From Chief to Ball

His father's soy sauce workshop was overwhelmed by Chen Jian's cheaper hydrolyzed soy sauce. Qiao Shichang opened a small textile workshop. After three years of good life, the large-scale promotion of hydraulic spinning machines and the increase in the price of cotton yarn brought about capital flows.

After three years of good life, the little money I accumulated was not enough to afford a set of hydraulic spinning machines and a complete set of hydraulic machines such as carding, twisting, and rubbing.Those who have obtained the first pot of gold through land, navigation, smuggling, corruption, fraud, and speculation are one step ahead.

The two brothers haven't sat together for a long time, and the food on the wine table also silently reveals the imprint of the changing times.

The lights are kerosene lamps, the wine brewed from the waste sugar cane of the Southern Islands is drunk, and the side dishes are dried tofu and peanuts that are said to taste like ham. There is a wooden box under the table containing tobacco and paper rolls.

Smoked slightly yellowed fingers expertly rolled up a puff of smoke, nibbled on the yellowed mustache, took out a match and lit it, shaking his hands to extinguish it.

The two brothers had been drinking for a long time, and there was only the bottom of the wine in the glass bottle, and it was time to smoke after dinner.

Having talked a lot before, Qiao Shichang continued his brother's words: "Yes, you are right. Technology or the science you say is improving, and it has indeed changed a lot. But brother, your brother and my life have been ruled by others." Science and technology are ruined.

Qiao Shichang took a deep puff of cigarette, squinted his eyes and sighed: "Nowadays the price of cotton yarn is falling day by day, how can hand-spun yarn be as strong and delicate as those machines? A broken machine can drive dozens of spindles, But we're all at our fingertips. You talk all day about making everyone better off, and I don't see it, I just see me getting worse."

"I'm pretty good, and I can keep going. At worst, I'll quit. I still have a few stocks, and I'm still hungry. But those families who still rely on women to spin yarn, how are they doing this year? ?Speculators often speculate on cotton in the futures exchange, buy cotton and spin it into yarn, and then they are picked and picked. After working for a year, they can calculate a catty of cotton... It will be enough to make a pair of ripped pants for themselves, no As for going out naked."

"Aren't you speaking for the poor? Why is there no movement at all now? Other parties are taking advantage of the opportunity to make troubles, but you, who were the most active in the past, didn't even fart."

Qiao Tiexin silently rolled some more tobacco leaves, handed a match to his younger brother, and said in silence for a long time: "Brother, I really don't know what to tell you. To put it bluntly, you will eventually be wiped out. "

Qiao Shichang slapped the table with a slap, and cursed: "Look, this is your face. Eliminate, eliminate... Do you know why you have less and less people following you in Mincheng? It's because of you Destroying and destroying at every turn..."

Qiao Tiexin shook his head and said with a wry smile: "How can we do this? It's not us who destroy you, but the times. This is progress, how can we oppose it? How can we possibly oppose it?"

"Progress means that our life is not as good as the previous year? Who has a better life? Who has improved? Who has benefited? Those who are rich are still rich and richer. Originally, we can hire two or three people with a surplus. The hired workers have fallen, but the people at the bottom have not changed. Who are you for? Yes, technology is improving, but our life is not as good as when the guild existed. At that time, as long as there is a good heart Some guild leaders will always balance everyone's interests, and they can still make a living. What about now? The factory will let the price drop to the bottom in a few days."

Qiao Tiexin asked back: "Do you really like when the original guild is still there?"

The other party was silent for a moment, then shook his head and said: "Maybe there was obvious bullying at that time, but at least it was decent in terms of moral face. Even if it was not good, even if it was wrong, even if it was backward, but my life at that time was indeed better than it is now. You just There is no solution?"

Upon hearing this, Qiao Tiexin's eyes lit up suddenly, and he hurriedly said, "You heard me, brother, isn't this..."

Before he finished speaking, Qiao Shichang waved his hand and interrupted: "What do you want to say is not the fault of the machine, but the fault of who the machine belongs to. I believe what you said. I only ask you for now. Do you have any? There is no solution? Can you do it? Before you can’t do it, what do you do? Just wait? Wait for what you’ve been proclaiming all day, until the technology is advanced? Then why do you want to live now? Why don't you organize your party after the technology is advanced? What is the use of your life now?"

Qiao Tiexin smiled and said: "It's not that we didn't do anything, but we kept doing it again and again. Aren't we pursuing the ten and a half hour work system and universal voting rights for workers? Let's put it this way, the times are unstoppable, You people are destined to be eradicated by the times. Don’t be afraid to eradicate these two words. What the era eradicates is Qiao Shichang with a few small spinning machines and replaced by Qiao Shichang who works in a factory. Eliminate you. Even if we speak for you, we can only let you survive for a few more years, why don't we prepare for the future?"

"Nonsense, I think if this goes on, I will be wiped out, I have to eat. Don't talk about those useless things, tell me that it is now in Mincheng, can the factory accommodate so many people? No. What should these people do? Starve to death? Wait for relief? Nine deaths to immigrate to open up wasteland and go to sea? I only know these two ways of making a living. The soy sauce workshop has been ruined by you, and now I am going to ruin my small spinning workshop , An understatement of the era is bound to be over? If you are Chen Jian, my soy sauce workshop will run well. If there is no science and technology practical research institute, my small spinning workshop will also run well. You guys The things you said are too far away, so I will ask you what to do now? Leave us alone?"

Qiao Tiexin hesitated for a moment, looked at his younger brother who grew up with him, and nodded solemnly: "It doesn't matter. I will take care of you when you have nothing. Taking care of you is not what our party should do. Now we don't represent the interests of the whole people."

Chapter 1 Protagonist and Supporting Role

The conversation between the two brothers at the wine table fell into endless silence. Qiao Shichang poured the last bit of sugarcane wine into the cup and asked, "Brother, I just want to ask you one last sentence."

"Go ahead."

"Your party can have a say in the council and has a lot of influence in Min County. You have a lot of people in the Science and Technology Practical Research Institute. Can you help out, say a few words, and make some suggestions. It doesn't matter For the sake of me being your younger brother, and for the sake of so many people getting worse and worse."

"How to help?"

"Let the state intervene to force the price of cotton yarn and cotton. Give us small spinners a way out, or set aside one-third of the production for us. Don't study new machines, otherwise the world will die Chaos. Tens of thousands of people have nothing to do. Can there be peace in this world? The farm horse-drawn machinery you have created has already made many farm laborers unemployed. If this continues, tens of thousands of people will have to survive. You are responsible."

"It's useless. It's neither possible nor effective, and we are opposed to everything you said. Besides, let's not say whether we agree or not. It's useless for me to talk about our internal affairs. It needs to be discussed and persuaded." of."

"So there's nothing to talk about?"

"No talk."

Qiao Shichang nodded and didn't say anything else, but clinked glasses with his elder brother like the younger brother at every wine table, raised his head and drank it dry, and called his wife to clean up the table.

Early the next morning, several of Qiao Shichang's colleagues came to his house, opened the door and asked, "How is your talk with your brother?"

"Hearts of stone. Those people are heartless, their blood is cold, they are like stones. What kind of brothers are you talking about with those people? Shit. Those people in the Mexican Party know what a brother is? No king, no father You have to love them all, I, my younger brother, is just like everyone else!"

"Then there is no choice?"

"No choice. That's the only way to go."

After discussing with the door behind closed doors, a few people went to contact the rest of the small spinners and individual citizens, and rushed to the street.

On the street, since the rise of the Mexican Party before this year, the political atmosphere on the streets of Min County has become more and more intense, but the protagonist of the speech on the street at this time is not the organization that inherited the name of the Mexican Party, but a member of the Progressive Alliance named The organization of "Minben Romantic Society".

In fact, since a few years ago, the influence of the New Mexico Party in Min County has been decreasing.After experiencing the peak of miners' petitions, it has fallen into a downturn in activities. Now it is no longer the original people who are the protagonists, but many various organizations.

This premature baby has led party politics and internal academic progress, but it is a premature baby after all. At this time, he can't play the leading role. He can only wait for himself to mature and grow up, and also for the maturity and growth of the times.

The development of the past few years and the leading progress of economics have allowed each organization to have its own program. Some advanced ones, such as this "Minben Romantic Society", have embarked on a romantic future that criticizes reality.

There are first-class theorists among them, at least at this time, because they have already moved to the path of criticizing reality, and they are keenly aware that the future of this big factory model is about to collapse and generally impoverish.

The man on the street was giving a loud speech, surrounded by a group of fanatical petty citizens, and a large part of the petty bourgeoisie who had gone bankrupt due to the development of the hydraulic plant, cheering bursts of cheers from time to time.

"Yes, that's right! Citizens, the purpose of the government's existence is to interfere with the development of the economy, to slow down the speed of this development, to slow down the development of the total amount of wealth, and so on for us poor people. Legislators should also make us The poor are not affected by the general competition."

"Anyone who encourages unlimited production will eventually bring the country to ruin—just like the hydraulic workshops you see today, they live very well today, but what about the future? This unlimited Profit-oriented production has brought widespread poverty. When there are many hydraulic factories, who will buy these yarns? Then they will fall into destruction-not only those factories will be destroyed, And those hired workers who depend on the factory for survival.”

"It's a very simple truth. If you go on this road, you will only perish. Therefore, if the government regulates and restrains the desire to get rich, it will be a really good government and a country that is truly for the whole people. It is not the same as it is now. , Encourage getting rich, encourage unlimited production... What is this called? This is called putting the cart before the horse."

"What is putting the cart before the horse? Forgetting people for the sake of things, isn't that putting the cart before the horse? Morality is gone, individuality is gone, more and more people are getting poorer, and they are sitting in a future that may blow up many of us. on the shattered powder keg."

"Think about it, citizens. Decades, in the days of your fathers, what was it like when the guilds still existed? It's like a bootmaker. If no one came to buy boots, then He would not produce—and what about the large workshops that employ a large number of workers now? They will not stop, they will only continue to produce aimlessly, and then go bankrupt. It is like the original cotton spinning guild, when the cotton yarn When the quantity is too large, the guild will reduce the production of cotton yarn—and now? Water-powered cotton mills have been established one by one, producing frantically, and there is always someone to demand, but no one is going to control all this until those capitals are less People's factories are closed, and the cycle repeats again and again!"

"What makes us morally corrupt? What makes us hate each other? What makes our life harder and harder?"

"The group of people from the Mexican Party split our country. Has the confrontation between private owners, capitalists and laborers always existed? No! It is the shackles imposed on us by the group of the Mexican Party. The organizational outcome of a mass-production factory model called 'progress'."

"But citizens, how ridiculous is it that they call this progress? What is social progress? Social progress is by no means the separation of people from things, capital from labor, bourgeois from laborers. This is not progress, this is regression, to the brink of moral decay and national collapse."

"The separation of the working class and the capitalist class is by no means necessary for the progress of the times. A few decades ago, farmers were still farmers. They worked and owned the land; a few decades ago, we small producers had both capital and had to pay Labor. At that time, there was no such division, and there were guilds mediating mediation at that time, but they said that we would eventually perish, and this division was inevitable, isn't it ridiculous?"

"At the beginning of social life, everyone had a capital with which he employed his labour, and almost all artisans lived from an income which also consisted of profit and wages. This is our tradition—the means of production and The tradition of combining labor. We have abandoned these traditions, but believe in the development of large factories. As I have said before, this aimless, unrestrained, and profit-oriented development model will eventually Blow up, blow up all of us."

"How to solve it? Tradition has given us the answer, and our ancestors have also given us the answer."

"To divide the means of production among the citizens, to divide the land into small plots for the peasants, to nationalize the factories to be managed by those families of high morals - the townspeople, the great families of true culture and traditional morality, will not Those who are greedy for that bit of profit will not drag everyone into the abyss of poverty for the sake of unlimited production like those bourgeoisie!"

"In the countryside, we have to learn from the patriarchal economy of the northern Houbo country: each agricultural employee who is paid by the day is allocated a small piece of land-the group of the Mexican Party said that such small production is backward and cannot resist disasters But the solution is also very simple, isn't it? Let the landowners who own large land take care of the hired workers who are assigned to the land - this is not based on conscience, but the big landowners need hired workers to work for them and let them enjoy, so logically they must Will protect these hired laborers who are allotted small plots of land."

"In the cities, we need to re-establish guilds. Of course, the previous guilds were oppressive and unreasonable. Of course, we must improve. Now the workers in those hydraulic factories are just workers all their lives, without any hope, without any hope. ——But the new guild we have established will be like this: supported and intervened by the state to increase the price of yarn. Any hired worker is just the salary of the hired worker at the beginning, but it is just like the previous guild , from hired labor to apprentice to journeyman and finally to master, to the leader and head of the guild.”

"We want to restore this divided country, restore the glory of people, and get rid of the separation of capital and labor. Let everyone in the country be a laborer, and let everyone in the country be a property owner! This is what we promise world."

"This world is much easier and more realistic than the future promised by the people of the Mexican Party. The citizens are like factories. If the country intervenes, the guilds will be reorganized, and the profits of the factories will be distributed. Give half to the laborers, control the production quantity of the factory, and protect those of us who have both labor and petty assets, how can there be widespread poverty?"

"As we all know, the bourgeois can do whatever it takes to benefit, and the group of people in the Mexican Party rejoice every day for the elimination of us petty bourgeois... Ha, then the only thing we can rely on is those big families And the bureaucrats. At least, they are better and more virtuous than these two. We are vulnerable and have nothing to do but rely on them, so don't hate the big families and bureaucrats and hidden nobles .At least they didn't corner us, at least they didn't bankrupt us!"

"Think about it! Suppose you were an agricultural hireling, and you were allotted twenty acres of land near the landlord's manor. After finishing your work, you went to work for the landlord, and the landlord would help you when there was a famine. Because it is you who let the landlord live a life that can be enjoyed without labor—isn’t it a dream-like life compared to your jobs being taken away by horse-drawn machinery now?”