Chapter 314
Chapter 314
There were still too few potatoes. The entire harvest from that one mu would have to be saved as seed.
They would probably have to wait another two years before expanding the planting area.
Jiang Yunsui took some home to cook.
Once the potato harvest was over, she went back to wrestling with the wool loom.
In the meantime, something else happened. Someone had actually tried to force her to sell Little White and Snow-Treader.
Ji Yan’an naturally had the man driven away.
The man invoked Princess Huiling’s name and arrogantly demanded that Ji Yan’an deliver the horses to him personally, threatening to make him regret it otherwise.
The horses were never delivered, of course. Then one night, while the man was drunk, someone pulled a sack over his head and gave him a beating. He caused no more trouble after that.
A month passed in the blink of an eye.
The little snow leopard had grown considerably and loved nothing more than running after Jiang Yunsui.
It also enjoyed playing with the other animals in the household.
Early one morning, the snow leopard came to Jiang Yunsui’s door with its long, fluffy tail in its mouth.
The weather was growing hotter. Dressed in a gaudy outfit as pink as peach blossoms, Jiang Yunsui ran out of her room.
“Little Snow, come on. Let’s go next door.”
Today, the loom could officially begin operating.
All the preparations were complete, and five looms had been built.
The cleaned wool had again been sorted by quality, though only into two grades.
One was the softest inner layer. This wool was fluffy and snow-white, but there was very little of it.
The other grade consisted of all the remaining wool.
It was still white, just not as fine or soft as the first grade.
Spinning yarn was not difficult.
Most women in ancient times knew some needlework and naturally knew how to spin thread as well. Poor families could not bear the expense of buying cloth, so they made linen at home.
Most commoners wore linen woven by their own families.
For many women, spinning wool into yarn was no challenge.
Both of Jiang Yunsui’s maids knew how.
They had been brought to Jiang Yunsui’s residence and were now teaching several young women to spin.
Before long, the loose, snow-white wool gradually became yarn beneath their hands.
“It really works!”
“This wool yarn feels much softer than linen thread.”
Jiang Yunsui clumsily practiced with a spindle of her own.
“We need to spin all this wool into yarn. Make it finer and stronger.”
Yarn used for weaving cloth had to be fine and tightly spun.
Thicker yarn did not need to be woven into fabric. It could be crocheted instead.
After spending the whole day spinning the wool into yarn, they began weaving it on the looms the next morning.
The improved loom was easy to operate. It produced broader cloth, worked faster, and made a denser weave.
In only the time it took an incense stick to burn down, it produced about a meter of cloth.
The speed left Shuhua and Shuqin stunned.
The woolen cloth was not as lustrous or delicate as silk, but it was very soft.
“The wool and the loom are both wonderful!”
If wool could be made into cloth, many common people would be able to afford good fabric.
Mobei bordered the grasslands, so obtaining large quantities of wool would be extremely easy.
Before this, all that wool had been considered useless waste!
Once they had woven a bolt of cloth, Jiang Yunsui had Shuhua and Shuqin carry it and immediately went to find Ji Yan’an.
“Ji Yan’an, I brought you another wonderful thing!”
Joy rang through every word she spoke.
Ji Yan’an was examining a piece of glass that had begun to take the shape of a flower.
It had been made at the glass workshop.
The large silver reward had inspired people to experiment constantly with ways to shape glass.
Some had tried carving it, but they soon discovered that carving new shapes into glass after it had set was no easy feat.
Later, they realized they could try working it while the glass was still molten.
At first, mishaps abounded. After enough failures, however, they accumulated enough experience to finally produce a few objects.
The piece in Ji Yan’an’s hand was imperfect, but it was unmistakably a glass lotus.
“Hmm?”
Jiang Yunsui ran inside and spotted the object in his hand.
“Wow… what a pretty flower!”
Ji Yan’an handed her the glass flower.
“What brings you here?”
Jiang Yunsui said, “Oh, right. Look at this.”
Quick-witted Shuqin stepped forward with the cloth in her arms.
“Young Master, please have a look. This cloth was freshly woven.”
Ji Yan’an had known all along that Jiang Yunsui was trying to weave cloth from wool.
Had she succeeded?
He touched the fabric, surprise flickering through his eyes.
“This was truly made from wool?”
Shuqin said, “Young Master, this was made with the second-grade wool.”
“Wool that everyone once discarded like worn-out shoes can actually produce cloth this soft.”
Merely by touching it, he could tell that it would keep people warmer than linen or silk.
“Ji Yan’an, can we hire women workers now and let women study too?”
Her words startled Ji Yan’an, Shuqin, and Shuhua alike.
Ji Yan’an had not expected her to still be thinking about this, much less to have worked so hard to help women study and actually succeeded.
Of course. Weaving was an area where women already held an advantage.
Shuqin and Shuhua were even more astonished. Jiang Yunsui was so small, yet she had thought so much about women everywhere and done so much for them.
For a moment, both their eyes stung with emotion as they looked at her.
They truly served a wonderful young mistress.
Ji Yan’an smiled. “Of course.”
“I’ll allocate a piece of land to you. Whether you want to build a textile workshop or recruit workers, I’ll help. Weaving itself may be simple, but anyone in management will need to read, write, and do arithmetic.”
And managers would earn more each month than ordinary workers.
Anyone who wanted higher pay would have to rise through the ranks, and anyone who wanted to rise would have to study.
“Once they’ve all seen the benefits, I’ll have a school for women built so they can learn to read as well.”
A school where both sexes studied together was out of the question for now.
The strict separation of the sexes had been ingrained too deeply in everyone.
Having both sexes study together would be unsafe, worry parents, and cause all manner of emotional complications.
Jiang Yunsui nodded in satisfaction. As long as women could study, she was happy. There was no rush; change could come slowly.
Ji Yan’an wanted Jiang Yunsui to gain experience, so he simply handed full responsibility for the textile workshop over to her.
After thinking it over, Jiang Yunsui went to find the other Ji women.
Women were confined to the inner household. There was little they could do and hardly any amusement, so life became tedious over time.
Jiang Yunsui told them about her plans to build a textile workshop.
Everyone was astonished.
“Look, this is the cloth we wove from wool!”
The women examined the fabric.
“Good heavens, Little Yunsui, how old are you? You’re already going to have a textile workshop of your own!”
“Was this really made from wool? There isn’t the slightest unpleasant smell.”
“You’re incredible. At your age, I couldn’t do anything at all.”
“Wool is cheap. If we produce cloth in large quantities and price it only a little above linen, ordinary families will certainly buy it. By that reckoning, this workshop has excellent prospects.”
“What do you need us to do, Little Yunsui?”
With her little hands clasped behind her back, Jiang Yunsui said, “Aunts, you can all read and do arithmetic. You’re bored anyway, so come work with me. I’ll give you a share of the profits every month. Otherwise, all your talents will go to waste!”
The group of women laughed happily at her words.
But they were sincerely tempted by the offer.