Daqin Engineering Corps

Because this really means that Yunzhong County can "autonomously" instead of being stuck by Zhao Gao, Li Si and others at critical moments.

For example, one day Shen Bing resisted the decree and opposed Fusu's suicide... As long as Zhao Gao and Li Si cut off the ore source to Yunzhong County, the military strength of Yunzhong County would be limited.

Shen Bing immediately entertained these prospectors with good wine and food.

The leader is an old man named Bo.

Later, Shen Bing found out that he was actually only in his early forties, but he looked old because of the difficult life and year-round toil... In ancient times, there were many people who lived like this.

Bo is actually a medicine farmer who collects herbs for a living. He has been walking in the mountains for many years and found an iron mine by accident, so his life trajectory has become "mine prospecting".

Discovering an iron mine in this day and age is a big deal.

Because at this time, there were only 37 iron mountains in the Central Plains, and all of them were on the mountains.

It's no wonder that only these herbal pickers can find it.

Chapter 314 Textile

As soon as the bowl came up, he poured cold water on Shen Bing:

"General, although Your Majesty sent me to explore the mines, after preliminary inquiries, Xiaomin thinks that the possibility of finding mines in Yunzhong County is not very high."

Shen Bing asked suspiciously:

"Why?"

Bobo replied:

"Because most of the mine veins are located in the deep mountains, but Yunzhong County is located in the plains, and the mountains are under the control of the Huns in the north and west..."

After thinking about it for a while, Shen Bing understood the meaning of Bo's words.

The mountains mentioned by Bo refer to the Yin Mountain and Daqing Mountain in the north, and the Lang Mountain and Helan Mountain in the west.

The former has always been the sphere of influence of the Xiongnu...it was not pushed to Yinshan during Li Mu's time, and it was not until Meng Tian sent troops to drive away the Xiongnu to control that area.

The latter is the Houtao and the periphery of Xitao abandoned by Shen Bing.

As for Yunzhong County, it is indeed as Bo said, a large area of ​​plains is empty all the way, and the south of the Yellow River is even a desert.

But Shen Bing still didn't understand.

"Dare to ask the old man." Shen Bing asked in confusion: "Why do you need to explore deep in the mountains?"

Bo was confused:

"If you don't explore in the deep mountains, where can you explore?"

Shen Bing was questioned.

It was only later that Shen Bing figured out the problem.

This is actually the gap between modern people and ancient people's understanding of copper, iron, tin mines, and even nishi mines.

Modern people know that minerals such as copper, iron, and tin are not necessarily found only in deep mountains, including nishi mine (coal).

But the reason why modern people know this is because there are modern and more advanced prospecting equipment and theoretical foreshadowing, such as drilling a hole to drill earth and rock from deep in the surface and then analyzing its composition.

In ancient times, without these equipments, prospecting could not just find a piece of land and just dig down!

Unless, like Shen Bing, he knew that there were coal mines in Hequ and dug them accurately, he would be exhausted and would not be able to find the iron mines.

Therefore, what was called "mine prospecting" in ancient times should actually mean "mine prospecting".

That is to go to the mountains to find exposed iron ore.

This does not require any technology, nor does it require knowledge to foreshadow, it only needs to be able to recognize iron ore.

As for why you go to the deep mountains to search, it is because there are usually exposed mines only on the mountains... Because of landslides, landslides and other reasons, the exposed soil layer was discovered, and it is very difficult and rare to find ores exposed to the ground in the plains. .

Therefore, the 37 iron mines that were clearly recorded in the Warring States Period were all "iron-producing mountains", including Nishi, which was also found on the mountain.

So the ancient people took it for granted that these minerals were grown from mountains and had to be found in the deep mountains.

Therefore, there is the saying of Bo... There is no mountain in Yunzhong County, so how can we find mines?

But this is really a problem.

Shen Bing had a rough idea of ​​the area covered by coal mines and that this area of ​​Shanxi is a major mining province, so it was relatively easy to dig coal.

At this time, if you want to find copper, tin, and iron ore, but you don't have the equipment, do you really want soldiers to dig all over the ground one by one?

Or wait until Yinshan is laid down or Houtao and Xitao are recovered before considering the issue of mines?

After thinking about it, Shen Bing said:

"If you want deep mountains...there is no such thing in Yunzhong County."

"But I wonder if the old man can explore the mine along the river?"

Bo was confused:

"Prospecting along the river? Xiaomin has never heard of such a method of prospecting..."

Shen Bing replied:

"My husband might as well give it a try."

"Shen Bing will pay for the old ones, and if they discover minerals, there will be another heavy reward!"

Bobo nodded in agreement without thinking too much.

Bo and the others don't want mines, mines are meaningless to them, they only want rewards.

As long as the rewards are in place, they are happy even if they are asked to go prospecting in the desert.

Shen Bing confessed again:

"Especially around the bend in the river."

"It's possible that it's covered by a shallow layer of silt."

"If ore is found somewhere in the river, the mine may not be nearby, and it may flow from the upstream to this place!"

Bo was dubious and nodded half-understanding.

Shen Bing is actually "a dead horse as a living horse doctor".

Since in ancient times, due to the limitation of equipment, prospecting could only be limited to exposed ore on the surface, except for the possible exposed ore veins on the mountain, it is the river.

The river channel is actually a deep ditch dug by the river water... Originally, the place should be flat, but after being washed by the river for a long time, the river channel gets deeper and deeper, and the two sides stand out.

Of course, there are exceptions. For example, the Yellow River has a high sand content, and the soil brought by it will cover the ground layer by layer and the result will be higher and higher.

But the Yellow River in the Hetao area is not the same as the Yellow River in the lower reaches.

The Yellow River in the Hetao area only partially passes through the Loess Plateau... a small section of the Loess Plateau near Xitao, and then goes south near Yunzhong County to a large section of the Loess Plateau at the third corner of the "ji" shape. Therefore, the sediment concentration greatly increased.

Therefore, the sediment concentration of the Yellow River in Yunzhong County is not high.

However, whether you can find the open-pit mine or not depends on your luck. If you can't find it, you can only wait until it is recovered.

Both paper and iron are temporarily unable to let go of production due to the sensitivity of the lifeline of the country concerned.

So only weaving is left.

There is no problem with textiles, and the industrialization of almost all countries starts with textiles.

There is no reason for it.

Textile is to solve the problem of "clothing" in "food, clothing, housing and transportation".

It is not unreasonable for the ancients to rank "clothes" first.

Because "clothing" is to solve the problem of "warmth" in "food and clothing", especially in the cold north.

However, the ancient clothing-making process was tedious and time-consuming: first, ramie had to be planted, and then its skin had to be peeled and soaked to get its fibers to be spun into twine, then the twine was woven into cloth, and finally the cloth could be made into clothing.

As I said before, women in ancient times didn't know how to work and only stayed at home to do housework.

But in ancient times, the housework was extremely heavy, and only two items, rice pounding and cloth weaving, were almost exhausting from morning to night.

If the problem of "clothing" is not solved, the labor force cannot be liberated: almost everyone's time and energy are spent on eating and wearing clothes. If these two things are not solved, even survival will become a problem. How can they go to work in factories?

This is the advantage of the textile industry. It not only solves the basic survival problem of "wearing" and liberates a large number of laborers, but also greatly improves production efficiency through industrialized production.

More importantly... The textile industry is much simpler than large-scale machine production. It only needs hydraulic power in the early stage.

And other machine production must first have a steam engine.

So there is no doubt that Shen Bing will focus on the commercial production of key industrial zones on the textile industry.

So waterwheels were made one after another... At first, Hui and others thought that these waterwheels were still used for pounding rice.

What they don't know is that rice pounding workshops don't need to be located in industrial areas at all.

Firstly, rice pounding workshops can be placed in the city without polluting water sources.

Second, rice pounding workshops are more suitable for scattered distribution in the city for the convenience of the people.

Textile workshops are another matter.

Chapter 315 Loom

Ancient textiles actually had their own meanings.

Spinning is spinning, which refers to spinning ramie fiber into yarn or thread

Weaving is weaving cloth, which refers to weaving yarn into cloth.

In modern times, because industrial production is carried out at the same time, cloth can be made directly without spinning, so textile is regarded as a whole.

Both in Qin Shi are quite tedious tasks.

However, they have a common feature, which is cumbersome but not complicated. What is needed is to repeat the same repetition over and over again.

For example, weaving cloth is actually the same as weaving baskets, dividing the warp and weft threads, and then interlacing the warp and weft threads to form a piece of cloth.

Just because the yarn is so thin, it takes a long time to hand-knit a piece of cloth that can be made into clothes.

This also doubles the cost of clothes... Most of the cost is labor costs.

The original loom is a waist loom, that is, sit on the ground and fix one end of the warp on the waist with a hemp rope, and the other end with your feet against it, and use a "split stick" to separate the odd and even numbers of the warp...

"Splitting stick" is something invented by people in ancient times when weaving.

As mentioned before, weaving is like weaving a basket, interlacing the weft threads one by one in the warp threads.

If it is handmade and every weft thread has to be interspersed in this way, the workload is obviously too large.

So people came up with a way: fix the head and tail of the warp and straighten it, and then insert a "splitting rod" at the odd and even numbers of the warp, so that the odd and even numbers of the warp are always in a staggered state, and the weft only needs to It is enough to pass through the "fabric opening" formed when the "splitting stick" is lifted.

In the Warring States period, although there were already pedal looms, it was actually the same principle as the "waist loom", except that a frame, a heald frame, a pulley and a pedal were added. machine".

However, there are still many people who use this primitive weaving method.

Shen Bing believes that this is mainly related to the production level and living standard of the people.

Although the pedal loom is efficient, not everyone can do it and not everyone can afford it.

If you can't do it and can't afford it, of course you can only use a much cheaper "waist machine".

In fact, not to mention the Qin Dynasty more than 2000 years ago, even in modern times, ethnic minorities still use this kind of waist weaving.

This kind of simple and repetitive work is actually very suitable for hydraulic replacement.

Of course, Shen Bing used a more mature pedal loom.

This time Shen Bing called Shang Cang, Fatty Tun and Meng Liang.

Shen Bing hasn't had much contact with them since he became the lieutenant general, and now it's finally useful to develop production.

Shen Bing had this plan:

Cang, the younger brother, is very good at handicrafts, so the production and maintenance of the equipment in this textile factory depends on him, and he should even train a group of workers who can skillfully operate and maintain these equipment, and then take a batch of them.

Fatty Tun was born as a businessman, and he was also good at spelling, so he was the one to rely on in terms of business management.

As for Meng Liang, don't look at him as a lazy, lazy, debauched... If this aspect is used in practice, it is actually an advantage. He is very popular and has friends everywhere, and his father is Pangchen from Xianyang. Isn't it all right to open up the market?