Chapter 63: Discovery of Cement
Song Yutang was a smart man. He knew that his family would have to rely on Song Yuzhu in the future, so he naturally could not offend his third uncle. The next day, he took his father out to look at houses.
The housing prices in Shangjing are high, but there are many vacant houses that were confiscated. Although these houses are cheap, few people are interested in buying them.
Firstly, ordinary people could not afford so much money, and secondly, officials were unwilling to buy such confiscated houses as they thought it was unlucky.
Song Bai is a businessman and is not so taboo. In addition, due to his special status, he has to be given a discount for the sake of the emperor.
In the end, he only spent six thousand taels of silver to buy a large house with three entrances in an ancient alley and moved his family members in.
As soon as they moved out, Song Yuzhu was rewarded. He awarded the second uncle a fifth-rank founding title, the lowest rank of title, and he could receive an annual salary of 150 dan.
Song Qiao naturally had no shortage of food, but with this identity, it would be more convenient for him to open a pharmacy in Beijing.
Song Yutang loved doing business, so Song Yuzhu sent him to the Maritime Customs Office as a seventh-rank steward, specifically in charge of trade.
Song Yufeng was sent to the Imperial College. If he had the potential, he could pass the imperial examination. If not, it would always be good for him to read more books.
This arrangement made Qin very happy. She was just a business woman who knew nothing else, and being able to study at the Imperial College was a great blessing from heaven. She also became more sincere towards Song Bai and his wife.
Song Yuzhu's actions also made the second wife understand that as long as Ansheng was obedient, there would be benefits.
The two older sisters also bought houses in the city and moved out, leaving only Aunt Fang and her family behind.
Jiang Rong was tired of her and was too lazy to meet her. She stayed in her yard every day to coax her children.
But Fang was a fool and always tried to get close to Jiang Rong by bringing her grandson to her yard.
Her heart was full of thoughts. Now the only son of the third branch of the Song family was the emperor, and they only had this one daughter. If she really arranged a marriage with her grandson, wouldn't the huge mansion belong to them?
Aunt Fang really treated the Song Mansion as her own home, ordering the servants to do this and that without any hesitation, as if she was the mistress of the Song family.
After breakfast in the morning, Aunt Fang took her grandson to Jiang Rong's yard again.
The maid He Xiang rolled her eyes when she saw her: "Our Madam is not feeling well today, Aunt Fang, please go back."
"Where's the discomfort? Let me take a look. It just so happens that I can also take a pulse."
He Xiang snorted coldly, my master is a doctor, why do I need you to come here and bring shame upon yourself?
"It's just a cold."
"Then I must go in and take a look." Aunt Fang pushed the maid aside and dragged her grandson into the house.
"Nephew's wife, I heard you were sick, I came to see you."
When Jiang Rong heard her voice, she felt annoyed and quickly asked Xiaomei to carry Tongtong into the inner room while she herself rested her head on the bed and took a nap.
Aunt Fang came into the house and shouted, "Oh, the temperature has really dropped these days. It's cold both morning and night. My nephew's wife, please put on more clothes."
Jiang Rong said calmly, "It's a waste."
"Why didn't I see Sister Tong?"
"Asleep."
"Being able to eat and sleep is a blessing. Kids of this age are just sleepy." Aunt Fang was chatting with him when her grandson suddenly broke free from her hand and ran towards the inner room.
"You're lying. Tong girl didn't sleep!"
Xiaomei held Yutong and her daughter and hid in the inner room, but they were discovered by him.
Aunt Fang said, "If you haven't slept yet, come out and play for a while. Children should be children."
Xiaomei came out holding Yutong, and her daughter Song Ping'er also stumbled out, grabbing the corner of her clothes.
Shunzi was a naughty boy. Seeing that Ping'er was small and couldn't walk properly, he pushed her deliberately with his hand, causing little Ping'er to fall forward.
Her two front teeth were broken and she cried in pain.
Jiang Rong quickly took her daughter in her arms and asked Xiaomei to comfort her child.
Xiaomei picked up Ping'er with concern and coaxed her in a soft voice, feeling a little uncomfortable.
The child was ignorant and the adults were also ignorant. Aunt Fang acted as if she didn't see anything and teased Song Yutong with a smile.
Jiang Rong frowned and said, "Shunzi, go apologize to your sister."
Shunzi shook his head: "I won't apologize. A lowly creature is not even worthy of carrying my shoes!" How could a child say such words? He must have been taught by an adult.
Xiaomei hugged her daughter and cried.
Jiang Rong was furious and slammed the table, "Who is the lowly bastard?"
Shunzi was startled and quickly ran to Aunt Fang.
"Nephew's wife, what are you doing? Don't scare the child. She's just a servant girl..."
"What's wrong with the servant's child? You have to look at the owner before you beat the dog. Who gave you the courage to bully my people in my room?
"Jiang Rong handed the child to He Xiang, stood up and said angrily: "Come here, kick them out of the house!"
Four or five servants came in and dragged them out.
Aunt Fang was shocked: "I...I am Song Bai's aunt."
"My son is the emperor! How dare you act wildly in my house without considering your own worth!"
Jiang Rong could no longer endure it and vented all the humiliation she had endured in the past few days.
This old woman bullied Jiang Rong because she had a good character. As a person of a different surname, she was not treated as an outsider in the Song Mansion. Now that she had angered her, she felt afraid.
Song Bai didn't stop him, he would explain to his mother himself.
Aunt Fang cried and shouted and refused to leave, but Jiang Rong was determined to chase her away today. The servants picked up sticks and threatened to beat her if she didn't leave. She was so scared that she quickly left the house with her grandson, son, and daughter-in-law.
When he reached the gate, he didn't forget to spit twice and said, "You ungrateful thing! Your father used to eat our food!"
As the family walked out of the alley, they suddenly saw a group of people in black robes walking towards them.
The leading man asked with a smile: "Are you Fang?"
Aunt Fang asked in confusion: "Who are you?"
"I'll give you a ride." Liu Yanzi waved her hand, and the men in black rushed up to grab them, quickly covered their mouths, tied their hands and feet, and threw them into the carriage that had been prepared in advance.
Song Yuzhu knew everything about the family affairs. The reason why she didn't interfere was that she wanted Jiang Rong to learn to stand on her own feet.
As the mistress of the house, blindly tolerating and compromising would not have any effect. In the future, relatives like this who beg for money might come back. Song Yuzhu could not keep an eye on them all the time, and she had to learn to deal with it herself.
These people from Aunt Fang's family were intimidated by Liu Yanzi and sent back to Jiangcheng County. They probably won't dare to come to Beijing to visit relatives again in their lifetime.
*
In early September, the craftsmen who made the looms finally arrived in Shangjing.
This man's surname was Qiu, and he was from Anyang County, Zhongzhou. Because he was the second child in the family, everyone called him Qiu Erlang.
The foot-operated loom was first developed by his grandfather Qiu Hai. Qiu Hai's wife had a hand disease, and her wrists hurt unbearably after weaving for a long time.
Qiu Hai sympathized with his wife's difficulty in weaving cloth. Coincidentally, he was a carpenter, so he took time out to develop a machine that could weave cloth by pedaling the foot, which was the prototype of the foot-operated loom.
At first, the pedal loom was not very fast, but it could relieve Qiu Niangzi's hand pain. As time went by, Qiu Niangzi found that if two strings were added under the loom to hook the silk thread and shuttle back and forth, the speed would be dozens of times faster than before!
She immediately asked her husband to try to make it. Unexpectedly, it was very fast after it was done! As long as the silk thread was threaded properly and the thread on the other side was not cut off, the cloth could be woven quickly and smoothly.
At her fastest speed, Miss Qiu could weave two bolts of cloth a day! You should know that before, it took her three days at most to weave one bolt of cloth.
Both husband and wife are simple and kind people. After getting such a good machine, they did not think of keeping it for themselves but recommended it to people in the village.
When the villagers heard this, they naturally rushed to Qiu Hai to make custom products.
Qiuhai did not raise the price just because of his skills. He only charged a few dozen coins for the labor. Both he and his wife were happy that everyone could weave more cloth.
Soon looms became popular in Anyang County. At one point, silk thread was in short supply and the price of ordinary cotton cloth dropped from 300 wen per piece to 180 wen per piece.
The price of satin dropped from three taels of silver per piece to two taels and three cents of silver per piece. The prices of silk and muslin also dropped significantly.
Some businessmen smelled a business opportunity and wanted to invest in customizing a batch of looms. However, after calculating, they found that they did not make as much money as before.
The loom shortened the weaving time, so ordinary people could weave more cloth. They pushed the price too low, leaving no profit margin for merchants.
This was something the merchants could not tolerate, so dozens of merchants joined forces to suppress the foot-operated looms.
They first sent people to cause trouble in the cloth shop, saying that the cloth woven on the loom was of poor quality and the clothes would be more easily torn.
If one or two people said the cloth was not good, the boss could still deal with it. But for half a month, people said every day that the cloth quality was not good, so the cloth shop owner dared not accept the cloth woven by the villagers on the loom.
Soon after, merchants began to promote the advantages of handmade cloth, almost devaluing the loom. Gradually, no one in the village used the loom anymore, and Qiu Hai and his wife locked the loom in their warehouse.
After Qiu Hai passed away, the loom was gradually forgotten. His sons all worked on the farm, but his grandson Qiu Jilang was very interested in the loom. He even copied one and made it for his wife to weave for himself.
A few days ago, a government official came to him and asked if anyone in his family knew how to make a loom. Qiu Jilang answered truthfully, saying that he knew how to make one.
Unexpectedly, he was taken to Beijing the next day.
The honest farmer was not willing to travel far, and he didn't know why the official took him to the capital. He was so frightened that he almost fell sick.
Fortunately, after arriving in Shangjing, the person who received him was very polite. After asking him about the making of a loom, he was taken to the Miscellaneous Manufacturing Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and asked to make one.
Qiu Jilang spent half a day to make a pedal loom. The people in the miscellaneous construction department were amazed by the loom and praised him as a rare craftsman.
Qiu Jilang blushed and scratched his cheek, saying, "The loom was made by my grandfather. I just took it apart and learned how to make it. It's nothing."
The manager of the Miscellaneous Building Bureau asked, "How come no one has ever mentioned such a good machine before?"
Qiu Jilang explained the reason: "The cloth mill said that the cloth woven by the loom was of poor quality and pushed the price of cloth too low, so the people gave up the loom and continued to weave by hand."
"But the fabrics I use at home are all made on looms, and they feel just like hand-woven fabrics!" Akijiro was afraid that he wouldn't believe it, so he quickly took off his outer robe and handed it to the steward for inspection.
The steward took a look and found that the cloth was indeed no different from hand-woven. He also asked someone to prepare silk thread and tried it out. The cloth was woven quickly and smoothly, not at all as rough as they said.
Akijiro also added a few more strings to the original loom, which could be arranged and combined to weave beautiful patterns.
The manager immediately decided that this was a good thing and reported it to his superior.
After Song Yuzhu learned about this, he specially rewarded Qiu Erlang with a thousand taels of silver, granted him an eighth-rank official position, and named the foot-operated loom "Qiu's loom."
As soon as the Qiu's loom came out, it became popular all over the country. This was a loom approved by the emperor, and merchants could no longer suppress it.
However, there is no business without fraud. They started with the raw materials and raised the price of silk thread. Even if the common people wanted to weave cloth, they could not do anything without the right materials.
Song Yuzhu had to be prepared, so he asked the Sun Family Escort Agency to stock up on silk threads from all over the country. These raw materials could just meet the needs of the people.
After weaving the cloth, they sold it to the government at a uniform price, which was set at twenty cents per piece of cloth. In order to prevent the people from only weaving cloth and not producing anything, each household could sell a maximum of thirty pieces of cloth per month, and local governments were not allowed to lower the price.
The woven fabrics were sold all over the country, and some were sold to foreign countries in the western regions. The money earned was used to buy silk threads. This process was repeated many times, and soon the production line was mature.
The people now have something to do, and even if the harvest is poor this year, they can still make money.
Later, Liu Lin transported new grain from the south to ensure that the people could buy food with their own money, and this year's drought was easily solved.
*
The loom caused a sensation in the Great Qi Dynasty. In addition to its ease of use, many people also saw opportunities in it.
Emperor Changzhi was very receptive to new things, especially newly invented things, and a wave of invention swept across the country.
This is a good thing, but the problem is that what is invented is not satisfactory.
Round carriages, square umbrellas, and all kinds of modified looms. People's thinking is very limited and they are totally incapable of creating new things.
It was not until the end of September that two men carrying sand and stones traveled thousands of miles from Luzhou to Shangjing.
The two of them first went to the miscellaneous materials bureau to register. When the other party heard that they brought stones, they turned them away without even asking any questions.
"Dad, I told you that no one would recognize this thing. We came all this way for nothing."
An elderly man squatted nearby and said with disappointment, "Why don't they recognize such a good thing?"
The good things the two people were talking about were the brown stones they were carrying behind them.
Don’t underestimate this inconspicuous stone. After being fired and smashed, it will quickly solidify when it comes into contact with water and become a hard stone that cannot be smashed or broken.
The old man also discovered the peculiarity of this stone by chance when he was young. When he was renovating the side room of his house, he specially replaced the yellow mud walls with this fired gravel powder. As a result, more than 20 years later, the main room was almost dilapidated, but the side room was still as good as new.
When he heard that the new emperor had rewarded the descendant of the inventor of the loom, he became eager to try his luck. Finally, he could no longer wait and brought his son to Shangjing.
I had beautiful thoughts on the way here. If I got the reward, I would go back and rebuild the old house, add a litter of piglets and two big yellow cows.
Who would have thought that he would be turned away as soon as he arrived, and the people did not recognize the treasure he mentioned at all. The father and son were filled with sorrow, and they had almost spent all the money they brought with them, and they did not know how to go back.
Just when the two were worried, a few more people came to the Miscellaneous Bureau. They were all rich children who came to Beijing. Recently, they collected new things from everywhere and sent them to the emperor. They didn't have to get any rewards, but just wanted to show their faces in front of the nobles.
The father and son quickly put on their bags and prepared to leave, but they were stopped after taking a few steps.
A young man in a green brocade robe came towards them and said, "You two are not locals, are you here to present new things as well?"
The old man and his son nodded stiffly. They didn't know what this noble young man wanted to see them about.
He answered truthfully, "We came from Luzhou and wanted to present a rare stone to the emperor, but unfortunately the official refused to accept it."
The young master's eyes lit up and he quickly asked, "What kind of strange stone is it?"
The old man asked his son to open the bag, take out the stone and hand it to the young man.
The young man took it and looked at it with a disappointed expression. He thought it was something like jade, but it turned out to be no different from a stone on the roadside.
The old man quickly explained: "This is not an ordinary stone. If you burn it, grind it, and mix it with lime, it will become a very hard stone!"
After all, it was not a stone. The young man threw the stone back to the man with a lack of interest.
Seeing that no one had the insight to recognize his talent, the old man took his son away in disappointment.
The man felt sorry for them, as they had come so far just to give him a bag of stones. He could not help but said, "I'll give you ten taels of silver, and sell the stones to me."
The son's face was full of joy. Ten taels of silver was a lot of money, enough for the trip back home!
Just as he was about to sell the stone, his father stopped him and said, "We have a lot of these stones in the mountain behind our house. They are not valuable. I'm giving them to you. If you have the chance to present them to an official, the house built with this stone will last for decades."
The man took the bag from the old man and said cheerfully, "Since you don't want to sell it, the stone should still be yours. I will help you present it. If I can really get the emperor's reward, I will not take the credit for your contribution."
The old man and his son quickly knelt down and thanked him: "Thank you for your help, young master!"
The man picked up the stone and went into the construction site with the others.
No one thought that this bag of inconspicuous stones would soon change the infrastructure of Dasheng.
(End of this chapter)
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