The big man has a living father

Chapter 76 Future Imagination
Huo Hai and Princess Wei Chang stood on the ridge of the field.

Liu Che insisted on standing between the two people.

Looking at the Wei River rolling eastward, Liu Che suddenly asked: "Huo Hai, what kind of place do you think Chang'an is?"

Huo Hai didn't even think about it: "We basically rely on walking for transportation, we basically rely on shouting for communication, we basically rely on dogs for public security, we basically rely on shaking for warmth, we basically rely on our hands for digging, we basically rely on cows for farming, and there is basically no entertainment. We walk in the sun and rain during the day and in the dark at night."

Originally, the answer Liu Che wanted to hear was [the center of the universe, a large CBD, tall buildings, a developed economy, good public security, fertile land, and wealthy people].

As a result, I heard this kind of evaluation.

Princess Wei Chang, on the other hand, asked through Liu Che: "What else?"

Liu Che: "Let me guess. The prosperous Chang'an you imagine should be one where horses are used for transportation and farming, everyone can write letters, doors are open at night, there are coal stoves for heating, and everyone has a shovel for digging. Because they are too wealthy, everyone has a canopy during the day and everyone has oil lamps at night. There are places for entertainment everywhere. Is that what you mean?"

Huo Hai looked at the Wei River flowing eastward, and it seemed as if he saw the city that never sleeps, Chang'an, in the short video, and his eyes were full of nostalgia.

"Your Majesty, you can be bolder."

Although everything is gone and even impossible to find again, as long as I work hard to develop, everything will reappear.

Liu Che: "In that world, everyone has dragons and cranes, everyone has food without tilling the land, everyone can communicate with each other without communication, there will be no crime in the world, the temperature will always be suitable both inside and outside, the seasons will rotate and the sun and moon will change but the sky will always be blue."

Huo Hai wiped his sweat and said, "Your Majesty is a little too bold. I am a person with limited abilities. I am afraid that I will never see such a world."

Princess Wei Chang heard Huo Hai's voice-over: "You are not talking about the prosperous Chang'an you imagined, but what you want Chang'an to become."

Liu Che turned his head and looked at Huo Hai.

Huo Hai: "I just want to live a more convenient and comfortable life."

After viewing the river view, Liu Che did not continue along the road to Shanglin Garden.

In the past, Liu Che would go to Shanglin Garden whenever he had time, thinking, "What Qin Shihuang couldn't do, I can enjoy at will," and he felt a sense of psychological pride.

But now Liu Che had more important things to do, which was to calculate how much money he had earned every day.

On the way back, we passed a real cattle and sheep ranch.

Currently, cattle and sheep are raised in many pens.

There is a special pen for dairy cows.

Theoretically, in order to make cows produce milk continuously, they need to give birth to calves continuously, with the female calves kept to expand production and the male calves killed directly.

This was the case until artificial sexual selection was introduced.

But in fact, the ranch is far from this point.

First of all, the reason why these cattle are raised in a centralized manner instead of being distributed is because the cattle on the grassland cannot plow the land, and the Han people actually lack oxen for plowing.

Therefore, Huo Hai currently plans to teach Bu Shi the method of artificial insemination.

As for the remaining male calves, they are directly trained to plow the fields and eventually sold.

This is actually only a small part of the ranch's income.

The main source of income for this ranch is wool!
Most of the sheep on the grassland are sheep, and winter is the season when wool grows the fastest. These sheep have just been raised for a short time and it’s time to start shearing their wool.

There were more than 60,000 sheep, and in the first wave alone, we harvested 100,000 kilograms of wool, a full 400,000 jin!

At this time, a large number of Xiongnu women in the pasture were not feeding cattle and sheep.

Instead, they are washing the wool, drying the wool, combing the wool, and pulling the wool thread.

Looking at the wool in the pool, Princess Wei frowned: "So dirty? Are these wools meant to keep out the cold? They are so dirty..."

It’s not that there were no wool products in the Han Palace. It can even be said that there were a lot of wool products.

Princess Wei Chang had also seen maids and eunuchs washing wool, sheepskin, etc., but how could there be such dirty water?
Huo Hai: "Is it possible that the wool on the sheep is just that dirty? The water you saw before was not that dirty after washing because it was not washed clean, but these were washed clean, so the dirt was in the water, so the water looked dirty?"

Princess Wei Chang suddenly understood: "That makes sense!"

But why can't the ones I've seen be cleaned clean, but this one can wash away all the dirt?
Princess Wei Chang observed carefully and saw that when a basin of new wool was put into the pond, the working Xiongnu woman picked up a piece of something that looked like cake and smeared it on the wool.

When the wool is soaked in water and smeared in this way, a lot of oil will appear on it.

"This is……"

Huo Hai: "Soap, something similar to soap water made from fat, can remove grease."

Soap has two great functions, one is to remove dirt and the other is to kill bacteria.

However, Huo Hai was not prepared to announce the fact that soap can kill bacteria.

First, the medical officers have their own research directions, and they have not yet reached this stage.

The second is that making soap requires a lot of fat. If people knew the function of soap under this level of productivity, the upper class would use soap crazily.

After all, sterilization can reduce the probability of illness, which is equivalent to increasing life expectancy in disguise.

The average life expectancy of ordinary people is very short because of the problem of not having enough food. Before solving the problem of food, other things must be put aside. Research can go ahead, and there is no need to expand production for the time being. Unless an epidemic occurs, there is nothing we can do.

Liu Che had already gone to see the next steps, and he had also made a discovery.

Generally speaking, wool without the skin is shaved off to make felt cloth. The specific method is to spread a ball of wool into the size of a piece of cloth, and then use water and a chisel to poke the wool little by little, so that the wool slowly interweaves with each other, and finally becomes a thick cloth.

What we want is the wool sticking together.

Now these women first wash the wool, then smooth it out, and keep all the wool in the same direction.

Then slowly pinch it with your hands, roll it with a board, slowly stretch the wool, then stretch it evenly, pull it apart, and then rub it tightly, and the wool will become a thread!

At this point, Liu Che could actually understand it. After all, he had seen many Huns, and many slaves and ordinary herdsmen among the Huns would also use wool to make thread and then use it to mend clothes and so on.

But the next scene broadened Liu Che's horizons.

One by one, the female workers rolled the thread into balls, while other female workers used two thin wooden sticks to move the thread back and forth. The wool thread actually slowly turned into cloth with eyes!
"This is……"

Princess Wei Chang also saw this and wondered, "This cloth has so many holes, can it keep you warm?"

Huo Hai laughed. This matter was too counterintuitive.

In fact, warmth is maintained by air, and air is the best poor conductor of heat.

The premise is to isolate the wind.

The holes in wool weaving are the key to keeping warm.

"When hair grows on an animal's body, it has gaps in it, so it keeps warm. We make the cloth airtight to keep out the wind, not to keep warm."

After hearing Huo Hai's words, Liu Che and Princess Wei Chang subconsciously did not believe it.

But this is too easy to prove.

"If your Majesty doesn't believe me, you can go back and try it out. Is it warmer to put the straw inside when it's fluffy or when it's flattened?"

"If you can't feel it with your body, you can put a piece of ice outside and see in which case the ice will be melted first by the heat emitted from inside."

Liu Che probably understood: "That is to say, if the heat is not released, it will always be hot inside. The faster it is released, the less warm it will be."

Huo Hai nodded.

Liu Che turned his attention back to the woolen sweater, or more precisely, the sweater: "Is this thing really warm?"

Huo Hai: "When not directly blown by the wind, it is very warm, so it can be worn inside an outer layer. Of course, wool may be a little bit prickly, so it is best to wear it outside the inner layer."

Princess Wei Chang understood now: "You mean, it can replace silkworm velvet!"

Today’s thick warm clothes are filled with entire silkworm cocoons.

Not to mention this thing in an era of such low productivity, even in the 21st century, few people can afford it.

So it is really cold in winter.

If sweaters can replace silk down, then people who can't afford winter clothes or leather jackets will be saved.

Huo Hai pointed at the female workers and said: "In fact, the knitting process is very simple. In the future, people can just buy wool and knit their own sweaters. However, this technology is difficult to spread at present, so we can only let them knit."

If this technology is to be spread, it must be when every household can afford wool yarn, otherwise even if they learn it, they will forget it.

"So, the price of a sweater is roughly the cost of raising a sheep for two months, plus the time it takes a female worker to knit a sweater, plus the money we earn."

Princess Wei Chang: "Why do you want to make money from this?"

Huo Hai: "Princess, if this doesn't make money, who would be willing to do it? Do the people of the world expect me, Huo Hai, to be kind enough to make sweaters for them?"

"There must be some profit here. Others who have money and the funds to raise a large number of sheep saw that I made money and followed my example. Then more and more ordinary people can afford to wear sweaters."

Princess Wei Chang nodded and said, "Then I want to do this business too."

At this time, Liu Che was so happy that he couldn't be happier.

If what he said is true, then the profit margin of woolen sweaters is unimaginable!
In the old days, a leather jacket required the skin of an entire sheep, and it could only cover the upper body and could not cover the arms.

It takes more than a year to raise a goat or two years to raise a sheep to make a coat like this.

The leather then needs to go through tanning processes and finally become clothing.

Although mutton can be sold, only princes can eat mutton, so the price of meat is not high. By this calculation, the price of a piece of skin should be more than 200 wen. Add to that the production process and craftsmanship, as well as the workers' own profit and other considerations. The current market price of leather clothing is about 600 wen, which is almost as much as the price of a live sheep.

Cowhide is a controlled item, and pigskin is not as warm and comfortable.

If it is silkworm down, the price would be as high as over 100 strings of cash, which is almost equal to the entire assets of a middle-class family. Ordinary people can forget about it.

And now, the cost of such a woolen sweater will not exceed sixty coins. Even if it is sold for half the price of a sheepskin sweater, it will still be a huge profit!
Just when he was feeling happy, he heard Princess Wei Chang say that she wanted to do this business. Liu Che asked, "What do you want to do?"

"Do this business? Qingke, listen to your father's advice. The water here is too deep and you can't control it!"

(End of this chapter)