Spring comes to the desperate place

Chapter 147 Cotton Cloth

"Don't wake up my sister. I worked so hard to coax her to sleep. Go play over there." Song Qin drove her youngest son out like a chicken and ordered him not to disturb his sister again.

Song Chunxiao walked away reluctantly with a pout. Halfway through, an idea suddenly occurred to him and he ran to find his second brother.

Song Chunlin was pestered by his younger brother and agreed to get him a new cotton quilt. Only then did the boy feel satisfied.

Song Chunlin sent the boy away, then turned around and saw Song Chunming blinking and looking at him. His heart immediately skipped a beat. It was over. The water was not even...

Fortunately, Song Chunming is a little older and won’t yell at his brother like Song Chunxiao. But he just stares at you so eagerly, even the hardest heart will soften, right?

So soon after the cotton was harvested, they used it all to make cotton quilts, and each of the three children got a share without favoring anyone.

In addition to making quilts, Song Chunlin also hopes to make cotton into cotton cloth. He has no experience in this, so he can only rely on Song Amo and others.

Song Dazhuang specially bought a new loom for Song Amo and Song Qinshi. After several adjustments by the two, they were able to start weaving.

However, the cotton seeds must be picked out before weaving. In ancient times when there were no machines, not only did the cotton have to be picked manually, but the cotton seeds also had to be picked out one by one manually.

The whole family has to work together on this job. Fu Nian and Lu Ming go to pick cotton seeds when they have nothing to do every day. Although Lu Ming is blind, his hands are nimble and picking cotton seeds does not require any technical skills. They just have to peel the cotton seeds out of the cotton. The two can pick a basketful in an afternoon. Then Song Dahe is responsible for carrying the cotton for them. They put the peeled cotton into clean water to wash off the dust and impurities. After washing it repeatedly, they put it in the sun to dry. They have to turn it over from time to time while drying to allow the water vapor to evaporate completely. Now the sun is good and it can be completely dry in three days.

The cotton seeds that Song Chunlin planted at the beginning were all soaked in spiritual spring water, and the cotton yield was also high. It took them almost a month to harvest all the cotton.

Apart from those that were made into quilts, Song Amao and Song Qinshi were trying to weave the cotton into cotton cloth.

Both of them had only weaved ramie cloth before, and this was their first time weaving cotton cloth. They did everything by trial and error. At first, the cotton thread they spun was too thick to be woven into cloth. Later, as they gained experience, they were able to spin the cotton thread into thread as thin as a hair. The cotton cloth woven with such thin cotton thread was naturally more delicate and soft.

At the beginning, several pieces of cloth were wasted. Song Amao and Song Qinshi tried many times, but they still produced waste cloth. Finally, they had to go to the village and find a few skilled weavers. After a group of people discussed it, the final product made everyone very satisfied.

A group of women and husbands gathered together, passing the cloth in their hands to each other, feeling the completely different feel from hemp.

Before getting married, Lin A'mo, the husband of the village head's nephew, was the best weaver in the family. After getting married, he did not lose this skill. In the past, he relied on weaving to supplement the family income.

Aunt Lin fondled the fine cotton cloth in her hand and said, "I never thought I would be able to touch such soft cloth in my life. Look at the texture, it's finer than ramie. If such fine material were made into clothes, it would be so comfortable to wear."

Everyone agreed: "That's right, Ge Ma is good for rubbing the skin. My little grandson suffered a lot when he was young. It would have been great if we had discovered such good material earlier."

Someone else asked Song Amao: "Do you want to sell this material? I want to order one. My daughter is about to give birth and it's just right for making a small quilt."

Seeing this, others also expressed their desire to buy it.

"I want one too. I want one too. My brother will be able to get engaged next year. I'll order one for my little brother, so he can dye it and make a wedding dress."

"Is your brother this old already?"

"That's right. He's already fourteen this year. My husband and I are already looking for a man. We'll get him engaged when he turns fifteen, and then let him marry when he turns sixteen."

"Sixteen is not too young, it would be a good opportunity for her to marry. Do you have a family you like?"

"No, I'm looking right now. If you find anything good, please keep an eye out for me. As for the material, Aunt Song, you have to give my brother six big pieces." The man looked at Aunt Song with a pleading look, making Aunt Song laugh and cry.

"There's no sign of the cloth yet, and my cotton is almost sold out. If you want it, you'll probably have to wait until next year." This was considered an agreement, and the other party immediately smiled.

"Hey, my brother is getting engaged next year, so you must stay for me next year."

When the others saw that Song Amao had agreed, they all started to talk about ordering a piece. Song Amao was so annoyed by the noise that her head started to hurt. Seeing that this was not a solution, Song Qinshi rolled her eyes and came up with an idea.

She spoke to comfort the aunts first: "Everyone, don't worry, you need so much cotton cloth at once, there are only me and my little dad in our family, and we can't handle so much. What's more, the cotton cloth we weave should be used for our family first, right?"

"So what do you mean by pressing Sister Song?"

Song Qin smiled and said, "What I mean is, next year, you can just buy cotton from us. Everyone knows how to weave cloth anyway. It's better to buy it and weave it yourself than to waste time here, right?"

When everyone heard her words, they thought it made sense. Since there were only the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law weaving the cloth, their hands naturally could not be fast. If they bought cotton and went home to weave it themselves, they would not have to worry about being late. So everyone thought it was a good idea and expressed the hope that the Song family would plant more cotton next year.

Song A-mo and Song Qin-shi naturally agreed readily. Even if they didn't say it, their family would plant a few more acres of cotton next year, or maybe even more than a few acres.

In the evening, Song Qin asked Song Chunlin how many cotton seeds he had and how many acres of cotton he could plant.

Song Chunlin thought for a while before answering her, "Mother, if we plant all the cotton seeds we harvested from the fields this year, we can probably plant about 13 or 14 acres of land. However, we only have so many sunny plots, only about 7 or 8 acres in total. Cotton is a light-loving plant, and if there is insufficient sunlight, the yield will decrease. I plan to plant cotton on all the sunny plots of our family, and give the remaining cotton seeds directly to Gu Fengyue and the others. They have land, so the harvest will be theirs. Anyway, they will most likely be sent to the palace by then."

Cotton is a cash crop, and the Song family has no intention of monopolizing the market. Leaving it all to the Gu family is the best option.

Song Daha: "Chunlin, has the last matter at the Marquis' Mansion not been resolved yet?" As soon as these words came out, the rest of the people shut up and looked at Song Chunlin with burning eyes.

Song Chunlin felt inexplicably overwhelmed.

"Uncle, I'm afraid this matter is not going to go well. You know how much those civil officials look down on military officials. Do you think they will give up on anything that can step on them?"

In fact, these people not only have no intention of giving up, they even want to completely trample the Gu family under their feet.

The emperor got a headache when he saw the memorials impeaching the Yongyi Marquis' Mansion. A group of old guys were clamoring to abolish Gu Fengyun's title. The emperor was not a fool and he would not do such a stupid thing as abandoning the dog after the rabbit had died. He could only drag it out.

Gu Fengyue was getting ready to go to bed at night when someone knocked on the window. Now he was familiar with opening the door for Song Chunlin. As soon as he opened the door, Song Chunlin came in. He sat down on the chair without any hesitation and started to take things out.

"This is the spiritual spring water for this month, one bottle for you and one bottle for the Marquis. This is the dumpling soup made by my grandfather. Oh, it's so hot." When the steaming hot dumpling soup was taken out, Song Chunlin was stunned for a moment.

There were no refrigerators in ancient times, so where would he put it?

Gu Fengyue looked at it with amusement: "Please keep it for me first. Do you want to stay overnight?"

Song Chunlin nodded: "It will pass. Wait a minute, I'll show you something good." After saying that, Song Chunlin put the dumpling soup back and walked to the bed. A freshly made quilt fell on the bed. Gu Fengyue walked to the bed curiously and reached out to touch it.

“This year’s cotton?”

"Yeah." Song Chunlin nodded vigorously, looking proud.

"Impressive, isn't it? The outer quilt cover is also made of pure cotton. My grandfather and my mother knitted it together."

Gu Fengyue smiled and rubbed it. The pure cotton fabric was not as silky as silk, but it was also very soft. He had used the same quilt in the Song family before, but this one was grown by Song Chunlin from the inside out, so it naturally had a special meaning.

Song Chunlin also took out a small piece of cotton cloth and a small basket of cotton and stuffed them into Gu Fengyue.

"Here, this is for you to report to."

Gu Fengyue took the cotton and looked at the snow-white cotton balls neatly arranged into a flower, and couldn't help but marvel at it.

"I never thought that silkworm cocoons could grow in the ground."

Song Chunlin scratched his ears and said, "I've heard you say this from more than a dozen people. Can you say something else?" For example, praise me.

Gu Fengyue looked at his arrogant little expression and knew what he was thinking, so she praised him generously.

"Chun Lin is really amazing, the most amazing."

"Yeah, that's good to know."

Gu Fengyue folded the quilt and put it aside. It was not cold at the moment, so there was no need for the quilt.

Song Chunlin followed him like his little tail, and when he sat down, Song Chunlin also sat down.

"How did Chunlin come up with the idea of growing cotton?"

Song Chunlin: "Because I want to wear clothes made of cotton. Linen is uncomfortable and silk is too expensive. Alas, there is nothing here, so I have to rely on myself."

This was not the first time that Gu Fengyue heard Song Chunlin mention this place. He had always thought that the place Song Chunlin was talking about was the capital, but after he mentioned it many times, Gu Fengyue was shocked to realize that the place Song Chunlin was talking about was not the capital, because many things were not available in their hometown in the northwest.

Gu Fengyue's Adam's apple moved, not knowing how to start the conversation. Seeing that he hadn't spoken a word, Song Chunlin looked at him strangely.

"what happened to you?"

Gu Fengyue thought about it again and again, and finally asked him: "Chunlin, this place you have been talking about is different from your original place, right?"

Song Chunlin was slightly stunned, then he smiled again.

"So you have been struggling with this?" This time, it was Song Chunlin who smiled and touched Gu Fengyue's head.

"This place is indeed different from where I came from. No, it is very different."

Gu Fengyue felt her heart tighten inexplicably when she heard his words, but Song Chunlin was unaware of it. He tilted his head slightly, as if he was looking at the beams of the house, or as if he was looking at another distant space.

"The biggest difference between where I grew up and where you are is that we don't have boys or girls. Men are boys and women are girls. Of course, this is related to our population being so large that it's about to explode."

"Without population pressure, there is no need to evolve a second sex to assist reproduction. Of course, you certainly cannot imagine that in my world, both men and women can go to school, and women can go out to work and earn money to support the family. They will not be trapped in a small world just because they are married. Isn't it amazing?"

Gu Fengyue nodded. It was indeed magical. From childhood to adulthood, he had never seen a world with only men and women, not to mention that both men and women could go to school. In Dajing, only wealthy families would send their sons to study and learn to read. Even boys were not allowed to study. They were just like girls. From birth to marriage, they learned how to take care of their husbands and children, manage household chores, and do needlework and cooking. Gu Fengyue had only seen learning to read in the Song family.

"If you want to work in the place you mentioned, do you have to pass the so-called imperial examination?"

Song Chunlin shook his head: "No, no, the imperial examination was a thing of the past in my time. We took the college entrance examination. The imperial examination could only select talents for the government. Those who passed the examination could serve as officials, but not everyone could take the examination. So it was abolished later and became our modern college entrance examination."

"After passing the college entrance examination, you can't become an official. After passing the exam, you still have to be a student. After you have learned something, you can find a job, yes, a better job."

Gu Fengyue looked at Song Chunlin: "What about you? Did you pass the exam as well?"

Song Chunlin was a little embarrassed: "Hehe, I did pass the exam, but the school I applied to is only a third-tier university, which is not very good."

Gu Fengyue didn't know what the three books meant. He just smiled and praised Song Chunlin: "Well, Chunlin is very good."

Song Chunlin felt even more embarrassed. If Gu Fengyue knew that he did not find a job based on his major, but relied on the output from the space to support himself, he didn't know how to express his gratitude in his heart.

Gu Fengyue lowered her head and looked at his eyelashes: "Then, why did you come here?"

Song Chunlin got angry when he thought of this. He snorted, "Isn't it because I saved an ungrateful bastard? I lived well for ten years and could have lived for another ten years, but it was all ruined by an ungrateful bastard!"