"Everyone, this is the most important factory in our Shuntian Mansion - the iron smelting plant. If the raw materials are sufficient, this iron smelting plant can produce hundreds of tons of iron per day. By the way, one ton is two thousand kilograms." Inside the iron smelting plant, Mr.
Hundreds of people gathered around the nearly ten-meter-high blast furnace and pointed, many of them were amazed.
"That's a steelmaking plant over there. You may have heard of steel made by steelmaking, but our steelmaking plant is different from the traditional steelmaking process. What it directly produces is good steel, whether it's used to make knives or tools.
Artillery and armor are all very excellent. You may
We have already seen the artillery in our Peking Army. Those artillery are all made of steel and are very sharp." The tour guide pointed to another factory with a closed door and said: "Due to the sophisticated steel-making technology, it belongs to the highest level in our Shuntian Prefecture.
It’s confidential and cannot be opened to you yet.”
"Oh." The visiting elders just responded and said no more. In fact, they didn't even understand the ironmaking plant. Asking them to visit the iron and steel plant was just blind people trying to figure out the elephant. However, for such a large-scale factory, they still directly ignored it.
They were shocked: Shuntian Prefecture was really generous. It produced more iron in one day than those small workshops produced in a year.
"Can this iron factory produce farm tools?" an old man asked.
"Yes, of course we can. Our iron factory has received instructions from above and will cast out 100,000 plows, 100,000 hoes and 100,000 shovels within a month. These agricultural tools will be distributed to Baoding River on a per capita basis.
It is free for the people of both provinces."
"Free?" The elders were immediately overjoyed. To them, farm tools were the most precious things. Since the Ming Dynasty strictly controlled iron tools, many farmers did not have a decent iron farm tool. Now Shuntian Prefecture started to ask for it.
Giving away hundreds of thousands of them is a real benefit.
"The two prefectures of Hejian in Baoding have just experienced war and unfortunately encountered floods. The people's lives are difficult, and appropriate support is necessary. However, as the saying goes, God saves those who save themselves. I hope you will supervise the people and work hard to restore production in the future.
Try your best to build a good home." Wan Lei said with a smile.
Wan Lei still understands the principle of helping the urgent rather than helping the poor. If you give a hungry man a steamed bun, he will burst into tears of gratitude. If you give him a big bag of rice, he will be greedy and ask for more. Therefore, when treating the Baoding River
For the people in the two prefectures, Wan Lei will only provide some necessary assistance and let them work to save themselves, because a nation that constantly strives for self-improvement is a nation with a future, and a nation that is just waiting to die is hopeless.
"We know that we will live up to your trust and build our hometown well." All the elders nodded repeatedly.
"After visiting the ironworks, let's go to the school now." Seeing that everyone had seen almost everything, the tour guide invited everyone out of the ironworks.
In addition to the ironworks, visitors have already visited all the famous factories and workshops in the city. Among them, the spinning factory stayed the longest. Due to the success of Shuntian Prefecture's trial of cotton, in addition to spinning wool yarn, the spinning factory also
An additional cotton yarn production line was added.
With sufficient raw materials, the cotton mill can produce about two thousand pieces of yarn per day, which is something people yearn for. Two thousand pieces of yarn is enough to weave thousands of pieces of cloth, and there are no less than a thousand weaving machines in Peiping City, enough to weave thousands of pieces of cloth.
After these yarns are digested, according to the market
Price, a piece of cloth is worth at least two taels of silver, so the yarn and weaving industry alone creates an output value of nearly two thousand taels a day. After excluding the cost, there is still a considerable profit. It is no wonder that the people in Beiping City are all eating
Well dressed.
In addition, the textile industry can also spawn many downstream industries, such as socks, towels and hats, embroidery, etc. Such refined socks, gloves, towels, hats, handkerchiefs and other products have higher added value, and maritime traffic is smooth. , can be shipped overseas and sold at a high price.
As the saying goes, clothing, food, housing and transportation come first. When people have enough to eat, they naturally want to buy good clothes. Therefore, the prospects of the textile industry are unlimited. The visiting elders have seen this and are eager to introduce cotton planting technology and spinning technology. and weaving technology.
As for other technologies such as paper making, ink making, and wine making, they are not very concerned about it. After all, paper, ink, wine, etc. are not necessities of life, the market is relatively small, and the profit is low. As for heavy industries such as iron making and cement, although they want to get a share Soup, but I also know that I don’t have enough financial resources to dare to hope to build such a big factory.
After identifying the development goals, the visiting elders wanted to visit more textile mills and weaving households. As for visiting the so-called schools, they were not very interested. After all, the two Hejian prefectures in Baoding had been separated from the management of the Ming Dynasty. , in the future, scholars will not be able to take part in the imperial examination, so what are they still studying for?
However, when they arrived at the gathering area of primary and secondary schools, they heard the sound of books being read loudly. There were at least twenty or thirty people in each class, and as many as hundreds. These students were either reading and reciting, listening quietly, or raising their hands to ask questions. To answer the question, the academic style is so strong that even Jiangnan, which has a lot of humanities and elegance, may not be as good as it.
In addition, in addition to teaching poetry and poetry, the school also teaches miscellaneous subjects such as yin and yang arithmetic. Many wonderful mathematical, physical and chemical knowledge are eye-opening to the visitors, and even unheard of, but those students learn it very well. The teacher on the podium After explaining it several times, they began to draw inferences and apply this knowledge to real life.
"Everyone, we have 17 primary schools and five middle schools in Shuntian Prefecture. Primary and secondary education are all free. All school-age children must enroll in school. Only after graduation can they be issued a certificate and gain a foothold in society." The tour guide talked eloquently.
"Free?" The people who came here were a little dumbfounded. It's not like they had never seen free education before. Some of them had even run free schools, but they were just small private schools, with only one or two old masters teaching a dozen students. As for They couldn't imagine how much money it would cost to go to such a large school, and it was all free.
"Yes, the whole process is free, and the teaching funds are mainly funded by Mr. Wan, and many well-known gentry generously donate, so the education funds are sufficient. And the two Hejian Prefectures in Baoding will also be like Shuntian Prefecture, in each prefecture The county has centrally opened free schools for school-age children to attend. As for the opening of schools in the future, we still need your full support."
"Yes, yes. Setting up schools to promote education is a move that benefits the people." Visitors repeatedly agreed, but deep down they were secretly worried about being asked to donate money to run schools. After all, running a school costs a lot of money, and one has to pass the imperial examination. The road is blocked again, so why run a school?
Seeing the expressions of these old guys changing, Wan Lei naturally saw the little nagging in their hearts and said with a smile: "Don't worry, everyone, the two governments in Baoding and Hejian will not use your small treasury, and all the funds will be deducted from local taxes. .Of course, to run education well, your support is essential."
"Many people today are short-sighted and say that studying is useless. They don't let their children go to school but send them to the fields. This is wrong. Reading is definitely useful. Knowledge determines destiny and technology determines the future. If you want to live a good life, you must do it properly. A person who is educated and understands technology will never be able to turn around in his lifetime."