A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 422 Five stars go out to the east to benefit China
Daqian's current textile technology is quite advanced, but there is no good way to weave wool.

The royal family's idea of ​​incorporating the grassland into the Zhuxia and making the grassland the raw material base of the Zhuxia could not be advanced.

The grasslands are bitterly cold. Even in modern society, the population of the northern grasslands is far lower than that of the Central Plains. Even the combined population of the entire grassland is less than the population of a city.

Wang Jing wanted to incorporate the grassland into the Zhuxia civilization and be managed by Daqian, which was extremely difficult.Unless he ignores it and sends all the direct descendants of the royal family to the grassland, and spends a lot of money and food every year to maintain it.

But this is impossible. In the early stage, it seems to be full of flowers, but it can completely rely on blood transfusions from the Central Plains. The Central Plains court will not do such a thing. Even if it can barely support it for a few years, it will eventually collapse.

Therefore, the best way is to make the Northland grassland have hematopoietic ability, and then attract businessmen, nobles, and officials from the Central Plains to develop it.

Under the guidance of the imperial court and spontaneously among the people, only in this way can the grassland be firmly controlled in the hands of Zhu Xia.

What is the most essential reason for the beginning of the Age of Discovery in real history?
To get gold, to get wealth.

Because the Ottomans blocked the Silk Road, Western European countries began to explore new routes in order to gain wealth.Later, when they discovered the New World, they also wanted to gain wealth at first.

The Age of Discovery, except for the very beginning, was supported by the state.Later, there was no need for state support at all. Nobles and big businessmen began to use real money to support it, and they eventually obtained huge benefits from it.

The northern grasslands are barren and bitterly cold, so few people are willing to come. Wang Jing wants to create profits from wool.The Imperial Craftsman Supervisor and the Weaving Bureau had no good solution, so they could only try to find a solution across the country.

Wang Jing issued an edict that those who could improve wool or directly spin wool into thread or cloth would be rewarded with titles, official positions and other rewards.

For a time, all over the world were trying to improve textile technology and find ways to weave wool into cloth.

The wool weaved by the imperial court's improved wool spinning process was rough and could only be woven into heavy wool blankets and could not be used to make clothes.

However, wool blankets are also useful. In this era, fur or cotton were relied on to keep out the cold in winter, and most common people relied on grass or reeds.At this time, there was no cotton in the Central Plains.Wool blankets are of high quality and low price for both the army and the common people.

After seeing that there were no suitable wool fabrics, someone in the family made a suggestion to directly fill clothes with wool to keep out the cold. This approach was good for ordinary people, but it was impossible to make money from it.

If this is the case, wool will not provide much benefit at all, and those noble and powerful people will not care about the grassland at all.

Although wool fabrics have not yet obtained breakthrough technology, the imperial court's grassland strategy has been advancing steadily, and the imperial court's expenses have also increased. Many ministers in the court have begun to oppose the strategy of immigrating to the grasslands.

After several consecutive years of high investment, the imperial court's finances could no longer bear it.The imperial court did not only spend money in the Beidi Grassland. If Wang Jing's prestige had not been too high, this policy would have been overturned long ago.

In the 47th year of Daqian Tianming, Wang Jing was getting older. The grassland policy he implemented required a large amount of food every year to maintain, and the court was short of money and food, so he asked the states and counties to contribute money to support it.The money and food of the prefectures and counties were already limited, and they were transferred to the grasslands to maintain the rule of the grasslands.

In the 40th year of Daqian's destiny, the imperial court built a city on the Mobei grassland, and at the same time immigrated 30 people to cultivate land on the grassland.However, the grasslands are barren and the winters are cold and long, so food can only be grown once a year.

The food obtained was simply not enough to sustain a livelihood. In the first few years, the government provided relief and tax exemptions, which barely supported it.

But when the tax exemption period passed and the court's relief ended, food was still unable to support the family, so many people began to flee the grassland.

This situation cannot be stopped even if there is a strict order from the court. If it is strictly stopped, it will force these people to die. At that time, the people will have to work as Huns herding animals in order to survive.Originally, many people wanted to rely on their children to stand out in Luoyang Academy and become officials.As a result, in recent years, very few officials have passed the examination.

According to the system of Daqian Academy, the scholars of Luoyang Academy are selected from all over the country, so the passing rate is high. But now these people enter Luoyang Academy directly, and many of them have not gone through systematic study and training at all. As a result, the examination was naturally inferior to those scholars who passed the county school examination step by step.

In the end, except for some people from powerful families who had already studied and successfully passed the examination to become officials, almost no other common people succeeded.

Seeing this situation, Wang Jing had no choice but to suspend his plan to immigrate to the grassland, and only sent a large army to garrison.

At this time, Huang from Kuaiji County in the south of the Yangtze River offered his wool weaving skills.

After Wang Jing learned about it, he immediately ordered someone to bring him to weave. After some weaving, the first woolen fabric was sent to Qianyuan Palace.

Wang Jing looked at the soft wool fabric in his hand. It had a uniform texture and soft material, without the rough and hard feeling of the previous wool knitting pieces.At the same time, it is thicker than silk, linen and other fabrics, and is more suitable for keeping out the cold.

"Your Majesty, this wool fabric is woven using a mixture of raw silk and wool. Because wool is short and difficult to weave, wool is added to the raw silk for blending.

After weaving, it has the softness of raw silk and the warmth of wool.At the same time, the cloth is soft, tough, and thick, making it the finest fabric. "

"Does this fabric have any shortcomings?" Wang Jing asked.

"Yes!" said the master craftsman next to him: "This kind of cloth is troublesome to weave, and the wool required also needs to be screened. The cost of weaving is much higher than that of silk!"

Wang Jing nodded, and then ordered the Weaving Bureau to weave this kind of woolen cloth. The higher the cost, the better, and the higher the profit. With enough profits, Wang Jing had the confidence to continue to implement the grassland policy.

After the breakthrough in textile technology, Wang Jing once again defied public opinion and began to increase his support for the Zhenbei Protectorate.At the same time, Chinese businessmen, wealthy households, powerful men, nobles, officials, etc. are encouraged to go to the grasslands to buy land and graze cattle and sheep.

At the same time, Wang Jing gave this wool fabric as a reward to important officials in the court and the princes and kings who divided the world.Use this method to stimulate the pursuit of this kind of wool textiles by the nobles, powerful and wealthy households.

-

"In the National Museum of China, there are many national treasures preserved, but there is one national treasure here that is the most special. This national treasure comes from the northwest and is a wool and silk fabric made during the Qian Dynasty in 2000. It is the [Five Stars Out of the East] China] brocade arm guards.

This brocade arm guard is 18.5 cm long and 12.5 cm wide. It has a cloud and dragon pattern and is woven with a mixture of silk, wool and linen.Eight Chinese characters are woven on it: "Five stars coming out of the east will benefit China."

In fact, in addition to this brocade arm guard, there is also a more precious brocade item in the Royal Museum.It is said to be a tapestry given by the royal family of Daqian to the kings who guarded the Fan Kingdom. There are two inscriptions on the left and right. The inscription on the left is: "The five stars came out of the east, benefited China, killed the barbarians, conquered all barbarians, surrendered the Chanyu, and reconciled with the sky." Wuji.”

The inscription on the right is: "Qi and Wei come out together, China is prosperous, all barbarians are conquered, Beidi is happy and stable, and there is no boundary with the sky."

This brocade is to encourage the princes and kings to guard the four directions and the barbarians to surrender. It is also a brocade made by the central dynasty to wish for political and military smoothness and success.This tapestry demonstrates the wisdom of our country’s ancient appointment, and also demonstrates our firm belief and determination to safeguard national unity.

It's a pity that this brocade has not been exhibited much because of its age. Thank you all for watching this episode of "National Treasures". See you next time. "

(End of this chapter)