"Auntie, is there a market nearby to buy silkworm paper?"
"Yes, there is one in the Jiujiang market. Silkworm paper shops usually rent shops in the market. There are also some seed producers who carry their products on their backs or go in small boats to small markets in the countryside and set up stalls on the spot.
.”
"Oh, how much silkworm paper should I buy for each production?"
"It depends on how many mulberry leaves there are in your mulberry field, but generally you will order more silkworm paper. In the past, silkworm ants only spent a few mulberry leaves. If it is not profitable, the excess silkworms can be discarded. If you want to buy raw silk
If you have more mulberry leaves, you can go to the mulberry market to buy mulberry leaves, and you don’t have to stick to your own mulberry fields. Furthermore, if you encounter flooding or disease, you can buy more silkworm paper so that there will be no harvest."
After asking about silkworm breeding, Zhao Hening stood up and said, "Auntie, can I take a look at your silkworms?"
Mrs. Huang also stood up quickly and said: "It's okay, it's just a humble house, I might be an eyesore to my sister."
"As for my aunt, I also come from a poor family."
Lifting the door curtain, Zhao Hening found that the layout of the silkworm room was very different from that in Jiangnan. There were small windows on the mud walls and small holes in the corners. They seemed to be for ventilation, but they were all covered with thick paper and linen cloth to prevent flies.
Insects and silkworm houses are most afraid of high temperature and humidity. The thatched roof helps with ventilation and the mud walls can block moisture. However, the floor is in direct contact with the mulberry soil. During the rainy season, moisture is easy to invade.
"Auntie, why don't you build a separate silkworm room?" Zhao Hening couldn't help but ask.
Mr. Huang looked troubled and said, "My sister is joking. The family is in dire straits and we really can't afford to build another silkworm room."
Zhao Hening shook his head. Human silkworms live in the same room. A noisy environment, excessive popularity, and a dirty space are not conducive to the growth of silkworms. He then said: "Auntie, don't blame me for being talkative. I have also seen other people raising silkworms. Human silkworms
Silkworms are prone to getting sick if they live in the same room, so it is better to find a way to build a separate silkworm room."
"What my sister said is that I also have a plan. After raising a few more animals and saving some money, I will hire someone to build a thatched house."
“Auntie, when will this silkworm production ‘go up the mountain’?”
"What does the girl mean by 'going up the mountain'?"
"It means cocooning." In the Jiangnan area, silkworms forming cocoons on foil are called "going up the mountain". Obviously Huang didn't know this.
"Oh, tomorrow will be the third sleep. It only takes one day. After three days, there will be another sleep, which is called the 'big sleep', which is also one day. Four or five days after the big sleep, silkworms will spin cocoons, which is called 'shang foil' locally.
'."
Zhao Hening was more interested in the differences between the two places and asked: "Can I take a look at your silkworm foil?"
Huang took Zhao Hening to another room. There was a pile of rectangular bamboo products in the corner, which was silkworm foil. The silkworm foil was about three feet and two inches long. The bamboo pieces formed a skeleton like a swimming pool lane, and the skeleton was cut.
The thin bamboo slices are bent into an oval shape one inch long and half an inch wide, forming small spaces for silkworms to spin silk and make cocoons, which is obviously different from the "grass dragon" commonly used in the Jiangnan area.
Zhao Hening asked: "Your silkworm foil is very different from Jiangnan's, but what's the point?"
"It turns out that the girl is from the south of the Yangtze River. No wonder..." Huang said, "The climate in Jiujiang is humid and sultry. This kind of silkworm foil is easy to ventilate and dehumidify. Before applying the foil, you need to roast the silkworm foil with a fire to burn off the remaining silkworm foil after cocooning.
After the silk is foiled for one or two days, it is necessary to 'baking the cocoon'. The silk foil is arranged in opposite directions like a herringbone. About twenty sheets are spread out, and they are tightly surrounded by straw mats and thick paper. Small holes are cut in the upper corners to facilitate water flow.
Let the air escape. Place a fire pot in the middle of every eight silkworm foils and bake them for about an hour and a half. Turn the silkworm foils upside down and bake them again. Only in this way can the silkworm pupae be roasted to death, and then you can safely remove the dry cocoons."
Zhao Hening said: "This must be because the local climate is humid. Baking cocoons can prevent the cocoons from becoming moldy." Of course, in addition, baking cocoons can also kill silkworm chrysalises and parasites such as flies and gnats attached to silkworm chrysalis, making the cocoons dry.
The state when fixed on the upper foil is conducive to reeling.
"Girl is smart and can do anything." Huang boasted, "It just takes more money to bake cocoons."
"Oh, how much money does it cost?"
"For every six foils, it consumes three kilograms of charcoal and about two cents of silver."
Zhao Hening felt that this small amount of money was nothing, but for poor farmers, an extra penny was still money. Zhao Hening did not dwell on this matter and asked again: "Are you reeling the silkworms yourself after harvesting the cocoons?"
The reason why I ask this question is because when Zhao Yingong set up a silk reeling factory in Hangzhou, he encountered the problem of purchasing cocoons. Silkworm farmers worked hard to raise silkworms, but most of them were unwilling to sell the cocoons. This would make too much profit.
Low. In the medieval agricultural society, the value of labor was very low, and it was a common phenomenon to use a large amount of labor in exchange for negligible cash returns. Sericulture households in Jiangsu and Zhejiang generally made their own silk and sold it, forming a large-scale
Rural sideline labor.
In addition, there is a "Silk Cocoon Guild" in the middle that monopolizes a small amount of direct sales of cocoons, so Zhao Yingong cannot purchase cocoons directly from farmers and can only buy from silk cocoon shops. After thinking about it again and again, Zhao Yingong decided to start from scratch. Directly from
To control the production of silkworm cocoons based on the place of origin. To be precise, it is a small producer cooperative model similar to Leizhou Rural Cooperative Cooperative.
"It is true that he reels the silk himself," Huang said curiously, "Is there anyone in Jiangnan who sells silkworm cocoons directly? This is not cost-effective. Besides, no one here buys silkworm cocoons."
The cocoon market is a product of the machine silk reeling industry. Without the massive demand from reeling factories, the cocoon market would not be formed. The revolutionary significance of the cocoon market is that it separates the silk reeling industry from the sericulture industry. Zhao Hening thought to himself,
It seems that the local sericulture is not as developed as that in Jiangnan, and no one harvests the scattered cocoons. This is a sign that the social division of labor is not refined enough.
"Is it good to sell raw silk?" Zhao Hening asked again.
“It’s okay, I bought it from local silk mills and vendors.”
Zhao Hening was quite surprised and said: "Since the arrival of the Australians, there have been more and more flange merchants, and the overseas trade has become better year by year. The sales of raw silk have not increased significantly?"
"Indeed not, as usual."
Zhao Hening asked: "Isn't it said that 'Guangzhi yarn and Cowherd silk, five silks, eight silks, cloud satin, and smooth satin are all prized by the capital outside the mountains and the east and west oceans?' Someone made a Zhuzhi Ci saying: The foreign ships are fighting for it.
For officials and merchants, the cross gate opens to the two oceans. There are five and eight silk silks in Guangdong, and money is piled up in Haopanfang."
As a peasant woman from the countryside, Huang's furthest destination is the Jiujiang Market, so naturally she doesn't know the whole story, I just don't know.
Zhao Hening changed the topic and asked: "Is raw silk traded in the silk market?"
Huang said: "This is natural."
Huang then introduced the situation of the silk market. Jiujiang has not yet formed a professional silk market. Similar to the mulberry market, the silk market may be as small as one or two shops, and most of them are built in existing silk markets.
The market generally just provides a place for buyers and sellers to meet and negotiate prices. It also sets up a scale and charges a certain percentage of commission from both buyers and sellers.
The local mulberry and silk markets provide loans with a monthly interest rate of about 2%. Once small farmers encounter natural disasters and man-made disasters and have insufficient cash to maintain reproduction, they have to turn to loan sharks.
Seeing that Huang's mother and son were living in poverty, Zhao Hening couldn't help but ask: "They say that our family has ten acres of land, and they can raise mulberry and silkworms, which can feed eight people. Why do you live in such poverty?"
Mr. Huang let out a long sigh, with a sad look on his face, but said nothing.
When Guan Zongbao saw that his mother was silent, he explained: "I still have a medicine jar at home. I take medicine all year round and do not work all day long. I also drink and smoke. All my savings over the years have been squandered. If I were not frugal, my mother and son would have become slaves."
Le Ziren on the side was familiar with the local situation and explained to Zhao Hening: "Jiujiang is dominated by fish, mulberry and silk, and even the rural gentry will not give up their business. From spring to winter, there is no need to worry about running out of things to do. If you have capital,
The profits from fish and silkworms turn like a wheel, and people without capital can still make a living by cutting grass and picking mulberries. The only thing they need to worry about is luxury and waste. In other places, after autumn and winter, rice is put into warehouses, and they can live comfortably until the end of the year. In Jiujiang,
Worried that the mulberry branches will have hard tails, they will not be frugal and save on the day of sericulture, and they will not be able to survive the winter. The widow earns her own living, but has more than enough money. This is due to her frugal life. Therefore, the proverb says: 'The widow has grain to live on'."
Unlike other farmers who grow rice, the products of farmers who rely on mulberry fish ponds are not grains, but commodities such as fish, raw silk, and mulberry leaves. They cannot achieve self-sufficiency like rice farmers and need to exchange grains from the market.
In order to survive, their living conditions are subject to income. The factors that affect income are firstly that this model requires a large amount of capital investment, and secondly that the products need to be put directly on the market, so the lives of farmers are at higher risks. When floods come,
The fish escape, the mulberry harvest is lost, and the silkworms have no mulberry leaves or are infected with diseases and there is no harvest. If the first sericulture fails, the losses are likely to affect the production of the next ones. The turbulence of the market also makes it difficult for farmers to stabilize their lives. Mulberry fish ponds
What farmers hold after selling their products is currency, and they have to face temptations such as gambling and alcoholism. Worrying about the hardness of mulberry branches means that they are afraid that they usually invest a lot of capital and are not frugal enough, so it is difficult to save for purchases.
Rice grain to survive the winter.
Zhao Hening was a little confused and asked Guan Zongbao: "Who is the medicine jar you are talking about? Your wife or your child?"
Guan Zongbao said: "It's my father."
"Why don't you see others?"
Huang said: "I just came here last night to make a fuss and demanded a couple of silver coins, saying I was going to Guangzhou to do business."
After hearing this, Zhao Hening showed a rather sympathetic expression, sighed, and said: "How pitiful, how could there be such a father in the world?"
Guan Zongbao said: "Sister, if possible, I would like to ask Chief Le to uphold justice for my grandmother."
Faced with the sudden request, Le Ziren looked confused. He was a small police stationed in the local area and had no foundation. He probably couldn't handle the family's petty issues, so he looked at Zhao Hening.
Zhao Hening said without hesitation: "I don't see any injustice in the world. If my aunt has been wronged, just ask, we will definitely help if we can." After speaking, he looked at Le Ziren and Zhang Jiayu.
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