Jili Lake silk is the world's present, perhaps in the next 100 years, is also the best quality silk weaving raw materials, the key is that the silkworm farmers in Nanxun, Shengze and other places in Zhejiang Province have cultivated a special silkworm species, this silkworm species is called "lotus heart seed", the cocoon is as small as lotus seeds, but the toughness, color and luster far exceed other raw silk, so it has become a treasure in the raw silk.

The cultivation of a silkworm seed requires the right time, place and people, even in China, only a small area can be produced, and if you change another place, you can't feed it at all. This is why it is clear that the quality of silkworms in Guangdong is not as good as that of Jiangnan, and the silkworm seeds from Jiangnan cannot be directly introduced, and the quality of raw silk in India is not as good as that of China, and Chinese varieties cannot be introduced. If you bring these lotus seeds directly to the past, you will either not be able to raise them, or you will not be able to produce silkworm cocoons of the same quality as the silk of the lake in the collection. Because France does not have the climate around Taihu Lake, and silkworm species have been artificially raised by the Chinese for thousands of years, they have long become extremely delicate and have very poor adaptation to the environment. The French domesticated their own silkworm seeds, and it was possible to breed new varieties more reliably than to introduce them directly.

As for another best-selling product in the south of the Yangtze River, Nanjing cloth, it can only be a Chinese specialty because of the geography and products of mountains and rivers.

This kind of Nanjing cloth has been famous in Europe for a long time, and it is not known when it will be famous. At least before the British East India Company opened up trade with China, it had already been famous in Europe. The Russians bought this cloth earlier than the British. Spain and Portugal sold this cloth to Europe earlier than the Russians.

The reason why it is called Nanjing cloth is very important because Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty was one of the capitals and had an important status, so the native cloth produced in the south of the Yangtze River got the title of Nanjing cloth, and the name of Nanjing in the Qing Dynasty became Jiangning, so the fame of Nanjing cloth was already a matter of the Ming Dynasty.

Such a product has been sold well in Europe for hundreds of years, and the Europeans have not been able to imitate it, of course, it is not explained by technical reasons, because the Europeans have even learned the silkworms, but they cannot learn the weaving of Nanjing cloth, which is obviously illogical.

At present, the sales of Nanjing cloth in the Songjiang area are extremely extensive, and Western merchants can directly purchase from Ningbo, Shanghai and even Nanjing, so that the sales volume is several times higher than before, and millions of Nanjing cloth are exported every year, and there are more than 100,000 textile workers who make a living from it.

Zhou Lang was not worried that the French would learn the production technology of Nanjing cloth.

Because authentic Nanjing cloth can only be produced in China.

In 1736, when the British East India Company first came to Guangzhou to traffic Chinese fabrics, the British did not yet have a permanent merchant house in Guangzhou, and their headquarters specially told their captains that they should "make special efforts to search for Nanking cloth, that is, to really weave products in Nanjing", and they did not want the native cloth of Guangzhou weaving, because the cloth produced in Nanjing "is better than the one woven in Guangzhou, and the cloth woven in Guangzhou will fade after washing, while the real Nanjing cloth will certainly not". In the end, the two British merchant ships that came to buy cloth for the first time, one called the Richmond, purchased 10,000 pieces of Nanking cloth, and the other called the Normanton, which only bought a small amount, and had to purchase a large amount of Canton cloth much larger in length, width and thickness than Nanjing cloth.

Why are the British convinced that "Guangzhou cloth will fade after washing, the real Nanjing cloth will definitely not", the mystery of Nanjing cloth will definitely not fade, not in textile and printing and dyeing technology, because before the emergence of chemical dyes, Europeans and China, are printed and dyed with plant dyes such as indigo, there is no reason why Chinese cloth does not fade, European cloth will fade, and there is no reason why Nanjing cloth does not fade, Guangzhou cloth will definitely fade.

The real reason actually comes from the raw materials, most countries in the world spin and weave, and the cotton used is pure white cotton, whether it is Indian cotton or American cotton, it is white. But the Chinese have cultivated colored cotton, which is said to be native to Mexico, but the Chinese have cultivated colored cotton into a variety that adapts to the environment of Jiangnan, China, and can be grown in the market.

In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, during the Jiajing period, the "Changshu County Chronicles" recorded, "Cotton, there are two kinds of white and purple, planting should be high ridges, and the people of Northwest Township rely on Yan every year", at that time, the people of Northwest Township of Changshu County began to rely on planting white and purple cotton for a living. In the Wanli period of the late Ming Dynasty, the "Jiajing County Chronicles" recorded, "Recently, the folk have many purple cloths, the old and the young", at this time, the people in Jiajing County, Songjiang Prefecture wear purple cotton textile fabrics have been old and young, ordinary people can wear it, which at least shows that the cultivation of purple cotton has been very popular, and the price is very affordable. The "Songjiang Mansion Chronicles" compiled by Chen Jiru, a famous literati in the late Ming Dynasty, recorded that "the single purple cloth is made of purple flowers, and no dyeing work is added", and the purple cloth not only does not fade, but in fact, it does not need to be dyed at all.

Because of the natural color of cotton itself, of course, it is impossible to fade, just like the white cloth spun from white cotton, which cannot be washed red, and the purple cloth spun from purple cotton cannot be washed white.

But for some reason, at the beginning of this era, purple cloth slowly withdrew from the Chinese market, Chen Jiru's contemporaneous literati recorded, "I still remember that when I was young, I saw many people with purple cloth as clothes, and now there is no one, that is, clothes, the group scorns each other", at this time purple cloth is no longer a fashion product between the old and the young, who will be despised if they wear it. But at the same time, "purple cloth, the price is twice as high as ordinary cloth", the price is very expensive, indicating that it has become scarce and slowly withdrawn from the market.

In the Qing Dynasty, in local records, cotton cultivation appeared small white flowers, safflower and small blue flowers, and purple flowers were "woven into cloth color purple, more expensive than natural color cloth, merchants are cherished." With its poor harvest, there are very few planters". Jiaqing period records, Shanghai County Fahua Town, in addition to textile cloth, but also textile "purple cloth, specializing in Fujian and Guangzhou", at this time local consumers have not used this cloth, specifically for export, and for export can never be compared with local consumption, resulting in a decline in production, the number of growers reduced.

Due to the large-scale cultivation of colored cotton by the Chinese, Chinese cloth has considerable advantages, and it is comfortable to wear, France is very popular to use Nanjing cloth to make clothes, Nanjing cloth is very popular in the French upper class, many literary masterpieces, such as "The Pickwick Papers", "Madame Bovary", "David Copperfield", "The Count of Monte Cristo", the protagonist is wearing clothes and pants made of Nanjing cloth. And France is the fashion and cultural center of Europe, what the French are popular, other countries follow suit, so Nanjing cloth has been unfailing for a long time.

Chinese have a bad habit of copying. After the popularity of Nanjing cloth by Westerners, all the fabrics sold by Chinese merchants to Westerners were branded with Nanjing cloth. As a result, later generations of Chinese did not even know what kind of cloth Nanjing cloth was.

Western countries import different Chinese fabrics according to their own preferences, because Nanjing cloth is completely the name of Westerners, so their description of Nanjing cloth has influenced the Chinese's research on the types of best-selling export products in history.

For example, the Nanjing described by the Russians is blue, light blue, sky blue, iron gray, cherry and so on. And the Chinese could not have cultivated so many complex colored cotton, in fact, the Nanjing cloth bought by the Russians is an ordinary printed and dyed cloth, and the Russians described that the Chinese cloth is a kind of Chinese homespun cloth at the end of Peter's era, mostly dyed blue, and the price is relatively cheap.

The economically backward Russians pursued cheapness and dyed blue because indigo was the cheapest vegetable dye. The Russians also often call it the Nanjing Little Native Cloth.

In fact, the records of the British with better economic conditions are more reliable, especially when Magalny came to China a few years ago, after the Songjiang Prefecture investigated this.

"It should be noted here that the Nanking cotton cloth, which was commonly used by the English because of its cheapness, comfort and beautiful colours, was not dyed, as one might think, but made of a native brown cotton, which was grown mainly in Jiangnan and in the Chinese province of Zhejiang," Magarny wrote. I know from reliable sources that this cotton is also grown in Manila, Luzon. ”

The Nanking cloth surveyed by Magalny was spun from brown cotton. The purpose of his investigation was to put British textiles on a par with Chinese products. "Bombay cotton Chinese mainly use to produce the so-called Nanking cotton cloth (counterfeit), but it is milky white, not pure white" "Now East Indian white cotton costs 10 pence per pound in London, but if sold at 1 shilling per pound, it is still a third cheaper than West Indian cotton, because this condition, together with our use of machinery, reduced labour costs and dye-saving can provide Nanjing cotton to the people of Manchester at a short time and at a low price, completely excluding our current imports of such goods from Canton". "I know that Chinese raw materials are better than other countries, but I've heard that textiles from Lyon and Spitalfeld sometimes surpass Nanjing cotton."

Magalny investigated the most popular cotton cloth produced from native Chinese flowers, which he called the "so-called Nanjing cotton cloth" is indeed replaceable. But there is no substitute for the Nanjing cloth produced by high-end colored cotton, because only the Chinese have carried out economic cultivation, and due to the loss of the local Chinese market, the planting area is becoming less and less.

Later, with the development of fuel technology and the decline in the per capita income of Chinese, everyone began to use ordinary white cloth or industrial printing and dyeing cotton cloth, and natural colored cotton disappeared in China.

At the same time, with the technological progress of the British cotton textile industry, the productivity was greatly improved, and the price of products also fell greatly, in 1786, the British cotton yarn was 38 shillings per pound, in 1800 it fell to 9.5 shillings, and in 1830 it fell to 3 shillings, and the cotton textiles exported from China and India to Britain have since lost their competitiveness.

Zhou Lang believes that the cultivation of these colored cotton and the production of natural colored cloth are irreplaceable by Western industrialization, so he chooses to protect them.

He stipulated that the palace cloth must use these natural colored cotton without printing and dyeing, and with the endorsement of the court, the rich Chinese will regain their pursuit of natural colored cloth, and the colored cotton planting in the south of the Yangtze River will not disappear, and this unique Chinese product will continue.

However, the real future of the cotton textile industry lies in the popularization and popularization of the production of white printed and dyed cotton cloth, because the output of colored cotton is too low compared with white cotton, and can only be used as a luxury product, and cannot be used as a raw material for the production of large machines that open industrialization.

Therefore, Zhou Lang protects color cotton, but also only hopes that color cotton, as a unique luxury in China, will continue to lead the world trend, but the real future is in the big industry, so he actively encouraged China's cotton textile industry to import Indian cotton, and also introduced the machine textile industry several years ago.

Now these machine textile industry has been quite large-scale, through the demonstration of the government-run factory, the technology has been promoted to the people, it can be said that the textile industry industrial revolution in China after brewing, has begun to break out, in the past two years, the number of new machine factories opened more than 100 more than white people every year.

However, most of these factories are concentrated in Fujian, where machine weaving was first introduced, rather than in the Jiangnan area, the center of China's textile industry and handicraft industry.

This is what worries Zhou Lang, because if the traditional handicraft center cannot be transformed into a modern industrial center, not to mention how much unemployment the transformation will bring, which means that the handicraft industry cannot be perfectly transformed into a large industry, which is a very terrifying message for China, which is now a handicraft empire.

Therefore, supporting Jiangnan large industrial textiles is the top priority, and it is also the key work of the Ministry of Industry bred by the Royal Academy of Sciences of China. And this work, Zhou Lang also laid a foundation for them.