Chapter 616: The reign title "Jianyuan" was issued

. Although Luo Chong was at home at this time, he had received a notice that the captives had arrived in Weishan County. The male captives of the barbarian tribe captured this time, those adults and teenagers added up to more than a thousand people, are currently being tortured in Weishan County. After the toes are cut off, they will be escorted to various construction sites.

Luo Chong naturally couldn't even ask about such things in person. He only needed to give his own orders to the chief executives of various places. For example, spring is coming soon. Are the farm tools, seeds, oxen, and laborers at home in various places ready? If they are not prepared, they should do it quickly. If the spring plowing is not done well, then this official will not be in office.

Since ancient times, farming has been a top priority for farming nations. The Han tribe is a large agriculture-based tribe, and such things will not be forgotten.

As for the matters concerning the spring sacrifice this year, Luo Chong handed them over to Jiang Xuan to preside over. This guy seemed to be very interested in the sacrifice, so Luo Chong directly handed over these tedious matters to him. When the time came, he would just show up and pretend to be there.

Now it was the sixth year since Luo Chong came to this world. He already had his own children and was already seventeen years old. In addition, the rat witch who had been under Luo Chong's order to summarize the sundial and calendar since the year before last had finally produced results. Luo Chong was finally able to promulgate the new system of the Han tribe in the early spring of this year, namely the calendar system, four seasons, fourteen months and fourteen hours.

From this year on, the Han tribe officially promulgated the reign title as "Jianyuan", and the day after the last full moon day of winter was set as January 1, and this day of each year was set as the "New Year's Day", which was the annual cycle of the new and the old.

At the same time, the Jianyuan New Calendar was also introduced. This national calendar divides a year into four seasons, a total of fourteen months, thirty days per month, and a leap year every fourteen years. In a leap year, one day is added to each month, and the time of each day is divided into fourteen hours according to the light and shadow cycle of the sundial.

In this way, the Han tribe has a complete time recording method from then on. For future farming, factory scheduling, students going to school, information transmission, etc., there is a clear time to record, so that people can understand how serious the delay of information is.

At the same time, with this calendar, the school semester and the time to go to and from school every day can also be accurate to the hour, which has significantly improved management.

As a contributor to this new calendar, the old Rat Witch was rewarded by Luo Chong generously. The Rat Witch had no offspring, so even if he had a higher status, it would not be passed on. This is why Luo Chong dared to reward him heavily. Moreover, the Rat Witch did make a huge contribution to the summary of the Han tribe calendar, and no matter how high the reward was, it would not be too much.

So, on the afternoon of the 26th day of the 14th month before the founding of the Yuan Dynasty, Luo Chong was drawing the architectural design of the double distillation tower for coking at home when he suddenly received a letter from Xue Dongliang. However, what surprised him was that this time, not only did he bring a letter, but he also brought a package.

Luo Chong picked up the package and felt that it was filled with a bunch of foam. The volume looked large, but the weight was very light. He did not expect it to be something like cotton, so he did not care much and just picked up the letter to read it.

When he roughly glanced at the content, he immediately became uneasy. This was a letter from Xue Dongliang. As the Sima of the Tiger Guards, he did not say anything about military matters in it. He just told Luo Chong that they had obtained a kind of fruit that produced nuts from the locals. This fruit was similar to loofah. When it was old, it would be hollow inside and form some white flocs, which looked like clumps of wool. Xue Dongliang also said in the letter that he believed that this thing should be able to completely replace wool and become the raw material for textiles. Please pay attention to it, leader.

How could Luo Chong not take it seriously? You know, he had been asking Youfu to help him find textile raw materials that could replace wool and ramie when he went out to explore. But this guy had been out so many times, and he had found a lot of minerals, but he knew nothing about the local specialty plants.

But Luo Chong could understand that Youfu's fleet spent more time on the water than on land, so they had less contact with the local natives. Even if the local natives had any specialties, they would be hard to get because of the lack of communication.

When he learned that the bundle was likely to contain the cotton he was looking for, Luo Chong was very excited. He quickly took the bundle and put in the gifts, showing the things to his wife and children, as if the family was going to win a prize, but in fact, it was also to relieve the boredom of the two women who were in confinement.

"Husband, what are you holding?" Xiaodie asked Luo Cheng, who was sleeping soundly in her arms.

"Hehe, I don't know what it is. I haven't opened it yet. But this is a good thing that the troops have brought this time. It is said that it can replace wool and let our Han tribe get rid of its dependence on grassland wool. Let's open it and take a look." Luo Cheng explained to the two with a smile.

"Could it be the kind of plant wool that my husband said can be grown?" Zhan Ying also asked in surprise. They lived with Luo Chong every day, so they naturally heard about some of Luo Chong's wishes. For this leader who focused on developing agriculture and wanted to create an empire based on agriculture, he naturally hoped that there would be a plant that could be grown to comprehensively solve the clothing problems of all the tribesmen. This was very important.

But the three of them never thought that this day would come so soon.

Luo Chong gently opened the package and saw that there was a ball of thatch inside. In the middle of the thatch were four purple fruits the size of mangoes. The beautiful color immediately made Zhan Ying and Xiaodie's eyes bright, and Luo Chong's eyes were immediately locked on the cracks on the fruit shell. Some white soft fibers had already poked out from the cracks.

Because these fruits were picked early, they have not yet fully bloomed, and there are only a few small cracks on them. Finally, Luo Chong thought about it and decided to leave two and break them apart to see what is inside first, so the three of them started to work.

The dried peel of the fruit is a bit hard and tough, and the texture is a bit like the dried peel of a pomegranate, but Luo Chong did not spend much effort to tear the four petals apart along the cracks.

What came into view was a bunch of white cotton balls, attached to the inside of the peel like a cocoon. Each petal had five to six cotton balls of varying sizes. The closer the cotton balls were to the middle, the larger they grew, and the smaller the cotton balls on the sides were. If you count them this way, there are at least twenty cotton balls in one fruit.

Xiaodie and Zhan Ying are now experts in the textile industry. They are familiar with the steps of spinning fibers into yarn and then weaving them into cloth. Seeing so many white and soft cotton balls, they couldn't help but start working.

Zhan Ying picked up a cotton ball, pulled it with her hands, and found that the fibers of this cotton ball were divergent, not a tangled ball like a cocoon. She was immediately delighted. Although this kind of fiber direction does not have a fixed direction, it is the easiest to handle, much easier than reeling silk from silk cocoons. That thing looks beautiful, but you still have to find the thin, invisible head and then unravel it.

Xiaodie had also picked out a cotton ball. She tore it a few times with her hands and pulled out a few strands of white cotton fibers. Then she straightened it with her hands to take a look, and asked Luo Chong to find a ruler to measure it. The measurement really surprised several people. The largest cotton ball had a fiber length of more than three centimeters. Such a long fiber was long enough to be used for spinning.

Xiaodie immediately pulled out some fibers and rubbed a cotton thread with her hands. Then she began to test the tensile strength of the cotton thread to see if it was stronger than silk or hemp. If it was put on the loom and the shuttle thread broke when it was pulled, it would be embarrassing.

Fortunately, such an unbelievable thing did not happen. It turned out that the cotton thread spun from this fiber is still very strong.

Then Xiaodie and Zhan Ying worked together to pick out all the cotton balls in the two "Papa" fruits, and then spread them out and bounced them together to make a thick cotton cake the size of a palm. They tried to see if this thing could be used as a filler to see how warm and rebound it would be, and whether it could meet the requirements.

Especially the fluffiness and rebound effect, which are very important for keeping warm. No matter what kind of cold-proof clothing or quilt, it relies on the air layer to keep the human body warm. Therefore, as the filler of cold-proof clothing, it must be very fluffy, so that a large amount of air can be stored in the gaps between the fibers for warmth. Secondly, it must have good resilience. If it is flattened when worn on the body, it can rebound quickly. Otherwise, the air in the fiber is squeezed out and it can't keep warm.

What made the three people happy again was that the fluffiness and rebound effect of this cotton fiber were also very good. In fact, for plants with this structure, it is normal to have this characteristic. If it is not fluffy enough and has strong elasticity, how can it explode the hard outer skin?

After a series of experiments and analysis by the three people, Luo Chong finally determined that this thing can indeed be used for weaving. Not only that, it can also be used as a filler. With this thing, it can play a strong role in the population growth and work efficiency of the Han tribe.

Let's not talk about cloth or anything like that. Just the fact that it can be used as a filling material to keep warm is enough to make the entire Han tribe say goodbye to animal skins forever. The animal skins saved in this way can be made into more leather goods or high-grade furs after being nitrated.

Moreover, the appearance of a large number of cotton-padded clothes will change the situation that the Han tribe can't do anything in winter, thereby improving the work efficiency of the Han tribe.

The most important thing is that as long as these cotton-padded clothes come out, it will be of great help to the Han tribe to continue to expand its territory to the north. Otherwise, if it is too cold, Luo Chong will have no choice.

"Husband, this is a good thing. If this kind of fruit can be planted in the Han tribe, then we will no longer lack cloth and cotton-padded clothes. I just don't know what this fruit is called, how to plant it, how much it can produce, and how many times it can ripen in a year?"

Seeing that this plant fiber can indeed be used for textiles, Xiaodie and Zhan Ying were also very happy, and hurriedly asked about the name and planting method of this plant.

Luo Chong thought for a while before saying, "This plant is called the papa fruit by the local indigenous people because it will burst open by itself when it is ripe, making a popping sound, but we certainly can't call it that. Look at this fruit, it is called a fruit, but after it bursts open it looks more like a white cotton flower. Why don't we just call it cotton?"

"Cotton? Great, great, this name is good, it sounds nice and looks good." Zhan Ying happily replied.

"Well, as for how to plant it, the Huben Guards sent a letter saying that this is a plant similar to loofah, and it also grows on vines. Its seeds are the nuts wrapped in cotton. When the cotton bursts open, these white nuts are exposed. After a week, they will turn yellow and fall off automatically.

So I think this nut should be its seed. It achieves the purpose of migration through the growth of vines. When it matures, it explodes and falls off, and it will fall into the soil to take root and sprout, or be eaten by birds and other beasts, and then be sent to another place for excretion to achieve the purpose of spreading seeds.

Because Therefore, I think the seeds need to be processed before planting, otherwise, with such a hard outer skin, it will be difficult to germinate even if buried.

Otherwise, after the spring, we will experiment with these seeds in batches. Some will be sown directly without any treatment, and some will be artificially destroyed to expose the kernel inside. Finally, some will be soaked in acid to simulate the stomach acid of animals to corrode its outer skin.

Finally, through comparative observation, we will know how to plant in the future. "

Luo Chong analyzed thoughtfully while playing with a few nuts in his hand.

Xiaodie and Zhan Ying were not interested in developing new crop planting methods, so they pushed it together and asked Luo Chong to do it, or find someone else to do it, as long as they could plant it earlier so that they could use cotton to weave cloth one day earlier.

Luo Chong was helpless and scratched his head in worry. After thinking for a while, he suddenly remembered that he seemed to have appointed a Sinong Temple chief who didn't even know the characters. In fact, he was a minor official, but he was also the only official in Sinong Temple. That guy was rewarded with money and official position because he found that captive antelopes could reproduce one more litter per year than free-range antelopes.

Thinking of this, Luo Chong immediately asked someone to tell the Sinong Temple chief about these seeds and planting methods, and asked him to do this. He only kept three seeds in his hand to plant in the yard, and wanted to observe and take care of them personally.

At the same time, Luo Chong wrote back to Xue Dongliang, saying that he did a good job and should report it in time next time he found such good things, and told him that this thing was very useful. The Han tribe had decided to promote planting and officially named it cotton. He asked him to find a way to collect more cotton seeds, the more the better, and send them back immediately.

As for the credit, it cannot be given now. When cotton really takes a firm foothold in the Han tribe and ensures that it can be planted, this credit will be given to him, so that Xue Dongliang does not need to worry, and he will not forget what he should give him.

(End of this chapter)