Chastity Layman 2

Chapter 336 The Wool

It was not the right time, because it was frosty and cold early today, and the Yellow River was frozen in advance. If it were in previous years, the shipping could actually last for a while.

Of course, Qin Lang couldn't be bothered.

From Feng'an Army to Jiuyuan County, Fengzhou, there is still a distance of [-] miles. It would be a long way to go by land. The key point is that after leaving Xiaoguan, the supply along the way is not as convenient as inside the pass.

There are still four hundred miles away from Lingwu City.

Qin Lang inquired about the news in the north with the envoy of the Feng'an Army. The Feng'an Army had just communicated with Lingwu and knew that the north is very peaceful now.

It is said that Xieli in the east is gathering troops, and there seems to be signs of sending troops, and the Liang division in Shuofang seems to be ready to move, but even the envoys of the Feng'an army dismissed it.

In this weather, the breath turns into ice, and you have to hold a stick in your hand every time you pee. Xieli wants to fight, but it is also a dream.

Qin Qiong has assembled a thousand cavalry and two thousand infantry and stationed in Fengzhou City. It is said that Yu Sheshe's troops welcome them very much.

three days later.

A huge team galloped along the Yellow River on the ice to Lingwu City.

Outside Lingwu City, Qin Qiong personally brought many officials and generals to greet him.

Earlier, there was a patrol report that Qin Lang brought soldiers and horses from the Feng'an Army over the ice. Qin Qiong didn't quite believe it at first, but after receiving a fast letter from Qin Lang, he realized that he had made ice. sledge.

Improvements to horse-drawn carriages and even wooden boats can easily speed across the ice, which is easier and faster than on land.

The two have not seen each other for a long time.

Qin Lang was wearing bearskin wrapped in mink, leather gloves and leather boots, his whole body was wrapped tightly, but he still suffered from the north wind all the way, and his whole body was frozen stiff.

Taking off the mink scarf, Qin Lang paid his respects to the lord.

Qin Qiong was very tough, but he didn't cover his face like Qin Lang in such a cold world.

After waiting outside for a while, Qin Qiong's eyebrows were covered with white frost, and he looked as if he had aged twenty steps.

"Grandfather, why do you need to go out of the city to meet him? My son will come to see you when he arrives."

Qin Qiong patted the snow on his son's body, "You have traveled quickly, and you have arrived in Lingwu from Chang'an within half a month."

"Cold weather also has its benefits. There is no need to hide from the heat."

Qin Qiong said a few words to her son, then went to hug Li Daliang.

"You are here, Fengzhou is safe and sound."

Li Daliang is much older than Qin Qiong, but when he was in Wagang, Li Daliang was only a small school under Qin Qiong's command, and because of the love affair that year, the relationship between the two is still good.

"Your Majesty sent me here just to assist Saburo."

Qin Qiong is guarding Lingwu. Although this autumn was hit by frost and the grain harvest was less than half, but after previous efforts, the situation in Lingzhou is actually very good now.

The cities and towns are well-established, the treasury is full, and the money, cloth, grain and salt are full.

Soldiers have already put on thick winter clothes.

Qin Lang discovered that the equipment of the Tang army in Lingzhou was very distinctive. Their fiery red Tang army robes were covered with sheepskin cloaks, sheepskin jackets, and everyone had sheepskin hats and gloves. They were all extremely well-armed, not at all Fear of wind and cold.

According to Qin Qiong, this place is close to the Turks, and after trading with the Turks, the fur is cheap, and Lingzhou has the advantage of the salt pond, so it is still close to the south of the Yangtze River, and there is no shortage of food.Therefore, Qin Qiong hoarded a large amount of fur exchanged from the Turkic people, and began to equip the Lingzhou frontier army with winter sheepskin winter clothes.

In contrast, Qin Lang and the others, the forbidden army from Chang'an, although their armor was shiny, their warm and cold-proof equipment was obviously inferior.

Qin Qiong waved his hand and said that there was still a lot of stock in the warehouse, and he would pull it out and distribute it to the brothers from Chang'an in a while.

Afterwards, Qin Lang and others were welcomed into Lingwu City, where pigs and sheep had already been slaughtered and waited.

At the reception banquet, there were several Turkic people from Fengzhou, but the leader was Ashinashi, the son of Yu Sheshe. Earlier, Yu Sheshe invited Han Dynasty scribes to teach Han culture for his son, and even took him as his son. Don't apply the words.

Then Yu She set up Chang'an to belong to him, and after he was given the name Qin Guozhong, he immediately sent someone to send a letter to his sons, gave them Chinese names, and appointed his five sons as ministers according to the Chinese characters generation.

Ashinashi changed his name to Qin Minister, and his second son was Qin Mingchen, then Qin Emperor Chen, Qin Jianchen, and Qin Yanchen.

This courtier's generation, I have to say, is very spiritual.

Anyway, when Qin Lang looked at the young Turkic man in front of him who claimed to be Minister of Qin, knelt down to him, and called him uncle, he felt a little unnatural.

Compared with Qin Guozhong's fat as a pig, this Minister Qin is very handsome.

Before Qin Guozhong entered Chang'an, he left his eldest son, Minister Qin, at Lingwu Qinqiong.

Minister Qin is now nominally the master of the tribes in Fengzhou, replacing Qin Guozhong in Chang'an to lead the tribes, but he is actually a hostage in Lingwu, so now Fengzhou is in charge of the tribes. His uncle Ashinazhe, it is said Now it is renamed Qin Guosheng.

"Uncle, previously my nephew received orders from my father from Chang'an to let my nephew collect furs, etc. Now I have accumulated a lot, and a lot of them have already been shipped to Lingwu City. I wonder when uncle will arrange the transaction?"

Minister Qin is young and a little impatient.

He refused to eat the steaming red copper mutton hot pot, but hurriedly asked about the transaction.

Qin Lang put the whole plate of thinly sliced ​​mutton into the hot pot. Rich people eat hot pot, and the meat has to be put on the whole plate. It's too petty to cook slices of meat.

"How many?"

When I asked, I found out that there were quite a few of them.

Because of this cold disaster, even on the Houtao grassland called Saishangjiangnan, the herdsmen had no grass to eat for their cattle and sheep.Especially after the recent heavy snowfalls, the withered grass killed by the frost is all buried under the thick snow.

Cattle and sheep began to lose fat.

The herdsmen had no choice but to choose to slaughter ahead of time.

At this time, Qin Guozhong said that he contacted the big buyers in Chang'an and asked everyone to kill cattle and sheep, so the herdsmen no longer hesitated.

Fortunately, it was cold, otherwise the large number of slaughtered cattle and sheep would not be able to be preserved, and now they are all piled up in the open air in piles, and then covered with snow.

Lighter sheepskin wool has already begun to be sent to Lingwu.

In fact, wool shearing and weaving have been done for a long time, and there are detailed shearing and processing methods in Qi Min Yao Shu.

For example, the sheep can be sheared three times a year. The first shear is in spring when the sheep are shedding their winter wool, the second shear is in May when the sheep are shedding again, and the third shear is in August.

The sheared wool is washed in river water.

In the cold Mobei region, even only cut it twice, and did not cut it in August.

This is because after August, the weather gets colder, and it is difficult for sheep to survive the winter after shearing their wool.

The cashmere is not cut, but plucked, or combed with a comb to get the cashmere.

Goats are mainly raised by Tuyuhun people and Dangxiang people in the northwest. This technology has always been in their hands, and it was gradually introduced to the Central Plains.

It is said that Dangxiang herdsmen pluck the cashmere for a day, and the thread is only [-] yuan, and it takes half a year to pluck the cashmere, which is enough to weave a piece of material.

No matter whether it is frying or plucking, after the wool and cashmere are harvested, it still needs to be cleaned and elasticated. Generally, lime is used to degrease the wool and remove impurities, otherwise it will affect wool spinning.

After the wool is cleaned, the wool needs to be flicked, and the wool is loosened with a slingshot. During the flicking process, the impurities in the wool can be removed again, and the fluffed wool is suitable for spinning.

The woolen yarn can then be used to make woolen textiles such as sweaters or blankets.

On the grasslands, the herdsmen don’t actually shear much wool, because during times of war, there were few border markets, and their wool was not easy to sell, and the processing of wool was complicated, let alone weaving. If the demand in the border markets was small, they simply Too lazy to pick wool.

The nomads' own wool fabrics are very simple.

This year's natural disaster made the herdsmen forget about these things. Tang people were willing to buy wool, so they cut all the wool before slaughtering the sheep. They didn't even deal with it, so they packed it and sent it to Lingwu.

So now in Lingwu's warehouse, the piles of wool are all dirty and smelly wool, without any sorting and screening, cleaning, degreasing and elastic wool, the real raw wool.

In addition, there are many sheepskins.

It is also sheepskin that has not been processed.

A piece of high-quality wool requires many procedures, such as tanning, scraping off sebum, and drying in the sun.

It is not easy to turn dirty and smelly wool into soft and gentle wool.

If the Turkic people's old method is used, it is impossible to weave a piece of cloth in a year. The herdsmen always carry a wool bag on their backs when grazing, and then hold a spindle in their hands. This kind of hand-spun yarn is very primitive, so I can spin one or two threads a year in my spare time. The whole family has worked hard, but it is barely enough for my own use.

The level of wool spinning in the Central Plains is better, after all, there are special spinning machines, but spinning wool is still more difficult than spinning hemp, because wool is thicker.

According to the current wool loom technology of Datang, the efficiency is actually very low.

This time Qin Lang came here, intending to open fur processing factories in Lingwu and Fengzhou, research and improve wool spinning technology, and increase the efficiency and output, and the income will naturally be greatly enhanced.

While eating the mutton, Qin Lang looked at the wool and sheepskin samples Minister Qin brought. The more he looked at it, the more he shook his head. It was indeed too rough. Even if you washed it a little, it would improve its appearance a lot.

"The quality of this wool is very low, it's too rough, and the quality is not good." Qin Lang shook his head.

Minister Qin was a little anxious.

"Uncle, our wool is very good. We picked the third wool in August, and the wool at this time is very good. This wool is from this batch. Although it has not been washed, it is indeed good wool. Look at this How fine and long the hair is."

"In this way, I will ask the people in the caravan to evaluate all the wool and classify it into four grades of A, B, C and D according to the quality. For the wool in your hand, it can be graded as B. If it is extracted from wool, it will be better. If you come out, you can be ranked first class."

"Then I don't know how much uncle paid for the B grade, how much for the A grade, and how much for the C and D grades?"

Qin Lang laughed, "Nephew, you are really anxious, don't worry, uncle, can I still lose you? Eat first, and walk for half a month along the way, eating and sleeping in the open, but I haven't eaten anything good. This Sheep are really fat, don't waste them."

Minister Qin was anxious, but he had no choice but to pour wine for Qin Lang with a smile.

In fact, after looking at the samples just now, Qin Lang felt that the wool was really good. After all, the wool was supposed to be sheared in August, and the quality of the wool at this time was good, but the Turkic people didn't know how to pack it, so the sheared wool was stuffed in a random package and delivered. .

It looks ugly, but the wool is good. After washing and drying the wool, it is still good wool.

Qin Langkeng will definitely not cheat Minister Qin, but for this price, the pricing power is completely in Qin Lang's hands, and he has to check the fur stock of Qin Guozhong's department before he can give a reasonable price.

"Come on, put some more green vegetables." Qin Lang smiled and grabbed a handful of green vegetables and threw them into the hot pot. After Qin Qiong took office in Lingwu, Qin Lang specially sent the head of the vegetable garden at home to Lingwu to serve Qin Qiong's dining table. Rich dishes, but now I also let myself enjoy it.

Qin Qiong and Li Daliang ate meat, drank wine and had nostalgia for the whole time. They missed the war years in Wagang together, and they didn't get involved with the children's fur business at all.

While eating wine and drinking meat, Qin Lang asked Minister Qin a few words from time to time.

From the number of people in their family, to the number of livestock, to the extent of the disaster, and everyone's attitude towards the Tang Dynasty, etc., anyway, while drinking and chatting, Minister Qin is young after all, the more he drank, the redder his face gradually became. He knew everything and told all about his father.

(End of this chapter)