Walking through the Tuntian District to the Tamsui River, you can see the huge waterwheel group standing by the river in the distance, which is continuously bringing the river waterwheel to the canal on the bank, there is one every few hundred meters, up to ten meters, very spectacular. The waterwheel Zeng Qisheng is no stranger, it is a sharp tool for farmland irrigation, but few officials are willing to spend so much effort to help the people build waterwheels, Guo Zhiyuan built so many waterwheels at one time shows that he really cares about the people's livelihood and cares about the people.

However, what makes Zeng Qisheng feel strange is that in addition to the waterwheel, there are also many long rows of factories built by the river, people in this era generally rarely build houses by the river, because of the imperfection of water conservancy facilities, it is common for the river to flood in the rainy season, so the people of this era did not pursue the leisure and elegance of the river-view house, and built the house by the river, and it was washed into the river to feed the fish if it was not good. What is the purpose of that long row of brick houses by the river? ”

"Oh, that's a weaving workshop, let's go and have a look!" Guo Zhiyuan smiled slightly.

The textile industry of the Ming Dynasty is relatively developed, there are textile workshops in various places, which has also given birth to a large number of textile workers who specialize in the textile industry and make a living from it, especially in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions where the textile industry is developed, the large textile workshops employ as many as 1,000 textile workers, which can already be regarded as the emergence of the textile industry sprout, even if the textile industry is not so developed in Hunan, there are also people who use the agricultural slack season to weave some homespun cloth at home and sell it to supplement the family. It's just that this made Zeng Qisheng even more puzzled, why did Guo Zhiyuan build a textile workshop by the river?

Walking into the workshop, I saw a large group of people arguing passionately around a strange-looking machine, one of them was Zhao Shizhen, Zhao Shizhen also participated in the banquet yesterday, Guo Zhiyuan also solemnly introduced Zeng Qisheng, so Zeng Qisheng also knew and knew that Zhao Shizhen had a very high status in Guo Zhiyuan's team, and he could almost be on a par with Xu Guangqi.

Zeng Qisheng became more and more puzzled, Zhao Shizhen is so valued by Guo Zhiyuan, it is said that there must be a lot of things to take care of, how can he still have the leisure to argue with others here?

Zhao Shizhen was overjoyed when he saw Guo Zhiyuan's arrival, ran over and dragged Guo Zhiyuan to the strange-looking machine, and said hurriedly: "My lord, you came just in time, we have already made the water-powered spinning machine you said, it is really labor-saving, but the strength of this water wheel is not easy to control, when it is big and sometimes small, the cotton yarn is easy to break......"

Guo Zhiyuan is actually a half-puller, the drawings of this water-powered spinning machine are still the drawings of the water-powered spinning machine that he saw before he traveled through the forum and saw an analysis post about why Britain could rise rapidly after the first industrial revolution, which mentioned the water-powered spinning machine, Guo Zhiyuan only knew that the emergence of the steam engine was a key invention that made Britain leap from the handicraft era to the machine industry era, but in that post he put forward a new point of view, that the emergence of the water-powered spinning machine and the steam engine are as epoch-making as epoch-making It is precisely because of the invention of the hydraulic loom that people saw the opportunity to replace manpower with external forces to greatly improve production efficiency, and the later invention of the steam engine will occur.

Guo Zhiyuan can't get the steam engine now, but the post that impressed Guo Zhiyuan happened to have drawings of the water-powered spinning machine, Guo Zhiyuan drew it with his impression and handed it to Zhao Shizhen to tinker, I didn't expect Zhao Shizhen to drum it out so quickly, but this kind of technical problem involving details, Guo Zhiyuan was also a little blind, and it was not good for Zhao Shizhen to expose the bottom of his half bucket of water, touched his chin and thought for a long time, and then said with some uncertainty: "Mr. Zhao may try to add a few sets of pulleys to control the transmission of the strength of the water wheel......"

Zhao Shizhen's eyes lit up, he patted his forehead, and then stopped paying attention to Guo Zhiyuan, and pulled a few craftsmen to discuss how to add pulleys to the water-powered spinning machine to control the water-powered transmission.

Guo Zhiyuan also knew Zhao Shizhen's character, so he didn't care, and turned his head to Zeng Qisheng, who was still confused, and introduced: "Mr. Zeng, this is a water-powered spinning machine invented by Mr. Zhao, the principle is to replace manpower with water, if successful, it can drive more than 100 spindles at a time, which can not only save manpower, but also greatly improve the speed of spinning......"

Zeng Qisheng has seen the spinning machine, the spinning technology of the Ming Dynasty is mainly inherited from Huang Daopo (note: the famous cotton weaver in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty, because of its historical contribution to the promotion of textile technology and textile tools, is respected as the ancestor of the textile industry), Huang Daopo's original spinning machine is three spindles, and some spinning wheels can reach up to five spindles after improvement, but because it is a transverse yarn machine, it is basically based on four spindles.

Here it is necessary to mention that readers are more familiar with the Jenny spinning machine, the Jenny spinning machine is considered to be an epoch-making invention in the textile industry, and its principle is to change the spindle from horizontal arrangement to vertical arrangement, so that the spinning machine can drive more spindles, and the production efficiency is greatly improved. Even many authors of historical travel novels like to show off Jenny's spinning machine when they help the protagonist open the hanging, but rarely mention the water-powered spinning machine.

This is mainly because the water-powered spinning machine has certain limitations, one is that the volume is too large and not suitable for home use, and the other is because the water-powered spinning machine uses river water, which cannot be used once the weather is dry and the river is exhausted. But in fact, when it comes to the effect of improving production efficiency, the water-powered spinning machine is far more than the Jenny spinning machine, and the production efficiency of the Jenny spinning machine is about eight times, and the water-powered spinning machine can drive more than 100 spindles at a time, and its improved production efficiency has reached 40 times, which is really a qualitative leap!

As for the limitations of the water-powered textile car, it does not exist for Dongfan, Guo Zhiyuan originally wanted to break the traditional workshop-style production mode and change to centralized factory production, thus giving birth to the germination of modern industry, and Dongfan is rich in water resources, and there is no situation where the rivers are exhausted in the dry season.

Although Zeng Qisheng is not a textile expert, but he understands what the emergence of the water-powered spinning machine means, the water-powered spinning machine can increase the efficiency of spinning by forty times, which means that Dongfan can greatly reduce the cost of weaving, a cotton cloth in the Ming Dynasty costs about 3 yuan silver, so many poor people can not afford to buy clothes, and the people who are frozen to death because of the thin clothes abound, if the price of cotton cloth can be reduced, so that the people can afford to buy clothes, I don't know how many lives to save!