Sheng Tang: What is Liu Jianjun going to do today?

Chapter 102 Liu Jianjun's Real Plan (Part 1) (Go go go, who needs a backlog of chapters!)

The next day, Liu Jianjun got busy.

Li Xian took a stroll over to Liu Jianjun's small courtyard during his spare time and discovered that Aisha had already been arranged by Liu Jianjun to find a way to reel that bag of cotton into silk.

After Liu Jianjun's reprimand yesterday, Aisha seemed to have a strong fear of him. She would do whatever he asked without asking why.

They first tried boiling some cotton in water like silkworm cocoons, but this method seemed to fail because they couldn't find any threads in the cotton.

They then planned to comb the cotton like hemp bark, but Liu Jianjun stopped them before they could even begin.

Liu Jianjun said that he intuitively felt that this method was wrong.

Li Xian chuckled to himself.

Liu Jianjun is just making a fool of himself.

But only three days later, Liu Jianjun brought new news: they had indeed turned the cotton into cotton thread.

When Li Xian came to Liu Jianjun's courtyard again, he was met with a scene that shocked him.

Liu Jianjun, carrying a strangely shaped and enormous bow, spread the cotton on the ground and sang in a colloquial tone: "Fluffing cotton~ fluffing cotton~ half a pound of cotton fluffed into eight ounces and eight ounces~ old cotton fluffed into new cotton..."

As he sang, he plucked the bowstring, causing it to vibrate and bounce on the cotton.

As Liu Jianjun moved, the cotton turned into something like willow catkins, flying all over the room, landing on Liu Jianjun's head and Aisha's face...

Li Xian was dumbfounded.

Seeing Li Xian approach, Liu Jianjun grinned and placed the bow on the ground. Then he called out to Aisha, "Aisha, you keep doing this. I have something to discuss with Xianzi!"

As he spoke, he haphazardly removed the cotton wadding from his head, leaped over the cotton spread out on the ground, and came to Li Xian, grabbing him in his arms.

"Hey! I'm a fucking genius!"

Li Xian glared at him irritably and said, "Didn't you say you could turn cotton into silk threads? What... are you doing?"

Li Xian pointed to the strangely shaped bow.

"Fluffing cotton!"

Liu Jianjun chuckled, then plucked a piece of cotton from his head, rolled it around on a very thin, smooth wooden stick, rubbed it a few times, and then removed the stick. The piece of cotton had become a hollow, long cotton roll.

Liu Jianjun took the cotton roll in his hand, stretched it thin, twisted it, and it became a rough cotton thread.

Then he added, "Hehe! I was just being stubborn before, always trying to pull the thread out of the cotton, but I couldn't... Couldn't I just twist it all together and turn it into thread?"

Li Xian looked at the "thread" in Liu Jianjun's hand, which was almost as thick as the tip of a chopstick, and laughed, "With a thread this thick, how big would the stitches be when you weave this cloth?"

Although Li Xian had only a superficial understanding of textiles, he knew that the finer the thread, the more exquisite the fabric would be.

Therefore, some imperial craftsmen in the palace were even able to twist three original silk threads into one thread during the silk reeling process, and then weave a gauze garment that was as light as a feather. Even if you wore four or five layers of such a gauze garment, you could still see the moles on your body.

But if Liu Jianjun's thread is this thick, the cloth he weaves must be dozens of bolts of yarn thick.
Besides, Li Xian didn't think Liu Jianjun's so-called cotton cloth had any advantages.

It couldn't compare to silk in terms of refinement, nor to hemp in terms of price; it was the kind of product that was neither high-end nor low-end. Li Xian really couldn't imagine how this thing could make any money for the Prince of Pei's mansion.

"Don't worry about the stitches, we can fix it later. At worst, we can let that girl rub it by hand for now!" Liu Jianjun gestured towards Aisha, and Li Xianshun looked over.

After Liu Jianjun left, the Hu girl displayed the simplicity unique to the Hu people. Holding the huge bow, she hummed a strange song. Upon closer listening, it turned out to be the same song Liu Jianjun had just sung, "Cotton Fluffing."

The same melody sounded much better when hummed by Aisha than when sung by Liu Jianjun.

Li Xian smiled and shook his head, then asked, "You said before that this cotton has another use. Now that the method for making cotton thread has been developed, can you tell me how you plan to make a lot of money from this cotton?"

Liu Jianjun pulled Li Xian a few steps away and lowered his voice, saying, "Actually, I called you here for this matter. Didn't you say last time that the Prefect of Yongzhou was Xianzi's man?"

Li Xian nodded.

Is he trustworthy?

Li Xian hesitated for a moment. As time had passed, he was unsure whether Su Liangsi was still the same Sima of the Prince of Zhou's mansion.

So I asked, "Tell me what you plan to do first?"

"I intend to encourage the people of Chang'an... and even the entire Yongzhou to grow cotton!"

Liu Jianjun made a startling statement.

Li Xian's first reaction was that Liu Jianjun had gone mad.

Leaving aside whether Liu Jianjun's so-called cotton weaving plan can succeed, even if it can, if everyone goes to grow cotton, who will grow grain?
In Chang'an alone, the registered population of the Jingzhao Prefecture was over 600,000, and the actual population under its jurisdiction was likely even greater, as it included a large number of migrant workers, soldiers, and foreigners.

Not to mention the entire Yongzhou.

If all the land in Yongzhou were used to grow cotton, what would so many people and so many mouths eat?
"This is impossible!"

Li Xian said decisively, "Even Su Liangsi couldn't do it!"

“Let me explain in detail,” Liu Jianjun said, pulling him to sit down on a stone bench in the courtyard. “First of all, not all land is suitable for growing grain, right?”
“Some sandy land, sloping land, and saline-alkali land yield very poor grain harvests, and people can't even make ends meet after a year of hard work. But cotton can grow quite well in these lands! Cotton is drought-resistant and can grow in poor soil, and it is much easier to care for than grain.”

Li Xian nodded slightly, seemingly lost in thought.

That makes sense. Although the capital region is wealthy, not all of its land is fertile.

Secondly, we cannot all rush to plant them.

Liu Jianjun continued, "Let's first use the name of the Prince's Mansion to find a few such places around Chang'an, such as some villages with a lot of sandy land in Weibei, as pilot sites."

"We provide the cotton seeds and even sign purchase contracts in advance to ensure that we buy all the cotton grown by the farmers at a reasonable price, so that they have no worries."

“Acquisition?” Li Xian caught the key word. “You just said you wanted to let the Prefect of Yongzhou…”

"Yes! That's the key!" Liu Jianjun slapped his thigh. "How much can we plant just by relying on our Prince Pei's Mansion as a pilot project? The influence is limited. If we want to achieve a large scale and generate real revenue, we must rely on the power of the government, which requires Yongzhou Prefecture to step in."

"The key to our persuading Su Liangsi was that Aisha's cotton was successfully woven into cloth!"

At this point, Liu Jianjun paused: "Furthermore... I suspect that the entire Guanzhong Plain may suffer a severe drought, the kind that leaves the land barren for thousands of miles!"

……

(End of this chapter)