It is no coincidence that the textile industry gave birth to the Industrial Revolution.

Because textiles are needed by everyone regardless of nationality or class, unlike tea and porcelain, which are severely restricted by consumer preferences and wealth.

Moreover, textiles are easily damaged and the market demand is stable and long-lasting. Unlike porcelain and wood, which are long-lasting once owned, the long service life of textiles actually limits the market.

The large and stable market has brought a large number of craftsmen. Relatively mechanized repetitive labor has made machine production possible. Craftsmen have achieved inspiration through observing and improving production processes and tools day after day.

Zhao Hao himself holds a very conservative attitude towards the replacement of human production by machines. After all, the biggest problem of the Ming Dynasty is the oversupply of labor, and large-scale manual production is in line with the current situation of the Ming Dynasty.

No one dared to predict what the consequences would be if we rashly adopted the path of machine production. If it aggravated the unemployment of handicraftsmen and caused civil unrest, then everything would be over.

But in any case, it must be acknowledged that light industry represented by the textile industry is the direction and main force of development. It can not only greatly promote the arrival of the commercial revolution, but also create a large number of jobs for upstream and downstream industries. It is the number one pillar industry that Zhao Hao replicated in the Jiangnan region.

The textile industry was naturally centered in Suzhou and Songjiang, but as the most important downstream industry, should the pulping and dyeing industry continue to stay in Wuhu or should it be taken back to Suzhou and Songjiang? There was a heated debate within the group.

The group represented by Jiangnan Textile insisted on "pulping and dyeing nearby and unifying the command"... In layman's terms, it meant destroying Wuhu's pulping and dyeing industry.

Jiangnan Group does not focus solely on performance, and allows its subsidiaries to temporarily stop making money or even suffer losses in order to achieve a certain strategic goal. This gave Liu Zhengqi, Xu Zhixiang and others hope of easily resolving the Wuhu pulp and dyeing industry.

If they don't release products to Wuhu for half a year, all the pulping and dyeing workshops in Wuhu, big and small, will surrender one after another, and even if there is a giant like Ruan Bi in charge, it will be of no avail.

However, this plan was sharply opposed by members of the Strategic Decision-making Committee, especially Xu Wei.

Xu Wei first followed the usual practice and ridiculed these Dongting merchants for having no other skills and relying on their monopoly to strangle others. Before, they didn't allow anyone to sell rice to Kunshan, and now they don't allow anyone to sell cloth to Wuhu. They haven't made any progress at all. No wonder they can only jump around in Suzhou and Songjiang, and can't compete with the Huizhou merchants.

The three people from Dongting Chamber of Commerce blushed, but this was their dark history in the group, so they didn't dare to refute it. They could only secretly curse Fatty Xu for bringing up such a topic, and on the surface they had to humbly accept criticism.

Wang Mengxiang also believed that the goal of the young master was to "integrate Jiangnan and achieve common prosperity". However, the Jiangnan Group had to take half of Wuhu's life as soon as it appeared. How would the officials, gentry and people of the other nine prefectures, fifty-four counties and five states view it?

It is not conducive to unity and will lead to a serious loss of the big picture.

Finally, the Strategic Decision Committee rejected the proposal of Jiangnan Textile Corporation. Zhao Hao also followed the decision of the committee and decided not to put pressure on Wuhu. For him, it was enough to reach a strategic cooperation with Wuhu Dyeing Association.

As for the future, we can talk about it later. Anyway, even if I don't use Songjiang Bu to strangle him, I still have many ways to make Ruan Bi beg me to take him to play.

To put it bluntly, Mr. Zhao's inspection tour of Jiangnan was a friendly trip to demonstrate the benevolence of the Jiangnan Group. Creating several examples of cooperation between the group and local prefectures and counties would be the greatest success.

So he gave Ruan Bi very relaxed conditions. It was up to the other party to make the choice, and Jiangnan Group didn't care.

His attitude of not bullying the weak and respecting the disadvantaged deeply moved Ruan Bi and impressed him. He finally understood why those big families in Jiangnan were willing to follow him.

Ruan Bi thanked Zhao Hao again and asked him to give him some time to discuss with everyone in the guild and try to give him definite news before Zhao Hao left Wuhu.

Zhao Hao advised him not to be anxious. As long as he had a general intention, Jiang Xueying would come over to discuss it in detail later.

Although Mr. Zhao said this, Ruan Bi still convened all members of the Wuhu Pulp and Dyeing Guild to hold a meeting overnight to discuss the matter.

Eighteen large butter lamps illuminated the guild's meeting hall as bright as the ground. More than a hundred dyeing workshop owners, big and small, gathered together to listen to their beloved President Ruan talk about the content of his interview with Mr. Zhao today.

After the old president finished speaking, discussions broke out in the hall, and the dyeing factory owners whispered to each other, discussing their views on the matter.

Ruan Bi did not urge them. He sat in the head chair, chewing betel nut leisurely, closing his eyes slightly, waiting for them to finish their full discussion.

They discussed this for half an hour, until the western clock in the hall pointed to nine o'clock in the evening. Then Ruan Bi opened his eyes and coughed lightly.

The meeting hall immediately fell silent.

"Let's talk about it." Ruan Fan said in a deep voice, "Do you agree with Mr. Zhao's proposal?"

"answer."

"answer."

"Of course." Everyone nodded hurriedly, and no one dared to say no.

This shows how much pressure Jiangnan Group has put on Wuhu's pulp and dyeing industry. After all, you can't beat a business that doesn't make money. They can afford to lose money, but you can't...

"Okay." Ruan Bi nodded, picked up another betel nut from the shallow dish, put it into his mouth and chewed it slowly. He had no hobbies in his life, but he loved betel nut like his life.

"In that case, our guild has decided to transform into a company."

"No problem." Everyone nodded.

The pulping and dyeing guild itself has the nature of a joint-stock company. Each company contributes capital to the guild according to its own strength, and the market share is distributed by the guild according to the capital contribution of each company. Therefore, there is no substantial obstacle to the company restructuring, and everyone agrees.

But then, when discussing how many shares to exchange with Jiangnan Textile, differences arose.

Some people think that changing 20% ​​to 30% is enough for self-protection.

But some people also believe that 20% to 30% will definitely not satisfy the appetite of Jiangnan Group and will definitely cause trouble in the future.

It is better to give the majority to Jiangnan Group at once. This way, the other party can be completely assured and will not support the pulp and dyeing industry in Songjiang anymore.

In this way, everyone won’t have to worry anymore and can just focus on expanding production and making a lot of money.

The views of both sides are clearly divided, and the camps are also very clear.

Those who hold the former view are mostly big dyeing house owners. These people have a strong voice in the guild and are worried that after the Jiangnan Group takes over, it will deliberately support small dyeing house owners to replace them, thereby reshuffling the pulp and dyeing industry in Wuhu.

The latter view was mainly held by small dyeing factory owners. These people had no say and could only eat the leftovers of the big families. If someone else took over, the situation would only get better, not worse. Of course, they were eager for a change of dynasty.

Neither side could convince the other, so they could only follow the rules and vote. However, instead of one vote per household, the number of votes for each household was determined based on their share.

Therefore, although the small dyeing factory owners are numerous and their voices are loud, it is likely that the big ones will be the winners in the end.

But before the vote, Ruan Bi, who usually did not express his opinion in advance, suddenly stood up slowly.