Zhao Jinxi took out a silver ingot worth ten taels and put it on the table and said: "Shopkeeper, my master will give you ten taels. You can find some experienced craftsmen!" The jade boss looked at Zhao Jinxi's silver and said with a wry smile.
"My lord, if you hire the jade craftsman away, the shop will close. Even if you give me fifty taels, I can't let you hire my jade craftsman." Zhao Jinxi and Yang Peng looked at each other.
, Yang Peng said: "Shop, you gave us the old master, you can train a few new people to polish jade."
The shopkeeper said: "My lord, these jade craftsmen's skills are passed down from ancestors. They are passed down from son to son, not from son-in-law. When the old jade craftsman is gone, it will take a new jade craftsman who knows how many years to learn the skill. How can it be cultivated overnight?"
For the sake of the small profit of the small shop, please don’t rob the jade craftsmen of the small shop.” Yang Peng heard this and asked: “These jade craftsmen are skills passed down from ancestors, not the skills you taught them?” Then
The shopkeeper didn't react for a moment, and nodded and said: "The shop also hires these jade craftsmen for monthly money. They are all skills passed down from their families. What is the skill of the shop?"
After saying this, the shopkeeper realized that he regretted a little, and secretly thought that the official wanted to skip him and directly hire a jade craftsman. Yang Peng smiled and said, "In that case, we won't talk to you.
"Yes." Yang Peng led a group of people out of Jade Alley and stayed at an inn. After resting for a while, Yang Peng found the innkeeper and said, "Innkeeper, I have something to ask you!"
When the shopkeeper saw Yang Peng's official uniform, he knelt down to salute, but Yang Peng helped him up. "I want to hire some craftsmen who know how to polish jade, do you recognize them?" The shopkeeper asked honestly: "Official
What kind of jade craftsman do you want? If it is a top-notch craftsman who can do some skillful work and can decorate, drill and penetrate jade, then the salary will be high and it is not easy to hire. If it is an average craftsman,
There are many jade craftsmen in our county who only cut jade and tie jade, and they usually cost two taels a month."
Yang Peng asked: "Can ordinary craftsmen polish the edges and polish jade?" The innkeeper said: "Of course they can, but this doesn't make them a jade craftsman?" Yang Peng nodded and said, "Then you
So I found some skilled ordinary jade craftsmen with good polishing skills. I want to hire five people, and I will give each person three taels of silver per month. They will provide three meals a day, and three meals will include meat.
Give each of them fifteen taels of silver for moving expenses and let them go to Tianjing New City near Cangzhou to work!" After saying this, Yang Peng took out two taels of silver and put it on the table and said: "This silver is for you, it is considered an introduction fee.
."
The shopkeeper's face suddenly beamed with smile, and he said: "I will help the official!" Zhao Jin was delighted to see the shopkeeper's face beaming with joy, and added: "Shopkeeper, you must find the right person! If you are looking for a craftsman who doesn't know how to do things,
Come on, my official is not easy to deal with!" The shopkeeper quickly said: "You know, the common people know!"
The next night, the shopkeeper brought nine jade craftsmen to the inn and introduced them to Yang Peng. Yang Peng glanced at the nine people and said, "Why did you find so many people?" The shopkeeper said, "Listen.
They are all willing to come if they can get the official's monthly payment. These nine people are all veterans. Let the official choose five people." Hearing the shopkeeper's words, the nine jade craftsmen looked at Yang Peng nervously, for fear that Yang Peng would not want them.
Yang Peng glanced at the nine people and said, "How many of them are getting married?"
Then six older jade craftsmen stood up and said that they were married. Yang Peng glanced at these six people, nodded, eliminated the oldest one, and selected the other five. These five
A jade craftsman has money to get married, which means that their current income level is good, and they are naturally skilled craftsmen. The other three bachelors have no money to get married, so their level is difficult to estimate. Yang Peng could not test the level of these jade craftsmen for the time being.
It can be easily evaluated using this crude method.
Five well-established jade craftsmen were selected by Yang Peng. They were overjoyed and secretly thought that their income had increased by half. The new owner also provided three meals with meat. Where could such a good thing be found? Yang Peng found the craftsmen and immediately paid fifteen
After two days of moving expenses, he urged the craftsmen to move to Tianjing New City immediately and organize the production of reading glasses.
In July of the first year of Xianping, the jade craftsmen moved their luggage and jade grinding tools from Yutian to Tianjing New City and began to produce reading glasses for Yang Peng. The first step in making reading glasses was to make a mold.
Drawings, blacksmiths were hired to make twenty glass lens molds with different curvatures. The glassmakers poured hot annealed glass liquid into these molds to press out convex glass pieces, and then handed the convex glass lenses to the jadesmith.
deal with.
Jade craftsmen need to polish the roughly pressed glass pieces into a convex lens with a single focus. This operation of jade craftsmen polishing the glass pieces is called milling in jade making. The craftsmen use tools like "milling" to finely grind the glass.
Surface. During the specific operation, the jade worker holds the glass with his left hand and presses it against the edge of the rotating steel plate. There is a basin filled with water and red sand at one end of the table. The jade worker uses his right hand to scoop up the sand and pour it.
On glass, hard jade sand, coupled with a rotating and sharp edge-grinding blade, can grind away unnecessary parts of the glass.
The lens is not finished after grinding, it also needs to be polished. Polishing is divided into two steps: wooden grinding and leather grinding. Wooden grinding is usually made of gourd pulp. The tool structure used during operation is a board connected to a wooden shaft, which drives a circular motion.
Rotate the wooden block and polish the lens with the help of stone sand. The hardness of the stone sand used in this step is relatively low, usually quartz sand.
Then there is the polishing: During the leather polishing process, a round clay made of cowhide is used to rotate and rub the lens to grind it into a smooth and translucent glass lens. After polishing, the reading lens is ready. Li Zhi asked the craftsmen to install the lens into the wood.
Inside the frame, they become reading glasses. The power of reading glasses is based on the length of the focal length. Yang Peng deduced the approximate length of one meter from his own height, made an iron meter ruler, and then used the focal length of each lens to
Multiply the reciprocal of by one hundred to get the power of each lens.
The lenses made for the first time ranged from 100 degrees to 800 degrees. Yang Peng found a few literate old men to conduct experiments and asked them to try on reading glasses with various degrees. These old people wore reading glasses with appropriate degrees.
After putting on reading glasses, they found that they could see the text clearly at close range, and everyone exclaimed that it was amazing.
The things invented by this city lord are always so incredible.
After Yang Peng confirmed the power of each lens, he made a new mold and made 28 lens molds with different powers in units of 25 degrees. The new lenses were polished by craftsmen to make a set of standards
After adjusting the lenses, these standard lenses are used to make fine molds for the molds to reduce the workload of polishing. Finally, after the standard molds are completed on February 15th, each jade craftsman can grind out one pair of lenses per hour.
, five people can make thirty pairs of glasses every day.
After the product was made, Yang Peng started selling it. Yang Peng sold reading glasses at the price of twelve taels per pair at the Gaojia store in Cangzhou City. Yang Peng set the reading glasses at this price, firstly to prevent other people from selling the reading glasses.
After all, it is relatively easy to imitate reading glasses. The glass used in a pair of reading glasses is only one-twentieth of a set of glass tea sets. If the price is too high, some people will use the glass they sell to grind the imitations.
Imitation products are irresistible, so they cannot be priced too high. Secondly, Yang Peng also hopes that more people will buy reading glasses and expand profits. Even the owners of wealthy families can afford this price.
If sold at this price, many people in the Song Dynasty could afford glasses, and the sales volume of reading glasses would increase.
In terms of product confidentiality, Yang Peng maintains confidentiality by controlling the raw materials of the lenses. The colorless glass on the market is basically produced by Tianjing New City. The cups of glass wine sets are relatively small and cannot be used to grind glass lenses. The bottom of the cup of glass tea sets
It can be ground into glass lenses, which is not conducive to the confidentiality of the glasses industry. Fortunately, the sales of tea sets were not very good, so Yang Peng simply stopped producing this kind of glass tea sets, cutting off the possibility of other craftsmen imitating glass lenses from the raw materials.
By controlling raw materials, Yang Peng blocked the possibility of others imitating reading glasses. The Gao family's store in Cangzhou City has already expanded. Now the other two shops on both sides of the store have also been bought by the Gao family, and they look very decent after luxurious decoration.
.Yang Peng sells soap in the easternmost store, and the Gao family sells reading glasses in the most luxuriously decorated store in the westernmost store.
It is said that everything is difficult at the beginning, and there are always very few customers for a new product at the beginning. Yang Peng hung a big banner on the store saying "Cure Presbyopia Guaranteed", hoping to attract the first batch of customers. What Yang Peng can do now,
Just wait for this product to slowly ferment and bring you profits.
Ding Youdi's father hoped to have a son again, so he gave him such a silly name. However, he did have a younger brother later, which made him doubt whether his name was really useful. He was originally from Ding, sixty miles west of Cangzhou.
A farmer in his village lived in Dao for three years. When he heard that Tianjing New City was recruiting workers, he came to apply for workers. Fortunately, he passed the interview with Li Dao, a close confidant of the city lord, and entered the glass workshop of Tianjing New City. At first, he
What he did was light firewood for the fire. Later, the city lord asked him to do the shopping. He went to Xue Yuanwai's shop in the west of Cangzhou City to buy alkali noodles. Then every time he burned a furnace of glass, he poured the alkali noodles into the crucible, each pot weighed nine kilograms.
He did this simple and easy job. After the first glass kiln in the glass workshop was officially put into operation, there were seventeen employees. Cai Huaishui, the head of the kiln, took three people to heat the furnace. Three people, including Ding Youdi, purchased goods and sent them to the crucible.
To add goods inside, one employee is responsible for adding saltpeter to the boiling crucible, two employees are responsible for adding salt to the crucible and stirring the melt, one is responsible for annealing, and four are responsible for molding.
According to the rules of the city lord: each employee is only responsible for his or her own business. No one knows what materials others buy and use, nor how much other people’s materials cost. Employees are not allowed to discuss their own processes with other employees, let alone
Leak the details of the process to the outside world.
Cai Huaishui, the head of the kiln, is responsible for enforcing order and suppressing employees who violate disciplines. Cai Huaishui is a simple and responsible kiln head. When he was in charge here, the entire kiln ran very smoothly. Most of the employees abided by discipline and no one talked about other people's processes. Ding Youdi
I am very grateful to Mr. Cheng for giving him such a job. It only costs two taels of silver a month and has meat for three meals. It is easy and simple.
Ding Youdi rented a villa on Heming Street in the north of Tianjing City, and the monthly rent was only seventy cents. There was no charge for eating and drinking in Tianjing New Town, and there was meat and vegetables for every meal. After half a year, Ding Youdi felt that he had grown a lot stronger and his courage was gone.
He was older. Moreover, the monthly salary in Tianjing New City was so high that he could save one or two or eight taels of silver every month. After half a year, he already had more than ten taels of savings.
Ding Youdi's good work increased his net worth. From time to time, matchmakers would come to his house for matchmaking, which made him very proud. But the good days passed quickly. When the city lord built the second glass kiln at the end of July, he removed the original kiln head.
Cai Huaishui was transferred to the second kiln. In the first kiln, Huang Huang, the original kiln worker, served as the kiln head. Since Huang Huang became the kiln head, the atmosphere in the glass kiln has changed.
In the first month, everyone could still abide by the rules. But after returning after the New Year, several workers began to inquire about other people's recipe secrets. At the beginning, three workers who were close friends with Huang Huang, the kiln head, kept busy in the kiln.
Inquire about other people's raw material names and quantities, and peek at other people's process operations. For example, when the annealing workers were doing the annealing, they were originally operating alone in a cubicle. Huang Huang's people rushed in to watch, and quarreled with the workers in charge of annealing.
several times.
Huang Huang not only did not stop those few people from violating discipline, but also punished employees who were unwilling to reveal the secret of the formula from time to time. As the head of the kiln, Huang Huang had the power to eliminate meat and meat from employees’ meals. For example, Chen San, who was responsible for adding saltpeter, was responsible for the operation.
At that time, the people on the left and right were supposed to be dismissed, but Huang Huang's people wanted to see it. Every time there was a quarrel, Huang Huang would cancel Chen San's meat and meat.
Huang Huang's family is very poor. I heard that his father was gambling outside and owed money, so he was very short of money. Everyone suspected that Huang Huang had colluded with outsiders to obtain the glass formula. However, the people working in this glass workshop were all honest farmers. There was no evidence.
They don't dare to offend Huang Huang and report him! However, everyone knows that their job is not easy to win. Once he leaks his formula to Huang Huang's people, the Lord of the City will not let him go easily. At least he will cancel his job, and at worst, he will cancel his job.
Sitting in jail and making mistakes. Thinking of this, the workers kept their own processes secret and did not allow Huang Huang's people to have a chance to see into the details.
Soon, Huang Huang found that he could not force himself with his limited power, so he began to change his strategy. He began to invite the kiln employees to the restaurant one by one for dinner, saying that he wanted to discuss important matters. Huang Huang entertained several guests
Later, Ding Youdi discovered that many employees in the kiln began to mingle with Huang Huang.
They whispered during the operation and discussed the secrets of their processes. When doing key operations, they no longer turned their backs on Huang Huang, but operated in front of Huang Huang for him to see. Ding Youdi said, these people must have taken advantage of Huang Huang.
He began to sell process secrets to Huang Ming. Ding Youdi wanted to report Huang Huang, but he suffered from the lack of evidence and was afraid that he would offend other employees in the kiln who had taken refuge with Huang Ming, and would be collectively framed by them in the future.
Finally, on July 7th, Huang Huang found Ding Youdi and invited him to have a drink at Jixianlou, the largest restaurant in Tianjing New City. At the wine table, taking advantage of the strength of two bowls of soju, Huang Huang joined Ding Youdi.
In his ear, he whispered that he would give him one hundred taels of silver to buy him the secret of this process. As long as Ding Youdi agreed, Huang Huang would immediately give him fifty taels of silver. Then Ding Youdi told Huang Huang what materials were added to the crucible and how many kilograms at a time.
What’s the key? After all is said and done, the operation will be done in front of Huang Huang tomorrow, and Huang Huang will give another fifty taels of silver to Ding Youdi.
One hundred taels of silver was enough for Ding Youdi to buy two small villas in Tianjing New City. Ding Youdi was also shocked by Huang Huang's generosity. He was in a daze for a few seconds, but soon he found his backbone: This can't be done!
In this time of war and chaos, what can you do with a hundred taels after betraying the city lord?
Going to buy dozens of acres of dry land? These days, the gentry and the royal family don’t pay land taxes, and the land taxes are all borne by common people like Ding Youdi. You can’t make a few taels of money by digging in the soil all year round, and you have to be exploited by subordinate officials.
, working so hard, and being hungry every year during the lean period! Looking for a job elsewhere? Who would hire someone who betrayed the city lord? Even if others don’t know his true identity and hire him, he can still get one or two taels these days.
An errand worth five cents is considered a high-priced incense. Generally, such errands are strenuous physical work and can wear people down. Errands like the one provided by the Lord of the City will never be found again.
What's more, the city lord is not easy to deal with. If you betray him, you will not be able to survive in Cangzhou, and you will have to fly away! Ding Youdi is not a greedy person, he is very calm, and he knows that he is harming himself by taking the one hundred taels of silver.
But Huang Huang was very arrogant. He patted Ding Youdi on the shoulder and said coldly: "We are serious about spending so much money on your secret recipe. If you think about it, you will know that we have a lot of background! If you don't cooperate,
I guarantee that you will not have a good life. We can’t touch you in Tianjing New City, and I guarantee that your hands and feet will be cut off as soon as you leave Tianjing New City!"
After listening to Huang Huang's words, Ding Youdi felt a chill in his heart and sweat broke out on his back. Could it be that he really couldn't keep such a good job and could only accept the one hundred taels of silver and fly away. Ding Youdi was not a weak person.
, he held the wine glass and thought about a cup of tea, and then made up his mind. He was determined to keep his good life and fight with this Huang Huang to the end. He pretended to agree to Huang Huang and accepted Huang Huang's fifty taels.
Yinzi, told Huang Huang that what he purchased was arsenic, and he added fifteen kilograms of it into the crucible at a time.
Huang Huang was overjoyed and kept toasting Ding Youdi. Finally, he was half drunk before going back. Ding Youdi took the money and did not return to his villa. He walked around Tianjing New Town to make sure that no one was following him, and rushed
Entering Yang Peng's official hall. The soldiers guarding the door refused to let Ding Youdi in at first, but Ding Youdi took out fifty taels of silver from his arms and said that someone wanted to steal the secret recipe of the city lord's glass. The soldiers quickly went in and reported it. Soon
, Ding Youdi saw the city lord walking out in person.
The moment he saw the city lord, Ding Youdi understood that his good life in Tianjing New City had been saved! Looking at the fifty taels of silver, Yang Peng believed Ding Youdi's words that someone was stealing his formula. Yang Peng could not have imagined that he
Despite all the layers of defense, there are still people who are trying their best to steal their own formula. I gave this kiln leader three or two months of money, but I didn’t expect that he would not be grateful to me, and instead joined forces with outsiders to steal the glass formula. Who is coveting my formula?
Want to produce huge profits from glass?
Yang Peng asked Ding Youdi and Huang Huangxu to deal with it, while Yang Peng sent people overnight to secretly follow Huang Huang to see who was in contact with him. Two days later, there was news from the whistle, and four outsiders pretending to be in the rice and noodle business contacted him every day.
Huang Huang went to spread the news outside the city. Yang Peng asked people to keep an eye on these fake rice noodle merchants to see where they were going to spread the news.
After following for a few days, the whistle finally found out that these rice noodle merchants had entered Lu Siqi's home. Lu Siqi was the boss of Long Shengxing, one of the eight major merchant houses in Bianjing, and the cousin of Pan Hu, the general of Bianjing. It turned out that he was Pan Hu's.
People want to produce their own glass. This Lu Siqi usually likes to make friends and watch movies, and he looks like a knight. He didn't expect to steal the formula so ruthlessly, and thousands of taels of silver were poured in. With this energy, he was obviously prepared to do it all at once.
Get the formula for glass. Yang Peng doesn't want to fall out with the court at this time and can't touch Lu Siqi, but he can still deal with the unruly people in his territory.
Yang Peng gave an order, and the servants went out to arrest Huang Huang and the fake rice noodle merchants. They were put into prison for interrogation. Under torture, several unscrupulous people quickly revealed the main messenger.
And the employees who had been bribed. The main messenger was indeed Lu Siqi. Several fake rice and noodle merchants reported directly to Lu Siqi's brother and used money to do things. And with this money, Huang Ming had already bribed eight workers in the No. 1 kiln of the glass workshop.
Yang Peng immediately arrested the eight workers who were suspected of betraying him and interrogated them. In the end, the execution officer confirmed that these eight people had indeed sold their work secrets. These secrets had been passed to Lu Siqi through Huang Huang. Fortunately, the core
The three purchasing personnel were not bribed, nor were the workers who added saltpeter to remove color. Lu Siqi could not produce glass with limited information.
But the result of the interrogation still made Yang Peng very angry. He supported these workers with high wages, but these workers repaid him by eating them inside and outside. Yang Peng ordered that Huang Huang, the fake rice noodle merchant and eight workers who sold the formula were shot collectively. The charges were
It was to communicate with the Khitan people to leak military information. Yang Peng arranged it a little and produced some false evidence pointing to nine workers and Lu Siqi's personnel having an affair with the Khitan people. Based on this evidence, Yang Peng sentenced the thirteen criminals to death.
Yang Peng had the power to catch thieves because he had money and food in his possession, so he had the power to kill criminals. The crime of revealing the secret recipe of a businessman was too small to be beheaded, so Yang Peng simply said that these people were Khitans. It was not that Yang Peng was cruel, but it was not that he was not cruel and could not deter him.
Xiao. These nine workers, including Huang Ming, know the steps of glass production, and they have already become alienated. It is impossible to stay in the glass workshop and continue working, and it is impossible to dismiss them and let them spread the production methods of the glass workshop outside.
, can only be silenced.
With Yang Peng's high salary, he naturally has to take responsibility. Leaking secrets will end like this. When he heard that Yang Peng had sentenced his four fake rice noodle merchants to death, Lu Siqi didn't say anything, as if he didn't want to expose himself for stealing Yang Peng.
Regarding the Peng formula, I am not willing to break up with Yang Peng.
If you want to know what happens next, let’s look at the breakdown in the next chapter.