Chapter 1031 Frustrated Xiaodie

The Zhengdan Festival of the Han tribe is the first day of the fourteenth month. Now it is the early thirteenth month. There are still three weeks before the festival. After the Zhengdan Festival, it will be another month before the spring farming season.

Now is the slack season for farming. People stay at home and have nothing to do, so they start to prepare for the New Year. The markets in various counties have also become lively. All the pigs and sheep that have been raised for a year have been slaughtered and sold at the market. The official grain stations are also crowded with people, and a large number of people go in and out to buy food.

Of course, most of the purchases are not staple food. Some are specifically bought for some that are not available at home, such as rare millet, corn, sesame, and other things. Others bring their own grain to process, such as bringing wheat or corn to grind flour, or bringing soybeans and sesame to press oil.

In addition, cloth is also a best-selling commodity during the New Year. Making new clothes every New Year is not only a good omen, but also shows that the family is living a good life. Otherwise, if there is no surplus, where will the money come from to buy cloth?

Speaking of cloth, the best-selling ones in the market now are colored cloth and flowered cloth, followed by wide cloth. Ordinary plain cloth, that is, cloth that has not been printed and dyed, can be woven by many families with spinning machines and looms, but the dyeing process is still basically in the hands of the tribe.

Of course, there are also people who dye their own cloth, but there is no money to build a professional printing and dyeing factory and printing and dyeing equipment, so the dyed colors are not good-looking. Now there are basically three kinds of colors dyed by the people themselves, black cloth dyed with chestnut shells as black dye, blue cloth with indigo grass, red cloth with red grass, and plain white cloth.

These folk cloths have a single color, and the colors dyed by each family are not consistent. Some are even unevenly dyed on a piece of cloth, and they are particularly easy to fade. The most important thing is that patterns cannot be printed on them, so the price is very cheap.

The fabrics produced by the printing and dyeing factory controlled by Xiaodie are bright in color, with many colors and patterns. The most important thing is that the official textile factory also has large wide-width looms that can weave fabrics over two meters wide, so it directly monopolizes all the fabrics for home textile products, especially those things like bed sheets and quilt covers. These things have to be spliced ​​with narrow cloth, which is not beautiful, and the dyed cloth is not good-looking either, so the people also buy them.

In addition, if we talk about the most special commodity in this year's New Year's Day, it must be the rice transplanter.

The rice transplanter is sold directly by local government offices. Of course, there is no stock at present. Here in the eight counties of Hanyang, each county has one, which is rushed out, but it is not for sale now. It is mainly used for display and to show the people how to operate it.

As for the south, there is not even a real thing. It is directly posted on the bulletin board of local government offices. A photo of a rice transplanter transplanting rice in a greenhouse is posted, with a text description next to it, telling the people that this thing will be promoted next year, and if you want it, you should pay attention to it.

In the northern region, once the rice transplanter was displayed, the gates of government offices in various places were crowded with people, all of whom were asking about the price and efficiency.

"When was this rice transplanter released? When will it be available for sale?"

"Oh, it's amazing. Even transplanting rice can be done by a machine. With this thing, don't you have to bend down to transplant rice in the future? This is great."

"Yes, yes, it's good, but I don't know how much it costs. Look at the workmanship of this thing. I'm afraid it's not cheap. It's all made of iron, and the wheels and iron chains on it look like the chains on bicycles. This thing is not cheap, right? I don't know if we can afford it."

The people all gathered around and talked about it, drowning out the clerks in the government office. Seeing the chaotic scene, the clerk simply climbed onto the table and shouted to everyone while standing on the table.

"Listen to me, fellow villagers. This rice transplanter was just made a few days ago. It has been finalized after experiments. There will be no problem with transplanting rice. This machine only needs one person to operate it. It can transplant two seedlings at a time, and its efficiency is two to three times that of manual transplanting. Once you become proficient in it, one person can do the work of more than four people, and you don't have to bend over.

"As for the problem of sales, the factory in Xingang County is now rushing to make it and stepping up production. We will try to distribute it in large quantities before the spring. The sales location is the government offices in our counties. Each rice transplanter is sold at a uniform price of ten silver dollars. If there is any problem during use, the blacksmith shop will repair it.

"If you want to buy something, you can start placing an order now. Bring your ID card and pay five silver dollars first. Then come to me to get a receipt and put your fingerprints on it. The first batch will arrive on the sixth day of next month. Those who place orders will be given priority. Others who want to buy something temporarily can wait a few days. I guarantee that there will be goods for you before the spring."

The clerk shouted to the people below, and everyone was also chattering there.

Ten yuan, one-third of a month's salary, to buy such a practical farm tool that can be used for several years is indeed not expensive, but it is not cheap either. It

is roughly equivalent to a modern person who takes a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan and spends 1,000 yuan to buy a mountain bike. He rides it occasionally, but not often. But it is indeed a practical item, and you will not lose money if you buy it. What's more, it is still a farm tool, which is used to produce food, and its value is much higher than that of a mountain bike.

So, someone decided to reserve a rice transplanter on the spot. Everyone was out buying New Year goods, and it was not difficult to take out a five-yuan deposit. Some people were undecided and planned to go home to discuss it before making a decision.

Luo Chong, holding his four-year-old daughter Xiao Luolan, watched from a distance, and had no intention of joining in the fun.

Today, their family went out shopping. Luo Chong brought his two big babies, and Xiaodie and Zhan Ying followed behind with a little baby each. The family of seven was neat and tidy.

"Dad, I want to eat bamboo tube rice dumplings!" The eldest son Luo Cheng shook Luo Chong's trouser leg and pointed at the rice dumplings sold on the street.

"Okay, buy, buy, buy, I'll give you money, go buy it, and remember to buy one for your sister too." Luo Chong sent his four-year-old eldest son away, and stood there waiting for Xiaodie and Zhan Ying who were buying persimmon cakes behind. Not long after, the two of them also followed with their children.

Luo Xing and Luo Ji are only half a year old now, and they were also brought out in swaddling clothes, but their mothers had different expressions. Zhan Ying was always very happy, but Xiaodie was a little unhappy, because of the book that Luo Chong asked them to write a while ago.

Xiaodie's "History of Development of Textile Printing and Dyeing Technology of Han Tribe" and Zhan Ying's "Han Tribe on the Tip of the Tongue" have both been published, printed and sold, but the responses from the public are very different.

Zhan Ying's cookbook is popular because it records countless cooking methods, a large number of recipes, and even the methods of making some seasonings. In addition, it happened to catch up with the New Year's Day market, so it became popular among the people. It is not a must-have for every family, but it is not far from it. Now there is even a place in the New Year's Day market where you can't buy this cookbook even if you have money.

Xiaodie's history of the development of the textile printing and dyeing industry is originally a niche popular science book. Ordinary people can't have a loom in every family. Who would read this thing? The sales of this book are not even as good as the previous "Xianghai". Now only a few copies can be seen in schools everywhere.

As a result, the blow to Xiaodie can be imagined.

However, this is not jealousy, at most she is a little depressed, but as the saying goes, there is no harm without comparison. Seeing that the book written by Zhan Ying is selling well and is liked by so many people, how can she not be emotional?

The family walked down the street, and along the way, they heard and saw people discussing what ingredients to buy and preparing to cook according to the recipe. When Xiaodie heard this, she became even more unhappy, and then she put the blame on Luo Chong.

"Huh, husband, you are biased. It was you who found the subject for the two of us. Now, sister Zhan Ying's book is popular, but my book is unknown. This is all your husband's fault." "

."

Luo Chong was speechless. How could this be blamed on him? How could this be his fault? So he had to comfort her.

"Books are neither good nor bad. They are just a carrier of knowledge. There is only a difference between the general public and the minority. But as long as one person gains knowledge by reading your book, it is a success. How do you know that no one has benefited from your book?"

Xiaodie was still unhappy after hearing this. Luo Chong was right no matter what he said. He could never win the argument. But she still felt that Luo Chong was comforting her. Now that she thought about it, who could benefit from the unpopular knowledge of textiles and printing and dyeing? Did everyone open a textile factory after reading her book? This was obviously unrealistic.

However, no one expected that Luo Chong's words of comfort would come true. Someone in the Han tribe was really inspired by reading Xiaodie's popular science book on textiles and printing and dyeing.

Speaking of the first people who came into contact with this book, besides Xiaodie, the original author, and Luo Chong, the editor, the third person would be Bai Qi from the Printing Department. Bai Qi was in charge of the entire printing industry of the Han tribe. All the textbooks and books, anyway, as long as they needed to be printed, had to be reviewed by him first. It was not an exaggeration to say that he was the editor-in-chief of the Printing Department.

Naturally, every book that needed to be printed and published had to be typeset by Bai Qi. This kind of work led to him being familiar with every book printed by the Han tribe.

It's not that he could recite all the books by heart, but when it comes to who has read the most books, it must be Bai Qi.

He naturally read Xiaodie's book on textile and printing and dyeing technology carefully. Originally, as a man and not a carpenter, he was not interested in this kind of textile technology, but because of his work, he was very obsessed with the cloth batik craft in the book.

In Bai Qi's opinion, dyeing cloth and printing paper have similar effects. They are both technologies for coloring a region on a carrier. Among them, the hollow batik process is the most similar, because the technology of dyeing pure color cloth is not used in the paper printing industry, but the technology of printing cloth has the hope of being transplanted to the printing industry.

This idea made him very excited. The current printing technology of the Han tribe is actually not very advanced. It is basically still at the level of printing text with movable type and printing pictures with wood engraving. Each printing process is to dye the ink on the plate first, then lay the paper on it, and use a wool brush to scrape the back of the paper to color the front.

In general, the printing technology of the Han tribe is still at the manual level. The process is not superb, and it is very cumbersome and inefficient. There are many people using it, but the output is not much.

Bai Qi has long had the idea of ​​improving the printing process, but he has never had any clues and doesn't know where to start. However, Xiaodie's history of textile printing and dyeing development gave him a lot of inspiration. Since so many fabrics can be printed and dyed with batik technology, is it possible to use batik technology to "dye paper"?

In order to get more inspiration, he visited the printing and dyeing factory during his free time after work and learned the batik technique himself. Then he was surprised to find that cloth batik was not made with insect wax as a slurry to block the entry of dyes as described in the book.

Because insect wax is rare and expensive, it is not affordable to use it to dye cloth. The hollow batik in the dyed cloth is called batik, but it is actually an alkaline organic slurry mixed with lime and bean powder brushed on the cloth surface.

The specific process is to draw the pattern you want to dye on a piece of thick paper first, which can be created arbitrarily. After drawing, brush tung oil on it to make the paper harder and more durable, and then use a carving knife to carve out the parts that need to be left blank on the floral cloth to make it a hollow printing plate, and then brush tung oil on both sides several times to make it more solid.

Finally, lay the printing plate on the white grey cloth, use a brush or scraper to brush the slurry mixed with lime and bean powder onto the printing plate, fill the hollowed-out positions, and finally brush the slurry on the entire roll of cloth, let it dry, then dye it, repeatedly dip and dye it several times, then take it out and dry it, and finally scrape off the slurry, then the slurry part will turn white, and the rest will turn into the dyed color, forming a two-color cloth with a color and white pattern.

After Bai Qi figured out this technology, he immediately realized that this process can be applied to the printing industry, but when it comes to paper printing, the original technology of dyeing cloth cannot be used, because paper cannot be soaked in ink, and only a layer of ink is needed across a hollow wax paper engraving.

This technology is not difficult. The key lies in which of this technology and the existing printing technology is faster, more efficient, clearer, and the cheapest.

The birth of a new technology is not because there is a second substitute, but because the new substitute is better and cheaper than the original one, so it is possible to replace the original technology.

Bai Qi knew this truth very well, so he began to experiment with developing new printing technology.

(End of this chapter)