176: Chapter 176 Steam Spinning Machine

"The market price for clothing in Great Qin is currently too high, and winter is fast approaching."

Zhao Fusu said with a solemn expression, "If there aren't enough winter clothes, people will freeze to death."

"Mhm."

The First Emperor nodded.

Before his faked death, he used to review hundreds of catties of memorials written on bamboo slips every day.

Every winter, commandery governors and county magistrates from all over would report on the disasters affecting the local commoners.

In ancient times, with low productivity, he had no way to prevent people from freezing to death; he could only order the local commandery governors and county magistrates to build shelters to minimize the suffering of the people.

Zhao Fusu said, "Every winter, many people in our Great Qin Empire freeze to death. The main reason is that our winter clothing is too scarce."

"The large amount of wool we obtained from the Xiongnu people can be made into Wool Sweaters and sold to the commoners at low prices to improve their ability to withstand the cold."

"Oh?"

The First Emperor said, "So that's why you wanted to get all that wool from the Xiongnu people!"

He frowned and said, "You know how expensive a Lined Garment is. If you transport it all the way from Xiongnu territory, the cost will be even higher. Wouldn't that make the selling price even more expensive?"

The First Emperor looked at Zhao Fusu in confusion and asked, "Then how can you sell them to the commoners at a low price? Are you planning to subsidize them?"

"If you want to subsidize them, how many can you cover? 10? 100? 1,000, or even 10,000?"

"Xianyang alone has over a million commoners, and there are another million in other parts of Guanzhong. How many do you think you can subsidize?"

The First Emperor's brow furrowed.

As the patriarch of Great Qin, seeing so many commoners freeze to death every year, he also wanted to prevent it.

But besides building shelters, what other good methods were there?

That so many people froze to death every year in the Great Qin Empire was due to the cold ancient climate, but also because social productivity was far too low.

When people can't eat their fill or wear enough to stay warm, how could they not freeze to death?

Besides building shelters, Great Qin would also distribute winter clothing.

But still limited by productivity, they could only take care of a few people.

"Why would I subsidize them?"

Zhao Fusu asked the First Emperor in return.

"You dare question me back!"

The First Emperor rolled his eyes and said, "If you don't subsidize them, how are you going to sell high-priced woolen clothes to the people?"

"We just need to drive down the cost of making the clothes."

Zhao Fusu said seriously, "Bring the cost of each garment down to twenty coins and sell it for thirty."

"The daily wage for a Tuli laborer in our Great Qin is eight coins."

"They would only need four days' wages to buy a Wool Sweater."

In Great Qin, Tuli were members of society hired by officials.

In modern terms, they would be equivalent to off-budget personnel.

Zhao Fusu believed that these people only received wages when they worked.

As for corvée labor having wages, he thought it was unlikely.

The definition of corvée labor is unpaid labor that rulers force commoners to perform.

It was meant for you to work for free; why would they give you money?

Furthermore, many of them were criminals forced into labor; being given a meal was already considered quite good.

"Fusu, listen to yourself! Do you hear what you're saying?"

Upon hearing Zhao Fusu say this, the First Emperor was completely dumbfounded.

Zhao Fusu himself knew that the market price for a garment was at least 300 coins.

That was the actual cost of making a garment!

Even if you don't pay the workers, you still have to feed them, and those food costs alone could reach 300 coins!

Now Zhao Fusu was actually saying he could reduce the cost of making a garment to 20 coins—how could that be possible?

Making clothes is a very troublesome process; from processing raw materials to spinning, weaving into cloth, and then sewing the garment, it requires a massive amount of time.

Therefore, while the raw materials for making clothes are cheap, the time it takes to make one is so long that the cost of a single garment is extremely high.

Facing the First Emperor's questioning, Zhao Fusu smiled and said, "Father, I have a machine that can increase the efficiency of clothing production by 200 times!"

"Oh?"

"Is that so?"

The First Emperor asked, half-doubting.

"Yes!"

Zhao Fusu nodded in response.

Making a garment begins with obtaining fibers.

Then, the fibers are twisted into thread by finger, and a Hand-cranked Spinning Machine is used to wind the thread into spools.

Once the spools are ready, the weaving begins, and only after the cloth is woven can it be made into clothes.

This process is incredibly tedious and very slow.

The high difficulty of making clothes is the reason for their persistently high market price.

Another important reason is the market scale.

When the market scale is small, it's difficult to reduce costs through high sales volume.

This doomed clothing to be incredibly expensive.

Families who didn't know how to make clothes might not even have anything to wear, let alone hope to stay warm in winter.

Once winter arrived, these people would freeze to death.

If Zhao Fusu could bring the price of a Wool Sweater down to thirty coins...

Even farmers could afford it.

Under Zhao Fusu's governance, farmers can now buy and sell their grain, and he has also changed the taxes.

Farmers only need to pay one-tenth of their grain.

This greatly increased the amount of disposable grain for farmers, allowing them to sell the grain they produced.

Currently, the market price of millet is 300 coins per dan; selling one dan of millet would allow them to buy ten Wool Sweaters.

With grain being sellable for money, Zhao Fusu believed that the farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain would also increase significantly.

The Steam Spinning Machine Zhao Fusu obtained from his check-in was two hundred times faster than a Hand-cranked Spinning Machine.

Anyone with a good knowledge of history knows that the Industrial Revolution first took root in the textile industry.

As a young industrial sector, the textile industry was free from the constraints of old traditions and guilds, making it easy to implement technological innovations and engage in competition.

Similarly, Zhao Fusu would next vigorously develop the textile industry.

As the cornerstone of heavy industry, Zhao Fusu could not allow the common people to control Steel Mills, let alone promote them vigorously.

After all, Steel Mills can directly produce resources for war.

If the Anti-Qin Forces got a hold of them, wouldn't they become the foundation for the enemy's production of military weapons?

But for the textile industry, Zhao Fusu could confidently promote it and build factories on a large scale.

Zhao Fusu could cooperate with many nobles, establishing joint factories by contributing technology as his share.

He would take thirty percent, and the nobles would take seventy.

After deeply binding their interests, the nobles would be more inclined to stand on his side.

If the Nobles of the Six Lands were sensible and could give up their opposition to Qin, Zhao Fusu could potentially build joint factories with them, allowing them to return to their ancestral lands to organize manpower for factory construction.

When the time came, he would send people from the Ministry of State Security to their factories to unite the workers and organize Labor Unions.