Chapter 34 Factory
"Don't worry about that. I have no shortage of people to serve me." Zhu Houxun said lightly. He saw that Hou Sen's expression became a little gloomy when he heard this.

"But what I lack is someone who is brave enough to take on responsibilities and shoulder important responsibilities. You always follow me and know what I want best, so I think you are the most suitable candidate. This is also to train you so that you can shoulder heavier responsibilities in the future." Zhu Houxuan continued to add.

"Your Highness." Hou Sen's voice became a little choked up, "I just can't bear to leave Your Highness. Since I entered the mansion, I haven't left Your Highness."

"Hou Banban, I can't bear to leave you either. You are my most trusted person. You are the most suitable person to go for this matter now. Besides, you go out of the mansion to manage affairs during the day and have to come back to live at night," Zhu Houxuan said gently to comfort him.

"I will definitely live up to your trust, Your Majesty!" Hou Sen said after calming down.

After the first prototype was made, Zhu Houxuan disassembled the various components of the prototype into standard parts and distributed them to the craftsmen recruited by the palace.

One craftsman only makes one part, has clear requirements for processing accuracy, and is paid by piece. This greatly improves the craftsmen's work enthusiasm, work efficiency and work quality, and also prevents leakage of spinning machines.

The acceptance standards are very strict, which allows the parts of the two spinning machines to be replaced with each other (the parts of the spinning machines are mostly made of wood and the precision is relatively easy to control), which greatly reduces the maintenance and manufacturing costs of the spinning machines.

Yes, Zhu Houxuan was prepared to keep it secret this time. He planned to earn development funds from this spinning mill.

His business is now too extensive and there are many areas where he is wasting money. 5000 taels of silver is not enough.

So he still needs the spinning mill to provide him with a stable cash flow and make enough profit.

After all, if the money went into his pocket, he would only continue to invest it in the Industrial Revolution. If it went into other people's pockets, it would only be squandered, used for enjoyment, or directly buried in the ground.

All the manufactured parts were transported to the mansion and assembled under Qin Ming's supervision.

Zhu Houxuan even specially covered the key parts of the spinning machine with wooden boards.

By May, four hundred spinning jenny machines had been built.

Zhu Houxuan had already ordered the construction of a new factory outside the city, and the new machines were sent to the spinning mill outside the city after they were manufactured.

Hou Sen was already waiting there with a group of palace guards, and he had already started recruiting people in advance.

The targets of recruitment were peasants who rented land from the palace, and all of them were women who were familiar with weaving. These peasants were already personally dependent on the palace and were the easiest to control.

Despite this, Zhu Houxun still offered a salary of 8 cents a month, including food and accommodation, which attracted a steady stream of female workers willing to work in the spinning mill.

In those days, if a peasant family could save enough food for an adult, it was already a relatively generous treatment. Add to that the monthly salary of 8 cents, and you would never find such treatment again.

After a few days of training for the new workers, the spinning mill started operating.

During the training, the spinning women were very surprised by the new spinning machines. They had never seen such efficient spinning machines before. In order to open this spinning mill, Zhu Houxuan went to the account office to withdraw 5,000 taels of silver. This time, Concubine Liu did not stop him, but told him that he could only withdraw 5,000 taels of silver per month.

In the end, with more than 12000 people, a spinning mill with more than spindles was opened. Together with the silver spent on purchasing cotton, the total cost was only more than taels of silver.

This made Zhu Houxuan begin to sigh that light industry was relatively cheap, unlike the horrible investment in heavy industry. During this period, Luo Dajiang had begun to use the drawings of the new steelmaking furnace provided by Zhu Houxuan to make steel, but all ended in failure. Zhu Houxuan knew that this was the price he had to pay, but each furnace cost a hundred taels of silver. Fortunately, there were people who bought the scrap iron, so he could recover some of the losses.

After ten failures, Master Luo was so scared that he dared not open the furnace again, but Zhu Houxuan still encouraged him to keep trying.

Moreover, compared with the spinning machine, the new steel-making furnace cannot be built in the mansion. As a prisoner, Zhu Houxuan cannot see the real thing, so he naturally cannot give any useful suggestions. He can only let them continue to try.

Just one week after the spinning mill opened, it directly brought down the rising price of cotton yarn in Qizhou City. Not only that, but the price of cotton yarn also fell by 20% compared to the original price.

Because the production capacity of this spinning mill can match half of the production capacity of all spinning families around Qizhou.

Most families in Qizhou weave and spin, but it is impossible for almost all families to spend all their working time on weaving and spinning every day.

Because weaving and spinning can only exist as a sideline, it is a labor that the housewife does before dark after finishing farm work, cooking, housework, and coaxing children. The time available for weaving in a day is very limited.

In addition, they have to carry out the entire process of cotton deseeding, spinning, weaving, and sales, and if the machine breaks down, they can only repair it themselves.

This is why a housewife in the Ming Dynasty could only weave one piece of cloth at home in a month.

Such are the limitations of the cottage industry.

The advantage of the factory is not only that the machines are more advanced, but also the overall improvement in production methods, organizational methods, and time utilization.

The spinning women in the factory do not have to worry about the trivial housework at home. They have a unified canteen for meals and do not have to worry about raw materials and sales. If the machine breaks down, there are special people to deal with it, and the processing is very fast. Their daily work is just to do the same thing.

By this calculation, the spinning efficiency of a female worker in a spinning mill is equivalent to that of dozens of families.

The quality of the cotton yarn produced by the spinning mill is also very high. Since the sizes of various parts of the machine are relatively uniform, the quality of the cotton yarn produced is also uniform, which is another advantage compared to the family handicraft industry.

This made the cotton yarn produced by the spinning mill extremely popular, and most families no longer spun their own yarn, but bought it from the spinning mill instead.

But it still cannot digest the cotton yarn produced by the spinning mill.

Zhu Houxuan continued to add new spinning machines to the spinning mill, which further aggravated the situation.

In fact, this is also true in later history. The emergence of the flying shuttle loom caused a shortage of cotton yarn, which prompted the emergence of the spinning jenny. The spinning jenny produced cotton yarn that the flying shuttle loom could not consume, forcing the British to invent the water-powered loom. The high efficiency of the water-powered loom caused a shortage of cotton yarn.
Finally, the British found that using water as power was too limited, so they moved steam engines into factories.
The Industrial Revolution was a virtuous cycle in which each side gradually increased productivity and changed the world.
(End of this chapter)

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