national surname chiming

Chapter 99

After returning to Huangzhou, what Shen Shuren cared about in his heart was still the final result of the Lijin Reform in the capital, and when it would be possible to write the pilot project in the southern provinces.

However, message delivery always takes time, and it is impossible for all parties to be so accurate.Zhang Huangyan has been acting as his agent for more than two months. There are countless things in Huangzhou waiting for Shen Shuren's acceptance, inspection, and handover, so he has no choice but to devote himself to his own job first.

Because the season for spring plowing and sowing has passed, there is no need to worry too much about inspecting the agricultural production of the counties. Anyway, there is no need for Shen Shuren to persuade the farmers.

The next day after returning to Huangzhou, he first plunged into the Bingzhan Workshop in Huanggang County, summoned Zhou Tiedan and other craftsmen to inspect the results of the weapon forging, and then looked at the actual equipment.

These tasks can be done in one day without going out of the county.

After more than two months, when he revisited the old place again, Shen Shuren could tell at a glance that the environment of Bingzhang Workshop had changed a lot.The size of the venue has been enlarged, and some parts have been renovated, and it looks less messy than before.

Some relatively simple processing machinery has also gradually become popular. It is too far to say, at least the existing technology mentioned in "Tiangong Kaiwu", even if it was not popular before, no one in Hubei used it. It's all funded.

For example, when Shen Shuren came last time, he saw that Zhou Tiedan and others were still using ordinary whetstones to sharpen their knives, holding weapons back and forth on the sunken stones and rubbing them back and forth.

Nowadays, a batch of knotted pulleys have been changed, the bottom is a mechanism that rotates with pedals like a bicycle, and the top is a knife sharpening machine that rotates a grinding wheel.

Although the whetstone and the pedal grinder can process the same things, and the quality will not be improved, the production efficiency has actually increased several times.

The technology of these things gradually evolved and deformed after the popularization of lathes for processing wood in the middle of the voyage era of the Western People's Congress, and people in the Ming Dynasty actually knew it too.It's just that there is a lack of people who systematically draw inferences to summarize "how many types of cutter heads and how many variants the pedal machine tool can be used with", or Song Yingxing made a little summary and did not promote it.

Before Shen Shuren left, after inspiring them, Zhang Huangyan's execution ability was really good, and now he has at least popularized the equipment after returning.

Shen Shuren himself was not surprised by this, but Zheng Chenggong, Yan Yingyuan, and Zhang Mingzhen, who were newcomers who followed him, were amazed.

When they first arrived in Huangzhou, they were not yet familiar with the situation and their responsibilities, so Shen Shuren took everyone to inspect for a few days.

With this level of technology, there is no need to keep it secret.Even if someone steals it, it will be the Han people who benefit.Shen Shuren can't wait for the military industry departments in the southern provinces of Ming Dynasty to promote pedal grinding wheels.

Shen Shuren found a capable apprentice of Zhou Tiedan, who is now in charge of sharpening bayonets, and asked in a pleasant manner: "How long can the sharpening process be shortened after the new method is adopted for these bayonets? How long does it take to sharpen them back and forth with a whetstone?"

The blacksmith respectfully replied: "Master Huifutai, if you want to grind it finely, it will take seven or eight days to grind it. This bayonet is no better than a kitchen knife. The part to be sharpened is very long, and you must prevent each section from being ground in different shades.

This is still the requirement for knives used by ordinary soldiers. If it is a good knife for Mr. Qian and Mr. Ba, it will not be too much to sharpen it for half a month.Now that this kind of foot-operated grinding wheel is used, Zong Qian's bayonet can be polished in at most three days, and ordinary soldiers can only polish it in one or two days. "

Shen Shuren nodded in satisfaction. Although the quality of weapons has not improved, the production efficiency has increased by three to five times!

Of course, this is only the improvement in the efficiency of the grinding process. It is impossible to improve the other forging and discharging processes, as well as the ironmaking itself.

On the whole, it is not bad that the production speed of swords can be more than doubled for the time being. In the future, more efforts are needed to study and work hard to improve the efficiency of every production link in the supply chain.

What is fought in war is materials and logistics.The performance of the weapon has not been upgraded, and it can be popularized in large quantities, which is also a kind of combat effectiveness.

"In the past two months, how many new bayonets have we produced? How many long-handled battle axes?" Shen Shuren turned around and asked Zhang Huangyan who was accompanying him casually.

Zhang Huang said: "There were 80 blacksmiths here before who were responsible for making knives and axes, and the rest had to make firearms. Recently, another group was recruited, increasing the number of swordsmiths to [-]. They also divided the work according to the process, such as blowing wind and burning fire, and producing iron bars. , stacking, quenching, and grinding are divided into five steps, and each of the five groups of people specializes in one of them.

According to the original construction method, each person can produce a knife in nearly half a month, about thirteen or four days.Now it takes six people and days of work. "

The unit of "man and sky" was invented by Shen Shuren before he left, and it refers to the daily workload of each person.After a more refined division of labor, the number of man-days in each link must be converted to facilitate scientific management.

It has indeed improved a lot from 14 days to 6 days.

Shen Shuren took the account book from Zhang Huangyan, which showed that 74 people worked on average for 71 working days, a total of 5254 man-days, producing 650 bayonets and 150 poleaxes—the poleaxes are more complicated than bayonets. There are also a lot of materials, so it takes 9 days to produce one.

At present, 1200 of the 800 firearms soldiers of the Shen family army are equipped with bayonets and long-handled axes, which happen to account for two-thirds of the equipment requirements of the bird gunners and turtledove gunners.

According to this progress, in about forty days, it will be possible to ensure that all 1200 firearms soldiers are equipped with melee weapons.

The expenses shown in the accounts are also quite a lot. The cost of raw materials such as steel and fuel required for a bayonet is about seven or eight renminbi.A blacksmith makes five pieces a month, and the labor cost is worth five yuan, which is about one or two or three yuan, while the ax costs about two or two.

Of course, this figure does not include the one-time fixed investment for the introduction of new machinery and equipment.

In order to upgrade the equipment in the workshop, hundreds of taels were spent on the research and development of the grinder in the early stage. During the trial production of the machine, there were defective products and wear and tear.

It's just that after these one-time investments are made, they can be exchanged for subsequent long-term benefits. From then on, each bayonet made can save seven or eight dollars in labor costs compared with the original old technology.

If a thousand are built, the cost of scientific research and equipment will be recovered, and more will be produced in the future, and the savings will be net profits.

After checking the accounts, Shen Shuren had a high-level plan for the chief inspection work, and made important instructions in front of Zhang Huangyan, Zheng Chenggong, Zuo Zixiong, and Zhang Mingzhen:

"Today's accounts prove that our decision to switch to new technology to produce bayonets and long-handled battle axes is extremely correct! Although it will cost more at the beginning, it will eventually bring long-term benefits! Improve skills, summarize, Only when a routine is formed can it be cured.”

If some words were not really suitable for use, Shen Shuren would have wished to directly mention "science and technology are the primary productive forces".

It's a pity that people in the Ming Dynasty didn't have the habit of applauding after listening to the chief's important instructions, and Shen Shuren could barely listen to a few words of praise to satisfy his ear craving.

Among the crowd, only Zheng Chenggong's status is relatively detached. After all, he has a huge family power behind him, and now he comes to Huguang to be an official, but it is only gilded, which does not mean that he will completely rely on Shen Shuren.So he dared to ask questions and had his own thinking.

"Brother Shen, but if you do this, you don't keep it secret, and you still want to 'summarize it'. The benefits will be learned by others sooner or later, and you even take the initiative to provide convenience for others to steal." Zheng Chenggong put himself in his shoes.

The main reason why the ancient Chinese were unwilling to write a book similar to "Heavenly Creation of Things" to summarize technical experience was also because they were afraid of stealing their teachers.In an environment without patent protection, it is easy for people to cherish themselves, and some advanced things are hidden and finally lost.

Of course, Shen Shuren knew the pros and cons of it, and said righteously: "I can't control whether people in the world protect the interests of people with fantastic ideas. At least on the one-acre three-point land in Huangzhou that I have the final say on, I want to protect the interests of those with fantastic ideas." The benefit of the thinker.

Others want to learn, so just learn. Anyway, I used it first, and it has formed a certain scale as soon as it came up, and I have earned back the cost of studying and trying to lose money.It's no big deal to use it early to benefit early, and use it later to steal cheap. "

Ordinary craftsmen can't do this because they can't run the scale, and they can't use the new technology to make excess profits immediately after the initial period of time.

Shen Shuren has the capital and can start and speed up quickly. In this regard, at least he doesn't have to worry about losing money-this is the same logic as those entrepreneurial logics in later generations that are not protected by law.

The reason why so many Internet companies rely on venture capital to start quickly in the early 21st century is because the law only protects patents, but not business model innovation.Only the software code is protected, but the algorithm and design ideas are not protected.

Others can use codes that don’t repeat a single sentence according to the law to copy and imitate your algorithms and design ideas, which forces those things that are not protected by the law to “sprint quickly as soon as the secret is leaked”.

Shen Shuren has never seen any troubles, so he resolutely followed the path of "others can copy, but before they react, I have at least returned the capital".

Without patent protection, you can still climb the technology!

In order to show his resolute attitude, Shen Shuren increased the reward after Zheng Chenggong's questioning.

He found the blacksmith who was in charge of trial-manufacturing the pedal grinding wheel before, and asked Zhang Huangyan to calculate how much work efficiency was improved and how much labor was saved in the grinding process.

Zhang Huangyan also quickly calculated: "The man-hours saved in the sharpening process accounted for about [-]% of the time saved for the whole knife. After conversion, one knife saved eight renminbi in labor costs, and the sharpening process saved three renminbi and two cents."

Shen Shuren immediately made a decision: "Twenty percent will be withdrawn from it, that is, six cents and four cents of silver will be withdrawn for each bayonet made in the future, and distributed to the craftsmen who trial-manufacture the sharpening machine and summarize the use of the machine. The account will be divided for at least three years.

Let them discuss and distribute everyone's contribution and ideas in this machine. If everyone is convinced, they will implement it directly. If they are not convinced, they will hand over to the government to determine the size of their respective contributions. "

Zhang Huangyan immediately calculated, and now that 800 weapons have been manufactured, the maker of the grinder can get a reward of six taels or four dollars.

Although the money is not much, which is equivalent to more than two months' wages of a blacksmith, it is a long-term benefit after all.In the next three years, the government will build more bayonets, and they will get more money for each batch they make.

The blacksmith immediately knelt down to thank him, and timidly said that the main contributor to the grinder was his master Zhou Tiedan.

But Shen Shuren couldn't do it. He took the initiative to ask Zhou Tiedan some questions, and emphasized that he must seek truth from facts, dare to innovate, and not be bound by his master.He knows that technological innovation is sometimes not accomplished by a group of old men who are rigid and path-dependent.

It is of course important to respect the "artisan spirit", but it is more important to dare to break the status quo.

Zhou Tiedan didn't dare to take the credit of his apprentices, maybe these craftsmen had never felt that the civil servants valued them so much, asked and analyzed them in such detail, and didn't have the courage to discuss seniority for a while.

After some verification, Shen Shuren sent the real money to those who really contributed to research and development.Several blacksmiths held the small silver nuggets that they obviously only had one or two taels or even a few pennies, but they were deeply moved and tears filled their eyes.

The largest piece of silver, more than two taels, was actually issued by the master of the Futai personally after checking the accounts and calculating them himself.

Significance and solemnity are by no means represented by silver itself.

"We've lived for most of our lives, and this is the first time we've seen civil servants personally settle the accounts for our little gadgets. The Shen Futai is really diligent in government and loves the people, and a bright mirror hangs high."

(End of this chapter)