The husband is the future chief [infrastructure]

Now Jiang Ziyan has about 180 mu of land in his hands. He inspected several villages near Lin'an City and found that the price of rice here is not usually high, almost catching up with the price of grain in the capital.

After thinking about it for a while, Jiang Ziyan understood that the soil quality here is not good, which is not very suitable for growing grain, and the shortage of supply will lead to an increase in grain prices.

The rich man in the city, Mr. Qian, owns the largest grain store, so how can he not be rich by relying on this.

The land in Lin'an is all dry land, and the crops can only grow wheat. There are two crops a year, which are divided into winter wheat and spring wheat.In addition, most of them grow more red dates and beans, but less cotton.

Jiang Ziyan understands that the price of rice is higher here, but the price of wheat is high, and a large part of it is due to the joint speculation of a few wealthy households in the city. They are the largest landlords in various places, and most of the wheat they harvest is Hoarding it up and selling it at a high price made it very difficult for the common people, especially the tenants without land.

Jiang Ziyan thought about it, and decided to divide the fields in his hands into two types, one for spring wheat in spring, and winter wheat for cotton.In the other category, some are suitable for growing tea for tea fields, and the other part is for miscellaneous planting, such as red dates, soybeans, sugarcane, etc., including fruit trees. As long as these are planted, he can sell them.

In this way, the output of wheat should be much lower. Before launching these plans, Jiang Ziyan must ensure that the tenants can have food to eat and can make money on the basis of having a full stomach. Otherwise, even if they earn more money, the price of grain It's so expensive, you can't buy much rice grain at all.

So Jiang Ziyan discussed with Lin Zhao and planned to open a rice grain store in the city, but the rice grain market is almost monopolized by a few rich households in the city. Without the support of Lin Zhao, the county magistrate, it might not be able to open. stand up.

Lin Zhao was also thinking about this thorny issue. Either he could think of a middle way to lower the price of the rice grain industry in Lin'an City, or he could support a rice grain ♂ style shop to break their monopoly status quo.

But no matter what, it is very difficult to implement it.

If Jiang Ziyan opened a rice store, and the price was lower than other rice stores, then there must be people scrambling to buy in the store. Even if there is a purchase limit, everyone can't help but come here to buy, and the inventory is simply not enough.

After the rice in his shop is sold out, the remaining rice shops will continue to operate at high prices, which will not have any restraint effect at all.

This method will not work either. Although the price of rice in this era is not set randomly, it also depends on the wishes of local officials.

It has always been to please officials to agree to their price increases. If Lin Zhao forces them to lower prices, I am afraid that they will come up with other moths if they are unwilling.

Thinking about it in this way seems to be walking into a dead end that doesn't work.

Jiang Ziyan changed his angle, and said to Lin Zhao, "Why don't we let them lower the price for the time being, let's continue to open rice and grain shops, and the price per catty is only one penny lower than theirs. At the same time, relying on kapok, sugar cane, cement, etc. The income of the people, so that they can have enough money to buy more food."

Lin Zhao understood what he meant, "It's impossible for them to raise the price. The rice store you opened is competing with them. On the other hand, ordinary people earn more and buy more rice. As time goes on, they will definitely lose a lot, and they should reduce the price compared to your rice store. This is indeed a good idea."

It has to be said that Jiang Ziyan is more flexible than business minded.

The two agreed on a plan and began to implement it separately.

Now it is September, and the cement road is almost repaired, and the winter wheat is harvested at about this time. After harvesting this season's winter wheat, Jiang Ziyan can decide to replant the field he bought.

Jiang Ziyan personally went to the village where the tenants were. After all, he was the new owner, and the crops to be planted next season would no longer be wheat. If he didn't comfort him, no tenants would be willing to come and rent.

Jiang Ziyan talked about the situation of kapok, listing all the benefits, and the share was not calculated according to the actual amount of cotton.

Different from wheat planting, the wheat planted every year is divided into [-]-[-]%, [-]% of the wheat goes to the tenants, and [-]% of the wheat goes to the landlord.

As long as Jiang Ziyan promised them that the profit converted into silver was more than the usual [-]% of the wheat, these farmers were still willing to rent and plant.

Most importantly, Jiang Ziyan promised that as long as the farmers are willing to rent and plant his land, no matter what they plant, the seeds will be distributed free of charge, and the farmers do not need to buy them themselves.

Although this is a great temptation for farmers, many people still don't believe it.

Usually, when they rent other people's land, they basically grow wheat. The price of wheat is not low. At the beginning, the owner also said that the seeds were distributed for free.However, when it was time to sow the seeds, they came to the door and asked for the seeds to be pushed and blocked. Seeing that the good time for sowing was about to pass, the tenants even paid part of the money themselves.

This time Jiang Ziyan said that no matter what kind of seeds are planted in the fields, they will be distributed for free.The prices of these seeds vary. Like cotton, one of the reasons why few people grow here is that the seeds are more expensive.

Jiang Ziyan publicized it in several villages near the purchased field, saying that if anyone is willing, he can go to the cement factory to sign a lease contract, that is, a contract. If they are not at ease, they can also include the free distribution of seeds in the contract inside.

This guarantee made the farmers very excited.

At the beginning, no one went to sign up. A day later, a young man in the village couldn't resist the temptation to sign up, and got the signed contract on the same day.

One person tried it, and then more and more people followed to sign up, and found that what Jiang Ziyan said was true. If there was no wheat in the field, they would pay [-] to [-]% of the harvest.

It was [-]% more income than they used to respect other people's land. A few days later, Jiang Ziyan recruited many tenants to work.

He had bought land before when he was in Qingping Town, and he was already very experienced in the process.

He still has the blueprints of the flails he drew at that time, so he asked carpenters to make more and sold them in various places. The price is not high, but it saves farmers a lot of effort.

Before the busy harvest, the concrete road was finally completed.

This is an east-west road, starting from the vicinity of Dahe Town in Lin'an County in the west. Heifeng Village belongs to Dahe Town, and the cement factory is located in this area.From the east to the western suburbs of the capital, it is very close to the west gate of the capital, which means that it will be very convenient to transport goods from Lin'an to the capital in the future.

It's just that after changing to a concrete road, riding a horse may be a bit difficult.

After the cement road was completed, Lin Zhao immediately wrote a note and sent it to the emperor.

The emperor often made private visits in a low-clothes suit, and he went to the Tongwen Museum during the last scientific examination. This time, he saw Lin Zhao saying that the concrete road had been repaired in the brochure.

Looking at the past, the concrete road is a little whitish, and the ground is hard and flat.He sat on the carriage and walked on the concrete road for a while, and found that there was no feeling of bumps at all, it was smooth and the speed was much faster.

The emperor was very happy and immediately praised Lin Zhao and everyone.

Lin Zhao also mentioned on the table that a house can be built with cement as a material. The walls built are very hard, and the house is tidy and windproof, and it has miraculous effects even when encountering earthquakes.

This made the emperor very excited, and ordered the Ministry of Industry to vigorously promote this kind of cement. All the main official roads, especially those leading to important areas, should be built with cement.

Now the cement road from Lin'an to the capital has been built, which can not help but give great convenience to businessmen who do business between the two places.

It used to take a day's journey, but now it has been shortened by half, and it only takes half a day to get there.

Jiang Ziyan had previously bought all the shops on a remote street in Lin'an City. Many of these shops had been listed for sale, so Jiang Ziyan simply bought them all.

Since we want to develop, we need to bring forth the new through the old. This row of houses is located in a remote location, so it is better to make a good plan and open a row of small workshops.

The kapok can be sold, or it can be processed and woven by itself. It is absolutely possible to introduce technology and open a textile factory here.

In addition to weaving some fine cloth, you can also invite people to make clothes.There are very few ready-to-wear styles in this era. Jiang Ziyan flipped through the introduction of the chapter on clothing in the encyclopedia, and with his own sketching skills, he was able to draw a few ready-to-wear patterns.

Batches of ready-made garments produced can be sold to the capital, but it is necessary to borrow the power of Prince Rong's Mansion.

There is no ready-made clothing store under his name, but the Rongwang Mansion has a big business, so there should be a ready-made clothing store, and the newly made samples can be sold in the shop of the Rongwang Mansion.

Jiang Ziyan's planning is very perfect, the first step is to plant cotton.

The second step is to transform the row of shops in Lin'an City.

With so much cotton, it is not necessary to make cotton clothes and quilts, and fabrics can be produced first.Like the multi-threaded yarns he had seen in his previous life, they were all spun with cotton.

He doesn't know much about the textile industry, and Jiangnan's manufacturing industry is well developed, so he can ask Zhu Bingliang for help.

Since he arrived in the capital, he has been in constant contact with Zhu Bingliang.It's just that the two of them are far apart, and the letters they communicate with each other take more than half a month to be received, so the communication is not very frequent.

Zhu Bingliang would often write to him to ask him some business opinions, and he appropriately gave some of his own opinions based on the business methods he saw in his previous life, which made the friendship between the two of them deeper.

This time he wrote a letter to Zhu Bingliangxing about the textile industry, seeking his help.

Although most of the manufacturing industry in Jiangnan is worth brocades, all silk is used, but the method of weaving is similar.

With Zhu Bingliang's suggestion, Jiang Ziyan invited several weaving girls who were good at manufacturing to explain to them the weaving principles of multiple yarns and other yarns and cloths.

Cotton needs to be twisted into threads first, but most of them are twisted into single threads, twisted into multiple threads for weaving, which is more wear-resistant than single threads and more resilient.

Most of the fabrics worn by farmers today are made of single thread, which has poor toughness. If you are not careful, a piece will be torn off if it is caught somewhere, so the clothes on ancient people often have patches.

But if multiple yarns are used to make the fabric, it will be more wear-resistant and stronger.

When it is dyed with various colors, it will become a better cotton cloth, which is perfect for making ready-made clothes.

In the past few days, Jiang Ziyan ran to Anxi Street in the city almost every morning, which was the street where she bought this row of shops.

Bought this sluggish street and almost spent all the money she had brought.

Fortunately, there is still a winery in operation in the city, and the business of the winery has been very good since it opened.

Especially after the cement road was repaired, the horse-drawn carriages transporting wine to and fro became more stable, which greatly reduced the bumps of the porcelain jars containing wine.

I don’t know how many quilts were stuffed under it when it was transported before, because I was afraid that if it was bumped and smashed on the road, all the wine would be spilled.

As long as the horse-drawn carriage does not drive too fast on such a smooth road, there is almost no damage to the wine bottle.

Mrs. Zhang, who was helped by Jiang Ziyan before, has been working in the winery for a month, and her daily job is to make drinks for those who come to buy wine.

Most of the wine in the wine shop is loose wine. No matter whether you have money or not, as long as you are addicted to alcohol, you will come to fill a pot and drink it for a day or two.

Most of the wine contained in the exquisitely carved porcelain bottles on the shelf inside was bought by wealthy households in the city. Although the price is expensive, they are not short of that little money.

Relying on the money earned from this wine shop, Jiang Ziyan still has some net income in his hand for emergency.

Jiang Ziyan counted the shops on this street, and there were about twenty of them. He asked someone to punch out a door in the middle wall of some of them to make small workshops connected to each other.

Several weaving girls with better crafts nearby were invited to teach the craft of weaving and making clothes.

However, there are conditions. Only younger students are accepted as apprentices. This kind of student learns quickly.Moreover, during the apprenticeship period, he was only given [-] Wen a month, and he was in charge of food and housing, and all the things for learning to spin were provided by the workshop.

After you finish your studies, you have to work in the weaving workshop here. You will be given official work clothes, and you will be paid monthly. As long as you don’t steal or play tricks, this will be a good job to support your family.

It's just that the preparation in the early stage takes a lot of time, energy, and money.Jiang Ziyan, the weaver girl who was in charge of teaching, spent a lot of money, especially those experienced and elderly masters, who paid even more generously.

After more than a month of tossing, the textile factory is finally ready.The master craftsmen have also mastered the method of multiple yarns, and the next step is to recruit apprentices.

However, during the preparation period, several tenants came to talk about the seeds, and Jiang Ziyan remembered that it was time to plant crops.

So he quickly ordered Xiao Zhong to purchase seeds, to buy those of good quality, and then let the tenants come to pick them up.

The tenants were very happy when they received the seeds after three days.Although it was a bit late, all the seeds were distributed in place anyway.

Most of the land where cotton is grown in winter, when the cotton is harvested, it can supply fresh cotton for weaving and spinning, which can be used to weave cloth and make clothes.

Now that the first batch of today's cotton has not come down, Jiang Ziyan can only buy excess cotton from farmers first.

A catty of cotton is purchased for five hundred cash, which is similar to the purchase price on the market, and it is purchased in large quantities, that is, as much as there is.

There are not many cotton growers, and every household's cotton, except for making some cotton clothes and quilts for themselves, sells almost all the rest to the cotton collectors in the town.

Moreover, the price received in the town is extremely low, but when someone else wants to buy cotton, the price is very high.

So in the countryside, if anyone needs cotton, they can go to the cotton planter and ask, and if they have extra cotton, they can buy some.

This time, Jiang Ziyan did not ask people to go to the village to publicize the matter of cotton harvesting, but asked people to talk about it at the cement factory. There are many workers working in the cement factory now. After telling them, let them go home and tell the villagers , save trouble and achieve twice the result with half the effort.

So the villagers who worked in the cement factory came home and asked everyone they met if they had much cotton at home. The owner of the cement factory said that they would collect cotton, and bought it at five hundred cash per catty.

However, although the price of [-] Wen per catty is very high, what you want is clean cotton that has been seeded and dried. There is a big bag of ten catties of cotton, which is enough to make several beddings.

There is still cotton at home that has not been sold, and this time it is all worth it. It only costs [-] Wen per catty when sold in the town, but it can earn an extra [-] Wen per catty when sold to the cement factory, which is quite a big difference.

Heifeng Village, the old Wang's family at the head of the village.

Lao Wang's eldest son, Wang Shitou, works in the cement factory, earning more than one or two taels of silver a month, and also takes care of lunch at noon.Wang Shitou has deep feelings for this cement factory. If anyone dares to say that the cement factory is not good at all, he will be in a hurry with anyone. He is a loyal employee of the cement factory.

The cement factory is not so easy to enter now, and the staff has become saturated and no longer recruits.Now those who were only skeptical at the time and did not sign up to go, regret it in their hearts.

Whenever he heard someone say that someone was working in a cement factory, Wang Shitou would be honored.

This time, the steward of the cement factory said that his boss wanted to buy cotton. When he got home at night, he hurriedly told his father about it.

However, their family grows very little cotton, and the cotton they pick is only enough to make quilts and cotton clothes for the family, so they can save money and buy them.

Wang Shitou's father took a puff of dry tobacco, squatted on the edge of the door and couldn't help asking: "Shitou, do you think your boss will still collect cotton next year?"

Wang Shitou turned to look at his father, picked up the last bucket of water, and said, "I don't know about this, the housekeeper didn't say anything, anyway, it's being collected now."

After thinking for a while, he asked again: "What's the matter, Dad, maybe you want to stop planting winter wheat this year and plant cotton instead?"

His father slowly exhaled a puff of smoke, and said: "Tomorrow I will go to your sister's place to see if there is any surplus cotton in her house. At that time, taking advantage of the high price of cotton harvested, let her sell it."

Wang Shitou's younger sister married to another village last year, which is a village away from theirs. It's not too far away, but the road is not easy to walk.

Upon hearing this, Wang Shitou said, "No need, Dad, you don't need to make a special trip, Second Sister, there are also people working in our village in that village, and everyone must have gone home to tell the news."

Old Wang nodded, "You're right, your sister must know about it too."

"Father, don't worry, wait until I go to work in the cement factory tomorrow, and then ask about it and see what the owner wants to do when he wants to collect cotton. If we collect cotton next year, we will also grow more cotton."

"Yes, Shitou, you should ask more carefully tomorrow. Winter wheat will be planted soon, so hurry up and find out."

"Father, I know about this. Don't worry about planting this winter wheat. Wait until I ask you clearly tomorrow."

Old Wangtou is not so obsessed with the matter of growing wheat, as long as the wheat grown in the few acres of land in the family is enough to eat, and the leftover wheat is sold for money every year and saved.

Their family is not a tenant, and the fields are all their own, so they have no such idea of ​​leaving more wheat.

On the contrary, if only spring wheat is grown, the harvest of light spring wheat is enough for a family to eat.Then the winter wheat can be grown into cotton. Now, the purchase price of cotton is so high, Old Wang is very excited.

The next day, Wang Shishi went to work in the cement factory early, and worked in the workshop for most of the day. It was time for lunch near noon, and everyone went to the cafeteria to eat.

The meals in the cafeteria are all big pots of rice, noodles and pancakes plus pots of vegetables, and rice is rarely eaten for people, but the amount is enough to keep them full.Everyone brings their own bowls and chopsticks. After eating, they wash the dishes and put them away for the next day.

Wang Shitou took his own bowls and chopsticks and quickly went to make a meal and came back. This time, he didn't eat with his fellow workers in the workshop, but joined the few people who walked close to the manager.

There were a few slices of meat in today's meal, and Wang Shitou was very good at dealing with people. He picked out the few slices of meat in the bowl and gave them to a big brother next to him.

The worker was eating, and seeing two more slices of meat suddenly added to the bowl, he grinned and praised Wang Shitou for being sensible.

Wang Shitou took a few mouthfuls of rice, pretending to be casual and said: "I went back and asked my father yesterday. Our family has no extra cotton. I would have saved more cotton if I knew it. If they are sold, the price will be even lower, and they will all be sold to Zhou Zhou Papi in the town. But now, it is a hundred cash less per catty.”

His words immediately resonated with several workers nearby.

"Who says it's not? My family grows a lot of cotton. Go out and keep some for yourself, and let my mother sell the rest."

"So is our family."

"It would be nice if we waited a little longer. Our house was sold just the day before yesterday. Do you think it's a loss?"

Seeing that everyone was talking about this, it was a pity that there was no extra cotton in the house. Wang Shitou said in a timely manner: "I don't know what the boss is doing to collect cotton at this time. It will be fine if I collect it next year. I appointed my father Various points."

"That's right, you said that cotton is only harvested at this time, who knows what it will be used for."

The man who was called Brother Han just said in a low voice: "I don't know exactly what to do, but last time I heard from the steward that the owner intends to open a weaving and spinning in the city, and I don't know about the others."

At this time, some relatives and people with good knowledge of the gossip came over and whispered: "I know a little bit about this. I have a cousin who helps grind tofu at the first tofu shop in the city. Last time I heard him go home, the east of the city Mr. Jiang, who is the owner of our cement house, is preparing to start weaving and spinning, which requires a lot of cotton, and I heard that he has invited a master with a relatively good memory."

"Then why did you invite the master?"

"Oh, you are stupid, weaving and spinning must be for weaving!"

When Wang Shitou heard this, his mind moved. Since he wanted to weave textiles, he would need a lot of cotton.And it's not only needed now, if the business is doing well, I'm afraid it will be needed every year.

Where there are a lot of people, there is a lot of news. At this time, someone said: "I heard that this year in Xifeng Village, the one who rented other people's land received a lot of cotton seeds this year. My cousin's uncle's second daughter is in that village. I heard from her that their family changed owners this year, who do you think rented the land?"

"Whose family?"

"It belongs to the owner of our cement factory!"

"Is this true? Could it be you bragging? Our boss is too rich, isn't he? Not only has he opened a cement factory, but now he has to toss about a textile factory, and bought land, bragging It’s not like you’re bragging about it.”

When the man saw that he was refuted, he couldn't help being anxious, and said, "Who the hell is bragging to you? What I said is true, okay? If you don't believe me, go to Xifeng Village and ask, the one near their village A piece of rented land is now the property of Young Master Jiang."

Seeing that what he said so swearingly was serious, everyone began to believe him a little bit.

Wang Shitou heard many versions of rumors among the crowd, and when he got home that night, he said to Old Wangtou, "Dad, don't plant winter wheat this year, let's plant cotton instead!"

The old Wangtou was still smoking the dry tobacco, puffing out smoke rings, and asked, "Why, what did you find out?"

Wang Shitou told the old Wangtou all the things he inquired today that he felt were somewhat credible.

After he finished speaking, he continued: "Although the land is not expensive, it is not easy to buy floating land. Our boss probably won't be able to buy more land if he has money, so maybe he doesn't have enough cotton at all."

"We will replace all the winter wheat with cotton this year, and sell the cotton to textile factories next year. Several people in our factory have said that there is a street in the city that is undergoing drastic renovations, just to build some kind of textile factory."

"Father, if you think about it, how good my cement factory is now, you can imagine how good my textile factory will be in the future. Our boss is very good at doing business, and following him will definitely make a profit."

Before the old Wangtou could speak, Wang Shitou's mother came out.

She heard what they said just now, and now she came out and asked half-believingly: "Shitou, is what you said just now true? Your boss will still collect cotton next year?"

Wang Shitou said nothing, waiting for his father to answer.

After the old Wang finished smoking the rubbing cigarette, he stood up and said, "Don't plant winter wheat, let's plant cotton."

Wang Shitou looked excited, as if he had found some secret to making a fortune and was recognized tomorrow.

Only then did he say to his old lady: "Mom, I'll listen to my father on this matter first, and plant cotton first. If the owner doesn't accept cotton next year, wait until the second half of next year to plant winter wheat. Anyway, it's all about selling money." , and can’t lose a few dollars.”

When Wang Shitou's mother saw that the shopkeeper had spoken, she couldn't object, so she had to say hello.

The matters in the crop field are generally decided by the men in the family, and they will plant whatever the men in the family say.

The other families in the same village are not as decisive as Wang Shitou's family. After all, the rumors are just rumors and have not been confirmed. They are all hesitant and dare not make up their minds.

These days are the days for planting winter wheat. Wang Shitou noticed that there were not many people in the village who replaced winter wheat with cotton.

Catch up with the busy farming season, the number of people working in the cement plant is also much less.Wages are paid on a daily basis, and one day less work means less wages, so the young people in the crop fields all work hard.

There are even some fathers and mothers in the family who take on a lot of work and ask their sons to go to work in the factory as soon as they finish the crop work.