The videos I watched became popular in ancient times

Textiles have always occupied a very important position in any period.

In ancient times, textile technology was not particularly mature, so the things woven in ancient times were very rough.

But during the Yuan Dynasty, there was a person who changed this situation. She was Huang Dao Po.

In the history of Chinese textiles, there were two women who were worshipped as gods.

One is Huangdi’s first wife Leizu. Legend has it that she taught people how to raise silkworms and make silk, and was revered as the first silkworm by later generations.

Another one is Huang Dao Po from the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty. She is revered by textile practitioners as the ancestor of the cloth industry and the weaving saint.

"Huang Daopo, also known as Huang Po, is from Songjiang Prefecture."

"A famous cotton textile manufacturer and technological reformer in the late Song and early Yuan dynasties."

"Speaking of China's textile industry, it also has a very long history."

"Before the Northern Song Dynasty, textiles mainly referred to hemp textiles."

"And cotton textiles are only distributed in Xinjiang and Yunnan."

"Later, as social economy continued to develop and trade became more prosperous, cotton was planted more and more everywhere."

"Cotton textiles have made some progress, but the technical level is still quite backward."

"Huang Daopo was born in poverty and lost both her parents when she was young."

"She was made a child bride at the age of twelve or thirteen, and was subjected to verbal abuse and beatings."

"Once, because I was working in the fields and missed cooking time, my husband beat me up and locked me in the woodshed."

"Huang Dao Po was filled with grief and anger. She tore open the roof of the house in the middle of the night and escaped, and boarded a ship by the Huangpu River."

"The boatman sympathized with his plight and allowed him to travel far away on the ship."

"After more than a month, she arrived by ship at Shuinan Village, Ya County, on the southern tip of Hainan Island, and lived there."

"After Huang Daopo arrived in Hainan Island, she was alone and had no one to rely on."

"But the people on Hainan Island were very enthusiastic, so they accepted her and passed on the textile technology to her."

"Huang Daopo humbly learned from the Li people and mastered advanced cotton textile technology. Huang Daopo lived in Hainan Island for nearly 30 years."

"During these 30 years, Huang Daopo has always missed her hometown."

"One day in 1295, Huang Dao Po bid farewell to the people on Hainan Island."

"Then I took a boat to leave Hainan Island and headed for my hometown."

"After Huang Daopo returned to her hometown, everything was different."

"At that time, the Southern Song Dynasty had fallen, and the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty had unified the country."

"And Huang Daopo's father-in-law, mother-in-law and husband are all dead."

"At that time, Huang Daopo had no worries, so she put all her efforts into the promotion of textiles."

"Jiangnan has started to resume production and the economic situation has improved."

"Huang Daopo bid farewell to Lixiang and returned to her homeland after many years away."

"When Huang Daopo returned to her hometown, cotton planting had become widely popular in the Yangtze River Basin, but textile technology was still very backward."

"After Huang Daopo came back, she devoted herself to reforming textile technology."

Zhu Di: The fact that a poor woman could leave her name in history is enough to show how great Huang Dao Po's contribution was.

After Huang Dao Po escaped from her family, she heard about the beautiful scenery of Hainan.

Especially when I heard that Yazhou was rich in cotton and cotton cloth, I really longed to know that there was such a good place in the world.

Huang Dao Po used to peel cotton seeds with her hands until her fingernails fell off. She wanted to go and see how the people in Yazhou, Hainan, grew cotton and made cloth.

So Huang Dao Po followed the boatman all the way to Yazhou, Hainan.

When Huang Dao Po arrived in Yazhou, she saw that it was indeed a completely different world.

She soon formed friendships with the local Li sisters and worked with them to plant, pick, gin, spin, dye and weave cotton.

Huang Dao Po couldn't let go of the colorful Li brocade quilts woven by the Li sisters.

Huang Dao Po lived in Yazhou for more than 30 years, and grew from a lonely little girl into an old woman with gray hair.

One spring, Huang Dao Po was planting cotton in the field. She looked up and saw a group of wild geese flying north in a group, which immediately aroused her homesickness.

Unfortunately, the Southern Song Dynasty court was corrupt and incompetent, and there was war and chaos, so he had to leave his hometown.

No matter how tall the tree is, its leaves will return to its roots. It’s time to go back and visit my hometown.

Huang Dao Po made up her mind, said goodbye to her Li sisters and returned to her hometown.

After Huang Dao Po came back, she learned that Emperor Shizu of Yuan Dynasty had levied a tax on cotton cloth throughout the country and that cotton was widely planted in Songjiang area.

When Huang Dao Po returned to her hometown, she inevitably reminisced about the past with her relatives and discussed how to improve cotton ginning and spinning.

Huang Dao Po invited a carpenter and decided to improve the method of ginning cotton seeds first.

In Yazhou, cotton seed ginning is done by rotating two thin iron rods. Huang Dao Po draws the pattern and the carpenter processes it according to the pattern.

Three days later, Huang Dao Po came to see the carpenter and saw that a wooden hand-cranked cotton gin had been completed.

Two people crank the machine by hand while one person puts in the cotton seeds. It is very efficient, peels the seeds cleanly and saves effort.

Huang Dao Po used her brain again and changed the original one-foot-long bamboo bow for fluffing cotton into a large wooden rope-string bow more than four feet long.

Huang Dao Po had another bold idea to transform the original hand-cranked spinning wheel with one spindle into a pedal-operated spinning wheel with three spindles.

After many experiments, the number of ingots was increased from three to five.

After improving the tools, Huang Dao Po further improved the weaving technology, resulting in the weaving of colorful cotton cloth, which soon spread throughout the Songjiang area.

"After Huang Daopo came back, the textile technology had already spread in the local area."

"But the technology was very backward, so she taught them all the skills she learned on Hainan Island."

"Huang Daopo unreservedly passed on her exquisite weaving skills to the people of her hometown to help them get rid of poverty and live a happy life."

"Thus, Huang Daopo first reformed the rolling process."

"She first went to find out how people used to remove the seeds and clean the cotton. The women told her distressedly that they still peeled them one by one with their fingers."

"Huang Daopo taught everyone to hold a small smooth iron stick, put the cotton seeds on a hard and flat hammering stone, and use the iron stick to squeeze the cotton seeds."

"Huang Dao Po was also very happy to see everyone happy, but she was not satisfied."

"She felt that rolling with the iron rod was still too much effort, so she continued to look for new methods."

"Suddenly, she thought of the principle of the Li people's bicycle, and her mind suddenly became clear."

"I immediately discussed with my partners about trying to use this principle to manufacture a cotton gin, and I worked on it day and night."

"Finally they used four wooden boards to make a wooden frame and set up two wooden pillars on top."

"The capital is set under a square wood, and the center of the column is equipped with an iron and wooden axle with a crank."

"The iron shaft has a smaller diameter than the wooden shaft, and the two shafts are of different thicknesses, so they rotate at different speeds."

"Huang Daopo and her two sisters, one feeding seed cotton into the gap between the two ironwood shafts, while the other two cranked the handle."

"As a result, the cotton wool and seeds quickly fell to the inside and outside of the two shafts."

"And at that time, the weaving machines used in this area were relatively old-fashioned ones, which required several people to supply one weaving machine."

"The spinning wheel modified by Huang Daopo increased the spinning efficiency by more than three times."

"And it is very labor-saving to operate, so the textile wheel improved by Huang Dao Po was very popular and quickly promoted." Xu Guangqi: Huang Dao Po innovated cotton textile technology and changed the dress of the Chinese nation.

Although cotton was already being grown in Songjiang at that time, the cotton textile technology was very backward.

Even the picking of cotton seeds is done by hand, not to mention spinning and weaving.

After returning to her hometown, Huang Dao Po spread the techniques she learned from the Li people to the local area.

The technical problems of the main processes from cotton seed removal to cotton fluffing, and from spinning to weaving have been comprehensively solved.

The four technological innovations promoted by Huang Dao Po are defending, playing, spinning and weaving.

The so-called "han" means rolling the cotton seeds.

Based on the Li ethnic group's treadmill, Huang Dao Po worked with local carpenters to invent a mixing wheel specifically for removing cotton seeds.

In this way, the cotton seeds can be squeezed out by hand cranking or foot pedaling, and the time-consuming and laborious manual picking is no longer necessary, which greatly improves the efficiency of cotton seed removal.

The so-called "flashing" means fluffing cotton.

At that time, the slingshots used to scoop cotton in the Songjiang area were too short and very inefficient.

Huang Dao Po modified it into a four-foot-long slingshot, and used a hammer to strike the rope string instead of plucking the string with her hands.

This saves time and effort, and the cotton that pops out is also fluffier and cleaner.

Spinning means spinning yarn.

One of Huang Dao Po's major technological innovations was the invention of the foot-operated three-spindle spinning wheel, which could spin three threads at the same time.

Moreover, the pedaling method frees up hands, greatly improving the spinning efficiency and ensuring the quality.

This technology was more advanced than that of the West at that time.

The so-called weaving means weaving cloth.

Huang Dao Po has decades of experience in cotton textile and has developed a complete weaving process.

As a result, many cotton textiles with exquisite patterns and bright colors were developed and were very popular among the people.

In this sense, Huang Dao Po made a major innovation in cotton textile technology.

It not only changed the Chinese tradition of using silk and linen as the main clothing materials for thousands of years, but also gave birth to an emerging cotton textile industry.

From then on, the Chinese nation's dress and appearance underwent major changes, and their living habits also changed accordingly.

With the continuous development and prosperity of the cotton textile industry, the wealth created by local women is no less than that of men, which has greatly improved the family status of women.

At the same time, the rise of the cotton textile industry also made the Jiangnan area the national textile center.

The formation of this prosperous situation undoubtedly also includes Huang Dao Po's unremitting efforts and great contributions.

"In the spinning process, Huang Daopo invented a three-spindle foot-cranked spinning wheel to replace the previous single-spindle hand-cranked spinning wheel."

"The pedals are very powerful, and they also free up my hands to hold the cotton and draw the yarn."

"It can spin three yarns at the same time, with high speed and high output."

"This was the most advanced spinning wheel in the world at the time and a remarkable technological revolution."

"In the weaving process, Huang Daopo also made some reforms to the loom."

"She drew on traditional silk weaving techniques and the way the Li people weave Yazhou quilts."

"We worked with the villagers to study cotton weaving technology, and the quilts, mattresses, belts, etc. we wove had all kinds of patterns on them."

"Since Huang Daopo taught us new tools and techniques, the cotton weaving industry has developed rapidly."

"By the end of the Yuan Dynasty, there were more than a thousand local residents engaged in the cotton weaving industry."

"In the Ming Dynasty, Songjiang, where Huang Daopo lived, became the cotton weaving center of the country and won the reputation of clothing the world."

"In their records about Huang Dao Po, writers from the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty wrote that she presided over the development of a wide variety of products."

"There are narrow belts, wide quilts, light shawls, and heavy cushions, all bright and colorful like pictures."

"Huang Dao Po was a very talented person in cotton spinning in my country and an outstanding innovator of textile technology in the 13th century."

"She has the spirit of not fearing danger and daring to reform the world."

"After Huang Daopo brought the textile technology she learned in Hainan back to her hometown, she spread it widely in the Shanghai area."

"And we have made many technical improvements, which has led to a significant improvement in our country's textile technology."

"But unfortunately, Huang Daopo passed away a few years after returning to her hometown."

"Huang Daopo played an important role in promoting the rapid development of cotton textile and cotton planting industries in the Yangtze River Basin. Later generations praised her as a female textile technician who clothed the world."

Cao Xueqin: Huang Dao Po's contribution to the cotton textile industry has had a huge impact on the Chinese nation.

The reason why Huang Dao Po had such exquisite skills was that she may have learned from multiple people.

First, learn skills from the Li people.

The ancestors of the Li people in Lingnan were the first to migrate to Hainan Island, where the environment and climate are suitable for growing cotton.

The initial development of the Li ethnic group's textile industry originated from Hainan Island's unique resources.

Second, learn skills from the people of Lingao.

The Lingao people are the first ethnic group to land on Hainan Island after the ancestors of the Li people, and their textile industry has a long history.

The people of Lingao had superb skills and were influenced by the Central Plains culture and gradually merged into the Han nationality.

Third, learn skills from the Han people.

The Han people had migrated to Hainan before the Tang Dynasty, and the place began to flourish in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.

Han immigrants adapted to local conditions, reclaimed wasteland to grow cotton, spun yarn and wove cloth, and worked hard to improve the quality and output of cotton cloth.

Whether learning from the Li people, the Lingao people or the Han people.

Huang Dao Po was smart, studious, hardworking and sincere, and she took advantage of every opportunity to learn cotton textile technology.

It doesn’t matter who Huang Dao Po learned her skills from.

But what is certain is that Huang Dao Po learned her skills in Yazhou, Hainan, and her contribution to China's textile industry was highly recognized.

Huang Dao Po made great contributions to the development of the cotton textile industry in Songjiang area by reforming and spreading textile technology and tools.

This will certainly greatly expand Songjiang's cotton planting industry and make it a national cotton textile center.

Huang Dao Po's contribution to the cotton textile industry achieved a qualitative leap in the Songjiang area's textile industry from backward to advanced.

A cotton textile production area centered on Songjiang was formed, which promoted the prosperity of the textile industry in the Songjiang area.

At the same time, Huang Dao Po spread cotton textile technology and promoted the production and sales of products.

It not only occupies the domestic market, but also goes abroad, making a huge contribution to the export of the Maritime Silk Road.

Furthermore, Huang Dao Po reformed and spread the textile industry.

It has contributed to the economic development of Songjiang area and changed people's lifestyles.

Huang Dao Po's popularization of textile technology changed the people's clothing habits of rich people wearing silk and poor people wearing linen.

It promoted the formation of a cotton textile industry center in the Songjiang area and improved the production level of the national cotton textile industry.

As a result, the social status of women has been improved, especially the living conditions of women in the Jiangnan region have improved.

Huang Dao Po's reform and promotion of the textile industry also greatly enhanced the cultural exchanges between the Han and Li peoples.

Such ethnic exchanges not only have historical significance, but also practical significance. (End of this chapter)