"Father, the child sent people to stare at the workshop day and night. The craftsmen who built looms are also reliable old men. They will never disclose the secrets." Zhang Suzi repeatedly decided, but he would not have racked his brains and would not have thought that it was not his staff who leaked the secrets, but Li Heng, the scholar who had already committed suicide by jumping into the river.

After creating the illusion of committing suicide by jumping into the river, Li Heng went ashore from an inconspicuous corner with the help of his colleagues from Jinyiwei, then changed his clothes and took a drawing to deceive another wealthy merchant from Jiangnan. There were many Jinyiwei and Dongchang like him. With the cooperation of these people, many wealthy merchants in Jiangnan who own loom workshops received this drawing and began to secretly trial production, and then purchased textile raw materials to try to make a fortune.

As early as the Wanli period of Jiajing, handicraft departments such as silk weaving, oil pressing, mining and smelting industries in the Jiangnan area showed signs of setting up workshops and recruiting employees to work; from the records of the "Suzhou Prefecture Chronicle", it can be seen that a large number of free workers appeared in Suzhou City in the Ming Dynasty. They "set up bridges to wait for call", "satin workers set up flower bridges, yarn workers set up Guanghua Temple Bridge, and carmakers set up stream bridges" to others. According to the records of the "Records of the Shenzong of Ming Dynasty", the number of workers hired in Suzhou City was no less than 10,000; in the notes of some missionaries, there was even an exaggerated statement that weavers had 10,000, which shows the prosperity of Jiangnan's business.

Although these wealthy merchants failed to summarize the relationship between demand and commodity prices, economic laws still play an important role. It would be fine if Zhang Suzi and his family only increased their acquisition efforts. Although their family's wealth was solid, it was nothing compared to the textile raw materials that the entire Jiangnan could provide. However, they were prepared to make a fortune by getting the loom drawings and re-dividing the southern textile industry structure. The strength of these people was enough to shake the entire Jiangnan.

Under their promotion, the prices of various textile materials and other raw materials used in the textile process have risen all the way. At the beginning, they didn't care, thinking that although the prices have increased, the efficiency of the new loom is twice the original, the labor expenditure is greatly reduced, and the production efficiency is greatly improved. If you calculate this, you still have a lot of profits. Therefore, it not only did not arouse their vigilance, but also allowed them to invest more money in the competition for textile raw materials.

At the same time, in order to reduce expenses, they laid off nearly half of the textile workers. With this new loom, half of the manpower is left to be enough to use. Since that is the case, why are these people still left? Master, I run a workshop, but not a good church. There is no reason to spend money to support these useless people for nothing.

However, the subsequent development of the matter was completely beyond their expectations. Under the scrambling of these people, the prices of various raw materials rose all the way, and soon rose to the point where even if new looms were used, profits could not be guaranteed. What's more, the raw material merchants even began to hoard and refused to release them with stuck materials. The raw materials provided to these textile workshops were far from meeting their needs for expansion and production after using new looms. They quickly inquired around and found that the cities in Jiangnan were now full of these new looms.

It was like a bucket of cold water pouring on them, breaking their dream of making a fortune, but things have developed to this point and no longer allowed them to turn back. If they do not get enough raw materials and cannot start work at full capacity, then even if all the money invested in the early stage is wafted, their workshop will be squeezed out by others. If they continue to persevere and endure others to death, they may be able to make a fortune in disguise and take their property as their own.

However, soon another bad news came. First, the imperial court suspended the plan to purchase cloth to prepare military uniforms for the new army. Then, Zheng Zhilong reported that his fleet and Hongmaoyi fought fiercely in Southeast Asia, and the trade route to Nanyang was temporarily cut off. This year, the demand for silk and other goods was greatly reduced. Two large customers were missing at once. Even if cloth and silk were produced, who could they be sold to? Could it be that those high-quality silk cloths were left in the warehouse and worms and moldy?

At the same time, the fired weavers also spent all their savings and tried their best to find a job. They were about to starve to death. There were many gentry in the south of the Yangtze River. These people relied on their own power to carry out land annexation, driving these people out of the countryside and wandering into the city. In the past, they could work in workshops to earn meager wages to support themselves and their families. Now they have lost their jobs and can't go back to the countryside. Their land and houses have long become other people's industries, and now they are in a dead end.

"There hasn't been a workshop for a whole month, and there hasn't been such a thing in many years." A older weaver murmured. He is now in a gathering area where weaver finds jobs. In the past, there were endless managers who came to select employees here, but now they have been missing for many days, and there are more and more unemployed weavers gather here.

"If this continues, how can we live!" I don't know who wailed, which immediately aroused the approval of more people.

"If we really can't survive in the first half of the year, we can still go to the yamen to sign up for Liuqiu's pioneer team, but now we have stopped recruiting there. Even if we want to sacrifice our lives, we will not have the opportunity." We can't go back to our hometown, lost our jobs, and had already spent all our savings. Now even the last way out has been blocked, and a moment of despair gradually spread among the crowd.

"If the boss hadn't built those new looms, why would we fall into this field?" Despair slowly brewed anger and hatred, but with the knowledge of these people, it would be difficult to find out the real culprit for their decline, and could only vent their anger to the most intuitive factors that led to their unemployment.

"If we smash those looms, the boss will have to use us." Someone quickly responded. In their opinion, this might be a perfect solution, but they did not realize what the consequences would be if they smashed the boss's machine.
Chapter completed!