Han Shizu

Chapter 2196 Renzong Chapter 13 The Imperial Cotton
About sixty years ago, during the reign of Emperor Taizong, a war broke out between the northern and southern merchant groups in the Han Empire, which lasted for years. The cotton industry, which was already quite large at the time, served as the battlefield.

It was the first organized and large-scale commercial war in the empire's business world, with wide-ranging consequences and far-reaching impacts. Although it was initially initiated by only some large cotton cloth merchants, as time went on, many stakeholders in the cotton industry were gradually involved.

During the long-term struggle, the entire cotton market was in chaos, affecting everyone from cotton merchants to cotton workers to cotton farmers. It was a major impact on people's livelihood and there was even a tendency for the situation to spread.

At the same time, the business conflicts in the Han Empire were always bloody, because of the open and covert struggles between the northern and southern merchant gangs, there were many casualties, and large-scale armed fights broke out one after another.

Later, the local government could no longer suppress the situation, and the imperial court took over. Under the severe reprimand and supervision of Emperor Taizong, the imperial court struck back with strong measures, even dispatching garrison troops, before it restored order, calmed the incident, and got the situation back on track.

On the surface, the North-South Cotton Cloth War was caused by the fact that northern cotton merchants felt threatened by the rise of the southern cotton industry, and they resorted to some extraordinary means to curb the development of the southern cotton market, especially to prevent the "audacious" actions of some southern cotton merchants who dared to openly sell southern cloth to the north and steal food from their bowls.

Under the instigation of some big cotton merchants in the north, a major purge was carried out against the "Southern Cotton" forces heading north, and they began by inhumanely destroying them with extremely cruel means.

Whether it was employees in public, spokespeople who were secretly supported, or many partners, they were all attacked, either openly or secretly. Cargo yards and cargo ships were attacked, and cotton products were looted and burned.
The cotton merchants in the south were not kind people. When the northerners showed their knives, they also rose up to resist. When the north was corrupt, they would look for trouble with the northern merchants in the southeast. Thus, a truly cruel war began.

For ordinary people, it is like seeing flowers in the fog. Even if ordinary people are close, they can only see where there is a flood, where a boat accident occurred, and where a fight broke out. Yes, no matter how big the incident is, no matter how many people die, in many government handling, it is just treated as a general "civilian fight", and once the bodies are dealt with, everything is peaceful.

Obviously, it is impossible for a few businessmen to start a business fight of this scale. They do not have the energy or the courage. Behind the scenes, there are obviously more powerful people who are wrestling with each other.

At the same time, it is not ruled out that there was a "North-South dispute" that ran through several generations of the empire's history. Behind the northern cotton merchants' attack on the southern cotton merchants was the suppression of the southern powerful bureaucrats by the northern dignitaries who controlled the general situation of the empire.

It is also for this reason that in the final aftermath, not only the cotton merchants directly involved in the incident in the North and the South were severely punished. Under the rule of law and power of the court, their families and property were destroyed. In the imperial bureaucracy, all officials who were found to be involved in inaction or misconduct were demoted.

Of course, those who were willing to be slaves and directly involved in it were not just demoted and dismissed from office. Even among the upper class dignitaries, many people were warned and punished, with salary cuts, dismissal, beheadings, and even stripping of their titles.

Although Taizong was known for his benevolence, it was only because he valued rules. Once someone crossed the line, his methods were not gentle at all. This was one of the few "harsh laws" during the Yongxi reign. It was precisely because of this example that other restless dignitaries and erratic merchants became alert and did not dare to act too recklessly.

The North-South Cotton Cloth War more than 60 years ago was of great significance. It was a major reshuffle related to the development of the cotton industry. Many big merchants who were once famous fell. Of course, they were not irreplaceable. Newcomers rose up again. Profits are emotionless and do not recognize people.

In fact, the North had the upper hand in both the process and the outcome of that war. After all, the Central Plains and Hebei were where the imperial cotton industry truly rose and grew. They had a richer foundation, a larger scale, and more resources. At the same time, they had the support of a large number of powerful people in the court, and had a greater political advantage.

Therefore, the industries and channels that the southern cotton merchants had worked hard to build in the north eventually went down the drain. After that, "the southerners dared not go north" and could only cultivate the southern market with all their heart, consolidate their foundation, and expand overseas at the same time.

It lay dormant for more than a decade before they dared to bring up the idea of ​​going north again. In the past thirty or forty years, fierce struggles have always existed, but they have never been as intense as the one during the Yongxi reign.

Now, more than 60 years later, three generations have grown up, and the cotton industry has undergone new changes.

First of all, political discrimination has been basically eliminated. The complete rise of commoner bureaucrats, the development of civil service politics, the confluence of the powerful class, the rise of the southeastern economy and the improvement of political status have made the imperial politics increasingly balanced and conservative. There is no longer a situation where one trend completely overwhelms another.

This is also a continuously beneficial process for the development and growth of the southern cotton industry.

As for the cotton industry itself, the scale of the cotton industry in the 21st year of Zhengtong was more than ten times larger than that of the Yongxi era. The population engaged in cotton textile alone exceeded one million, not to mention those involved in planting, transportation, sales and other links.

In Shanghai alone, there were more than 100,000 cotton textile workers, including large professional factories (official textile mills), government-supervised and business-run factories, large private factories, folk workshops of varying sizes, and many more part-time workers from small citizen families, who together gave rise to the prosperity of Shanghai's cotton textile industry.

Since its founding, Shanghai has always been the cotton textile and trade center of the southern empire. Seventy years later, this status has not only not been shaken, but has become even more stable.

Not only the surrounding Suzhou and Xiuzhou, but also the entire Jiangnan Road, and even the cotton from Jiangxi, Huguang, Fujian, and Guangdong, all became the raw materials for Shanghai cotton textiles. It was not realistic to rely solely on Shanghai cotton cloth to meet the clothing needs of the people of the world, but it did occupy half of the empire's cotton industry.

Such a great development is naturally inseparable from the advancement of technology, whether it is cotton planting or cotton textile processing. Especially in the latter, in the past thirty years, the empire's cotton textile technology has undergone another round of innovation, mainly reflected in cotton textile tools.

Based on Zhou's (Zhou Renjun, who took the lead in promoting the great leap forward in the empire's cotton textile technology) equipment, cotton pulverizers and flying shuttle looms were built, and Shanghai was also the source of this round of technological innovation.

Twenty years ago, a Huaixi cotton merchant named Bi Sheng invented a three-spindle spinning machine, and later improved it into a five-spindle machine and a seven-spindle machine, greatly improving the spinning efficiency, thus giving rise to the real prosperity of the imperial cotton industry.

Although cotton clothing has not yet been fully popularized in the empire, on an overall scale, it has replaced traditional silk and linen and become the main source of clothing for the empire's scholars and common people.

Of course, the linen market is declining, but silk, aristocratic clothing, is still very prosperous and is a completely different market from cotton.

With the innovation of cotton textile technology in the South, the North gradually failed to keep up with the pace, and the strong and weak situation between the North and the South was fundamentally reversed.