Speaking of which, first of all, we must explain what is the difference between the silk reeling process in China and the West, and why we should imitate the silk reeling machine in the West.

Raw silk reeling in China is quite simple, divided into steps such as obtaining fresh cocoons - pretreatment - boiling cocoons in a pot at low temperature - silk reeling.

The silk reeling process in the West is much more complicated, which is divided into steps such as obtaining fresh cocoons - killing silkworms in the oven - pretreatment - boiling cocoons at high temperature - silk reeling - re-shaking - finishing - inspection and so on.

From the above description, it can be seen that the Western silk reeling process has many more steps than the traditional Chinese silk reeling process, and in some places it is very different, and the final raw silk obtained is also very different from the traditional Chinese raw silk.

Considering that the knowledge of the research addiction always occurs from time to time, knowing that some people will be bored with these feelings, let's explain it briefly.

The traditional silk production in China is very simple, the farmers themselves grow mulberry and raise silkworms at home, and after obtaining the silkworm cocoons, they build a stove in the yard, set up a pot, put the silkworm cocoons into warm water and cook the cocoons at the same time, use a wooden spinning wheel to draw silk, and reel the silk out.

Because it is often produced by peasant families, and farmers usually have a lot of other work to be busy, a family produces three or five catties of raw silk a year, which is used to exchange for some pocket money at the end of the year, and there are not many people who specialize in this as a business.

And then there are a lot of things here that are different from their Western counterparts.

First of all, the silkworm cocoons that Chinese farmers put into the pot when they reeled silk were fresh cocoons, which meant that the silkworms in the cocoons were alive.

In contrast, after the living silkworm cocoons in the West, they first get a high-temperature oven and kill the silkworms inside at a high temperature of about 95 degrees.

The advantages of this are many, the cocoon is easier to store and carry after the silkworm is killed, and there will be no worms biting the silk from the inside, and the silk reeled in the end is cleaner and more delicate, and the color is better.

Another very important problem is that the time between the cocoon of the silkworm and the butterfly is only ten days, and the farmer must reel all the harvested cocoons within these ten days.

This is a very important factor restricting the yield of raw silk, if the silkworms are killed in advance with the oven, the silk reeling does not need to be so hurried, which is very beneficial to improve the yield.

After killing the silkworms in the oven, it is not all without harm, such as the luster of the raw silk produced will be reduced, but this small problem can be made up for in the next steps.

All in all, it was such a small problem that seriously restricted the production and quality of Chinese raw silk, and later in the 80s, the competition with Japanese raw silk made Chinese farmers and merchants suffer a lot.

Before the cocoon is put into hot water to cook the cocoon, it is necessary to go through pretreatment such as mixing, peeling and selecting cocoons, and these steps should be similar in China and the West, so I will not describe much.

Then, it's a matter of boiling cocoons.

Chinese farmers boil cocoons by boiling a pot of water on a stove, then putting the cocoons in it, and spinning silk threads with their hands while boiling the water.

Because you have to put your hand into the pot, the temperature of the water in the pot should not be too high, generally only 60 degrees, and in some places even 40 degrees, this temperature can only be regarded as lukewarm.

In the West, the cocoon is boiled in water above 90 degrees Celsius for a period of time, and then the water temperature is gradually reduced to 60 degrees for a period of time, and then it is the turn of the silk reeling stage.

The level of water temperature directly affects the quality and yield of raw silk, especially the yield, the traditional Chinese process of boiling cocoons and reeling silk in the process of reeling silk is particularly large, so five or six catties of silkworm cocoons can only produce one catty of raw silk; once replaced with high-temperature cocoons, three catties of cocoons can be used to produce one catty of raw silk.

In the nineties of the nineteenth century, there were Japanese agricultural experts who defended the rural areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and later reported that as long as the temperature of the farmers' cocoons increased to more than 90 degrees, and other equipment remained unchanged, the output of raw silk could immediately increase by more than 30%.

After boiling the cocoon, the silk is reeled, and the traditional method is to roll the raw silk by turning a wooden wheel by hand, which is up to 70 inches in diameter for the sake of effort.

The Western silk reeling factory uses a runner with a diameter of no more than 22 inches (it should be a mixture of wood and iron), and it is not rotated by hand, but driven by a steam engine, which naturally uses more force than hand, and the thickness of the raw silk produced is more consistent, that is, the quality is higher.

After the Chinese farmers reeled the raw silk out, they sold it directly, and there was no follow-up processing and finishing, but after the western silk reeling factory reeled the silk, it also transferred the raw silk to a larger runner than the runner used for silk reeling, so that the raw silk was sorted out while relaxing the tension and making it of higher quality.

After the reshaking, there are processes such as sorting and inspection, and these Chinese farmers do not have them.

From the above description, under the condition that the quality of silkworm cocoons is the same, the raw silk extracted by traditional Chinese craftsmanship cannot be compared with the raw silk reeled by the machine.

In this case, the traditional Chinese raw silk process still existed in the Republic of China period, and it can only be said that the quality of Chinese silkworm cocoons is too good, so that the raw silk processed by worse technology also has strong vitality in Europe and the United States.

In the 21st century, tourist attractions around the world have withdrawn from the traditional silk reeling project, attracting many tourists, but after knowing the above knowledge, you will understand that the so-called traditional silk reeling process is just a gimmick.

First of all, most of these tourism projects use cocoons that have been killed by the oven, rather than fresh cocoons, which are different from the traditional silk reeling process from the starting point, and the subsequent process is all acting.

In fact, although the direct use of fresh cocoon silk reeling, there are such and such disadvantages, but there is also the production of raw silk luster is extremely bright (or the only advantage), so until modern times, a very small part of the top raw silk, or use fresh cocoons to reel silk directly, and then use other processes as auxiliary, this is the real traditional process.

It's just that it's better to expect tourist attractions to display such high-end craftsmanship.

Here is a brief introduction to the following commonly used measures to measure the thickness of raw silk deniers, the so-called denier is the mass weight of 9000 meters of fiber, the higher the denier, the thicker the raw silk, the smaller the denier, the finer the raw silk.

The indicators to evaluate the quality of raw silk are mainly three aspects: raw silk thickness, thickness uniformity and color appearance.

The traditional Chinese earthen silk is generally 40 to 70 deniers thick, while the raw silk used in Europe and the United States is 10 to 12 deniers or 11 to 13 deniers in Europe, and 13 to 15 deniers in the United States.

It can be known that the traditional native silk is much thicker than the actual raw silk, and the raw silk exported to Europe needs to be rewound locally to meet local needs; the Americans set up a rewinding factory in Guangzhou, and exported to the United States directly after rewinding in Guangzhou.

This also explains why Zhao Dagui was able to see several raw silk reeling factories using steam engines in Guangzhou.

Here I will say that the uniformity of the thickness of the raw silk is also a very important concept, the thickness of the raw silk in the thickness of 10 to 14 deniers, because it is not uniform enough, although the median mean is the same, but compared with the thickness of the raw silk in the thickness of 11 to 13 deniers, the quality is actually a grade worse.

Because the soil silk is spun by hand, the diameter is much thicker than the factory silk reeled by the machine, and the uniformity is much worse than the factory silk.

Throughout the whole process of machine silk reeling, the silk reeling process mainly determines whether the thickness of raw silk can be controlled at about 12 deniers, and the re-shaking process determines whether the thickness uniformity can be controlled within 2 deniers, so silk reeling and re-shaking are very important and non-negligible processes.

China has a long history of raw silk production, but until the beginning of the twentieth century, or during the Republic of China, most of the raw silk exported was still produced by traditional technology, and occasionally some factory silk production was mostly in the hands of foreign companies and comprador houses;

On the contrary, Japan realized the importance of raw silk very early, introduced advanced machinery and quality management methods from the West, rapidly increased the output and quality of raw silk, and then grabbed the market share that originally belonged to China little by little.

Before the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan's raw silk production was higher than that of China, the quality was higher than that of China, and the unit price was higher than that of China, so as to complete the accumulation of original funds, establish a large number of military factories and heavy factories, establish a large number of troops, and finally counterattack the Qing government.

Japan's industry is not developed, especially the lack of foreign exchange, only the raw silk industry can also be seen, it can be said that China's raw silk industry lost to Japan, is the first domino in a series of failures.

Well, many people may think that the above description is too cumbersome, but I still hope that everyone understands that the ups and downs of the raw silk industry will have a crucial impact on the national fortunes of China and Japan in the following decades, and there is not even an industry that can be compared.

In contrast, the impact of the tea market being squeezed out by Japan was much smaller; Japan's textile industry was not strong enough to support the war before the First Sino-Japanese War; as for Japan's smelting, machinery, and shipbuilding, they were all built with the money earned from raw silk, including the cost of sending officers abroad for training.

(Note: It is often accused of knowing the number of words in the water of the data, and it is also trying to minimize this kind of thing, just because the silk reeling process is very interesting, and even involves the national fortunes of China and Japan in the following decades, so I have to complain.) ）