When Zheng Haizhu walked into the courtyard, Han Ximeng's second aunt Qian was leading everyone to stand in front of two completely different spinning machines.

The Qian family was born in the family of the landlord of the cotton field in Songjiang, and after marrying Han Zhongwen, the cotton of the Qian family was mainly supplied to the Han family, and the Han family spinned, dyed, and weaved.

Therefore, the Qian family, who has always regarded Han Ximeng as a daughter, since she is familiar with spinning cotton, as soon as she heard Dong Erya say that Miss and Miss Zheng asked the Han family for help, and wanted to invite the spinners to Chongming to ponder the new machine, she also came to take a look.

Qian and two spinning mothers brought a three-spindle pedal spinning machine.

It was a machine that had been used in the Susong area for three or four hundred years, and it was passed down by Huang Daopo.

Nanzhili originally used a single-spindle spinning machine.

In Hainan, after Huang Daopo learned more advanced weaving skills from the women of the Li nationality, she bypassed the class and improved the three-spindle spinning machine in the south of the Yangtze River, so that the three-spindle machine could also spin cotton, which increased the efficiency of spinning cotton thread by three or four times, and kept up with the speed of raw materials required for weaving.

The British Jenny spinning machine, from the time of its inception, has eight spindles to spin the yarn, although the fineness of the yarn may not be as good as the Chinese cotton thread, but the efficiency is indeed higher.

After Zheng Haizhu came to the late Ming Dynasty, he was in Songjiang Mansion, which is known as "the world's clothes", and after seeing the processing and sales of the cotton spinning industry, he wondered why there was no shortage of skilled craftsmen in China, but it did not give birth to Jenny Machine before the West?

Because there is no need.

In the late Ming Dynasty, it was not like the European countries of the same period, colonizing and expanding into the seas and dumping cheap goods.

The volume of the imperial court's foreign trade was very limited, the demand for silk cloth in the internal circulation was not hungry, and the political autocracy and economic form could not stimulate the leapfrog development of textile productivity.

On the territory of China in the late Ming Dynasty, which was eating the demographic dividend, the three-spindle spinning machine invented by Huang Daopo could meet the supply of yarn used in weaving, and there was no situation of weavers and other yarn workers.

Tang Po's grandmother, the Guangxi woman who could only manage her life in the radius of her official's husband's activities, the power to develop a multi-spindle spinning machine must have nothing to do with the stimulation of capital.

Perhaps because of this, her work proceeded very slowly, halted as her life passed, and was abandoned in the corner of the house, covered in cobwebs and dust, until it was discovered by a traveler to the astonishment.

But Zheng Haizhu, who understood Mrs. Tang's thoughts, did not have the ability to continue the works of the deceased.

No matter how hard she tried to recall the illustration of "Jenny's Loom Machine" in her middle school textbook, she couldn't figure out how to use one wheel to drive several vertical spindles.

Han Ximeng and Fan Polu circled the loom for several days, but they were inspired by the embroidery technique and the flying needle thread for sewing, and under the erected roving spindles, the same number of cotton yarn rotors were arranged correspondingly, and in the middle was the horizontal axis that collects the finished fine yarn, and the wooden wheel behind the spindle in Huang Daopo's "three-spindle spinning machine" was moved to the side.

After the arrival of the second aunt Qian and the spinning woman, the most critical link was also figured out by this group of women - wooden frame and wooden pole.

"Miss Zheng," Qian said to Zheng Haizhu, holding a long branch that Dong Erya picked up from outside, "If there is a wooden frame with grooves on both sides of the bars, this branch is like a slide bar that can be pushed and pulled back and forth when stuck in the groove, and is used to strangle these seven or eight parallel yarns." A few more rows of such a wooden lattice from top to bottom can connect cotton yarn, roving, and fine yarn. When the wooden wheel is shaken, the cotton yarn is spun into a spinning yarn through the roving spindle, and the slide bar is pushed back and forth, as if there are several three-spindle spinning wheels spinning the spinning yarn at the same time. ”

Ah, Zheng Haizhu listened to Qian's analogy, and finally got the hang of it, and understood how the entire transmission device should work.

But Qian quickly frowned again: "However, this change is several times larger than the three-spindle pedal spinning machine that we Songjiang people usually use, and the power required is much stronger. ”

After Qian finished speaking, he heard someone outside the door: "How many masters...... Several grandmothers were gentle, and the villain thought that they could use cow tendons to wrap around the large and small wooden wheels. ”

Qian and Han Ximeng looked back, only to see a medium-sized man with a short beard standing beside Hua Er, a Liaomin girl outside the door, bowing his head and talking.

Because of this humble attitude, Qian saw at a glance that in the man's coarse cloth turban, new hair had just grown and he couldn't even comb his bun.

After the Qian family landed on the island yesterday, they heard Han Ximeng say that the Liao people recruited by Zheng Haizhu to farm and serve as soldiers were all Han Chinese who had fled from the Jurchens outside Kuandian Pass. When Houjin enslaved them, he ordered them to shave their heads like those of the Jurchens, smooth like gourds, and only keep a lock of hair the size of a copper coin at the back of their heads, which were knotted into thin braids.

At this moment, when the Qian family saw the appearance of the man outside the door, he asked Zheng Haizhu: "This descendant is a person from your Zhuangzi, right?" ”

Zheng Haizhu nodded and said, "His name is Ah Shan, because of some carpenter's skills, I will also take him to see it today." ”

Ah Shan, the one who cried in front of the hut and the field and complained about the murder of Houjin, when he first landed on the island, he looked thinner than the wild dogs on the road, and he had gained some weight in two months, and his eyes began to shine, but he was still accustomed to hunching his waist when he spoke, and he did not completely change the habit of opening his mouth to "master, master".

Qian looked at the courtyard, there were all women, even if Fan Poyu hadn't left the cabinet yet, the little girl was also a female housekeeper who was in charge of many sewing men on weekdays.

Qian then greeted Ah Shan kindly: "Come in, take a look at these wooden wheels, and give us a careful idea." ”

Ahsan hurriedly crossed the threshold, walked to the eight-spindle spinning machine, stretched out his hand, turned the wooden wheel, used his thumb to compare the width of the large and small wheels, and then pulled the thread on the wheel of the traditional three-spindle spinning machine.

Han Ximeng is good at embroidery, he looks at the subtleties on weekdays, and when his eyes fall, he sees that Ashan's left thumb is particularly thick, and there is a thick calloon, and then look at the rest of his movements, it is clear that he uses his right hand.

Han Ximeng couldn't help but be curious, this carpenter is not left-handed, it stands to reason that the left hand does not exert as much force as the right hand, why is the thumb of the left hand like this? Could it be that in the carpenter's trade, what work is done by relying on the left hand to resist the force?

I only heard Zheng Haizhu say: "Ah Shan, you carpenters, do you want to peel beef tendons?" ”

The tone was very flat, and even with a hint of tenderness, hoping that this future life would not have to be nervous to reply.

Ah Shan took a few steps back, but still didn't dare to look at the dazzling women in front of him, and lowered his eyelids and said: "Back to Madame's words, the Jurchens like to use big bows, and they often ask us to do this work." When you arrive in Nanzhili, there are more cattle than deer, and the small ones can be tried with cow tendons. ”

Qian Shi looked at Ah Shan, and then at Hua Er, who was repairing the mule cart outside the door, and looked at Zheng Haizhu: "These people you recruited, they don't say their duties honestly, they still have their own abilities, it's really good." ”

Zheng Haizhu looked at Ah Shan and said with a smile: "Just do what you said, hoop it up with cow tendons and see if you can drive it." If it is done, it will be the same as the work of building a gun cart, and you will be counted as a reward. ”