang now only needs one person to crank, pedal and feed it. It can gin 10 kilograms of seed cotton and 3 kilograms of lint cotton every day, which is three times higher than that in the early Ming Dynasty.
In terms of fluffing and loosening cotton, the bow is made of wood and the string is made of wax silk. It is about five feet long, round and sharp at the top and wide at the bottom. The string is as thick as a five-strand thread. It is placed in the bow flower and hit with a hammer. The efficiency is several times higher than before.
As far as Qin Mu knew, textile production could be roughly divided into four steps: cotton seed ginning, cotton fluffing, spinning, and weaving.
The most time-consuming process should be the spinning process, which requires spinning balls of cotton into thin threads. Just imagine how much yarn is needed to weave a piece of cloth.
So he immediately asked, "How efficient is the spinning wheel now?"
"Replying to the King of Qin, since Huang Daopo's improvement, the spinning wheel currently used by the people has at most four spindles. As for looms, there are three-solo, five-solo, seven-solo and other different looms."
Yang Shen's explanation was rather brief, but through his explanation, Qin Mu also had a general understanding, which he was definitely not satisfied with.
He said to Han Zanzhou: "In the next issue of the Daqin Times, we will publish a reward announcement. No matter who can improve the spinning wheel, if he can spin one more spindle of yarn, he will be rewarded with 1,000 taels of silver. If he can spin two more spindles of yarn, he will be rewarded with 2,000 taels of silver. And so on. There is no upper limit. For the cotton-binding machine, the cotton-spinning bow, and the loom, anyone who can make major improvements will also be rewarded with 1,000 taels of silver."
Han Zanzhou quickly responded: "I obey your order."
As the saying goes, when there is a big reward, there are brave men.
Qin Mu didn't believe it. He offered such a huge reward and made everyone in the Qin Dynasty rack their brains to find that they were no match for Jenny.
As for the government-run weaving bureau, the five people discussed for a long time until they had decided on the general rules and regulations and then dispersed.
It was already early in the morning, the moon was rising in the east, and its light was shining brightly on the ground.
After seeing off Yang Shen and the other three, Qin Mu stood under the eaves of the imperial study, looking at the moonlight all over the floor, and said to Li Shi behind him: "Li Shi, tell me, how many undercurrents are surging in the shadow of this moonlight?"
"King Qin, I don't know this. I only know that the night is the darkest."
"Haha..." Qin Mulang laughed a few times, and all the anger in his chest was released. Someone crossed the line this time, someone crossed the line.
I can give you freedom of speech, but I will not tolerate inciting public opinion for personal gain.
"Okay, take a rest. Report any new developments to me at any time."
"Yes, King Qin."
A gust of night wind blows, and the spring is still chilly. Well, let the wind blow for a while, it would be best if all the grass buds are blown out.
Qin Mu flicked his sleeves lightly, turned around and went back to the back garden, leaving the ground covered with moonlight that looked like frost and snow.
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ps: It has been raining heavily with thunder and lightning these days. There will be power outages in this kind of weather. There is nothing I can do. I just got a call and the upload is late. Sorry, sorry.
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.(To be continued..)
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