Chapter 148: The Silkworm House

Li Yo’er was very interested in her contemporary from this other time and space, and she had a rather favorable impression of her. Wang Siniang was much more lively than other women of her age she had met, and she was good-looking—a rare sight even among the naturalized women in Lingao. Moreover, Wang Siniang’s constant flattery was something anyone would find agreeable. She had already decided that this would be the location for the sericulture farm. With the major decision made, she felt idle and wanted to chat with Wang Siniang. Besides, Zhao Yigong had mentioned to her that this Wang Siniang was an expert in raising silkworms and reeling silk, a key person for the Hangzhou station and the Agricultural Committee to cultivate. For her sericulture work this time, Zhao Yigong had specifically assigned Wang Siniang to her.

“How old are you, Fourth Sister-in-law?”

“I am thirty…” Wang Siniang said, then laughed self-deprecatingly, “Old.” As she spoke, she subconsciously touched the flower on her temple, exuding a natural charm that even Li Yo’er found quite moving.

“Not old at all, you’re at the prime of your life, like a flower.”

Wang Siniang suddenly realized that this Miss Li was probably not much younger than her, and saying so might be a bit presumptuous. She blushed and dared not say more.

Li Yo’er was not as sensitive. She asked about her family situation. Wang Siniang did not hide anything and explained her family’s circumstances. She only mentioned that her eldest daughter was already grown, but the master neither assigned her a job nor allowed her to be married off, which made her a little worried.

“How old is your eldest daughter?”

“She is already fifteen,” Wang Siniang said. “When I was fifteen, I was about to become a mother.”

Li Yo’er thought about what she was like at fifteen. She didn’t think she was capable of being someone’s wife, let alone a mother. This time and space was terrifying.

“She’s not that old, why the hurry to marry her off? Isn’t it good for her to study in the charity school?”

“Just studying, not getting a job, no monthly wages, just relying on her parents’ wages,” Wang Siniang said with a bitter smile. “Before we came here, she was a good helper at home. Now all the work is assigned by the management office, so there’s no work for her to help with.”

Li Yo’er nodded, “Does your daughter know how to raise silkworms?”

“Of course she does. When we raised silkworms at home, I taught her myself. Not only does she know how to raise silkworms, she can also reel silk. Her silk-reeling skills were famous in our village.” When Wang Siniang heard that Miss Li might have a use for her daughter, her spirits lifted, and she immediately began to boast.

“That’s good. When the silkworm farm is ready, have her come and work.”

“Thank you for your grace, miss!” Wang Siniang was so happy that she curtsied several times. As expected of the master’s personal attendant, her words carried weight!

“Don’t you have two other daughters? How old is the second one?”

“Twelve, not small either.”

“Then have them both come. I happen to need people.” Li Yo’er was not just showing off. The Agricultural Committee’s plan included opening a sericulture training class at Phoenix Mountain Estate. The children in the charity school run by Zhao Yigong had already received more than a year of education, or at least a few months. They could serve as the first batch of students for this training class, systematically learning modern sericulture techniques.

When Wang Siniang heard that her second daughter’s job was also secured, she was overjoyed. If they weren’t in the wilderness, she would have knelt down and kowtowed to Miss Li several times. She was endlessly grateful.

“What are your two daughters’ names?”

“Eldest Sister and Second Sister.”

“So uncreative,” Li Yo’er muttered. This family of mother and daughters were all named by number. She thought for a moment and said, “I’ll give them names. The eldest will be Shen Su, and the second will be Shen Hang.”

The first two modern sericulture schools in China that began to reform rural sericulture were the Sericulture College in Youshuguan, Suzhou, and the Hangzhou Sericulture College by the West Lake. Naming the two girls after these two places represented Li Yo’er’s hopes for them.

After returning from the mountain, Li Yo’er immediately threw herself into the construction of the sericulture farm. There was a general plan for the farm, but the specific design had to be adapted to the terrain. Fortunately, this type of building was not complicated and did not require much professional knowledge, as long as a few key points were remembered.

As for the construction work, since the construction of the estate was very heavy and had unique requirements, hiring local carpenters was no longer appropriate. Zhao Yigong had brought in a few naturalized technicians from the Lingao Construction Corporation to form a dedicated construction team locally.

First, a dedicated road was built to the construction site. Road construction was already a routine task for the Phoenix Mountain Estate construction team. When there were no specific construction tasks, the team’s only job was to build roads, forming the internal road network of Phoenix Mountain Estate, connecting the various work sites on the mountain, and speeding up the flow of personnel and materials.

The sericulture farm was built according to the standards of 1970s China. The construction was simple, and the materials were easy to procure. The silkworm houses at Phoenix Mountain Estate were all single-story buildings, facing south but slightly tilted five degrees to the west to avoid the high temperatures of the “west-facing sun” and to properly introduce the cool north wind, which was beneficial for temperature control and laid the foundation for year-round sericulture activities. The silkworm rooms were shaded by large trees, which could slow down the rapid rise in indoor temperature caused by sunlight. This was especially important in the summer. The structure of the houses was naturally the southern-style pointed roof, which was conducive to drainage. Apart from the larger windows on the north and south walls, they were roughly the same in appearance as the local houses: the same white walls and black tiles.

The silkworm houses were a continuous row of single-story buildings, but they were partitioned every 2.5 meters. A distance of 2.5 meters was just right for placing a row of silkworm racks on each side, leaving a 1.5-meter passage in the middle. The depth was 1.2 meters, allowing for 8-9 rows of silkworm trays. The net usable height of the house was 2.4 meters, which could accommodate 10-12 layers of silkworm trays.

The dimensions of the silkworm room were carefully considered. A room that was too small would be uneconomical to build and use. If the size was too large, climate control in the room would be difficult. These dimensions were the result of years of experience accumulated by Chinese sericulturists since the 20th century.

The building materials were very particular, all brick and tile. The outer walls and internal partitions were all made of brick, not wood, to prevent rats from burrowing. The foundation was made of stone strips and a three-in-one mixture of earth, slightly raised above the ground. The floor and walls were all plastered with cement to keep the house dry and to facilitate disinfection. The pointed-roof tile houses in Jiangnan generally did not have ceilings, leaving the beams and columns exposed for coolness. However, all the silkworm houses were equipped with ceilings, on the one hand to prevent dust from falling from the beams and columns, and on the other hand to facilitate insulation.

The front and rear windows were multi-paned glass windows. The ventilation could be increased or decreased by opening different numbers of panes according to the humidity and temperature in the silkworm room. However, more windows would make the indoor light too strong, so adjustable blinds were also provided to regulate the indoor light.

Outside the windows, protruding iron security bars were installed. Inside, two layers of wire mesh were installed: one with larger holes to prevent rats, and another finer one to prevent mosquitoes and flies from entering. Rats, mosquitoes, and flies were major pests in sericulture and had to be strictly guarded against. The security bars were to prevent theft of silkworm eggs. The Hangzhou station was introducing several superior silkworm breeds for breeding and cultivation this time. Once successful, it would inevitably attract the covetous eyes of some people, so precautions had to be taken in advance.

This kind of precaution was not only on the windows; all doors leading from the silkworm rooms to the outside had similar devices to prevent rats, mosquitoes, flies, and theft.

In addition to the silkworm rooms, a special mulberry leaf storage room was also built. The mulberry leaf storage room was built separately because its requirements were completely different from those of the silkworm rooms. It required low temperature, high humidity, and dim light, so it was built near the mountain wall where the trees were lush. The windows on the walls were also smaller.

The most important part was the hatching room. Hatching, or silkworm egg incubation, was the most technically difficult work in sericulture. The quality of the hatching often affected the hatching rate and the constitution of the silkworms. Good hatching resulted in a high hatching rate and good constitution of the newly hatched silkworms, which not only meant more silkworms but also better resistance to diseases.

The hatching room had the highest overall cost and the most elaborate construction. It was not only a brick and tile house, but the inner side of the outer walls was also fitted with insulation materials. Inside, there was a rudimentary air conditioning system with copper pipes, which could be heated or cooled by injecting boiling water from a small boiler or low-temperature well water. There was also a rudimentary humidification device to ensure the humidity of the hatching room.

The hatching room that Li Yo’er was building at Phoenix Mountain Estate was very large, far exceeding the needs of the estate’s own sericulture. It was also equipped with a simple silkworm egg dissection room, with a low-magnification microscope made by the Lingao Optical Factory and some special equipment. This luxurious configuration was for the “centralized hatching” concept in the cooperative plan that the Agricultural Committee was preparing to launch in Hangzhou.

Traditional sericulture by farmers in China mainly involved the farmers hatching the eggs themselves. The method was often for the women to wrap the silkworm eggs in thin cotton paper and warm them against their chests, using the constant temperature of the human body to incubate the eggs. This was inefficient, consumed a lot of manpower, and the quality of the hatching could not be guaranteed.

Therefore, in the sericulture improvement activities that began in China in the early 20th century, sericulture technicians all proposed the concept of “centralized hatching.” This concentrated the most technically difficult and error-prone hatching process in professional hatching farms, which not only ensured the hatching rate and quality of the newly hatched silkworms but also allowed the farmers to free themselves up for other work, greatly reducing the use of manpower.

Unified breeding and centralized hatching were the main measures of the Chinese sericulture reform in the 20th century. They were not expensive but were very effective. The sericulture reform that the Agricultural Committee was preparing to carry out simultaneously in Jiangnan and Guangdong also started from these two aspects.

Li Yo’er herself was not a sericulture major. However, she had received relevant professional training at the Agricultural Committee, and with the help of several professional technical books, this technical reserve was sufficient for this time and space.