Chapter 189 188 Inertial Thinking

Wei Guangde took the letter from Lin Mao and bowed to thank him.

Just as he was about to open it, Lin Mao said again: "Mr. Wei, let's go inside and look."

Hearing Lin Mao's words to stop him again, Wei Guangde felt that there was something bad about the letter in the letter that others knew. This time he did not ignore it, but nodded and smiled: "Okay."

"I have to explain some things to Lord Wei alone and allow me to go in with Lord Wei."

Lin Mao hesitated a little and spoke again.

"Master Lin, please."

Although Wei Guangde was curious, he did not ask, but got up and stretched out his hand to make a request.

Lin Mao naturally did not dare to walk ahead, but bowed and stood beside Wei Guangde, waiting for Wei Guangde to step before following him.

Wei Guangde took Lin Mao into the yard where he lived and asked Zhang Ji to wait outside. Even the two people following Lin Mao stood quietly outside the door, and then they opened the door and entered the room.

"Mr. Lin, please sit down."

Wei Guangde smiled and sat down in the upper seat. He ignored Lin Mao and picked up the envelope of his letter and opened it open it. He pulled out the letter paper. He was a little anxious now, not knowing what was said in the letter, and it was so serious.

Soon, a few pages of letter paper were pulled out. Wei Guangde opened it and looked carefully. Then his face turned red and his heart that had been hanging before was completely let go.

I just said, why would something happen to my family? No matter how much I say, my family is an official, and my father is a fifth-rank military officer.

The previous content is naturally that my father said that his family hoped that he could continue to work hard in the exam, and also told him not to forget himself after being appointed as an official and pay attention to his words and deeds.

In response to this, Wei Guangde just said silently in his heart, "Dad, you are too worried. Your son has not become an official yet."

The next one is naturally the family is very happy about his grades, and then, what?

Wei Guangde was shocked when he saw this, and his father asked Huitong Trading Bank to transfer him 20,000 taels of silver.

The last letter said about giving money, but I didn’t say how much I gave it. Now I know the answer, 20,000 taels of silver.

The silver was not transported directly from Jiujiang, but my father sent the silver to the Lin family in Jiujiang. The Lin family notified the Beijing Commercial Bank to save money on transportation of silver, which was much safer.

Wei Guangde was shocked at the following content, but did not express it. Instead, he folded the letter and put it back in the envelope and put it in his arms. Then he looked up and smiled at Lin Mao, "Master Lin, I already know, I don't know the money?"

"Mr. Wei, you can collect the money in the business bank at any time or send it to the people on my side. After all, the money is a bit too much, and at least two large boxes are required to hold it. It is not good to send it rashly."

Lin Mao stood up and bowed to Wei Guangde and said.

Indeed, 20,000 taels of silver is not a decimal, the key is its size.

When Wei Guangde collected the 1,000 taels of silver, he was just a wooden box the size of a storage box in later generations, weighing dozens of kilograms, and it was quite laborious to pick it up.

Twenty thousand taels, just think about it, it’s troublesome to carry the box in.

"The silver should be placed on Mr. Lin's side first. I will go and use it when I need it."

Wei Guangde said after thinking about it for a moment.

"That's OK."

While speaking, Lin Mao took out a note from his arms, covering several emblems of the Lin family.

Lin Mao handed the note to Wei Guangde and said, "Mr. Wei, please keep the note. Please bring this note with you in the future if you take the money. Record the amount on the note, and then use the seal."

Wei Guangde took it and looked at it, nodded, "Okay, thank you then."

But immediately, Wei Guangde thought of one thing, that was, Zhang Hongfu helped him lend money in Jiujiang.

If you have 20,000 taels of silver, you will definitely not be able to use such silver in the short term, so it is definitely not suitable to keep it at home.

The way to make money in later generations is naturally to make money move to make more money and satisfy your consumption in the capital.

Wei Guangde doesn't like making soap, burning glass, cement, and buying land and renting, so he can only make money in the simplest way.

I am still staying in the Jiujiang Guild Hall for free. In addition to having to pay for food, I also spend dozens of taels of silver every month, all of which are the expenses for eating.

Now Wei Guangde eats restaurants for three meals a day, so the cost is naturally quite large.

After buying the yard in the inner city, I should have to hire people. Zhang Ji and Li San are around me, which is obviously not enough.

But finally there was money, and it was still 20,000 taels of silver, which was more than twice as much as Wei Guangde expected. At first, he thought it would be good to get 5,000 taels of silver.

But when thinking about the following content, Wei Guangde only read a rough look, but also understood what happened.

"Master Lin, please come and let's go out for a meal to express your gratitude."

Wei Guangde thought that he came to send money to him, so he should thank him no matter how hard he did, so he spoke.

"I dare not do anything to help Lord Wei. The old man has been out for a long time, so he has to take a look at the store."

Lin Mao did not agree at once, but said tactfully that he wanted to go back. The store was busy with business, but after getting up, he smiled at Wei Guangde: "Next month, a new store in Chongwenmenli Street will be opened. I wonder if Lord Wei has time to enjoy the scenery?"

"oh."

Wei Guangde was stunned at first, then understood something, and immediately bowed and said, "I will definitely go there at that time."

Wei Guangde thought about it. Maybe it was because the new store was opened and he found some people on the official side to support the scene. In the future, those who were black and white might pay more attention.

Wei Guangde has been in the capital for a long time, but he has also seen Jinyiwei and Dongchang's fan walking on the street and collecting monthly money from the store. Wei Guangde understood this as a "peace fee".

When you open the door to do business, you are seeking harmony to make money.

"At that time, the little brother will come to invite the adults and your three of you in the same year. Please tell me about the little brother in advance."

Wei Guangde agreed at once, and it was actually very simple to celebrate the opening of the new store. You can also eat and drink while eating, why not?

After seeing Lin Mao off, Wei Guangde asked Zhang Ji to call him food and drinks. Today he wouldn't go out to eat, so he ate in the house.

I can't live here for a long time, so I signed the contract there, so I'll move there after packing it up.

Wei Guangde made up his mind and then took out the letter of the family and started reading it.

I won’t read the previous content this time, mainly the following paragraphs.

Well, although I have traveled through time, this era is like this. I have long had a premonition that I cannot get rid of the shackles of this era.

Marriage, the parents' orders and matchmaker's words.

In fact, even in later generations, although free love is common, the concepts of the same family that affect marriage are still deeply rooted in people's hearts.

Many people do not admit it, but they actually agree in their hearts.

My father didn’t have any famous sayings in the letter, but the other party revealed between the lines seemed to be a family with a very background.

Wei Guangde looked carefully twice before folding the letter and putting it back into the envelope, thinking about how to reply.

Forget it, let’s finish what I wanted to do first.

Wei Guangde put the letter into the box and put it in it. Two letters from home were already lying quietly, but he only replied to one.

At night, Wei Guangde lay on the bed, thinking about what to do next.

The court explicitly ordered the tribute trade to stop, but the business was obviously restored, and the court also knew that it had made money and wanted to make more money to satisfy the court's expenses, so it wanted to increase the silk production.

A large amount of fields are used in Zhejiang to plant mulberry and silkworms to increase the supply of raw materials and weave more silk.

Looking back, we need to check the current annual silk production in the Ming Dynasty, Wei Guangde thought.

Thinking of doing it, Wei Guangde arrived at the Hanlin Academy the next day, and found the data of weaving in the library to understand the official textile data of this period.

Wei Guangde also made clothes on weekdays, but he prefers Songjiang large velvet fabric, which is also the most expensive textile fabric of this era. A piece of cloth is ten feet, or one hundred feet, and the market price in Jiujiang is as high as 86 taels of silver.

Silk and silk are not cheap either, but silk is cheaper per foot.

Silk is not very long like cotton cloth. Generally, a piece of silk is only three feet long, about thirty feet long, and the market price is 6 taels of silver.

Wei Guangde couldn't understand it. Cotton cloth was much cheaper than silk in later generations, but in the Ming Dynasty, it was obviously opposite to later generations, and cotton cloth was more expensive.

After finding the information, Wei Guangde slowly looked through it in his public housing. He didn't know if he didn't look at it. There were quite a few textile centers in the Ming Dynasty, both north and south.

Not only the silk weaving industries in Suzhou, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Huzhou, Hangzhou and Nanjing in the south of the Yangtze River have always been very prosperous, but even the silk weaving industries in the north of Beijing, Zhuozhou, Taiyuan and Chengdu in the southwest are also quite prosperous.

In Wei Guangde's original impression, there should be the most litigation side, and the reality is, but there are many textile workshops in other places, and the scale is not small.

The official textile institutions include the "Two Beijing Dyeing Bureau", which are divided into the inner weaving and dyeing bureaus in Beijing and Nanjing, Nanjing Libo Hall, Suzhou Weaving and Dyeing Bureau and Hangzhou Weaving and Dyeing Bureau.

Wei Guangde also knew the number of workers employed by these official textile workshops, and there were more than 6,000 people, which did not include private workshops.

Official statistics only in the 34th year of Jiajing that produced satin and cloth in the country reached more than 2 million pieces, which did not include the fabrics woven by farmers themselves. They were all reported by major workshops, because the Ming Dynasty wanted to tax the production of these cloths.

According to the current standard of 30 taxes, the government collected 80,000 pieces of satin and cloth. As for the official creation, it was mostly used by the inner court and paid by the outer court.

It is not clear how many textiles are sold overseas every year, and Wei Guangde can't say anything, but it is obvious that the textile industry in the entire Ming Dynasty is still very powerful, and the owners of textile workshops are very rich.

Now the court discusses changing rice to mulberry seeds in Zhejiang, so it is naturally necessary to increase the yield of raw silk and prepare for a larger expansion of the silk workshop. This shows that foreigners prefer silk from the Ming Dynasty and are not very interested in cotton cloth.

Well, Wei Guangde carefully looked through the data on loom and cloth production over the past decades and had a rough understanding of the production capacity of the Ming Dynasty in textiles. According to the number of looms and cloths recorded above, it seems that it is close to saturation.

Wei Guangde knew very well that those people now proposed to change rice seeds and mulberry to increase the supply of raw silk, and most of them were not trying to expand foreign trade at all, but taking the opportunity to merge fertile fields in various parts of Jiangnan.

Wei Guangde pondered for a while and knew that this would definitely not work.

Now the "replacement of rice and mulberry seeds" is a bit like a later generation's administrative order, and the final result is generally not very good. Only when market demand drives it can many problems be avoided.

If you want to climb out of this quagmire, you must come up with a better solution.

Is market demand driven?
To be continued...