1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 333 Cotton Spinning
On June 1639, 6, in the east of Hanzhou, Weihai City (now Cairns, Australia).

Two transport ships from Jianye Port docked steadily at the wooden trestle of the pier. Wang Zongping, the deputy director of the civil government's fortifications department, took a dozen craftsmen off the ship and immediately found the management personnel of the pier.

"Be careful when unloading the cargo!" Wang Zongping said loudly: "The spinning wheels on board are specially used for spinning and weaving, so they must not be bumped and damaged."

"What? We in Weihai are going to spin and weave our own cloth?" Liu Shoushan, a dock steward from Shandong, asked in surprise, "After that, will we be able to buy our clothes at a lower price? That would be great." I've thought about it for a long time, the grain fields outside the city haven't increased much, but the area of ​​cotton fields has expanded a lot, this must be because Hanzhou weaves its own cloth!"

"How much has the cotton field in Weihai increased?" Wang Zongping asked curiously.

"More than 1 mu of cotton fields have been newly expanded, and it is said that all of them are planted with cotton seeds from India." Liu Shoushan said proudly.

Added 500 mu of cotton fields, plus the previous 30 to 35 mu, it was less than 450 mu.Calculated based on the yield of [-] kilograms of seed cotton per mu, that is more than [-] tons.However, seed cotton needs to be threshed. Generally, the yield of seed cotton is [-]%-[-]%.Then, the lint cotton that can be used for spinning and weaving is about [-] tons to [-] tons.

"Then your cotton fields in Weihai are still a little short." Wang Zongping shook his head and said with a smile: "If these hydraulic spinning wheels are built, the cotton in your 1 mu of real estate may not be enough to consume in two months." .Moreover, the Black Mountain Machinery Factory is continuing to research and manufacture more efficient hydraulic spinning wheels."

"My God!" Liu Shoushan opened his mouth wide in surprise, "the cotton of more than 1 mu is not enough to produce it for two months! If it is produced continuously for a year, how much yarn will be spun and how much cloth will be woven! "

"In the future, this machine will be expanded and increased, and it will definitely be able to fully satisfy the clothing problems of our Hanzhou people." Wang Zongping said: "Moreover, we have to sell the excess cloth and exchange it with the natives of Nanyang for their value." stuff!"

Thinking about before leaving, the chief executive attached great importance to this batch of hydraulic textile machines, muttering in his mouth that the industrial revolution in Hanzhou is about to start, and the era of mass production is coming.

According to the general view, the British Industrial Revolution started with the invention and use of the hydraulic spinning machine.Although Thomas Lombard established the first hydraulic silk reeling factory in British history in Derby in 1719.But before the 18s, water spinning was not used in Britain.Until 60, the Ackley hydraulic spinning machine with practical value was finalized and promoted. Afterwards, Crompton improved the Ackley hydraulic spinning machine and the "Jenny" spinning machine invented by Hargreaves. In 1769, a more excellent and improved hydraulic spinning machine - "Mule Machine" was invented.

Since then, the British textile industry has developed along the road of large-scale machine production and has become the leading industrial sector of the Industrial Revolution.Therefore, the invention of the Ackley hydraulic spinning machine is generally considered to be the beginning of the British Industrial Revolution.

However, judging from the current pale industrial categories and factories and mines in Hanzhou, it is far from reaching the foundation of the so-called industrial revolution.However, the textile industry, as the most important sector of the national economy and the people's livelihood, once it completes large-scale production, coupled with the strong consumption capacity of the market, will greatly stimulate the technological change of related industries in Hanzhou.

From cotton production and fiber manufacturing, through lint processing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, garment making, washing, packaging and other production industries.At the same time, the relevant supporting industries include machinery, biology, dyeing materials, etc., which can promote the growth and development of a series of industries in Hanzhou.

You must know that the Great Ming Jiashen Tianchang is coming, and the entire Chinese mainland will be plunged into the heaviest catastrophe.As the largest producer and export source of cotton textiles in the Far East, the Jiangnan region will be hit hard in this brutal war.Then, Hanzhou, which claims to be the inheritance of Chinese civilization, in addition to saving more Han people and saving more cultures, of course, it also needs to move the textile manufacturing center to Hanzhou, and do a good job for the future capital accumulation and rapid increase in strength. Everything is ready.

In fact, the invention and earliest use of the hydraulic spinning machine was not in Britain in the mid-18th century, but in China in the Yuan Dynasty four centuries before.There are detailed records in Wang Zhen's "Nong Shu".Wang Zhen called this water-powered spinning machine "water-turned spinning wheel", introduced its structure, performance and usage at that time in detail, and attached a brief drawing of this machine, so as to prove it with conclusive evidence. , confirming the existence of the earliest hydraulic spinning machine in the world.

Wang Zhen said that the water wheel of the water-turning spinning wheel "is the same as the water-turning milling method", and China's water-turning mill has a history of thousands of years before the Yuan Dynasty, and it is quite mature in terms of technology.

Since the basic structure of the spinning wheel has been described in Wang Zhen's "Nongshu" with both pictures and texts, as long as a carpenter with certain experience can "draw a gourd according to the same pattern", a similar large spinning wheel can be made.Hanzhou Heishan Industrial Research Institute compared the pictures and texts in the "Nongshu", and with the guidance of several craftsmen who used to work in the Songjiang weaving workshop, they quickly made a hydraulic spinning wheel.

The transmission mechanism of the water spinning wheel is composed of two parts, one is the transmission spindle, and the other is the transmission yarn frame, which is used to complete the work of twisting and winding the yarn.The transmission between the working machine and the engine is composed of guide wheels and leather strings.Installing and using these parts according to a certain ratio can achieve "the strings rotate with the wheel, all the machines move, the up and down correspond, and the priority is appropriate."

The machine tool is the twisting and winding mechanism, which is composed of a frame, a spindle, a yarn guide rod and a yarn frame.In order to prevent the slivers from being entangled with each other during the twisting and winding process, 32 small iron forks are installed in front of the frame to "divide the slivers", and at the same time, it can also make the slivers form well, and the function is similar to that of winding. The traversing lead screw on the car is the same.

After some experiments, the technological level of the machine tool of this water-turned spinning wheel should reach or exceed that of the machine tool in the spinning machine of the British Industrial Revolution era in the late 18th century.You must know that the famous "Jenny" spinning machine only had 8 spindles at first, and then increased to 12-18 spindles; the big spinning wheel made by Hanzhou has 36 spindles. The "Jenny" machine can only be driven by human power, but the big spinning wheel can be powered by water power, animal power or human power.Its working performance is quite good during operation, and its work efficiency is very high.

It is reported that in the Chengdu area of ​​Sichuan at this time, a large number of hydraulic spinning machines were installed along the lower reaches of Dujiangyan, which were also produced and built according to the water-turning spinning wheel or its analogues recorded in Wang Zhen's "Nongshu".
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Although in Weihai, government officials and subordinates of the agricultural affairs department vigorously promoted and promoted the development of the cotton textile industry, for Weihai immigrants who were still hungry a few years ago, they always felt that it would be better to grow cotton on their own land. The food that fills the stomach is more important.

Hu Kuan, the village head of Shiban Village and the captain of the township soldier squad, squatted on the ground, looked angrily at Kong Xianglin, who was also squatting on the ground, and remained silent for a while.

"Old Hu, I know you are kind. But I always feel that half of the cotton is planted in the field, and I don't feel at ease." Kong Xianglin deliberated for a long time before he said: "We were all hungry in Daming, the kind of hungry The taste, I am afraid you will never forget it for the rest of your life. My own land, I just want to grow some food, okay?"

"You have [-] acres of land, except for the ones that were plowed last year, which will fall fallow. You will grow all the remaining [-] acres of grain. Can you eat enough? Even if you sell the grain to the villagers, you can earn some money." Hu Kuan said: "As you know, the county officials said that the price of cotton is a bit higher than that of grain, and our climate here is also suitable for growing cotton. At the end of the year, if you sell more money, you can also sell it earlier. Has the debt of the government been paid off?"

"No matter how much money you have, you will be hungry without food." Kong Xianglin said.

"Where will there be no food?" Hu Kuan said: "I heard that the grain planting area in Weiyuan Fort and Xinxiang Fort has expanded a lot. When the time comes, the grain produced will be brought to us one by one, and it won't be able to support you! Besides, not all of our farmland in Weihai is planted with cotton, but a small half of it is planted with grain."

"Those two places are so far away from our Weihai. What if the Dutch are blocking the door and the food can't be shipped out? Besides, didn't you hear what the people in the city said, there will be a lot of immigrants from Ming Dynasty next month. Come here, there are many more mouths to eat...Anyway, I have decided that all my fields will be planted with grain, oh, and soybeans."

Hu Kuan looked at Kong Xianglin helplessly, shook his head, and said, "Then it's up to you. I just think that we came from Huaibei together, and we are fellow villagers in the same county. We should take care of each other. The adults in the city If you say you want to grow cotton, you can’t be wrong, when the time comes, when you want to buy something in the house, I’ll see how you get a pile of grain in exchange for it.”

Wang Zhenliang of Weihai County plans to plant more than 1 mu of newly opened arable land, all of which are planned to be planted with cotton, and will be managed by immigrants from various villages who are still in the service period of reclamation.As for those farmers who have already allocated land, the county government encourages half of their fields to be converted into cotton fields.At that time, when cotton is purchased, Weihai Cotton Mill will directly purchase currency, and the price will be much higher than the purchase price of grain, so as to boost farmers' enthusiasm for cotton planting.

In the overall agricultural plan of the Hanzhou government, Weihai and several new southern coastal settlements will grow cotton to provide enough raw materials for the development of Hanzhou's cotton textile industry.As for the food gap in this area, Weiyuan and Xinxiang will naturally have to fill it.

However, for some hungry immigrants, the encouragement and guidance of the Weihai county government still made them doubtful.In addition, a few months ago, the mainland and Xinxiangbao were blocked by Dutch warships, so that Weihai almost suffered a food shortage, which made those land-distributed farmers afraid to plant half of their land with cotton.

(End of this chapter)