Yang Peng couldn't explain to the head of the Cai family, so he got up and left. When he walked outside the door of the Cai family, Yang Peng saw the son who had been kicked out by the head of the Cai family kneeling outside the door. Yang Peng thought that the head of the Cai family had lectured the son.
He was good at making porcelain. He secretly thought that this man was also a talent. It might be okay to hire him, so he asked: "Young man, what are you kneeling there for?"
The young man glanced at Yang Peng, lowered his head and said, "Master, I have been kicked out of my house. I can only kneel here and beg my father to forgive me. Otherwise, I will have no career outside and will starve to death sooner or later." Yang Peng asked:
"Are you willing to marry the daughter of the Han family?" The young man shook his head and gritted his teeth and said, "I only have Cui'er as my wife in this life!"
Yang Peng laughed when he heard this and said threateningly: "If you want to marry Cui'er, how can your father let you go home? I'm afraid that even if you kneel to death here, your father will not change his mind!" The young man said
Hearing Yang Peng's words, his face was full of panic, and he asked in a panic: "Master, what do you think I should do?"
Yang Peng blinked and said with a smile: "Why don't you elope with Cui'er?" The young man thought that Li Zhi was going to help him with some ideas, but he didn't expect that he would elope. He immediately lost his energy and murmured:
"With this chaos of war, where should I run with Cui'er? Sooner or later, I will starve to death in a foreign land!"
Yang Peng clapped his hands, walked to the young man, and said slowly: "I heard that your father has taught you this skill for ten years. Do you know how to build a kiln?" The young man looked at Yang Peng and said, "I
Yes! I know everything from building a kiln to choosing a crucible to molding embryos and firing the kiln. I am no worse than my father." After thinking about it, he added: "But to build a porcelain kiln, you need to buy various materials, and the cost is several hundred taels of silver.
I can’t build it with my bare hands.”
"Do you really know how to build a kiln?" "I really do. I have even improved my porcelain kiln!" Yang Peng became more energetic after hearing this and said loudly: "Then I will show you a clear path.
! Come to Tianjing New City to build a kiln for me!" The young man looked at Yang Peng's official robe, thought for a while, lowered his head and said, "No, even if I starve to death, I can't reveal the family's porcelain-making skills.
!”
Yang Peng scolded: "What are you leaking? I don't want you to burn porcelain, as long as you build a high-temperature cave to burn glass!" The young man on the ground was stunned, looked up at Yang Peng, his eyes were shining brightly, and asked
"Burning glass?" Yang Peng nodded and said, "Yes, burning glass! You build a kiln according to my instructions. You don't need to use your family's secret knowledge of porcelain burning. You just need to build a high-temperature kiln. You help me work.
I’ll give you four or two months’ worth of money, and I’ll also give you a villa to live in at a cheap price, which is enough for you and Tweety to live in!”
The young man on the ground finally reacted and looked at Yang Peng in surprise: "As long as an old porcelain worker can build a kiln, why did the official choose me?" Yang Peng said: "It is said that your Cai family has the most solid craftsmanship. Do you want to do it?
?" The young man quickly replied: "I'll do it! I'll do it! This job won't reveal my family's ancestral skills at all. I'll do it, Lord!" Yang Peng nodded with a smile and asked: "What's your name?"
"My nickname is Cai Huaishui."
Yang Peng reached out and took out twelve taels of silver from his pocket and said, "Cai Huaishui, I believe you can build a kiln. I will give you three months' monthly payment first. You take the money and go make a call with Cui'er."
Say hello, send ten taels of silver to the girl's family, and we'll treat it as an engagement. You and I will go to Tianjing New City to build a kiosk, and save dozens of taels of silver in a few months to come back and marry Cui'er!"
"Of course, the premise is that you can help me build a glass kiln. If you can't build a kiln in a few months, you can go home and marry a girl from the Han family." The young man was overjoyed and pleasantly surprised when he saw that Yang Peng had thought so thoughtfully.
Unable to hold back his tears, he wiped away his tears, got up from the ground, took the money, nodded and said, "Master, I will definitely build a glass kiln for you!"
Yang Peng nodded and asked Cai Huaishui to go to Cui'er's house to say hello. Yang Peng took a flight and bought a horse in the county town. When Cai Huaishui came back, he gave the horse to him. "It's okay with Cui'er's family.
How is it?" "I told his father that I got a job worth four or two months, and his father happily accepted my money!" After a pause, Cai Huaishui said with a smile: "Cui'er is very happy!" Yang Peng smiled.
He smiled and said: "That's it, get on your horse and follow me to Tianjing New City."
When they arrived in Tianjing New City, after Yang Peng emphasized the probability of keeping it secret, he showed Cai Huaishui the drawings of the glass kiln he designed. In addition to the main furnace and heat storage room, Yang Peng also designed an annealing channel. The so-called annealing is to control the temperature change.
The high-temperature material is gradually cooled down at an appropriate speed to eliminate the residual stress inside the material. If the residual stress is not eliminated, the glass will crack on its own.
Yang Peng and Cai Huaishui explained: The purpose of this kiln is to heat the glass raw material in the crucible to a temperature slightly higher than that of porcelain, so that the material can be completely melted into a glass liquid, saltpeter is added to remove the color, and then it is annealed in the annealing channel.
Finally, it was clarified and defoamed with salt, poured into a molding machine, and molded. Following this idea, Li Zhi asked Cai Huaishui to design the glass kiln.
Cai Huaiguo is indeed an old porcelain worker. He is familiar with all the techniques Yang Peng mentioned, and he is confident that he can make this kiln. Yang Peng gave Cai Huaishui a thousand taels of silver and asked him to purchase various materials. Yang Peng
He also allocated a piece of land in the southeast of Tianjing City for Cai Huaishui to build a factory, and hired five handymen to work as helpers and apprentices for Cai Huaishui, and asked them to follow Cai Huaishui to build a kiln for burning glass. The glass kiln is being built here, and Yang Peng wants to
The six-pounder cannon is ready.
On April 10, Yang Peng's glass kiln was ready. There were six crucibles arranged in the glass cellar - Cai Huaishui hired a specialized crucible craftsman to bake them with the best porcelain clay. After the glass kiln was ignited, the crucibles were fired in the kiln.
After two days, when the heat was white-hot, Yang Peng put the raw materials into the crucible.
Yang Peng used the first furnace as a test and placed slightly different raw materials in different crucibles: some crucibles only had soda ash, limestone and quartz, some crucibles had different ratios of these three main raw materials, and some crucibles added
A little borax, some with a little feldspar - see which recipe produces the best glass in the end.
Thanks to Cai Huaishui, Yang Peng knew where to buy ingredients such as borax and feldspar. Speaking of which, firing glass is quite troublesome: saltpeter must be added to the heated glass water to remove color - glass contains trace amounts of iron.
The elements are therefore green, especially divalent iron, which is green, while ferric iron is not obviously green. After Li Zhi added saltpeter, the saltpeter oxidized divalent iron to trivalent iron, and the glass became colorless and transparent.
Not only that, the glass needs to be clarified after it is fired - a clarifier, such as salt, must be added to the hot glass liquid. The clarifier evaporates when heated to form large bubbles. When these large bubbles rise, they bring out small bubbles, which can make the glass
The bubbles in the liquid were reduced, so it was clarified. Yang Peng's furnace design was very successful. After one day of burning, all six pots of raw materials were burned into hot glass liquid. After the glass liquid entered the annealing channel and was annealed, Yang Peng checked the color of the glass test product.
It was found that the glass with borax in the third crucible had the best transparency, and the optimal formula was found. For the second furnace of glass, Yang Peng fine-tuned the optimal formula found in the first furnace until a more perfect formula was found.
Then he gave up and started making the finished product.
In the third furnace of glass, Yang Peng began to use a molding machine to mold glass products. Yang Peng used pig iron to make a molding machine, and applied a layer of charcoal powder mixed with tung oil on the molding machine to prevent the mold from adhering to the glass. A crucible of molten glass
After pouring into the annealing channel to cool down, some glass liquid is poured into the casting mold. The craftsmen press the mold press to force the glass liquid to form in the molding machine. After the glass in the molding machine cools down, a round glass cup is made.
.
The transparent glass was made and looked very beautiful when placed on the table, exuding a crystal-like bright luster. Cai Huaishui exclaimed the miracle and followed Yang Peng excitedly, looking left and right. "City Lord, it's done! It's done!"
Now I can marry Cui'er!" The five craftsmen who helped him were also full of surprise, and looked at Yang Peng with admiration in their eyes.
Glass is an absolute luxury in this era. The craftsmen have never seen such a large transparent glass. If you put it on the market, you will definitely get a good price. However, Yang Peng picked up the glass and took a closer look, but found the shortcomings.
Disadvantage - There are still some bubbles in the wall of the glass. These bubbles not only hinder the appearance, but also make the glass fragile and easy to break.
Yang Peng thought for a while and felt that the clarification work was still not done thoroughly. Yang Peng was determined to get rid of these bubbles, so he added more salt to a new pot of glass hot liquid. After adding more salt, the bubbles decreased, but
The entire glass liquid was emulsified, and the resulting glass became no longer transparent, and became like the frosted glass of later generations, which greatly disappointed Yang Peng.
Yang Peng thought for a long time and decided to maintain the original amount of salt and increase the stirring process! He asked a blacksmith to make dozens of iron rods, and asked the craftsmen to continuously stir the hot glass liquid in the crucible before the glass liquid cooled, and the glass was heated
The foam in the liquid was stirred as much as possible, and then salt was added as a clarifier. After adding the stirring process, Yang Peng directed the craftsmen to pour out the pot of glass and mold it. After the new glass was made, Yang Peng was surprised to find
The bubbles were basically gone. He got a crystal clear round bottom glass.
Looking at this completely transparent and almost colorless glass, Yang Peng felt that the silver was waving to him.
However, Yang Peng is not worried about the leakage of glass formula. In order to prevent the leakage of the glass formula, Yang Peng has already designed the production process step by step: from the beginning, he subdivided the kiln and feeding process of burning glass into six steps.
, each step is handled by different people. Moreover, Yang Peng did not tell the workers who were handling the materials what materials he was handling. He only let him know that the materials arrived and put them into the crucible according to the weight. The raw material purchasing personnel only knew what they bought.
What kind of materials are they? I don’t know how to use these raw materials.
Even Cai Huaishui, who helped Yang Peng build the glass cellar, only knew the structure of the glass cellar and did not know the formulas and proportions of Yang Peng's various materials. If he wanted to get Yang Peng's glass formula, he had to bribe all the glass workshop workers and all raw material procurement
personnel, this is extremely difficult. If the trend of technology from secrecy to diffusion is irreversible, Yang Peng hopes that this day of diffusion will come as late as possible.
By June, Yang Peng's two thousand villas had all been built.
One thousand of these villas were rented by Yang Peng to the families of employees in various industries, with a room price of 70 cents. The rent level ensures that Yang Peng can recover the price of the villa in fifteen years. There are also one thousand villas that are rented by Yang Peng
Peng rented it to various foreign business service workers in Tianjing New City. Tianjing New City has two thousand high-consumption employee families, and all walks of life have demand, so within a few months, Tianjing New City has an influx of two thousand employees.
, three thousand people in the commercial and service industries. These people also need to live in houses and rent villas in Yang Peng. The rent that Yang Peng rents to these outsiders is more expensive, with a monthly rent of 105 cents.
This rental level allows Li Zhi to recoup the price of a villa in ten years.
After the house price is recovered, the rent will be a net profit. The rent of two thousand villas can now earn Yang Peng more than 600 taels of silver per month. Of course, a small number of villas are sold to employees and outsiders. Small villas are sold
The price is 50 taels per house for working-class families, and each family is limited to purchasing one house at this price. The price for selling to outsiders is 60 taels per house - in fact, even the 60 taels per house is lower than the housing prices in Cangzhou City.
Some. Demand is booming in all walks of life in Tianjing New City. It is easy to make money doing business here, and the housing prices are not high.
After the villa construction stopped, Tianjing New City got rid of the status of a large construction site. There are no longer so many accumulated building materials, construction waste has also been reduced, and the whole city looks much tidier. The two thousand villas have also allowed Fanjiazhuang to begin to take shape.
, standing on the city wall and looking over, the continuous villas with white walls and black tiles in the north of the city are very neat and beautiful.
Tianjing New City is a leader among cities in this era, both in terms of sanitation conditions and degree of prosperity.
The glass workshop is Yang Peng's third more profitable industry. Yang Peng asked Zhao Jinxi to ask and found that the supply of glass wine sets now exceeds the demand. The glass workshop can produce 250 sets of glass wine sets and 50 sets of glass wine sets every month.
Tea sets and glass tea sets are good, with more than 30 sets sold every month. Colorless glass wine sets are extremely popular, and they were sold out within a few days of being put on the market.
Moreover, the demand for glass wine sets seems to be getting stronger and stronger. Not only the people in Cangzhou City know the benefits of glass wine sets, but also various prefectures and counties in Gyeonggi Province come to buy them. Even wealthy businessmen and gentry from the south send people to buy goods. Yang
The set of wine glasses sold by Peng contains twenty colorless wine glasses, which can be used by two tables. For a set of thirty two, a wine glass only sells for an average of one to two five yuan. Colorless glasses are sold across the ocean with Western cargo ships.
In comparison, Tianjing New City's colorless glass wine glasses are much cheaper. No wonder wealthy businessmen are rushing to buy them.
Although the glass workshop can now earn Yang Peng 6,000 to 7,000 taels of profit per month, it is obvious that the profit potential of this product needs to be tapped urgently. Yang Peng immediately approached Cai Huaishui and asked him to start building a new one next to the original glass kiln.
kiln to expand the production capacity of glass. Of course, Cai Huaishui could not do it alone, so Yang Peng hired six more workers as employees of the second glass kiln to build the glass kiln with Cai Huaishui.
Cai Huaishui built the second kiln with ease, and it took only more than 20 days to direct the workers to build the kiln. As soon as the second kiln was completed, Yang Peng asked the new kiln to fully produce glass wine vessels. There were more new kilns than the old kiln.
A crucible has expanded the total production capacity of glass wine vessels to 600 sets per month. The brand of glass wine vessels has been launched, and now the market is in short supply. Yang Peng has new ideas for the sales of wine vessels.
Yang Peng is going to hold an auction!
Selling glass wineware in the form of auction can maximize the price of each batch of glass wineware and achieve the greatest profit. The targets of the auction are, of course, the wealthy businessmen of Cangzhou and Yingzhou. Cangzhou and Yingzhou are the northern and southern cities.
The water transport transfer station is a place where merchants gather, and wealthy merchants gather. These wealthy merchants bought Yang Peng's colorless glasses and resold them to the north and south of the Yangtze River, and the profit was higher than Yang Peng's own selling in the store. Yang Peng faced the auction of these wealthy merchants
Glass wine sets will definitely sell for a better price.
Moreover, selling goods to these merchants actually gives them an opportunity to make money and expand their network. After making up his mind, Yang Peng found Xu Mince and discussed with him about holding an auction. Xu Mince heard the word auction
He was stunned and asked: "What does auction mean?" "It just lets buyers bid, and the one with the highest price wins!" "That's it!"
Xu Mince had long heard about Yang Peng's newly developed colorless glass industry to make money. When he heard that Yang Peng was going to hold an auction to sell glass wine vessels, he said angrily: "Brother Xian's business is getting bigger and bigger, and all kinds of ideas are emerging one after another. Brother Fool is confused."
I can't keep up." Yang Peng knew that Xu Mince wanted benefits, so he smiled and said: "This time I divided the 600 sets of wine sets per month into 12 shares, of which 10 shares were auctioned. I put the rest
Two shares, that is, one hundred sets of wine vessels per month are supplied to Brother Xu at the price of thirty taels per set, and Brother Xu can be sold to the south to make money. How about that?"
Xu Mince was overjoyed when he heard this. It is estimated that these one hundred sets of drinking utensils can be sold for 40 to 50 taels of silver a set by sellers in the south of the Yangtze River. After taking into account the freight, banknotes and labor costs, these 100 sets are worth more than 1,000 taels per month.
Profits. Xu Mince secretly thought that Yang Peng was a sensible person and it was not wrong for him to introduce him to the Cangzhou County Magistrate.
However, Xu Mince thought again: This colorless glass wine vessel was sold in large quantities, and the price of fifty taels was the limit. At that time, he would definitely use his network of contacts in Jiangnan to promote it. The more than one thousand taels of silver would not be worth the soap business.
So easy.
But it is always a good thing to make so much money. Yang Peng also had his own ideas when giving profits to Xu Mince. Xu Mince and the officials were actually a family. Xu Mince had a strong voice in the governor's office. Giving profits to Xu Mince actually deepened the relationship between the two.
A way to relate to the governor.
Xu Mince got the benefit and said with a smile: "Don't worry, dear brother, I will send a message to all the big businessmen in Cangzhou and ask them to go to Zuixian Tower to participate in the auction!" After a pause, Xu Mince asked again: "What time is set?
What’s the right time?”
"Just the afternoon after tomorrow!" In the Zuixian Building in the west of the city, it was as warm as spring and very clean and tidy. There were many copper heaters in the hall on the third floor to keep the entire hall at a comfortable temperature.
The wealthy businessmen from Cangzhou and various places gathered here did not feel the cold. The incense burner on the coffee table was burning spices, making the whole hall fragrant.
Yang Peng had previously asked the waiters in Zuixian Tower to arrange the chairs in the style of an auction in later generations. At this time, all the chairs were facing the stage to the west. Most of the wealthy businessmen from Cangzhou came, sitting on the chairs and chatting about today.
's auction.
Xu Mince had already written the rules of the auction on the invitation card before, and these big businessmen all knew today's rules.
"This auction is really a strange thing!" "The city lord has a lot of new ideas!" "I just came to see the strange things today!" "Don't say it, it's a good thing to be able to buy the city lord's goods. Look at Xu Mince, follow Yang Peng and make money
How much money did you get?" "Tsk, tsk, no matter what, I want to buy a share of glass wine sets today! I'll sell them to Suzhou!"
Seeing Yang Peng entering the lobby on the third floor, the wealthy businessmen all stood up to greet Yang Peng.
"The master of the house is here!" "I've met you, sir!" "The master of the city is here and safe!"
Yang Peng took a look and found that six of the eight major businesses in Bianjing had sent people, and some even had their owners come in person. Together with Xu Mince beside him, all the other seven businesses except the Gao family had gathered. Yang Peng looked in the crowd.
Looking around, I saw Dong Zhiyi, the Dong family who sold refined salt, and Xue Yuanwai, who sold alkaline noodles to me.
Yang Peng cupped his hands and said: "Everyone, sit down!" When he walked to the stage, Yang Peng said: "Everyone knows the rules of today's auction. There are fifty sets of drinking utensils per month as one group, a total of ten groups, and everyone bids to buy each group
The goods will be awarded to the highest bidder. The merchant who successfully bids will pay me a deposit of 100 taels, and then select a date to deliver the goods!"
After a pause, Yang Peng added: "It's been half a year since the glass wine set was launched. Everyone has heard of this product and knows how many taels they can sell for their wine glasses. When bidding, everyone should act according to their ability!" After Yang Peng said this
If so, ask the servants to bring out several sets of glass wine sets, fill them with soju and distribute them to each merchant, so that they can take a closer look.
Everyone looked at the wine glass again, and many people exclaimed: "Colorless and transparent, crystal clear!" "Colored glass is common, but this completely transparent glass without bubbles is really rare!" "I have seen a Western merchant.
I got a colorless glass, but it’s much more expensive than the city lord’s.”
"This glass is filled with soju, and it looks like a crystal cup." Yang Peng saw that everyone had glasses in their hands. They all appreciated it, and then asked Zheng Hui, the manager of the salt factory, to stand on the stage as the host and start the auction.
.The glass wine vessels will be auctioned starting from the base price of thirty taels per set, with an additional price of five cents.
"Thirty-one taels!"
"Thirty-one-two-five cents!"
"I'll pay thirty-two taels!"
During the auction of the first set of glass wine vessels, the buyers sitting below were thinking that there would be more opportunities later, and they were very cautious. After adding thirty-five taels, no one added more, and they let the Dong family, who sold cloth, pick it up.
It was a bargain. Then Dong Zhiyi thought that if he sold this wine set to Shandong, he could sell a set of 40 to 50 taels, and he was very happy.
For the second set, the competition started, and the price was directly pushed to thirty-six taels. In the end, Yuan Xingxing’s boss, Zha Yunke, grabbed the second set of drinking utensils. Zha Yunke was in the general maritime trade business.
He knows the market of luxury goods best and has the channels to sell luxury goods. He knows that the glass wine set purchased for thirty-six taels and five cents can earn a lot of money.
In the third and fourth groups, the price went up little by little. By the eighth group, the price had risen to thirty-nine taels. Finally, Cha Yunke won the eighth group.
The prices of the ninth group and the tenth group were stable at thirty-nine taels.
After the last auction, Li Zhi received a deposit of 1,000 taels and sold 500 sets of glass wine sets at an average price of 37.5 taels. Based on the situation of this auction, Yang Peng did the math and calculated the glass wine sets.
The monthly profit of the workshop increased to seventeen thousand taels. This profit was almost the same as that of the salt factory and soap factory combined.
This is a large amount of wealth that allows Yang Peng to do many things.
If you want to know what happens next, let’s look at the breakdown in the next chapter.