Rome must fall.

Chapter 364 New Spinning Wheel and Loom

Maximus looked towards the Capito.

Capito responded, "In fact, it won't take a month. Yesterday, Gaius, the construction supervisor, told me that it would only take 20 days to build the two granaries."

Maximus then said: "This remedy is not bad."

Cornelius finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Chief, the blueprints you drew last time have already been made by Thetilips and his men. When will you find time to go and take a look?" Capito asked again.

"Oh, the spinning wheel and the loom are both made!" Maximus was delighted and said immediately, "I will go and see them tomorrow. Oh, and call Sheslet along!"

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Sheslet was a middle-aged woman with ordinary looks and average weaving skills. She was originally a slave girl in a large farm in Campalia. There were many people with better skills than her in the weaving workshop. The reason why she was able to become the supervisor of the weaving workshop was that she, like Aconis, was one of the first slave girls to join the rebels. At that time, her cloth cutting and sewing skills were the best among the slave girls, so Maximus asked her to organize some people to sew linings and bags for the soldiers.

Later, the rebels occupied Sarapia. Since the wool produced at Cape Calgarum was very famous in Italy, Sarapia had a specialty - woolen clothes and carpets. There were several textile workshops in the city, and the female slaves working in them were recruited by the rebels.

However, Maximus did not remove Sheslet, but replaced her with a more skilled weaving slave girl as the captain of the formation team, because Sheslet's diligence and loyalty in the past were worthy of his trust, and Sheslet's seniority in the rebel army was enough to intimidate the newly joined weaving slave girls.

In fact, the weaving team expanded and the number of people increased, but the order has always been stable. Whether it was during the war or the later establishment of the weaving workshop of the Nix tribe, this department has always made contributions, which is inseparable from Sheslet's efforts.

However, whether in the period of the uprising or in the current tribe, the weaving workshop was probably the department that Maximus cared least about. Even for the furniture workshop, which was also not very noticeable in the tribe, he had drawn blueprints for new furniture many times.

This was certainly not because Maximus trusted Sheslet's ability too much, but because the conditions were not met in the past period of time, and he felt that the weaving workshop only needed to maintain the status quo.

It was precisely because of Maximus's previous indifference to the weaving workshop that Sheslet, who rarely received face-to-face instruction from Maximus, felt very nervous when she learned that the leader wanted to summon her alone.

Her direct superior, the works officer Capito, did not tell Maximus the reason why he summoned her. He just pretended to be mysterious and comforted her: "This will be a great thing for your weaving workshop! Come with me quickly, and you will know when the time comes."

An anxious Sheslet followed Capito to the tribal hall.

As soon as Maximus saw her, he jokingly said, "Sheslet, you are finally here. It is not easy to see you."

Sheslet became even more nervous and was about to explain.

Maximus waved and said, "Good that you are here, follow me."

After saying this, he waved his hand, turned and walked out of the hall, with the servants leading Capito and Sheslet to follow closely behind him.

Unlike when he was in Slotia, the main house of Ophidili was larger and was initially renovated by Maximus into three parts: one was the chief's office, which included the tribal hall, the council meeting room, the chief's office, the guard's lounge...; one was where Maximus, his three wives and children lived; and the other was the part that ostensibly belonged to the internal affairs department. In fact, in addition to the kitchen, purchasing and other areas under the jurisdiction of Aknis and his men, there were also the Intelligence Department, Archives Department and Attendant Department under the Secretariat.

If we include the guard station next to the main house, there should be four major parts.

Maximus went to the area where the Ministry of Internal Affairs was located. He walked through the courtyard and came to a house. He pushed open the half-open door and walked in.

"Chief, you're here!" A familiar voice came from the room.

Sheslet didn't look carefully and followed Capito into the house nervously. "Oh, Sheslet, my good sister!" Akonis ignored Capito who entered the house first and came up to give Sheslet a hug. "It's been more than a year since we last met. I miss you a little! How about you?"

"Uh... me too..." Sheslet responded perfunctorily, her eyes completely attracted by the two objects placed in the middle of the room. She subconsciously pushed away Akonis's embrace and unconsciously walked towards the center of the room.

In the center of the room stood a strangely shaped machine. Its main part was a solid base, with a solid vertical shaft at one end, and a wooden round wheel with a diameter of one meter on the vertical shaft. Three spindles were installed above the round wheel, each supported by a slender spindle rod. At the other end of the base stood a C-shaped bracket, with a pedal installed on top. The bracket point divided the pedal into about 4:6, and the long end of the pedal extended into the wooden wheel...

A maid from the Ministry of Internal Affairs sat next to her, and next to her stood a large wooden frame with six bundles of thin threads hanging on it. They were all flax fibers from the newly harvested flax this year that had been dried, peeled, soaked, boiled, and combed.

The maid put two long bundles of flax fibers on a spindle. When all three cushions were covered with flax fibers, she put her feet on the ends of the pedals and stepped left and right like a seesaw.

The long end of the pedal lever pries the axle, and the wooden wheel starts to rotate continuously. The outer side of the wooden wheel is indented, and when it rotates, it drives the three spindles next to the wooden wheel to rotate together through friction. The spindles rotate, causing the flax fibers to be stretched, twisted and entangled on the spindles, gradually forming a thin thread...

At this moment, the maid had to do more than step on the wooden wheel. She had to pay attention to the supply of flax fiber and be ready to add flax fiber from the wooden basin on the other side to the wooden rack at any time...

In this way, after a period of time, the three spindles were filled with fine thread and turned into thick spindles.

Sheslet stared at the scene in front of him with wide eyes, shock written all over his face.

The weaving workshop she is in charge of also uses a spinning wheel for spinning. It consists of a rotating wooden wheel and a fixed spindle. A bundle of flax fibers is fixed at one end of the spinning wheel. The rotation of the wooden wheel causes the flax fibers to twist together, forming thin threads and winding around the spindle... The whole process is a bit similar to the scene in front of her eyes.

However, since the spinning wheel has to be operated by hand, the wooden wheel has to be stopped after a period of time to add flax fibers. It takes a lot of time to complete one spindle, and it takes about half a day to complete three spindles. This new spinning machine can be easily completed in such a short time and without spending too much energy. The efficiency is really high!
Although Shethlet was surprised, she did not speak, because her eyes turned to another machine next to the new spinning wheel.

It's a loom! But like the spinning wheel, this loom is very different from the looms in the weaving workshop.

The loom in the weaving workshop is a vertical loom with two pillars. These two pillars support the horizontal cloth shaft. The warp yarn is fixed on the cloth shaft and tightened from the bottom by the weaving fray. There is a horizontal thin rod in the middle of the loom. All the warp yarns are alternately hung on the front and back of the rod to form a natural weaving opening. The warp yarns hanging at the back can be pulled to the front with the heald rod, thus forming an artificial weaving opening. The weft yarns fixed on the shuttle can alternately pass between natural and artificial weaving to weave cloth...

Because the loom is very wide and upright, the women in the weaving workshop always weave in a standing position, and they must walk back and forth around the loom to pull the weft through the warp...

Such a loom often requires two or three women to operate at the same time. It takes about half a day to weave a piece of cloth that is one meter long and one meter wide.

After a day's work, the women suffered from back pain from standing and walking for long periods of time, but there was no other way. Whether in Rome, Greece, Egypt or Asia Minor, women all used such looms.

But the loom in front of her was something Sheslet had never seen before: the entire frame was basically upright, with a warp shaft placed on the top, the warp yarns unfolded from top to bottom, and were divided into two layers of odd and even roots by thin rods. There were two heddles hooking the odd and even layers of the warp yarns, and the heddles were composed of a front heddle rod and a rear heddle rod.

There are horse-head-shaped hanging heddle rods on both sides of the loom, and two long and short pedals under the loom. The long pedal is on the left and is connected to the rear heddle rod through a connecting rod. The short pedal is on the left and is connected to the horse's head through a connecting rod, and the horse's head is connected to the front heddle rod.

When the short pedal is pressed, the horse head rises, pulling the heald forward to form an opening; when the long pedal is pressed, the connecting rod pulls the heald backward, and the horse head droops, completing the layer change and forming the opening...

Sheslett watched the maid from the Ministry of Internal Affairs sitting in front of the loom, stepping on the pedals with her feet, pulling the horse's head up and down, constantly changing the warp, occasionally using the shuttle to bring in the weft, and then beating the weft with a reed...

Sheslet watched intently, and no one else spoke, but the room was not quiet. The friction of the loom parts, the sound of the shuttle shuttling back and forth, the slight vibration of the warp and weft as they intertwined... formed a relatively noisy sound.

But no one in the room felt annoyed. They quietly watched the maid skillfully operate the loom...

I don't know how long it took, but Maximus finally said, "Okay."

(End of this chapter)