I want to be emperor

Chapter 566 The Great Chu Empire Has Been Industrial Revolution

The overall external environment was calm, and Luo Zhixue also put more thoughts on internal affairs.

The development of Northeast China and the artificial diversion of the Yellow River are all products of this background, and the more important thing is the five-year agricultural development plan.

In the fourth year of Chengshun, Luo Zhixue formulated a five-year agricultural development plan. At that time, he even boasted about Haikou, and would invest 500 million taels of silver in batches within five years to support agricultural development.

The Haikou at that time greatly inspired people's hearts, and by the way, it also scared the Dongren and even the remnants of the Western Ming Dynasty to death.

After all, that was sixty-five million taels of silver, which was higher than the ten-year financial income of the Eastern Captives at that time!

It is now the beginning of the eighth year of Chengshun, which means that the plan has been implemented for about three years. During these three years, the Great Chu Empire invested extremely huge in agricultural development.

Of course, based on the particularity of agriculture, it is impossible to say that it is unrealistic to throw money directly to farmers.

The agricultural investment of the Great Chu Empire is divided into several parts. The first is the investment in water conservancy facilities. It's not big, but it can't hold up to a large number.

In addition, there are some water conservancy facilities combined with flood control facilities, such as the Huaihe River and Yellow River treatment projects. Some of the flood control embankment construction in it is also included in the field of agricultural investment. After all, after the flood control embankment is built, it can ensure more A lot of farmland can be cultivated safely.

The focus of agricultural production lies in the four words of flood control and drought relief.

In the past few years, in the construction of water conservancy facilities in various places, agricultural investment has occupied about 2000 million taels of silver, of which about half of the expenditure was paid by the central government, a part was solved by local finance, and a part was also solved by donations from gentry.

No matter where the money comes from, the 2000 million investment in agricultural water conservancy facilities in the past few years is undoubtedly extremely large. Among the many feudal dynasties in the past, none of them spent so much money and food to dig water canals like the Great Chu Empire , build embankments, dig wells, and engage in waterwheels.

In addition to water conservancy facilities, other fields of agricultural investment are also being invested in succession.

One of the more important part is investment in farm tools and subsidies.

Tools are an indispensable part of agricultural production. Tools such as hoes and sickles produced by high-quality iron materials are extremely important. In order to allow farmers to use better agricultural tools, the Great Chu Empire invested directly , Set up small machinery factories in various places to produce cheaper iron farm tools.

At the same time, subsidies have also been initiated for some qualified agricultural tool manufacturers.

The subsidy is carried out in the form of tax deduction and exemption, and the main targets are small and medium-sized agricultural implement manufacturers in counties and prefectures. Most of them are small machinery factories managed by local government industrial institutions.

And don't look at these machinery factories are all government-run, but they all have to pay taxes honestly like private enterprises...in order to reduce costs.To reduce the selling price, the empire gave some subsidies to these small machinery factories through tax relief to reduce the selling price of farm tools.

In particular, some new mechanical agricultural tools are the focus of subsidies, such as the down-to-earth rice thresher developed in recent years, which can effectively reduce the workload of farmers during harvesting and improve work efficiency.

Through subsidies and direct investment, the Great Chu Empire has greatly increased the output and price of farm tools, allowing farmers to afford more and cheaper high-quality farm tools.

The investment in this aspect may seem inconspicuous, but in fact, in the entire five-year plan, the cumulative investment and subsidy amount reached 800 million taels.

Of course, the money is not only for agricultural subsidies, but also for the construction of water conservancy facilities, and also for flood and disaster prevention. Some wood, stone and other processing industries have developed and so on.

The empire invested heavily in the construction of small-scale machinery factories, and gave tax subsidies to these small machinery factories. In addition to supporting the development of agriculture, it also played a role in the development of local industries and handicrafts and employment.

These small machinery factories do not mean that they can only produce sickles and hoes. In fact, they can manufacture most of the iron products used in daily life, especially tools.

Such as hammers, saws, axes and other tools, or some iron products used in daily life.

These small machinery factories seem to be small in scale, often with only a few dozen employees, or even a dozen or so employees. However, unlike traditional iron workshops, they still use a large number of tools.

For example, water-powered machinery, the Great Chu Empire has become addicted to playing with water-powered machinery in recent years, and after several years of development and research, it has become very mature. There are large-scale water-powered machinery that can be used to process bronze cannons, and there are also A small hydraulic machine used for processing various small objects.

Coverage is very broad.

These small machinery factories, which are usually located in county towns, usually use water power if they have the conditions, and use stored power if they don't have water power.

With these external powers, it is much more convenient to process iron products than blacksmiths directly using hammers.

If the blacksmith hits the iron directly, even the most skilled blacksmith, but every time the hammer is rotated, the force will still change, and the position is difficult to be precise.

Manpower, there is always a limit.

But the machinery is different, they can keep the strength of the mechanical hammer consistent, and the landing point is precise.

The most important thing is that if water power is used, the machine will not be tired...it can greatly improve work efficiency.

Therefore, regardless of these small machinery factories that are generally established in county towns or prefectural cities, they may not look very large, but their output is not small, which can basically meet the daily needs of some local iron products.

And this can be regarded as bringing the most basic concept of industrialization to the local area.

All kinds of new machinery, even small-scale mechanical equipment that still use manpower or power storage, have gradually entered the small and medium-sized machinery factories from the many large defense factories in the Great Chu Empire, allowing more people to realize the role of machinery, And also let more people participate in the further research and improvement of mechanical equipment.

The more people use these mechanical devices, the easier it is to find problems and solve them, and many of them involve some inspired innovations.

There are many things that other researchers have never thought of, but the front-line mechanical operators have noticed it and put forward their own solutions.

These solutions will eventually be passed on to the medium and large machinery factories that produce these machinery and equipment, and then the products will be improved and newer machinery will be produced.

As a result, a cyclical and progressive situation can be formed to promote each other, thereby improving productivity.

For industry, regardless of whether it is water power or steam power, productivity is king. As long as productivity can be improved, then it is industrialization.

The first industrialization in the original time and space does not mean that it started after the steam engine was maturely used, but it started before the steam engine was maturely used.

To be precise, the mature application of the steam engine is a product of the first industrial revolution.

It is not that the first industrial revolution came after the steam engine, but that the steam engine came after the first industrial revolution. The order of the two must be clarified.

The beginning of the first industrial revolution was the use of flying shuttle weaving in the textile industry, which led to the shortage of cotton yarn supply. In order to meet the supply of cotton yarn, people thought of various methods, which eventually led to the appearance of the spinning jenny, thus The prelude to the industrial revolution was kicked off in an all-round way.

In the Great Chu Empire, similar innovations in the textile industry actually started around the third year of Chengshun.

Long ago, Xiangyang Machinery Factory used the idea provided by Luo Zhixue to create a flying shuttle and a more efficient spinning machine.

Of course, it was not called this thing in the Great Chu Empire. A few years ago, it was called a new type of loom and a new type of spinning machine. Now, even the word "new type" is gone, it is called spinning Yarn machine, loom.

What's more interesting is that these two things were not originally used to develop the textile industry or engage in the industrial revolution. It was purely because the Great Chu Empire urgently needed a large amount of cheap cloth to make military uniforms in a short period of time in order to ensure military supplies.

That's why Xiangyang Machinery Factory developed new textile machinery, which was supplied to Xiangyang Clothing Factory and Hanyang Clothing Factory, which later became Hantian Textile Factory.

After Hantian Textile Factory applied these two new machines on a large scale, because of its extremely high production efficiency, the cost of the cloth produced was very cheap, and the output was so large that the military supplies could not be used up, so it began to sell to the outside world... which caused revolutionized the textile industry.

A large number of Jiangnan textile handicraft workshops, represented by Suqin Textile Company, felt threatened at the first time, and at the same time, they were introduced at the first time.

In just a few years, the textile industry of the Great Chu Empire completed the replacement of looms and spinning machines... Well, after all, this thing is not technically difficult. As long as there are blueprints, any craftsman can do it come out.

It was even less difficult for the medium and large machinery factories of the Great Chu Empire, and it was soon popularized in the entire textile industry.
At the same time, in various factories, a large number of various machinery, especially hydraulic machinery, are used.

Not to mention those defense factories, even the textile industry has begun to use hydraulic machinery, but the quality of the cloth produced is too poor, and it is all coarse cloth.

The production efficiency has been greatly improved, and the large-scale use of machinery and equipment has made it possible for large-scale centralized production factories, and then giants such as Hantian Textile Company and Su Qin Textile Company have emerged.

At this time, applying the serious academic viewpoints of later generations, the Great Chu Empire had already begun the industrial revolution.

It's just that the steam engine hasn't been invented yet, so to many people in later generations, even Luo Zhixue himself, it seems that it is not yet an industrial revolution!

But in fact, the Great Chu Empire has set off an industrial revolution.

The large amount of cheap cloth shipped to Fusang and Southeast Asia on ships is the most typical feature of the Industrial Revolution.

(End of this chapter)