At the beginning of July of the 26th year of Qin Shi Huang, when the five prime ministers of the Shaofu gathered in the official office, they talked about the strange things that had happened recently.

"The new fake ......"

Shaofu General Zuo Cheng deliberately lengthened his words, and waited for a few colleagues to come over before continuing: "He sent someone to ask for all the hemp heads, rags, and leftovers in the East and West Weaving Room!" ”

The crowd looked at each other, and the young man first smiled dumbly: "What does he want to do with all this waste?" ”

Shaofu Nei Cheng is in charge of the palace clothes, treasures, and food, and all day long with the hairpins of Wanzhu, Fu Ji'er, A's clothes, and splendid ornaments plundered from the Six Kingdoms, ordinary silk and linen are not in his eyes, not to mention hemp heads, rags, and leftovers, in his opinion, they are all useless things.

"Is it going to be used to make a hundred clothes?"

The Shaofu Prison on the side was in charge of the prisoners, and when he saw that the concubines of the poor ministers had no clothes to wear, they sewed together the rags collected in bits and pieces to make clothes to wear, and called them "Baifu clothes". In his hometown of Yongdi, there is even a custom: children who are often sick and suffer disasters must eat thousands of meals and wear hundreds of clothes in order to get rid of diseases and disasters and grow up smoothly.

Other than that, they really couldn't figure out what Hefu was going to do with a bunch of rags.

For Heifu, who came to Shaofu temporarily and was in charge of papermaking matters, everyone was a little repulsed, especially the general Cheng. The bamboo slips and silk silks used in the palace are all made by him, even if His Majesty wants to make new things, he should also be allowed to take the lead, but His Majesty let the layman Heifu start a new stove, what is this?

Jiang Zuocheng didn't dare to question Qin Shi Huang's determination, so he put his resentment on Heifu's head, although he asked for everything Heifu wanted, but he secretly wanted to see Heifu's jokes......

He sneered: "For more than ten days, the black man has done nothing except ask Yuan Cheng for trees to soak in the water and collect rags everywhere. I want to see what he will take out at the end of September to hand over to the young eunuch and His Majesty! ”

……

On the seventh day of the seventh month of July, although it has entered autumn, but the sun is still hot, according to the customs of Qindi, today is the day of drying clothes and cloth and drying bamboo slips.

The Nei Shi Teng family is no exception, the stepmother is sick, and everything in the family is under the care of Ye Zijin, so she asked people to move the cloth and clothes, as well as the heavy bamboo slips in her father's study, to the yard and expose them to the sun, but she heard a long shouting from outside the mansion......

"Collect the rags!"

As soon as he heard this voice, Zijin knew that it was Heifu's subordinate officials who came.

This matter has become a joke in Xianyang City, and the black man who is a fake Shaofu Cheng is not doing anything, but he sends people to ask for rags in Xianyang City, which is really funny.

A few years ago, he built a public toilet in Nanjun County, and he was not less ridiculed, but at the end of the year, the fact that the yield per mu doubled made everyone speechless......

Some people think that this is luck, but in the past few years, either by virtue of military merits or by taking advantage of the situation, step by step from a small official in Nanjun to a close minister of the emperor, ranking as a lower secretary, how can a mediocre person do it?

So this matter seems to be clueless, but Ye Zijin couldn't help but be curious, and wanted to know what Heifu's whimsical ideas were, so he said to the people around him: "Fu Mu, can there be rags and hemp at home?" ”

The mansion of the inner history is very large, there are more than 100 people living in it, there are doormen, ministers, maidservants, cooks, craftsmen, and there is a special weaving room, where high-quality fabrics are bought from the outside to make clothes.

But no matter how good the tailor is, there will be errors in the tailoring, so there are really a lot of rag scraps in the house, Mrs. Neishi is extravagant, and she can't see the people in the family patching, and she thinks it's a shame to lose face, so no one cares about the rag trimmings, and the tailor is reluctant to throw it, so he piles it up in the warehouse, and there are a few baskets.

Zijin asked the two Fu Mu and the maid to follow him, and asked the subordinate to carry the scraps of rags out of the mansion, just in time to see the soap-clothed little official who collected the cloth park the ox cart in the inner lu, and explained the price of the rags to the woman and trader who came to hear about it......

The little official said: "Rags, corners, pockmarks, one penny per catty." ”

"A penny!?"

A woman in a silk skirt made an exaggerated voice, and her smiling face was suddenly full of displeasure:

"My family is not more expensive and rich, just ordinary scholars, Shangzao, there is a saying in the Lu, called the new uncle, the old Zhongzi, and the broken uncle. The meaning is that the four brothers of Uncle Ji wear a piece of clothing in turns, changing winter clothes to summer clothes, wide sleeves to sleeveless, major repairs and small ones, patching them, and wearing them from new clothes to old clothes, and then to rags, until they can no longer be worn. Until then, the bottom of the lining has to be cut off to make a jacket......"

"That's why, this rag is also useful, you want to buy it for a pound, I might as well keep it as a rag!"

After saying that, he twisted his waist and was about to leave.

The young officials couldn't cry or laugh, and played with the abacus taught by Zhang Cang on the spot, and calculated the account for the spicy Xianyang woman: "A big brown coat, with 18 catties of hemp, is worth 60 yuan; a piece of medium brown clothes, with fourteen catties of linen, worth forty-six dollars; A small brown coat, with eleven catties of linen, is worth thirty-six dollars. ”

"In this way, a pound of good linen cloth is only more than three dollars, and now to collect a pound of tattered linen cloth for one penny, it is like exchanging three pieces of unwearable rags for a new dress, is it still a loss?"

The spicy woman thought about it carefully, and the little official's words seemed to have some truth, the linen cloth was rough, and the chest hurt when it was cut to make a small coat, so it was better to exchange the rags for money to buy new cloth than to make do with it. So he weighed the few catties of rags found at home for the little official, and went home happily with a few cents and a half of two coins.

Looking at the small officer's car, there are a lot of rags and leftovers.

He actually didn't quite understand what Shaofu Cheng was doing, but the order was like this, and the internal history and Xianyang order also allowed it, so he could only do it head-on.

In the huge Xianyang City, there are many similar small ox carts, accompanied by the jingle of cowbells, the subordinates of the morning glory tear their throats and shout "Collect the rags and hemp heads!" It also reverberates in the rear......

When twilight approached, most of the ox carts that collected rags returned with full loads, and they joined the wagons from Shaofu near Weiqiao, and drove together towards the pickaxe pond.

……

In late July, looking at the rags and leftovers piled up on the side of the pickaxe pond into several hills, Cheng Shang, Zhang Han and others were amazed, but Heifu was not surprised.

As the capital of the empire, Xianyang has 150,000 households, and recently 120,000 households have migrated into the customs, half of which are located in the suburbs of Xianyang. Each family collects half a pound of rags, which is enough for 100,000 catties!

Not to mention that Shaofu also sent a large amount of leftovers, since the raw materials are complete, Heifu plans to make hemp paper in August, and after the craftsmen are familiar with the process, they will start making bark paper in September.

The plan was on track, and Heifu was in a good mood, until Zhang Cang, who stayed in Xianyang City to settle accounts, also rushed to the workshop and happily told Heifu that he had a new nickname.

Zhang Cang's fat face was full of a narrow smile, and his fat hand waved at Heifu: "Congratulations, didn't Heifu complain before, you are just a fake Shaofu Cheng, and you have no clear authority, but now it is not, you have been called Shaofu rags by all Xianyang people!" ”

Zhang Han couldn't help laughing, don't turn his face to laugh, and Cheng Shang was upset for Heifu.

"To make paper from rags, with money is not expensed, the people's morality is not hard, and it can be used to benefit the country and the people, but it is misunderstood by the people, I am really sorry for Shaofu!"

Their Mo family pays the most attention to "thrift", taking clothes as an example, they do not require everyone to wear brown clothes like ink people, as long as the blue clothes worn in winter are warm, and the fine kudzu clothes worn in summer are light and cool, this is fine.

In the past, the Qin State was indeed like this, even Qin Xiaogong and Qin Huiwang also wore sackcloth to the dynasty, extremely close to the people and thrifty, which is also the reason why generations of ink people were deeply attracted by Qin and chose to take root here.

But now this is not the case, after the destruction of the Six Kingdoms, its wealth has been lost to Qin. The emperor's palace is full of hairpins of pearls, hairpins of Fu Ji, clothes of Amen, and splendid ornaments, and it is not a pity to abandon them. With the emperor taking the lead, the wind of pride and extravagance has grown in Xianyang, and the maidservants of the officials' families also wear silk shoes and beautiful accessories......

The ink man felt sad, and only felt that this was no longer the simple and thrifty Qin he knew.

In such an environment, Heifu can do the opposite, turn waste into treasure, and reuse the scrap scraps discarded in the palace like mustard, which Cheng Shang greatly appreciates, and he decided to inform Tang Fuzi, Tang Duo and other Qin Mo of what happened here, and let all the ink masters come to assist Heifu, and he must do this!

Hefxie's kindness, he was not frustrated at all, compared to the previous nicknames, what was this?

"Rags are rags."

He smiled faintly, picked up the long knife used to cut linen, and led the way to the hemp and rags that had been soaked in the pool for a long time.

"Laugh and scold you, but this Ze has been the work of future generations, and I must do it!"

……

At the beginning of August, with the preparation of raw materials and the official start of the paper workshop, the pickaxe pond began to become lively, which also attracted the attention of many people in Xianyang City.

Shao Shang Zao Meng Tian, who had just returned from Qi State, came to the pickaxe pond in person to see what the "Shaofu rag Cheng" was doing......