The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

The mule cart arrives outside Sanlihe Suji Garment Store on South Street. The garment store is not small. There are three main rooms in a row. , flying scissors and rulers in their hands, they were very busy, and a little guy stood behind each of them to help.

The tall and slender shopkeeper Zhao was not idle either. There was a separate table a little to the inside. The big shopkeeper had a tape measure around his neck and was stretching his long and thin neck to look around on a piece of paper. White chalk is used to paint dots on a piece of fabric.

Xiao Zhuer parked the mule cart at the door, and Su Jin jumped out of the cart and walked inside. None of the 40 or [-] people in the store took any notice of Su Jin, but there was a boy named Bai Shengsheng who knew Su Jin first. He came forward to salute and said, "This guest officer, are you here to make clothes?"

Su Jin said to Master Zhao, who was busy with his head, and said numbly, "I have something to do with him."

The little guy smiled apologetically: "Guest officer, it's not that the shop is neglecting you. Our shopkeeper ordered us not to see customers during business hours, unless you are a long-time clothes maker. We have a special chef to measure your body."

Su Jin smiled and said, "Oh? Why is that? Are your shop rules so strict?"

The young man said: "The treasurer Zhao has always been like this. It's a different matter after finishing the work in hand. It's just that our Su Ji's young master has the ability to pick up hundreds of sets of clothes in one go. Now some are busy."

Su Jin laughed loudly, and said to the boy: "Go and tell him, if he doesn't want to see me, I'll walk away immediately, and I won't bother you."

The little guy said helplessly: "Okay, then I'll make a report, guest officer, please wait a moment."

Su Jin stood on the open space outside the store and looked at the scenery Shi Shiran. The young man quickly walked around the cutting table and ran towards the shopkeeper Zhao. In a panic, he kicked over a small round stool and smashed the foot of the shopkeeper Zhao. Shopkeeper Zhao bared his teeth in pain, but he had no time to pay attention, stomped his feet and started cutting clothes again.

The little guy sticks out his tongue and sticks to Shopkeeper Zhao's ear and says, "Shopkeeper, there is a small official outside who wants to see you. I saw that you are busy and told him that you are not free, but he insisted on me to inform you." .”

Shopkeeper Zhao didn't even raise his eyelids and said, "We don't have customers during business hours, but I made it clear, you go tell him and come back at noon."

The young man scratched his head and said, "You should take a look, maybe an acquaintance of yours came to you for something urgent, I don't know."

Shopkeeper Zhao raised his eyes to look outside the door, and under the eaves stood Su Jin in a blue shirt and satin gown, his hands panicked, almost cutting his fingers, and he slapped the boy on the head. He slapped his face and cursed: "You don't even know the young master's family, and you keep him out of the shop. I think you are going back more and more."

Shopkeeper Zhao hastily left before he could finish speaking, and repeatedly complained loudly: "Young Master's family is here, the crime of negligence, you deserve to die."

The young man was stunned, scratching his head in a daze, and all the masters and apprentices in the shop put down their work and turned their heads when they heard that the young master was coming.

Shopkeeper Zhao saluted and invited Su Jin into the store. All the masters saluted one after another. Su Jin returned the salute with a smile. Yes, he is polite and not pedantic, so don't scold him."

Shopkeeper Zhao Da smiled and said: "He is my nephew, his poor parents died early, and he lives with me. Seeing that he is clever, I took him as an apprentice in the shop. Madam knows about this."

Su Jin said with a smile: "Don't worry too much, manager Zhao. Since you are the manager of the garment shop, you can choose the staff freely. I won't interfere in it. I hope there are more smart boys like this." .”

Shopkeeper Zhao said with a smile: "Young master, please don't praise him so much, this kid is very frizzy, and he should formally learn the craft next month, and he will not be free this month."

Su Jin said: "Boss shopkeeper, I'm here to tell you about this matter. If you want to talk about craftsmanship, I definitely didn't talk about the clothes from the shopkeeper's hands, but you also saw it yesterday. There are a lot of orders and the business is quite menacing. Ah, there are only about [-] master craftsmen who can cut a set of clothes in the tailor shop, so I'm worried that there won't be enough manpower."

Shopkeeper Zhao frowned, apparently Su Jin's words had reached his heart, and after a long while he counted with his fingers: "There are only 25 people who can stand on their own. Even if you hurry, it will take four or five days to complete a set of clothes." Calculated in four days, there are only two hundred sets of clothes in a month. This is not counting the effort spent on accessories in the later period. It is indeed difficult to complete such a large number of clothes; Go in and put more effort into it."

Su Jin was shocked when he heard that, according to his idea, a piece of clothing can be finished in two days at most, and a piece of clothing can be made in a few minutes in the garment factory of later generations. I took the factors of the machine and the high efficiency of the assembly line into account as much as possible according to my own imagination, but I didn't expect that there was still a big difference.

Su Jin couldn't help asking: "Shopkeeper, does it take four or five days to finish a piece of clothing? How could it take so long?"

Shopkeeper Zhao knew that Shaodong’s family had just left the study, so he definitely didn’t know about tailoring, so he didn’t take it too seriously, and patiently explained: “The production of a piece of clothing requires a process of measuring, cutting, sewing, ironing, and sampling. And other processes, and need to be completed by a master master alone, our industry calls it "one-handed", so that the clothes that come out will reflect the level of the master master; in these processes, the level of body measurement has been omitted, and each piece The size of the clothes has been measured on the order, but in fact the last four procedures are the most labor-intensive, so although the first procedure is saved, the labor is not saved much.”

Su Jin asked strangely: "The cutting and sewing must be done by the master himself. I can understand this. Why do the ironing and samples later need to be done by the master himself? Can't these apprentices do it?"

Shopkeeper Zhao said: "It's not impossible, young master, you don't understand the rules of our industry. The clothes made by 'single hand' can best reflect the craftsmanship of a master tailor. If the clothes are fake, whether the clothes are good or bad depends It’s hard to say, if it’s inappropriate, it will ruin the reputation of the masters.”

Su Jin understood that these master tailors were struggling with the issue of personal brand image, so even if they were exhausted, they didn't want apprentices to touch their hands. In this way, the effort required doubled, so the speed was out of the question.

Su Jin pondered for a moment and asked, "Shopkeeper, if the latter two processes are done by the boys, how long will it take for a piece of clothing?"

"Two and a half days at most, maybe it can be completed in two days."

"So, wouldn't it be possible to make more than 400 sets of clothes in a month?" Su Jin was excited.

"It should be possible, but..." Shopkeeper Zhang hesitated to speak.

Su Jin thought, don't you just cling to the rules and refuse to change, this is imminent, I don't care if you are happy or not; even though you think so, the reason still has to be reasonable, otherwise when you work, you have to worry about it. Pimples were not what Su Jin hoped for either.

Su Jin took the shopkeeper's hand and walked to a big willow tree not far from the shop, and bowed respectfully and fully dressed.

Shopkeeper Zhao hurriedly stretched out his hand to stay at home, his thin face was flushed red and said: "Young master, why is this? You don't have to be so old."

Su Jin said solemnly: "You deserve this gift. My mother and I once talked about your old age. You joined my Suji as an apprentice at the age of 13. You followed my ancestors to work hard for a large family business. You never said much about hard work. Listen to me, kid." So respectful, now that I, Su Ji, have come to a critical moment, I don’t shy away from saying something, if Su Ji’s cloth shop and clothing store can’t be revived this time, my Su Ji will decline. This is definitely not what you want to see .”

Shopkeeper Zhao said with a sullen face: "Young master, if you have something to say, just say it. The old master and your ancestors have never talked around the corner. Although the old man has helped the Su family with some things, the Su family has not treated me badly. I was 13 years ago. Sui was so hungry that he was skinny and boneless, lying on the street and no one asked or cared about him. It was my boss who saved me, and later he held the marriage for me. No matter how hard I work, my boss’s kindness is hard to repay. Su Ji is mine. Fate, this year's business is not good, I asked to resign from the position of shopkeeper several times, but my lord was kind and sincere, not only refused, but asked the old man not to lay off the idle masters in the store. To such a good club, so the young club has something to say but it doesn’t matter.”

Su Jin heard shopkeeper Zhao's sincere confession, and a stone fell to the ground in his heart. It turns out that this group of people has received so many favors from the Su family, so if they don't agree to this matter, they will agree.

"Boss shopkeeper, do you know how much money I spent on this matter?" Without waiting for shopkeeper Zhao to ask, Su Jin gave the answer himself: "It's close to [-] yuan. , my Su family is in danger."

Shopkeeper Zhao was taken aback and said, "Why are there so many?"

Su Jin told him the accounts one by one. When it was said that the old shopkeeper Zhang would go to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to purchase [-] pieces of high-quality cloth in person tomorrow, shopkeeper Zhao opened his eyes wide. He seemed to understand the appetite of the young man in front of him. Well, this is going to eat up the entire Luzhou City's share of high-end clothing. At the same time, he also thought of the risks involved. If this matter fails, the loss will be second to none, and Su Ji's reputation will be ruined. Just imagine It was a terrifying scene that thousands of people who had ordered clothes could not get clothes to wear, crowding at the door of Suji and shouting.

"Young master, I didn't say anything, you order, and you can do whatever you say."

What Su Jin waited for was this sentence: "First, according to what I said, hand over irrelevant processes to the apprentices to speed up the process, and don't let other cloth shops have the opportunity to provoke troubles. We must deliver the goods as soon as possible, and Quality assurance."

"Okay, I will persuade them to follow the requirements of the young master." Shopkeeper Zhao did not hesitate.

"Pay attention to the way you speak, don't force it, just convey my words to them, and tell them at the same time that their honor and disgrace are connected with Su Ji, and the quality of their clothes is not their personal matter, it is Su Ji's face, Su Ji No one will be ashamed if you write it down, and no matter how beautiful the clothes are, they will be criticized by others; in addition, tell them that everyone's wages will be doubled this month, and Su Ji will never treat them badly."

"Young master, don't worry, they are all Su Ji old men, and they will understand this truth."

Su Jin nodded and said with a smile: "That would be the best. The second thing is that you have to quickly invite a dozen more masters. The cloth village will open a semicolon for you next door to find some skilled craftsmen. Those who are willing to endure hardships and are honest and responsible, can open in less than ten days, and then you will be the head shopkeeper of the shops on both sides, and if you have more people, you won't have to worry about being overwhelmed."

Shopkeeper Zhao's beard was trembling, and the hat of the chief shopkeeper was buckled on his head, which almost prevented him from having a cerebral hemorrhage from excitement. There are more than ten shops in Su Ji, and there is still no big shopkeeper who can be mixed up with a semicolon. All of a sudden he showed his face.

"Young master, leave it to the old man. There are quite a lot of unemployed tailors in the city. Su Ji wants to invite them. I'm afraid they will stumble and run this way. I want to pick some good ones to use."

Su Jin laughed loudly and said: "The chief shopkeeper has a wide range of contacts and knows a lot of people. If I come by myself, I will be so worried."

Su Jin put on top hats and poured bowls of broth soup without showing his face. Shopkeeper Zhao was originally an honest man, how could he bear these things, after a few back and forth, he completely obeyed Su Jinyan.

Su Jin also asked some questions about whether the style pictures of the clothes can be seen clearly, whether there are any difficulties in making them, etc. Su Ji's tailoring shop is full of talents in tailoring, and the clothes can be restored by looking at a picture, not to mention What Su Jin handed over to them was a detailed sample drawing, which was the masterpiece of the sisters Rouniang Huanniang who spent more than ten days without leaving their study room, so it was naturally clear at a glance.

Having said all of this, Su Jin didn't want to disturb him any more, left a dozen or so scrolls behind, and left.

Shopkeeper Zhao went back to the store to discuss. Although some people were talking strange things, when Shopkeeper Zhao said that the wages would be doubled, they collectively lost their voices. Do you want money or face?The answer is self-evident.