The Languedoc in April is sunny and windy.

Mo Ming led a few retinues to gallop across the rural plains of southern France. As one of the most prestigious wine regions in the whole of France, Montpellier's country dirt roads are lined with vineyards as far as the eye can see.

As a result of the war with Spain, there were far fewer industrious farmers working tirelessly in the fields, and French cavalry dressed in a variety of clothes could be encountered everywhere in the countryside. Mo Ming has noticed a few times, the faces of these French cavalrymen are generally very relaxed, and you can't even see a little nervous look before the big battle.

This is to blame for this strange war. The elite Flemish legions of Spain fought the French in North France, while the Spanish army in Roussilon fought a sit-down war with the French in South France. It is no wonder that Spain's elite troops are all in the north, and the country has been lacking a strong standing army due to financial difficulties, so when France declared war on Spain, Spain itself had to temporarily recruit troops to deal with it. The morale and combat effectiveness of the troops that have been temporarily recruited in this way are naturally quite suspicious.

In this way, it is not difficult to understand the strange situation between the two armies in the south of France. Of course, there are no big wars, and there are still a few small wars from time to time. Mo Ming and a group of agents from the Intelligence Bureau had encountered the Spanish cavalry who had come to fight the autumn wind several times, but they had avoided them in time.

Avoiding a frightened French peasant girl like a fawn on the side of the road, Mo Ming, dressed in a hunting suit, skillfully pulled her horse to a halt and looked up at a dhow moored on the sea not far away, which was already the dock of Montpellier.

"Mo. It's already at the port. Frank, also dressed in a hunting suit, stood by the dock. looked at Mo Ming with a smile.

Frank. Reyer was the youngest son of Baron Reyer of Toulouse. I'm just twenty years old this year. Without family succession, he, like the second sons of many aristocratic families, was sent to study theology with a local bishop, but this lively and active fellow showed not even the slightest interest in the dull theology, much to his father's dismay.

When Mo Ming arrived in Toulouse in April through the Pasquier family, Frank, who was in charge of the reception, hit it off with Mo Ming. Mo Ming, who was born in the Intelligence Bureau, is not too handy in dealing with this kind of fledgling aristocratic young man, the two talked about astronomy from theology to astronomy, and from astronomy to the New World, Mo Ming's profound knowledge and good conversation made this aristocratic young man greatly appreciate. It's not. Knowing that Mo Ming wanted to go to Italy, Frank, who was bored, suddenly stood up and expressed his willingness to go together.

Mo Ming was naturally unwilling, because there were many things that could not be done with a drag oil bottle by his side. However, considering that Frank's mother is from an aristocratic family in Tuscany, and he obviously has a lot of connections over there, after weighing the pros and cons, Mo Ming feels that it will be more convenient to bring this guy with him.

By the way, Mo Ming's trip to Italy via Toulouse and Montpellier this time was a plan made at the end of last year. At that time, Mo Ming, who returned to the General Directorate of National Intelligence to report on his work, received an order from Director Jiao Tang: to conduct a staff trip to several provinces and regions in southern France and the Lombardy region to collect and record local social, economic, political, military and other information, and at the same time pay attention to recruiting local skilled craftsmen or scientists. Try to find a way to get these people to settle on the East Coast.

If this matter is done well, there are many benefits, one is that it can enhance the technical and scientific research strength of the East Coast. Second, it can weaken Europe's technical and scientific research strength, and there is no reason why the East Coast Republic should not do it.

Of course, Mo Ming's visit to these areas also bears the heavy trust of the Ministry of Trade. After handing over Hugo to Baron Rayer of Toulouse, the Republic of the East Coast succeeded in establishing a relationship with the baron of Haute-Gallen, and after some close operation, after ceding a lot of profit margins, the East Coast finally got its wish to enter the two provinces of Haute-Gal and Languedoc.

Of the 30,000 pieces of cotton cloth that arrived with the ship, 10,000 were shipped to Toulouse for sale. Not surprisingly, cheap and high-quality East Coast cloth swept across Toulouse and sold out in a short period of time, driving the rough and expensive local cotton cloth out of the market.

Cloth merchants from all over Haute Gallen, Languedoc and even Provence rushed to Toulouse to buy the legendary East Coast cloth wholesale, but the quantity was limited. Such a hot sales situation naturally made Mo Ming and others happy, and secretly muttered in their hearts that the production capacity of 200,000 horses after the expansion of Ping An Machine Weaving Factory this year is still conservative. Looking at the current situation, it is not a problem to sell five or six hundred thousand horses a year.

These are all later words, and now Mo Ming's priority is to go to Italy. According to the plan of the National Intelligence Agency, Mo Ming will go to Florence to see if he can contact Galileo, who is currently under house arrest. Galileo Galilei was a scientific giant in this era, and he is now being convicted and placed under house arrest by the Holy See for defending Copernicus's heliocentric theory in his book "Dialogue on the Dialogue between Ptolemy and Copernicus".

The poor scientist is 72 years old this year, frail and sickly, and suffers from severe cataracts. Pope Urban VIII hated him for deceiving himself (1) and repeatedly refused Galileo's requests to go out for medical treatment. And the next year, in 1637, Galileo's eyes were completely blind due to cataracts.

According to the recollections of the "historian" Gaumore, the Holy See's supervision of Galileo has been very loose in the past two years, and many people have been allowed to visit Galileo in his house or discuss academic issues with him, including Galileo's early student Castelli's secretary Torricali. Torricelli was only 28 years old at this time, and had already been introduced to Galileo by Castelli as an assistant, and was very much valued by Galileo. And he is obviously also an important target for Mo Ming.

At the end of April, the dhow of Mo Ming, Frank and others docked in Pisa, and then the group took a horse-drawn carriage to Achetri, near Florence, where Galileo was under house arrest.

Achetri is a small town.

Italy's economy has been declining in recent years, and the Italians have had a hard time since the once-glorious textile industry was gradually defeated by the rising stars of the Netherlands and the British. In recent years, a large number of Italians have dragged their families to the New World to try their luck.

The hardships of life can be seen from this.

According to Frank, a few years ago, when the textile industry in Florence was not in decline, there was a small textile factory in Achetri. At one point, the factory employed hundreds of workers and used large water-powered spinning machines. This kind of hydraulic machine can spin 6 yarns at a time, which is much more efficient than human manual work, and it is said that this hydraulic spinning machine refers to the drawings handed down from the East. It was only because of the difficulty of making, the high cost, the frequent breakdowns and the fact that the water-powered spinning machine did not work properly during the dry period of the river, combined with the overall decline of the Italian textile industry, that it did not become popular.

Mo Ming was shocked when she heard this, and only 30 yarns could be spun at a time through the existing water-powered spinning machines. Although the spinning machine that can spin 80 yarns at the same time has been successfully developed, to put it bluntly, there is no essential difference between this machine and the machine that spins 6 yarns, and the principle and idea can be said to be the same, and the difference lies in the design and manufacturing process.

"Don't believe it, Galileo and his student Castelli used to serve this workshop." Seeing Mo Ming's thoughtful expression, Frank, who thought he didn't believe it, hurriedly explained, "Castel used his knowledge of water conservancy to improve the river here, and at the same time used his mathematical knowledge to design some key components of this spinning machine. In this process, Mr. Galileo gave guidance in many aspects. ”

Mo Ming nodded, scientists in this era are not Frankensteins who stay at home all day. They either acted as mathematical or philosophical advisors to dignitaries, or they personally intervened to solve engineering and technical problems for merchants and factory owners in exchange for funds to continue their scientific research. It is not surprising, then, that Casteli and Galileo did these things.

The only thing to worry about is how much impact this textile machinery will have on the textile industry of the Eastern Republic once it spreads out.

According to Frank's estimates, the earliest appearance of this machine was probably more than 100 years ago. It is said that the missionaries who returned from the Yuan Dynasty in the East copied back the design drawings of the textile machinery of the local Chinese, which were sealed in the library of Venice for nearly a hundred years, and then spread to the outside world by chance, and flowed to Germany and France after being optimized and improved by Italian craftsmen.

In other words, this primitive technique of water-powered spinning machines has long since spread throughout Europe.

Mo Ming was a little worried, the Europeans were not stupid, and they also knew that the people on the east coast of the road had mastered some kind of technology, maybe some kind of machinery, that could produce a large amount of high-quality cotton cloth in a short period of time. With the huge total profit of the cotton cloth market at this time, sooner or later someone will invest in the research of new textile machinery, and this original water-powered spinning machine will definitely be a good reference object.

Many things, as long as you pierce a layer of window paper, then you will find that it is not as mysterious as you think, and this is the case with water-powered spinning machines.

Mo Ming sighed, this kind of thing must be reported to the General Intelligence Bureau and the Executive Committee as soon as possible, so that everyone can prepare as soon as possible.

(1) When Galileo was first allowed to write this book, Pope Barberini (Urban VIII) asked Galileo to equate Ptolemy's geocentric theory with Copernicus's heliocentric theory and to treat heliocentrism as a hypothesis. But in the book, Galileo vigorously defended heliocentrism and mocked geocentrism, causing the Pope to be extremely angry. Coupled with the complicated political situation at the time, Urban VIII, who feared that his position would not be secure, took Galileo as a sacrifice and agreed to the Church's trial of him. (To be continued......)