Jiang Wanru and Tang Qingluan had never gotten along, but she didn't say anything at this moment, her eyes full of agreement.
Cao Jing said calmly, "Tang Qingluan, you're wrong. If Granny Xu doesn't scare us out of our wits first, how will we listen to her?"
After leaving the capital, Xu Mama treated the noble ladies harshly and severely in an effort to temper their arrogant temperaments. She even subjected them to corporal punishment and scolding, subjecting them to extreme humiliation.
Cao Jing clearly remembers that because she didn't like to talk, she was forced by Granny Xu to sing a little tune.
They used to be of noble status; if they hadn't become criminals, they would never have been ordered around by a nanny.
Now that they've gained the limelight, they're no longer timid, cowardly women, and I can't help but make a few sarcastic remarks.
Granny Xu wasn't too angry. These self-righteous women would learn their lesson after they'd had a bloody fight.
What puzzled her was: Lady Wuya clearly disliked these maids, so why was she giving them such preferential treatment? Shouldn't she have sent them away immediately as a reward?
Whether in the palace or other wealthy households, any maid with ambition would be immediately driven away.
But why would Tang Qingluan, Cao Jing, Jiang Wanru, and the others be treated with respect?
She glanced at Tang Qingluan and the others, who were now in high spirits and somewhat carried away, and wisely kept quiet.
Xu Mama never expected that Lady Wuya would use such a trick. According to the Di tribe's custom, it was simply a matter of sending a person into a tent so that they could have children.
Song Liyun was the one who thought of making the best use of talent.
Wan Youyou was arranged by Song Liyun to live with Yuquan, and she was also to be taught the Di language.
In addition, they found a skilled carpenter to work with Wan Youyou to create a woodworking machine that could control two plumb bobs.
The young ladies were all taken care of, and each of them had something to do.
Inside the white tent, Song Liyun was also scratching her head and looking at herself.
Zhao Tingduo returned from hunting, changed his clothes, sat down next to her, put his arm around Song Liyun's waist, and looked at the several sheets of paper spread out on the ground, smiling as he said, "I heard from Mother that you've been in the tent all day without going out. What have you been thinking about?"
Song Liyun showed him the drawings she had made: "Do you still remember our waterwheel in Suijin Town?"
Zhao Tingduo certainly remembered the waterwheel that could hammer wood pulp day and night; he had personally gone into the water to help install it that day.
His eyes lit up: "You want to install waterwheels in the tribe too?"
There is indeed a river in the Kara Valley, but the current is gentle and cannot power a waterwheel.
Now it has long since frozen into thick blocks of ice, and even getting water requires drilling a hole.
Song Liyun shook her head with a smile: "The riverbed here is flat, how could a waterwheel possibly turn!"
"What is that for?" Zhao Tingduo rested her chin on Song Liyun's shoulder and looked at the blueprints through her ear. She could only see a few long wooden planks and a circular wheel.
"I want to make a big windmill!" Song Liyun turned her head and kissed Zhao Tingduo on the cheek.
"As I said before, there was once a country that installed huge windmills everywhere, so that the wind would drive the blades, and the blades would drive the rotating discs below, which could grind powder, grind flour, and make fermentation... In short, as long as the craftsmen were skillful, they could use that rotating power to make everything they needed."
Zhao Tingduo became interested and quickly picked up a few sheets of paper, carefully examining each component. As she looked, she asked, "What's this?... Fan blades! Oh!... This is the axle, I know, it's like the axle of a large wheel."
"Ayun, the windmill we installed on Kara Mountain will be the first windmill on the Dilu Grassland!"
Song Liyun nodded and smiled: "It's just that the workmanship is complicated. I had to ask the craftsmen to find out!"
The Uda tribe has carpenters, but they can only make large carts and simple furniture.
This time, the craftsmen sent by Duke Anguo are skilled at making cabinets and exquisite jewelry boxes, but they can also build large items such as houses.
It's clear that Wan Youyou is quite intelligent, pondering the spinning wheel.
“That’s easy. Go wait at your mother’s place. I’ll have Langmu and Master Zheng look at the blueprints right away.”
Zhao Tingduo didn't mind being tired. She quickly put on her clothes and shoes and turned to find the tribe's carpenter and the few craftsmen who had been sent there.
When Song Liyun arrived at Madam Wuya's tent, Granny Qi was also there, talking vividly with the lady.
Upon seeing Song Liyun enter, Madam Wuya smiled and said, "Ayun, come here quickly. Granny Qi was just talking about the double-wire hammer. We tried using it on the crank today, and it can twist three wires."
Song Liyun sat by the fire pit with a smile: "Oh! Miss Wan and the others are quite quick! They only said yesterday that they could only give two."
Granny Qi said, "It's just troublesome. One person has to crank the loom while another twists the wool. It's not much faster than before!"
Reform is never something that can be accomplished overnight; it always requires a process of moving from unfamiliarity and clumsiness to mastery.
Song Liyun said, "As long as we don't need anyone to crank the machine anymore, then two people can twist six wires!"
Granny Qi laughed and said, "Young Madam is joking. If you don't crank the machine, how can the bob turn? Otherwise, you would have to drop the bob downwards."
Just then, Yuquan came in. She had also heard Song Liyun say that she could twist six threads, and exclaimed in surprise, "Young Madam, is that true? It's already good enough if you can twist one more thread. If two people twist six threads, wouldn't they have to grow several more hands?"
Granny Qi laughed: "You silly children! You'll turn into spiders!"
Zhao Tingduo, who had gone to see the carpenter, quickly brought back news that the problem had been perfectly solved.
A windmill can be built, but it requires a lot of wood.
It was springtime, and the tribe was setting up a settlement in the Kara Valley. They cut down trees from the mountain and piled them up, so the young men in the tribe stopped hunting and all busied themselves in the open space.
The village became lively, with children playing and frolicking with the adults carrying trees, and chasing dogs around the yurts.
Laughter and chatter drifted into the yurt where Granny Xu and the others were staying.
Tang Qingluan put down her pen, rubbing her aching wrist, and muttered, "This godforsaken place is poor, dirty, and incredibly noisy."
There isn't even a decent pen, and the paper is so rough, worse than what the servants use! He stood up and looked around.
Across from her, Jiang Wanru also put down her pen, looked at her own handwriting, then at Tang Qingluan's, and sneered, "Was your handwriting taught by a Grand Scholar? I've heard that the Rongguo Duke's Mansion, in order to make it look good, announced that they had specially invited a Grand Scholar to be their teacher. Now it seems that they really wasted their money!"
"You're talking nonsense! Jiang Wanru, who's like you, always claiming you can write poetry, writing poetry and painting with a bunch of poor slackers, shamelessly showing your face in public!"
Tang Qingluan knew that she hadn't studied hard before. Not only was her handwriting ugly, but she couldn't even recite the Book of Songs from memory. Now she could only write the Three Character Classic, and Jiang Wanru had already made her feel ashamed by her.
Jiang Wanru wasn't embarrassed or annoyed; instead, she said smugly, "You're just envious. Those are all scholars who went to the capital to take the imperial examinations. The top three scholars from three years ago wrote the same poem as me, and the second-place scholar even came to propose marriage..."
At this point, she stopped speaking abruptly, looked at the ink-stained paper in front of her, and suddenly seemed to have all her strength drained away, collapsing into a seat.
Those days are gone forever!
Seeing that Jiang Wanru suddenly stopped talking, Tang Qingluan assumed that she was feeling guilty for having her shameful secret exposed, and couldn't help but secretly curse with smug satisfaction: "Bitch!"
The noise outside grew closer and closer, and she finally couldn't stay still any longer, so she ran to the door, lifted the curtain, and went out.
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