As soon as the store clerk Yu Zuden removed the door panel, he saw several cloth merchants standing outside. He quickly nodded and bowed with a smile and said: "Gentlemen, please come inside quickly!"
"Easy to say, easy to say!" The cloth merchant smiled as he cupped his hands.
Yu Zudeng was immediately confused as to why these living ancestors were being polite to him.
In the fabric sales process, in the early stage, it was mainly divided into cloth shops and cloth merchants.
A cloth dealer is a buyer of cloth, which can be divided into a dealer and a dealer.
The villager chooses to open a shop in a town. The woman weaves the cotton yarn and sells the cotton cloth, and rarely pays in cash. The woman sells the cotton yarn, and the cloth shop gives the cotton; the woman sells cotton cloth, and the cloth shop gives the cotton yarn. In this way, the cloth shop gives the cotton yarn.
It can reduce financial pressure and women do not need to go elsewhere to purchase raw materials.
When leaving the village, they would send their clerks to villages and towns to purchase goods, so that farmers could sell yarn and cloth without going to the city. However, the prices in this kind of transaction were very high, and the unscrupulous Yashili could even charge 30% to 40% of the price.
As for the cloth merchants, they come to the cloth store to purchase goods wholesale, and then transport them to other places for retail.
There is a saying: Yaxing serves the cloth merchants like a prince, and fighting against the cloth merchants is like fighting against each other.
In front of the cloth merchants, cloth merchants are like living ancestors. In order to compete for one cloth merchant, several cloth merchants are like fighting.
So Yu Zudeng is very puzzled today, why are the ancestors of the cloth merchants so polite?
"Xiao Yu, go and make some bowls of tea!"
Shopkeeper Zhou Ruodou of the cloth shop came to the lobby with a smile and gave Yu Zudeng a few instructions.
Then the shopkeeper said: "Everyone, please take a seat."
A cloth merchant had just sat down and without waiting for the tea to be brought, he said directly: "No further talk, I will raise the price by half a percent for cloth. It doesn't matter whether it's plain weave cloth, twill cloth, linen or starch cloth, I'll raise the price by half a percent.
Take as much as you can.”
"You want to get cloth even if you raise the price by half a percent? I'll raise the price by 10%!" another cloth merchant said sarcastically.
Shopkeeper Zhou Ruodou felt proud, and then complained: "There is a shortage of fabrics recently, and we really can't get that much. How about we follow the Ministry of War's lead in purchasing fabrics and have a hidden bid? The one with the lowest price in the Ministry of War will win the bid, and we will win the bid with the highest price."
"Okay, let's do it quickly. If you can't do it here, I'll go to Jiangxi and Hunan to have a look." A cloth merchant said impatiently.
A small cloth shop also sells cloth through bidding.
After the business was finished, shop assistant Yu Zuden asked curiously: "Shopkeeper, why are the cloths selling so well this year?"
Zhou Ruodou explained with a smile: "Japan opened its ports this year, and I heard that two more ports will be added. In the past, Japan's business was dominated by Fujian maritime merchants. Now that more ports have been opened, maritime merchants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang are asking merchants everywhere to help them get goods.
. Not just cotton, tea, silk, porcelain, tobacco, candles... we can buy everything. Anyway, we have to rely on large quantities and low prices. We can grab business in Shijian and Xiaguan. The cotton cloth in the south of the Yangtze River has been wiped out by cloth merchants.
He actually came to Nanjing to purchase goods."
Yu Zudeng asked doubtfully: "There are so many countries in Japan, can they eat so much food?"
"In addition to Japan, there are also North Korea and Liaodong," Zhou Ruodou said. "His Majesty canonizes the king of North Korea, and all ports in North Korea are open. No matter how small and poor North Korea is, it is still a country, and it is also very cold, so cotton must be easy to sell. This
There is also Liaodong, which has a small population but a large number of troops stationed there. Military uniforms for soldiers are issued by the Ministry of War, but the daily clothes of soldiers and their families have to be bought by themselves. There are also Henan, Shandong, and Beihai.
In Zhili, business is also recovering this year. Even the cloth merchants under Li Zicheng came to purchase. Now there is a shortage of goods everywhere. Do you see how worried those cloth merchants are? In the past, cloth merchants lowered prices and turned us into grandsons. Now cloth merchants
Raise the price and we all become grandfathers."
Yu Zudeng suddenly realized: "The shopkeeper has a broad vision, we never thought that there is such a reason."
Zhou Ruodou stroked his beard and smiled: "These are all thanks to His Majesty. Back a few years ago, there were wars and disasters in various places, and there were countless casualties in the north. The business of selling cloth in the south is not good, not to mention Nanjing, even in Susong and Changhu.
Some weaving workshops have closed down. After Your Majesty ascended the throne, business has become better and better. The population in the south is increasing day by day, and the north is about to be stable. Many immigrants are moving north. Where do they not need to wear clothes? And Japan, North Korea, Liaodong,
It’s a big business again. You’re a good guy, so I’ll put in a good word to my employer and make you the fourth shopkeeper of the cloth shop in two years.”
"Thank you so much, shopkeeper!" Yu Zudeng was overjoyed.
Zhou Ruodou smiled and said: "Your father saved my life. You are also smart and can write and calculate. Follow me and work hard. In short, you will not suffer any loss."
Yu Zudeng bent over and offered tea: "Uncle Zhou, please have tea!"
Zhou Ruodou used the lid of the bowl to put away the tea powder, and said with emotion: "We are lucky, and we met the wise sage. What kind of life did we live in the past few years? The common people can't afford to eat, how can they dare to wear new clothes? Even wealthy families
, there are also people who make do with sewing, but they can't sell much fabric all year round. Today's business is getting better and better day by day. If your majesty can take over all of the north, it will be really easy."
"Isn't that right? Your Majesty is such a good emperor." Yu Zudeng said with a smile.
Zhou Ruodou thought to himself: Your Majesty is doing well in everything, but he doesn't know that men are superior to women, which makes women behave eccentricly. In the past two years, business has become easier, and money has become more abundant. I wanted to take a concubine, but I couldn't find a suitable one.
!
The north suffered frequent wars, natural disasters and plagues, and the population was scarce, especially women.
When the Datong government organized immigration, female immigrants received special preferential treatment. As long as they actively signed up, the government's leave-from-home allowance for women would be doubled on the basis of male immigrants.
Even some prostitutes along the Qinhuai River have signed up to move to the north. Because they heard that once they arrive in the north, they will not have to worry about getting married. In the countryside, they can be divided into fields and in the city, they can be divided into houses. In counties with a particularly short population, even
You can even get it in stores!
Under such circumstances, who would still want to be a concubine?
In the past, those who worked as concubines for wealthy people were despised on the surface, but secretly envied. Now, no matter overt or covert, concubines are despised.
It's okay if the husband's family has an official status, but if he is just an ordinary rich man and wants to marry as a concubine, he will definitely be considered to be greedy for enjoyment and lazy.
Zhou Ruodou, the shopkeeper of the cloth shop, asked a matchmaker to look for a concubine for a year, but he couldn't even find a suitable concubine.
Zhou Ruodou sighed: "Chongzhen was really good at that time. You can take a concubine with just a few taels of silver. In times of famine, you don't even need to give out any money. You can get one for a few buckets of rice. I also took a concubine. I am gentle and virtuous.
It’s a pity that she died in childbirth.”
Yu Zudeng's mind was not on concubinage. He said: "Shopkeeper, I heard that many textile factories have been opened in Changhu, Susong. In the past two years, some people have also opened textile factories in the east of Nanjing. They use new spinning machines.
The loom can spin yarn and cloth faster, and you can earn more money. How about giving your boss some advice and asking him to open a textile factory in the east of the city?"
Zhou Ruodou said angrily: "We are a cloth shop. We purchase cloth, not spin it ourselves. Do your job well and don't think about what you have or don't have."
But Yu Zudeng said: "In those textile factories, cloth merchants come to buy the fabrics woven from them. They don't have to worry about selling them at all, and they don't ask our cloth shop to help them sell them."
"That's a bad rule!"
Zhou Ruodou became angrier as he talked: "Since the Jiajing period, there has been a cotton guild in Jinling. At that time, the owners of all the cloth shops in the city sat together and decided on the charter. Cloth merchants from other places could only find cloth shops to sell cloth. Which cloth merchant If he dared to break the rules, all the cloth shops in the city would not sell him any cloth! Even if someone opened a textile workshop at that time, the cotton cloth would have to be sold by the cloth shops on their behalf."
Yu Zudeng asked: "Why are there no such rules now?"
Zhou Ruodou sighed: "Well, during the Chongzhen period, the cloth business was not easy to do. Those cloth merchants are living ancestors, so it is not up to them to decide what they want to do. Now the cloth business is easy to do, but Your Majesty does not allow such rules to be established. , saying it is Shilaoshizi’s industry monopoly.”
Yu Zudeng said with a smile: "Your Majesty has few rules, and he does not allow many folk rules. In the past, private merchants were not allowed to have flower houses without government permission. Nowadays, there are more and more flower houses in Nanjing."
Hualou, whose scientific name is "Zhiyun Brocade Jacquard Machine", has a total of 1924 parts.
Yun brocade is a royal tribute. The emperor's dragon robe and the queen's phoenix robe are all made of Yun brocade. Even if the court's control declined in the late Ming Dynasty and it wanted to build a flower house and weave Yun brocade, it would still need to be taken care of by the government. If you are not careful, you may cause a house raid.
Nowadays, the Datong court no longer restricts, but encourages merchants to weave brocade.
Nanjing quickly became the center of brocade textiles. In just a few years, the number of brocade looms inside and outside the city has grown to three to four thousand. And the number is still increasing, solving the employment problem of tens of thousands of people.
Many wealthy people among the people have also started to wear Yun brocade. After all, it used to be the material of dragon robes and phoenix robes.
Even the word "Yunjin" was named by Zhao Han. Because in the Ming Dynasty, it had to enter the royal warehouse, so it was called Kujin or Kudan.
Japanese envoy Lin Luoshan saw Yun Jin some time ago and his eyes were straightened.
Lin Luoshan has seen brocade before, but Yun brocade is the best among brocades. Since the Yuan Dynasty, it can only be used by the royal family, and at most it can only be given to ministers who have made meritorious services.
Because he liked it so much, Lin Luoshan wanted to learn the technology secretly and went to Yunjin Manufacturing Factory.
But the more he turned around, the more stupid he became. There were 1,924 parts in the brocade loom. Not to mention stealing it, even if I explained it carefully to him, it would take him a month or two to understand it.
British writer Peter Mundy recorded Yun brocade in his book: "Nobles from various European countries thought silk was a divine creation and a rare treasure in the world. They certainly cannot understand or even imagine the existence of Yun brocade. Forgive me. The vocabulary is limited, or in other words, there is no adjective in the English vocabulary that can express the beauty and nobility of Yunjin..."
"It is said that the machine for making Yunjin brocade is composed of tens of thousands of parts. A Chinese official told me that Yunjin brocade was an ancient emperor named Liu Yu. The Northern Expedition destroyed a country called Qin, and thousands of craftsmen were captured from Chang'an. These craftsmen integrated the textile skills of Han, Wei, Jin, and many grassland peoples (Sixteen Kingdoms). After thousands of years of improvement, this beautiful textile was finally born."
"I deliberately spent silver to make a piece of brocade clothing. The moment I put it on, I felt more noble than the emperors and kings of Europe..."