Tang Dynasty good man

Chapter [-] Picking Cotton is a Great Fun

There are about three different ways that cotton was introduced into our country.According to the analysis of historical data, it is generally believed that cotton spread to the Central Plains from the north and the south.South Road was originally Asian cotton from India, which was introduced to Hainan Island and Guangdong and Guangxi regions through Southeast Asia. According to historical records, at least in the Qin and Han Dynasties, it was introduced to Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan and other regions.The second route was from India to Yunnan via Burma, around the time of the Qin and Han dynasties.The third way is that African cotton was introduced to Xinjiang and the Hexi Corridor through West Asia. The time was about the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the North Road was the "Western Region".

Minorities in the border areas planted and utilized cotton much earlier than the Central Plains. Until the Han Dynasty, cotton textiles in the Central Plains were still relatively rare and precious.In the early Tang Dynasty, cotton began to be transplanted to the Central Plains.The original intention of transplanting is not to make raw materials after planting in a large area, but to be used as ornamental plants by a very small number of privileged classes, as rare flowers and grasses to enjoy.

Such an important plant has never been paid attention to in the hundreds of years. It is recorded in the Qin and Han Dynasties, but it was planted in the nursery as a display until the early Tang Dynasty. Unfortunately, it is indeed the dereliction of duty of the country's top leadership.Lan Ling still doesn't realize this point, and when the cotton fabrics come out, she will understand what negligence is, and she will definitely be able to shame the royal noble who is known as the proud son of heaven to death.

But I only know how to make a spinning wheel, and I have never seen anything else. What preparations should be made before cotton is harvested?I took a brush and drew on the paper. No matter how I drew, it looked like a spinning wheel. I drew a lot of big spinning wheels and small spinning wheels. The more I drew, the more proficient I became.

"Oh, what are you doing?" I was fascinated by practicing painting, and when I turned around, I almost touched Ying's face, which was startling. "Sneaky and sneaky, scary." I don't know when she came, it seems that I have been silent in the fantasy of art for a long time.

"Husband, is this?" Ying took my work and looked at it for a long time, but couldn't see the name, "Painting?"

"High-end goods, you don't understand even if I tell you." Looking at Ying's expression, he wanted to laugh.Deeply shocked, "Laugh if you want to, and be careful not to make mistakes." Seeing that Ying turned her face away and might have smiled, she said dissatisfied: "Tomorrow I will go to pick cotton for my husband. It is manual work. You have experience in working in the fields. What should I do to get ready?"

"This," Ying was a little confused. "Husband is going to work in the fields tomorrow?"

"Well, for the sake of the common people, no matter how much hardship you suffer, no matter how tired you are, I will not hesitate." I nodded solemnly, "What are you laughing at? Don't you believe me? Why don't you hurry up and get ready to get angry for your husband?"

"Okay," Ying smiled and took out a handkerchief.Wipe off the ink on my face, "How to prepare, please tell my husband."

"Well, it's a total sum." He held his chin and thought for a long time, and his mind became muddled. "Why don't we have sweet rice at night? Didn't we bring back a lot of wild game from the villa, stir fry a few plates, make shredded chicken soup, and spread out four or five pancakes. Mix the bean sprouts and roll them. You can figure it out."

"Hehe..." Ying Jiezhi smiled and went out.

It's not easy, I'm going to pick cotton tomorrow, so I have to make careful preparations.Bring some fresh fruit, a pot of wine, and a dozen or so tea eggs. Although I don’t eat them, I can share them with others. Roll seven or eight pancakes and take them for a picnic.Sliced ​​raw meat and chicken wings with some seasoning are almost complete. Lanling likes to eat meatballs recently, so bring some to her.

Originally I didn't want Lan Ling to go, firstly to avoid suspicion, secondly, I had to be busy when she came, and she always criticized me for being idle, very annoying.Brought a package of food to pick cotton bolls.I am most afraid of the guard at the door checking.If the ground is messed up, it won't taste good.Fortunately, Lanling came early, and when we arrived at Nanlin Garden, she and Li Shi were waiting for me at the gate.And Mrs. Li Shi together.With the dignified princess in front of him, the guards were as honest as his grandson, no one dared to come up to check.I finally vented my anger, and raised my eyebrows in protest at the bitter-melon-faced guard who searched me every time, which was very refreshing.Lan Ling and Mrs. Li Shi seemed to know each other, and the two exchanged whispers from time to time, while Li Shi kept talking to me about the knowledge of cotton fields.He is an official of the Ministry of Industry, so enthusiastically came to help, and also taught a lot of cotton knowledge, it seems that the Ministry of Industry has begun to pay attention to this matter.

Cotton, open.Then what to do?Pick it up!Lanling invited several gardeners to come over, and each of them distributed a large basket. The land for growing cotton was not large, less than one mu of land, and dozens of people finished picking it in less than two hours.In fact, it can be faster, which may be due to Lan Ling's presence. The gardeners are very nervous and pick carefully, which affects the efficiency.

The gardeners laid out several large mats, and spread all the picked cotton on the mats.The cotton that has just been picked is still relatively wet and must be dried.The four of them looked at each other, squatting on the mat and looking at the pile of cotton in a daze.Different from what I imagined, this thing has seeds!There are many more.This is simply terrible, you have to find a way to remove the seeds before you can roll it into a cotton spun thread.The technology is too backward, and the people in the breeding grounds should be encouraged to grow seedless cotton, or they will not only remove the seeds but also exhaust people to death.

Lan Ling and Mrs. Li Shipo dug a handful of wet cotton and tried to remove the seeds by hand, but the progress was slow. Lan Ling angrily threw the cotton in his hands on the mat again, "No, it has to be dried to remove the seeds. Now it is wet. It’s not easy to handle.”

"Wait for it to dry, don't worry." Li Shi was more open-minded, "It looks good when you take it off. According to Zihao, the linen cloth is made into a jacket, and a layer is stuffed inside. It looks warm. It's not bad." Then, despite the two women's chatter, they pulled me to sit and chat.

This guy likes to chat and talks a lot.It was as if no one talked to him all day long, and when he was arrested, he would not stop, inquire about everything, and ask about everything.It took me a long time to see every egg, and I heard that this egg was fed by a new method of feeding chickens, and I really wanted to eat it.

"Eat, there are a lot of things." I put the big bag on the stone table. The paper wrapped balls were all oily. I opened it to smell the fragrance. I grabbed one and stuffed it into my mouth. "It's delicious, don't be too polite." Then he took a twist and handed it to him.

Seeing that I was about to start eating, Lanling brought Mrs. Li Shi over, "Zihao, wait a minute, it's not time for dinner yet, there is a friend nearby, let's call and enjoy together."

"Yes, yes, the princess is right." I stood up and saluted Lan Ling.This is the most annoying. It is inconvenient to have outsiders present, and it is uncomfortable for those who salute.Who else?Why didn't you see me when you came here?Li Shiben was holding the twist in his hand, but when he saw that Lan Ling had spoken, he put it down embarrassingly, and smiled helplessly at me.

Who should I be? It turned out to be Yang Quan.The friend Lanling said turned out to be him. It seems that this person has a lot of face, and he can make Lanling wait for dinner. It is estimated that the youngest is a guy at the level of Duolong, the head of the guards.Yang Quan saw Lan Ling and saluted respectfully, then smiled and bowed in a circle, "Your Highness, forgive me, forgive me. At the next level of martial arts, I don't like eating well. Don't take it personally." Haven't done it yet, he laughed, and seemed to be doing homework with me, and he didn't stop, he ate the dishes on the table one by one, and poured himself a drink. After watching for a long time, he didn't leave any dishes behind .Only then did he pat his stomach to express his satisfaction.Seeing that everyone was looking at him, he scratched his head in embarrassment, and said with a smirk: "Reckless, reckless. I was very hungry. When I was a child, my family was poor, and my six older brothers and my seven younger brothers fought in groups when it was time to eat. There is only food left in the house. For so many years, I can correct any bad problems, but I can’t get over it just by eating.” He respectfully bowed to Lanling and bowed to the surroundings, “Princess, forgive me, hehe, forgive me.” Embarrassed to get up.Seeing that I brought several packages of sliced ​​raw meat, I immediately understood the meaning, and "forgive" again, regardless of whether others care, I ran to cut a lot of cypress branches and dragged them over, "Eat this, I'm good at it, when I was a child, I was out in the wild. I’m used to it. I often shoot prey and smoke it in the mountains.” He checked the wind direction on his own.It was lit in the wind.

"Hehe..." Lan Ling covered his mouth and smiled, "Eat, eat all of them. Yang Quan is like this, Zihao, don't look, just eat." He stood up and poured a glass of wine for everyone, reminding Li Shi and his wife: "This wine is strong and different from usual."

Li Shi smiled slightly and praised: "A martial arts practitioner should be like this." He picked up the twisted doughnut that he had just put down, ate the crispy ground, took a sip from the wine cup, his facial features shrank into a ball suddenly, and it took him a long time to recover. Zan said: "Spicy wine." After finishing speaking, he took a sip from the glass and dried it up.

This Li Shi is very experienced in food, and I met my opponent in chess, and discussed while eating, and the two summed up their experiences with each other.After a while, Yang Quan brought up a large plate of barbecue, all grilled with my condiments, "Brother Wang's concoction is good, I'm sorry, you eat while roasting over there, everyone take it easy, don't worry about me, it's okay to eat." Young and old."

After three rounds of drinking at the cotton-picking picnic, it gradually became lively. Li Shihua had a lot of words, but after drinking a little wine, he became more and more out of control, talking nonsense with me, and Lanling gradually They also joined in, and even Mrs. Li Shi occasionally interjected, the atmosphere was lively, and the matter of cotton was long forgotten.

"Qin Huang, he is a nice person." Talking about Qin Dynasty with Li Shi, he stated his opinion. "Generally speaking, there are many advantages and disadvantages, or cruelty, and real-time pressure."

"En," Li Shi immediately affirmed, and listed a series of advantages of Qin Shihuang. This guy can clearly explain many unheard of things.I suspect that he is a fan of Emperor Qin, making up and beautifying Yingzheng.

"Actually, there are many advanced systems in the Qin State that have not been handed down," he couldn't be allowed to steal the limelight by himself, and with Lan Ling in front of him, he had to show something.Otherwise, I'm not as handsome as this guy, and my knowledge is not as good as his, what a shame. "For example, the metal equipment manufacturing industry in the Qin Dynasty," I remembered watching a documentary about the "Resurrected Land Corps", which described the powerful logistics of Qin State, among which there was a prototype of standardized operations and assembly line operations similar to the 21st century, and classification inspection system.I am good at telling this story. While narrating the documentary, I added a lot of advanced elements of the 21st century into it. I made up the story. Even the battle that swept the six countries randomly added some bizarre chapters. From time to time, I took chopsticks and knocked on the table. It's enough for Shan Tianfang's appearance.

Stupid?Stop talking?Li Shi was silent for a long time after listening to my description of the advantages of making standard parts of weapons, and then he sighed deeply and asked, "Does Zihao think this method is feasible in my dynasty?"

"Difficult," I thought for a while, then shook my head helplessly, "Qin can do it. One is that before the reunification, the country was small, and the administration was convenient. Orders can be communicated within a few days, and Qin itself is a region with all the people's armaments. , all countries compete for supremacy, except for food, it is armaments. The Guanzhong area is rich and has Tianfu Granary. The price, and the cost of ordnance produced in different places is different, so the price is different, and the length and width are also different. Then there is the ruler, the ruler used in our country today is divided into the smallest unit. Although in daily life, the accuracy of the minute is enough, but in terms of weapons , especially for ordnance with complex and exquisite structures, such as the interchangeability of components such as machines, the error in the unit of 'fen' is still too large." These are only the more difficult ones to solve, and there are still many problems that require multi-party coordination, no I can speak clearly as I sit here. "Actually. Talking about these things between one person and two people is just talking on paper. It must be brainstormed and requires coordination among confidential departments."

"Yes," Li Shi nodded and sighed, "What the pre-Qin can do, but our Tang Dynasty is helpless. It's ridiculous. Didn't the pre-Qin take Guanzhong as its foundation? If the imperial court followed the example of the previous dynasties and tried it in the Guanzhong area place, and then spread to other places?"

"I don't know, my little brother doesn't know much about this." Looking at the forgotten cotton in the sun, it was spread out alone on the mat.Very poor.Picking cotton has become a picnic, and the people's livelihood has become a weapon, tactics, politics, natural science, folk talks and exchange meetings, a small wine, and a leisurely meal.Accompanied by beauties, there is also an Ouchi manager who specializes in delivering barbecue, and the graceful figure of a group of Silla dancers singing and dancing is missing.

"Hehe..." Li Shiyi patted his head, reached out and shook the jug, it was empty. "It's a long way to go, and I don't know when the cotton will be dried."

The sun in August has lost its confidence, and it will take more than a month to store it, let alone cotton.Even the pools can be dried in the sun. "Today is difficult, but tomorrow may not be sure. Maybe three or four days will be fine if the sun is better."

"Then put it here to dry, and send it to your house when it's done." Lan Ling stood up and looked at the sun, "It's getting late."

The picnic was such a success that there was almost nothing left.It seems that the two women did not eat less.Yang Quan is different.He was originally a banquet attendant, but he preferred to do odd jobs.It seems that his wife has trained well at home, and her habits have been brought outside.He's a nice guy, I'll call him again when I have a chance to eat next time, and I don't even have to wait for the waiter.

There is still some time before dark, so I galloped towards the moat, and I missed the old man who was fishing with me. If he was here, the time has not left yet, so we can talk by the way.

Fortunately, the old man is here, and autumn is the season for fish to eat and drink, and I can see him fishing alone with a smile on his face from afar.As soon as I got off the steep slope, the old man turned around and greeted me, scaring me.Too inattentive, I knew from such a long distance that someone was coming, and if I was going to be released, people would not necessarily notice it even standing next to me.

He has old hair, no wonder he's smiling like a dick, both of them are stuffed to the brim, and it's hard to lift them.No, the old man can't let the old man take advantage of it all by himself. Anyway, the cotton has no hope of drying out tomorrow, so I have to come and fish for a day.

Although the old man has started to catch fish, his basic movements are three to five points better than mine. He has grown from a rookie to a veteran, approaching the level of prawns.The moat is quiet, there are many woods, stones and weeds. Occasionally, there are crickets calling, so I can't help but take one out.

"Hehe, the little doll also plays this?" The old uncle smiled when he saw my buttocks scratched in the grass, "I don't know what kind of wind is blowing, but now I'm up to play bugs."

"Ah?" Except for me playing, I only showed the show to Mr. Cheng. Although Lan Ling occasionally watched it, a woman wouldn't play with this thing herself, and there are like-minded people? "Is it popular?"

"I can't say, the old man likes this recently." The old man put down his fishing rod, turned around and looked at the cricket I just caught, "You are too small, you need to be bigger to catch it, let it go."

Vegetables, obviously dishes.The size of the row depends on the size of the cricket ground.He just said that he was lucky, and he caught a good-looking cricket randomly, but he was appraised as a dish.Ignore him, hold the cricket with one hand hollowed out, reach into the pocket with the other hand to take out the toilet paper that I usually carry with me, cooperate with one hand and one leg, flip it a few times, and a standard paper cricket tube is folded. Aim at the mouth of the tiger holding the cricket's hand, pass the cricket into the paper tube little by little, pinch the edge and close the mouth of the tube. In less than a minute, the old man witnessed a series of my movements and was fascinated.

"The doll is familiar with it, so it's very sophisticated." The old uncle said enviously, "What do you want this little bugger to do?"

"Smallness has its advantages, and I don't want it to fight with big guys." I ostentatiously folded the paper tube in the middle, and one tube became two tubes. The small ones, the big ones bite the big ones, not to mention, the small ones may not be able to bite the big ones, there are some domineering tops, very powerful."

"Oh, I met an expert." The old man stopped fishing, put away his fishing rod and sat in front of me, and began to collect cricket scriptures. He is right. Recently, he asked the old man for something. He changed his smiling face and used two fighting insects as a metaphor for a bullshit theory. He didn't listen to the truth, but the insects are really good-looking. Ask him for it, but he won't give it to me. Angrily, I caught hundreds of them and asked him to fight. Who would have thought that the neighbor's character was not good, and Chong Chong was very vicious, and he lost a lot of money in a row. No matter how much I caught, I didn't win. I lost a lot of money , Furious old man!."

Bad neighbors, poor character, call the door, two people fight, two crickets, pretty evil, there is such a coincidence in the world?It's so interesting.Now that you know who this old man is, no wonder he says he doesn't deal with me.Grandpa Cheng, you are already making a fuss, haha.

"Uncle, come tomorrow, I'll bring you a few worms, I'm sure you'll get your money back." As a famous general, it's not easy to meet one, let alone tease two at once, I'm too bad, haha.