Huo Renfu interrupted Liu Min's words: "I know about this, sister, you teach your mother to cook here, I'll go home and get rice right away!" ”

Grandpa Huo walked out of the door, walked a few steps and retreated, Xiang said in front of Liu Er: "Liu Er, don't you join here, okay!" Follow me to the rice paddies to irrigate! ”

Liu Er glanced at Huo Renfu, did not dare to disobey his "order", and walked out after him.

Huo Renfu is Liu Er's benefactor, if it weren't for Huo Renfu; Liu Er, who is a bad chicken, is probably long gone.

When Liu Er was in his twenties, it was Huo Renfu who introduced Liu Minniang, who was wandering in the cypress forest, to him as his wife, although Liu Minniang took the ignorant Liu Min; But Liu Er's heart had already blossomed.

A bachelor like Liu Er can marry such a beautiful lady as Liu Min's mother; I always wake up laughing when I sleep at night.

Liu Min's mother took Liu Min into Liu Er's house, and a vibrant atmosphere immediately appeared in the lifeless courtyard.

Liu Min's mother is not only beautiful, but also a diligent and capable woman; It was she who brought the cotton spinning technology to Cypress Village.

After Liu Minniang married Liu Er, Liu Er's laziness quickly converged; Liu Minniang asked him to go out to buy cotton, saying that she wanted to spin cotton and weave cloth at home to earn money.

There was no cotton in Shu at that time, and the origin of cotton was India and Arabia; Before cotton was introduced to the eastern soil, there was kapok in China that could be used to fill pillows, but there was no cotton that could be weaved.

Before the Song Dynasty, Huaxia only had the word "cotton" next to the silk, and there was no word "cotton" next to the wood.

The word "cotton" began to appear from the Book of Song, which shows that the introduction of cotton was in the Northern and Southern Dynasties at the latest; But it is mostly cultivated on the frontier.

When a large number of cotton was introduced into the interior at the beginning of the Song Dynasty and in the north of the Qinling Mountains, the record of cotton introduced into China is as follows: "The first spread was planted in China, Guanshan, Fujian, and Guangzhou, and the first to obtain its benefits. ”

It means that cotton cultivation in the early Song Dynasty was only in Guanzhong, Guangdong, and Fujian in Shaanxi, and Liu Minniang's ability to spin cotton may be a person from Guanshan, Guangdong, and Fujian.

Liu Min's mother asked Liu Er to go out to buy cotton, and said that she could buy it by crossing the high mountain north of the cypress forest.

After Liu Er listened to Liu Min's mother's instructions, the second monk was confused; He had not heard of such a plant as cotton; So I went to ask Huo Renfu.

Huo Renfu was also dumbfounded when he heard Liu Er say this; Because he has not heard the word cotton either.

Huo Renfu and Liu Er were chattering in the Huojia tavern, and Liu Minniang came in person; Holding a sketch he had drawn in his hand, he handed it to Huo Renfu and said, "Brother Huo, this is a spinning wheel sketch; Can you find a carpenter to build a spinning wheel for the slaves? ”

Huo Renfu is a well-informed person, he has never heard of cotton, but he has seen the spinning wheel as a textile tool for a long time.

Because the silk reeling people of Shu Jinfang in Chengdu often spin silk with spinning wheels.

Huo Renfu still knows something about spinning wheels, and the spinning wheels sketched by Liu Minniang are the most primitive hand-spinning wheels.

The spinning wheel twisting and spinning operation of the hand spinning wheel is carried out intermittently, and the twisting is carried out first with the rotational inertia of the spinning wheel; The twisted yarn is then wound around another shaft.

This mode of operation is less efficient, and secondly, it is difficult to control the rotation speed of the spinning wheel; Spun yarns tend to have different degrees of twisting.

The image of a hand-cranked spinning wheel has appeared on the silk paintings unearthed from the Han tomb in Linyi, Shandong, which indicates that the spinning wheel was very popular by the Han Dynasty at the latest.

The original spinning wheel was hand-cranked, consisting mainly of a large wheel and a small ingot.

Usually, the diameter of the runner is dozens of times the diameter of the spindle, and the two are connected by ropes or belts.

The crank is located in the center of the large runner, and the large wheel starts to rotate when the shaker is turned.

Due to the difference between the diameter of the runner and the spindle by dozens of times, the spindle will rotate dozens of times when the runner rotates for one week; The spindle here is equivalent to the ancient spinning wheel, which fixes several fibers at one end of its axial direction, and as the spindle rotates, it can be automatically twisted.

Since the number of turns of the spindle is determined by the angle of rotation of the large wheel, the number of twists can also be precisely controlled by the operator.

In addition, after twisting, just remove the yarn and stick it on the side of the spindle; As the big wheel rotates, the yarn will automatically wind around the spindle with the rotation of the spindle; This enables continuous twisting and winding operations.

The original spinning wheels could only be cranked with one hand and spun with the other, and one person could usually only operate one spindle.

Later, people invented the pedal spinning wheel, which replaced the hand-crank with a foot pedal; With both hands free, one person can operate multiple spindles at the same time.

With the progress of science and technology, people have improved the driving mode of spinning wheels, and replaced manpower with water energy; At the same time, the unwinding and twisting method is adopted to realize the fully automatic operation of winding while twisting, and the production efficiency is greatly improved.

Huo Renfu handed over the sketch of the hand-cranked spinning wheel to Liu Minniang and read it a few times, and said without hesitation: "There is this kind of spinning wheel in Chengdu Shu Jinfang, and Huo Mou quickly got one back!" ”

Huo Renfu said with laughter: "Since the eldest sister is familiar with the skills of cotton herding, why don't you teach the women in the cypress forest the skills?" ”

"It's not that hard!" Liu Minniang said confidently, looked at Liu Er and then at Huo Renfu and said: "Only Liu Er bought the cotton back, Brother Huo got the spinning wheel back, and the slave family asked the woman to spin the thread in the village!" ”

Huo Renfu quickly got a spinning wheel from Chengdu Shu Jinfang, and asked Chen Carpenter of Donkey Head Weir to build a few as they were; Four or five spinning wheels appeared in the cypress grove, and the problem was that the cotton had not yet been obtained.

Huo Renfu inquired about Liu Min's mother in detail, and then he and Liu Er, Buffalo, Ba Si, and Xu Hu crossed the Qinling Mountains with sticks and came to Qiyang County in the Guanzhong Plain.

Qiyang County is the birthplace of the Zhou Dynasty, the ancestor of the Zhou Dynasty, Gu Gong's father, led the men, women and children of the whole clan to migrate from Bin County to Zhou Yuan at the foot of Qishan Mountain; See that the land here is fertile and flat; He made his home here.

And Qin Mugong, the ancestor of Qin Shi Huang, also became one of the five hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period in Zhouyuan, and the Qin State passed through the Shang Dynasty reform of Qin Xiaogong; The national strength is strong, and the grand blueprint for the unification of China has been completed.

Cotton is really grown in this place in Qiyang County, Huo Renfu asked a few elders; They say they've been growing cotton here for generations.

Huo Renfu was surprised, and thought that Qiyang County and Huayang County were separated by a Qinling Mountains; The difference between the north and the south is so great, cotton has been grown here for several generations, and the people of Shu still don't know what cotton is.

Just like Li Bing's father and son when King Qin Hui built Dujiangyan on the Chengdu Plain, the civilization and advanced of the Guanzhong region are not on the same level as the Chengdu Mansion.

Huo Renfu 5 people bargained in Qianqiyang County, each bought 100 catties of cotton, and picked them back to the cypress forest with sticks, and Liu Minniang's cotton spinning and teaching bull project began.

The cotton spinning art project was carried out in the main square of Jixian Temple, and the Jingxu master of Xiangyun Nunnery brought more than a dozen nuns to participate in the study.

Liu Minniang personally asked Liu Er, Huo Renfu, Huo Buffalo, Ba Si, and Xu Hu to organize people to pick out the cotton seeds in the cotton.

At that time, there was no flower machine, and it was necessary to get out the seeds contained in cotton; It can only be picked by hand......