Because he was worried about being washed, Li Yi postponed the research and development of the loom.

It was not until the king of Chu Gong married Qin Jinggong's sister-in-law, who was also over thirty years old, that he began to reopen the plan of the industrial revolution.

But in the years that followed, his life was not peaceful.

Because Zheng rebelled against Chu and attached to Jin, Chu and Jin fought a great war.

Due to the needs of the war, weavers worked day and night to produce cloth and silk for use in front-line armaments.

But while the looms have increased their efficiency, the weavers have become more tired.

Li Yi made a hand-cranked Jenny loom, which greatly increased the efficiency of spinning.

The speed of spinning has increased, but the efficiency of weaving has not improved much.

The loom made by Li Yi is still operated manually, and because it is made of wooden frames, only skilled hands can operate it, resulting in more and more insufficient weavers.

The mountains of yarn turned into cloth, and the pressure from the front was transmitted to the rear, which also caused the weavers to be tortured by the supervisors every day.

Li Yi was the initiator of all this, so the weavers transferred their hatred to her.

Although they didn't dare to do anything to Li Yi because of the King of Chu, they didn't miss anything behind the scenes.

Although Li Yi doesn't care about this kind of complaining behind his back, he will inevitably be upset and irritable after listening to it too much.

However, he knew that there was a reason why the weavers were angry with him, and the crux of the problem was that he didn't make a matching loom.

If you want to greatly improve the efficiency of the loom, you need to design a loom that uses external forces to drive and spin by itself, such as a fully mechanized loom.

However, in the carpentry book that Li Yi reads, there is no information about mechanized looms.

As a result, Li Yi had to design it himself.

According to the basic mechanical knowledge and the relevant principles of textiles, Li Yi started from scratch, step by step, and it took more than a year to design a machine.

But according to the blueprints, he took the carpenter for two years to make a loom.

During the war, bronze, iron and other metals were very precious, and some metals had to be made into weapons, arrows, and sent to the front line.

Therefore, it is impossible for Chu to provide metal to make machines for Li Yi.

And the blacksmith in the country didn't have that level to create the parts that Li Yi wanted.

As a result, the first generation of textile machines made by Li Yi was all wooden.

However, the strength of wood materials is limited after all, and the wear and tear is also large.

So in order to ensure strength, the loom is very large, and when it is finally assembled, it is almost the size of a small house.

But even with that size, the machine can only weave one piece of cloth at a time.

And every time a piece of cloth is woven, it takes nearly ten catties of oil to lubricate it.

The most important thing is that if you want to control this machine, you need at least eight skilled workers to work together.

But eight skilled workers can weave half a piece of cloth in the same time with an ordinary loom, which adds up to a much higher efficiency than a loom.

So, after verifying the efficiency of the machine, the king of Chu Gongwang stopped the research and development of this machine.

After all, wood is not cheap either.

With the wood used for this machine, you can build a siege engine.

Without the support of the King of Chu, Li Yi's research and development became more difficult.

Without funding, R&D costs become a big problem.

He can only exchange time for space, use his usual free time to make brocade, sell it to the noblewomen of the country to earn money, and accumulate funds.

But the business was soon shut down.

During the war, he, a skilled weaver, did not do his best to provide armaments for the front, but was engaged in business, which was naturally disliked by people.

Even the king of Chu was disappointed in him because of this, and his attitude was much colder.

In addition, as a woman, he is getting older and older, and he is gradually getting old and decrepit, and the resistance he encounters is even greater, which can be called difficult.

And this situation also made the weavers, who were already unhappy with him, even more gloating.

Having lost the protection of the king of Chu, the weavers were unscrupulous, and they did not even avoid him by chewing the root of their tongues.

After a long time, Li Yi's mentality was also affected, and he almost broke out several times.

But fortunately, he still remembers his heart and does not lose control of his emotions.

The situation did not improve until the death of King Chu Gong and the accession of King Chu Kang to the throne.

Because under Li Yi's contact, King Chu Kang had a good impression of him.

And because he demonstrated some scientific principles to King Chu Kang, King Chu Kang also had a certain curiosity about science.

So after ascending the throne, he reactivated his funding for Li Yi to help him develop a new generation of looms.

After the failure of the first generation, Li Yi already knew that the success of the loom lies in the strength of key components and the abundant power source.

So, he took advantage of the opportunity, found craftsmen, poured a batch of bronze parts, reduced the volume of the loom by half, and made the second generation of looms.

At the same time, Li Yi also asked craftsmen to pour a bronze water tank with water inlet and outlet holes, intending to make a steam engine.

However, during the test run, the bronze water tank exploded, the craftsman was almost killed, and Li Yi was also scalded out of half of the blister, which was equivalent to disfigurement.

After this incident, no craftsman was willing to help him make a loom.

King Kang also stopped his R&D fund again.

Li Yi, who only had the last bit of money in his hand, decided to make a desperate gamble and transported the loom to the river.

Realizing that he was taking too many steps, he abandoned the construction of a steam engine and instead designed an external waterwheel that used water power as a power.

The watermill only needed wood to make it, and when he got a carpenter to make it, the loom was finally up and running.

The third generation of looms, the test run was successful.

Soon, this machine, which could operate the weaving machine on its own, caused a sensation in the Chu State.

The Chu people themselves believed in witches and ghosts, and they were obscene, so Li Yi was soon regarded as a fairy who came from the sky.

With the loom, the textile industry in Chu soon flourished.

With the funding of King Chu Kang, the third generation of looms were manufactured one after another, and soon reached the scale of 20 looms in two years.

However, in the third year, there was a widespread famine in the state of Chu.

This famine not only swept through the territory of Chu, but even affected the vassal states of Chu.

However, after investigating the cause of the Chu State, it was discovered that this famine was not a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster.

Because the burgeoning textile industry in Chu needed a large amount of mulberry hemp to provide raw materials, the whole state of Chu encouraged farmers to plant mulberry hemp and raised the purchase price.

As a result, a large number of farmers have converted their farmland into mulberry and hemp fields, abandoning the original grain cultivation and planting mulberry hemp instead.

This situation did not only occur in the territory of Chu, but also in several dependent countries around Chu, and there were also farmers who switched to planting mulberry hemp and then sold the raw materials to Chu.

And the price paid by the state of Chu is cloth that can be equivalent to money.

As a result, the Chu State and the vassal countries all got a large amount of precious cloth and were very happy.

But no one expected that a famine would follow.

A large number of peasant households gave up growing grain, which led to a significant reduction in grain production and an increase in grain prices in the Chu State.

After discovering this, the state of Chu began to purchase grain from the subject countries, but found that the subject countries had no food.

The grain, which was originally the hardest currency between the Chu State and the vassal countries, was turned into cloth, and all parties were very happy and full of superiority.

But when the food crisis broke out, everyone realized that cloth, although valuable, could not be eaten.

So, everyone was dumbfounded.

4

(End of chapter)