Threshing corn relied heavily on manual labor, and the efficiency of manual labor was not high. If one had to screen out the bad and small kernels, the efficiency would be even lower. Very few bad and small kernels did not have much impact on the quality of the corn. Everyone sold it this way, so no one deliberately screened out the bad and small kernels. At least the processing workshop did not have the time. The hawkers might clean it up when they had nothing to do. This way, they could sell it at a slightly higher price.
Of course, there were also some customers who liked to take advantage of the situation. When buying corn kernels, they would use their hands to pick them up one by one. They would specifically pick the best corn kernels and then buy half a catty or something. Every time they encountered such customers, the person selling corn kernels would have a headache.
These customers would pick up the best and largest corn kernels, so the ratio of the remaining bad and small kernels would be relatively higher. The overall impression of the sold corn kernels was not very good, and the price might be affected to a certain extent. Therefore, some hawkers would be angry and not sell to such picky people.
Of course, there would also be some hawkers who were more generous. Their principle was to pick up and sell everything. In the end, no one would want the remaining bad and small kernels, and they could afford the loss. Some hawkers even directly put up a sign and let customers pick whatever they wanted. This way, their business would be much better. If they increased the quantity, they could make up for the loss. This was the smartest way.
These people who were working were all men. Although this kind of work could be done by women, for some reason, after seeing two workshops in a row, the workers were all men. Perhaps the women had gone to do work that was more suitable for women!
The workers were shelling corn kernels. When they saw Ang Lee coming over, they all looked at Ang Lee timidly. From time to time, they would sneak a glance at him. It was quite interesting.
"Show me your hand."
Ang Lee walked to the side of a man who was working and said.
Steward Zhao immediately bent down and pulled the hand of the man who was still in a daze over.
Ang Lee took a closer look. This young man's palms were full of calluses, a very thick layer of calluses. However, even with the thick layer of calluses on his palms, his palms were still worn out. From this, one could see the degree of wear and tear on one's palms from peeling corn kernels. This was a rather torturous job. Perhaps it was because it was too hard, so they didn't recruit female workers. As for the rice shelling workshop from before, perhaps it was because they needed to control donkeys, so it wasn't suitable for women either.
"My palms are all scratched up. It's quite serious! Why don't you wear gloves? Wouldn't that make it harder for your palms to be scratched? "
Ang Lee looked at the man whose hands were covered in calluses and said.
The man smiled foolishly and said, "Don't worry, I'm not that delicate, hehe."
Steward Zhao also hurriedly said, "It's the same for all workers. The scratched skin will be fine in a few days. It's okay."
Ang Lee naturally knew that scratched skin was nothing, but it was better to avoid it if possible. If he was always injured, not only would he suffer, but the work would also not be very hygienic. It was very unhygienic for the blood from his palms to stain the food. Fortunately, there weren't too many strange infectious diseases in the Tang dynasty. Perhaps it wouldn't matter!
Steward Zhao was just acting as himself just now, so he blurted out that it was not a big deal for the craftsman's hands to be scratched. However, he always felt that the word "gloves" was very familiar. After thinking for a while, he suddenly realized that it seemed to be a product produced by Ang Lee's workshop. Could it be that Ang Lee was here to sell gloves? But after thinking about it carefully, it didn't make sense. What was Ang Lee's identity? His family was not short of money. Even if the gloves were made with zero cost, there was not much profit. There was no need for him to come here to sell the products in person.
However, this was not important. Since Ang Lee said that the craftsmen should wear gloves, of course, he had to comply. So he quickly said with a smile, "Although it's not a big deal for these rough workers to have their hands scratched, our boss also loves his subordinates. I'll talk to the boss later and prepare a few sets of gloves for each of them. In this way, they won't have to scratch their hands in the future."
After saying that, he looked at Ang Lee ingratiatingly.
Ang Lee nodded with a smile and said, "Gloves only play the role of protecting the palms. If they don't work much, they won't scratch their hands without gloves. If they work too much, even with protective gloves, their palms will still be injured. It's difficult to completely avoid it. It's good to reduce it a little. Rough workers are also people. When they work, their palms will hurt when they are injured. Once their palms are in pain, the speed of their work will definitely be affected. The loss of less work will definitely be greater than the loss of buying gloves.
Don't you think so? "In response to Ang Lee's teachings, Steward Zhao quickly said," Assistant Minister Li said too much. I'll tell the boss this. The boss will definitely not refuse. This will not only gain a good reputation for loving his subordinates, but also save costs. It's not easy to find a good deal that kills two birds with one stone.
Hehe! "Ang Lee had seen too many of such ingratiating faces. Therefore, when he saw this guy's performance, there wasn't the slightest ripple in his heart. He wouldn't be very proud just because others agreed with his words. He was already numb to this small sense of accomplishment.
"How many kernels of corn can one person peel in a day?"
Ang Lee asked.
Steward Zhao said, "I didn't calculate it carefully. It's estimated to be about three kernels! Maybe a little more. "
When Ang Lee heard this, he pondered. If the average was only three kernels, then wouldn't the labor cost be higher than the rice processing? But thinking about it carefully, in addition to labor, the rice shelling workshop also had donkeys. The donkey's consumption was also a large sum of money. Calculating it this way, the overall processing cost wasn't much different.
In short, the processing cost really wasn't low. The cost of processed corn kernels was much lower than the cost of unprocessed corn kernels. This was even higher than the difference between rice and rice. If it was a poor person, they would still buy corn kernels. After buying them, they could slowly peel them themselves.
Just like the edamame of the future, unpeeled ones were two yuan per catty and peeled ones were six yuan per catty. The price difference was more than three times, and the shell of the edamame only accounted for 40% of the price. If the labor cost wasn't taken into account, the peeled edamame should be three yuan per catty. In the end, it was directly sold at six yuan per catty. This was still a conscientious peddler. The more expensive peddlers directly sold it at seven or eight yuan per catty.
But even if it was sold at seven or eight yuan, they still didn't have to worry about the sales because the pace of modern life was getting faster and faster. When the peddlers had nothing to do, they could peel the edamame quietly. But office workers were very busy and didn't have the time to peel the edamame. It should be known that it took at least half an hour to peel one catty of edamame. If office workers could afford to do this, it would be good if they could cook by themselves. Also, there was a great demand for edamame during mealtimes, so they also didn't have time to peel the edamame. Otherwise, if they hired a few more workers, the cost would be greatly increased, which was more expensive than buying the edamame at a high price.
According to the salary standard of the later generations, it would normally cost at least ten yuan per hour. But a snack could only peel a few catties of edamame. For example, if one could peel two catties of edamame, the material cost was close to four catties, which was seven or eight yuan. The labor cost was ten yuan, which was a total of seventeen or eighteen yuan. The cost of one catty was close to nine yuan, which was much more expensive than buying the peeled edamame directly. Therefore, even if it was sold at seven or eight yuan, people were more inclined to buy the edamame directly during mealtimes. As long as there was a demand for it during mealtimes, they would definitely buy it at a high price.
At this time, Chang 'an City of the Tang dynasty was also in the same situation. Except for those who were poor and had a lot of free time, they would directly buy the corn on the cob and peel it themselves. But for those who were very busy, they preferred to buy the corn kernels directly. There were so many rich people and restaurants in the capital, so the demand for corn kernels was great, which led to the formation of the corn processing workshop.
Unlike ordinary people who sat at home to peel corn, the efficiency of the workshop was obviously higher. If ordinary people peeled corn at home, they could only peel corn at half the efficiency of the workshop at most. Because there were people in the workshop, they could not be lazy and rest. There were also special tools for cutting grooves, so the speed of peeling corn could be increased a lot. But peeling corn at home was not so particular, and the work speed was much slower.
Ang Lee saw that there was a metal knife less than a foot long beside these people. The purpose of this tool was to cut a groove on the corn cob, so that the corn kernels below could be peeled out better. After all, the beginning step was the most difficult. Only by cutting the groove at the beginning could the next step proceed smoothly. If the groove at the beginning was not cut, it would be very difficult to peel the corn.
Cutting grooves was a work of strength and skill at the same time. The knife was very sharp, but it could not be used too much force when cutting grooves. It had to be controlled so that the row of corn kernels could be preserved relatively intact. If the cut was too shallow, the corn kernels would be damaged. If the cut was too deep, the corn kernels would also be damaged. So, it had to be cut with this force. A corn cob could be cut once or several times. Those who were good at cutting grooves could naturally cut a few more times. Those who were not good at cutting grooves or were not skilled in it only needed one cut. After that, they could peel directly by hand.
"Give me one. Let me have a try."
Ang Lee opened his mouth and said.
Steward Zhao hurriedly took a well-cut corn cob and gently handed it to Ang Lee.
Ang Lee used his hands to pry it. It was really hard. It took a lot of strength to peel the corn kernels off. After casually peeling a few kernels, Ang Lee threw the corn cob away.
Looking at these workers using primitive tools to cut grooves on the corn cob, Ang Lee suddenly thought that if this grooving tool could be made into a ring and cut down in one go, wouldn't all the corn kernels be cut off? In this way, wouldn't it save the peeling? The efficiency would at least be increased by several times, and the labor cost would be reduced a lot.
In Ang Lee's opinion, it would take almost no time to develop such a machine. The design could be completed in one night, and the next day, the machine could be completely completed after a discussion with the craftsmen.
After all, this was a manual machine that didn't require power. There was almost no difficulty. In order to save as much strength as possible, Ang Lee felt that it was necessary to introduce a hand-cranked system. This way, more strength could be saved. As long as the hand-cranked system was produced, coupled with power, a real machine could be formed. Everything was logical. It really didn't take much time. The corn kernels were relatively large, and the corn cobs were almost the same thickness. This provided a great convenience for Ang Lee to develop this kind of threshing machine. It allowed Ang Lee to develop better machines faster and thus serve society.
Ang Lee asked his subordinates to take a dozen corn cobs and the same number of corn kernels. He was going to take them back and slowly study them.
"I'll take these away. In a few days, I'll send you a few sets of useful tools. They're definitely better than the grooving knife here."
Ang Lee smiled slightly and led everyone back to the R&D Center.
Butler Zhao was naturally very happy when he heard that there would be better tools in a few days. If there were really more advanced and useful tools, it would be really cool.
After Ang Lee and his group returned to the R&D Center by car, they immediately ordered someone to bring a ruler to measure the corn cobs and corn kernels. Each of them was carefully measured to understand the exact size of the corn cobs and corn kernels.
As the corn cobs and corn kernels couldn't be exactly the same size, there would always be some discrepancies. Therefore, it was necessary to measure more to find the average value. It was convenient to have a reference when developing the tools.
Dozens of corn kernels and corn cobs were quickly measured. Ang Lee looked at the size. The difference wasn't very big. Therefore, there was no need to make more than one model of tool. A machine with a fixed size was enough.
Ang Lee thought for a moment in his mind. Then, he began to draw the size map of each part of the tool for peeling corn kernels. Finally, he handed these scattered parts to different craftsmen and asked them to build these parts as soon as possible. It would be best if they could build more.
These basic parts were very simple. At this time, the R&D Center had a lot of R&D machines and tools, which provided a greater possibility of building various parts. Therefore, ordinary parts that weren't very difficult to build could be built very quickly. For example, building a large blade would take a few hours. The hand-cranked corn kernels machine drawn by Ang Lee would probably take less than a day to build. After going back to sleep and coming to work the next morning, it would probably be built. Ang Lee only needed to assemble it. The dimensions were all marked. In addition, this kind of machine wasn't very precise. As long as the size error wasn't too big, there wouldn't be any problems.
After designing the hand-cranked corn sheller, Ang Lee sat in a chair and thought about how to design the glove loom and the rice shelling machine. These were relatively large machines. It would definitely take a lot of time to design and manufacture them to the final form. From the spring plowing to the autumn harvest, it would only take half a year. Overall, there wasn't much time. Research and development was secondary. It would also take a lot of time to manufacture them in batches. In the capital, where manpower was lacking, this pressure was not small.
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