Thousands of sparks

Chapter 46
Although I don't know how the Victorians lived and kept warm.But Dusande himself was quite sure that, at least in Upper Albin, he had never seen anyone walking up and down the street in cotton-padded clothes and cotton-padded shoes.

Most of the clothing worn by nobles in winter are thick furs—the furs worn by women are the most luxurious.Purple soft fur is made into cloaks and skirts, and the most solemn garments will be decorated with a circle of white fur on the edge of the fur clothes.

The free folk couldn't afford furs, but they had their own ways.

Thick cotton and woolen felt windbreakers are combined as their winter clothing, and woolen boots are not as good as furs, but at least they can keep them from getting cold and sick.

But such methods are not imitated by the poor.

A better wool-felt trench coat cost two guineas, and a complete suit came close to three guineas.This is a lot of money for a freeman - it is not uncommon for a trench coat to be worn for 20 years.In Newsail, the high-quality trench coats owned by the parents even need to be specifically included in the scope of inheritance tax.

There is also a huge gap in the income levels of the poor. The poor who are better off have their own wooden houses or even brick houses. They use a large amount of forage stored in summer and autumn and cow dung excreted by their own cattle as fuel. With four or five layers of cotton clothes, you can also survive the winter smoothly.A little less could have three or four cotton clothes, and only light the fire on the coldest evenings.Although it is hard to bear, it can survive until the temperature rises in spring.

But the poorest part of the poor has no such luck.

Some of the poorest slums live in derelict houses or hunters' lodges that have been abandoned and do not even have roofs.

They couldn't even collect dry grass and shrub branches, nor dried cow dung cakes, not to mention several layers of clothes-some poor families with four or five members even had only one pair of trousers.When the father went out to work, the family could only lie on the bed and cover their bodies with straw.

Straw and weeds are the chief fuels of the poor.At the same time, they are also the most important tools for keeping warm in poor families with only one or two layers of clothes and a pair of trousers.

Between two layers of clothing, or simply between a piece of clothing and your body skin, a large amount of fluffy wheat straw and wild grass can effectively improve the warmth retention of the clothing.

In many impoverished families, the wheat straw and dry weeds they have worked so hard to collect are basically enough for the whole family to stuff into their clothes.After the grass is stuffed, these "warm layers" can directly make them incapable of working.

After all, no humans have been born in the world who are able to wear straw hard enough to cut their skin, and normally engage in heavy physical labor.

Such poor families will soon fall into a dilemma.They don't even have enough fuel to cook their food.Soon, they will start to face the choice of life and death - whether to use these straws to cook the meager food, and then shiver in the rapidly dropping temperature... Or to eat raw potatoes and tree roots, but the body can be relatively Be warmer.

Dusand's strategy is simple-no matter what method is used, as many poor people as possible must be kept alive.Let Director Escobar show his old face and "borrow" money, and then Dusand will write off the account for Director Escobar physically.After going back and forth in this way, coupled with the assistance of the church doctors and the navy, although these gathered resources are still astronomically far from "peace in the world", they can at least come in handy.

It's better than spending the money on ridiculously high loan interest rates and in the canteen of the Home Affairs Bureau.

Based on this starting point, Du Sande decided to open up a new front.

Ladies and gentlemen, thick cotton coats, second cotton trousers, and big cotton nests are all good things!
·
·
·
Cotton is one of the most important economic crops in the empire.It is one of the main reasons why the empire has gradually grown from a small country in a small corner to a large colonial country, and even a trans-planetary empire.The cultivation of cotton and the textile industry facilitated the birth of the steam engine, which in turn facilitated the empire's emergence as a super-colonial state.

Driven by the steam engine, the two industries of wool spinning and cotton spinning quickly became a huge driving force for the expansion of the empire. 42 colonial stars, plus the cotton produced locally in Olin...the output is an astronomical figure.

Although the yield is high, the quality of the cotton is very good.But in the field of cotton extraction and use, the level of empire is still...not very high.

The empire continued to wage war with the alliance, on the one hand, of course, because of the irreconcilable ideological contradictions between the two sides.But on the other hand, it is also because the empire needs a continuous source of "labor".

Such as prisoners of war.

Some people joked that the Confederates had such a large population in the empire that they had in fact become a nation of the empire.

The League itself had a long history of slavery.According to the historical records of the empire, the founder of the alliance was a part of the huge rebel army of Salvador, the rebel 400 years ago, who fled into deep space and finally formed a force.From the first day of the founding of the country, they invaded the territory of the empire wantonly, captured slaves on many newly opened colonial planets of the empire, and then used them to build their own country.

In direct response to the Allied crimes, the Empire also dispatched naval units to forcibly land Allied colonies and capture prisoners of war.After these prisoners of war were transported back to the empire, there were only two jobs waiting for them.

Work till your death on a plantation, or spend the rest of your life in a mine.

Strong-bodied prisoners of war naturally went to the mine to swing the pickaxe.The group of people with the best health will be put on clothes like deep-sea diving suits and sent to mine minerals on uninhabitable planets.

The captured prisoners who are not suitable for mining minerals will spend their entire lives on the land with the best light conditions on each colonial planet, contributing cash crops to the manor owners in the plantations.

This is also an important reason why the life of the poor in the empire is so embarrassing.Although they are paupers, these imperial paupers are still the subjects of His Majesty the Emperor.Compared with prisoners of war who were bought out at one time and then paid with leather whips and watery flour soup, the cost of employing the poor of the empire was simply too high.

The cost of purchasing raw cotton is not too high.According to Director Escobar's estimation, 20 pounds can buy at least 1 pounds of raw cotton.In other words, the price of cotton is now as low as 11 shilling a pound.According to Dusand's estimation, it takes about [-] shillings to manufacture a thick quilt weighing eight catties enough to resist the cold.

But this cost is still not enough to allow a large number of poor people to survive the winter.They need lower-cost ways to fight the cold, as well as financial resources.

After deliberation, Du Sanders decided to ask the Bureau of Internal Affairs to distribute raw cotton instead of manufactured cotton clothes to the poor.As for the source of income... He didn't have any good ideas about this either.After all, Rosen's company is limited in scale, and it is not easy to provide some jobs for the poor in Upper Albin - it is probably a dream to radiate to the whole of Newsale.

The purchase of raw cotton will of course be welcomed and supported by plantation owners.And distributing raw cotton can put an end to possible corruption and selfishness in the middle - all the raw cotton bought is unprocessed, no matter how much the handlers in the middle try to take advantage of it, they won't be able to pick up two handfuls of cotton and put them in their trouser pockets. Walk.

Even if it is really fished out, the loss will not be too great.

Raw cotton is not suitable for burning, but it is a good substitute for straw and hay, and is stuffed into the clothes of the poor to keep out the cold.Of course, this is certainly not the most efficient way to use cotton, but it does seem to be the most suitable at present.

And these raw cotton can be processed into bedding after winter.One release can solve many problems.

Help the poor get through this winter first, and after the real internal affairs committee takes office, those smart people may have a better way to help the poor get their own way of survival.

After deliberating with Director Escobar several times on possible problems during the implementation process and formulating relevant plans, Dusand stepped on his steam carriage.The pocket watch on his waist showed that it was already two o'clock in the morning.

On the cold streets of Upper Albin, a ten-year-old aristocrat is struggling for how many poor people in Newsail can survive the winter safely.

In the other direction of Upper Albin, in the brightly lit residence of the Duke of Saar, the grand ball has just ended.

Numerous nobles in furs, with flushed faces spurred by alcohol and exquisite food, stood unsteadily on the huge square outside the Duke's mansion, waiting for their steam carriage to pick them up.

Under the dual effects of alcohol and a grand ball, they shouted at Duke Saar standing on the balcony of the manor, "His Excellency, I wish you good health forever!"

(End of this chapter)