Both the rich and the poor had similar needs for roads. Congestion on the roads would harm everyone's interests. Be it the rich or the poor, they would be filled with irritation when faced with congestion. In fact, the rich would be even more irritable. That was because the rich had cars. When the congestion was more severe, cars would be unable to move an inch. On the other hand, the poor could still walk between cars, so they would be less affected. Naturally, their Rage points would also be lower.
However, it was different when it came to housing. Many nobles and merchants had hoarded a lot of houses, and there were also people who lived by renting out their houses. Once the housing shortage was alleviated, their interests would suffer a great loss. When faced with their own interests being harmed, the only thing they could do was to resist with all their might. Through various channels, they would take all kinds of measures to prevent the housing shortage from being alleviated, thus protecting their own interests and even reaping more benefits.
Merchants were all people who wouldn't wake up early if there were no profits. However, it wasn't just merchants who wouldn't wake up early if there were no profits. Everyone would do the same under certain circumstances. Merchants who owned hundreds of houses didn't want the price of their houses to drop, and ordinary people who only owned one or two houses didn't want the housing shortage to be solved either. This was because as long as the housing prices dropped, the prices of their houses would depreciate greatly.
There was a very interesting phenomenon in the later generations. There was a large group of people who complained that their houses were too expensive, and that they couldn't afford them! However, when the price of a house was really lowered, a large group of people would immediately rush over to smash up the real estate sales department. If the price of a house wasn't lowered, a large group of people would curse the price of the house all day long. However, when the price of a house was lowered, another group of people would immediately rush over to smash up the real estate sales department, not allowing the developer to lower the price. Otherwise, they would have to compensate them for their losses. Otherwise, they would definitely not let it go. However, what if the developer raised the price and sold the house? Would the people who had already bought the house pay the rest of the money? Of course not. If the price was lowered, the developer would have to compensate them. If the price was raised, everyone would be happy. This kind of comical scene was frequently played out in many cities in the later generations. These selfish people were really too detestable. They didn't have the slightest bit of morality. However, these were all ordinary people! Why did they become so untrustworthy and shameless? What caused them to become like this? Was it innate or acquired?
Ang Lee felt that the main reason why the people had become so undisciplined was that houses were a large asset. Many people could barely make enough money for a down payment in their lifetime. Everyone was too poor, so they attached great importance to houses. Once the price of a house was reduced, it would be a huge depreciation of the asset. That was definitely not a small amount. Not only would it make the people feel heartache and pain, but it would also make them go crazy. Thus, they could not control their rationality and would commit violent acts such as smashing the real estate sales department.
Although this kind of violent behavior was unreasonable, the law couldn't punish the masses. It was quite difficult to deal with it. For ordinary people, real estate was their lifeblood. The change in the price of real estate would affect their sensitive nerves. Once they had just bought a house, it would be very difficult for them to accept it. It would make their fragile nerves collapse at once.
In this way, it was very difficult for the ruling class. If they didn't find a way to reduce the price of houses, there would be a large group of people who couldn't afford it everywhere. However, when the price of houses really began to drop on a large scale, there would immediately be a group of people who would come out to make trouble and even engage in violent activities everywhere. The interests of the two groups of people were different, so naturally, they would do different things. This made it very difficult for the leaders. They didn't know what to do. They could only take a slightly gentler approach and slow down the price of houses. At the same time, they took care of the feelings of the two groups of people to avoid too much fluctuation in the price of houses.
Chang 'an, the capital of the Tang dynasty, was currently facing the same problem. If the prices of houses and rents were not controlled, the people at the bottom would live very hard. If the action was too big, the people who hoarded houses would suffer heavy losses and even cause some uncontrollable turmoil. A cornered dog would jump over a wall. Once people were in a hurry, they might do something.
In this situation, the imperial court could only take more cultural measures and did not dare to take too big a step. The method proposed by Ang Lee this time was just a step, but it couldn't fundamentally solve the problem. It could only relieve the pressure and play the role of curbing the further rise of housing prices in the capital. If they wanted to solve this problem comprehensively, they needed to continue to think of a better way. It might not work if they didn't touch the cake of the nobles and businessmen who hoarded houses, but they had to do it step by step. They couldn't be too hasty. However, before they started, they should at least release some information to frighten the businessmen and nobles who hoarded houses so that they wouldn't dare to continue hoarding houses. They even had to sell the houses they hoarded as early as possible. Those who had strong backing among the nobles and businessmen might not panic, but some businessmen and small nobles with weaker backing might not be able to hold themselves back. They were very worried that these houses would fall into their hands and they would sell them at a low price when they were nervous. This was naturally very beneficial to alleviating the housing shortage in the capital.
Ang Lee had to create a terrifying atmosphere from time to time and talk down on the housing prices in the capital. He had to let everyone in the capital understand that it was very risky to continue hoarding houses. Either they stopped hoarding houses or sold the extra houses. Only in this way could they avoid the huge losses that they might encounter after the change of weather.
Although this could only scare a portion of people, as long as it could scare a portion of people, it was also good. This way, it could alleviate the housing shortage. Then, they could build more rents, and the housing pressure would be alleviated bit by bit.
The research tasks of the R&D Center would never stop. Everyone was very busy, and the outside world also had great expectations for the R&D Center. They all hoped that the R&D Center could invent more, better, and more practical machines. They even directly put forward their own requests.
The few machines that the small official had just conveyed were the most urgent machines needed by the grain growers. Peeling corn kernels, peeling soybeans, peeling rice, and slicing sweet potatoes all required manual labor. Moreover, the demand for manual labor was very large. However, the labor cost in the capital had risen sharply. Even the grain growers would feel a pinch when paying wages. They very much wanted to use machines to replace manual labor. This way, the cost of farming could be further reduced.
In this way, it was bound to cause a lot of artisans to lose their jobs. It would cause a lot of artisans who were originally doing these jobs to lose their livelihood. This seemed to be disadvantageous to employment, but this was the general trend. Those who were eliminated without jobs could enter the field of artisans. This way, the R&D Center and the various workshops would have sufficient manpower to expand their scale. This was naturally very beneficial to the development of the entire Empire.
Peeling corn kernels and peeling rice was very tedious and tiring work. It was believed that anyone who had done this work would have a deep understanding of it. The worst thing was that the efficiency was not high. If hundreds of people peeled corn kernels together, they would not be able to peel much in a day. Many grain growers harvested a huge amount of corn at one time. This required a huge amount of manpower to help them peel the corn. The cost of manpower was definitely very large. Just thinking about it made these landlords feel pained.
In order to save money, many large corn growers directly chose not to peel the corn kernels. After harvesting the corn kernels, they directly dried them under the sun. Then, they directly sold them or stored them in the granary.
However, there was a huge difference in price between the complete corn kernels and the corn kernels that had been completely peeled. The reason for the huge difference in price was that the kernels in the corn kernels accounted for the weight of the corn kernels, and the kernels were not very valuable. In addition, the buyer needed to peel the kernels themselves. Directly selling the kernels would have the cost of peeling the kernels, so the price was naturally much higher.
Under normal circumstances, large restaurants and aristocratic families liked to buy the peeled kernels directly. Poor families preferred to buy the unpeeled kernels and then go home to peel them slowly. For the poor, they could get more kernels by spending the same amount of money to buy the corn kernels. They just needed to peel the kernels themselves. Poor people's time was worthless, so they were very willing to peel the kernels.
The situation of large restaurants and aristocratic families was different. Large restaurants would not care about this small amount of money. Moreover, the staff of large restaurants were very busy. They really did not have the time to peel the kernels. This would increase the cost of manpower. In addition, the storage of corn kernels would take up more space. The space of restaurants was limited. It was obviously not cost-effective to use corn kernels to take up space.
It was the same for aristocratic and rich families. They would not care about spending a little more money. The kitchen at home needed to store a lot of ingredients. Naturally, they could not use corn kernels to take up too much space. It was more reliable to buy the kernels directly.
Now, whether it was selling the corn kernels directly or peeling the kernels to sell, the final profit was about the same. But once machines could replace manpower, then the manpower cost of peeling the kernels would be greatly reduced. Selling the kernels would be more cost-effective. At that time, the market would be filled with the peeled kernels, and there would be no more corn kernels.
In the future, except for the fresh corn kernels that had not been hardened, the corn sold in the market were all peeled kernels. There were no hardened corn kernels sold. This was caused by the use of machines to peel the kernels.
After peeling the rice, it was rice. The difference between rice and rice was the outer layer of rice. After peeling the outer layer, it was rice. Without peeling the outer layer, it was rice.
For peeling the rice into rice, two methods were used since ancient times: hammering and crushing. These two methods were also very inefficient and stupid.
The hammering method was very simple. It was to put the rice in a bowl-shaped container, and then use a thick wooden stick to hit the rice. After hitting for a period of time, the rice chaff on the rice would be separated from the rice. Gently blowing with the mouth, the rice chaff would fly away, and the rice chaff would be left in the container with white hair.
The effect of this method was said to be quite good. It was the most common method for ancient people to obtain rice. It was also the most widely used primitive rice peeling technique.
Of course, it was very difficult to directly use the strength of the arm to swing the wooden stick to hit the rice. Therefore, someone invented a technique that could use the strength of the legs to peel the rice.
This technique was also very simple. The container and rice remained the same, but the wooden stick became a structure of a seesaw. A person stood a little further away and stepped on the other end of the seesaw with their feet. Then, they released the seesaw and stepped on it again. This way, they could achieve the shelling of the rice. This method of using the strength of the legs was naturally better than using the strength of the arms. Everyone knew that the arms couldn't twist the legs. The legs had more strength and endurance, and the efficiency of the work was also higher.
There was also a crushing method to peel the rice. It was to use a stone mill to peel the rice. Of course, it was not the kind of stone mill that was very common. Otherwise, it would not be peeling. Ordinary stone mills could directly grind the rice into powder.
This professional rice peeling stone mill was placed vertically. A wooden stick was inserted in the middle, and there was a big hole in the middle of the wooden stick. The big hole was inserted into another wooden stick placed vertically. This way, the stone mill could use the vertical wooden stick as the center and the length of the wooden stick as the radius to move in a circular motion. Below the circular motion of the stone mill, there were already grooves that had been dug. These grooves would be filled with rice. Then, human or animal power would be used to push the stone mill to move in a circular motion. This way, the rice could be peeled. This method was better than the previous two methods, and it was more labor-saving. Especially after using animal power, the efficiency could be increased by many times.
Of course, there was an even better method, and that was to place such a small rice peeling workshop in a place where there was a difference in the flow of water. Using the power of the water to push the stone mill was more economical than using animal power. After all, even animals would be tired. The flow of water was the driving force of nature, and it would never stop. Naturally, the efficiency was also the highest.
This was already the best rice peeling method that people in ancient times could think of. Many large families in the capital had their own water-powered rice peeling workshops, but even this method of using water power to peel rice was still very different from the machine peeling of later generations. The efficiency was not just a little bit. It was simply a crushing method. With the increase in rice production, the large families had too much rice that needed to be peeled. Even if these water-powered rice peeling workshops operated all day long, it still could not solve the demand. They still needed to use a lot of manpower to peel the rice. And using manpower required money. In the case of a lot of rice, it was not a small amount.
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