Xu Erjue had already been mentally prepared, thinking that Zuo Menggeng was a warrior and had a rough temper as expected.
Despite this, he was still severely shocked when faced with Zuo Mengeng's frankness.
"Cough cough cough... cough cough cough..."
Xu Erjue's face was red and his ears were red. It took him a long time to recover, but his expression was quite unswerving.
"Why do you say this, my dear brother? What's the point of doing a little favor? You value our family well, so you won't embarrass my dear brother, right?"
Have you forgotten my sister?
Zuo Mengeng understood, but didn't care at all.
"My little brother is short of money."
Xu Erjue covered his chest in pain, and his eyes were filled with stars.
I remember that when Mr. Xu was in the south of the Yangtze River, he talked and laughed with scholars and had no ordinary people. In addition to cultivating love with silk and bamboo, he also sang songs and poems. Although he occasionally needed it, he did not lose his elegance.
It was the only time in his life that he talked about money so directly and so directly.
"Haha, dear brother, you are joking. If dear brother is short of money, I can help you a little."
Zuo Mengeng immediately became energetic.
"Brother Xu is very righteous. If you can help me with three or five hundred thousand taels of silver, I will be really grateful."
"Cough cough cough... cough cough cough..."
Xu Erjue wanted to take action and smash the wine glass directly into that annoying face.
If it weren't for the fact that the other party was young and weak in victory, he really couldn't help it.
It’s definitely not impossible to beat!
You opened your mouth and said three to five hundred thousand taels of silver. Do you think the Xu family's money was blown by the strong wind?
"Haha, dear brother, you are joking. Don't you know that such a huge sum of money has a big stake?"
Zuo Mengeng was very happy.
"Why don't you know? With so much money, it won't be a problem for me to raise an army here. Can Brother Xu really help me?"
Can you please stop mentioning this?
Xu Erjue, who failed to show off and was scolded, quickly changed the subject.
"Brother Xian seems to be very concerned about this water-driven technique."
Zuo Mengeng was very serious, but he didn't hide it.
"The technology of hydraulic drive has a wide range of applications. Just take weaving as an example. Once implemented, the output can be increased three times, and the cost can be saved by 30%. Brother Xu, do you know the benefits?"
Xu Erjue couldn't sit still.
Screw the elegance and elegance, screw the noble etiquette of poetry, they are not important at all in front of the white money.
"If this is the case, my brother is bound to acquire this water-driven technique."
Zuo Mengeng knew that he could not refuse such a temptation.
"I have two plans here. One is to set a price and sell it to Brother Xu. If you have a good relationship with our two families, I will give you a reasonable price, which is 200,000 taels of silver."
"This is impossible."
Xu Erjue's eyes were red.
Stealing money?
The Xu family can't afford so much money.
Zuo Menggeng was calm and calm, as if he had known what he said for a long time.
"Another way is for me to use this technology to invest in the Xu family weaving industry, accounting for 10% of the shares."
Zuo Mengeng didn't know how big the Xu family's weaving industry was, but as long as he held shares, the benefits of transferring the water power drive would eventually be recovered over time.
Xu Erjue laughed angrily, it was the first time he saw such a big-mouthed person.
"My dear brother, does he know the situation of Jiangnan's weaving industry?"
He had already thought about it, and when Zuo Mengeng asked, he would give this money-minded man a good education so that he could understand the Xu family's position in the Jiangnan weaving industry.
Is Zuo Mengeng a person who plays his cards according to common sense?
"I don't need to know this. I only know that the Xu family needs this technology very much. And if this technology is given to any weaving merchant, they will be happy to pay for it."
"you……"
The continuous failure made Xu Erjue almost crazy.
This was the first time he was so frustrated and there was nothing he could do.
Because Zuo Mengeng is right, if water-driven technology can really bring more than three times the production capacity of the weaving industry, all businessmen will flock to it.
Increased output and reduced costs have brought about price advantages, which will definitely allow any weaving merchant to occupy the largest market.
This was something that merchants in the Ming Dynasty would not have thought of.
Zuo Mengeng’s advantages don’t stop there.
"Although Songjiang cotton spinning is the best in the world, due to geographical restrictions, once new technologies are adopted, the supply of raw materials will become a big problem. The quality of cotton currently grown in Jiangnan is worrying, which is not conducive to the development of the weaving industry. In the future, if we want to develop the cotton spinning industry on a larger scale
, Shandong is the best choice. If the Xu family agrees to my conditions and the cotton spinning industry goes north in the future, I will give priority to the Xu family."
Xu Erjue instinctively felt that Zuo Menggen didn't know how high the world was.
As the saying goes, you can’t buy all the Songjiang cloth and you can’t collect all the Weitang gauze.
Doesn’t this guy know how much Songjiang cotton is produced?
"My dear brother has never been to the south of the Yangtze River. I don't know that the south of the Yangtze River is prosperous. Just talking about cotton spinning..."
"It only produces 10,000 horses a day."
How it feels to be interrupted when you are about to succeed when you are pretending...
Xu Erjue almost wanted to vomit blood and glared at Zuo Mengeng angrily, with murder in mind.
Not a son of man!
Then when he heard Zuo Mengeng's words, he was stunned.
"In the land south of the Yangtze River, there are many people and limited space, and the land is expensive. Such a large workshop can only have a hundred weavers at best. How much cloth can it produce? Brother Xu saw this glass factory today. What is its scale? If a cotton spinning factory is built on this scale,
What if there are hundreds of water-powered drives along the river and tens of thousands of workers?”
Xu Erjue's mind was filled with thunder.
When he saw the construction site of the glass factory today, he had only one idea in his mind.
Really magnificent!
Zuo Mengeng is right. Since a glass factory can be built on such a scale, it is certainly feasible to build a cotton spinning factory on such a scale in Shandong.
It only doesn’t work in Jiangnan.
Xu Erjue could no longer imagine that if such a factory really appeared in Shandong, and it was supplemented by a hydraulic drive system, would the textile industry in Jiangnan still have a way to survive?
Zuo Mengeng would not stop at all on his way to attack him.
"How much manpower is there in Jiangnan? Brother Xu, does he know how much manpower is here?"
Xu Erjue said in a daze: "It takes one or two silver tattoos every month."
As Jiangnan was prosperous, labor costs were naturally high. Even the most ordinary textile worker had a monthly salary of one or two silver.
Zuo Mengeng chuckled and said proudly: "Brother Xu, you know that the workers here only earn ten coppers per day."
"What?"
Xu Erjue jumped up directly, with a look of horror on his face.
The daily wage is ten cents, which is only three hundred cents a month, which is equivalent to 0.3 taels of silver.
The income of workers in Shandong is actually only one-third of that in Jiangnan.
This alone will directly reduce the textile industry in Jiangnan to rubble.
Originally, the technical gap between the textile workers in the two places could be used to find a balance, but when he thought of the hydraulic drive developed by Zuo Mengeng, Xu Erjue knew that this gap was meaningless.
Switching to mechanical production, the skills of textile workers are no longer important.
He swallowed dryly and tried to make up for it.
"The land south of the Yangtze River has abundant water conservancy..."
“Is Shandong just short of water?”
Well, the last reason was wiped out by Zuo Mengeng.
Although Shandong is located in the north, there is really no shortage of water. Even though there was a severe drought last year, the water supply was still unimpeded.
Not only does the Yellow River flow through Shandong, but most importantly, the canal runs through the north and south, and there are also many other rivers.
In fact, the hydraulic conditions in Shandong are better than those in Jiangnan.
There are too many water systems in Jiangnan.
A big disadvantage of the vertical and horizontal water network is that it divides the land into countless fragments, resulting in low utilization rate.
If you want to build a large factory, it is not easy to find a piece of land large enough to accommodate it, not to mention the labor and land price issues.
The water system in Shandong is very reasonable.
A lot, but not a lot.
There is cheap land, and you can build a factory as big as you want.
Finally, Zuo Mengeng completely destroyed Xu Erjue's pride in two aspects.
"Nowadays, there are continuous natural disasters in the north, and there are countless refugees. Under the hardship of hunger and cold, there are countless people who want to exchange labor for money and food."
The British used the method of sheep cannibalism to drive farmers off the land and transform them into industrial workers.
Zuo Menggeng always felt that this natural disaster that lasted throughout the late Ming Dynasty was actually a God-sent opportunity.
After all, farmers have been forced to leave their land, so why can't they be absorbed into industrial production?
Their requirements for labor and remuneration are almost negligible, which solves the biggest labor cost problem in industrial production.
The second question Zuo Mengeng mentioned is even more realistic.
"The land south of the Yangtze River is rainy and humid, which is actually not conducive to the growth of cotton, and the yield is always low. Moreover, the quality of cotton seeds is insufficient, which limits production capacity. Only the vast land and suitable climate in the North are good places for growing cotton.
."
At this time, the cotton grown in various parts of the Ming Dynasty belonged to the Asian cotton species and continued until the 1950s.
Later, it was replaced by upland cotton.
Upland cotton is the most widely planted cotton species in the world, accounting for 90% of global cotton production.
Under the current conditions, this kind of cotton cannot be grown in Jiangnan.
But Shandong can, once put into production, rely on more advanced production technology and lower costs to destroy the existing textile industry in Ming Dynasty.
Xu Erjue sat in silence, imagining in his mind the horrific scene of a massive amount of low-priced cotton appearing on the market and the cotton spinning workshops in Jiangnan closing down one after another.