(Today's fourth shift is completed...... Tired like a dog sticking out his tongue, book a referral ticket for next Monday)

On the first day of September in the autumn of the fourth year of Jiading in the Great Song Dynasty, Zhao Yong rode a mule, followed by five carts, like an arrow.

He had never walked such a long way before, from Shaoxing to Susong, hundreds of miles, and he could not count the number of times he changed boats and cars along the way. Judging from the distance alone, this was originally a very long distance, but because things did not go well, it took him nearly two months.

Therefore, when he looked at Yuzhang Villa from afar, he felt like he was home. Consciously going out, he saw some of the world, and was no longer the frizzy boy who followed his father like before, so he hid this feeling in the depths of his heart, and urged the mule with his head held high.

Compared with when he left, Yuzhang Villa has changed again, first of all, there are two more rows of mud houses where tenants live on the gentle slope of the mountainside, although it has not yet reached the top, but it should be able to live in a few days. Then a new mill was built on the mountain stream that flowed outside Yuzhang Villa – a second mill was built only when Zhao Yong left.

When they arrived at the gate of the villa, the guards were not Zhao Ziyue and Li Ye, but other domestic servants. Zhao Yong was a little surprised, and asked casually: "What about Zhao Ziyue and Li Ye?" ”

"Follow Da Lang." The new disciple said jealously: "Zhao Zi said that he is getting ahead now, and even with that Li Ye, he has returned to Yixue. ”

In the past two months, Zhao Ziyue and Li Ye not only did not miss the door, but also studied hard without sleep and food. Zhao Zi said that although he was older, he was able to get the upper middle in the latest Yixue exam, and Li Ye was also taken by him to study with him, and he did not drop his studies.

The efforts of both of them were seen by Xiao Cui, Xiao Cui looked for an opportunity to tell Zhao and Ju, Zhao and Ju personally took the school exam, and after confirming it, they kept them by their side, Zhao Zi said that he was a follower, and Li Ye was a scholar.

"Da Lang is at home?" Zhao Yong had something in his heart, so he didn't ask about the situation of the two of them, but asked about Zhao and Julai.

"Not at home, went to the mountains." The gatekeeper pointed to the back mountain and smiled: "Da Lang is going to install the water turbine again, if you are in a hurry, go there." ”

Zhao Yong scratched his head: "This can't be done...... You call a few people out, there is iron in the car that Da Lang wants me to buy, and I will move it back to the yard first! ”

"What did Da Lang do when he bought these five carts of iron!" The gatekeeper was taken aback and hurried back to call someone.

In the Song Dynasty, people couldn't help selling iron, so collecting a large amount of iron materials would not arouse the suspicion of the government, but ordinary people, where to use so much iron, put it at home for a long time, and it was a waste if it was rusted.

After getting off the iron, Zhao and Ju still did not come back, Zhao Yong sent the hired cart, and seeing that it was still early, he went up the mountain road to find it.

When he arrived, he happened to hear a series of exclamations, and when he looked around, he saw the carpenter Fang Youcai surrounded by the crowd, his face flushed and his eyebrows fluttering.

After receiving Zhao and Ju's drawings for several days, Fang Carpenter almost never slept peacefully, and every day when he opened his eyes, he was studying the drawings that Zhao and Ju took out, and when he closed his eyes, he thought about the things drawn on the drawings.

The parts on this drawing can be made in this era, taking the water wheel as a power as an example, in fact, more than 100 years later, in the Yuan Dynasty, it appeared on the rivers and streams of China. In the Book of Agriculture, Wang Zhen of the Yuan Dynasty has a detailed record of the large spinning wheel pulled by this water wheel, but the use of the same kind by Europeans was not until nearly 400 years later, when the Englishman Thomas Longber established the first water-powered silk reeling factory in Britain in 1719. However, Zhao and Ju combined the physical principles of later generations to improve this large water wheel, so that it can make better use of water energy, and the rotation speed is more uniform.

As for the rest of the parts, they are more famous in history, and these four parts, together with the iron parts cast by Eulogen and his sons, are the improved mule machine that sparked the English sheep cannibalism movement (Note 2)! However, the mule machine is suitable for weaving wool, and it is suitable for spinning silk after being improved by later generations.

Because of the importance of this machine, Zhao and Ju took great pains to keep it secret, and in addition to dividing the main parts into iron and wood, which were made by Ou Laogen and Fang Youcai, respectively, he also secretly entrusted some of the other parts to the potter—this is what Hu Fulang said in his message.

Even so, he is still not very relieved, according to his observation, although Ou Laogen is the most distant from the Zhao family among the three people, he is the most reassuring one, Rao is so, he still pays attention to the actions of Ou Laogen's third son Ou Bama, in a sense, Ou Bama in the Yixue he ran became a hostage. The same is true for the wealthy children of the resettlement party, on the one hand, with the generous payment of the wealthy heart, and on the other hand, it is also to put the children under their own control. It's just that Ou Laogen and Fang Youcai have little knowledge, and they can't see through the deep meaning in his heart, but they are grateful for his placement.

It was under this kind of gratitude that Fang Youcai devoted himself to the new task assigned by Zhao Heju with unprecedented enthusiasm. It took more than 20 days of hard work, and after dozens of failed calculations, he finally created something that completely conformed to the dimensions specified by Zhao and Ju. After reporting to Zhao and Ju, it happened that Hu Fulang also personally transported the pottery that Zhao and Ju wanted back to Yuzhang Villa, and Zhao and Ju were anxious, so they gathered people and horses to the fourth dam.

The dam had already been built into a wooden shed with a roof but no four walls, and it took Zhao and Ju two days to direct the carpenter and the weavers to put all the parts together. Seeing that the water wheel began to idle with the reeling car, everyone was happy with the color, but the reeling was not grinding, and whether it could be made or not depends on whether the reeling car could make good raw silk. Therefore, including Zhao and Ju, everyone's hearts are still a little uneasy.

At the behest of Zhao and Ju, a weaver began to raise a fire, and in this boiler made of pig iron by Ou Laogen and his sons, the flames were blazing, boiling the water into steam, and then passing it through a clay pipe to the clay kettle at the other end. This pottery kettle is the silk kettle, and the cocoons are cooked in it, because it is heated by steam, so the temperature can be constant, unlike the old silk kettle, because the temperature is uncertain and often destroys the cocoons.

Another weaver looks for the silk mouth on the boiled cocoon, attaches a wooden silk reel, and then flips the switch of the reeling car, and the water wheel drives the axis of the moment to rotate the silk and roll the silk onto the finished product (Note 3). When the raw silk came out, everyone held their breath and stared, for fear that a larger breath would blow the silk thread off. For a moment, only the creaking of the gears of the reeling car reeled in the wooden shed. After rolling for a while, the weaver flipped the reeling switch again, the water wheel began to spin, the reeling stopped, and he carefully removed the silk and put it in the sunlight to examine it carefully.

"The thickness is uniform, the color is clean, and it is the best raw silk!" After a few closer looks, he couldn't wait to announce.

Then, it was the scene that Zhao Yong saw.

Note 1: Luo Yuan: "Luo Ezhou Small Collection" Volume 5 "Ezhou Arrival Five Things": "Hiring a person as a maid is limited to ten years, and those who are transferred within the limit should be counted in terms of years and prices. ”

Note 2: The mule machine is the product of Crompton's improvement and combination of the Aclay hydraulic spinning machine and the "Jenny" spinning machine invented by Hargreaves in 1779, creating the era of large machines in the British textile industry.

Note 3: The relevant machinery refers to the machine yarn car designed by Chen Qiyuan in 1873 in modern times and modified by Chen Liantai Machinery Store in Guangzhou, but the manpower is changed to hydropower. The specific operation steps also refer to the relevant records of the Jichanglong Silk Reeling Factory run by Chen Qiyuan. Here, I would like to pay tribute to Chen Qiyuan and other Chinese wise men.