I Am Louis XIV

Neither Joseph nor Guy were stupid, but their education and experience meant that they could only see this—Joseph didn’t even feel happy. It lasted for nearly three months—after the leader of the carpentry guild, Du Bo, and his accomplices were sentenced and executed, followed by the leader of the Orleans Textile Guild, and a group of stubborn and naive people like him—so naive as to think that as long as the yin and the yin are violated , A fool who can maintain his privilege and status by delaying and perfunctory.

The guild was first born in the twelfth century, and it has a history of more than 600 years.

Some families, like Dubo, almost regard the guild as their own kingdom. He is the uncrowned king, the elders are the ministers, the craftsmen are the people, and the helpers and apprentices are the slaves. They seem to have really grasped the power of life and death. As long as they don't appear in front of the real dignitaries and officials, they can wear brocade and satin, eat abbot, and immerse themselves in the illusion that they can't extricate themselves.

until today.

Even if Joseph was brought before the king, or Du Bo was executed, the guild leaders still didn't feel that their lives would change in any way-they thought proudly that the king might not be able to pass the kingdom to his son However, the guild has been inherited from the father for hundreds of years and has never been cut off. The surname of any guild leader may be older than the local lords, sometimes even dating back to the Romans or Gauls-so, how can there be no guilds, without them, no These, isn't the handicraft industry in France going to a dead end?

Even if Louis XIV had an army of hundreds of thousands of people, the guild would only have too many craftsmen. If there was no guild, these young and strong guys would have no work to do. Don't they go crazy, when the time comes, Even His Majesty the King must be in constant fear.

With such a ridiculous idea in their hearts, they watched Dubo of the carpenter's guild die tragically, Roubaix of the weaving guild was also sent to the gallows, and they saw the candle guild, the iron guild, the goldsmith's guild. The leaders of the silversmiths' guild, one by one, were drawn into this inexplicable storm like small sampans in a hurricane-it seemed that the whole city of Orleans was against the king, but they knew there was no , They still hope to be able to serve the king... Especially Louis XIV is famous for not caring about his origin and surname, the merchants target Colbert, and the guild leaders will also want to recommend such a person who can speak for them man!

They don't want much, really not much...

Everyone was caught in a fog of incomprehensibility, including those who were persecuted and suppressed like Joseph in the past. They looked at Orleans' guild system in disbelief like stacked dominoes, Just lightly clicked by a little finger, it collapsed irretrievably from one to ten thousand, to one hundred thousand, to million.

Everyone's saying shit, everyone's saying it's over, everyone's worried about losing their jobs and raising their families.

But when the sun came up, they were surprised to find that nothing had changed, and they still had to go to the workshops to work—those workshops that lost their craftsmen or helpers were replaced by people they knew well, who might not have been involved In a conspiracy, or a craftsman who is promoted from a helper, one person is in charge of two or three workshops-the person in charge of these new workshops (not the master) comforts the helper and apprentice by saying, don’t worry, the raw materials and auxiliary materials will Yes, there will be an order list, and there will be people who are responsible for negotiating prices (buying and selling). As long as they do their jobs well, they will also be paid.

Even so, the workers still couldn't help asking the craftsmen around. The problem is that these craftsmen don't know much. To be honest, their courage is almost broken. Think about it Well, the lampposts around the Martyrdom Square are almost covered—in order to prevent the corpses from decomposing and causing the plague, and the beak doctor painted them with lime—this kind of treatment has been quite rare in recent years, after all, Louis XIV Not the kind of king who likes to scare his subjects with death and pain.

But for the guild members who had always been rebellious, this threat was immediate - the chaotic and crazy situation that the guild leaders expected after losing their control did not appear. Those guild members who had succumbed to their coercion did not dare to challenge the king's patience. The new guild leader designated by the king's officials took his place under the gallows, and he did not have any objection to the officials' orders. It is even more smooth like a new-style spinning wheel with grease on it.

With Guy, the new leader of the carpenter's guild, making chestnuts, Dubo was still kicking his legs and dancing in the air, and he started to organize the spinning wheel and loom workshop entrusted by the king.

Yes, the king felt that the word "workshop" was not enough to describe his industry, so the new term "workshop" came into being, and the original woodworking guild existed in name only—because all craftsmen, helpers and apprentices had to be integrated into the later in the big project.

The original order will be postponed, and no matter what kind of seller it is, it is impossible to be on par with the king—fortunately, Joseph is accused of being the chief craftsman of this project, and he will select a hundred of the craftsmen he approves as his disciples. Taught them how to make a spinning wheel, as did another English craftsman who made a loom. When these people have learned it, they will return to their respective workshops, teaching while making spinning wheels and looms with their apprentices and helpers.

These are all to be completed within a month.

It’s not that no one complained, because it was too unruly—but when the new leader of the blacksmith’s guild also appeared in the warehouse borrowed as a teaching venue, the last noise disappeared—on the new spinning wheel and loom They all have iron castings. Joseph secretly took them to be made by blacksmiths in other cities, and paid a large sum of money for them. However, as agreed, the blacksmith did not ask what it was for, nor did he say that it was Joseph's order.

These blacksmiths will ask in detail what the role of these iron castings will be, what special functions they need, how long they need to be used, etc...

This kind of behavior is impossible before the death of the guild, because if there is such an in-depth communication between the blacksmith and the carpenter, it will not only cross the line but also violate the taboo. It is not impossible to get up or kill someone.

But this kind of behavior obviously has the support of the king. The blacksmiths are worried. Like the carpenters, they also have to hand over a sufficient amount of perfect parts within the specified time. Under this premise, they don’t have time to rework and polish slowly. Certainly, when one knows what one is doing, one can always do it more accurately and quickly than when one does not know what one is doing.

Some blacksmiths even ventured to offer their own suggestions, and indeed they perfected the new spinning wheel and loom.

They were rewarded with a large sum of money.

The king left Orleans without waiting for the new spinning wheel to be manufactured in batches. After all, his grand parade was only a third of the way, but when the king and his party drove into Provence, the city of Orleans had already sent I got the latest cotton cloth.

The cotton cloth spun by the new spinning wheel and loom is smooth and dense, not inferior to the goods brought back from India by the East India Company, and it is not afraid of repeated washing. Verified by time.

However, even if this weakness is retained, its width and output are enough to make people smile. In this respect, manual work is never better than tireless machines. On the whole, what people of insight are worried about, the mass unemployment of textile workers caused by the new spinning wheel and loom and social unrest did not happen-the king’s textile factory is like a monster with a huge mouth. Anyone can swallow it.

Don't you see that the king was going to use it to guide women out of the house from the beginning? If even the existing textile workers (male) can't accept it, isn't it a joke? The textile workers who were once full of worry and wariness were slowly relieved after seeing the king's workshop built. After all, the area of ​​these houses stretching outside Orleans is so vast, and the number of carpenters' and blacksmiths' guilds Thousands of members, their helpers, and apprentices are working day and night, and racks of new spinning wheels and looms are constantly being transported outside the city—"Each machine needs at least one person to work." They said Said, while counting the number of machines, the more machines, the more at ease they feel,

What's more, even if they are not employed for the time being, the new leader of the textile guild has given them a settling allowance, so that those workshop members who have to stop working due to lack of raw materials will not starve and be displaced. What surprised Louis a little was that they did not apply for the fee from the officials, but the new leader extracted it from the property owned by the original guild leader.

"It turns out that these people are not incapable of doing good things." The Duke of Orleans said sarcastically.

"They're not idiots, they're just lucky." Louis said indifferently. Didn't the former head of the textile guild in Orleans know that the new spinning wheel and weaving machine would bring more output and better quality products?

But such a result is beneficial to workers, beneficial to buyers, and even profitable to merchants, but it is a big trouble for guilds—without the process of apprentice-helper-craftsman, the role of guilds A lot is missing, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is equivalent to nothing. After all, when a woman, a child, or an old man can easily learn how to use a machine in a few days, and enter the king's workshop to work, what is the point of their existence?

Could it be that those apprentices, helpers, and craftsmen are willing to give most of their income to them?

Moreover, the king, or the lord, or the workshop of a big merchant can directly negotiate a deal with the upstream supplier or the downstream seller, and they don't need the guild to hinder and entangle them. Suppliers and sellers You must also be happy to lose a layer of exploitation.

Therefore, new technologies, new raw materials, and new machinery are all harmful to the vested interests of the guild, and it is not surprising that they are so eager to do so.

However, with the precedent of the city of Orleans, the guilds in other places had to see the facts clearly and lowered their heads. Some artisans who were afraid of the threat of the guild and dared not act actually mustered up their courage and ran out of the town where they were located. He presented his inventions to the king, some were spinning wheels and looms, some were not, but as long as Louis saw them and thought they were valuable, he accepted them all. Of course, some people's works were not as good as they thought, or were repeated, and the king's officials accepted them all and arranged them to work in the king's workshop.

Colbert and the Marquis of Loise calculated the number after sorting out the recent documents, which made them sigh—in just three months, they have accepted tens of thousands of craftsmen—don’t think this number is small , There are never many people with courage.

With the increasing number of craftsmen, the types of occupations, and the number of origins, the guild, this behemoth that has been entrenched in France, Europe, and England for hundreds of years, finally wailed...

People always say, "Why don't we go to the king's workshop?" Even if there is no talent or invention, in the king's workshop, as long as you work hard, the reward will definitely not be short. It will not let you work for helpers or craftsmen in vain, and you don’t have to take a sum of money from your children to donate to the leader of the guild... If you want to be promoted, the leader of the workshop or the official also said, It is purely based on your output and seniority - there is a special department for statistical approval. Rather than one or two people having the final say.

In the eyes of people hundreds of years later, the systems created by Colbert are backward and crude, but to the people of this era, they are as new and noble as factories and machines, and they look at them with admiration. Most of those who observe these systems focus on rewards and promotions.

This is also human nature.

The biggest enemy of the guild leaders has finally arrived. Some people say that bad things are always spread, and so are good things.

In taverns, apartments, squares, or churches, there are guild members whispering and whispering, "Do you want more people? How much? Do women want? Children? You see my father dyed his hair black Would you like to try it?"

There are also bold craftsmen who, in the face of blackmail from the guild steward, intimidated him to work elsewhere—the guild net was torn apart by the king’s workshop, and they were no longer afraid of being expelled from the guild. .

More because there is no money for bribes, the workshops, tools, and mortgage helpers or apprentices required by the guild, along with their families, disappeared quietly. Anyway, they were taught how to work in the king's workshop, and they were not lazy or stupid, so why should they stay in the workshop and suffer?

Apprentice helpers are the bottom layer of the guild pyramid. They left one after another in large numbers, which finally led to the final collapse of the guild.

As if overnight.