In the 21st century, officials may be puzzled by the fact that "improving the output efficiency and income of women in the textile industry" can actually help revitalize the commodity economy, increase "the proportion of people willing to pay rice bran to go to government-run mills to mill rice, and improve the utilization rate of government-run mills".

It seems that "weaving cloth and brocade" and "rice milling" are two unrelated industries at all.

Li Sugang actually thought so when he was the Taishou of Shu County, but after a few months of farming and governance, and going deep into the people to observe the people's feelings, he changed his initial thinking based on modern people.

Because in today's farms, the heavy physical labor of rice milling and flour grinding is actually done by women! Men are responsible for plowing the fields, and women are responsible for weaving and grinding rice.

This can also be seen from the setting of labor punishment in the Qin and Han dynasties: the "labor reform" in the Qin and Han dynasties was divided into five grades from light to heavy.

The second is called "Ghost Salary White Rice", which is to provide additional woodcutters and firewood for the government and the army.

And the heaviest is called "Chengdan", and the men's Chengdan is not necessarily to build a city, but to undertake all the types of migrant workers on construction sites. Woman's scooping, that is, shelling rice noodles. This is considered to be the heaviest form of heavy physical labor for both men and women.

During the Qin Dynasty and the Western Han Dynasty, there were very few grinding discs, just a pestle mortar, which was pounded like Chinese medicinal materials in later generations. Pound as much rice as you cook each meal. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the stone mills gradually increased, and they also had to be pulled by people or livestock, and hydraulic grinding was still pioneered by Li Su.

The hydraulic mill was the first batch of hydraulic machinery promoted by Li Su when he governed Shu County, which was originally for the convenience of the people and the liberation of labor. As a result, Zhuge Jin promoted it for five months, but the poor were reluctant to use it and did not buy it, but asked the rich to drive dozens of miles to grind rice, which made Li Su very faceless, so he got involved in this matter.

In the end, the results of the in-depth investigation of the people's situation found that the poor in this era do not regard their labor force as wealth.

In fact, not to mention the end of the Han Dynasty, even in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were many poor people who thought so. I feel that rice bran and wheat bran are wealth, my time and labor are worthless, and the problems that can be solved by spending time are definitely not exchanged for material wealth, which is called "being able to live and be diligent and thrifty".

The small-scale peasant economy is like this, 95% of the poor peasants do not have the "commodity economy" mentality, "the same time to do what they are good at, can earn more".

Li Su thought about it and turned his brain to "building some large-scale government-run textile factories to attract a large number of peasant women to work and make them realize the value of their time". And if it's only implemented in Yizhou? We are also not afraid that textiles will be oversold and unsalable, that there will be no way out, and that we will not be able to exchange enough food and other materials.

Anyway, the production efficiency of the textile industry in other states of the Han Dynasty is still very low, and there are more people who wear unwarm clothes these years? There will be no surplus of silk.

Other than that? Li Su's tax reform proposed to Liu Bei the year before has not been able to get through the "yong" link of "rent and yong"? It was only a simple replacement of grain tax and conscription and military service, but it still did not establish a link of "allowing the people to pay textiles instead of grain tax and conscription" as in the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, it is not very helpful in solving the tax and transportation capacity and increasing the fiscal hard currency reserves.

Build the ring of "Shu brocade"? In order to completely get rid of the transportation difficulties in Shudi? Since then, taxes have been collected as much as possible to collect high-value and high-density materials, so that the efficiency of fiscal collection and mobilization has been greatly improved. Even if Shu brocade can't be worn for a while, it can even be directly spent as money and trade with other states-

The trade route in the Western Regions of the Han Dynasty? Why was it named the "Silk Road" by the later German historian Hitthofen? The initial argument was actually quite taken for granted. Because many relics of ancient silk were found along the trade route, the Germans took it for granted that this trade route was thousands of miles away to Rome to sell silk.

But according to the latest archaeological results of the 21st century, in fact, each trip of silk transportation does not exceed 500 kilometers. Silk is only because of its lightness and high relative value density, and it is used by Central Asian business travelers as a stop to spend westward.

For example, the Han people used silk to ask the Loulan people to buy wool, and the Loulan people spent it as money to the Persians, and the Persians spent it on the Seleucids...... I didn't go out of my way to sell silk.

So? Absolutely don't doubt the hard currency attribute of Shu brocade in the late Han Dynasty as a direct money spent, even if it is not needed for the time being? People will also hoard it as money.

So much so that at first, Li Su, who didn't expect to open a little bit in the textile industry, after gaining an in-depth understanding of the people's feelings? It was forced to this point by the strong resilience of the natural economy.

……

Although it is necessary to engage in "power and hydraulic production" in the textile industry? But Li Suyi can't make Jenny spinning machines? Second, you can't make a loom? At first, there were a lot of detours.

As a liberal arts student, he is only familiar with history, so he knows what famous machines are in history, but he has no clue how to build them.

He remembered that before the advent of the Jenny machine, there was a "water-powered spinning machine" in the West in the 18th century, and the East was actually more advanced than the West in this regard. The rapid rise of "Songjiang cotton" at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty is also related to the hydraulic yarn machine in the south of the Yangtze River.

(Note: It is also recorded in the "Shuyan Chronicles" written in the Yuan Dynasty that there were already hydraulic spinning wheels in the Dujiangyan area of Chengdu during the Yuan Dynasty, but they were not spinning cotton yarn, but hemp yarn, because cotton was not produced in Sichuan.) Moreover, the Dujiangyan production area is the most stable and popular place for hydraulic spinning wheels, because only here is the water output is very stable regardless of the weather, season, and all year round)

In order to have a higher efficiency than manual spinning, the basic principle of a water-powered spinning machine is to increase the number of spindles, so that a power machine can drag many spindles at the same time and spin in parallel at the same time. Arkwright's early hydraulic machine was to haul 4 sets of spindles, Jenny was to haul 8 groups at the beginning, and Wang Zhen's hydraulic spinning wheel in the Yuan Dynasty was 32 sets.

The Han Dynasty did not widely grow cotton, nor did it use cotton cloth, so the equivalent should be "one power machine drags multiple parallel silk reeling wheels".

The power machine and transmission mechanism are easy to do, anyway, it is the same as the waterwheel of the mill and the forging mill, but it is a lot of twists and turns when the parallel reeling wheel is dragged in the end.

Li Su asked the craftsmen to continue to try production, and only did the parallel drawing, but after the trial run of only a few sets of cocoons, it became chaotic - the most troublesome point of silk reeling than spinning is that after a cocoon is drawn, it is necessary to reconnect the silk head of a new cocoon, and then follow the rolling silk to peel off the cocoon, this process still has to be completed by women by hand, unlike when cotton spinning cotton yarn, a large cotton fiber can be directly rolled up.

"It's no wonder that the steam silk reeling machine appeared nearly a century later than the steam spinning machine, and it was only in the late Qing Dynasty that the Japanese came up with it, which was really a bit troublesome. The female workers found to connect the silk heads of the silkworm cocoons were too late, and the waterwheel reeling was fast, either the thread was broken or missed. If you want to stop and connect the wire, you have to take the trouble of decoupling the transmission of the entire waterwheel to stop. ”

When Guan Yu and Zhuge Jin came, Li Su was troubled by this problem for a long time, and he didn't know how to solve it at all.

Of course, in addition to silk reeling, Li Su has not done anything about brocade, even if the silk reeling is accelerated, the future will definitely face an oversupply of raw silk and a serious shortage of weavers. However, Li Su has not had time to think about these problems for the time being.

……

"Na, that's the case, as long as the silk head is broken, it's too late to pick it up, and the waterwheel has to be decoupled and parked to continue to reel the wire, this loss is too great, I don't bother to fix it."

Li Su wiped his sweat and demonstrated to Zhuge Jin the trial run of a waterwheel reeling silk, and sure enough, it didn't take long for the silk head to break, and the female workers were in a hurry, and soon they couldn't even find the silk head that was twisted on the silk reel.

For the sake of secrecy in the research and development stage, Li Su has not yet allowed to casually find female workers from the people to reel silk, these women are also the maids of the wealthy businessman Zhen family, and they are known for their dexterity in needlework and weaving in the Zhen family. The Zhen family now has a daughter who is a concubine by Liu Bei and Guan Yu, as well as Zhang Fei's wife, who can be regarded as a "relative" of the Yizhou camp. Therefore, Li Su's government-run industrial and commercial innovation did not avoid them, but borrowed people from the Zhen family.

However, Li Su felt very dissatisfied with the result, but in Guan Yu's opinion, he was already very satisfied, and he asked strangely: "What's the big deal?" Female workers don't have time to do it, wouldn't it be nice for you to have a few more female workers responsible for picking up the silk head of the silkworm cocoon?

Now a female worker is in charge of eight silk wheels, and the cocoons on several wheels are almost finished at the same time, of course, it is too late to pick them up. You put two female workers, each in charge of four silk wheels, or three people, and see where there is a gap when the draw is almost finished. ”

Li Su thought for a while and shook his head: "That's still too inefficient, it was not easy to spend so much money to build a waterwheel, which saved the labor of five women, and it took many years to return to the capital." Unless it is enlarged, a car drags thirty or forty silk reeling wheels, which is worthy of this car. ”

Zhuge Jin reminded beside him: "If you don't harvest the silkworm farmers' boiled cocoons, let them pick the silk heads first." When reeling the silk, let the female worker inspect back and forth, see which wheel is almost finished with the current cocoon, and immediately connect the new cocoon to the silk head.

When a female worker is splicing, the female worker in rotation will take it up for inspection. The idea was to ask them to count and pay for their wages, such as taking twenty silk cocoons and giving them a five-baht wage. In this way, the employment can also be reduced to the most economical, and there is no fear of waste. ”

Li Su: "Then how do you count?" ”

Zhuge Jin: "Don't count, before feeding, the supervisors counted a total of dozens of pots and how many cocoons, and there was so much labor in total, and they shared it by themselves." ”

Li Su: "I'm afraid I won't be allowed to share the spoils." ”

Zhuge Jin: "Then a car is given to a family and a big family, so that no matter how many people they have, they are all members of their own family anyway, and it is also a matter within the clan to divide unevenly." ”

Contracted by family?

It seems that this method is indeed the best solution when the "performance appraisal" cannot be implemented and the workload fluctuates. In this way, there is no need to consider "after there are more people, which female workers in charge of the silk reeling wheel will suffer because the cocoons on the silk reeling wheel are relatively small and the wire work is large".

Anyway, it's all a family, and what is good between sisters and mothers and daughters, who loses and who earns.

Li Su thought about it again and again, and felt that Zhuge Jin's "extensive management" method was really suitable for the background of the times.

If you don't know it, don't do it, and do things with a confused account is the most important.

"It seems that I am really not suitable for this kind of cumbersome internal affairs management, so I should tinker with black technology, inspire them, and let them do it themselves."

Li Su was secretly worried in his heart.

Unfortunately, it soon turned out that his request was still not enough to describe his powerlessness by lowering his requirements to such a low level.

Because he can't even "personally drum up black technology", he can't do it completely.

After chatting with Zhuge Jin for a long time about the topic of "the management of the government-run silk reeling workshop", just as the group was about to leave the field and go back to have a good time, a laboratory next door that was always closed suddenly opened, and a young subordinate rushed out of the laboratory in high spirits.

Of course, Li Su couldn't be more familiar with this research institute, he knew that the research room next door was the new machine he asked people to tinker with how to improve the speed of brocade, and that young man's subordinate was Zhuge Liang, who had recently followed his brother to learn the Six Classics and the Hundred Schools of Princes, and was driven back by Gu Yong on the grounds of a bad learning attitude.

But at this moment, Zhuge Liang gave Li Su a good news: "Master, I made the shuttle that you said can be ejected far away by the weft, and it is very stable to use, and it can bounce over a five-foot-wide brocade surface, and then bounce back by the machine." ”

Li Su was directly stunned:? You won't take the IQ of the Zhuge Repeater and make a brocade shuttle for overkill, right? In the era when there were no springs, how did you make a shuttle? Is it a structure that uses animal tendons like a repeater to eject the tendons?

Because you "read and look at the general outline and don't seek to understand", you were driven back by Gu Yong to learn physics with me, and you have only studied for less than a year.

"Alas, sure enough, my engineering talent is not as good as Zhuge Liang. Forget it, I'll take back what I just thought, let's focus on conspiracy and grand strategy. ”

——

PS: Farming is boring, but tomorrow will be fine. Everyone is a little patient. Tomorrow there will be farming, but it will be more fun. I also know that today is a bit boring to catch up with the schedule, in order to stuff more goods.