It was late at night, Zhang Zhao had not yet fallen asleep, and his whole body ached as if he was falling apart. Teaching people to play cotton was simply more tiring than going into battle to kill people.
And after today's day's work, Zhang Zhao also discovered some problems. The cotton he planted seemed to be different from what he remembered before traveling.
The cotton he planted now has small flowers, does not look plump at all, and has thick and short fibers. It is far more difficult to remove cotton seeds than he thought.
Could it be that the cotton seeds of later generations were cultivated and selected from generation to generation? Zhang Zhaobai was puzzled.
In fact, this is because Zhang Zhao knows too little about cotton. Although there is indeed a factor of selection and breeding, the bigger reason is that the cotton now commonly planted in Anxi and Hezhong is actually an Indian grass called rough cotton.
cotton.
Long-staple cotton, which is more suitable for textiles, is native to South America, and fine-staple cotton is produced in Central America. It is estimated that Zhang Zhao will never see a trace of these two in his lifetime.
What he could find was Indian grass cotton or Asian cotton, which is called shag cotton. The characteristics of this kind of cotton are low yield, thick and short fiber, and difficulty in removing seeds.
This is also a major reason why cotton has been introduced to the Western Regions as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties and even the Eastern Han Dynasty, but has never become popular.
First of all, the low yield of this kind of Indian grass cotton has led to a huge problem, that is, it has to compete with grain for land.
Because if the yield is high, farmers can just set aside some open space to plant some, which will meet the family's needs for clothing and warmth.
And if the yield is low, it will be troublesome. Planting a few acres of land is worse than not planting at all.
Although keeping warm was a big problem for ordinary people in ancient times, there were many ways to keep warm compared to having enough food.
Animal skins and rags can have this effect. Even if the whole family cannot get off the bed in winter and rely on the human body to keep warm, it is still better than starving.
Secondly, its fibers are thick and short, and it is difficult to remove seeds. This means that the manpower required to turn this kind of cotton into cotton batting and cotton cloth will be very expensive and even terrifying.
As a result, the price of cotton products will become extremely high, so this kind of warmth retention and quality is not bad, but the high price will naturally be abandoned by most people.
"Oh! Huang Daopo! Huang Daopo! How come you are from the Yuan Dynasty? It would be great if you were from this era. What are the cotton looms and cotton spinning technology you improved?"
For the first time, Zhang Dawang felt the difficulty of unlocking the golden finger. Such a cotton textile technology actually involves more than a dozen key technologies and dozens of aspects. If you only know part of it, you will be in trouble.
Of course, we can't say that it can't be opened. It can be opened, but it's not fully opened. It can only be opened a little, and it's like a freak.
Panting, Mrs. Cao came over carrying a large tray. The black lacquer tray contained a large plate of cheese-braised lamb chops, a large bowl of soup cakes, a bowl of honey japonica rice rice bowl and a bottle of Khotanese purple wine.
It looked quite heavy, and as Mrs. Cao carried it all the way, there were a few drops of glistening sweat on her forehead.
Zhang Zhao glanced at this woman in surprise. Among Zhang Zhao's women, Cao was the most beautiful. She always had an intellectual softness and beauty, but she seemed to have a little bit of hidden love for Zhang Zhao.
resist.
This complex sense of contradiction always makes Zhang Zhao unable to resist his bestiality, giving him a strange and satisfying feeling of destroying beautiful things.
Especially the few stubborn tears in those happy moments were more effective than taking the little blue pill, which made Zhang Zhao suspect Cao that he was a pervert countless times, but he still enjoyed it time and time again.
However, Zhang Zhao adheres to one principle when it comes to Cao, that is, no matter how tired he is, no matter how reluctant he is to leave her, he will definitely not sleep with her after every battle with Cao.
Who knows whether her resistance is a pretense to attract Zhang Zhao, or whether it is real. If it is real, who can guarantee that she will not give me, King Zhang, a knife in the middle of the night?
Similarly, Mr. Cao rarely took the initiative to see Zhang Zhao, let alone took the initiative to deliver food like today.
As a general, eating is the most important part of ensuring force, bar none.
If you eat poorly or less, you will not be able to get a lot of protein, fat and other energy sources to supplement you. Let alone fighting in battle, just daily exercise can make people tired and bleed.
This is also the root of the saying that the poor in literature and rich in military affairs do not mention the cost of purchasing weapons, armor, war horses, etc., just one item can bring down an ordinary family.
For example, Zhang Zhao's daily food intake is about three to four kilograms of mutton, about two kilograms of rice, noodles, fruits and wine, not counting.
As for the sheep at this time, it would be good to have twenty kilograms of clean meat after killing them. In other words, Zhang Zhao would eat one sheep every five to six days, or five in a month.
Ordinary families, even wealthy ones, can rarely afford it. Only a medium-sized landowner family with hundreds of acres of land can afford to support such a person.
In Zhang Zhao's Hanshan City, there were at least three hundred men who were such ruthless eating and drinking machines. They all had fat bellies, thick arms and legs, and just eating was a huge expense.
But the fat on their bodies is not in vain. When encountering a war, they can fight intermittently for four or five hours while only eating two rice balls and drinking some water.
This kind of fighting intensity can last for more than three or four days. It is basically normal to lose more than ten kilograms of weight after fighting.
For example, in the battle at the foot of Polu Prefecture, Zhang Zhao's Hanshandu relied on this ability to withstand battles and exhausted Saktu's Gulam guards.
The same goes for attacking Persian food routes in the jungle. As long as Zhang Zhao and his men are determined to attack a food storage point, his Hanshandu soldiers can complete six to seven attacks in one day wearing armor, and each battle uses up hand-to-hand combat time.
, all within about ten minutes.
It was through constant attacks that they succeeded in making it impossible for the Persians at the food transport point to rest or eat. After almost exhausting the people in the food transport point, they rushed in and killed them.
"The king seemed to be talking about Huang Daopo just now. I wonder where this lady is that makes the king so concerned?"
Mrs. Cao obediently placed the food on the wooden tray in front of Zhang Zhao. This meal before going to bed is the most important. Only by eating well can you develop a fat and strong body.
Zhang Zhao, who was sitting cross-legged, looked towards Cao's back, and his hands naturally followed his gaze downwards to explore.
Her back is straight and soft, her waist is too slim to hold, and her buttocks are round, soft and elastic. She is indeed a natural beauty.
"Your Majesty!" A voice sounded like a kitten's purr, making Zhang Zhao's heart skip a beat when he was called. When he turned back his gaze and looked at Cao's face, he was immediately startled.
At this moment, Mrs. Cao was looking at him with watery eyes, her lips were gleaming with water, and she looked fresh and tender. Her slender waist twisted slightly, and her perfect curves gave Zhang Zhao a feeling of rippling water.
Damn it! Is this woman horny? Isn’t she usually polite to herself and biting her lips to cope with it? Why is she like this today?
When things got to this point, how could Zhang Zhao still eat? He picked up Mrs. Cao and put it on his shoulders, and slapped her soft and elastic buttocks twice before entering the house!
About three minutes (choking! King Zhang drew out his horizontal sword!)
Uh-huh! About thirty minutes later, Zhang Zhao leaned on the bed comfortably, while Cao got out of bed and brought Zhang Zhao food to the bed.
It's quite interesting. It turns out that a woman's efforts to please her in this kind of matter can bring much greater pleasure to a man than unilateral output!
"Is Your Majesty just now worried about the problem of cotton iron franchise yamen? I see dozens of people studied for a whole day today, but only a few of them seem to be able to master the technology."
Mrs. Cao covered her little mouth as if she was snickering, her eyes narrowed to a slit, and she looked quite cute.
"Yes! This Wu Yuan'er, someone asked him to choose some clever ones, but in the end he found some stupid idiots and taught them for a day, but not many of them could actually operate them!"
Speaking of this, Zhang Zhao was extremely angry. He had never seen such stupid people. A group of people were so timid and unable to learn anything.
"It's not the military attache's fault. He is a talented person who is good at welcoming people to and from people, spending money and receiving them, and sending envoys to foreign countries. But you asked him to find some smart people who are quick to learn things, and he still needs to be in such a hurry.
Where can he find it?
We can only capture some weavers to make up the numbers. These weavers were first frightened by the military attachés and then shocked by your majesty. They have been trembling with fear and sweating profusely. How can they learn!"
That's right! When Zhang Zhao thought about it, it was really like this. If it were him, and he was suddenly taken away by the government, and then saw a great king working in person, his outlook would have been shattered and he would be so scared.
Who knows if this is really what they are here to learn, or if it is some weird stuff created by noble people to entertain them?
Who knows if someone might accidentally beheaded?
Under such an environment, and with Zhang Zhao himself still having to recall and explore at the same time, it would be surprising if he could learn something.
"If your Majesty trusts me, you might as well leave this matter to me!" Ms. Cao mustered up her courage and volunteered to join Zhang Zhao while he was chewing the mutton chops.
"Leave it to you? Are you going to show up in person and play cotton with a group of men?"
Zhang Zhao was unhappy. The term concubine should not be used casually. It must be at least the concubine of the lord of a country.
Zhang Zhao is now the Ju'er Khan of Suiye and the deputy king of Khotan. Cao and others are already on the list of Zhang Zhao's official concubines, so she can call herself a concubine. But how can there be a concubine of the king to recruit?
A group of men playing cotton?
Mrs. Cao smiled lightly again, seeming to like Zhang Zhao's jealous look, and waited for a while before speaking.
"Your Majesty, you have misunderstood. Have you forgotten that I come from the Han Ritian race? Nu's mother clan had the habit of spinning cotton hundreds of years ago.
So when I saw the tool invented by the king today, I knew how wonderful it was and what a change it would bring to folding cloth (cotton cloth). So I asked the king to allow me to recruit three hundred weavers from my mother's clan to help the king achieve his achievements.
This business!"
"Good! Great good!" Zhang Zhao happily knocked on the wooden pallet with the mutton ribs. This is called a professional thing, let professionals do it.
Since people from the Cao family’s mother clan have hundreds of years of experience in using cotton to make folding cloth, wouldn’t it be a good match for them to play with cotton?
No! Zhang Zhao was stunned for a moment in excitement. He jumped out of bed and put Cao on his shoulders.
"Okay! You already knew what the tools I took out were for, but you still watched me play with cotton for a whole day!
You are so restless, let the lonely king ‘teach’ you a lesson!”