"Turned, turned."

On the bank of the Baolong River, there was a cheer on a canal that led out, a water machine was crunching, there were dozens of rotors on it, some students held the cotton sliver with their fingers in one hand, and twisted it with the other hand, turning it into a fine yarn, with the rotation of dozens of rotors, the yarn also rotated, and then wound on the spindle.

Liu Minyou walked around the waterwheel, and his heart was quite excited, this water-powered spinning wheel was a practical subject he arranged for the mechanical class of Dengda Hall, with a high reward, and now the initial results have been produced.

Liu Minyou has thought for a long time about what kind of main products to develop, and he needs several necessary conditions, the first is labor-intensive, which must be able to solve the employment of a large number of people, the second is that there is sufficient sales, and the third is that raw materials are abundant. If the cotton spinning industry can be developed, in addition to the textile body, there are a large number of upstream and downstream industries that can be developed, such as machinery, dyeing, garment making, transportation, etc., and other consumer industries will be even greater.

China's cotton spinning industry was relatively developed in the Song Dynasty, cotton was first introduced in Fujian and Guangdong, and later the cotton seed yield in the Jiangnan area was higher, the shrub-type cotton plants in Fujian and Guangdong could not compare with the annual cotton in the south of the Yangtze River, and the cash crops in Fujian and Guangzhou changed to sugar crops. Cotton planting reached its peak, and it was planted all over the country, even in the northernmost areas such as Liaodong, so that hemp clothing was quickly eliminated, hemp cloth became a specialty of several local places, and the Jiangnan region became the center of cotton spinning.

The cotton spinning industry is more conducive to family production than the silk industry, the spinning machines and looms used are very simple, the single spindle spinning machine is used by both young and old, usually a farmer can weave a horse a day, and the next day after weaving, it will be sold for cotton and continue to weave. The capital turnover is very fast, and it is most suitable for family workshops, so it has developed rapidly in Jiangnan. The market for cotton cloth is the ordinary people, the sales volume is huge, the requirements for the process are not high, and there is no need for fancy patterns, so it is very suitable for large-scale production.

In comparison, the silk industry is very complicated, according to Liu Minyou's idea. The silk industry is convenient for export and can also be developed, but after the investigation, it was found that the machinery and processes of silk are very complex, although the unit price is very high. But sales are far inferior to cotton. Silk as a luxury goods, a variety of unique needs are many, which also results in a wide variety of products and complex production processes, its production to go through silk reeling, winding, weft, warp drawing, knotting, hammering, joints, jacquard and other processes, each process needs professional personnel to complete, for Denglai, training these professionals need a lot of time and energy. More importantly, Shandong does not have any advantages in raw materials, and dumping may not be able to do it in Jiangnan.

On the other hand, cotton clothing at this time has replaced hemp products. It became the most commonly used clothing for the common people, and it was a free and competitive industry, unlike the salt industry, which had a complex monopoly system to Dengzhou's current power. It is difficult to break the entanglement of interests in various places.

So Liu Minyou gave up the silk weaving industry and focused on the cotton textile industry. Today's cotton spinning industry is concentrated in Nanzhili and Zhejiang. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the north invented the textile in the cellar, formed part of the competition for the southern goods, and occupied the market of low-end goods, but the supporting dyeing and commerce were not as good as the south of the Yangtze River, and there were still a large number of Henan and Shandong cotton going south every year, and the cotton was processed in the south of the Yangtze River and sold back to various places.

From the perspective of historical experience, the cotton spinning industry is also an important commodity that can promote the industrial revolution, and Denglai naturally has a huge sales market, at least there are no tariffs and trade barriers that cannot be broken.

Before the Opium War, China produced 600 million pieces of cotton cloth a year, six times the amount of cotton cloth exported by the British, and although the population of the Ming Dynasty was not as large as that of the late Qing Dynasty, the market capacity was also very considerable, and Liu Minyou believed that this impetus could bring about changes in economy, technology, and management. Therefore, Liu Minyou took the Department of Industry and Commerce to make a plan, preparing to engage in the cotton textile industry in Denglai, combining water power and manpower, not engaging in single-family workshops, and engaging in intensive production like other Denglai workshops as soon as they came up, and pressing Jiangnan from Cheng.

Liu Min hopes to accelerate this process through intensive production and technological innovation. Technological innovation is the use of new machines, in addition to water-powered spinning wheels, there will also be manpower spinning wheels to solve the employment of a large number of people.

The machines purchased by the trading company from all over the country were handed over to the Department of Machinery, including some agricultural books, such as Wang Zhen's agricultural book, which has manpower and animal power spinning wheels, which can spin 100 catties of hemp every night, and the highest-grade water transfer spinning wheel, with as many as 32 rotors. He deduced that there were such multi-spindle textile machines in the Song Dynasty.

Trading companies procured a wide variety of spinning wheels from various places, and the common cotton spinning wheels were generally powered by foot, but the pedal type freed hands compared to the hand-cranked single-spindle spinning wheels in the West. Most of the spindle rotors of Chinese textile machinery in the Ming Dynasty were three spindles and four spindles, which were also leading the world in this era.

Compared with Britain before the Industrial Revolution, textile technology is not as good as the level of China in the thirteenth century, because they do not even have the concept of multi-spindles, until the invention of the Jenny machine in 1764, there are multi-spindle textile machinery, and the water-powered spinning machine is until 1769, which is more than 400 years later than China's water-powered spinning machine.

What puzzled Liu Min in the results of the trading company's investigation was that there were hydraulic spinning wheels for hemp spinning in the Song Dynasty, but until the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were never hydraulic spinning machines for cotton spinning. At this time, there were also water-powered spinning wheels in Jiangnan and other places, but they were still only used for weaving linen, but there were no water-powered machinery for cotton.

He set up this project in the Industrial Research Office under the Department of Industry and Commerce, and then sent many students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Dengda Hall to participate. The prize money was very high, and a group of young people from the research laboratory and the mechanical department were full of enthusiasm and were divided into three groups to study human spinning, water spinning and weaving.

With the accumulation of previous workshops, science and technology classes and vocational schools, there are many people with the spirit of specialization, and there are many skilled craftsmen, and the research is progressing rapidly.

Seeing the cotton yarn, Zhou Laifu was also full of smiles, he has been a trading company for a long time, and he is very clear about the market of cotton cloth, generally speaking, weaving is faster than spinning. In many cases, it is a textile machine such as a loom, and the number of water reduces the amount of labor, and the number of rotors is more than ten times that of manpower, so the price of Denglai will be much lower than that of Jiangnan, and the only concern is that the water source may be insufficient.

Zhou Laifu looked at the students who were pumping cotton slivers and asked Liu Minyou: "Lord Liu, this water-powered spinning machine is good, it's this tampon." If you still need manpower to smoke, it can't actually save people, at most it is labor-saving. ”

Liu Minyou was not very clear about these specific details, and he turned his head to look at the person in charge of the hydraulic loom, who was the little brother Guan he was familiar with. This kid is only seventeen or eighteen years old, but he has already done a number of mechanical projects since he came out of the mechanical class, and he has become a technical director in the workshop at a young age, and he is still teaching part-time in the university hall.

Junior Brother Guan was a little proud in his respect, and said to the two: "Two adults, take threads from the tampon." It is the most important thing that cotton spinning is different from silk and linen fabrics, we have studied the looms in Jiangnan together, their rotors are generally three spindles and four spindles, and the Gaine spinning worker holds the cotton strip in one hand. With one hand, there are up to four spindles between the five fingers, so that there can be no more than four spindles. ”

Liu Minyou and Zhou Laifu didn't understand this, and listened carefully to Guan Xiaodi's explanation. Looking at Brother Guan's demeanor, they should have a plan to solve it.

Guan Xiaodi continued: "The difficulty of silk lies in the reeling and closing of silk. It is easier to spin the time, the hemp is also long, it is difficult to achieve but not difficult to spin, it is to use a multi-spindle spinning machine, the cotton monofilament is very short, and it is wound with each other, and it can only be rubbed into a slender cotton strip before spinning, both hands are spinning and pumping, you must hold the cotton strip between your fingers, to increase the spindle, you have to work the cotton strip, and the subordinates found a thing on a Jiangnan textile machine, which is a wooden strip that can be spun with five spindles (note: Tiangong Kaiwu spinning Figure 2), so I thought of a method, using two wooden strips as two hands, operated by two people, Three or four people can manage forty to sixty spindles, which are now tested on a human spinning wheel, and then go up to the hydraulic spinning wheel when it is safe. ”

The director of the industrial research room said to Liu Minyou: "Guan Xiaodi is indeed clever, although this double-layer wooden strip looks simple, but regardless of hydraulic manpower, it is the key to the cotton spinning machine, it seems to be quite feasible at present, and the next official intends to set Guan Xiaodi as the first merit and get the first prize." ”

After listening to this, Zhou Laifu asked: "How many rotors do you have with the most manpower and water power?" ”

The main supervisor said: "At present, the human power is the eighth and twelfth turns of the real yàn, and the real yàn is twenty-four turns behind, and the hydraulic power can reach sixty turns." ”

Zhou Laifu listened to the silent calculation for a while, and he whispered to Liu Minyou: "At present, the most cotton yarn is Songjiang, and the price of their middle grade is generally one dollar and five or six cents of silver per horse (note: "Reading the World Edition"), of which the price of cotton is about one and two cents, and the gross profit is about two percent, and the price of transportation to the north is three dollars of silver per horse. The division of labor in the workshop is far more than those small households, and it occupies people. Now that we have this spinning machine and earn the same amount of silver, our price will not exceed two cents and two or three cents, and we will soon be able to outperform the southern goods in the north. ”

Liu Min thought of this huge industry, but also a little excited, he said to Zhou Laifu: "I think about Laifu and the same, the first step of the plan, is to first dry up the family workshops in Shandong, occupy the Shandong cotton market, then the northern market, and finally compete with the southern goods." When the cotton textile is completed, we will also do wool textile in the future, and Mongolia will be able to have contacts and contacts. ”

Zhou Laifu's heart immediately flashed a lot of thoughts, as long as Liu Min decided to invest, then this industry will definitely make money, just put in which piece to make money, he immediately said to Liu Minyou: "My lord, my subordinates have a reluctant request, food, clothing, housing and transportation are necessary every day, the amount of cotton cloth is very large, and the amount of cotton is also large. Dongchang and Linqing are the cotton distribution places in Shandong, and in the future, this weaving factory can also build a branch factory in Dongchang, so that it will be lower, after all, it will be handled by the guò trading company, so the subordinates think ......"

Liu Minyou said lightly: "Come and bless." ”

"Is it possible to put a textile mill into a trading company?"

Liu Minyou was silent for a while and said, "Wait for me to think about this matter." ”

Zhou Laifu closed his mouth at the right time, his status in Dengzhou has risen unconsciously, and even he has only recently realized this problem, after the release of last year's dividend, he is very smooth to do things with any department, and those senior officers are also polite when they see him. Even the demon kings of the mixed world like Zhou Shifa and Zhang Dong respectfully called him the chief manager. Intelligence, foreign affairs, and the military are all vying to be the first to contribute to everything that a trading company has to do.

Therefore, after Zhou Laifu just discovered the prospect of textiles, he subconsciously fought for the interests of the trading company, but he knew very well that Liu Min had this person, and he might not be able to get it if he fought too much.

"Let's go, let's go and see the loom, it's not enough to have yarn, the loom is also very important." Liu Minyou took the lead and walked over there.

The supervisor in the research room said: "My lord, the progress of the loom is slower, you said that the shuttle doesn't know how to do it, that group of people has done a variety of methods, but they can't meet your requirements, they all said they want to ask Lord Liu......"

"I don't know." Liu Minyou said simply, "I've only heard people mention this, saying that this shuttle can automatically reciprocate, no one needs to throw it around, I only ask for this, don't ask me anything else." ”

"This ......" The supervisor was a little helpless, the loom had not made much progress, and he also had a headache.

"My lord, my subordinates have some ideas for flying shuttles, can you go and see with you." Liu Minyou and the others looked back, it was Guan Xiaodi, the supervisor stared, the first few meetings, all the team members solicited opinions, and also hung out a hundred taels of idea awards, this Guan Xiaodi didn't let go of a fart, and now that Liu Min came, he had an idea.

"Absolutely." Liu Min has no place to care about these ways, immediately agreed, and led Guan Xiaodi to go together, he valued this young man very much, he was very affectionate on the road, and casually started a family routine with Guan Xiaodi, and when he heard that Guan Xiaodi had not yet married, he couldn't help but pat him on the shoulder and joke with him: "Little brother, you have a bright future, and in the future, you will definitely pick up more burdens in the workshop and the university hall." There must be a lot of people who like you, but I don't know if you want to choose a fairy as your daughter-in-law? ”

Junior Brother Guan blushed and said: "My subordinates are in the workshop and school every day, and they are not at home on weekdays, so there is no one to match." ”

Zhou Laifu looked at Junior Brother Guan for a while, then looked at Liu Minyou, and suddenly leaned into Liu Minyou's ear and said, "Junior Brother Guan is such a young and handsome man, but he hasn't married yet?" My eldest daughter, I just didn't allow anyone, can you make ......peace with Lord Liu?"

PS: Ask for a monthly pass.