In the past ten days, in addition to the trial production of soap, Gao Pragmatic also made some arrangements for its future production. For example, the location selection of the future "factory area" has been in progress.
Although Gao Jingshi had a "huge sum of money" on hand, it was not easy to live in the capital. The housing prices in the capital of the Ming Dynasty were not much cheaper than those in the capital before he traveled. Anyway, with his little money, he could only buy a remote place in the capital.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a small courtyard. After all, the production process of soap must be kept secret at least for a period of time. The remoteness may be an advantage, but just a small courtyard is obviously not enough. Although making soap does not require an area of space
If a large industry only supplies the palace, a production area the size of a small courtyard would be enough. However, Gao's pragmatic goal is to industrialize rather than refine in workshops, so production in the capital city can only be given up.
It is not very convenient to buy land and houses outside the capital. Over the past 100 years of the Ming Dynasty, noble officials and nobles have already occupied 7,788 of the good land near the capital. Counting the royal estates, there is almost no available land.
Land bought casually. It stands to reason that Gao Gong's identity is here, so he can actually find a way to buy some land, but Gao Pragmatic doesn't dare to do it under the guise of Gao Gong. After going back and forth, he has no choice but to make a decision.
On the head of uncle Zhang Siwei.
After sending Gao Xiaozhuang to inquire, he found out that, by coincidence, although the Zhang family did not have much land around the capital, they had several mountain manors, both large and small, for the prominent figures in the Zhang family to relax.
It was built for this purpose and is located in a quiet place, but the transportation is relatively convenient.
When Gao Pragmatic heard this, he was overjoyed and went to the door in person, intending to beg in vain to tell his uncle that he wanted to buy a land. As for the money to buy the land, he would deduct the first month from the monthly payment he received.
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I don't know if it's because pure manors without much land in the suburbs of Beijing are not very valuable. Zhang Siwei didn't ask much at all, he just told the location of these manors and asked Gao Pragmatic to choose one by himself.
Gao Pingshi listened carefully and decisively chose a manor near Mentougou in later generations.
Zhang Siwei was actually quite pleased after hearing this: because that manor is the farthest from the capital among the Zhang family's manors. Although it occupies a large area, it is quiet and cheap because it is far away from the capital. Of course, with the Zhang family's huge wealth,
Zhang Siwei didn't feel bad about giving his nephew a manor. He was mainly pleased because the manor was quiet. He thought that Gao Pragmatic wanted to find a quiet manor to study in peace, although he felt that the place was far away from the capital.
Yes, but he believed that the quietness aspect was an obvious advantage for studying, so he nodded and agreed on the spot without thinking too much.
Mentougou was certainly not far from the capital in later generations. Although the capital during the Ming Dynasty was probably the largest city in the world at that time, even so, how could it be as huge as the capital of the Celestial Dynasty after so many years of reform and opening up?
At this time, the Mentougou area was already in a very remote location within the "Beijing Suburbs" area, a proper outer suburb, so the manor occupied a relatively considerable area.
Gao Jingshi was brought to the capital by Gao Gong and kept by his side for personal training. Naturally, he could not go wandering around in the "wilderness" as far away as Mentougou. Therefore, he could only send Gao Xiaozhuang and the groom Gao Mo to go for on-site inspection.
The people went there for two full days and came back to report that the manor was not a sizeable one at all, but a huge one. Of course, they only thought it was huge. Their original words were: "In addition to covering an area of more than a hundred
In addition to the acre of the manor itself, my uncle has also given the eldest young master a large tract of forest attached to the manor."
No wonder people say that gardens in southern China are about exquisiteness while northern manors are about grandeur. The area of this manor is not only equivalent to the size of two Humble Administrator's Gardens in Suzhou, but it also has a large forest attached to it. How can it not be grand?
However, this is in line with the high pragmatism - isn't one of the main reasons for choosing Mentougou because in later generations Mentougou was a famous coal mine producing area?
Coal mines are not valuable at the moment, but Gao Pragmatic will be of great use in the future. Although it is unclear whether there are coal mines on the ground near the manor, this place will definitely become an industrial base for Gao in the future.
With this place in hand, even if there is no coal mine, you can still find a way to buy coal-producing land in the future - there are many mountains and few fields near Zuomentougou, and the noble forces do not interfere much. It is the kind of useful but inconspicuous place.
According to Gao Xiaozhuang's description, the manor adheres to the consistent style of northern manors, which is majestic and majestic. Although there are two ponds, the overall style is still relatively simple, especially because for some unknown reason, three rows of warehouses have been built in the manor, and each warehouse is
It's not too small, there must be more than twenty rooms in total.
This is good news, which means that basically no additional money is needed to build the production workshop and storage room of the soap "factory", which is of great significance to Gao Pragmatic, who has limited financial strength, to spend less and do more.
Even though the factory site has been decided, it is obviously not finished, because the problem of workers has not been settled, nor has the problem of transportation, and neither of these two problems is easy to solve.
Gao Pragmatic believes that workers in soap factories can be divided into at least two categories. One type needs to be exposed to a certain soap manufacturing process, and the other type only needs to work hard. It shouldn’t be difficult to handle the type that just needs to work hard.
Recruiting workers from the surrounding areas is enough, and there is no shortage of people willing to work hard in Ming Dynasty. The real difficulty is where the skilled workers who need to be exposed to certain soap manufacturing processes and even recipes come from.
This problem is more troublesome, although Gao Pragmatic will definitely adopt the principle of segmentation process and divide the manufacturing process into several parts, such as weighing, fragrance mixing, water-soluble water-soluble, mold-sealing, and sorting.
Picking, observing saponification, observing saponification, etc... But the trouble is that the soap making process itself is not troublesome. The person in charge of certain processes is actually very likely to see two processes, which is not good for the confidentiality of the process.
This presents a certain challenge. Even considering the worst case scenario, only one person on each process line needs to be bribed, and the soap manufacturing process will be stolen.
It is certainly possible to consider transferring a group of domestic slaves, servants, and family members from the Gao family in Xinzheng, but after all, the Gao family is just a family of officials, not a wealthy and powerful family like the Zhang family. Although they have some manpower,
After all, there are still limits. Even if the soap factory can rely on Gao's slaves to survive this time, won't other industries have to be blinded in the future? Therefore, Gao pragmatically thinks that it is appropriate to come up with a longer-term solution.