After entering the early spring, the ice and snow in Guanzhong begin to thaw, the river rises, the wheat fields drill out of the tender green wheat seedlings, and the endless fields can see busy farmers everywhere.

On this morning, Guo Song took a large group of officials to the Xinfeng County Playing River, the water river is relatively short, only about 100 miles, injected into Weishui, but the characteristics of this river is that the water flow is turbulent, especially suitable for using the drum car to lift water for irrigation, do not need to manually step on the water wheel, directly use the water flow to move the cylinder car, there are at least dozens of cylinder cars on a river.

But Guo Song led the officials to visit here, not to inspect the cylinder car, but to inspect the new hydraulic cotton gin, under the encouragement of Guo Song, the capital of the Guanlong nobles was invested in the Western Regions, mainly involving cotton planting and promotion, and the sweet tea industry was also in the plan of the Guanlong nobles.

In the huge cotton industry chain, the Hou Mochen family chose the two intermediate steps of ginning and spinning, and the spinning thread has not yet become a climate, but with the large-scale promotion of long-staple cotton of the Dugu family this year, spinning will become a major industry sooner or later.

The reason why Guo Song was interested was that the Hou Mochen family used water power to drive cotton gins, which would greatly reduce the cost of cotton production.

Along the river there were a dense number of carts, one after the other, but they were either water-lifting carts or water-powered wooden runners, and in front of them there were rows of wooden houses, dozens of them as far as the eye could see, and several huge warehouses.

At this time, the head of the family, Hou Mo Chensen, had already led more than a dozen clansmen to wait on the side of the road.

"See His Royal Highness the King of Jin!" Hou Mo Chen Sen stepped forward and saluted.

Guo Song smiled slightly: "I have long wanted to come to see your family's hydraulic cotton gin, but I haven't made the trip because of the ice in winter, I don't know if I use it now?" ”

"It's already been used, Your Highness, please come with me."

Guo Song turned over and dismounted, gave the reins to the soldiers, turned back to the ministers and smiled: "Everyone walk over!" ”

Everyone got off the horse and followed Guo Song into the wall, Guo Song came to the waterwheel to take a closer look, he immediately understood the principle of the hydraulic cotton gin, the waterwheel was inlaid with a very long iron shaft, the waterwheel rotated to drive the iron shaft to rotate, and the other end was directly connected to the cotton gin.

Hou Mo Chen Sen introduced with a smile on the side: "Originally, wooden sticks were used, but the wooden sticks were not strong, and they had to be replaced for a month at most. ”

Guo Song nodded, "I saw a hole in the iron rod." ”

"Yes, this kind of iron rod should be specially customized, and it should be kept in the eyes when casting, so that it can be fixed with the wood."

Guo Song said with a smile: "Another way is to make the iron rod head into a square shape, and the bayonet is also made into a square shape, so that it will be fixed when it is put in, of course, it is better to keep an eye and add an iron bolt." ”

Guo Song followed Hou Mo Chen Sen into the house again, and sure enough, it was the same as he thought, the room was a large cotton gin, thirteen copper rods with the thickness of an arm, and the largest copper rod in the middle was directly connected to the iron shaft that probed outside.

A man stood on a wooden frame and threw the cotton peaches evenly on it, and the cotton peaches were rolled into the iron cabinet below, and the cotton seeds were squeezed out and fell into the large basket along the wooden trough.

"Not bad!"

Guo Song praised and asked, "How many catties of cotton can be rolled in a day?" ”

Hou Mo Chen Sen said with a smile: "About 300 catties a day, 20 cotton gins start together, 6,000 catties a day, the problem now is that there are not so many cotton peaches, maybe after the large-scale planting of cotton, it will be busy here." ”

Guo Song nodded, and smiled at the officials around him: "Let's brainstorm, what else can be done by using water power, I will throw bricks and lead the jade, you can use water power to grind wheat, everyone will talk about it." ”

Pan Liao said with a smile: "Since it is okay to grind wheat, then it should be possible to grind soybean milk, extract oil, and scoop rice, I remember that there was one in the Han Dynasty, and the water mill was used to scoop rice." ”

Zhang Qianyi said: "You can study ink for me!" ”

Everyone laughed, Du You said: "In fact, the use of water power has existed since ancient times, as long as it involves grinding, grinding, and grinding, you can use water power, such as paper to stir pulp, sugar to stir, rice milling, rice, sieve surface." ”

Hou Mo Chen Sen's heart moved, and he hurriedly said: "Can you use water power to spin thread?" ”

Guo Song smiled: "This idea is good, how did the head of the Hou Mo Chen family come up with it?" ”

"Our family has a spinning mill, employing two hundred people, a spinning wheel generally only has two to three spindles, a large spinning wheel only has five spindles, and a day can spin up to three catties of fine twine, if the spinning wheel is bigger, the manpower is not enough, but water power can, we can build a very large spinning wheel, using water power to drive, maybe at the same time can drive dozens of spindles."

Guo Song gave a thumbs up and said: "If your hydraulic spinning wheel is successfully developed, I will promote you to the prince of the country!" ”

Hou Mo Chen Sen is currently hereditary Duke of Longquan County, according to the current situation, it is hopeless for their family to ascend to the Duke of the Kingdom, but the King of Jin suddenly gave him a chance, he was suddenly so excited that his face was flushed, and he hurriedly said: "I will definitely develop a water-powered spinning wheel as soon as possible to live up to the expectations of His Royal Highness the King of Jin." ”

Guo Song nodded and said to everyone: "Today's trip is not in vain, let us know that we can not only use animal power, but also use many forces of nature, such as water power can be used, wind power can not be used, and coal burning will gradually replace wood, these things not only need to be explored by the people, but also need to be developed and promoted by the government, and we must make full use of the research results of Taixue, I hope that the Counsellor's Hall can formulate a long-term plan to promote it from all aspects." ”

..........

On the way back from Xinfeng County, Guo Song asked Du Isolated Qiu to come, and after a short time, Lonely Autumn urged him to step forward and walk side by side with Guo Song.

Dugu Qiu asked in a low voice, "Your Highness, how is the situation with Broken Leaves?" ”

Guo Song shook his head, "Now that the news over there is cut off, the Shi family has built a news point in Broken Leaves, which has also been destroyed, and the life and death of the family are unknown, Guo Jinwen, the governor of Anxi, has sent someone to inquire about the news, and there is no reply yet, except to wait, there is no other way for the time being." ”

Du Gu Qiu sighed slightly, and asked again, "Your Highness has something to do with me?" ”

Guo Song smiled and said: "Actually, there is nothing wrong, I just want to ask you about the beets, the first batch of beets has arrived!" ”

After the first batch of sugar beets planted in Beiting was harvested last year, all of them were purchased by the Dugu family at a high price, and they were first transported to Lanzhou, but as the Yellow River froze, a large number of sugar beets did not have time to be transported back to Chang'an.

The sugar boiling method was passed from Tianzhu to the Tang Dynasty a hundred years ago, and the white frost sugar boiled with sugarcane has appeared, but the price is extremely expensive, and it has always been dedicated to the powerful, and it is basically not seen in the Chang'an market at present, mainly in Chengdu and Luoyang, where it can be sold at a good price.

The main reason is that sugarcane is inconvenient to transport from the Lingnan area, and the scarcity of raw materials leads to a small production of frosted sugar, and the natural price is high.

Before the appearance of white sugar and brown sugar, sweeteners have always been made of maltose and honey, but the taste is not as pure as brown sugar and white sugar.

Dugu Qiu nodded: "The first batch has arrived a few days ago, transported by camel, 30,000 catties, the Yellow River is now Lingxun, and it will not be officially navigable until the end of the month, so first transport a batch to boil and try to see how the quality is?" ”

"Have you started boiling?" Guo Song asked again.

"I started boiling today, and I specially asked Wu Yingtai, the old head of the Wu family, to boil the first pot of sugar for me."

"Is this Wu family famous?"

Dugu Qiu smiled slightly: "They are a family of boiling sugar, the inheritance has been almost a hundred years, in the past, the frosting sugar in the palace was boiled by their family, and now the famous sugar boiling masters in Luoyang are the disciples and grandchildren of the Wu family, Wu Yingtai can boil rock sugar, and Emperor Daizong is full of praise for him." ”

Guo Song was immediately interested, boiling sugar must be of very high purity before rock sugar appears, it seems that this family of boiling sugar does have the ability.

"Actually, I think we can build a sugar boiling workshop in Beiting, first boil beets into jaber, and then transport them back to Chang'an for refining."

Dugu Qiu smiled and nodded, "I also think so, in fact, not only beets, I also consider building a large-scale sugar boiling workshop in Lingnan, first boiling jaggery sugar, and then shipping to Yangzhou, and then shipping from Yangzhou to exchange it." ”

Guo Song shook his head and said: "This transportation process is too long, last time I suggested that you introduce sugar beets into Fengzhou for planting in large quantities, have you considered it?" ”

"Back to His Royal Highness, we have started to implement it last year, and we have planted a thousand acres on a trial basis, but it takes two years for sugar beets to grow, and if Fengzhou is successfully planted, we can also boil sugar juice like Beiting, so we can promote it, and this process will take at least five or six years, so in recent years, it is still dominated by Beiting's sugar beets."

Guo Song smiled and nodded, "I'm just asking, what to do, you decide for yourself, I won't interfere." ”

Dugu Qiu said with a smile: "Actually, His Royal Highness is reasonable, it is indeed too far away, if it weren't for the Dugu family and the Dou family's involvement in the shipbuilding industry, we wouldn't have thought of going to Lingnan to establish a sugar mill." ”

"Shipbuilding has begun?" Guo Song was slightly stunned.

Dugu shook his head, "Not yet, it's still in the process of selecting a site." ”

"Still in the field? This progress is too slow, we need to speed up! ”

Dugu Qiu smiled bitterly and said: "The mouth of the river is too remote, there is no wharf, the former shipyard has been abandoned for a hundred years, and there are no craftsmen to recruit, so we thought twice and decided not to build ships over there." ”

"And then? Where did you decide to build a ship? Guo Song asked.

"We considered building a shipyard near the mouth of the Zhanghe River, which has a good foundation for shipbuilding, and a harbor that does not freeze in winter, and in addition, we considered that shipbuilding takes too long, and it will take several years to build a 3,000-stone sea ship alone, and it will take at least ten years to build a 3,000-stone sea ship, so I consider buying a batch of sea ships first."

This news lifted Guo Song's spirits, and he hurriedly asked, "Is there an eyebrow to buy a ship?" ”

"There's an eyebrow! A well-known maritime merchant in Yangzhou wants to sell ten sea vessels, all of which are 8,000 stone sea vessels, and we have already sent them to contact us. ”

"But Yangzhou Liu Dongshang's family?"

Du Guqiu nodded, "It's the Liu family's ship, their family has been engaged in maritime trade for decades, and there are hundreds of ships in the sea, it is said that they were targeted by Zhu Zhu, and their family began to disperse their assets, and it was forced to sell the ship." ”

Guo Song thought for a while and said, "Who went to Yangzhou to contact the Liu family?" ”

"Dou Yang, the nephew of the dog Mingli and Dou Yi."

"Can you reach them?"

"It should work."

"You let them go to Yangzhou Gaosheng Inn, there will be my latest instructions there, and I will write a handwritten letter to the Liu family."