When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1102 Spider Silk

Horn reached out and stroked the cloth spread out on the table.

First, your fingertips feel a slightly cool, smooth texture, followed by fine lines.

It is neither as stiff as wool nor as rough as linen; instead, it has a close, almost skin-like feel.

Pick up the cloth and hold it in the sunlight; it surprisingly reveals a faint silver hue.

"These... are all made of giant spider silk?" Horn looked up at Schlinman standing opposite him.

The leader of the bald secret society still looks like a bald Tarzan.

His manners remained impeccable. He reached out and tucked the hair back into his sleeve. He then lifted the cloth in front of him and gently tugged at it, explaining as he did so.

"This isn't giant spider silk; it's silk from silver gland spiders that we've cultivated. It's incredibly durable and won't break no matter how much you struggle with it. It's perfect for wiping your feet, face, and mouth..."

The fabric was being pulled and stretched in Schlinmann's hands, yet it kept rebounding with a kind of resilience.

"Is this the only quality?" Catherine asked curiously, picking up the cloth and stroking it.

“Not only that, Your Highness.” Shi Linman took out the spools from her apron and placed them on the table, arranging them from left to right. “They are numbered one to five according to their thickness, with number one being the finest and number five being the thickest.”

The fabric woven from No. 1 is so light-permeable that when cut into stockings, it feels like you're not wearing anything at all. However, it's very expensive; one bolt of it can be worth ten bolts of silk.

The No. 5 wool feels a bit rough, but when made into an overcoat, it's much lighter than wool and won't make you feel cold in winter.

Most importantly, it's washable; even after soaking and scrubbing it in wood ash water for over ten washes, it won't deform.

Horn nodded, rubbing his fingertips against the No. 5 fabric. The fibers on the fabric were shorter than wool, but denser and warmer.

Where is your silver gland spider breeding farm located?

“Over there at the old quarry on the eastern slope,” Schlinman led Horn out.

The two stepped out of the greenhouse of the former giant spider breeding farm, and a cold wind swirled with snowflakes as it hit their faces.

In a nearby mountain valley, a cluster of stone buildings spreads out along the slope.

The dark gray rooftops stretched out in a continuous line, and the white smoke billowing from the chimneys was neatly tilted by the wind.

The wall was built from the limestone left over from the quarry, and was three meters high. The top of the wall was covered with barbed wire and spiked wooden stakes.

There was a watchtower every so often, and the guards on the towers were wrapped in thick cloaks and breathing on their hands.

After all, the Spider Breeding Grounds of the Holy Machine Court are a holy institution, and the guards here are armed with real guns and even have the right to kill the enemy.

It wasn't that Horn was being possessive of the food; you should know that in the past, Fran spies, Norn spies, all sorts of people with ill intentions had tried to infiltrate and steal it, and had even succeeded a few times.

“These three rows of workshops each have their own purpose.” Schlinman pointed to the passageway in the middle of the complex. “The front row is a greenhouse for breeding, the middle row is for raising adult spiders, and the back row is for silk extraction.”

Just then, a worker pushed a wheelbarrow out of the side door.

The vehicle was loaded with several wicker baskets, and you could vaguely see a large, gray-black object moving inside them.

Horn stopped in his tracks: "Those spiders..."

“It grew to about a meter long,” Shilinman continued, “Initially, they were local venomous spiders, but later we hybridized with them…”

Sorry, we introduced non-venomous spiders and crossbred them, resulting in the smaller non-venomous silver gland spider.

However, their silk production was too low at the time, so I tried adding hair growth medicine to their feed to increase silk production.

It was through generations of breeding that they developed their current docile temperament; you could say it's the culmination of the blood and sweat of every member of our Baldhead Society.

Horn stopped and looked at the righteous-looking Schlinman with a strange expression.

Well, his face was covered in hair, so you couldn't see any expression on his face, but Horn could see that proud look in his eyes.

Is he really unable to hear what he's saying?

"How are the production and costs?" Afraid of seeing something he couldn't say, Horn turned and walked back.

Schlinman followed behind, reciting a series of figures: "An adult silver gland spider has a lifespan of five to eight years, produces silk twice a year, and the thread spun into a length of about 7.5 to 8.5 pounds."

As for the cost, they can be raised in relatively damp woodlands or caves, and about ten can be raised in a one-acre breeding area.

Yes, these numbers are very similar to the cotton in Horn's memory.

In this world without cotton, spider silk, though slightly more expensive, is of superior quality. Compared to the other creatures created by the Father in this place—

Silkworms are too delicate and can only be grown on a small scale in the south.

Wool is too thick and becomes stiff after a few washes.

Linen is too rough, causing the fabric surface to always feel itchy.

And this spider silk is light, warm, washable, and inexpensive, suitable for anyone from mountains to plains.

As the saying goes, the Industrial Revolution had three treasures: cotton, coal, and stocks.

Saint Union already has peat and stock; now, it's finally time to complete the last piece of the puzzle.

"Good stuff!" Horn himself didn't realize that there was a hint of excitement in his voice.

Back in the greenhouse, he picked up the roll of number one spider silk cloth and looked at it against the light.

The fine silk threads flowed through his fingertips like water, and in a daze, he seemed to see the scene of the five impoverished mountain counties.

Stone sheds were built in those valleys where there was nothing but mining and weeds.

Workers pushed feed carts back and forth between the sheds, and the sound of silver gland spiders crawling replaced the silence of the mountains.

To be honest, before the advent of industrialization, spinning cooperatives like the Wool Brotherhood were quite advanced.

However, once machinery is deployed, centralized assembly line factories will inevitably replace these scattered handicraft workshops.

It will not completely replace, but at least it will replace most of them.

Why does the Imperial Market always look down on the clothing and fabrics of the Holy Alliance, thinking that only the poor wear them?

This is because, to a large extent, Saint-Lianbu cannot achieve a consistent standard; it only provides a general range.

In other words, the quality control is poor, sometimes good and sometimes bad, even in the low-end market.

Although the factory certainly couldn't replace the high-end market at first, at least the quality was guaranteed.

By then, a day's work by hand or by machine is no match for an hour's work in the factory, and the work that had just started will be gone again.

Therefore, over the next ten years, the Wool Brotherhood will also gradually transform into a spider breeding industry.

Replacing the spinning wheel with a yarn take-up frame would at least provide a way to make a living.

Of course, there will always be people who are unhappy.

But Horn can't exactly yell into their ears and expect them to accept something new, can he?
Whoever the times choose to eliminate, you can't stop them. All you can do is pave the way and give them a chance to choose.

"What other difficulties are there?" Horn rolled up the cloth and placed it on the table.

Schlinman scratched his bald head and said directly, "First, the alchemical processing step requires a lot of manpower, especially alchemists."

Secondly, the cleaning agents require a large amount of oil, which our own oil press cannot supply.

How much oil do you need?

Schlinman gave a number.

Horn frowned: "The rapeseed fields and olive groves in Thousand River Valley probably can't produce that much; we'll have to import it."

He turned to Catherine, who was sitting to the side flipping through account books: "Where in the Empire does the Empire produce the most oil now? Can we import it?"

“The river valleys of Fran.” Catherine said without looking up, “The olive groves over there cover the hillsides, and a third of the empire’s oil comes from there.”

"Another place controlled by the French?" Horn clicked his tongue.

Catherine put down the ledger: "There's nothing we can do, we can only let them earn this money first."

“Making money is fine, but we can’t let them hold us back forever.” Horn walked to the window and looked at the distant chimneys. “Do you think the Riverlands are suitable for growing rapeseed, since they’re only separated from Dawn Island by a river?”

Catherine paused for a moment, then laughed: "If the representatives of Upper Rivershire knew, they would probably run to the Privy Council and cry, saying that you don't care about your hometown and give all the benefits to outsiders."

Horn laughed too: "Let them cry. My hometown should set an example."

He turned to Schlinman and said, "Send a set of silver gland spider eggs and adult spiders to Upper Rivershire first, and let them try raising them. I'll go check on them in the spring."

(End of this chapter)