The Prosperous Era of Longwan

Wei Guangde took the letter from Lin Mao and said thank you.

Just as he was about to open it, Lin Mao spoke again: "Master Wei, let's go inside and take a look."

Hearing Lin Mao's words to stop him again, Wei Guangde felt that there was something in the letter that was not good for others to know. This time he did not ignore it, but nodded and said with a smile: "Okay."

"I have to explain some things to Mr. Wei alone. Please allow me to go in with you."

Lin Mao hesitated for a moment and then spoke again.

"Mr. Lin, please."

Although Wei Guangde was curious, he did not ask. Instead, he stood up and reached out sideways to make a gesture of invitation.

Lin Mao naturally did not dare to go forward, but stood beside Wei Guangde with a bow, waiting for Wei Guangde to take a step before following him in.

Wei Guangde took Lin Mao into the courtyard where he lived, and asked Zhang Ji to wait outside. The two people following Lin Mao also stood quietly outside the door, and then they opened the door and entered the house.

"Mr. Lin, please sit down."

Wei Guangde smiled and sat down at the front seat. He ignored Lin Mao and picked up the envelope of the letter from home, opened it, and took out the letter paper inside. He was a little anxious now, not knowing what the letter said. What, doing it so solemnly.

Soon, a few pages of letter paper were pulled out, and Wei Guangde unfolded them to look at them carefully. Then his face lit up with excitement, and his heart that was still hanging before was completely relieved.

Let me just say, how could something happen at home? After all, my family is also an official, and my father is a fifth-grade military attache.

The previous content is naturally that his father said that his family hopes that he can continue to work hard in the imperial examination, and also tells him not to forget about his words and deeds after he is awarded an official.

In response, Wei Guangde just said silently in his heart, "Dad, you are worrying too much. Your son has not yet become an official."

Naturally, his family is very happy with his results, and then, what comes next?

Wei Guangde was shocked when he saw this, and his father asked Huitong Commercial Bank to transfer him 20,000 taels of silver.

The last letter did mention giving me some silver, but I didn't say how much. Now I'm fine, I know the answer, twenty thousand taels of silver.

The silver was not transported directly from Jiujiang, but the father sent the silver to the Lin family in Jiujiang. The Lin family notified the Beijing Commercial Bank to give it to Wei Guangde, which saves money on transportation and is much safer.

Wei Guangde was shocked by the following content, but he didn't express it. Instead, he folded the letter and put it back into the envelope and put it in his arms. Then he raised his head and smiled at Lin Mao: "Mr. Lin, I already know. I don't know this." silver?"

"Master Wei, the silver is in the merchant's bank. You can come and collect it at any time, or someone from my side can send it to you. After all, there is a lot of silver. It will take at least two big boxes to hold it. It is not good to send it rashly."

Lin Mao stood up and said to Wei Guangde.

Indeed, twenty thousand taels of silver is not a small number, the key is its large size.

When Wei Guangde received the thousand taels of silver, it was only a wooden box the size of a storage box, weighing dozens of kilograms, and it was quite laborious to hold it up.

Twenty thousand taels, if you think about it, it would be troublesome to carry the box in.

"It's better to leave the money with Mr. Lin first. I'll go over and get it when I need the money."

Wei Guangde thought for a moment and said.

"Well."

While talking, Lin Mao took out a note from his arms with several emblems of the Lin family stamped on it.

Lin Mao handed the note to Wei Guangde with both hands and said, "Master Wei, please keep the note. Please bring this note with you when you use the money in the future. Record the amount on the note and use the seal."

Wei Guangde took it, looked at it, and nodded, "Okay, thank you very much."

But then, Wei Guangde thought of something, that is, Zhang Hongfu helped him lend money in Jiujiang.

Twenty thousand taels of silver, I will definitely not be able to use such money in the short term, and it is definitely not suitable to keep at home.

The way to make money in later generations is naturally to make money move in order to make more money and satisfy one's own consumption in the capital.

He doesn't know how to make soap, burn glass or cement, and Wei Guangde doesn't like the little income from buying land and collecting rent, so he can only make money in the simplest way.

I am still staying in the Jiujiang Guild Hall for free. In addition to paying for food, I also spend dozens of taels of silver every month, all on food.

Now Wei Guangde eats three meals a day in restaurants, which naturally costs a lot of money.

After buying the yard in the inner city, I should hire talents. Zhang Ji and Li San are obviously not enough by my side.

But he finally had money, twenty thousand taels of silver, more than double what Wei Guangde expected. At first he thought it would be good to get five thousand taels of silver.

But when he thought about what was going on, Wei Guangde only had a rough look, but he also understood what was going on.

"Mr. Lin, could you please make a trip and let's go out to eat to express our gratitude."

Wei Guangde thought that someone came to give him money and he should be grateful no matter what, so he immediately said.

"I don't dare to trouble Mr. Wei. The little old man won't be out for a long time. He still needs to take a look at the store."

Lin Mao did not agree immediately, but said tactfully that he would go back. The store was still busy, but after getting up, he still smiled at Wei Guangde and said: "Next month, the Twelfth Store will open a new store in Chongwenmenli Street. I wonder if Mr. Wei has Is the time appreciated?"

"oh."

Wei Guangde was stunned for a moment, then understood something, and immediately said, "I will definitely go when the time comes."

Wei Guangde thought about it. Maybe when the new store opens, he can find some official people to support the scene. The black and white people may pay more attention to it in the future.

Wei Guangde has been in the capital for a long time, but he has also seen fans from Jinyiwei and Dongchang walking on the street, collecting monthly money from stores. Wei Guangde understood this as "safety fees."

When we open our doors for business, we seek harmony and wealth.

"When the time comes, the little boy will come to invite the three of you who are the same age as you. Please tell Mr. Wei in advance for the little boy."

Wei Guangde agreed immediately. It was actually very simple to go over to celebrate the opening of the new store. You could also have some fun eating and drinking, so why not do it.

After seeing Lin Mao off, Wei Guangde asked Zhang Ji to bring him wine and food. He would not go out to eat today, but would eat in the house.

I won’t be able to live here much longer. I’ve signed the contract there, packed it up and moved there.

Wei Guangde made up his mind, and then took out the family letter and read it.

I won’t read the previous content this time, mainly the following paragraphs.

Well, although I have traveled through time, this era is like this. I have had a premonition for a long time that I cannot escape the shackles of this era.

Marriage is the order of the parents and the words of the matchmaker.

In fact, even in later generations, although free love is very common, concepts such as well-matched couples that affect marriage are still deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

Many people don't admit it verbally, but they actually agree in their hearts.

Dad didn’t mention which family he was famous for in the letter, but the words revealed between the lines seemed to be from a family with a very strong background.

Wei Guangde read it carefully twice before folding the letter and putting it back in the envelope, thinking about how to reply.

Forget it, let’s finish what we wanted to do first.

Wei Guangde put the letters into the box and put them away. There were already two letters from home lying quietly inside, but he only replied to one.

At night, Wei Guangde was lying on the bed, thinking about what to do next.

The imperial court issued a decree to stop the tribute trade, but apparently the business resumed, and the imperial court knew it was making money, and wanted to make more money to meet the imperial court's expenses, so it wanted to increase silk production.

In Zhejiang, a large number of fields are used to plant mulberry and raise silkworms to increase the supply of raw materials and weave more silk.

We should go back and check the current annual silk production of the Ming Dynasty, Wei Guangde thought.

Thinking of doing it, Wei Guangde arrived at the Hanlin Academy the next day and found the weaving data over the years in the library to learn about the official statistics of textile data during this period.

Wei Guangde also makes clothes on weekdays, but he prefers Songjiang large velvet fabrics, which are also the most expensive textile fabrics in this era. A piece of cloth is ten feet long, which is one hundred feet, and the market price in Jiujiang is as high as 86 taels of silver.

Silk and damask are not cheap either, but silk is cheaper per square foot.

Unlike cotton, silk can be woven very long. Generally, a piece of silk is only three feet, about thirty feet, and the market price is six taels of silver.

Wei Guangde was a little confused. In later generations, cotton was much cheaper than silk. However, in the Ming Dynasty, it was obviously the opposite of later generations. Cotton was more expensive.

After finding the information, Wei Guangde slowly looked through it in his office. He didn't know that there were quite a few textile centers in the Ming Dynasty, both in the north and the south.

Not only the silk weaving industry in Suzhou, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Huzhou, Hangzhou, and Nanjing in the south of the Yangtze River has been very prosperous, but also in Kyoto, Beijing, Zhuozhou, Taiyuan, and Chengdu in the southwest.

In Wei Guangde's original impression, the litigation side should have the most, and the reality is the same, but there are also many textile workshops in other places, and the scale is not small.

The official textile organization includes the "Two Beijing Dyeing Bureaus", which are divided into Beijing and Nanjing Inner Weaving and Dyeing Bureaus, Nanjing Silk Hall, Suzhou Weaving and Dyeing Bureau and Hangzhou Weaving and Dyeing Bureau.

Wei Guangde also knew the number of workers employed in these government textile workshops, which was more than 6,000. This did not include private workshops.

According to official statistics, the national output of satin and cloth reached more than 2 million pieces in the 34th year of Jiajing alone. This does not include the cloth woven by farmers themselves. They are all output reported by major workshops, because the Ming Dynasty wanted to control the production of these pieces of cloth. taxable.

According to the current tax rate of thirty to one, the government collected 80,000 pieces of satin and cloth. As for the official production, most of it was supplied to the inner court and the salary of the outer court.

It's unclear how many textiles are sold overseas every year, and Wei Guangde can't say anything, but it's obvious that the entire Ming Dynasty's textile industry is still very powerful, and the owners of textile workshops are extremely wealthy.

Now the court is discussing the conversion of rice to mulberry in Zhejiang, which is naturally to increase the production of raw silk and prepare for the greater expansion of silk and satin workshops. It can be seen that the foreigners prefer the silk of the Ming Dynasty and have no interest in cotton. big.

Well, Wei Guangde carefully looked through the data on looms and cloth production in the past few decades, and got a general understanding of the textile production capacity of the Ming Dynasty. According to the number of looms and cloth in the workshops recorded above, it seems that it has Close to saturation.

Wei Guangde knew very well that those people who proposed changing rice to mulberry to increase the supply of raw silk were most likely not trying to expand foreign trade at all, but were taking the opportunity to annex fertile farmland in various parts of the south of the Yangtze River.

Wei Guangde pondered for a long time and knew that this operation would definitely not work.

Today's "converting rice to mulberry" policy is a bit like the administrative orders of later generations. The final results are generally not very good. Only market demand can avoid many problems.

If you want to climb out of this quagmire, you must come up with a better solution.

Is it driven by market demand?

Since someone has proposed increasing silk production, it means that there is a market that can fully absorb the increased output. At least whoever proposes it must come up with a solution.

Wei Guangde does not need to consider the terminal aspect, so the rest is production.

Let the owners of the textile workshops expand the scale of the workshops and increase the number of looms. As the output expands, there will naturally be a greater demand for raw materials. When the output cannot be increased in the short term, they compete for the small market supply. You can only compete to grab them by raising the price.

Rising raw material prices have attracted farmers to voluntarily switch from growing rice to growing mulberry and raising silkworms.

If the use of land is voluntarily changed, it is impossible for everyone to swarm on it.

According to Wei Guangde's understanding of ordinary people today, although they have various problems, they are very practical. Even if they find that planting mulberry and raising silkworms is more profitable, they will not use all the fields to do this at once, but only part of it. The land is used to convert rice to mulberry.

In fact, Wei Guangde found out that in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang issued an imperial edict to encourage the cultivation of mulberry, silkworms, and cotton.

With this in mind, the only thing Wei Guangde is not sure about now is whether the increased silk production will be marketable and how to get the owners of the textile workshops to be willing to increase the number of looms. As long as these two problems can be solved, then there is no need to change rice. Planting mulberries can also significantly increase silk production in a few years.

Well, we still need to figure out the first question, whether the market is really, as I guessed, something sold overseas.

Wei Guangde knew that these days, both the East and West like silk, that is, Japan in the east and Arabia and Europe in the west. It is said that if a piece of silk is shipped over, the price will increase several times, and people will rush to get it.

Of course, what is different from Daming is that those who can afford Daming silk there are local wealthy people, and ordinary people definitely cannot afford it.

In the Ming Dynasty, the situation was actually similar. Most of the people wore homespun clothes or ordinary cotton clothes, and the finest cotton and silk were unaffordable.

While browsing the information, Wei Guangde also unexpectedly discovered something that he didn't know before. Cotton has not been in China since ancient times. It was introduced to the Central Plains in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty. Before that, it was only grown in small quantities in the south. , mostly used by local ethnic minorities for spinning and weaving.

In other words, when the Ming Dynasty was founded, cotton production in the mainland of Ming Dynasty was not large. It was only after more than a hundred years of promotion that it gradually expanded. Not only the planting technology has improved, but cotton varieties and grades have also been classified, and textile technology has also improved. It is optimized a lot.

Just like the Songjiang velvet that Wei Guangde likes, it is the top-quality cotton fabric now.

Who should I contact for information?

Wei Guangde was in trouble again now.

Before, Chen Jin and the others told them everything they knew. Wei Guangde asked very detailed questions at that time, but because he didn’t know about the Shipping Department, he forgot to ask about the sales of silk. This was also due to the inertia of thinking. Wei Guangde thought that China Since ancient times, there has been no need to worry about selling silk, and foreigners want as much as it produces.