Chapter 2411: Grand Flower Tower Loom

"Naturally, every family saves their own eggs. How could such a life-or-death matter be entrusted to others?" Chen Lin said. "If they hear of good silkworm breeds with rich yields, they'll try to acquire them. However..."

"However what?" Li Yao'er said. "Is it that because no one's seen anyone else succeed, no one's willing to try?"

"The Chief speaks correctly. Back then, my late father introduced Huzhou silkworm eggs and offered them free for trial raising, but no one was interested. So he planned to raise them himself as a demonstration. Unfortunately, he ended up killing all the silkworms, and the eggs' credibility was completely destroyed."

"Introducing new silkworm breeds is easier said than done—there are many subtleties involved." Li Yao'er remembered her own efforts promoting breeds in Suzhou and Hangzhou and sighed with feeling. "It's a losing venture that ordinary people can't sustain."

"Yes, only the Senate can do it," Chen Lin said, offering flattery.

Li Yao'er was momentarily startled, then smiled. "You're quite good at flattering, aren't you?"

Chen Lin was young after all, and his face reddened immediately.

"But you're right. Such a thing—where one party loses money while everyone benefits—is only suitable for government to undertake. You call it the Imperial Court, I believe. Same meaning."

"The Court couldn't be bothered with such things. Organizing water conservancy repairs would count as meritorious." Chen Lin said. "I experienced the New Life Movement in Guangzhou. The Chiefs' vision is truly remarkable..."

Li Yao'er nodded thoughtfully. Liu Xiang's administration in Guangzhou had indeed won hearts. Anyone with eyes could see how the Senate governed—they would be moved. Compared to her work in Jiangnan, things here would be much easier.

She then led him to tour the newly renovated factory. If the first courtyard had only changed slightly, the second courtyard had been transformed beyond recognition.

The second courtyard had originally been the weaving workshop's main production area. Except for the main hall used as offices, all buildings served as machine rooms. These buildings differed strikingly from ordinary residences—all were high-roofed open pavilions. Whether main hall or wing rooms, the roof frames rose extremely high, approaching two zhang—roughly six and a half meters. Even in the prosperous Pearl River Delta, such structures were rare.

Compared to the near-luxurious roof frames, the walls appeared shabby. The outer walls weren't brick masonry or even mud brick, but bamboo-strip frames with reed matting—very simple construction. Since soldiers had damaged them during the recent troubles, much of this reed matting had been replaced with new sections.

"...When I first arrived and saw your equipment and buildings, I was startled. Truthfully, I'd never seen such tall factory buildings before," Li Yao'er said.

Inside the main hall, four Flower Looms were arranged—all wooden structures. They were veritable behemoths. Two loom workers each—one weaving, one perched high on the Flower Tower to lift patterns—cooperated in practiced rhythm, weaving satin.

"We built so high out of necessity. When the Flower Looms were transported and installed, they should properly have been set over two-foot pits to place the Harness Legs. But locally the ground is low and wet—dig less than a foot and you hit water. My late father said if that was the case, we'd simply build the houses higher. Better ventilation and humidity dispersal. The weavers work cooler in summer too."

Li Yao'er nodded. "Your father was a kind-hearted man." She had seen with her own eyes the production environments of weaving households and workshops. Whether home weaving or the Weaving Bureaus of Suzhou and Hangzhou, ordinary houses served as workshops. Some houses were too low and small to contain the Flower Loom and Tower, so workers dug pits several feet deep into the ground. The weavers could only sit in these pits to work.

Because silk weaving required maintaining certain humidity to reduce thread breakage, workshops weren't specially ventilated. When the air grew dry, water was splashed indoors to maintain moisture. In summer it was stifling and humid; in winter, wet and cold. Weavers commonly suffered joint diseases.

The reeling workshop at the Villa had seemed "inhumane" to Li Yao'er initially. But honestly, after seeing weavers' workshops in Suzhou and Hangzhou, she knew Zhao Yingong qualified as a "conscientious capitalist."

"But if you ventilate and disperse humidity, don't your silk threads break easily here?" Li Yao'er asked.

Winter now, ventilation wasn't yet urgent. And the workshop was only in trial production with limited scale. When this year's spring cocoons came to market and summer arrived, formal operations would begin.

"Our area was originally a river beach—dig anywhere and water appears. Even with ventilation, it's still quite humid." Chen Lin had gradually shed his fear of the Australians by now and felt much more relaxed—almost like the old days when he discussed workshop matters with his father and Third Uncle. His words and manner had grown somewhat casual.

"So running textiles in Guangdong has this advantage!" Li Yao'er smiled. She walked to an empty Grand Flower Tower Loom. Though she had seen replicas in the original timeline and similar machines in Suzhou, Hangzhou, and elsewhere in this era, every time she beheld this entirely wooden machine, she still felt deeply struck.

A Grand Flower Tower Loom was truly a giant among traditional textile equipment. Total length approached six meters; the Flower Tower's height also neared three meters. Nearly two thousand large and small parts composed the whole. In operation, the entire machine seemed wrapped in spider webs—connected by ropes, warp threads, and weft threads into a single moving entity, rising and falling with the weaver's hands and feet, weaving satin bit by bit. When Li Yao'er had first seen a replica demonstration, she was completely awed: in an era of pure handwork, without precision processing equipment, using the simplest and most primitive materials and very basic structures—not a single gear—it could weave silk fabrics with various patterns and textures. This was nothing short of a miracle of handicraft.

The Flower Tower Loom had a long history. Jacquard looms had appeared as early as the Three Kingdoms period, and the Grand Flower Tower Loom that so impressed Li Yao'er had actually emerged during the Song Dynasty. Judging from historical documents and paintings, the Ming Dynasty's Grand Flower Tower Loom was essentially similar to the Song version. Only in jacquard technology had there been improvement—from bamboo-woven Pattern Books to thread-woven Pattern Books.

"This machine is truly beautiful," Li Yao'er said. "But I still don't quite understand it. Could you explain?"

She had inquired about the Flower Loom's details before, but Chen Xuan was ignorant, and the weavers could only demonstrate their work without explaining the underlying principles. The weavers spoke only local dialect, and Li Yao'er lacked even standard Cantonese, let alone comprehension of Xiangshan dialect.

"This Flower Loom is the most valuable thing in the workshop." Chen Lin stroked the machine's wood. Years of use had created a patina-like coating on the surface—smooth and delicate to the touch. This machine had been purchased by his grandfather and was the oldest of the four Flower Looms.

"This raised section is the Flower Tower. When weaving patterned satin, one person sits on the Tower controlling the rise and fall of warp threads—called the Draw Boy. That beam in the middle is the Harness Board, used to adjust the warp threads' opening positions. The rows of bamboo sticks hanging below are Harness Legs. There are eighteen hundred in total."

"That many?"

"Exactly that many," Chen Lin said. "Though they may not all be used during weaving, they're necessary for satins with complex patterns."

"How exactly is the weaving done?"

Li Yao'er had stood beside weavers and observed jacquard loom operation for extended periods, yet still didn't understand how these two workers transformed countless silk threads into richly colored, gorgeously patterned brocades while chanting rhythmically like a song and moving hands and feet in coordination.

Chen Lin had grown up in the weaving workshop. Not only had he absorbed knowledge through observation, but he had also operated machines himself. If not expert, he was at least clear on the entire process.

"Please observe, Chief." He pointed to a circular white device with tassel-like styling at the top of the currently operating Flower Tower Loom. This device moved continuously forward in a rotating cycle as the loom operated, similar to a conveyor belt.

"This is called the Pattern Book. What kind of satin is woven depends entirely on this Pattern Book for control."

Originally, Pattern Books were woven from bamboo; by the Song Dynasty, they changed to thread-woven Pattern Books.

The Pattern Book functioned as the jacquard loom's template. The finished satin's pattern was entirely controlled by the Pattern Book. After designing a new pattern, weavers first wove it in thread according to the pattern draft while simultaneously composing related mnemonics.

Pattern Books were woven from Footer Threads representing warp threads and Ear Threads representing weft threads. Looking at the Pattern Book alone, one couldn't discern the specific pattern.

When weaving began, the weaver first connected the Footer Threads on the Pattern Book to fiber threads that lifted the warp threads. The Draw Boy sitting on the raised Flower Tower pulled the Footer Threads—also called Harness Cords—up and down according to mnemonics encoded in the Pattern Book, thereby controlling the corresponding warp threads' rise and fall. The positioning of pulling the Footer Threads was determined by the Ear Threads' positions on the Pattern Book.

The weaver sitting below the loom, after the Draw Boy finished lifting the pattern, first stepped on bamboo or wooden treadle rods to control the rise and fall of connected heddle frames, causing the "warp surface" formed by warp threads to separate up and down, creating a shed. Next, the weaver held the shuttle containing weft thread to perform "throwing shuttle and drawing weft." After warp and weft threads interwove, the "reed" was used to beat the newly woven weft thread firm. This process completed the weaving of one weft thread. By constantly varying which treadle rods were stepped to achieve alternating up-and-down warp thread changes, the weaver realized the entire pattern's weaving.

Naturally, the more complex the pattern and longer the pattern cycle, the more frequent and complicated the Draw Boy's operations became. For the most complex K'o-ssu Dragon Robe fabric of the Ming and Qing dynasties, a weaver could manage only a few meters per day.

"Truly remarkable," Li Yao'er said with genuine admiration.

"When I first watched weavers work as a child, I also found it magical. Whoever invented this Pattern Book was truly brilliant!" Chen Lin said. "Only with this Grand Flower Tower Loom can large floral patterns be woven. I've heard the Dragon Robe fabrics woven for the Emperor at the Suzhou and Hangzhou Manufacturing Bureaus are made this way."

Li Yao'er reflected that the Pattern Book concept was already quite advanced. It not only simplified the weaving process but reduced technical requirements for weavers. With a Pattern Book, weavers could stably replicate products with nearly identical patterns and textures.

The pity was that this equipment had seen almost no improvement from the Song Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty. The Flower Tower Loom of 1880 was essentially no different from the Flower Tower Loom of 1000.

(End of Chapter)