But for the indigenous people here in Nanbao, circulation coupons have little appeal.
Indeed, now the whole of Lingao, even the neighboring Danzhou, Chengmai and even Qiongshan, know that this kind of circulation certificate is trustworthy. But for the people here, how can this thing be as real as silver and copper coins? In almost all countries,
In a place where goods cannot be circulated, things like banknotes are simply unavailable.
Ye Yuming originally planned to pay local workers' wages in silver, but was firmly opposed by Cheng Dong and Yan Ming. The reason was that such differential treatment of employees would seriously shake the confidence of workers in the mines in circulating coupons.
To ensure that it can be accepted by the local people, it must be made "effective" and fully reflect their purchasing power.
As the project progressed, two main cadres of Dongmen Chuiyu and Li Mei came to Nanbao. Their activity was to replicate the successful experience of Dongmen City. Of course, there are not many local consumers in Nanbao.
Mainly for miners.
Dongmen Chuiyu first built a stone road outside the residential area and built drainage ditches before starting to build a shop building. This kind of brick-concrete house is no longer a big deal to Meilin and his construction team.
There are so many stones here in Nanbao that even bricks have been saved. In less than a week, the first house has been completed. It is a long house with two floors, and the interior is divided into rooms.
Because it uses an external load-bearing wall and a truss-type structure, the internal partition walls are all made of so-called lightweight materials to save clay bricks. This kind of house has poor sound insulation, but the space is easy to divide and can be used for multiple purposes.
The limewash on the wall has not yet dried, but the sign of the Nanbao Branch of the Women's Cooperative has been hung up. It occupies five storefronts on the ground floor, and bullock carts have brought in shelves, counters, well-trained female clerks, and many goods.
The cooperative sells cloth, satin, needlework, towels, wine vinegar, betel nut, salt, brown sugar and other miscellaneous daily groceries and snacks. Li Mei originally wanted to import small groceries such as rouge and gouache from Guangdong and Macau, but
The Finance and Finance Committee refused to issue her a silver usage certificate, so the proposal was abandoned and she had to rely on Mo Xiaoan's Ministry of Light Industry to produce it on its own. In addition, Li Mei also negotiated with Tiandihui and planned to act as an agent for Tiandihui's agricultural supplies store.
store to sell seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural tools from Tiandi Hui on behalf of the company. In order for Ye Yuming to agree, she offered a condition that she would waive all agency fees and sell at zero profit.
"Then how much money do you make?" Ye Yuming, who was walking with her on the Nanbao Town construction site, wondered.
"Agricultural inputs will bring me customers. The cooperative does not intend to make money when purchasing agricultural inputs, but just to 'bring business'."
When more farmers come to buy agricultural supplies, they will also buy other commodities, and profits come from this. Just like selling eggs at a loss in a large supermarket, what you gain is popularity.
"You really know how to do business——"
"No, I still need help from you leaders." Li Mei smiled like a flower, "When your business trip is over, I will treat the people of Tiandihui to dinner and treat them! Several of your young comrades will go to the countryside to do some work.
Technical guidance is hard enough, not easy."
The purpose of opening this grocery store is to collect circulation coupons and make local people think that the circulation coupons are useful and easy to use. Therefore, the cooperative does not accept copper coins or silver.
The Planning Commission also requires cooperatives to be responsible for the purchase of local products, including homespun cloth, kapok, red and white vines, chickens, ducks, livestock and other local products. In fact, the Planning Commission does not lack these things, and the main purpose of purchasing local products is
It is still to expand the use of circulation coupons. Another purpose is to expand trade with Li District - Nanbao Town is on the edge of Li District. With a stronghold like Nanbao Town, the connection between the Crossing Group and Li District has been greatly strengthened.
For this reason, Mu Min specially sent Fang Jinghan here to serve as the local Li affairs clerk.
Li Mei also created a "housekeeping agency service" in the cooperative - she found many local women who wanted to earn pocket money to clean and wash clothes for single miners. This service soon became popular among the miners in Jiukuang
There was a scandal with the eldest girl in Huaichun - this matter was easy to deal with: the Mining Department paid the bride price on behalf of the miners and helped the miners marry the girl back home, which became a good story. As for the bride price, the money was paid in installments.
Deducted from wages.
But then there were several affairs between miners and local married women, which made the local villagers furious - no one likes to be a cuckold.
At first, they dared not speak out. Later, when the elders in the village saw that this situation was really "corrupt", they jointly filed a complaint with the Mining Department to curb the trend. Ye Yuming stipulated that from now on, only women could do laundry for them.
The cooperative transfers clothes, and the wages are paid by the cooperative. The two parties are not allowed to meet. As for cleaning, they must wait until the miners start working.
Next door to the cooperative is an office of Delong Grain Company. This is because there will be a large number of circulation coupons circulating in the local area. In order to ensure credit and ensure that holders of circulation coupons can redeem them for grain at any time in accordance with Delong's commitment.
To start the business, Delong allocated 2,000 kilograms of brown rice to the local area as payment reserves. Storing a large amount of grain will not cause a backlog or waste - miners have to eat in the first place.
Another task of Delong is to bear the "reasonable burden" of local collection, so that the villages in Nanbao area only need to transport public grain to Nanbao Town to complete the payment, eliminating the need to travel long distances to Bairen City
It is a convenient measure for those who are tired from the journey.
Dongmen Chuiyu opened a miners' service club here, mainly providing three meals a day to the miners - most of the miners have no wives, and no one to cook when they go home. The second floor is the service club's cafeteria, which sells various simple meals
They also sell food, wine and cigarettes here. Cigarettes have been included in the list of monopoly products sold by the Planning Commission and are currently only sold in 100% "state-owned enterprises", so they are not sold in Li Mei's cooperative.
The Miners' Service Cooperative is actually the general manager of the mine's logistics. All the mine's logistical needs are taken care of by the service company, including the management of prostitutes: most of the miners are single, with good physical fitness and relatively strong sexual desires. If they are not allowed to vent,
Exiting will inevitably lead to poaching in the surrounding villages and cause a lot of disputes. Dongmen Chuiyu simply implemented the same "yellow ticket" system as Dongmen City locally - he didn't even need to mobilize the prostitutes from Dongmen City to Nanbaolai
——Because I heard that the flesh and blood trade in Lingao is easy. As long as you get yellow tickets, you can do business peacefully without being exploited. Dongmen City has already had a lot of prostitutes from other places, some even from the mainland.
Come on. If doing business in Dongmen City is really unsightly, we might as well divert some of it to Nanbaolai.
Because it is stipulated that all prostitutes who apply for yellow tickets must undergo a physical examination, and those with sexually transmitted diseases must be treated. As a result, Bairen General Hospital had to set up a sexually transmitted disease treatment center in a remote place. Everyone in the Ministry of Health was complaining - there were no qualified ones.
Antibiotics are very difficult to treat sexually transmitted diseases. Pharmaceutical factories have now produced some antibiotic sample drugs for clinical trial, but their efficacy is still quite doubtful. For this reason, people from the Guangzhou Station kidnapped many flowers and willows around Guangzhou.
A doctor comes here to provide treatment using a combination of traditional Chinese and Western medicine.
"Although having prostitutes can alleviate this problem, it cannot solve it. In the long run, it may even be harmful." Wu De instructed Ye Yuming, "It goes without saying that sexually transmitted diseases will be transmitted - the Ministry of Health's regular inspections and treatments are not
powerful."
"So we still need to find them wives as soon as possible, right?"
"That's right. One is to encourage prostitutes to become good. The other is to establish social relations with nearby villages. Provide more food and drinks, host a market, and show a few movies and so on. Wait until the two are happy and have a happy life.
Just cook the rice and it will be fine."
"Would miners want to marry prostitutes?"
"When we reformed prostitutes, many prostitutes married workers. This approach should be feasible." Wu De said, "Of course we can also give some material encouragement, such as sending some silks and cloths."
"This time and space is not very particular about chastity and the like-" Ye Yuming still felt that this matter was unreliable.
"The so-called emphasis on chastity depends on the social class." Wu De said, "The miners in this time and space are extremely poor, and their lives are in danger anytime and anywhere. If you can settle down and marry a wife, you will be very satisfied with a woman to take care of your life.
How can he take care of so much! Even if he wanted to, they couldn't afford three matchmakers and six betrothals, betrothal gifts, and banquets."
"A poor man has no right to marry a virgin!"
"Haha, Xiaoye, let me give you an inappropriate metaphor: in another time and space, if you had tens of millions of possessions, of course you could be very selective when looking for a girlfriend, and you should also pay attention to her appearance, body shape, and...
It’s important to have the other person’s education, not a college degree, at least a bachelor’s degree, preferably a master’s degree. If you’re just an ordinary clerk, you won’t have to pay so much attention—right?”
"That sounds really heartbreaking -" Ye Yuming muttered, "The young men in the nearby villages will have objections to the social activities. The miners have lured away all the older girls."
"It's not as easy as you said. There won't be many such examples for the time being - now in Lingao, the working class has not yet become an enviable class. At least for the parents of girls, the father-in-law who is a miner has not yet become an enviable class.
Parents are unattractive."
The rural clinic jointly run by the Ministry of Health and Runshitang also came to this building, occupying two shops downstairs and three rooms upstairs. Amidst the traditional blowing and beating and the sound of firecrackers, Runshi
Tang Nanbao Branch Part-time Clinic was opened. Liu San sent two pharmacy clerks to sit here and prepare some Chinese herbal pieces and proprietary Chinese medicines for common diseases. Medical personnel from the Ministry of Health will come to visit once a week. Although this
The clinic is simple and primitive, but it is the first time that Nanbao area has a health service institution.
I also thought about the entertainment life of the miners: the Miners Service Society built a rugby field. This sport with minimal equipment requirements has now become a sports event promoted by the Cross Group. The rugby field is usually played, and it is here when the touring film screening team comes.
Showing the movie, Xi Yazhou was very enthusiastic about this plan. Of course, he did not forget that Nanbao was a key facility that needed to be defended. He conducted military training specifically for the miners and issued them with standardized spears and sabers made by the machinery factory.
After wearing rattan helmets, this miners' militia is not only capable of protecting themselves, but can also suppress riots when necessary.
Finally, He Ying also came here, mysteriously inspected a certain piece of foundation, and then occupied it - this was the future church.
The smooth mining of the Nanbao mining area has eased the supply of minerals to the Cross Group. A steady stream of lignite, peat, gypsum, kaolin and limonite are transported out of Nanbao in four-wheeled trucks pulled by oxen. Even
Coal gangue and various miscellaneous rocks that cannot be used temporarily can also be used in construction and road construction.
Mining kaolin means that we can make our own porcelain. In the past, some special-shaped porcelain that Chuanchuan Group needed for industrial and daily use has been fired at the export porcelain kilns along the coast of Fujian. Although it can generally meet the demand, it requires transportation.
Very troublesome.
One of the great gains that Huang Tianyu gained from following Liu San to Foshan was the recruitment of many ceramic craftsmen. Although many craftsmen were old and frail, they had rich experience in making and firing porcelain. With such a group of people, Xiao Bailang's ceramics
The production efficiency of kilns has improved by leaps and bounds. Many special-shaped pieces and oversized pieces that were originally difficult to make can now be fired. But these are just glazed pottery. Without kaolin, it is impossible to make glazed fabrics for porcelain.
The kaolin mined from Nanbao was crushed and cleaned before being transported to the ceramics factory. Xiao Bailang gave the drawings of the toilet to several of his old kiln workers.
Several people looked at each other for a long time without saying anything. After a long time, the oldest kiln worker named Li Jinquan spoke:
"Chief, we have never made this thing before. We can make it even if it's a big one, but there are still some holes in it, so I'm afraid we won't be able to make it in one go."
"How long will it take to make?"
Several kiln workers put their heads together and discussed it for a while, and it took two or three weeks.
"Okay, let's start with it first." Xiao Bailang was not interested in making the flush toilet, and he didn't bother to ask. He simply left it to the indigenous workers. Anyway, the experience of making large porcelain, the time travelers definitely don't have the experience in this time and space.
Aboriginal kiln workers are plentiful. But porcelain
Mo Xiao'an, on the other hand, was very interested in this thing. He would check on the progress almost every day and would come up with ideas from time to time. However, he was a pure layman and was of no use except to encourage the kiln workers.
But the thing that came out after a few days of fussing was not that at all. Obviously Xiao Bailang believed that the concept of a flush toilet as a complex large porcelain was inaccurate. In the end, he turned to the big library for help and looked for information.
After checking it out, I found out that the process of this sanitary ware is quite complicated, especially the glaze on the surface, which has a very high technical content. Of course, the time traveler does not need such high-end surface glaze, as long as it can be kept clean and easy to wash.
Already.
Take the simplest sanitary ware manufacturing process. Most sanitary ware adopts the injection molding process. The most technically difficult thing for Chuanchuan Group is the preparation of special molds. The molding quality of sanitary ware mainly depends on the mold.
manufacturing level.
Xiao Bailang went to the machinery factory several times and made special sanitary ware molds in the factory. After the model was transported back to the ceramics factory, the gypsum was made into a slurry and poured into the fixed mold, using its gelling properties to make it
It slowly solidifies in the mold. After part of the water evaporates, a plaster model of the product is made.
The blank is made into mud and then injected into the plaster model. The water absorption of the plaster model is used to absorb the water in the mud close to the mold wall to form a certain mud layer. Then the remaining slurry is poured out of the model and attached to the mold.
The mud layer on the wall separates from the mold due to syneresis and shrinkage to form a green blank, which becomes a semi-finished product.
The green billet is slowly dehydrated and dried under certain conditions. Modern factories have temperature-controlled drying equipment. In Lingao, we can only use the natural drying method and let the air and wind take away the moisture in a special awning.
After the green blank is dried, it is the key glazing process. In factories, the method of spraying glaze slurry is generally used. This condition is not available here, so Xiao Bailang adopted the immersion method. The green blank is installed on a special shelf.
Soak the hanging slurry repeatedly in the glaze slurry until a layer of glaze is firmly hung on the surface. Not only the appearance of the sanitary ware is also hung with glaze, but also the inside is hung with glaze. The purpose of hanging glaze inside is not to look good, but to facilitate drainage and prevent pollution.
Things adhere and condense.
After the glaze was hung, it was fired in the kiln. The first finished product was fired quickly, but due to temperature control problems, the shape was slightly deformed. After several improvements, the finished product was finally fired and was acceptable.
product. Li Jinquan was very puzzled when he knew that the thing they spent a lot of effort to bake was actually a toilet - he really couldn't figure out why a toilet must be so complicated and made of white porcelain. Mo
When Xiao'an came to see the finished product, he mustered up the courage to propose it.
"Because it can make money and it's clean and hygienic."
Li Jinquan knows the meaning of cleanliness, but he is not clear about the concept of making money - how much can a toilet be sold for, no matter how well it is made?
"What's the most luxurious toilet in Guangzhou?"
This problem makes the kiln workers look at each other. They live in poverty, and most of them go to the streets or fields to solve the problem. It would be good to have a chamber pot at home.
Li Jinquan was the oldest and more experienced. He recalled that he had seen one about ten years ago in the sedan chair of a maritime merchant who came to the kiln to see porcelain. It was a red-lacquered gold-plated barrel with white copper hoops that were polished.
Bright.
"That's it. As long as rich people pursue the enjoyment of life, there will always be endless pursuits. Since we can make red lacquered and gold-plated toilets, we can also make them with white porcelain - in Australia, good porcelain toilets are worth a lot of money!
" When he said this, he recalled the feeling of powerlessness he felt in a sanitary ware store of a famous foreign brand. A toilet was sold for 20,000 yuan - at that time, his annual salary was only 20,000 yuan.
"Young ones, I understand. It's just that-" One of the younger kiln workers raised a question. Since it is a toilet, why is it not sealed at the bottom, but has strange curved pipes? In this case, wouldn't the dirt be there?