Zhao Weiwang in the Warring States Period

Page 546

In fact, Zhao Dan discovered something very interesting in the memorial submitted by the monitoring guard recently, that is, another group of people are also actively helping Zhao Dan to solve the problem of excrement.

who?

businessman.

In the past two or three years, a new profession, the excrement picker, began to appear in Handan City.

These excrement pickers would pull a rickshaw to various households in Handan City every day to ask for excrement.

The residents of Handan City undoubtedly welcome these behaviors of the excrement pickers. It often takes less time for the excrement pickers to leave with a cart full of excrement.

Where to go?

These continuous feces were taken by the excrement pickers to a manor a few miles outside Handan Guocheng.

And according to the supervisory guard's report, the owner of this manor is none other than Lu Buwei.

A smart guy who was once the top businessman in the world.

Obviously, even though Lu Buwei is not in Zhao State at the moment, there are still people with sharp eyes in the Lu family.

What do you need so much shit for?Of course it is used as manure.

Under the vigorous promotion of Zhao Guo's officials, the farmers near Handan City have gradually accepted the idea that manure can increase production, and actively apply manure to farming.

But the problem is, which farmer's family these days doesn't have dozens of acres of land, or even hundreds of acres of land.

In addition, after the appearance of the Quyuan plow, intensive cultivation has higher requirements for the amount of manure. It is definitely not enough to just rely on one's own people and livestock to produce manure.

The contradiction between the supply and demand of manure then arises.

With demand, businessmen will naturally appear.

The State of Zhao is not the State of Qin. The State of Qin severely cracks down on businessmen, and although businessmen are not highly regarded in the State of Zhao, at least it is absolutely no problem to do business.

So when the farmers near Handan City had a need for manure, the Lu family immediately seized this opportunity and began to hire a large number of excrement collectors to transport the manure out of the city and make manure in the manor, and then send it to the vicinity of Handan City. farmers sell.

There are tens of 10 people in Handan City, and the amount of feces produced in a day is astronomical.

Even if a part of these feces are collected, that is an extremely objective amount of manure production.

According to the information submitted by the monitoring guard, "The Lu family has been selling manure for more than two years, and the scale is expanding day by day. It is roughly estimated that the annual income is no less than the profit from selling salt and iron."

Salt and iron are both extremely profitable industries.

People need to eat salt. Needless to say, Qi State, the leader of Duke Huan in the Spring and Autumn Period, started to make a fortune by relying on salt.

Needless to say, iron is a must for weapons, farm tools and so on.

Salt and iron belong to the general existence of strategic materials.

In the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, salt and iron were directly taken over as official camps and continued, which shows how much importance the later kings attached to salt and iron.

Selling manure can be compared with the benefits of salt and iron?This is scary.

What Zhao Dan didn't know was that in fact, if things like manure continue to develop, they will even give birth to an industry.

This industry will be composed of the manure diggers at the bottom and the manure factory owners at the top. While solving the manure digging problem for the government, it will generate massive wealth.

Yes, a huge amount of wealth that everyone can't imagine.

In the history of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Yu Deshun, a Beijing manure merchant known as "the No. There are large deposits in foreign banks.

Yu Deshun was definitely an out-and-out super local tycoon in that era, and all these coveted wealth were brought to Yu Deshun by those feces that stink and turn people's faces.

While Zhao Dan was in deep thought, the carriage he was riding in had passed through the civilian area and arrived at the workshop area of ​​Guocheng in Handan.

This is the place where the craftsmen of Zhao State lived, lived and worked.

Above the workshop area was billowing thick black smoke, even the sun was covered, making the sky here look gloomy.

This is mainly due to the large amount of smoke emitted by the iron smelting workshop in the workshop area during the iron smelting process.

For reasons of confidentiality, the blast furnaces did not appear here, and were replaced by ordinary iron-making furnaces that were low and only about one foot long.

Even though there was a wall, Zhao Dan could still hear the clanging of blacksmiths.

Not far from the iron workshop, they came to a heavily guarded place.

This is the latest printing workshop set up by Zhao Guo, which is responsible for the research of printing technology.

"Who are you, do you have an access token?" A heavily armed Zhao soldier stopped Zhao Dan's carriage.

Mao Sui, who was accompanying Zhao Dan, threw out a token: "Go and call the master craftsman here, and say that the king has summoned you!"

A master craftsman quickly appeared in front of Zhao Dan with a pissed off face: "Meet the king!"

Zhao Dan waved his hand with a smile, and said, "I heard that there has been a breakthrough in printing?"

Zhao Dan actually attaches great importance to this matter.

The dawn of papermaking has already appeared. According to the assurances of the master craftsmen, the output of paper will become exaggerated in at most three to five years.

At that time, things like printing are just needed.

Printing looks simple, but in fact it also has its technical difficulties.

No invention can be made casually, but it will finally develop to the point of later generations after the efforts of countless ancestors and the practice of generations.

Therefore, in less than a year, there has been a breakthrough in printing technology, which actually surprised Zhao Dan.

So Zhao Dan decided to come and see for himself.

As the master walked, he proudly said to Zhao Dan: "Actually speaking, this is also the great king Hongfu Qitian. A while ago, a craftsman came from Hedong and joined the workshop. It is precisely because of this ingenious craftsman that printing can break through so quickly."

"A descendant of Lu Ban?" Zhao Dan's expression moved slightly, and he asked, "What's the name of this craftsman?"

The master laughed and said, "It's good to teach the king to know that the name of this craftsman is Gongshu Fuzhen! Please look at it, the king, that is the one over there."

Zhao Dan looked along the master's finger, just in time to see a middle-aged man with a long face and small eyes in a craftsman's costume raised his head and looked in Zhao Dan's direction.

Chapter 541 Woodblock Printing (Second Update)

"Gongshu Fuzhen has seen the king!" The long-faced and small-eyed craftsman saluted Zhao Dan respectfully.

Zhao Dan looked at the craftsman in front of him, smiled very gently and said, "Are you from Qin?"

Gongshu Fuzhen replied respectfully, "Your Majesty, I am from Hedong County."