Chapter 264 Critical Hit
"Wait a minute!" Su Ying called for a stop before putting the cocoons into the pot.
Everyone looked at her in confusion.
"Scoop out some hot water first!" Su Ying ordered.
"Why?" asked Mrs. Du.
"Put another basin of warm water in it, wait until the cocoons are cooked, take them out and put them in the cold basin, then reel out the silk. This is called the cold basin reeling method. The reeled silk is tough and has a lustrous luster." Su Ying explained.
The most important thing to avoid when boiling cocoons is that they are too cooked, as this will remove all the sericin and make the silk fibers weak.
The cocoons are cooked moderately and the sericin swells to the right degree. When the silk threads are pulled out, the sericin is still wrapped around the silk fibers. Once dried, the silk threads become tough and strong, which makes it easier to weave and ensures the quality of the silk.
"Oh, Aying, what you said is true! Why didn't we think of this method?" Yang Chunhua understood as soon as he heard it.
It is very difficult to control the temperature and duration of cocoon boiling during silk reeling. If the time is too short, the silk thread is not easy to unravel. If the time is too long, the sericin is gone and the silk thread becomes soft and weak.
But if you cook it and pour it into warm water, wouldn’t that solve the problem?
Look at that brain of his, so smart!
"Village chief, please help me light a small brazier!" Su Ying arranged for Old Man Yang.
"Brazier? What for?" Old man Yang looked puzzled. It was the summer solstice, why were people still roasting fire?
"Quickly drying the reeled silk will make the sericin dry quickly and the silk thread will be strong and long!"
"Oh my God, it's true!" Yang Chunhua felt that his brain was really not as good as Su Ying's. What she said made a lot of sense.
Where was the Su family's fire basin? After a round, they had to use a wooden tray with mud as the bottom, burn charcoal, and turn down the fire.
Boil half a basin of red cocoons, take them out and put them into a basin of warm water.
Stir the cocoons, pull out the silk ends, and combine the silk from several cocoons into one strand.
There is a brazier under the silk reeling machine, and the reeled silk is quickly dried into shape. The silk thread is tough, bright in color and shiny.
The silk reeling machines in the Tang Dynasty were hand-cranked and had no twisting device. The resulting silk was of uneven thickness, had many broken ends, and was slow.
There are many people here, and three of them are operating it, so it doesn't seem like a big deal. But when one person operates it independently, the problem becomes apparent.
From boiling the cocoons to soaking them in warm water, the water is the same brown as the white cocoons, and there is no color loss.
The silk threads that emerged from the reeling and drying process were brighter in color than those from the cocoons, and everyone's confidence soared. "It's done, it's done!"
"What happened?" A voice suddenly came from behind. Everyone was stunned and looked back in disbelief.
"Er, Erlang! Why are you back?" Mrs. Hu looked at the bronze-colored Er'er.
"Mom, I'm back! My father said you were in Huanggou Village, so I came to see you!" Hu Erlang smiled, showing his big white teeth.
"Aying, long time no see!"
"Mr. Hu Erlang, long time no see!" Su Ying looked at the young man.
He had grown a head taller and was a little thinner, but very strong and looked dusty.
Fu Zhong was behind and nodded slightly to Su Ying.
"Madam!" The personal nanny chased in and said apologetically.
"Okay, you can go out now!" Mrs. Hu waved her hand. This thing was going to be sold through Fu Dongjia and Erlang, so there was nothing to hide.
"What is this?" Fu Zhong was surprised to see the colorful cocoons in the house and the red silk threads on the silk reeling machine.
Others dye finished silk, but Su's family dyes silk cocoons. This idea is quite wonderful.
"Mr. Fu, what do you think of this cocoon?" Su Ying did not answer.
Fu Zhong picked up the cocoons one by one and looked at them. "Hmm, not bad, good coloring, even color."
"Mr. Fu, please take another look at this thread?" Su Ying said again.
Fu Zhong took a closer look and nodded, "This silk thread is strong and tough, it's of the highest quality! You're taking a shortcut by coloring the cocoons!"
"Mr. Fu, if I say that this cocoon is natural colored silk, would you believe it?" Su Ying said with a smile.
"Natural colored silk!" Fu Zhong, Fu Wang and Hu Erlang exclaimed at the same time.
Fuwang didn't believe it, so he picked up a few silk cocoons and looked at them carefully to see if they were dyed.
Su Ying handed him a pair of scissors and said, "Cut it open!"
"Snap!" Fuwang cut it open, and found the brown pupa still fleshy and had not yet transformed into a moth.
The inside and outside of the cocoon are the same color, without any trace of being soaked in paint.
"There are still some straw left on the mountain in the silkworm room. You can go and check it out." Su Ying said.
"I'll go and take a look!" Hu Erlang was shocked.
Several people came to the silkworm room. There were many colorful silks on the mountain of straw that had not been collected yet. From a distance, they looked like faint colorful cotton flowers, which was very beautiful.
Fu Zhong twisted the silk, and it was as bright and beautiful as the one in the basket.
"Mr. Fu, this..." Hu Erlang was unable to describe the shock in his heart in words.
Following Fu Dongjia, they traveled all over the country and formed a huge caravan. They bought large quantities of goods from Jiangnan, Quanzhou Port, Guangzhou Port, and Wuzhou, traded them, and then exchanged them for aged rice, which was then gathered along the Grand Canal and sent north to Henan and Hebei.
Grain shops have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, curbing the rise in local grain prices.
Hu Erlang had no idea where the Fu family had summoned so many people, and felt like he was just a decoration.
Many deals were concluded in a muddled manner, as if there was an invisible hand pushing him forward.
On the Henan and Hebei roads, Hu Erlang saw many fields damaged by frost, and the wheat seedlings were frozen to death in the fields.
If the season is not right, the crops will just be left there and wait for spring to come and plant other crops.
Many farmers were starving to the point of being skin and bones, and there were beggars everywhere on the streets.
I finally understood why Mr. Fu was selling so much aged rice northward, but I had a question in my mind: Did Mr. Fu foresee the future? He bought up all the aged rice in the Jiangnan area at a low price early on.
After being brought to the north, the purpose is not to make money. The supply is limited in quantity and time, and sand is also mixed in.
At first, Hu Erlang was puzzled and thought that the Fu family was too unscrupulous. Why did they mix sand pit people into the food? Isn’t this making money in an unscrupulous way?
Later I realized that this was to screen out the truly poor people. Only the poor people who really had no rice to eat would buy this kind of stale rice that was unpalatable and had sand in it.
Otherwise, with the rich people mixed in, the rice would not be enough to cope with them.
Following Fu Dongjia, Hu Erlang traveled through many mountains and rivers, saw the customs and cultures of various places, and also saw the real Tang Dynasty.
These were things he had never seen in the many years he had been staying in Wu County, nor had he read about in books. These experiences allowed him to grow and mature quickly.
He originally wanted to come back and share his experiences with Su Ying, but he didn't expect to be struck by Su Ying's natural colored silk as soon as he entered the Su family.
Some people can become famous without leaving their homes!
"Great, great!" Fu Zhong laughed heartily. "I want all the silk from these colorful cocoons, including the silk weaved from them. They'll be very useful!"
This natural colored silk fabric is priceless. It can be exchanged for the greatest profit if taken to Guangzhou Port or Quanzhou Port, or it can be presented as a tribute to the Queen Mother.
"I'm afraid this won't work for all of Mr. Fu's family!" Su Ying said in embarrassment after hearing what Hu Erlang said.
"Why?" Hu Erlang felt that he owed Fu Dongjia a huge favor. It was rare for him to take the initiative to ask for it, so he thought of spending a huge amount of money to buy it and give it to Fu Dongjia.
"This is the new political achievement your father submitted to the higher authorities. From the bottom up, the entire Lingnan Province has it. All the political achievements this year are excellent!" Su Ying said with a smile.
"Mr. Fu is a noble man to you, so you can't be without any of it. How about giving him two horses?"
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