It was late at night and Zhang Zhao had not yet fallen asleep. His whole body ached as if he was about to fall apart. Teaching people how to play cotton was even more tiring than going into battle and killing people.
And after today's day's work, Zhang Zhao also discovered some problems. The cotton he planted seemed different from what he had in mind before traveling.
The cotton he planted now had thin flowers that didn't look plump at all, and the fibers were thick and short. Removing the cotton seeds was far more difficult than he thought.
Could it be that the cotton seeds of later generations were cultivated and selected from generation to generation? Zhang Zhao was puzzled.
In fact, this is because Zhang Zhao knows too little about cotton. Although there is indeed a factor of selective breeding, the bigger reason is that the cotton now commonly planted in Anxi and Hezhong is actually an Indian grass called shag cotton. cotton.
Long-staple cotton, which is more suitable for textiles, is native to South America, and fine-staple cotton is produced in Central America. It is estimated that Zhang Zhao will never see a trace of these two in his lifetime.
What he could find was Indian grass cotton or Asian cotton, which is called shag cotton. The characteristics of this kind of cotton are low yield, thick and short fiber, and difficulty in removing seeds.
This is also a major reason why cotton has been introduced to the Western Regions as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties and even the Eastern Han Dynasty, but has never become popular.
First of all, the low yield of this kind of Indian grass cotton has led to a huge problem, that is, it has to compete with grain for land.
Because if the yield is high, farmers can just set aside some open space to plant some, which will meet the family's needs for clothing and warmth.
And if the yield is low, it will be troublesome. Planting a few acres of land is worse than not planting at all.
Although keeping warm was a big problem for ordinary people in ancient times, there were many ways to keep warm compared to having enough food.
Animal furs and rags can have this effect. Even if the whole family cannot get off the bed in winter and rely on the human body to keep warm, it is still better than starving.
Secondly, its fibers are thick and short, and it is difficult to remove seeds. This means that the manpower required to turn this kind of cotton into cotton batting and cotton cloth will be very expensive and even terrifying.
As a result, the price of cotton products will become extremely high, so this kind of warmth retention and quality is not bad, but the high price will naturally be abandoned by most people.
"Oh! Huang Daopo! Huang Daopo! How come you are from the Yuan Dynasty? It would be great if you were from this era. What are the cotton looms and cotton spinning technology you improved?"
For the first time, King Zhang felt the difficulty of opening a golden finger. Such a cotton textile technology actually involves more than a dozen key technologies and dozens of aspects. If you only know part of it, you will be in trouble.
Of course, it can't be said that it can't be opened. It can be opened, but it is not fully opened. It can only be opened a little, and it is like a freak.
Panting, Mrs. Cao came over carrying a large tray. The black lacquer tray contained a large plate of cheese-braised lamb chops, a large bowl of soup cakes, a bowl of honey japonica rice rice bowl and a bottle of Khotanese purple wine.
It looked quite heavy. Mrs. Cao carried it all the way, with a few drops of crystal sweat dripping from her forehead.
Zhang Zhao glanced at this woman in surprise. Among Zhang Zhao's women, Cao was the most beautiful. She always had an intellectual softness and beauty, but she seemed to have a little bit of hidden love for Zhang Zhao. resist.
This complex sense of contradiction always makes Zhang Zhao unable to resist his bestiality, giving him a strange and satisfying feeling of destroying beautiful things.
Especially the few stubborn tears in those happy moments were more effective than taking the little blue pill, which made Zhang Zhao suspect Cao that he was a pervert countless times, but he still enjoyed it time and time again.
However, Zhang Zhao adheres to one principle when it comes to Cao, that is, no matter how tired he is, no matter how reluctant he is to let her go, he will definitely not sleep with her after every battle with Cao.
Who knows whether her resistance is a pretense to attract Zhang Zhao, or whether it is real. If it is real, who can guarantee that she will not give me, King Zhang, a knife in the middle of the night?
Similarly, Mr. Cao rarely took the initiative to see Zhang Zhao, let alone took the initiative to deliver food like today.
As a general, eating is the most important part of ensuring force, bar none.
If you eat poorly or less, you will not be able to get a lot of protein, fat and other energy sources to supplement you. Let alone fighting in battle, just daily exercise can make people tired and bleed.
This is also the root of the saying that the poor man is rich in martial arts. Not mentioning the cost of purchasing weapons, armor, war horses, etc., just eating one item can bring down an ordinary family.
For example, Zhang Zhao's daily food intake is about three to four kilograms of mutton, about two kilograms of rice and noodles, fruits and wine, not counting.
As for the sheep at this time, it would be good to have twenty kilograms of clean meat after killing them. That means Zhang Zhao would eat one sheep every five to six days, or five in a month.
Ordinary families, even wealthy ones, can rarely afford it. It must be a medium-sized landowner family with hundreds of acres of land to support such a person.
In Zhang Zhao's Hanshan City, there are at least three hundred men who are such ruthless eating machines. They all have fat bellies, thick arms and legs. Just eating is a huge expense.
But the fat on their bodies is not in vain. When encountering a war, they can fight intermittently for four or five hours while only eating two rice balls and drinking some water.
This kind of fighting intensity can last for more than three or four days. It is basically normal to lose more than ten kilograms of weight after fighting.
For example, in the battle under Polu Prefecture, Zhang Zhao's Han Shandu relied on this ability to resist fighting and exhausted all the Gulam guards of Saktu.
The same goes for attacking Persian food routes in the jungle. As long as Zhang Zhao and his men are determined to attack a food storage point, his Hanshandu soldiers can complete six to seven attacks in one day wearing armor, and each battle uses up hand-to-hand combat time. , all in about ten minutes.
It was through constant attacks that they succeeded in making it impossible for the Persians at the food transport point to rest or eat. After almost exhausting the people in the food transport point, they rushed in and killed them.
"The king seemed to be talking about Huang Daopo just now. I wonder where this lady is that makes the king so concerned?"
Mrs. Cao obediently placed the food on the wooden tray in front of Zhang Zhao. This meal before going to bed is the most important. Only by eating well can you develop a fat and strong body.
Zhang Zhao, who was sitting cross-legged, looked towards Cao's back, and his hands naturally followed his gaze downwards to explore.
Her back is straight and soft, her waist is too slim to hold, and her buttocks are round, soft and elastic. She is indeed a natural beauty.
"Your Majesty!" A voice sounded like a little kitten's purr. It was tingling. Zhang Zhao's heart skipped a beat when he was called. When he looked away and looked at Cao's face, he was immediately startled.
At this moment, Mrs. Cao was looking at him with watery eyes, her lips were gleaming with water, and she looked fresh and tender. Her slender waist twisted slightly, and her perfect curves gave Zhang Zhao a feeling of rippling water.
Damn it! Is this woman having sex? Aren't you usually just being polite to yourself and biting your lips to cope with it? Why is this happening today?
When things got to this point, how could Zhang Zhao still eat? He picked up Mrs. Cao and put it on his shoulders, and slapped her soft and elastic buttocks twice before entering the house!
About three minutes (Choke! King Zhang drew out his horizontal sword!)
Well! About thirty minutes later, Zhang Zhao was leaning on the bed comfortably, while Cao got out of bed and brought Zhang Zhao food to the bed.
It's quite interesting. It turns out that a woman's efforts to please her in this kind of matter can bring much greater pleasure to a man than unilateral output!
"Is Your Majesty just now worried about the problem of cotton iron franchise yamen? I see dozens of people have been studying for a whole day today, but only a few of them seem to be able to master the technology."
Mrs. Cao covered her little mouth as if she was snickering, her eyes narrowed to a slit, and she looked quite cute.
"Yes! This Wu Yuan'er, someone asked him to choose some clever people, but in the end he found some stupid idiots and taught them for a day, but not many of them could actually operate them!"
Speaking of this, Zhang Zhao was extremely angry. He had never seen such a stupid person. A group of people were timid and couldn't learn anything.
"It's not the military attache's fault. He is a talented person who is good at welcoming and transporting people, spending money and receiving them, and sending envoys to foreign countries. But you asked him to find some smart people who are quick to learn things, and he still wants to be in such a hurry. Where can he find it?
We can only capture some weavers to make up the numbers. These weavers were first frightened by the military attachés and then shocked by your majesty. They have been trembling with fear and sweating profusely. How can they learn! "
That’s right! Zhang Zhao thought, this is really what happened. If it were him, and he was suddenly taken away by the government, and then saw a great king working in person, his outlook would have been shattered and he would be so scared.
Who knows if this is really what they are here to learn, or if it is some weird thing created by some noble person to entertain them?
Who knows if someone might accidentally beheaded?
Under such an environment, and with Zhang Zhao himself still having to reminisce and explore at the same time, it would be surprising if he could learn something.
"If your Majesty believes in me, you might as well leave this matter to me!" Ms. Cao mustered up her courage and volunteered to join Zhang Zhao while he was chewing on the mutton chops.
"Leave it to you? Are you going to show yourself up and play cotton with a group of men?"
Zhang Zhao was unhappy. The term concubine should not be used casually. It must be at least the concubine of the lord of a country.
Zhang Zhao is now the Ju'er Khan of Suiye and the deputy king of Khotan. Cao and others are already on the list of Zhang Zhao's official concubines, so she can call herself a concubine. But how can there be a concubine of the king to recruit? A group of men playing cotton?
Mrs. Cao smiled lightly again, seeming to like Zhang Zhao's jealous look, and waited for a while before speaking.
"Your Majesty, you have misunderstood. Have you forgotten that I come from the Han Ritian race? Nu's mother clan had the habit of spinning cotton hundreds of years ago.
So when I saw the tool invented by the king today, I knew how wonderful it was and what changes it would bring to folding cloth (cotton cloth). Therefore, I asked the king to allow me to recruit three hundred weavers from my mother's clan to help the king achieve his goals. This business! "
"Good! Great good!" Zhang Zhao was so happy that he knocked the wooden pallet with the lamb ribs. This is called a professional thing, let professionals do it.
Since people from the Cao family’s mother clan have hundreds of years of experience in using cotton to make folding cloth, wouldn’t it be a good match for them to play with cotton?
wrong! Zhang Zhao was stunned for a moment in excitement. He jumped out of bed and put Cao on his shoulders.
"Okay! You already knew what I was going to do with the tools I took out, but you still watched me play cotton for a whole day!
If you are so restless, let the lonely king teach you a lesson! "
