Chapter five hundred and eighty seventh free time rain
Guo Rong was not as eager as Feng Liao, and those who drank tea and chatted were still charming people from Yangtai and other places.
He was poor since he was a child, so he went to Guangling to serve in the Imperial Palace, where he studied and became literate. Later, he married into the Yang family with Empress Xu. He can be said to be a direct henchman of the Anning Palace. He followed the third prince in his early years.
When he left the palace and returned to his residence, he also monitored her on behalf of Empress Xu.
Guo Rong's parents died young, but his two elder brothers are still alive.
Although Guo Rong has served in the palace for many years and has not returned to his old residence in Yangzhou for more than ten years, the correspondence with his brother's family has not been interrupted.
It was a pity that the two elder brothers' heirs were all useless, but they both wanted to adopt one of their sons to him as a court official, but Guo Rong did not agree, and the relationship became somewhat estranged later on.
The current situation in the past three or four years was turbulent. For a period of time, Guo Rong himself was in danger and he completely lost contact.
Guo Rong's old home is located in a village northeast of Shaobo Lake. This area is also the most flood-stricken place in northern Yangzhou since the beginning of summer. Guo Rong does not know what the situation at home is like for his two brothers.
Although he followed Han Qian in Jianghuai during this period, and even lived less than a hundred miles away from his old home for a while, he never had a chance to contact him. He thought that maybe he would drag his family with him and live in Yangzhou City and become a disaster victim.
"When I return to Yangzhou, I will find Mr. Guo's two elder brothers' homes and send them to Tangyi to reunite with Mr. Guo," Wang Jun said.
At present, Huaidong controls the large-scale entry of refugees into Tangyi. This is definitely not something that Wang Jun can object to. However, when Guo Rong's two elder brothers and their children were sent to Tangyi, Huaidong and Tangyi did not break up with each other.
, no one will deliberately make things difficult.
Guo Rong was naturally extremely grateful.
When the night got cooler and the heat became less difficult to sleep, Guo Rong, Feng Liao, and Feng Yi said goodbye and left.
There was no sudden incident that disturbed everyone tonight, and the night was considered peaceful and relaxing.
Xi Rong sent the maid to bring hot water for Wang Jun's master and servant to wash themselves.
When he woke up in the early morning, it was raining outside the window, and the maid Xiangyun was still sleeping soundly. Wang Jun heard that the yard was still quiet, and he didn't know if Han Qian and the others had gotten up, so he didn't rush out of the house, washed and pushed.
Opening the back window, you can see the rain curtain hanging from the back eaves and falling on the bricks and stones in the back alley. No one is passing by, making you feel like you are living in an empty city.
After thinking about it, Wang Jun smiled in his heart again and secretly thought that this was Han Qian's residence. The guards around it must be tight. How could there be such a large flow of people?
After a while, Wang Jun heard a noise in the wing next door. Wang Jun opened the door and tiptoed to the corridor. He looked through the window and saw that there was a library next door. He didn't know when Han Qian had gotten up and was standing in it.
What are you reading.
Han Qian heard the noise in front of the corridor and saw that it was Wang Jun who was wearing a long robe, with his raven-colored hair hanging down, making his face as white and translucent as the first snow, with long eyebrows on his temples, and his eyes looking like clear deep springs.
He came over and asked with a smile: "Why, did I wake you up?"
"I just woke up and heard a sound here. How long has it been raining?" Wang Jun asked.
Han Qian looked at the rain curtain outside the corridor and said, "It has been raining for more than an hour. It seems that the rain is neither urgent nor slow. It will probably last all day."
Seeing Han Qian coming over to help her open the door, Wang Jun jumped in on tiptoe. Seeing Han Qian holding a large book of drawings in his hand, he tilted his head and leaned over, and asked in surprise: "This is it?"
Picture of the newly built hydraulic spinning wheel in Xuzhou?"
"..." Han Qian handed the album to Wang Jun and told her, "I thought of one thing that could be improved at night, and I didn't sleep well after that. Now I hurriedly got up and came over to look through the album, but
There may be no use in pondering my nightly thoughts..."
"Can I see all of these?" Wang Jun asked.
She stood for a while and then felt a little tired. She leaned against the bookshelf behind her. On the row of bookshelves against the east wall, there were almost all books on weaving methods. There were as many as forty or fifty volumes.
.
In comparison, the "Weaving Chapter" she obtained from Han Qian more than two years ago seemed very thick, but it was still streamlined.
"You have seen it all, so I have more excuses to detain you." Han Qian looked at Wang Jun's deep beautiful eyes covered by long eyelashes, and said with a smile as his heart seemed to ripple.
"That will have to wait until I can understand everything." Wang Jun raised his eyes slightly, glanced at Han Qian, and whispered.
At this time, a guard came from the front yard, but there was an urgent matter that required Han Qian to go to the front office immediately to deal with it. Han Qian said something to Wang Jun and left the house first.
Wang Jun has always been curious about how to make a water-powered spinning wheel, but it was difficult to hold a thick atlas in his hand. He looked at a book table in front of the window, so he tiptoed to move many books about weaving, and then sat down to read it carefully.
Spend time on rainy days.
Only then did she realize that these forty or fifty volumes of books could be said to record all aspects of Xuzhou's vigorous development of cotton weaving.
The history of weaving linen and silk fabrics can be traced back to two or three thousand years ago. The history of cotton weaving in southwestern Japan also goes back several hundred years. The hand-spinning cotton wheels and looms used in the early years were also based on the hemp spinning wheels, and the hemp looms were improved.
; Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, water drainage has been used in the Central Plains area, and the history of water dams has been recorded.
In theory, there is no problem in using water to drive axles and spin wheels or looms.
However, compared to water turbines, water drainage, and hydraulic spinning wheels, the components are much more complex and sophisticated.
Starting from the Qiu Hushan period, a water-powered spinning wheel can be said to be the culmination of Han Qian's development of craftsmanship in the past seven or eight years.
After Han Qian arrived in Xuzhou, he began to vigorously promote cotton cultivation and cotton weaving, and he wanted to build a water-powered spinning machine and water-powered weaving machine. However, it was not until last year that the Engineer School built the first machine that could reliably be driven by water flow.
A water-powered spinning wheel runs on an axle, while water-powered looms are not yet mature.
The spies in Huaidong failed to see the actual sample of the hydraulic spinning wheel. This was not because Han Qian deliberately asked for secrecy. In fact, it had been in the experimental stage for a long time. It was not until the end of last year that six large-scale hydraulic spinning wheels with a total capacity of nearly 500 yarns were built.
You can only try it out in a weaving factory directly under the Bureau of Industry and Manufacturing.
Wang Jun was shocked when he saw this.
She had great expectations for the water-powered spinning wheel, but she never thought that a water-powered spinning wheel could drive nearly a hundred yarns. This is equivalent to several people operating a water-powered spinning wheel, which can be worth a hundred home spinners.
yarn worker.
The components of the hydraulic spinning wheel were too complicated. Wang Jun glanced at it briefly, and then looked through other books and archived documents.
From many letters, it can be seen that Han Qian has already planned that as long as the water-powered spinning wheel can operate stably, he will not sell it to other private weaving workshops and workshops because of technical confidentiality.
Even without the memory of the dream world, Han Qian at this time had a much deeper understanding of cotton, salt and iron, three commodities that could form a primary industrial system under current conditions, than the current talents.
Salt is subject to a monopoly system. Currently, it is extremely difficult for Xuzhou to seize the opportunity to traffic salt through the Qianjiang River channel to central Guizhou, Nanzhao and other places. We cannot expect too much in a short time.
Although Xuzhou's iron-making skills are much higher than those of the past, the problem lies in the aristocratic clans that control the local area. Many families have their own iron-making workshops and basically monopolize the local smelting and casting industry.
At the same time, because the aristocratic clans can force extremely cheap and abundant slaves to work, Xuzhou cannot have an absolute advantage in terms of cost.
Only cotton has great performance advantages over linen and geyi. The cotton weaving industry is also an area where it is easiest to form a primary industrial system in Xuzhou. It is also something that Han Qian has spared no effort to promote in Xuzhou in recent years.
Xuzhou has a mild climate and mostly sloping terraces, which is more suitable for cotton and wheat rotation. Currently, before Liyang and Tangyi are reclaiming low-lying land on a large scale to expand rice fields that are easy to irrigate and are not afraid of waterlogging in summer, large areas of land are
The higher old fields are also recommended for planting cotton, beans and wheat crops in rotation, which is more suitable.
In addition to the methods of cotton planting and weaving, these books also contain discussions on the similarities and differences in the production organization methods of cotton planting and weaving, as well as the sales of cotton cloth in Jianghuai, Hunan, Jingxiang, Sichuan and Sichuan. Wang Jun recognized her in Jianyuan in the past two years.
Trying to plant three to five hundred acres of cotton fields at the foot of the mountain can only be regarded as playing house.
At that time, one acre of cotton field could produce about 80 kilograms of seed cotton in autumn, and about twenty pieces of coarse cotton could be woven.
At the beginning, the price of Jianghuai cotton was the same as silk, with each piece selling for thousands of yuan, which also meant that one acre of cotton field could produce an output value of up to 20,000 yuan. However, even after several suppressions, the price of Jianghuai cotton dropped to a level that ordinary people could barely afford.
Each piece of cotton received was four to five hundred yuan, and if one acre of cotton was planted and eventually woven into cotton cloth and sold, one could still earn ten thousand yuan.
Based on the current high grain prices in Jianghuai, even if every stone of japonica rice is as high as 2,000 yuan, the output of one acre of cotton field is enough to equal the output of two and a half acres of rice fields in Jianghuai; and based on the output of Hunan, Jiangxi and Sichuan,
In terms of grain prices, one acre of cotton field in Xuzhou is equivalent to the output of five acres of rice field.
The output here can be said to be quite amazing; if the price of Jianghuai rice goes down, there is still room for Qianyang cloth to significantly reduce its price.
However, the problem is that even with the new method implemented in the first two years after Han Qian arrived in Xuzhou - this is also the process and spinning wheel loom recorded in the "Weaving Chapter" that Han Qian gave to Wang Jun two years ago.
From growing cotton fields to spinning and weaving, the amount of labor invested is still too great.
According to the method recorded in "Weaving Chapter", three to four female weavers in a household, working day and night to operate one spinning wheel and one loom, can only weave thirty or forty pieces of cloth a year.
In other words, in addition to farming, a family weaver can only weave ten pieces of cloth per year; without continuous improvement of the spinning wheel and loom, it would be impossible for a family to plant an average of two or three acres of cotton fields.
In the past, the manpower in Xuzhou was barely enough. After all, the area of cotton fields in Xuzhou and surrounding counties gradually increased from 6,000 to 7,000 acres in 67 years ago. Even on the eve of the Jinling Incident, Xuzhou and
The area of cotton fields in surrounding states and counties has only exceeded 100,000 acres.
However, in the next two years, as Han Qian further deepened his control over Xuzhou, he began to reclaim sloping terraces suitable for growing cotton on a large scale, and the scale of cotton planting expanded by leaps and bounds, reaching its peak last year with more than 500,000 acres.
This year, because a large number of cotton seeds, agricultural tools, cotton farmers, and weavers came to support Tangyi, the cotton planting area in Xuzhou and surrounding counties did not continue to increase.
Even so, even if only half of the seed cotton harvested after autumn last year is woven into cotton cloth, it would require almost two to three hundred thousand family weavers to work around the clock and invest 70 to 80 thousand spinning wheels and looms to digest it.
Lose.
In fact, the total population of Xuzhou is less than 250,000. How could there be so many family weavers?
Since he wanted to establish a primary industrial system in Xuzhou, Han Qian even before the war to eliminate the feudal vassals - when the cotton planting area in Xuzhou was 20,000 to 30,000 acres - he strongly encouraged families with extra money outside the weaving courtyard to which the Han family belonged.
Large families with surplus grain recruited weavers to open weaving workshops or larger factories to absorb the growing cotton fields.
What Han Qian wants to do in Xuzhou is to continuously promote technological progress in order to form a large-scale cotton textile industry in the shortest possible time, rather than trying every means to keep it secret.
Xuzhou Industry and Manufacturing Bureau, whenever there are new improvements to spinning wheel looms, in addition to the directly-administered weaving workshops trying them out for a period of time, they will also put them out as quickly as possible for private weaving workshops and factories to purchase.
In addition to the four weaving workshops under the direct jurisdiction of the Industrial and Manufacturing Bureau, at the end of last year, there were currently more than 140 small and medium-sized weaving workshops in Fifty-nine Township, seven counties in Xuzhou, employing 17,800 weavers across the state.
Five times the number of weavers employed by the Xuzhou Industrial and Manufacturing Bureau.
The Industrial and Manufacturing Bureau and the weaving workshops throughout counties and villages in Xuzhou have generally adopted six- to eight-thread spinning wheels and larger looms. One weaver employed can almost equal the output of three to four family weavers.
The labor difference involved here is where the profits of the workshops and factories lie.
The annual income of a weaving workshop employing more than a hundred workers is no less than that of a small farm.
In addition, a considerable part of the seed cotton will be directly used to fill winter clothes, bedding and other uses. In addition, thousands of household spinning looms are also running. It is barely possible for the Xuzhou cotton weaving industry to expand the local and surrounding areas.
The output of a total of 500,000 acres of cotton fields in the prefecture and county last year was absorbed.
Even if half of the cotton fields are woven into cloth, Xuzhou will be able to weave almost five million pieces of cotton cloth before the new seed cotton is harvested in autumn this year.
From the process of developing the cotton weaving industry in Xuzhou, we can also see that cotton cloth is more suitable as a natural advantage for primary industry. At the same time, after the price has been significantly reduced, it is superior to linen cloth in terms of softness, warmth, and firmness. As long as it can
If you enter the prefectures and counties, you will be very popular - but entering the prefectures and counties is not easy. This is not a society where goods can circulate freely.
The outside world is not aware of this, mainly because the development of Xuzhou's cotton industry has been in leaps and bounds, and its scale was extremely limited in the past few years.
Even the year before last, the year just after the Jinling Incident, the first year of Yanyou, the cotton planting area in Xuzhou and surrounding counties was only 200,000 acres.
The seed cotton produced the year before was not harvested until the end of September, and then woven into cloth. It was not until last year that it was shipped to various places for sale.
After deducting the consumption of local weavers and the large-scale recruitment of troops, the number of cotton cloth exported last year was only 13.4 million pieces; the exported cotton cloth the year before last was only 5.6 million pieces.
Therefore, it is not particularly conspicuous.
However, the seed cotton produced last year has been gradually woven into cloth this year, and the total amount that Xuzhou needs to export has suddenly increased to four million pieces, which is a bit jaw-dropping.
At this time, even if only one-third of it is imported into Jinling, it will temporarily exceed the carrying capacity of the counties in Gyeonggi.
Prefectures and counties are seriously controlled by local clan clans. Except for Hunan, Gyeonggi, and those sold to Sichuan and Sichuan through Changxiang Hou Wangyong, Jiangzhou and Guangde currently do not import Qianyang cloth produced in Xuzhou.
limit.
After browsing through many books, Wang Jun rubbed his swollen temples and understood more clearly why Han Qian was eager to cooperate with Yang Zhitang. He also understood that the cooperation with Yang Zhitang temporarily encountered obstacles from Shen Yang, Feng Liao, Guo Rong
Why can't she wait to talk about her engagement with Han Qian?
Before Han Qian, in addition to recruiting landless poor people from Jiangdong counties, refugees supplemented the serious shortage of labor force in Tangyi. In the book written by Han Qian, both refugees and landless poor people have a common title.
It is labor force - there is an even more urgent need for the counties in Jiangdong to open up a hole for cotton trafficking to Xuzhou and Tangyi.
Not to mention Xuzhou, Han Qian has now reclaimed 300,000 acres of cotton fields in Tangyi. The harvest period will begin in one month, and he will be able to harvest about 20 million seed cotton by then.
Tangyi has only 120,000 to 30,000 soldiers and civilians. Including summer and autumn clothes, bedding, etc., it consumes an average of three million kilograms of seed cotton a year. The remaining seed cotton is either directly spun into yarn or directly woven into
Cloth must be successfully transported to the Jiangdong states in order to exchange for supplies that are in short supply in various Tang cities.
There are fifteen prefectures in Jiangnan East Road, with a prosperous population of six to seven million people.
If Qianyang cloth could be trafficked unimpeded to the counties in Jiangdong, the scale of Qianyang cloth that could be exported from Jiangdong alone would be more than double that of the counties in Hunan.
The cooperation with Yang Zhitang is temporarily blocked by Shen Yang and the Jiangdong family. To a certain extent, Tangyi also needs to make peace with Huaidong...
"Hey, Han Qian doesn't allow you to come in this room. He's determined to detain you!" Xi Rong went out early in the morning to have something to do. He returned near noon and saw Wang Jun sitting in front of the window stretching.
He took the oil-paper umbrella and walked to the corridor and talked to Wang Jun through the window.
The maid Xiangyun stood in front of the corridor aggrievedly.
She got up early in the morning to wash up, and saw Wang Jun sitting in the room next door, reading documents. She wanted to follow him in, but she didn't want to be stopped by the guard on duty in the yard.
This courtyard involves too many secrets from Xuzhou and Tangyi soldiers. Not only is she strictly prohibited from entering, she is also strictly prohibited from walking around in the courtyard - wherever she goes, a maid is watching her, but Wang Jun
Without restrictions, she would be depressed.
Wang Jun raised his head and saw Xi Rong's hair on the temples wet from the rain, with a stack of letters under her arm. He didn't know where she had been early in the morning. She left earlier than Han Qian, but he ignored her teasing and asked.
The whereabouts of Tang Shiyu and others.
After she came with Han Qian last night, Tang Shiyu and the two guards accompanying her did not show up again, so they could not leave her alone.
"I left you here as a guest and asked them to go back. Tang Shiyu has already left with the fleet to go back to Yangzhou. Your two followers are still living in the inn in Nanxiang. If you need anything, please tell someone.
Just one word." Xi Rong said.
They trust Wang Jun, but whether the people around Wang Wenqian are worthy of trust is another matter.
Tang Shiyu himself was the chief spy in Yangzhou. He left them to rest in the camp last night and sent them out of the camp early this morning. It was impossible to give them the right to walk freely in the camp.
After a while, Han Qian also walked back with an umbrella. Wang Jun realized that it was already noon, and Han Qian and Xi Rong had returned to the back house to have dinner with her.
During the meal, Xi Rong handed him the letter she had brought back. Only then did Wang Jun know that it was the navy's plan to attack the west and north banks of Chao Lake.
No matter what, Han Qian would not give up the advantage of the Tangyi navy on the warships to continuously attack the Shouzhou army stationed in Chaozhou. He also did not think that doing so would force him to be mainly responsible for attacking the enemy forces in Chaozhou.
The Huaixi Forbidden Army took advantage of the military suppression.
Besides, when the naval forces attack the west and north banks of Chao Lake, they mainly take advantage of the imminent autumn harvest to plunder crops and livestock. Even if they do not kill innocent people indiscriminately, they will try to coerce as many civilians as possible to move into Tang.
Yap.
Military stalemate and confrontation are so boring.
It is not possible to tear apart the opponent's defense line in one fell swoop and gain a strategic advantage, but in addition to guarding one's own defense line, one still has to do everything possible to continuously penetrate into the enemy's territory and do everything possible to destroy and disrupt the enemy's farming.
Production.
Kong Xirong led the guerrilla army to attack and harass the western part of Wujian Mountain. This strategy was mainly implemented. In the past three or four months, more than 2,000 elite troops in the mountains relied on forcible expropriation of enemy-occupied areas for supplies. More than 4,000 elite troops were also captured.
Civilians were sent to the south bank of Chu River for resettlement.
Autumn is coming soon, and even if they cannot bear the casualties of the tough fortress, the Tangyi soldiers who have been resting for four or five months should take turns to break out of the camp and exercise their muscles.
This plan was just a draft decided by the Military Intelligence Staff Department. Han Qian sat at the dining table, read through it, wrote down a few comments with an ink pen, and then ordered Xi Rong to pass it on to others for review.
After lunch, Han Qian did not rush to the front office. He stayed in the yard to write a letter first, and then found a newly built four-wheeled carriage carrying Wang Jun, Xi Rong and others. He wore a raincoat and walked with him.
Han Donghu and the guards rode towards Liyang City.
Although Liyang City has changed hands several times in the past two or three years, it has been very lucky that it has not been devastated by war.
Li Zhigao gave up Liyang City, considering that after the Shouzhou Army captured it, it would mainly be used to garrison the city, and the city walls could not be destroyed. There was no point in burning down the houses in the city, so he gave up Liyang City completely.
When Zhou Chu led his troops to besiege the city, the defenders in the city finally chose to surrender. This city, which had been renovated before the founding of the Kingdom of Heavenly Blessed Emperor, was still intact.
To be honest, if the terrain here were not high, even digging a canal would not be able to form a channel for thousands of stone ships to sail in. Surrounded by mountains, Liyang City is easy to defend and difficult to attack, but it is very suitable to be the military and political center of Tangyi.
.
The lack of river transportation is the biggest flaw that Han Qian cannot accommodate, and it is destined to only become a foil for East Lake City in the future.
However, Wang Jun had a different feeling when he entered Liyang City in a carriage.
Liyang City is more than a thousand steps deep and is not very large. The carriage passes through the city gate. The bluestones paved on the long street have been worn smooth. There are rows of camphor trees on both sides of the long street, providing green shade. Raindrops are covered with leaves.
The occlusion has become sparse, but the traces appear clearer.
Behind the camphor tree, the houses are lined up in rows, and they appear to be neat and orderly. The stone steps at the foot of the walls are covered with thick moss, the doors are mottled with paint, and the courtyard walls are covered with green vines and some fine and bright red stamens are scattered here and there.
The houses on both sides didn't look like they were inhabited, and there were only a few pedestrians walking in the rain on the long street - Wang Jun heard Tang Shiyu say that after capturing Liyang City, Han Qian only
A very small number of households were moved to Liyang City for resettlement, but most of the houses in Liyang City were still empty.
Walking into such a city, Wang Jun seemed to be returning to a corner of Yangzhou City.
"Who do you think I should invite to Yangzhou to marry you, so that your father will happily agree to let you marry me?" Han Qian picked up the reins in his hand, leaned towards the carriage, and asked Wang Jun.
"Ah?" Wang Jun was thinking about the joys and sorrows that had happened in the closed houses on both sides of the long street. When he heard Han Qian's words, he suspected that he had heard it wrong. He turned around, his clear eyes were stunned.
Looking at Han Qian, he didn't know what to say for a long time...
