Over the years, Xu Yungong's character has become increasingly stable, and he is quite like Xu Da.
He doesn't speak loudly easily.
Such Xu Yungong valued the items on the car so much that he even considered it more valuable than all the treasures and antiques in the world. This made Zhu Su couldn't help but stop being playful and his whole face became serious.
"Okay, here are a few careful people to carry the things in the car to the king's bedroom."
"Remember, be sure to handle it with care!"
Several big men worked together to lift the large box covered with cloth in the car and carefully delivered it to the outside of the bedroom in Prince Zhu Su's palace. This is the courtyard at the center of the palace. It occupies a large area. Zhu Su enjoys peace and quiet on weekdays, but no one dares to disturb him easily.
Zhu Su looked at the extremely heavy big box wrapped in it and thought that Xu Yungong wouldn't have secretly put his sister in the box and brought her out. Just as he was about to ask, Xu Yungong had already taken out the key and opened the copper lock on the box. "Your Highness, please take a look."
Zhu Su nodded and stepped forward. What he saw lying in the box was a machine that seemed familiar but different from what he remembered.
"This is...Jenny machine!"
Zhu Su is overjoyed!
When he left Beijing last time, Zhu Su entrusted the prototype of the Jenny Machine to the Xu family. Zhu Su attaches great importance to this machine, which revolutionized traditional industry to a certain extent and triggered the first industrial revolution.
He is the helper who will invade the grassland in the future, and is the most indispensable part of the "sheep-eating man" plan. It is also a top priority to liberate private productivity in China and promote expansion outside the market.
As long as there is a Jenny machine that can greatly improve production efficiency, the Ming Dynasty will be able to produce more woolen cloth and silk, forcing merchants to take the lead in exploring overseas dumping markets, and at the same time, it will also free up more people to participate in the future of the Ming Dynasty. in the expansion plan.
Otherwise, with the current population in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty, it is absolutely impossible to expand externally.
However, the production of the Jenny machine was not that easy. Historically, the technical difficulty of the Jenny machine that appeared for spinning cotton was not very high. It was just an ordinary textile worker who made it.
However, in Ming Dynasty, this machine had many acclimatization problems.
One of the reasons is that the demand for cotton fabrics in the Ming Dynasty was not high. Throughout the Ming Dynasty, the cotton planting area was far from being comparable to that of mulberry fields and rice fields. Moreover, the profit of cotton textile is far less than that of silk textile. A piece of silk shipped to the Western world can often earn ten or even a hundred times the profit. And what about cotton? Haha, it would be nice to not lose money on this trip.
And in order to achieve the effect of "sheep eating people", Ming Dynasty not only needed this machine to be able to spin silk, but also needed it to be able to spin wool. The spinning of wool is much more difficult than that of cotton. Although the first-generation Jenny machine that Zhu Su kneaded by his own hands could spin eight threads at the same time, the threads spun out were of different thicknesses and had no toughness. Weaving with such threads Sweaters will only damage the reputation of the Chinese people for their ingenuity and cannot be regarded as commodities at all.
"Yungong, this machine...is ready?" Zhu Su asked in disbelief.
Xu Yungong nodded. "My sister studied this loom day after day, and finally succeeded in overcoming the defects of this machine one by one in the past few days."
“Now this loom can spin cotton and wool, and it can spin twenty-eight threads at the same time!”
"If more spindles are added, this number can continue to increase. Moreover, the silk threads produced by this machine are of the same thickness, even far better than the silk threads spun by those craftsmen one by one."
"Moreover, my sister has also optimized the cost of this machine. The raw material consumption of a machine is only five taels of silver. As long as there are enough craftsmen, a large-scale loom can be produced within half a month!"
"well!"
"Sure enough, there are far more treasures than anything in the world!" Zhu Su looked left and right around the Jenny machine, which was a surprise. "A few days ago, an official sent a son named Xiangrui to curry favor with my father, but he was angrily reprimanded."
"In my opinion, those fictitious things cannot be called auspicious. Such a machine that can bring about great changes is the auspiciousness of our Ming Dynasty!"
"No, this happy event cannot be enjoyed by me alone. Yun Gong, get ready. Let's put this thing on the carriage and horse again and enter the palace to announce the good news!"
Before Xu Yungong could refuse, he was dragged into the palace by the excited Zhu Su. When we arrived at the palace, Lao Zhu was acting as the Liver Emperor in front, but Queen Ma was still idle. Seeing Zhu Su dragging Xu Yungong over, he couldn't help but smile and said, "It's Yungong, he's grown so tall."
"After your father left Beijing, he didn't get to see you and your sister for some days. This is not good."
"Our two families are family friends. We should move around more often, otherwise we will all fall apart. Xiao Wu'er, you brought Yungong into the palace today. Do you have something important to do with Chongba?"
"Mother sent someone to call him?"
"The old man is busy, so don't bother him," Zhu Su said. "Besides, you are much more capable than my father. For this matter, I need to ask you, a hidden master, to help a bunch of children!"
Empress Ma knocked Zhu Su's forehead, and in a blink of an eye she saw a few tall palace men coming in carrying boxes, and she couldn't help but wonder: "What is this?"
So Zhu Su and Xu Yungong explained the use of this "Jenny Machine" and the impact it would have in the future to Queen Ma in detail.
"You can spin twenty-eight threads in one go?" Queen Ma was a veteran of spinning. Even after becoming the queen, she often spun Buna shoes in the palace in order to save some expenses.
The most conspicuous thing in her Kunning Palace is a loom that she has used for many years.
When she saw the loom this time, she just looked at it and understood how to use it. People in the Ming Palace brought raw materials and started spinning threads on the spot.
After a while, the spinning spindle spun more than twenty yarns. After Queen Ma inspected it carefully, she couldn't help but be surprised and said: "Sure enough, the thread has been spun!"
"Moreover, the wool is the same thickness, soft yet tough, and is actually better than the ones spun by the craftsmen in the palace!"
"Moreover, this loom spins several times faster, and the spindle rotates with less effort. With this device, the tens of thousands of kilograms of wool that we have bought so hard in the warehouse no longer need to be wasted!"
After Zhu Su taught Queen Ma how to knit sweaters, Queen Ma's interest changed from wearing shoe soles to knitting sweaters. Even if I carry Zhu Xiongying with me on weekdays, I still have to pick it up and knit a few stitches occasionally. Luo Zhi even recruited several old palace maids who were unwilling to leave the palace to open a sweater factory in the palace, specializing in spinning wool and knitting sweaters, turning it into an industry.
However, this sweater industry chain, supported by the Queen herself, did not cause any waves. The most important reason is the low efficiency of wool weaving. Before the Jenny machine was successfully developed, female workers in sweater factories could only twist wool by hand. The output of woolen yarn cannot increase, and naturally there is not much output of sweaters. Although Queen Ma tinkered with sweaters, she could only knit a few pieces for a few people such as Lao Zhu and Zhu Biao, just for her own entertainment.
However, in the northern Xinjiang, in order to secretly support the tribes who had second thoughts towards Yuanting, they were allowed to secretly trade with the Ming Dynasty using wool. Although the output of wool has not increased, wool has been continuously transported to Yingtianlai. Although the price of this wool is extremely low, often just one copper coin can be exchanged for half a truckload.
But it can't bear the trouble of transportation along the way. It's still a bit wasteful.
Looking at the wool piled in the treasury, Queen Ma often felt distressed: so much wool could not be digested, so the sweater business would always be a loss-making business.
All this money was spent on the Ming Dynasty’s wealth!
This makes her, who has always been thrifty, how can she not worry?
(End of chapter)
