Today, the Empress listened to the work reports of the general manager, factory supervisor, financial manager, and ten workshop directors of the Woolen Textile Factory in the Jiaotai Hall.
Aunt Tao, the female officer next to the queen, also serves as the general supervisor. Aunt Tao usually waits at the queen's side. If anything happens in the woolen mill, she will be reported to her.
Aunt Tao is equivalent to the secretary-general of the Queen's General Office. She assists the Queen in managing a series of things such as the harem, the imperial palace, and the royal workshops. Her powers are equivalent to the general manager of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Qing Dynasty.
Jiaotai Hall was the place where the queen worked in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the lintel of this hall has a dragon coat of arms and a phoenix coat of arms.
In the Ming Dynasty, the Jiaotai Hall was the place where birthday celebrations were held for the Queen. It was also the place where the Queen of the Main Palace received congratulations on major festivals. On major festivals such as New Year's Day and Qianqiu (the Queen's birthday), the Queen received congratulations here.
It usually handles the internal affairs of the royal family and handles the affairs of the harem. The queen also sits here to manage politics.
When she and the Yang family jointly set up this wool spinning factory, she had no idea that wool spinning could be so profitable.
In the first half of this year, the net income has been 450,000 taels. The wool now used is a new breed of fine-wool sheep transported by water from Duolun City.
The reason why Yang Fan disposed of all the original Mongolian cattle, sheep and horses, leaving only the best part, was to concentrate on raising fine-wool sheep, produce more wool, and develop the wool textile industry.
The original wool was too thick and the wool grew slowly. It was prickly and uncomfortable to make clothing. It could only be made into felt. However, the market demand for felt was not small, so a few pieces of pasture land were kept unchanged.
The cattle that are used for meat besides meat are mainly Helstein Friesian cows from the Netherlands. These cows produce milk for more than 300 days a year and more than 50 kilograms of milk a day.
Duolun wool is sheared and pressed into large bales, transported by water to the capital, and transported from the moat to the woolen mill on the bank of the Gaoliang River outside Xizhimen. It is cleaned, sorted and processed here.
At present, the most popular wool materials are: one is cotton-wool blended clothing material, and the other is woolen. Cotton-wool blending is to reduce costs. Woolen coats are mainly high-end.
A set of exquisite woolen coats costs hundreds of taels of silver. Nowadays, the royal family, nobles, officials, and wealthy businessmen of the Ming Dynasty most like coats with woolen outside and mink fur inside.
The woolen fabric is crisp and luxurious. It is lined with mink fur and has a fur collar outside, which perfectly complements the noble temperament.
In these years, the Ming Dynasty winter was very cold because of the Little Glacier. Warm clothing was the most popular. Therefore, furs in this era were expensive and easy to sell. This was also the reason why Tsarist Russia explored Siberia. At this time, fur was known as soft gold in Europe. Tsarist Russia hunted it from Siberia.
Furs only rose to prominence when they were sold to Europe.
Yang Fan originally wanted to buy a down jacket. After all, this has the best thermal insulation effect. It is light and warm. But the fabric is not good.
In this era, there were no very fine chemical fiber materials like later generations. The gaps in the fabrics of this era were large, and duck down could easily come out.
So, I finally started spinning wool, cotton and linen.
Factory director Zhou Xingwang was a domestic slave of the Queen's natal family. He was appointed by the Queen because he had been responsible for the silk business for the Zhou family for a long time and was familiar with the silk weaving industry.
"My dear, the market is very good at the moment. In the past year, more and more people have recognized our woolen materials and woolen fabrics. The reason why our income has increased so much in the first half of this year is mainly because the market in Jiangnan has opened up."
"The winter in the south of the Yangtze River is not as cold as in the north. It's just right for them to wear woolen coats for the winter. The woolen coat is light, warm, and classy. Nowadays, the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River are too embarrassed to go out."
Empress Zhou was overjoyed when she heard that. Since she took charge of the harem, her investments in Xinghe Supermarket and Woolen Mills have been successful. Xinghe Supermarket currently has branches all over the Ming Dynasty. The business is very prosperous.
The royal family can earn 500,000 taels a year. Now the woolen mill has made a net profit of 450,000 taels in half a year, which makes her even more elated.
Looking at this development momentum, the second half of the year will be even more prosperous, because winter is about to begin and the sales season will begin.
The royal family owns 40% of the woolen mill, the Yang family owns 30%, and the remaining 30% is owned by nobles. If the profit for the whole year this year is one million taels, it will be another 400,000 yuan in income.
Queen Zhou said happily: "Since the market is so big, I think we can expand production. The production of mid- to low-end blended wool can be doubled."
She has a business talent and understands that high-end woolen goods must be sold at a hungry rate. She cannot produce too much, so as not to turn luxury goods into cabbage, and there will be no excess profits.
On the other hand, middle-class families in the Ming Dynasty could afford blended wool, which allowed them to expand production and gain more profits.
Director Zhou was hesitant because he wanted to talk about the current difficulties but was afraid of upsetting the Queen.
When the queen was still the eldest lady of the Zhou family, she began to take charge of some business matters. Her style was very much like that of a domineering president.
Queen Zhou saw that he was hesitant to speak and asked, "Director Zhou, what's the matter with you?"
Factory Director Zhou hurriedly said: "Ms. Qi, if you want to put it another way, the supply of wool is sufficient. There is still excess production capacity in the dyeing workshop. The garment workshop can add more female workers. The textile workshop can add equipment. But..."
Empress Zhou's beautiful eyes narrowed and she asked: "But what? Aren't we all ready? But there is insufficient self-owned funds. If we proceed in this way, we will not pay dividends to shareholders this year and directly convert the profits into shares. It is equivalent to a rights issue."
"That's not true. The main reason is that there has been a severe drought in the past two years and the cotton output is not high. Furthermore, the cotton yarn output is also insufficient. There is not enough blended cotton yarn. At present, we have bought all the cotton yarn available in the North Zhili market."
"For this reason, there have been complaints in the market. Many weaving workshops cannot buy cotton yarn. Therefore, if the cotton yarn problem is not solved now, there is no way to expand production."
This is a big problem. It’s hard for a clever woman to make a meal without rice.
Queen Zhou thought for a while and said: "Shandong's cotton yield is high, can't we use Shandong's cotton?"
Director Zhou said: "It is best not to transport cotton over long distances. It is too bulky and the freight is not cost-effective. It is better to purchase cotton yarn over long distances. The output of cotton yarn in Shandong is not high. There is not much cotton yarn for sale on the market, and most of them are self-sufficient.
There are many family workshops that are self-sufficient and spin and weave their own fabrics.”
"Then is there any way to increase the production of cotton yarn?" Queen Zhou asked.
"There are two ways. One is to increase the purchase price, so as to buy up as much cotton yarn as possible on the market, and also encourage the private sector to increase the output of cotton yarn in order to make money. The other is to improve the spinning wheels and increase the output of cotton yarn."
Queen Zhou nodded and said: "I know, you first increase the purchase price of cotton yarn and collect as much as possible. Aunt Tao, please find Bingchan. I heard that Uncle Dingyuan has an efficient spinning machine. Go and have a look.