Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 643 Bad News from the Netherlands

"I'm sorry, Mr. Siligou, but you are not allowed to enter the workshop." Siligou, a textile expert from Genoa, was sitting at the table in the tavern on the port of Rocha, staring at the French brandy in the wine glass, still resentful in his heart.

He failed again this morning to enter the textile factory under construction (on the outskirts of the Corps Fort in Port Rocha), and was told bluntly by the East Coast Internal Affairs Police who guarded the factory gates that if he wandered around and attempted to enter again In the case of the factory area, they will take compulsory measures against the distinguished Genoese guests.As soon as these words came out, Sirigu was so frightened that he gave up the idea of ​​spying on this new textile factory.

And this third domestic textile enterprise on the east coast, named Rocha United Textile Factory, is precisely a factory invested by a quarter of the Doria family from Genoa.This factory is mainly for the traditional customers of Genoese, such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, South Germany, Spanish America, etc., focusing on the production of various fancy textiles for different customer groups, and will also provide technical assistance to Genoese Next (the people from Genoa provide the craftsmanship, and the people from the East Coast design the machines) to produce some silk fabrics and silk-cotton-silk-linen blended fabrics, the profit margin will be much higher than that of the other two domestic textile factories: Ping'an Weaving Factory and Dayuhe Machine Textile Factory.

At present, the site of the factory has been selected, which is located in the outskirts of Bingtuanbao, Luocha County.There is a large cotton field near Bingtuanbao, with an area of ​​more than 2 mu, and the cotton planting area of ​​cotton farmers in the neighboring Dongfang County is even more extensive, reaching more than 4 mu.The cotton production of these two cotton planting bases established as early as ten years ago has been relatively stable. Unfortunately, the quality is not as good as the cotton in the West Indies, Brazil, Florida, Georgia and other places. They can only be used to make do Weave some low-grade calico.If you want to produce high-end products such as dyed cloth and printed cloth, you still need to import them from the Caribbean, and at the very least, you have to import them from Brazil, otherwise the quality cannot be guaranteed.

After the factory site was selected and the land was leveled, at the beginning of this month (November), some large-scale machines were installed before the construction of the factory building—because many machines were inconvenient to enter and exit or install after the factory building was built—including many boilers, Steam engine and complex transmission system.All these machines are jointly designed and produced by the First Machinery Factory (responsible for production equipment) and the Second Machinery Factory (responsible for power and transmission equipment). Yuhe Machine Textile Factory transferred, and at the same time, some students of related majors who graduated from Bingtuanbao also entered the factory as middle and low-level managers to ensure the stability of the factory.

Nowadays, the textile industry on the east coast is indeed becoming more and more developed, and there are more and more related technical talents.There is a technical department under the Machinery Institute of the Academy of Natural Sciences that specializes in the research and improvement of various textile machinery. This department has a half-way monk named Chuanzhong as the research and development supervisor, and has a team of five high school students and eight graduates of related majors from Bingtuanbao. Strong technical force, following two textile enterprises all year round, researching and analyzing various problems in the production process at any time, so as to continuously improve production equipment and production technology.

The most important improvement in this technical department in recent years is the invention of the "Cotton Collector" in 1645.This invention makes it easier and quicker for people to remove loose wool from the carding machine, saves a lot of manual piecing workers, reduces costs, and improves production efficiency. It is an extremely important improvement in the rapid production of textile mechanization.

In addition, the First Machinery Factory has not stood still during these years.Through continuous design, practice and improvement, they designed a spinning machine with more spindles; and the spinning machine has improved, and a large number of technical improvements have been made to the matching loom. Through better transmission efficiency, Higher machine lubrication technology, etc., the First Machinery Factory successfully made the production efficiency of looms also greatly improved.

The newly established Luocha United Textile Factory uses the latest equipment, which is almost the most cutting-edge technology collection in the East Coast textile industry today, and it is also the most efficient and cheapest textile production line in the world at this time.How could the Genoese be allowed to enter such an extremely advanced factory, even if they own a quarter of the factory's equity.Therefore, it is not incomprehensible that Siligu, who was only nominally serving as the factory's technical consultant, was turned away.

"Damn people from the east coast, they will regret their rude attitude towards me sooner or later." Sirigu took a sip of brandy and was about to continue cursing a few more words when he heard a "bang", a The huge wooden basin was heavily pressed in front of Sirigu.

"The whale meat you want!" A black waiter who was chewing something lazily said, after finishing speaking, he wiped his dirty apron with his oily hands, then turned around and left .

The startled Sirigu was furious, and just when he was about to stand up and say something, the door was pushed open again, and a middle-aged man with red hair walked in.He was wearing a heavily stained captain's uniform, slightly torn at the shoulders, but well mended.Well, it can be seen that the captain's financial situation does not seem to be very good.

"Captain Couette, I haven't seen you for a long time." The tavern owner, who was dozing off behind the bar before, also woke up at this time. He waved his hand, and the black waiter who was lazy just now immediately respected him. He quickly opened the chair for Captain Couette and brought a cup of yerba mate tea.

"Yeah, I just came over from St. Augustine and brought a load of cotton." Captain Couette threw his faded hat on the table, snapped his fingers, and said to the black waiter, "Thank you, old man." , bring me the half bottle of Hezhong Daqu I saved, and give me another grilled lamb chop, a piece of marinated squid, and finally give me an egg fried rice—the egg fried rice can be served later."

"There are no more eggs, sir." The black waiter surnamed Xie replied faithfully, "We stopped supplying eggs half a month ago. Now, if you want to find eggs, apart from the chicken coops of the farmers, the only ones from the War Department It’s only available in the logistics warehouse. They recently developed a new type of canned food for the military, one of the important ingredients is eggs, and now they have almost all the eggs on the market.”

"Then let's have a mutton pilaf." Captain Couette waved his hand weakly, and then continued to chat with the tavern owner: "The price of cotton in St. Augustine has plummeted, and I can buy a ton for only 95 pesos there." The best long-staple cotton is really surprising. I heard that it was the latest order from the mad king of the Spaniards. He forbade all the merchants in the Spanish American colonies to export any materials to the east coast. Among them, cotton is a kind of Prohibited merchandise. Thanks to the Spaniards, this shipment of cotton will make me a fortune."

"The Spaniards banned the export of cotton to the east coast, and neither the English, the Dutch, the Swedes, or the French had enough appetite to digest the huge cotton production capacity in Florida, Georgia, etc., which would inevitably lead to a large amount of local cotton production. The backlog caused the price to plummet.” The tavern owner sighed and said: “It is the Spanish merchants who lose their own interests, but this may also allow the cotton textile industries of various countries to breathe a sigh of relief. After all, before The price of cotton in China is too crazy, and they cannot afford such a high cost of raw materials with backward technology. However, since the price of cotton exported at the St. Augustine port has dropped to 95 pesos, they are now importing a large amount and going back to spinning and weaving There should be some money to be made, especially that French Mazarin, even I know on the east coast that this guy is aiming to revitalize the French textile industry, hehe, now let him seize the opportunity."

It is said that in the past few years, because of artificially raising and manipulating cotton prices on the East Coast, many textile factories established in the four countries (England, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands) on the Old Continent that imitated the East Coast to vigorously develop the textile industry fell into an embarrassing situation.If you want to import cotton for production, the cost is too high, and you will definitely lose money. Even if you can sell some cotton cloth by relying on trade protection, it is really not profitable, and you may even be ruined after competing with cheap smuggled cotton cloth. .Instead of importing cotton for production, what are you building these factories for?Are you looking at playing?A large amount of investment has already been invested, but the textile factory is deserted. This is really not what normal people should do.

But now they can finally breathe a sigh of relief temporarily. In the past few years, because all countries have more or less expanded their textile industries, because of the huge demand for raw materials.Then coupled with the influence of some human factors, the cotton price skyrocketed like a rocket, and even reached 175 yuan/ton at the highest price, which is not very profitable for the textile industry on the east coast. The plantation bought at a low price in Brazil earlier was sold at a very profitable profit.

After the first wave of developing the textile industry in the Old Continent was extinguished by the high raw material prices, the price of cotton fell into a slump within two years. Presumably, for some countries aiming to revitalize their domestic industries, this is a big deal. It's great news.

"But I heard a piece of news in Amsterdam. Well, it may not be good news for you people on the east coast." Captain Couette sat at a table, took a sip of yerba mate, and then He said with a firm tone: "I heard that a carpenter from Zeeland Province won a reward of [-] guilders because he invented a new weaving machine that can double the efficiency of weaving. This weaving machine is called a 'flying shuttle loom'."

"It's really bad news." Before the tavern owner could speak, Siligu, who was sitting by the side, heard the news, and immediately calculated the pros and cons in his mind nervously.

(End of this chapter)