Chapter 44 The dyeing industry that is difficult to squeeze in

Hu Chuyuan can't be regarded as a real smart person. He didn't expect that Xu Run's vicious words actually had a deep mystery, but he didn't hear it himself.

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After buying the same document bureau from Xu Run, Hu Chuyuan has initially completed his preparations for Jiangnan West School.

After leaving Yuyuan, he went directly to the document bureau to negotiate with Mr. Xu Honghai, the editor-in-chief of the bookstore, for a discussion, and renamed the document bureau to Jiangnan Bookstore, with Jiangnan Press and Jiangnan Newspaper Company.

On the other hand, he also gave Xu Shou a sum of funds to expand Jiangnan West College on the basis of Gezhi College, and set up a special foreign language school and translation club.

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The western warehouse of Hu Mansion was originally used to stack sundries. After Hu Chuyuan came back, he rebuilt it into a very clean weaving workshop, in which there were seven Ruo Guade French looms, one wooden 100-hole type and one 200-hole type, iron 100 holes, 200 holes, 300 holes, 600 holes, 1 One for each of the 200 holes.

Liu Chengxiang personally came from Hangzhou to be responsible for this matter. He selected more than 20 skilled young weavers in Hangzhou and Suzhou, and followed two Japanese technicians to learn weaving here.

Pan Limei not only works as a translator, but also learns with them.

On the other hand, Xu Shou, Hua Hengfang and the most famous loom carpenters in Suzhou and Hangzhou are studying the wood-made Ruo Guade.

If someone weaves silk, someone will buy a loom, and then someone will specialize in making looms. In the area of Suzhou and Hangzhou, there are many masters specializing in making looms. Liu Chengxiang invited the best craftsmen in the two provinces of Suzhou and Hangzhou. Let's work together to think about it together.

Although the domestic Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and Fuzhou Shipping Administration have small iron factories, and even steam engines can be manufactured, it is not difficult to produce molds according to Ruo Guade's model. It is rare that the price may not be cheaper than imported ones, and the quality is even less guaranteed.

Therefore, Hu Chuyuan decided to start with the wooden machine first.

Xu Shou and other people have studied for more than ten days to imitate a 200-hole wooden machine, and are currently trying to imitate 300-holes.

As soon as Hu Chuyuan entered the door, he hurried over to see that Master Qian from Suzhou and Master Zhao from Hangzhou were doing their own things with several apprentices. The drawings were drawn by Xu Shou and others. The drawings were exactly the same. Whoever can do it well depends on whose ability.

Seeing that more than half of Master Qian's 300-hole loom had been completed, Hu Chuyuan asked him, "Can it be imitated?"

Master Qian smiled and said, "Master Hu, you also underestimate me and Master Zhao, not to mention 300 holes. I have talked to Master Zhao that 600 holes can be done. The key is that the wood is not cheap. The 200-hole wood loom I made is good enough, but its wood is made of birch. This material is hard and cheap, but it can't be baked through, and its toughness is not enough. We use yellow pear wood to build shelves and jujube wood as burdens. In a few places, we have to choose softer wood. The price is more expensive, and there is definitely no problem with 300 holes.

Hearing this, Hu Chuyuan was relieved.

These two masters have at least made thousands of looms. They know how to make them better than him.

Xu Shou and Hua Hengfang also came over, nodded to Hu Chuyuan and said hello.

Hua Hengfang said, "Hu Qiwei, Mr. Xu and I don't know much about the industry of silk weaving. That is, we have only begun to contact in the past few days. When it comes to improvement, I'm afraid we are not good at it. These things still have to be done by Master Qian, but we have seen that once too many improvements are made, the original French drawing paper is meaningless and cannot be used. You have to redesign the drawing paper. How to design the drawing paper is a difficult problem.

Hu Chuyuan nodded silently and asked, "Is there anything you can do? Otherwise, how many people can we invite to help in France?"

Hua Hengfang said, "That's not necessary. I guess there must be relevant paper-drawing books in France. I have asked a familiar French priest to buy it. The key to this paper painting technology is two parts. One is to have a good foundation for arithmetic, and the second is to be very proficient in the use of this kind of loom. You can calculate in your head and guess in your heart. In addition, you have to know a little bit of Western painting foundation. Only when the three are combined can this person design the drawing paper.

Hu Chuyuan asked, "Do you have a suitable candidate?"

Hua Hengfang said, "There are several people in our Gezhi College who are proficient in mathematics, some have studied Western painting, and some are silk weaving at home, but there is only one person named Shen Maocai. He has a good a good arithmetic skills. His family is an old weaver in Suzhou. He should know a little about silk weaving, but he must have never been exposed to this kind of western weaving. The machine."

Hu Chuyuan said, "It doesn't matter. Invite him to come. The salary is easy to arrange for him to learn to use this new loom first and be familiar with all kinds of drawing paper. Slowly, let's let him consider designing a new drawing paper.

Hua Hengfang said, "That's okay. I'll talk to him when I go back and see if he wants to come over!"

Imitating Ruo Guade is the most urgent thing for Hu Chuyuan at the present. For this reason, he personally came to the door and invited Hua Hengfang and Xu Shou to study this manual machinery together.

Hu Chuyuan turned around and thought that it was definitely not enough for a person to draw paper. He asked Hua Hengfang to find more people with good mathematical skills. Now he came to learn, and then asked the teacher to train their foundation of Western painting. In addition, he asked two French translators to help translate French materials.

Salary is definitely not a problem.

With his words, everyone is invited.

Hua Hengfang urgently returned to the college and soon brought those students here. They were only seventeen or eighteen years old, with a total of four people. Among them, only Shen Mao knew the loom, but it was also the first time he had seen this kind of foreign loom.

Hu Chuyuan arranged for them to learn and practice first, including food and accommodation, with a monthly salary of five yuan. After completing the study, the monthly salary can be increased to 20 yuan.

In addition, Hu Chuyuan has a headache, that is, the problem of the silk reeling machine and the silk dyeing machine. If he can't get these two sets of equipment, he can only dye silk with the local method. Even if the problem of the loom is solved, the process effect is not very good.

If you buy dyed ripe silk with foreigners, the price is even more ridiculously high, and there is not much profit margin.

If you buy a machine with foreigners, the price of the machine is also surprisingly high. You must always buy dyes from a foreign company. If the profit is cut down, you will lose money.

He has sent Liu Chengxiang to negotiate with seven foreign banks. Each of them is a group, and the price is ridiculously high. He doesn't want others to have the opportunity to make money at all.

Silk reeling and dyeing are the most successful industries and most profitable industries for foreigners in Shanghai. How can they give it to the Chinese people lightly?

Hu Chuyuan has only two choices at this time, either not to enter the industry, or to force the foreigners to kill him. Even if he squeezes in, don't expect to make money.