My life skills in Daming Liver

In Nanjing, Su Ze rarely left the Governor's Office and came to the cabinet to attend a meeting.

What can allow Su Ze to go to the cabinet is naturally a major event related to the development of the southeast.

Fang Wanghai, who rushed back from Fujian, was reading statistics from the Ministry of Household Affairs.

"The steel produced by the government-run iron plants accounts for more than 70% of the steel output in the southeast of our country, but the profits are generally lower than that of private iron plants. The reason is that the labor costs of the government-run iron plants are high, and most of the products are sold to the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of War at a low price. and the Navy, product margins are also low.”

"The civilian products produced by government-run iron plants are generally less competitive, especially in the overseas trade part. The share of private iron plants is rising."

The report in Fang Wanghai's hand took officials from the Ministry of Revenue a month to compile.

In the era before electronic computers, these data were all typed out through abacus.

In Su Ze's opinion, this data is quite rough, and the statistical classification is also very general, but it is already the highest level in this era.

Reality is not a game, and Su Ze's plug-in cannot check reports at any time like some historical simulation games.

These days, in the entire world, except for the southeast, even the Ming Dynasty does not have so many administrative staff who can write and calculate.

Not to mention that the tax package system is still widely used in Europe to collect taxes. These countries do not have any economic statistics capabilities at all.

The Southeast was able to complete these statistics because of the talents accumulated by Fang Wanghai when he was engaged in banknote tariffs in Zhejiang, Zhili Province, and Su Ze's vigorous promotion of arithmetic and the establishment of arithmetic courses in schools at all levels.

But even so, the Ministry of Household Affairs can only count a few economic indicators such as steel, weapons, and cement. This is because these industries are considered "high-tech" industries today, and there are not many factories that can produce them, so the Ministry of Household Affairs can still Ability to make statistics.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development no longer has the ability to collect data on people's livelihood industries such as cotton, silk, and glass, and can only estimate import and export volumes through data from the Municipal Shipping Department.

Su Ze's request for these data from the Ministry of Household Affairs was naturally not a whim.

The southeast controlled by Su Ze is no longer an agricultural country, but an industrial country that is moving towards industrialization.

The roaring steam age is about to arrive, and the steel output in the southeast has doubled in the past six months.

Even Su Ze was frightened by such a terrifying speed of industrialization.

Su Ze, who single-handedly promoted industrialization, did not expect that this express train of industrialization would be so fast, and it would start to advance rapidly along the southeast.

Due to the advanced technology spread by Su Ze, which has brought rapid growth to the production side, some industrial sectors in the southeast now even have overcapacity!

This result was something Su Ze had never thought of, but if you think about it carefully, it turned out to be very reasonable.

In this era where wooden sailing boats are used all over the world, most countries are still fighting with sticks and swords, and some backward areas have not even entered the Iron Age, there is no market for so much steel produced in the Southeast!

To whom will the steel produced by these steel plants in the southeast be sold?

If it weren't for the ongoing construction of the Xuzhou Railway and Susong Railway, which boosted steel consumption, some steel-making furnaces would have stalled.

At this time, Su Ze could only come out of the Metropolitan Governor's Office again and discuss with the cabinet how to deal with the problems in the steel industry.

Even though the cabinet brought together the top people from the entire Southeast, everyone was helpless in facing this problem.

Is this a problem that has never been encountered at home and abroad?

Who would have thought that there would be a surplus of steel?

Who would have thought that the price of a steel hoe today is less than a month's salary of a textile worker! You must know that in the past, the price of a farm tool was worth half of a farmer's net worth. It is not a joke to pass down a hoe to three generations!

Nowadays, the cheap agricultural tools produced by factories have even wiped out the township handicraft industry under the small peasant economy. The rural blacksmiths in Nanzhili united and petitioned the governor in the newspaper to boycott the cheap ironware produced by the factory.

But just three months ago, these rural blacksmiths were cheering for the increasingly lower prices of steel ingots in the southeast, praising the lower and lower raw material costs for increased income.

Today, three months later, blacksmiths engaged in handcrafting in the countryside are about to lose their jobs because of cheap farm tools mass-produced by factories.

These blacksmiths either left their hometowns and worked in workshops with strict rules.

Either they give up their ancestral blacksmith trade and move into the cities to engage in other jobs.

Under such circumstances, rural handicraft blacksmiths began to make their voices heard and published several articles in newspapers describing the tragic situation of bankrupt blacksmiths who were squeezed by factory farm tools.

And Su Ze knows that the blacksmith industry is still a relatively powerful group in the southeast, and they still have the ability to speak out for themselves.

During the rise of the Southeast, many craftsmen became "craftsmen", such as technocrats like Lu Tie and Lu Gang and his son, and many representatives of the Constitutional Assembly were craftsmen.

These people can still make a voice for themselves, which is not always the case in some industries.

These craftsmen demanded a boycott of factory-made farm tools and were unwilling to leave their hometowns to work in factories. This does not mean that these craftsmen were opposed to working in factories.

According to data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, several government-run iron factories outside Nanjing have long queues every time they recruit workers.

But in those private iron factories, these craftsmen were unwilling to go.

The working hours in private ironworks are long, the labor intensity is high, and work safety is not guaranteed, so craftsmen are naturally reluctant to go there.

And it is impossible for government-run workshops to recruit people without restrictions. Fang Wanghai’s report also illustrates the problems faced by government-run workshops, that is, the main income of government-run workshops still comes from official procurement, and they cannot compete with civilian products. Private ironworks.

The current result is that the government-run workshops under the supervision of generals feel that the steel they sell to weapons factories and railway companies is cheap, and that official procurement has led to insufficient profits.

The weapons factory under the General Supervisory Factory and the railway company under the Ministry of Industry felt that they had paid too much.

Fang Wanghai rubbed his eyes and said:

"Actually, the quality of steel produced by government-run iron plants is still the best. Take the track steel used by railway companies as an example. Only government-run iron plants can produce steel of qualified quality. The steel products of private iron plants are all unqualified in terms of quality. "

"But in the civilian field, the quality of products produced by government-run and civilian iron factories is almost the same."

"Blacksmiths in Southern Zhili and Zhejiang have organized federations. They have proposed either banning farm tools produced by iron factories from going to the countryside, or setting up government-run iron factories in various cities and allowing them to find employment in government-run iron factories."

After listening to Fang Wanghai's report, Su Ze looked at General Hu Eunuch and asked:

"What did the general say?"

Eunuch Hu originally did not want to be an official, but he had a good reputation in the industrial system of the southeast, so he was invited by Su Ze to serve as the first general supervisor.

Eunuch Hu, who was originally easy-going and gentle, became increasingly irritable after taking over as general prisoner.

Eunuch Hu blew his white hair and said:

"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"

"It is impossible for the general to continue to set up iron plants. Steel is only effective if it is large-scale. If iron plants are set up in every city, it will be a waste of resources."

"And with so many factories to be set up and so many blacksmiths to be recruited, do we still need to complete the task that the cabinet asked us to balance the balance of payments?"

Eunuch Hu said again:

"The blacksmiths are clamoring for government-run workshops. What about the tailors' boycott of the garment industry a while ago?"

Eunuch Hu reminded Su Ze of what happened a while ago, when hand tailors boycotted garment workshops.

However, professional tailors are mainly concentrated in a few large cities with developed industry and commerce. In vast rural areas, most families still buy their own fabrics to make clothes.

But in big cities such as Suzhou and Hangzhou, more and more women began to work in workshops, and tailors specialized in tailoring clothes appeared.

But what followed was ready-made clothing mass-produced in workshops.

Although the clothes produced by these garment workshops are simple in style and average in quality, they are cheap.

These ready-made garments quickly occupied the city's mid- to low-end market, and also caused some professional tailors who relied on neighborhood business to lose their jobs.

It's just that the voice of tailors is far less loud than that of blacksmiths, and professional tailoring is a profession that has only appeared in recent years, so there has not been a big outcry of protest.

Fang Wanghai frowned and said:

"The supervisor must make ends meet. Aren't the profits of Guangzhou's glass workshops high enough? There are so many iron factories producing day and night. Isn't there no profit at all?"

Eunuch Hu immediately said: "The glass workshop is currently profitable, but the price of glass is also falling. Even foreign merchants can no longer sell glass at high prices."

"The ironworks in Fuzhou have been updating their technology. The ironworks in Fuzhou have just replaced new gear sets and bellows, and the ironmaking towers have to be rebuilt. Investment in this area has been huge."

"It's impossible to break even this year unless all the workshops under the supervision of the general are sold!"

Su Ze cleared his throat and said:

"Government-run workshops cannot be sold, and the Ministry of Household Affairs requires that the goal of balancing the balance of payments for supervision can be postponed for one year."

"The products of some private ironworks are shoddy, with high labor intensity, low remuneration, and no guarantee of safety. These workshop owners have made excessive profits. This is the problem."

"If labor remuneration is not improved, this kind of thing will become more and more common."

Su Ze looked at He Xinyin, who had been silent, and the other person raised his head and said:

"The Ministry of Punishment is already compiling a code on the protection of employees. It has stipulated working hours, safety guarantees and legal treatment. It is planned to be implemented in Nanjing and Susong areas first."

Xu Wei said: "I have read the draft of the code. Will some of the regulations be too harsh? Will this reduce the competitiveness of our southeastern products? Nowadays, new factories are also being built in the north, and trade between Korea and Japan has already begun. Compete with us."

The steel industry in the southeast is still very competitive. The competition Xu Wei mentioned is mainly in the weaving industry.

Since Su Ze had already described the principle of the loom in detail in "Tiangong Kaiwu" back then, the loom itself did not have too high technical barriers.

After Zhang Juzheng took charge of the Ming Dynasty, the new department he attached most importance to was the weaving workshop.

Today, the main producing areas of cotton are also in areas controlled by the Ming court.

The climate in Henan and Hebei is suitable for cotton cultivation, with vast land and sparsely populated areas. They have the largest cotton planting area and are the supply centers of raw materials.

Zhang Juzheng first banned the cotton trade in Dagu and prohibited the Ming court's cotton textile workshops from continuing to resell cotton from the southeast.

Then they banned the export of raw cotton, forcibly collected cotton from Henan and Hebei, and sent it to the cotton cloth workshops of the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, after Zhang Juzheng came to power, he also began to continue to promote the policy of opening up the sea left by Gao Gong, attracting foreign caravans to dock, and at the same time organizing caravans to go to sea.

Among the many commodities exported, the only competitive product of the Northern Ming Dynasty was cotton textile products.

Although the cotton cloth of the Ming Dynasty is still not as competitive as that of the Southeast, the Ming Dynasty still has a unique advantage - North Korea.

As a loyal vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, North Korea was the biological son of the Ming Dynasty.

If a father wants to sell something to his son, the son will naturally accept it.

In addition, cotton cloth also became an important export product of the Ming Dynasty to the northern grasslands.

A large amount of cotton cloth entered the grassland through the tribute market in Jiubian, and was exchanged for war horses and furs from the grassland.

In addition, Zhang Juzheng implemented a whip method, which strengthened the Ming court's control over local taxation and made the Ming court's finances richer.

In addition to exporting cotton cloth, Zhang Juzheng also actively organized merchant ships to export obsolete weapons to Japan.

At this time, the Japanese Kingdom was in the "Warring States" era, and the battles between the major names became fierce.

After the Folangji merchants introduced firearms to the Japanese country, this new type of weapon became more and more popular in the Japanese country.

The Ming Dynasty's workshops can both produce blunderbuss and flange cannons. Although there is still a gap between the safety and stability of firearms from the Southeast and the West, the advantage is that they are large and stable, and they quickly opened up sales in the Japanese country. .

Relying on the cotton trade in North Korea and the northern grasslands, and the firearms trade in Japan, the Ming Dynasty's finances actually improved a lot.

So Zhang Juzheng was preparing to form a new army in two towns in the capital in addition to the three towns in Shandong. At the same time, Zhang Juzheng was also preparing to prepare a navy in Jiaodong, hoping to take back Dengzhou occupied by the southeast and cut off the Dagu Bastion. Supplies at sea, waiting for an opportunity to recover Taku.

All this news was spread to the southeast by the intelligence station in the capital, arousing the vigilance and anxiety of the officials in the southeast.

Xu Wei believed that the Ministry of Punishment's code would further weaken the competitiveness of the textile industry and even affect the military advantage over the Ming court in the north.

Su Ze didn't care about this matter, he said:

"In the long run, our enemy in the southeast is not Ming Ting."

"Perhaps Ming Ting is not worthy of being our opponent. I think no one in any region in the southeast wants to return to Ming Ting's rule."

Everyone smiled. The choice of the Xu family in Songjiang Prefecture has already explained the choice of most people, let alone the people in the southeast whose quality of life has generally improved.

"Our enemy is always within."

"However, strategically we despise the enemy, but tactically we still need to pay attention to our opponents. We still have to put some pressure on Mingting in the direction of Shandong."

"The Governor's Office ordered the 1st Navy Brigade and Xuzhou's 5th Brigade to organize an autumn offensive, which also kept Zhang Juzheng and Li Chengliang busy."

"I will go to Xuzhou in person, and leave Nanjing to the cabinet."