“…… Participating in politics, but do you want to make cotton instead of silk to make military robes? ”

Seeing that Han Gang said it in a conclusive manner, he was silent for a moment before confirming with him again.

"Exactly." Han Gang nodded affirmatively, "Cotton cloth is thicker and heavier than silk linen, finer than silk linen, more durable than silk linen, and more durable than military robes made of silk silk,"

"But if the imperial court wants to replace the ready-made clothes and clothing of the distributed armies with cotton cloth, it will cost millions of horses!"

The horse infantry forbidden army of the Great Song Dynasty, whether it was winter clothes or spring clothes, except for the bast shoes on the feet, the rest were almost made of silk from the inside to the outside [Note 1].

The upper forbidden army in the three ya, from the capital to the sergeant, gets the clothing for making military robes every year, most of them are 30 horses of white silk, and the few are 6 horses of silk or oil silk, in addition to silk cotton, linen cloth and tailoring money. In the middle and lower forbidden army, there are more than six horses of silk every year, twelve taels of silk and three thousand clothes money. At the same time, the box army also has clothing distribution, and the spring and winter clothing adds up to two to four horses.

There are millions of forbidden armies and van armies in the world, and the silk silk consumed on them every year is as much as five or six million.

"There is no need to replace all the clothing with cotton, and the current output of cotton cloth cannot be supported, as long as cotton cloth is used to replace the part of the clothing that is made of shawls and tunics, and the nearest supply to the forbidden army near the production area, it can still be supported. As for the other places, you can start with cotton wool and see the reaction in the army - replace a part of the silk cotton with cotton wool, half of the cotton wool and half of the silk cotton. ”

"Cotton wool is fine."

Silk cotton is silk that has not been spun into thread, and now it is distributed to the army as the lining material for winter clothes. Replaced with cotton wool, it can still be used as winter clothing lining.

As we all know, cotton wool and silk cotton are equally warm, and cotton cloth is now a luxury, at least a rare and expensive item, and cotton wool is used instead of silk cotton, without worrying about opposition from anyone in the army. Moreover, the silk wool in the army is usually the silk wool drawn from rotten cocoons and bad cocoons, and it is far less than the cotton wool that has been cleaned up by normal ginning.

"Cotton cloth is supplied nearby, then there is only the Western Army, participating in politics, isn't it?"

There was still hesitation in the Queen Mother's voice. Even the Queen Mother knew that Han Gang's proposal was by no means a good thing for cotton merchants.

By any measure, the imperial court was never a good buyer.

Seeing that there are huge profits in an industry, if there is not much trouble in transshipment and sales, and it is easy to control, the imperial court often intervenes and enters, and the weapon in its hand is called 'patent'.

Not to mention the patent of salt and iron, it has been in the hands of the imperial court since the Han Dynasty, and the "Treatise on Salt and Iron" in which Sang Hongyang and virtuous writers disputed the monopoly of salt and iron during the reign of Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty is a compulsory course for Confucian scholars today.

In addition to salt and iron, such as the alum industry, such as the wine industry, and the tea industry, they are now all contracted by the imperial court.

If it is those industries that are difficult to control, such as overseas trade, it is to buy and buy. However, whenever an overseas merchant ship arrives at a local port, the city shipping department will first levy a tax of 20% from it, and then force a part of the profitable overseas goods to be purchased at the same price, and the rest will be allowed to be sold.

In addition to the usual taxes, the imperial court also often purchased silk produced by the people at a price lower than the market price. In various silk production areas across the country, buying and buying has become a tax, pressing on the heads of every local household.

However, there are policies and countermeasures, and those people who need to be bought and sold silk on time will try to use the least amount of raw silk to weave silk silk with a regulated length and width, and then apply a thick layer of powder so that the weight can also meet the standard. In this way, you only need to hand a little bribe to the officials who come and buy to pass the test. And this kind of silk bought by the imperial court, because it is too thin, can not be cut into clothing, and is easy to damage, warehouses around the country often break out the news that tens of thousands of silk silk are abandoned due to decay at one time.

However, despite the shortcomings of the system and the implementation of the new law for many years, it has not been able to change it. There is always a way for the imperial court to pass on the losses.

Since even the rotten grain can be distributed to the army as rations - there was an old thing that the government allocated military rations were all black rice and provoked a mutiny, the so-called black rice is rotten rice, as for how to solve this matter, it is very simple, the government will change the allocated military rations to black rice, white rice and half of the solution - then the light and unbearable silk can still be issued as military salary, as long as it has not completely decayed.

And the purpose of the new law is not for the people, but for the sake of enriching the country and strengthening the army. The system of buying silk did not interfere with the revenue of the national treasury, and the abolition of the system of buying silk would cause a sharp decline in the revenue of the national treasury, and the New Party certainly had no incentive to change it. Although the people and soldiers suffered losses, the people could still survive even if they were exploited, and on the other side, there were mostly van troops, and no one would care if there was no chaos.

The drawbacks of buying are well known, so Han Gang is in the Chongzheng Hall at the moment, recommending cotton cloth instead of silk to become the clothing material for military uniforms, and his family is the largest cotton cloth merchant in Longyou, and the cotton guild makes the Han family closely connected with the major families of Xihe and Qinfeng, in addition to the Fan Department in the mountains of Xihe Road, and the Han Fan Department that began to plant cotton on Ganliang Road, but in the eyes of everyone in the palace, Han Gang will never be promoting his own goods.

Doing business with the imperial court is an idea that only crazy people have. I also know that once cotton cloth becomes the designated military uniform material of the imperial court, the imperial court will never buy it at the market price, but will definitely choose and buy it. Even Han Gang, who is a governor of political affairs, cannot make the imperial court give up and buy the way.

Even if you can make some fuss about the price of Hemai for a while, so that the local people can benefit, but after a long time, generations of officials will take more and more encroachment from it, and the change in prices will make this Hemaizhi system another shackle around the neck of the people.

Han Gang: Don't you want to go back to your hometown? Once the Queen Mother accepted Han Gang's proposal, the members of the cotton line would hate him to the bone.

Or did he have something else in mind?

From Wang Anshi and Han Jiang to Zeng Xiaokuan, who had just been awarded the post of deputy privy envoy, they all felt that Han Gang would not be cocooned.

"Of course there is the Western Army." Han Gang agreed, "The bitter cold in Kansai, the wind together, the cold invades the bones, the silk and linen fabric has always been unable to resist the wind, and the clothing issued in the army is even more so, changing the outer robe clothing to cotton cloth can also allow the soldiers who are guarding outside to survive the cold winter." ”

Han Gang paused slightly, and then under the gaze of everyone, continued,

"In addition, as far as the minister knows, now Jiangnan has also begun to grow cotton weaving."

I see, Zhang Dian suddenly, is this to exclude competitors?

However, Zhang Dian immediately became puzzled again, speaking of the surrounding military brigades, the number of forbidden troops in Kansai is not comparable to Jiangnan. At its peak, the military strength of Kansai was close to 400,000, accounting for one-third of the country's military strength, and no matter how much it is reduced now, the forbidden army will not be less than 150,000, and the forbidden army of the southern Zhulu road does not add up to 30,000 horses.

Kill a thousand enemies, lose five thousand yourself, and there is no such redemption for the redeemer.

However, Zhang Dan thought about it for a while, and thought of the reason again.

When the Western Army began to wear cotton robes, how could the Beijing Forbidden Army, which had always regarded itself very highly and looked down on the local buns from outside, be willing to wear a cheap silk silk to make people laugh? When the time comes, in order to appease them, the imperial court must buy it from Jiangnan - the cotton cloth from Kansai has been provided to the Western army, and of course it is impossible to attack them again.

When the red men of the Beijing Forbidden Army all wore cotton military robes, I am afraid that the officials in the imperial court will also ask the imperial court to replace the silk issued with cotton cloth......

No...... Not for fear, for sure.

Zhang Dian said to himself in his heart that the virtues of the officials, as the head of the Spanish class, he knew best.

The large and small officials in the capital, the civil and military classes, the clan, and the inner servants add up to nearly 10,000, and the clothing they need to give every year is also a large amount, and they have higher requirements for clothing. When they began to ask the imperial court for cotton clothing, and the imperial court turned its attention to the northwest, Han Gang could have refused because the people of Kansai were unable to support it.

Anyone knows the way, the northwest is poor and the southeast is rich, the northwest is called poor, everyone is willing to believe, and the southeast is bitter, and all you get is ridicule.

Zhang Dian sighed secretly, Han Gang's plan for a rainy day was far-reaching enough.

Han Gang is indeed just taking precautions.

On the one hand, with the current situation of the expanding cotton spinning industry, sooner or later it will become the object of taxation and purchase by the imperial court, since it is a matter of time, it is better to control the whole thing in your own hands now than to chatter with people in the court at that time.

On the other hand, it is also for the southeast to compete in the upper part of the country.

For the competition from the southeast, the members of the core guild in the Yongqin Chamber of Commerce, the cotton store, are mentally prepared, but their psychological preparation is still far less than the threat they are about to face.

The four words of clothing quilt in the world, you can literally understand what kind of impact cotton will have on the world's clothing after becoming the main cash crop in Jiangnan, and that still refers to the production capacity of Songjiang Province, which is now the northern region of Xiuzhou [now Shanghai and Jiaxing].

Note 1: The military uniforms of the Song Dynasty were divided into spring and winter, and the horse army and the infantry army had different styles.

According to the provisions of the supply standards for military clothing and clothing ruled by Dali Temple in the seventh year of Renzong Tiansheng:

Spring Clothes:

Seven things of the horse army: soap silk shirt, white silk undershirt, white silk trousers, purple turban, crimson silk silk, white silk shirt, bast shoes;

Seven things of the infantry army: soap silk shirt, white silk undershirt, white silk trousers, purple turban, blue and yellow arm, white silk shirt, and bast shoes.

Winter coat:

Seven things of the horse army: soap silk cotton jacket, yellow silk cotton jacket, white silk socks and trousers, white silk clip socks and trousers, violet turbans, scarlet silk silk, and bast shoes.

Six things of the infantry army: soap silk cotton jacket, yellow silk cotton jacket, white silk cotton socks and trousers, violet turban, blue inner arm, and hemp shoes.

The above is a 'no military number' military uniform, and does not indicate the unit number.

In addition, there are also 'Department of Army' uniforms, such as the scarlet silk shirts of the Touri, Tianwu and other armies, the purple silk shirts of the Shenwei and Bohai armies, the purple Shi shirts of the Longwei and Tuhun armies, and the Imperial Front Banzhi, there are more brocade jackets, jackets and soapy pearl turbans as the 'Department of the Army Horn Dharma'.