In the autumn of the first three years, as the climate became colder day by day, the crops of Loulan Road, the largest production base in the Togo Prefecture, also matured one after another.In the past two years, thousands of Han Chinese have migrated from Nei County to grow millet and wheat on the fertile land of the Peacock River Delta, along with tens of thousands of Loulan farmers.Most of them wore clothes spun from wild Luobu, and when they were done, they wore a stinking sheepskin coat to protect them from the cold autumn winds, which were often very hot during the day and extremely cold at night.With the growth of the population, the original supply of Luobu hemp cloth was exhausted, and it was no longer enough to collect wild hemp for weaving.Cloth was the best way to distinguish classes, and the nobles, of course, did not wear the coarse clothes of the commoners, who were draped in silk from the Han Dynasty and held in their hands exquisite lacquerware ear cups, which were precious.Loulan did not have the jade mines of Khotan and Shache, and the grapes were not as famous as the charioteers, and there were not many goods that could be exchanged, except for the grain in the field, there was only another kind of thing that the Loulan Dao government distributed seeds to the nobles to plant, and threatened to exchange them for money.It is a crop with tufts of small white bells, which cannot be eaten, but it is the most valuable thing in Loulan, which is called "white stacks" in the Western Regions and "cotton" in Duhu.This thing comes from the river west of the Green Ridge and was introduced to Shanshan six years ago.After Ren Duhu took office, Shanshan had a lot of cotton seeds, so it was expanded to Loulan as the main local cash crop.It is now the season of cotton maturity, and after the Loulan people have finished harvesting the grain crops, they will pick the soft cotton balls from these waist-high crops, which is really tiring work, and the waist seems to be broken after a day's work, and it can only be done under the pressure of the noble whip.Then they put the bolls in baskets and brought them back to huts made of mud and wattles, where their wives and daughters laboriously knocked down the cotton seeds by hand in the daytime sunshine, and then put the cotton on reed mats and patted soft baskets and handed them over to the nobles as taxes.The nobles then handed over the cotton yarn to Huang Ba, the chief of Loulan Road, and the officials of their own government carried the scales to weigh them one by one, shouted the weight on the spot, and gave them five baht money.The five-baht coin has replaced silk silk as a new currency, which can be used to buy all kinds of luxury goods from the Han region.In this way, cotton, as a medium, completed a cycle in the hands of Loulan farmers, nobles, and Han officials.Huang Daochang was carefully inspecting the quality of cotton in each family, and only laughed at himself: "The foundation of food, clothing and agriculture is also, when the magistrate encouraged mulberry hemp in the inner county, but mulberry silkworms are forbidden and are not allowed to go out of the Yumen Pass."
The local hemp is not enough to withstand the cold winter, so it can only encourage leather making and this thing. ”Ren Duhu built Loulan as a rear agricultural and handicraft base, and the large baskets of cotton were collected to distinguish them.The good ones will be sent to the open-air workshops on the banks of the Peacock River.Here is a group of weavers who came to their own poison, bought by the Sogdians.India is one of the native places of cotton, and it is also the first Ming in the world to start spinning cotton cloth.Legend has it that a long, long time ago, Vishnu made his first garment out of sunlight and cotton.Soft, durable, lightweight, easy to dye and clean, it has long been popular in Anxi, Ploughing, and Daqin, but after the silk of the Han Dynasty flowed in, it fell from the ranks of top luxury goods and became a slightly more expensive consumer product.However, in the Central Plains, this thing is even rarer, and the white cloth of Zhuya County has always been a valuable tribute.In Chang'an, wearing a cotton cloth with a poisonous pattern on the street is much more fashionable than wearing a mink and velvet.In Ren Duhu's vision, Loulan's cotton cloth will be used as a local fist product, making fine cloth to pay tribute to Chang'an, and then pretending to be poisonous cotton cloth to make profits in the market, so that the Western Regions and Nanhai County, which is trying to grow cotton in the south, will become the two sources of cotton promotion in the Han Dynasty.But it's easier said than done.When Huang Ba came to inspect the workshop, he saw that the poisonous weavers skillfully twisted the cotton yarn into thin white threads, and then used a strap loom to weave the cloth.It is a simple tool, consisting of two wooden sticks tied with warp threads, one hung on a tree and the other on the weaver, who straightens the warp with the weight of his body, and then weaves the weft back and forth between the warp threads, like a never-ending dance.They worked very hard, and the cloth they could weave was always unsatisfactory, and compared with the authentic poisonous cotton cloth sold by the Sogdians, the quality of the Loulan cotton cloth was embarrassing.The body poison weaver explained in a cooan manner, and the translator reported to Huang Ba: "The body poison weaver said that this cotton is different from body poison cotton, which is a tall tree, while this river cotton African grass cotton is grass, although it grows fast and is drought tolerant, but the cotton bolls are small and it is not easy to remove seeds."
Cotton silk is short, so only coarse cloth can be woven.And the weather is dry, and the cotton yarn is easy to break when weaving. ”"If you can't weave the cloth well, you blame the weather for being too dry?"
Huang Ba was furious, and let people punish the poisonous weavers, to see if they would dare to lie and make excuses in the future.It wasn't until I went home in the evening that Huang Ba's wife couldn't laugh anymore: "The lover really doesn't know that the weather is too dry, will it really make the warp and weft of the cloth easy to break?"
”Huang Ba was stunned, although he came from the grassroots, his family was rich and he had never woven cloth!
And the places governed are all rich land by mountains and rivers, and there is no extreme climate like Loulan."
Can't you move the workshop to the prison and weave in the sea?
Even so, how to solve the problem that the cotton wool is too short to weave coarse cloth?
”Huang Ba complained that the task of promoting cotton given to him by Ren Duhu was too difficult.It's also to blame this damn climate, body poison cotton is a better textile material, but it is only suitable for the warm and humid Pearl Cliff and Nanhai County, it cannot grow in the Western Regions, the agricultural officials have tried, they all grow wilted, and the flowers do not bloom directly, and there is no cotton boll, which is really not given face at all.But fortunately, the harvested cotton has another use.The next day, Huang Ba went to another workshop, and Dunhuang County was ordered by the imperial court to send a large number of clothes at the end of summer every year, including robes, silks, and warm shirts.Undergarment, warm also, this coat placket, narrow sleeves, divided into two layers inside and outside, between the layers can be added filling, this kind of kudzu texture of rough undergarment is the most common winter coat, has been very connected to the padded jacket of later generations.As for the filling, the rich use silk wool is mostly the scrap of silk reeling, which is light and warm, but even the waste is very expensive.The poor are fortified with Luhua, Huang Ba is good at Confucianism, and knows a story about Confucius's disciple Min Ziqian, called "Single Clothes Shun Mother", which tells that Min Ziqian was abused by his stepmother and was forced to wear a winter coat filled with reeds in winter, and almost froze to death, while his stepmother's biological child wore a winter coat filled with silk cotton, and the cold effect of the reed flower can be seen Anyway, Huang Ba never wore it.But now, Loulan has a better way to keep warm than reeds, and it is cheaper than cotton wool in the Western Regions.In the workshop, under the labor of slaves and Han hired workers, the white and soft cotton is stuffed into the warm undergarment little by little, and after the plug is sewn up, it becomes a cotton undergarment.Because the undergarment is relatively short, there is also a cotton silk, the silk tube is made of coarse linen fabric, the lining is arrowroot, and the layers are filled with cotton, which looks a little bloated.So, when Zhong who came to Loulan to escort the winter clothes on the order of Ren Duhu, put on a full set, he who was originally thin and small suddenly became bloated.But no one laughs, how to keep out the cold in winter is a distressing thing, the Han people in winter, or hide in the house, if you go out, there are fox fur mink fur is good, sheepskin fur is not too cold.Others wear countless layers of thin clothing, the most exaggerated of which can be wrapped in twenty layers.But for the poor, there may not be enough clothes to wear out in the summer, and many people can die in the winter.In the war to support Wusun a few years ago, even if Chaotian issued winter clothes in advance, there were still many soldiers who froze to death and suffered from frostbite, and they had to capture a large number of cattle and sheep of the Huns, and killed tens of thousands of skinned and dried to make do.Ren Duhu was very annoyed afterwards, thinking that these casualties could have been avoided, so he vigorously promoted cotton after taking office, and asked Dunhuang County to send shirts, silks, and shoes to be processed into warm new winter clothes in Loulan.Zhong tried it on and walked around, and after a while, he was sweating."
Sure enough, it was hot when I put it on."
Add a layer of sheepskin fur to this cotton shirt and cotton pants, even if it is cold outdoors at night, it is very warm."
This winter, the soldiers don't have to suffer from the cold anymore."
Zhong was very satisfied, Loulan had sent a batch of winter clothes last year, mainly to supply the defenders of Dongjimicheng, because Duhu predicted that once the war with the Xiongnu started, Dongjimi, who was lonely in the north court, would fall into siege.On this year's trip, he had to take away 5,000 sets of winter clothes from Loulan, and the canal plough could also produce more than 2,000 sets, which could basically meet the needs of the Han army in Daban City.Huang Ba completed the delivery with it, and a large number of livestock would carry grain and winter clothes to the north with Zhongzhong, and the zodiac chief was also very concerned with the front-line war."
I wonder when this battle will be over?"
It's almost there."
On the front line, Du Hu and his wife are in charge, very stable, loyal but not worried, and said with a smile."
The Xiongnu were humiliated by the capital protection, and they were going to withdraw in the summer, but now they have survived until the end of autumn, because the siege casualties are too large, and they dare not storm the Daban fortress, so they only go to the east and Mi.In the east, Micheng is high and deep, and there are two winch crossbows, Chang Hui and Zheng Xiaowei guard, and use the beacon to communicate with Daban Chengsai every day, and there is no risk. ”"But the Huns, after being beheaded by a king and losing thousands of people, have long been demoralized, and the milk produced by the herd behind them is not enough for tens of thousands of horsemen to eat.After more than a month, there is not enough grass in the north court to keep the horses fat, and they will retreat!
”Ren Duhu has sent to the country, now it depends on when the Han reinforcements arrive, Beiting has become a noose to tie the Xiongnu Shan Yu, if the court can send 20,000 or 30,000 horsemen, maybe the retreating Shan Yu will be blocked, and it will be done in a battle!
But just before Zhong left Loulan, the people from Chang'an finally arrived.He was not only Fu Jiezi's old department, but also had a friendship with Han Zeng, who was second only to the general after Zhang Anshi's retirement in the middle of the court, but this time, Feng Fengshi brought back not good news."
Chang'an will not send troops to Beiting to intercept Shan Yu, but will only let General Zhao Chongguo rein 20,000 troops to ride in Shuofang, enter the surrendered city, and threaten Shan Yu to retreat to relieve the difficulty of Beiting.""
Why is that?"
Loyal and anxious, even he can see that this is a rare fighter created by Duhu."
Something big is happening in the country."
Feng Fengshi thought about it, and still gave Zhong and Huang Ba the answer."
What's wrong?""
Could it be that Zhong was shocked, and Huang Ba was also stunned, remembering that the plan of the imperial court to support Wusun in the first year of Yuan Ting was also delayed by a "major event".It won't be the sudden death of the Son of Heaven, or the change of emperor by the general!"
It's not because of a man-made accident this time."
Feng Fengshi pointed to the top of his head, and was also very helpless: "It's a natural disaster!"
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