Chapter 165 The Birth of an Arms Boss

"The mountains are green and the rivers are white. The rain is like smoke amid the cuckoo's calls. There are few idle people in the countryside in April. After finishing their sericulture, they start planting in the fields."

The person humming this poem was a big and honest man, Ren Jun, the only boy student produced by Luzhuang in recent years.

Taizhou is a city of great talent, with numerous Jinshi and Juren, and even two top scorers. But Luzhuang was too small to produce any great figures until Shao Quanzhong came into being.

When Shao Quanzhong became rich, his fellow villagers in Luzhuang also rose to prominence. Not to mention those who served as officials in the Huai Army, all the villagers in Luzhuang also became rich.

Lin Bozi's relatives took over the job of collecting silk for the British. Taizhou did not produce silk, but mulberry trees can be used to raise silkworms in one year. With the subsidy from the Wen's Chamber of Commerce, it soon became an industry.

Bo Zai's wife, Xiong, now often meets Wen Xiu, the big boss of Wen family, and she is in charge of the sales of raw silk in the whole of Taizhou.

Lin Jiabo was an official outside, and he brought back imperial edicts and yellow jackets for worship. Xiong was at home, relying on the purchase and sale of raw silk, making the Lin family the richest in Lu Village, and even ranked high in Hailing.

Now no one dares to mention the fact that Wang Lao Hu snatched the Xiong family into the Lu family ancestral hall. Don’t your silkworms want to make money anymore?

The third son of Mr. Song, Song Qi, was sent to middle school. The eldest son stayed at home to farm and take care of the family business. The second son was originally an apprentice shoemaker in Hailing. Who would have thought that a shoemaker could become rich.

The Wen Chamber of Commerce contracted the entire business of making military boots, belts, and ammunition boxes to the Song family. The Song family has hundreds of leather craftsmen under their command, which is enough to make money.

When the foreigner Grant came to Hailing, it was said that his family ran a leather shop in the United States.

The Song family cooperated with the Lao Ge family. The client obtained the latest foreign tools and patterns of foreign leather shoes from the Grant family. A lot of the leather shoes made have been sold in Shanghai.

This is not enough. It is said that there is a shortage of labor in America and the labor cost is high. So we can make money by selling the furs here to America and shipping them there by steamship.

There is a war going on over there with the Americans. I heard that both sides have recruited 3.5 million troops. Wow, how big a war is this?

The demand for belts, ammunition boxes, and military leather boots is simply enormous.

Now the Song family has opened a special trading house to purchase furs in Zhangjiakou in the north. The fur business has expanded overseas and they are about to become wealthy again. The foreign Ge family has also made a fortune from the war.

Ren Jun could only envy the Lin and Song families as they got rich, because Bo Zai and Song Lao Er were Shao Quanzhong's confidants.

The Ren family is an outsider in Luzhuang. Their previous generation moved here from Cangnan, Wenzhou. They don’t have a close relationship with the Shao family, so they don’t receive any special treatment.

But Ren Jun had studied. Although he couldn't even become a teacher because an old scholar taught students in the neighboring Panjiawei, he was smart enough.

Originally, as a student, he could only farm at home, and it was dry land, so he could not make much money. How could an outsider have a share in the valuable paddy fields?

But not anymore.

Wen set up a company to help farmers and imported a thing called the Lincoln plow from the Americans. If it was pulled by a horse, even dozens of young men could not do it in one trip.

The Hailing Arsenal also developed a foreign gadget called a pot-camel machine, which could work by burning coal and had much more power than a horse. This thing could pull the Lincoln plow once and the dry land would be plowed in no time.

Of course, farmers couldn't afford these things, but in order to help farmers, Wen rented Lincoln plows and pot-camel machines to all farmers with dry land at low prices. The rental price was so cheap that they couldn't make any money at all.

The Wen family paid compensation to help farmers, and the common people all praised the Shao family and the Wen family for their great merits. However, Ren Jun, who was well-educated and knowledgeable, turned his mouth. If the farmers had nothing to do, wouldn't they work in the Wen family's factory? Shao Quanzhong was very smart.

Ahem, he himself was driven by his father to work in Wen's factory. However, because he had studied and was smart, he learned to operate foreign machine tools the fastest, and was soon noticed by Lord Ding Gongchen and worked as a technician in Hailing Arsenal.

To be honest, this didn't make much money. But once the American-British joint venture cable telegraph was introduced to Hailing, Ren's army became prosperous all of a sudden.

Shao Quanzhong was a good fighter, and the Jiangning Provincial Government, the entire Anhui Province, and the southeastern corner of Henan all became the territory of the Huai Army.

All the Huai Army’s territories must be connected by wired telegraphs. Will the foreigners lay the wires themselves?
Ren Jun learned how to do it after just a few tries, and he led people to form the Hailing Telecommunications Engineering Team, which took over the work of laying wired telegraph cables from foreigners.

Now, Tongsheng Ren Jun has become the first telecommunication expert in our Qing Dynasty.

Since you, the Lin family and the Song family, can’t figure this out, you have to rely on someone like me who has a brain to make money, right?
Shao Quanzhong had besieged the Taiping capital in Nanjing and brought back 20,000 Taiping heads. It was said that Lord Qiao was tired of seeing heads. However, the siege had been going on for several months without much progress. Shao Quanzhong had nothing to do, so he asked for the telegram to be sent to his military camp.

Ren Jun's telecommunications engineering team took on this job. The electric poles on both sides of the Yangtze River have been erected and the cables have been laid. Today is the final connection.

Ren Jun personally supervised the unloading of cables from the boat and laid them on the riverbed. The cables laid in the water had to be covered with gutta-percha to make them waterproof, so care had to be taken.

I heard that the sheath of the transatlantic cable was broken and has not yet been repaired. If Europeans want to know news from America, they have to get it from the transpacific cable in Asia.

Everything was settled, and Ren Jun arrived at the Huai Army camp, took out a test telegraph machine, and sent a message to Hailing.

"Brother Shao, the test was successful. You can now use the telegraph."

Shao Quanzhong was very satisfied. "Da Jun, you really surprised me. I didn't expect that our Lu Village could produce a telecommunications expert. In the future, we will lay telegraph lines throughout China. You will make a lot of money."

Ren Jun scratched the back of his head. "This actually doesn't require much technical skills, and others will learn it soon. When I was a technician at the Hailing Arsenal, I was interested in making guns. I heard that you didn't let Mr. Ding copy the quick-firing gun, saying it was too difficult. I don't think it's that difficult. Except for the springs that we can't make ourselves, I copied them all using the machine tools at the Arsenal."

"Huh? What a talent."

Shao Quanzhong crossed his legs and patted Ren Jun's shoulder, and Ren Jun quickly bent down to make it easier for Shao Quanzhong to pat him.

"Da Jun, let your company's people do the cable laying work in the future. You can go to the Hailing Arsenal first and specialize in imitating rapid-fire rifles. But don't rush to make them. In a few months, the British will have a practical breech-loading rifle. Then you can imitate them in large quantities."

Ren Jun patted his chest and said, "I will definitely help you, Brother Shao!"

"Dajun, you are also from our Luzhuang, I can't let you suffer. You build an arms company, Wen family will provide the capital to control the company, and you can provide 49% of the technology. When the breech-loading rifles start to be copied, not only will we have orders from the Huai Army, but we will also have nearly 20,000 muzzle-loading rifles converted to breech-loading rifles. All of them will be given to you, and we will make a fortune together."

"Okay, I knew it. If I follow Brother Shao, I will have meat to eat."

Ren Jun ran out and immediately started to prepare for the establishment of Ren’s Arms Company.

He took Shao Quanzhong's warrant and asked Wen for money, and asked Zhang Siwen to help import new machine tools from the United States and contact for spring orders. Once everything was ready, the British breech-loading rifles would probably be out, so it would be a good time to start working.

Hu Liuniang stepped into the tent and said, "Yuting, Zhang Siwen called."

Shao Quanzhong was stunned. What trouble had happened to the American barbarians again?
(End of this chapter)

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