Chapter 857 - Silk
The Shen family's ruin had nothing to do with falling silk prices. Disease had destroyed them.
"Last year, sickness took our silkworms—the entire crop, gone." The man's voice was hollow with remembered despair. "That is why we are destitute. We beg the Master to take us in."
Zhao Yingong understood the mechanics well enough. Viral infections caused most silkworm diseases, and the conditions of rearing made outbreaks almost inevitable: enclosed spaces, thousands of larvae packed together in suffocating density. Without rigorous cleaning and proper disinfection—concepts that traditional methods addressed only haphazardly—pestilence could sweep through a silkworm house like wildfire. Reduced harvests were common. Total losses were not unheard of.
When disaster struck on that scale, families lost everything.
So sericulture was not the simple, reliable livelihood he had imagined. It was a gamble—high stakes, high rewards, and the ever-present specter of catastrophic failure. Zhao Yingong found his interest sharpening. If he meant to enter this business, he needed to understand it thoroughly.
He pressed for details about the rearing process itself, but the man hesitated, clearly out of his depth. In the countryside, sericulture belonged to women. Girls began their apprenticeship at twelve or thirteen, learning to "protect the eggs" through the bitter cold of the twelfth month, to "spread the birds" when spring's first warmth arrived, to guide the worms through their "three sleeps" and the critical "emergence from fire," through the final "climbing of the mountain" when the silkworms spun their cocoons, and finally to the baking and reeling that transformed those cocoons into gleaming raw silk. All of this was women's work, passed from mother to daughter across generations. The man knew the basics but feared bungling the explanation. He called for his wife.
"This servant greets the Master." The woman was comely, her speech a distinctive Hangzhou blend of northern and southern inflections—not so different from the dialect Zhao Yingong remembered from his own time. He found the sound pleasant and smiled. "Rise. What is your name?"
"Country women have no proper names. This servant's maiden name is Wang, and I was fourth-born in my family. People called me Wang Siniang. The Master may call this servant whatever pleases him." She spoke with practiced ease. Jiangnan peasant women did more than tend fields and raise silkworms—they "went to market" to hawk their wares, and such commerce had sharpened their tongues.
Wang Siniang began describing the art of sericulture. From hatching to cocoon took twenty-eight to forty days, every hour of which demanded exacting attention. Fresh mulberry leaves had to be added on a rigid schedule, even if it meant rising in the dead of night—there could be no delay. The silkworm frass and wilted leaf fragments required constant removal; neglect invited disease. Temperature control was equally unforgiving: the worms needed warmth but not heat, shelter from drafts but not stagnant air. Rearing rooms were sealed tight as tombs. When temperatures dipped, fires were lit. When the silkworms "climbed the mountain" to spin, braziers burned beneath the trays to speed their work and keep the emerging silk dry, improving the cocoons' quality. But fire meant danger. Blazes sparked by careless silkworm fires were grimly common.
Zhao Yingong nodded. He was familiar with the ancient metaphor of the "silkworm chamber"—sealed, warm, carefully tended. These methods had been refined since the Qin and Han dynasties, two thousand years of accumulated wisdom.
During the rearing season of March and April, silkworm households shut themselves away from the world. Villages fell silent; paths lay empty. Neighbors and relatives suspended all visits. Red paper talismans appeared on every door, warding against interruption and ill fortune. Even local officials knew better than to venture into the countryside during those critical weeks.
After the cocoons were harvested, most farmers reeled the silk themselves before selling. Only households short on labor or facing unusual circumstances sold dried cocoons directly to "cocoon brokers."
"Why go to the trouble of reeling themselves?" Zhao Yingong asked.
"Selling to the cocoon brokers invites theft by a thousand cuts." Wang Siniang's expression hardened. "Country folk always get cheated."
She explained the system. The cocoon brokers operated under government-issued trading licenses that granted them formidable monopoly power. They organized themselves into guild associations that fixed the days when purchasing would begin and end, and set prices by mutual agreement. No broker was permitted to offer more than the agreed rate. These rates were invariably, deliberately, crushingly low.
But low prices were only the beginning. When farmers brought their cocoons to market, the brokers deployed an arsenal of petty frauds: declaring cocoons "too damp," subtracting phantom weight deductions. The most devastating tactic was the sudden suspension of purchasing. In the very heart of peak cocoon season, warehouses would simply close their doors for several days, refusing all business.
"Why would they halt purchasing?"
"Cocoons cannot wait." Wang Siniang's voice carried the bitterness of hard experience. "Once harvested, they must be reeled or sold immediately. After a few days, the pupae inside will chew through the silk, and the cocoons become worthless. The country folk have no choice. They sell at whatever price they can get."
Ah. The realization settled over Zhao Yingong with cold clarity. This was manufactured scarcity, an artificial crisis designed to drive prices into the dirt. He had seen such schemes in the old time-space too—different goods, different centuries, same predatory logic.
"After the cocoon brokers buy the cocoons," he continued, "how do they sell them?"
"They reel the silk themselves and sell to the silk merchants. Inside and outside Hangzhou, many households specialize in reeling for others—they raise no silkworms of their own." The brokers contracted out their purchases to these specialist reelers, paying processing fees by weight of finished silk.
Whenever possible, silkworm farmers preferred to reel their own silk and sell it as raw thread. The margins were better. Reeling was women's work, an important rural sideline—Wang Siniang and her daughter had both practiced the craft in the Shen household.
Now she demonstrated the process with eloquent gestures. Reeling began with a large pot of boiling water. Ten or twenty cocoons went in at a time, stirred with bamboo sticks to scald them properly. When the water reached a rolling boil, the surface was swept with the sticks, and the silk ends floated free—gossamer threads rising like pale ghosts from the churning water. These ends were gathered by hand, threaded through a bamboo needle's eye, wound onto the guiding spindle, hooked onto the thread-transferring rod, and finally sent up to the "big frame wheel" powered by a foot treadle. Work the treadle steadily, and raw silk streamed forth in an endless gleaming ribbon.
It was brutal, exhausting labor, and it permitted no rest. Once the cocoons formed, time became the enemy. If the silk wasn't reeled quickly, the pupae would mature and bite their way free, destroying the cocoons from within. During reeling season, entire families worked together—even the men pitched in—toiling through day and night without pause. A skilled worker could reel perhaps thirty liang of silk in a day. For the finest grade, the delicate "headwrap silk," daily output dropped to twenty liang.
Zhao Yingong had never read specialized texts on sericulture, but common sense told him enough. Hand-processed silk meant low efficiency and inconsistent quality. In the old time-space, when Chinese native silk first encountered Japanese raw silk—produced through modern cultivation and mechanized reeling—Chinese silk was annihilated in international markets. The comparison was simply too stark.
"Where is the best silk produced locally?" he asked.
Wang Siniang considered the question carefully. "Reporting to the Master, locally, Renhe County produces the finest. But if we speak of all Zhejiang Province, the honor belongs to Huzhou. The Seven-li Silk from Nanxun in Huzhou Prefecture is renowned throughout the realm. Gui'an, Deqing, Chongde, Tongxiang—all those counties produce excellent silk. Only after them comes our local Renhe product."
She elaborated on the distinction. "Renhe County mostly produces 'thick silk,' while Huzhou and Jiaxing specialize in 'fine silk.'" For weaving patterned satins and brocades, the warp thread had to be fine silk—the jacquard looms required thread of specific strength, and silk from those two prefectures possessed the necessary tensile quality. Inferior silk simply snapped under the loom's demands.
"Even the Weaving Office and Dyeing Bureau in Hangzhou city—when weaving satins for the imperial household—must procure their raw silk specially from Huzhou and Jiaxing. Local silk from Renhe and Qiantang counties sees little use."
Zhao Yingong listened with keen attention, the shape of an industry resolving before him. Sericulture, like Leizhou's sugar trade, remained mired in small-scale production—cottage handicrafts, petty loans at usurious rates, the whole creaking apparatus of traditional commerce. And wherever such systems persisted, opportunities for intervention and profit multiplied. Seven or eight schemes were already spinning through his mind, possibilities at every link of the chain. He caught himself growing scattered and forced his thoughts into order. First, the general direction. The details could follow.
"Where do you sell your silk?" he resumed.
"Specialized silk merchants buy it. As soon as new silk comes out, the 'silk traders' arrive at the market towns." Wang Siniang explained that prices fluctuated, but ordinary raw silk had consistently held above thirty to forty taels per dan. Since the Wanli era, massive exports of raw silk and finished goods had driven prices steadily upward. Some years were lean, certainly, but most years the silk business returned solid profits.
"Tell me more about these silk merchants," Zhao Yingong said, nodding. "Do they also require trading licenses? Do they have their own guild?"
"I have heard it is the same. But this servant only knows the 'silk traders' who come to the villages—the internal workings of the merchant houses are beyond my knowledge."
Wang Siniang added that some of these traders also dealt in loans. Silkworm farmers could borrow from them and repay when the new silk came in, using their harvest as currency. Convenient in theory, but in practice the valuations were ruinous—farmers repaid far more than they had borrowed.
The silk traders were no gentler than the cocoon brokers in squeezing farmers. But the dynamics differed slightly. Once cocoons became raw silk, time still pressed, but less mercilessly. Silk left too long would yellow and lose value. Traders who deliberately delayed purchases could certainly force down prices, but such tactics shortened the window for their own resale. The calculus discouraged the most egregious delays. Farmers reeling their own silk received somewhat better treatment.
"Where does the silk merchants' raw silk ultimately go?"
"Mostly to the weaving workshops. Some goes to merchants from other provinces."
"And locally-woven satins—are there many?"
Wang Siniang smiled at the question. "Reporting to the Master, how could there not be? Setting aside all else, just the Eastern and Western Bureaus in this city, together with the two Dyeing Bureaus, must produce several thousand bolts of robes and fabrics each year under imperial quota. That ignores other categories entirely. All together, the silk fabrics woven here for imperial tribute alone exceed ten thousand bolts annually."
The Eastern and Western Bureaus caught his attention. Seeing his puzzled expression, Cai Shi stepped in to clarify: "Those are the Weaving Offices the court has established in Hangzhou, located just east of Puji Bridge. Everything woven there is destined for imperial use." The two Dyeing Bureaus were similarly official manufactories, substantial operations by any measure.
"Can you weave silk?" Zhao Yingong asked Wang Siniang.
"This servant cannot. Silk weaving is the province of specialized artisans—knowledge passed from father to son, master to apprentice. It is not something a country woman could learn."
"You may withdraw for now. I will have tasks for you in a few days." Zhao Yingong turned to Sun Wangcai. "See that these children are enrolled in the charity school as well."
The hand-operated reeling machine described here can be found in "The Exploitation of the Works of Nature."
"Headwrap silk" refers to especially fine-grade silk used specifically for weaving head wraps.