When Zhuge Liang was so excited that he wanted to report the results of his brain hole to Li Shi, the first thing he was waiting for was not Li Su's commendation, but the reprimand of his brother Zhuge Jin:

"You naughty boy, you are not rigorous in your studies, and you were driven back by Gu Yuan and Xi Hongyu, you have a lot of ideas about tinkering with these things, how to serve the country in the future?

Brother Yuan Si told me, you can't memorize your "Book of Rites", and some of the other twelve or thirteen-year-old students in the same period, the Chen family and the Ren family, are better than you. ”

Zhuge Liang pouted unconvinced: "What is there to memorize in the Book of Rites, I know what to do with those that have been used to this day." Those things that are no longer used, just know about it. The 'crossbow shuttle' that Li Shi said, if done well, can make the world's silkworm women and weavers work twice as effective with half the effort, not better than endorsement. Besides, I know that Master Li himself can't memorize the "Book of Rites", and he can't even memorize the "Analects" completely. ”

Zhuge Jin was taken aback when he heard this, and scolded: "Do you say that about the elder, and you don't apologize." ”

Li Su smiled indifferently and stopped Zhuge Jin: "Ziyu doesn't have to mind, I really don't be good at reciting scriptures, Ah Liang is right." However, Ah Liang, you can't be complacent, I let you dabble in these ingenious things, the original intention is to let you broaden your horizons and know the hardships of the common people.

Ziyu has high expectations for you, and you can't afford to waste your studies. After reading the scriptures and the hundred schools of thought, you should also learn how to govern the people, manage your finances, and the law, so that you can achieve great success in the future. Your family is still living on Ziyu's 600 stones, how can it be disrespectful to be raised by the eldest brother. ”

Only then did Zhuge Liang restrain his joking tone, respectfully said that he had no other intentions, and then said: "Master Li, you said that whoever makes this brocade weaving 'crossbow shuttle' can reward five thousand grains, or three million in money, won't he not count?" With this bounty, the family doesn't have to count on my brother's money. ”

Of course Li Su will not repay the account, this is a reward he casually mentioned a few months ago, and for him, it is only the expense of a few obsidian bathtubs, if he really makes a shuttle, what is the big deal.

Zhuge Jin couldn't help but educate again: "Ah Liang! When my father was there, he repeatedly taught us to live in peace and happiness, and that poverty cannot be moved ......"

Zhuge Liang defended himself: "I don't want this money for my own luxury, and I don't want to subsidize the whole family so that you don't have to work hard." Besides, the eldest sister's marriage is imminent, and she must prepare more dowry for her, so as not to fall into our Langya Zhuge style of decency. ”

As soon as he said this, Zhuge Jin was ashamed not to preach. My father has been dead for three years, and among his two younger sisters, the older one should actually be married as soon as she comes out of service, after all, she is over sixteen years old, and she is considered an older leftover girl in this era.

The second sister is only fourteen years old, and she can still procrastinate.

In history, the two young ladies of the Zhuge family married the famous family of Jingxiang (Kuailiang Kuaiyue's family) and the Pang family (Pang Tong's family) respectively, but now they have entered Shu in advance, and they did not go to Jingzhou with their uncle Zhuge Xuan, so it is impossible to marry the famous family of Jingzhou.

A few months ago, Zhuge Jin entrusted Li Su with a favor and asked Li Su to come forward to make peace and marry his sixteen-year-old eldest sister Xu to Lu Su as his wife.

After all, Lu Su's age is one year younger than the age when Li Su lied to the outside world, and one year older than Zhuge Jin, so it is almost Lu Su's turn to start a family.

In addition, Zhuge Jin's sister's appearance is indeed okay (Zhuge Liang is so handsome, and the family genes are good), Lu Su directly agreed, and when this fall, Lu Su will become Zhuge Liang's eldest brother-in-law.

Li Su didn't want to see the two brothers talk about the topic of "peace and poverty" anymore, so he stopped the conversation and asked Zhuge Liang to introduce the new gadgets he had concocted and how to use them.

Zhuge Liang took the shuttle shaped like a crossbow machine in his hand and loaded it on a wide-faced loom with a width of five feet and showed it.

……

The brocade machine used by Zhuge Liang for display, the body was customized by Li Su, and its structure is exactly the same as the traditional jacquard brocade machine of this era, there is no difference, it is very wide.

The horizontal width of the traditional Shu brocade jacquard loom is one foot eight inches, and Li Su's machine is five feet wide, so that Guan Yu, who came to see the bustle, was surprised at first sight.

Although big men usually don't go into the weaving room to see women weaving, they have seen the finished brocade and fabric, so everyone knows how wide normal textiles should be, and they will naturally be surprised when they see something that is obviously several times wider than the normal width.

The silk fabrics and linen cloth of this era have a common feature, that is, the cloth is much narrower than that of later generations, each horse is only one foot eight inches wide, and several pieces of cloth are spliced and sewn together to make a set of robes. Including expensive Li Su and Guan Yu, the clothes on their bodies have many seams. (It can also be seen in some costume dramas that are more restored to the evidence, and the brocades are all very short volumes)

Therefore, in history, the idiom allusion "seamless" in the late Tang Dynasty seems so rare. Because until the Tang Dynasty, no matter how rich and noble people's clothes were put together, if anyone could make the main part of the robe with a whole piece of fabric (not counting the sleeves) without sewing and splicing, it would be an incredible miracle.

This "one foot eight inches" did not come out of thin air, precisely because the weaver girls were restricted by the shuttle action of pulling the weft -

Before the invention of the shuttle, the shuttle action of weaving brocade was to hand over the shuttle to the right hand with the left hand, and then use the ruler to tighten the weft, and then alternately put the pedal of the longitudinal warp with the foot to clamp it with the weft, and then the right hand handed the shuttle back to the left hand, and the weft was pulled back to the back of the weft, and so on.

Therefore, the standard of one foot and eight inches is actually the length of the two forearms of an adult weaver girl in this era, plus the length of most of the shuttle itself. When you build a loom, you have to take care of a girl who is short in stature and has short arms, and in the end, you can only build it so wide, otherwise you won't be able to reach it.

Later, after the Tang and Song dynasties, there was a period of time when a "double loom" was made, that is, two women cooperated, one sat on the warp pedal and was responsible for the shuttle on the right side. The other bent down from the left side and reached into the warp lift opening to take the shuttle back.

In this way, the width of the cloth can reach the height of a woman from the waist to the top of her head, that is, more than five feet. The woven cloth was three times as wide, but it also required two manpower, and the woman who bent down to pick up the shuttle was very tired. It is equivalent to the labor intensity of doing sit-ups every time you weave a weft, bend thousands of times a day, and it won't take long for the lumbar muscles and lumbar spine to fail, and it has not been promoted.

Historically, the textile technology of the West is also similar, until the end of the 17th century, the emergence of the shuttle, so that the shuttle traction weft action no longer has to "left hand to right hand, right hand to left hand", but directly with elastic potential energy and locking mechanism to bounce shuttle shuttle weft, the width of the fabric has been greatly improved.

Of course, a truly stable shuttle is made of a metal spring, which not only has a long range, but also shuttles much faster.

Zhuge Liang now has no metal springs, so according to the research and development goals explained by Li Su, he thought of using a catapult charging structure similar to a bow and crossbow to shoot the shuttle with tendon strings, and the catapult movement speed of the shuttle is still relatively slow, not to mention "flying", which is about the same as the delivery speed of human hands.

At the other end is a machine expansion similar to Zhuge Repeater's crossbow to control the firing rhythm, which can be temporarily locked when it is connected to the shuttle, and can only bounce back when it is pressed - to tell the truth, if Zhuge Liang's brain could not come up with a "burst control mechanism", this design of automatically catching the shuttle and then bouncing back is beyond the imagination of others.

It can only be said that although young people have no experience, they have a bigger brain and a richer imagination. Today's Zhuge Liang still can't talk about political experience, after all, he is young, but occasionally he has a flash of inspiration and makes a little idea come to an unexpected point for adults like Li Su who are limited by technical prejudices.

After he joined the loom of the crossbow shuttle, he was able to free the human hand from the handover action, and thus got rid of the shackles of "range". With the same amount of work with hands and feet, the weaving fabric is increased from one foot eight inches to five feet, which is directly close to three times the production speed.

Zhuge Liang ejected back and forth dozens of times in front of everyone's interviews, and the shuttle was accurately caught and popped up again, which was very stable. Looks like it can be promoted.

Of course, the cost of the new textile machine will also increase, and the cost of the host material alone will also be nearly three times that of the original. In addition to the main engine, similar to the ejection, jamming, and winding structure of a bow and crossbow, the cost of this set is similar to that of building a military light crossbow.

In other words, spending an extra crossbow can save the manpower of two weaver girls.

Moreover, in the previous silk reeling and spinning link, because the new hydraulic reeling car was put into use, the efficiency was supposed to be increased several times, and now the brocade link has also been increased by two or three times, so as to match, so as not to have too much backlog of cooked silk and not enough people to weave brocade.

In Li Su's view, this is very cost-effective, but he also knows that private retail investors must not be able to afford to buy this new machine. Therefore, in the first year, it was handed over to the cooperative Zhen family firm for mass production, and Li Su directly took a cut to collect the "patent fee".

For example, every time the Zhen family builds a machine, they will give Li Su five horses of finished Shu brocade in the future, and the extra will be regarded as the profit of the Zhen family. In the first year, because the scale was not large, the female workers used had to be the domestic slaves of the firm, or the children of Li Su's own fiefdom, and carried out closed management to ensure confidentiality.

With the financial resources of the Zhen family, it is impossible to build too many at one time, maybe only a few thousand, and there are not so many materials in Shuzhong to build new looms for him on a large scale. First put into commercial use, weave tens of thousands of brocade and sell it, and then exchange more materials with the outside world, especially the expansion of the machine to make catapult crossbow shuttles from strong animal tendons such as beef tendons that cannot be provided on a large scale in Shuzhong, so as to expand the second wave of production of looms - Li Su estimates that Yizhou's future demand for animal tendon imports may be equivalent to the cost of making tens of thousands of crossbows.

Next year, it will really be promoted, and then find a way to formulate a set of systems, and ask the wealthy families in Shuzhong who want to share the benefits from it to discuss the conditions.

Perhaps, when the time comes, a few other tax systems and talent selection system reforms can be bundled, so that they can support Liu Bei's other new policies in exchange.

The world is bustling, all for profit. Li Su can popularize the new productive forces and let them make money together, and it is normal for them to give up some other concessions. If you don't eat a toast, you will naturally have a knife to eat and punish the wine.

Anyway, Li Su is not a weak person who is "innocent and guilty", the knife handle is pinched in their hands, who in Shu dares to infringe on Li Su's "intellectual property rights".

……

"Good thing, the success rate of the plan to use Shu brocade as hard currency in the future has been greatly improved. At that time, as long as Brother Xuande is officially promised to guarantee in the capacity of Yizhou Mu, all Shu brocade has an official recovery price, and there is no limit to how much can be exchanged for as much as there is, and it can be converted back into five baht money, so as to establish financial credit, and the merchants in various states will directly spend Shu brocade as money. ”

After visiting the machine, Li Su naturally appreciated it greatly, and his heart was already thinking about the prospect of hard currency in the future.

The confidence in the circulation of any financial hard currency was originally based on the "guarantee recovery", such as the earliest flying money, Jiaozi, and paper money, all of which were accepted by someone, and you can redeem them at any time if you want to turn them back into gold, silver and copper coins, and others will recognize you after a long time.

Although Shu brocade itself has a greater use value, if a guaranteed commitment recovery price is set, and a signboard of "Shu brocade is recycled in seconds, and the hoof gold is received in seconds", it will also be of great help to financial credit. For example, the regular sales price of Shu brocade on the market is currently 2,000 yuan for a narrow Shu brocade with a width of one foot and eight inches, and 7,000 yuan for a horse with a width of more than five feet.

Then Liu Bei's camp can give a little discount, promising that "no matter how much Shu brocade there is on the market, as long as you want to exchange it for money, 6,000 yuan a horse of Yizhou Mu official unlimited recycling", it is absolutely enough, everyone will know that no matter how the market fluctuations and prices of this thing, it will definitely not fall below 6,000 yuan.

After pondering the use of this thing, Li Su, who was satisfied, decided to give Zhuge Liang a chance and reward him with the following.

Li Su asked with a pleasant face: "Ah Liang, I'll give you a chance, and it's also to test how well you have learned over the years - what I promised at the beginning was who could invent the 'crossbow shuttle', and a one-time reward of three million dollars, and the benefits of the 'crossbow shuttle' will be mine."

Now, you can directly take three million dollars, or consider the second condition I gave: in the next five years, as long as every one of these wide looms is built, you can also get a five-foot wide finished Shu brocade as a dividend. ”

Zhuge Liang has been studying mathematics with Li Su for a long time, much longer than physics, he did a little mental arithmetic, and then came to the conclusion: "Then I didn't earn it?" As long as more than 500 new looms are built in the next few years, I will be more cost-effective. With Master Li's courage, how could he not even be able to build 500 machines, even if no one bought them, the Zhen family would not be able to make more than enough of their own livelihood. ”

"Smart," Li Su patted Zhuge Liang on the shoulder, "Do you know why I gave you this choice?" In ancient times, there was a thousand gold bones of King Yanzhao, I don't want the world's talented people in the world to cherish themselves in terms of craftsmanship, and I hope that they will see that the general who defected to the west can concentrate on his interests and get a long-term reward, so as to return to the water like water. There are many people in the world who have ingenious ideas, but they are too secretive. ”

Let's use Zhuge Liang to play the horse bone first.